by Eric Vall
I had to act fast if I wanted to block both of them.
With my sharp reflexes, I brought up one arm to catch the punching man’s wrist, and I clamped my fingers around the ankle of the kicking man. Both of them tried to use the reverse on me when I’d caught them, but I wasn’t having that today. I twisted the arm of the punching man so hard I heard the crack of his bones as he cried out in agony. Then I released him from my hold, and he fell to the ground in a heap as he screamed.
The kicking man stopped upon seeing what I’d done to his partner, but it was too late for him, I’d decided. I forcefully stretched his leg out further than it should have been able to go and flipped him onto his stomach with an ungraceful smack into the forest floor.
“Seven!” I yelled to Varleth, who had managed to lock his legs around the neck of a bigger guy who was struggling to breathe.
The gypsy brought his fists down hard onto a guy’s head twice, and he went down without anymore of a fight. Varleth hopped off him just before he hit the ground and wiped his hands together with a satisfied smirk.
“That makes fourteen between the two of us,” he replied.
Sure enough, there were bodies almost everywhere I looked within ten feet of where Varleth stood. He shrugged, then quickly elbowed another man, who probably would have fallen over if he’d been sneezed on, but it still counted.
“Fifteen,” I chuckled, and the two of us bumped fists.
“Gryff! Varleth!”Arwyn’s voice carried from across the field.
I turned in the direction it came from, as did Antoine, who had been watching the struggle from afar the way a general surveys an army. I’d bet the extravagant showman didn’t want to get blood on his precious clothes.
Arwyn emerged from the shadows of the trees, and her body and sword were covered and smeared with the blood of her foes. On either side of her were Nia and Orenn, free of their restraints and ready for a fight.
A grin spread across my face as Varleth and I met them in the middle.
“I gave Braden an elixir for now,” Arwyn informed us as she handed me my daggers and summoning crystals. “He’s going to need proper care, but the elixir should hold him over until we can get him somewhere safe.”
“You’re really something, you know that?” I smiled and equipped myself as Varleth took his sword in hand for the first time in months.
“Stunning, beautiful, and deadly with a sword?” Arwyn supplied with a smirk.
“Uh, yeah, something like that,” I laughed sheepishly.
“Well, isn’t this lovely?” Antoine’s voice was mockingly sweet as he clapped his hands slowly. “Yes, yes, we’re all very impressed with your tactics, aren’t we?”
His henchmen grumbled as they started to pull themselves off the ground and to their feet. A few of them, however, didn’t stir.
But more started to flood into the clearing to replace the fallen.
My eyes darted around and started to crunch the numbers as my friends gathered at my back.
Fifty against five?
Should be a walk in the park, right?
“See? They can appreciate a good show.” Antoine stepped out from behind the line of men and grinned wickedly. “It’s just unfortunate you’ve killed some of their friends in the process.”
A loud, collective growl sent a shiver down my spine as their eyes narrowed on us. Fifty men was a lot to take out, but I’d fought larger, more deadly things less than a week ago. This was going to be a piece of cake, especially now that I had a team of four other experienced fighters to back me up.
“Let them come, then,” I taunted and took a battle stance. “I’m sure they’d love to be a part of the encore.”
Antoine’s laugh was pitched, and it left an unsettled feeling in my bones as he stepped back again. He faded into the mob as they rushed at us, some with weapons, others with only their bare hands.
“Why do you have to antagonize people?” Nia teased. She squared up and cracked her knuckles before taking a battle pose I hadn’t seen since the last time we’d sparred.
“It’s a specialty of mine,” I answered coyly. “Why? Worried you can’t handle it?”
“You wish, farm boy,” Nia replied with that spitfire determination I had always liked about her. “I can handle myself.”
The henchmen were nearly upon us, and it was time to launch our offensive. I took the initiative and darted out first with Varleth and Nia hot on my tail.
As I came face to face with the front line of attack, I lunged fist first into a guy with fat lips and gnarly teeth and landed a punch straight to the center of his face.
He clutched his nose with one hand as blood splattered across his cheek, and then he swung his arm out wildly in a poor attempt to counter.
I dodged him with a gross amount of ease and unsheathed my rhin dagger to finish him off with a single slice to his throat. Blood sprayed everywhere, and I looked down at my dagger with a groan. It was going to be a bitch to clean later, but I’d deal with it when all was said and done.
Beside me, I saw Nia take down a man twice her size by gripping his face and simply twisting his neck, successfully breaking it as he fell to the ground in an unglorified heap. She huffed with a slight smirk on her face, then looked up to meet my gaze.
I winked at her before I jumped back into the fray, but I didn’t miss the roll of her eyes as she followed suit with a smug little curl of her lips. Her raw strength never failed to amaze me.
I clotheslined two shorter men as we charged at one another, and they both promptly fell to the ground. They almost got the better of me, though, as they countered quickly with simultaneous kicks to my stomach. One landed right where it was supposed to, and I grunted as the air whoosed out of me. I staggered, but I had been able to grab onto the other guy’s foot before he could knock me down.
