You can’t betray a people that you were never loyal to.
“Lux. Lumin. Luminous. Accendo!”
Enyo felt the tug as magic was pulled from her. Light exploded from her body like an incandescent star detonating in the night sky. She heard a scream. Nemesis. He must not have been prepared for her attack. Gritting her teeth as she fought against the wave of numbness, using her light magic to heal whatever she could of her damaged nerves. The tug on her navel grew stronger as she pulled more magic into her task, chanting several spells under her breath. Slowly, feeling returned to her body, and, with shaking limbs, she climbed to her feet.
Nemesis, blinded by the sudden but intense blast of light, was stumbling backwards. He didn’t seem to have realized that she was no longer helpless. Picking up her daggers, she rushed toward Nemesis and thrust both weapons forward.
She expected to stab him through the chest.
What happened was that Nemesis disappeared.
Having already fallen for this trick once, she spun around, already preparing to counter whatever attack came her way. No attack came. Nemesis stood on another roof. His eyes were now closed, and he seemed agitated.
“That was a surprising attack,” he said. “I had no idea that you used light magic. However, now that I know, I’m not going to let you get a second attack on me.”
We’ll see about that.
Enyo had finally figured out his magic. Line of sight teleportation. Basically, it was a very linear method of teleporting from point A to point B. Of course, this also meant he could only move in a straight line, and only to places where he could see.
She’d heard from Fellis during training that once someone had discovered what kind of magic their opponent used, the battle was already half-finished. If she knew the magic, then she could come up with a counter.
“Ustulo. Uro. Torro.”
Black flames burst into existence, engulfing her hand, which she moved in a quick slashing motion. The flames raced forward in a crescent similar to Jacob’s attack. They reached Nemesis and went straight through him, her foe’s body flickering before disappearing altogether.
Enyo was already reacting. She placed her hands on the ground, palms flat, fingers splayed, and chanted.
“Umbra. Premo. Religo. Nox!”
Several magic circles appeared on the roofs all around her. Ancient scripts written in an arcane language formed letters and words within the circles. As the circles began to glow with a dark purple light, thick bindings of a purest black shot out. Most of them hit nothing. However, a scream from behind alerted her that one of her circles did get something.
With her hands still on the roof, she turned her head and gazed at Nemesis as several black flames shaped like ribbons latched onto him. His flesh was burned where they touched. As more wrapped around him, more of his body was lit on fire. Loud screams tore from his throat as his skin hissed, bubbled, melted, and then evaporated. Pretty soon, nothing remained of Nemesis. He was gone.
Fellis…
Enyo didn’t hesitate to rush down to the street now that her foe was gone. She raced across the cobblestone and knelt beside her former maid.
Fellis’s wounds were grievous. The claws had shredded a good portion of her back, leaving five long claw marks. It also looked like her left collar bone had fractured when she hit the ground, and her arm was bent at an awkward angle. However, she was still alive. Her chest rose and fell in ragged gasps.
“Medeor. Medico. Medicor.”
Threads of light shot from Enyo’s fingers, tiny strings that stood out starkly in the dark night. They attached themselves to the claw marks. Then the threads slowly wove through them like a doctor stitching a wound shut. Sweat beaded on Enyo’s forehead as she concentrated on the threads, which slowly repaired the damage done. Little by little, centimeter by centimeter, the wounds healed.
The first thing that she repaired was the internal damage. Her spine had been gouged, and several of her muscles had been torn.
Her breathing grew heavy as she used even more of her magic. While using magic in and of itself did not make one tired, the focus required to cast certain spells was mentally exhausting. Healing was a particularly strenuous art. A healer couldn’t just chant some words and expect magic to do the rest. It required more focus than most, lest she want it to be an indiscriminate spell, which could do more harm than good.
J-just a little more…
The organs and muscles had been repaired; she could see the last bit of torn muscle fibers slowly being stitched together by numerous threads of light. Now all she needed to do was fix the damaged skin. Pouring more magic into her threads, Enyo held her breath as she carefully healed all the damage, intently observing the skin as it slowly closed as if it had never happened.
“There,” she muttered, wiping the sweat from her forehead. “All done.”
Enyo wasn’t given much time to congratulate herself as, seconds later, she noticed all the light coming from the inside of the buildings around her. The lights were followed by shouts.
Knowing better than to remain, Enyo stood up. It was a struggle. However, she put her all into clambering to her feet. After which she grabbed Fellis and lifted the woman before, half-dragging and half-carrying the woman, she left the area with ponderous, slow footsteps. She needed to leave quickly.
I have to find Jacob.
***
Jacob was having a lot more trouble than he’d originally anticipated. Sure, he was fighting blind, but he’d fought blind plenty of times in the past. He had honestly expected the fight to go his way from beginning to end.
He was beginning to regret his moment of egotism.
“To your left!” Durandal warned.
Jacob spun around and swung Durandal in a wide arc. The clang! of his blade hitting several projectiles resounded across the rooftops. He wasn’t sure what kind of weapons this woman used, as he still had his eyes closed, but from the speed and weight, he judged them to be fairly standard throwing knives.
