by D. Levesque
“Side effects?” Tallen asks me.
“You will be comatose for days afterward, though the effects don’t show up for hours later,” I supply from my knowledge.
“Shit. That would do it then,” Carmen says. “Gordo was already a strong Beast, add sixty percent strength to him, and he can take on a Troll easily. I would say he is doing it by duel.”
“Dueling Trolls?” I say, remembering the size of that Troll I buried.
“It makes sense,” Tallen says with a contemplative look. “Most of the issues we have not been able to resolve had involved something or someone very strong. We just never figured out what it was since it took finesse, so we ruled out Trolls. There were items that were stolen from locations that no one short of a Troll should have been able to break through, but because of the way it was done, we deduced that Trolls were too dumb to have pulled it off.”
“Things like what?” Milta asks him.
“Mostly magical items. Usually, items that had been charged with Magic,” he starts, but then stops and looks at me quickly.
“How much power is involved in this spell?”
“Hmm. It does take a lot of power. It says it’s a level 6 Magus spell.”
Tallen gets a sour look on his face. “Yes. That is why he is stealing those items. Gordo is maybe a level 2 Magus at best. I would say he has been stealing those items to get the power from them so that he could cast this Battle Worthy spell.”
“So it seems that is how he is getting his power base,” Milta says. “He has been dueling the Trolls. He has been-” that is as far as she gets before a giant green hand slams her down against the rock.
Without thinking, I throw myself away from the rock and end up falling back on my ass, looking up over the rock we had been hiding behind. Shit, it’s a Troll. It somehow sneaked up on us! The thing just smashed Milta against the rock. As the Troll pulls its hand back, Milta falls to the ground, lifeless.
Carmen has her rifle out and is already shooting it, but without any results other than the magical bullets hitting it and disappearing against its green skin. Tallen looks furious. He has his rapier out and is darting in and out, stabbing the troll over and over, but the small sword might as well be a needle for all the damage it’s doing. At least it’s not yelling. Looking closer, I can see why. It has a large scar across its throat.
I look down and my Foci is out, with the two daggers in my hand. Then I look at the body of Milta and something in me snaps. He just killed the most beautiful tiny creature I have ever met, the mother of Mavin, someone who I had considered a new friend. Reaching down into the knowledge I have, I slash my daggers to the side, and suddenly they are glowing blue. Fay blue. I know what I just called up is something called Fay Fire. It’s a powerful spell, a level 12 spell.
Rushing forward, I dart around Tallen, who had just stabbed the Troll in its kneecap. He must have hit something since the Troll bends down and grabs its knee. Perfect. As it does that, its head comes down.
Jumping upward with the new speed and strength I have thanks to Tallen, I thrust upward and slam one of my daggers into the Troll’s eye, slashing sideways and outwards.
That gets the Troll to yell, but it’s more of a gasping sound, like a croak. It moves its hand from its knee to its face, looking upward in pain. While it’s doing that, I slide behind it and slash at the tendons behind its knee. At least I hope that’s what I’m hitting. Luck is with me, as suddenly one knee buckles. The same knee that Tallen had gone after.
Tallen takes my lead, and instead of using his rapier to stab, he rushes behind the half-blinded Troll and makes a slashing motion behind the other knee, and suddenly it falls down on its knees entirely.
Carmen, not to be left out of the fight, rushes forward, stabs her rifle into the only functional eye of the Troll, and pulls the trigger five or six times. Each time, the Troll jerks until finally, its arms fall to its side. Carmen moves out of the way just in time as the thing falls forward to the ground, landing flat on its face.
Just in case it’s a trick, I jump on its back and slash one of my daggers across its neck, severing its spinal cord.
Breathing hard, we all take stock and look around to make sure no more Trolls have snuck up on us. Not seeing any, I make my Foci disappear and put my hands on my knees, trying to slow down my heart rate. Then I remember Milta.
“Milta!” I say, rushing to her side. I slide next to her body and slowly lift her.
She groans in pain. “Fucking hell, that hurt!” she says, opening her eyes, one of which is full of blood.
“You’re alive!” I blurt out in surprise.