Dagger in hand, I stabbed him in the leg to keep him from retaliating, then turned my attention back to the one who had managed to get a hit on me. I grabbed him by the collar of his tattered and worn garb and stabbed my dagger into his stomach in the same area he had kicked me.
I dropped him without care to pay more attention to the other guy, and I watched him with a sick, mild amusement as he tried to scamper away. I knew he would be too slow to escape me, though, and I put my foot atop his chest to keep him from squirming anywhere else.
“Please,” he begged as tears rolled down his cheeks.
I shook my head with a sigh and looked away as I threw my dagger down into his neck. The man struggled to breathe, and a gurgling sound was drowned out by the death cries of his comrades, but I knew he had tried to scream. It wouldn’t help him, though.
What was done was done.
I took my foot off his chest just as another line of men tried to rush me. Their attacks were weak, but they did throw the occasional hard punch. One after another, I dodged, jabbed, and felled them with ease. Even en masse, it was clear they were severely outmatched within the confines of their magic barrier.
Behind me, I heard the familiar tone of Arwyn’s battle cry, and I turned just in time to watch as she pierced the heart of a man who she had already cut to bits. When he collapsed dead at her feet, she quickly turned to me with fire in her eyes.
And then she charged at me.
“Whoa! What are you doing?” I backed up as though that was going to save me from the wrath of a woman I had scorned and who had clearly not forgiven me.
“Duck!” she yelled.
She didn’t have to tell me twice.
I quickly fell to the ground and made a face as the guy who had intended to charge me from behind dripped blood onto my back and slumped forward.
Arwyn kicked him off the end of her sword with a brutal ruthlessness that was both extremely terrifying and hot, and I wasn’t sure which one was winning the internal debate.
“Are you okay?” she asked as she helped me up.
“Yeah, fine,” I told her as I righted myself, not that it was going to help much. My clothe
s were already in pretty rough shape. “I thought you were coming after me.”
“What?” Her eyes went wide with concern, which didn’t look right with the dark red blood smeared across his cheeks. “Why would you think that?”
“Well, you know … ” I trailed off as I politely moved her out of the way of a backstabbing man and put my dagger straight through him. “I thought you were still mad about what I said to Antoine earlier.”
“About the sex thing?” she clarified as she watched me kick the man off the end of my blade. “I knew you were faking it.”
“What?” I asked in a state of mild shock.
“Yes, Gryff, I know you didn’t mean it,” she spelled out for me. “Now really isn’t the time for this though, don’t you think?”
I looked around us at the battles that seemed to still be going on, but I noted most of the opposing side had already fallen. This had been easy, almost too easy if you asked me.
“Seems like the perfect time to me,” I joked with a grin.
“You are incorrigible.” Arwyn trotted away to find her next kill, but not without first throwing a cute wink my way.
Just when I thought the battle was coming to a close, a sharp cry grabbed my attention, and I turned just in time to catch the wrist of the woman who had tried to tear out my throat with her nails earlier. She hollered and struggled against my hold as I twisted her arm behind her, but I’d won again in this round.
Try as she might, she wasn’t going anywhere.
I could have killed her, but I wanted to make a point, and now I had a shield from the others. They surely wouldn’t attack one of their own, especially a woman.
Yards away, Antoine froze and gritted his teeth as the woman struggled. I started to sense a common denominator in his actions. He respected women, or more specifically, the women of the animandu. I wondered if perhaps it was a cultural thing, and part of the reason why he and his followers had been so worked up over the loss of Penny.
“Let her go, Gryff,” Antoine demanded as he approached.
The rest of his people had stopped fighting and were now watching us cautiously. It seemed they couldn’t move a muscle without their leader’s explicit consent.
“I’ve killed before,” I started with relatively false bravado. “We’ve killed dozens of your men, and I’ll kill another.”
“You kill her and that makes you a monster,” Antoine spat. “Let. Her. Go.”
“Or what?” I shot back. “You’ll kill me?”
“I will suck out your soul, or at the very least what you still have left of it after you put your filthy hands on my Penny!” Antoine bellowed.
I didn’t want to kill this woman, who had started to whimper in my grasp. I supposed that was the downside to the animandu people living within a magically sealed bubble. They couldn’t fight back with their own powers. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what other powers these people possessed. If one was strong enough to knock four people unconscious with the snap of his fingers, I could only imagine what other devastating powers they had.
“Tell me about Penny,” I demanded. “Tell me why I shouldn’t have killed her when she threatened my life without batting an eyelash.”
Antoine straightened then and came within feet of me and the woman I held hostage. She had stopped struggling, but whether it was out of fear or the belief that Antoine would rescue her was beyond me.
“Penny was to be my bride,” Antoine started quietly. “She was the princess of our kind, and the strongest in our village. Her expertise in dark magic was unrivaled. She could warp the minds of men and force them to confront their darkest fears. It drove them mad.”
“If you’re trying to convince me that she didn’t deserve what she got, you’re doing an awful job,” I chuckled dryly.
“I am not finished,” Antoine spat. “Her twisted methods may have earned her a formidable place in battle, but her heart was made of gold. She was fair, kind, and cared for us. She loved with every part of her soul and always managed to find the best in everyone she consumed.”
“Consumed?” I asked, though I thought I already knew the answer.