They’re probably laced with poison.
The air that night was chilly. The combination of the night’s cool air and the sweat plastering his clothes to his skin caused goosebumps to break out. Despite this, Jacob maintained his calm, knowing that half of the battle would be won so long as he remained composed.
“Oh, my. But you are an able young man, aren’t you?” Darkness laughed. He frowned as her voice echoed all around him. She was quite the ventriloquist. “I really do regret not being able to make you my toy. Think of all the fun I could have had.”
Why was it that every dark clanswoman outside of Enyo and Fellis vulgarly talked about making him their toy? Seriously. This was like the ten thousandth time a dark clanswoman had said this to him. During his travels through the darklands, he couldn’t fight against one woman without them saying something to this effect.
So annoying.
“Sorry, but I’m not into become the plaything to an old hag,” Jacob responded calmly.
“Arrogant little shit!” Darkness growled, and he could practically hear the snarl in her voice. “I give you compliments and you pay them back with insults? I take back everything I said about you. I’m going to enjoy killing you!”
Jacob would’ve smiled if that hadn’t given him away. This woman was just like most of the dark clan assassins he’d fought in the past—arrogant, boastful, and prideful. The weakness of most assassins like this one was that they didn’t take insults well. It was a common trait among the prouder dark clan members.
“You ready, Durandal?” asked Jacob.
“I’m about as ready to cock block this wench as I’ll ever be.”
“I… didn’t need to know that.”
“Left!”
Spinning around, Jacob heard the whizzing of several projectiles. He knocked them away with Durandal.
“Right and slightly behind!”
He swung his sword again, rotating in the direction Durandal told him to. Steel clashed as he batted at t
he projectiles, hitting it hard enough to send it flying off.
“She’s on your flank!”
Jacob continued listening to Durandal’s advice. With his sword tracking Darkness’s movements, there was no way she could get the drop on him. Even if his sword was sentient, Durandal couldn’t be placed under an illusion, since it lacked the mind necessary to fall sway to one. That meant she couldn’t rely on her normal tricks.
“That sword of yours is an annoyance!”
“Isn’t he, though? I keep telling him that as well. I’m so glad you understand.”
“What are you doing, empathizing with the enemy? What kind of partner are you?”
“The best kind.”
“Would you two shut up?!!”
As the woman became more annoyed, her attacks became even sloppier and easier to deflect. It was his hope that she’d eventually become so frustrated she would make a mistake. If she did, then he could capitalize on it and strike her with a decisive blow.
“Directly in front!”
Jacob leapt back. He felt something sharp swish past his nose. It looked like she was getting bolder, or maybe she was becoming impatient.
“Left!”
He spun around and slashed at his left flank, striking something metallic. It wasn’t a projectile. It weighed more. A sword, then. The air in front of him shifted, and he followed the currents, using them to predict the attacks. Left. Right. Right. Duck. Left. Block. Metal clashed. The sound rang heavily in his ears.
The air shifted again.
“She’s to your right now!”
Instead of meeting her blows head on, he moved backward. Something cut in front him, in the space where he’d been standing. The sound told him it was a projectile.
“Stop moving around, you little brat!”
“She’s moving behind you now!”
Spinning on the balls of his feet, Jacob slashed at the woman as she tried to get behind him. He could tell that she was there. Her footsteps were giving her away. With his eyes closed, his sense of hearing was enhanced, and he could easily hear the way she clunked around in those heels.
Just a little more.
“On your port!”
Jacob spun. He slashed. More projectiles were felled.
“Your flank!”
She came in close, attempting to pierce his guard with a surprise attack. He blocked, twisted his wrist, then tried to bisect her. He missed.
“Forty-five degrees!”
“Left! Your left!”
“Behind again!”
“Turn clockwise!”
No matter how many times Darkness attacked, Jacob was able to defend. No matter how she tried to surprise him, Durandal warned about it beforehand. Of course, Durandal was just a distraction. His sword wasn’t what she really needed to worry about.
Movement to his left. She was close, and she was closing the distance quickly. He waited until the last second, then spun around, knocked aside her blade, and thrust his sword forward. The air shifted as she tried to dodge. She leapt back, but he’d already channeled his energy into Durandal and let it loose to extend his reach.
“A-ah…!” a pained cry, a feminine gasp. The sound of footsteps stumbling backward.
Jacob opened his eyes. Darkness stood near the edge of the building. Her face was twisted with pain, blood leaking down her lips. She’d placed a hand against her chest, from which blood leaked. His last attack, the energy projectile shaped like a thrust sword, it had pierced right through her chest.
She was going to die shortly.
“H-how?” she asked. “Your sword… he didn’t tell you where I was that last time…”
“He didn’t need to,” Jacob said. “He never needed to. I could tell where you were at all times right from the very beginning.”
