by Unknown
The tip of the broadsword pierced Domitian’s chest, at the spot where a human carried his heart—and, if the gods were kind, a rakshasa did, too. Then something clipped the underside of the blade; it was the rim of the invisible shield, which was jerking upward in an effort to knock the sword away. Pain stabbed up Sefu’s lead leg—the wounded one—as his foot came down on the ground, and he toppled sideways.
But neither Domitian’s attempt at defense nor the loss of balance mattered, because the broadsword drove deep. Once Sefu finished falling and lifted his head to look, he saw the rakshasa sprawled motionless with the blade sticking up out of him and swaying slightly from side to side.
That meant it was safe to look around the rest of the battlefield. Just visible in the dark, a half-orc was running away down an alley. The other ruffians lay dead or incapacitated with Olhas standing in the center of them. Sorcery alone hadn’t been enough by the end. The gillman held his own bloody sword in his hand.
“Are you all right?” Olhas called.
Sefu inspected his leg and clamped a hand over the gash. Leyli came scurrying to help him, tearing a bandage from her robe. “I need a healer,” he gritted, feeling the gnawing pain in a way he hadn’t before, “but I’ll live. What about you?”
“Fine.” The gillman grinned. “No thanks to you. You did notice that there at the end, I was heroically fighting twenty foes while you diddled around with one.”
Sefu snorted. “‘Twenty?’ I suspect it’ll be a hundred, the next time you tell the tale. Why don’t you make yourself really useful and go hire a litter? Or at least borrow a wheelbarrow.”
“A wheelbarrow?” Olhas laughed. “Who do you think you are, the Primarch?” Positioning himself beneath one of Sefu’s shoulders, he directed Leyli to take the other, and together they lifted Sefu until he was standing precariously on his good leg.
“Come on, soldier,” Olhas said, “let’s get out of here before anyone starts asking questions.”
Together, the three of them limped down the road, and off into the night.