“Have you not been paying attention?” Antoine sneered. “The souls, boy. How do you think we are able to stay so young, so extravagantly beautiful?”
Reluctantly, I released the woman in my arms, and she ran to join Antoine at his side. She practically purred as she sidled up to him, and Antoine made no move to push her away. Instead, he just looked mildly annoyed.
“I don’t want to kill anyone else, but I will if you force me to,” I admitted. “Just let us go, and we’ll let you go, too.”
Antoine seemed pleased with my response, and he grinned from ear to ear.
“How about I give you a head start now that you’re fully equipped?” he suggested in a mocking tone. “You’ll have five minutes. After that, whatever happens outside of this barrier happens. And won’t it be fun?”
I remained still, unsure if I should take him up on the offer or not. On the one hand, I just wanted to kill Antoine and be done with it. But who knew how long that would take, and Varleth and Braden needed medical attention. We were also at a disadvantage, stuck behind this magical barrier. We may have been able to hold our own with one hand metaphorically tied behind our backs, but if we moved the fight into the forest, we’d be able to use our magic and press our advantage further.
As all these thoughts ran through my head, I decided I wanted to consult my friends and come up with a plan if that was going to be the case. I glanced at my team as they sidled over to stand behind me, and I was able to see the power and desire to fight in everyone’s eyes.
Well, everyone except Braden because he was still pretty out of it despite the elixir. He was conscious, though not very alert from what I could tell. Even for his bigger size, he looked smaller because of the malnutrition. Orenn had situated him on his back just so I could see the bruising around his head.
“What now?” Orenn asked and adjusted Braden on his back.
We needed to think of something, and fast, not only for Braden and Varleth’s sake, but for our own health as well.
“We have no idea where we are,” Arywn chimed in, “but we need to find a way out.”
“Hang on,” Varleth interrupted. “Braden and I didn’t spend the last however many days tied to a tree and shitting in the woods not to walk out of here with what we came for.”
Varleth was right. It would be a waste of a trip if we didn’t find the cipher.
“Any clue as to where it might be?” I asked hopefully.
Varleth nodded, but he didn’t look certain. “There’s a path off the main trail from here that leads to a dead end,” he started. “If you take the path you’ll end up eventually stumbling across one of the forgotten libraries. The cipher is in there.”
“You’re sure?” Nia asked with a hint of excitement.
“I am positive,” he replied.
Behind us, I could feel Antoine’s eyes watching us carefully. It was now or never. The longer we stood around here, the longer we dragged out what was to be an inevitable fight.
I looked to my friends, who all nodded as we sealed a plan. We would find the library, get the cipher, and hold off Antoine until we made it out of the Naufrey.
And if need be, I’d kill the man myself to protect my friends.
With one more beat of silence, we all knew this was it, and as soon as I started to sprint out into the trees and outside of the barrier, my friends were hot on my tail.
I knew the barrier wasn’t something we could see with the naked eye. It was more like we were able to feel where it was positioned through our mana. A magic barrier, a powerful one anyway, stifled a mage’s mana. According to one of the books I’d read on my own, it felt as though the oxygen was being sucked out of a mage’s lungs.
This barrier, however, wasn’t like that. If anything, it was more like its name and acted as a shield from intruders, which made sense, I supposed. It
was effective and noninvasive.
A cold sensation washed over me as we crossed through the invisible blockade, and I repressed a shiver. Then we wove through the trees, which were considerably more dense than the ones near the clearing, and leapt over glowing orange rocks that jutted from the floor of the Narufey. I had no idea where we were going. All I could hope was that we reached the library before Antoine caught up to us. Five minutes wasn’t a very long time to get a headstart, but if they did catch up to us, I knew we would be ready.
I huffed as my legs ran on autopilot, and my eyes tried to catch as many details about the area as they could. The last thing I wanted was to run right by the library and miss the cipher completely. The further we ran, though, the more lost I felt. There were no telling signs of anything, and nothing looked familiar at all. I started to wonder exactly how deep into the Narufey Antoine had taken us.
Suddenly, Nia skidded to a stop, then wove through the trees that outlined a small path.
“Nia, where are you going?” I shouted. Five minutes wasn’t a lot of time, and I wasn’t about to lose her in here.
As if on cue, she popped out from between two trees that met in an arch over the small, offbeat pathway. The arch was covered in vibrant colored flowers and fungus, but it blended in with the natural composition of the forest just enough that if you weren’t looking for it, there was a good chance you would miss it. As it was, Nia Kenefick had the reflexes of a cat.
“This is it!” She waved to us excitedly. “It has to be.”
“Let’s find out,” I panted as I jogged to catch up to her.
Friends in tow, we crossed under the archway and followed the path to a dead end. My jaw dropped at the beauty before me. A small little cottage in the shape of a mushroom sat in the back of a clearing not unlike the one we’d run into prior. A small little moat with silver water flowed under a cute wooden bridge that led to the door of the cottage. Flowers blossomed everywhere, and the hum of the wind here seemed to sing instead. The words weren’t quite there, but I recognized the melody. From where, though, I couldn’t recall. Still, it was a beautiful song.