“A distraction…” Her eyes were glazing over. “Now I see… h-how cunning… I can… see… why you defeated the…”
She was unable to finish that sentence. Jacob watched as her body, finally unable to continue functioning, gave out and fell off the ledge. He walked over to the lip of the building, slowly moving until he was leaning over to look down. Lying on the ground, sprawled out and with her limbs twisted in unusual directions, Darkness stared sightlessly at him.
Jacob stepped back. Darkness disappeared from his sight. As shouts began to ring out from people becoming aware that something had just happened, he decided that it was time to disappear.
He needed to find Enyo and Fellis.
***
The death of two dark clan members had caused a huge ruckus in the city. It wasn’t just because two dark clan members had been killed, but also because they were dark clan members and they had been killed by someone or something stronger than them. What kind of security did their city possess that a pair from the dark clan could infiltrate them so easily? What sort of monsters were lurking around at night that could kill people from the dark clan? Since the two deaths were announced that morning, the city had been in a state of perpetual fear.
Jacob was thankful that Tellus Caelum was such a large city, as it meant he and his companions were able to move from the eastern side of town to the west, away from where the battle had taken place. However, while changing locations had been a great idea, there were still problems. The biggest issue right now was that the city had been under lockdown since the bodies of Darkness and Nemesis were discovered.
Tellus Caelum was a city surrounded by a large gate and a moat. The only way into or out of the city was through one of four gates, which were located on the north, west, east, and south sides of the city.
Because the city was so large, it had been divided into four sections based on the four cardinal points. Each of the four districts was named after a specific and powerful monster. The north was dragon, the south was tortoise, the east was cockatrice, and the west was minotaur. Of course, it wasn’t like the four districts differed all that much from each other. This was just a way of helping people figure out where they were.
It was the day after their fight with the dark clan assassins. Jacob sat at a table with Enyo and Fellis, slowly sipping from a glass filled with a beverage called milk coffee. Enyo sat on the opposite side, not looking at him. Fellis sat between the two, making the last point of a triangle at their round table.
“There are a lot more knights patrolling the city now,” Fellis observed as she sipped her beverage. Jacob didn’t know what it was called, but steam wafted from her cup. A kind of tea, maybe?
“The knights are on high alert because of Darkness and Nemesis,” Jacob said. “We probably should have hidden their bodies after defeating them, but it wasn’t like we’d been given much time. Had we done anything besides leave immediately, we would have been caught, and I don’t envy the idea of trying to escape from a horde of knights and paladins after what happened.”
“Hm… true. I wasn’t all that up for running either,” she agreed.
Of course, Fellis had been unconscious at the time. She couldn’t have run anyway.
“Enyo? How are you feeling?” Fellis asked suddenly.
“W-what?” Enyo said, looking up.
“I asked if you were feeling well. You’ve been spacing out a lot this morning.”
“Oh, yes. I’m fine.” Enyo looked away. Her cheeks were stained red.
Jacob wanted to sigh, but he didn’t want her to know how stressed he was. Enyo had avoided him after they’d met up. He didn’t blame her. She was probably embarrassed by what had happened, by what she’d done to him.
Last night, he and Enyo had shared a kiss, though it might have been more accurate to say she kissed him. He was grateful. Really. Thanks to her, the illusion that had been cast on him broke, and he’d been able to pay Darkness back for making him almost kill Enyo. At the same time…
Her lips were really soft.
It was maddening, but he’d been unable to get that kiss out of his mind. Last night, after they had moved to a new inn and fallen asleep, he had been plagued
by dreams of Enyo and her kiss. He wanted to feel her lips on his again. More than that, he wanted to initiate their next kiss.
Taking a sip of his drink, Jacob carefully put his thoughts of Enyo, kissing, and his newfound awareness of her as a woman, out of his mind. There were a lot more important things to think about.
“We need to come up with a plan to escape from this city,” he said at last. “The longer we remain here with all these knights, the greater the chances of Enyo being recognized become.”
Even now there were posters with her face on them all over the city. That was why, unlike him and Fellis, she was still wearing a cloak with a hood. They couldn’t afford to let people see her face. This was especially true now that all of these knights were patrolling the town.
“I don’t disagree with you,” Fellis began, “but how are we going to escape from the city with so many knights hanging around? If we act suspiciously, we’ll be spotted for sure.”
It was no surprise that Tellus Caelum, being one of the larger cities, had a large garrison of knights stationed there. Jacob didn’t know how many there were. However, he did know that a standard garrison normally held around four squadrons. If they went with that number, then there would have been at least 48 knights stationed in the city.
Since Tellus Caelum was much larger than most cities, they probably had closer to several garrisons, and each garrison likely had around seven or eight squadrons. Just looking at all the knights passing by as they patrolled made him realize that there were a lot more stationed here than in a normal city.
They would need to be careful.
“We can at least do some scouting,” Jacob answered. “When we leave, we’ll be doing so by passing through the north gate. That’s why I found us another inn located in the Dragon District.”
“Then what are we going to do?” asked Fellis. “Pretend to be a couple of tourists? Maybe you and Enyo could pretend to be a married couple on a honeymoon, and I, your lovely chaperone.”
Journey of a Betrayed Hero- Volume 1 Page 21