“Of course, I’m alive,” she says crossly. She looks over and sees the dead Troll. “Good job on the Troll. Gods, I hurt all over.”
“I thought he had slammed you against the rock and squished you,” I tell her lamely.
“I’m a Fairy. A Fairy Queen. It takes more than that to kill me. But I will admit, that truly hurt. I have never been slammed so hard like that before. Well, maybe by my last husband.”
“What?” I ask her dumbly.
“What?” she says, looking at me.
“You just-”
“Hush. I know what I said. Think you can throw a heal my way? I can barely focus enough to cast it on myself with all this pain,” she says with a grimace.
“Oh!” I say, nodding at her. Did she just say what I think she said? She’s a Queen and she, never mind. Nodding to her again, I cast a healing spell. I end up having to cast it twice, since she can still feel a broken bone or three after the first time. Once I’m done, she slowly stands up in my hands. She’s a bit wobbly at first, but finally she gets up and flies away.
I look over to Tallen and Carmen to make sure they are all right. They are both good, thank God.
“Damn, that was a good fight,” Tallen says with a grin, and I see he still has his rapier in his hand.
“And now I know that I can shoot them in the eye,” Carmen says with her own grin. “It seems that the magical nullifying thing is only the outside, not the inside. I can try sniping them in the eyes now.”
“Hmm,” Tallen says, with a look of concentration. “Do you think you can snipe while running?”
“Sure, why?” she asks him with a frown.
“And backward?” he says instead of answering her.
Carmen looks at him, saying nothing, but she must figure out what he wants because she suddenly grins. “You want me to lure them away from the camp and snipe them while running backward?”
“Yes. Leaving Gordo for us,” he tells her, his grin getting bigger.
“Damn, that’s a tall order. Eleven Trolls,” she says.
“I might have help for that,” I say. She looks at me curiously.
“I know a spell that can increase your speed by fifty percent, and it does not involve any components. It lasts for one hour.”
“Oh my. I knew I liked you for a reason,” she says with a laugh.
“All right, here is what we will do,” Tallen says.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We had to wait ‘til the following day since we needed as much light as possible, or Carmen did, for what she was going to do. I think I barely got about three hours of sleep. We moved about thirty minutes away from the camp, just in case anyone noticed that the Troll had gone missing. Tallen ended up casting a spell with a sigil to block out any sound we made. He did that by reversing the sigil we had seen in Club 58. It seems that turning it upside down makes it have the opposite effect. Interesting.
Now we are back at the camp of the Trolls, and it’s only me, Milta, who slept through the entire night, and Tallen. Carmen is on her own, getting ready for her task. We aren’t sure which is the more dangerous—hers or ours. Since she’s the one who’s going to have over ten Trolls chasing her, I would go with hers. Easily. When I told her to be careful, she just grinned at me and changed into her full Changeling form. With her ears and tail behind her. I also noticed that her eyes changed as
well, to seem more catlike. Once she’d changed, she surprised me by rushing up to me, hugging me around the waist, and giving me a quick peck on the lips.
Her lips were soft and warm and tasted sweet, like honey. Then she was gone. Milta had chuckled and looked at me with her eyebrows wagging. I was about to say we were only friends, but that’s not what a friend does. But then again, we are about to go into battle.
Suddenly, the signal we were waiting for comes—the loud bellow of pain from a Troll, most likely triggered by Carmen shooting it in the eye. Suddenly the cry of pain cuts off. But then a battle cry is taken up by the other Trolls, and I hear crashing trees as the Trolls chase her. Milta had been floating up in a tree and she comes rushing down to us.
“She got them to chase after her, all except two. And guess who just came out of a tiny hut in the camp?” she says with a grin.
“Gordo?” Tallen asks her.
“Exactly. He has aged some, but it’s him.”
“Alright, let’s go. It’s our turn now,” Tallen says. He turns to me. “Remember, stay back. You are to look innocent and weak.”
I laugh nervously at that. “No problem there. I feel it.”
Tallen puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. “Kevin. I have to say, for a human, you have impressed me. And to impress a Count is saying something. I have lived for over a hundred years, and I have not met many like you. You will do fine.”
“A hundred?” I say incredulously.
He chuckles at me and says, “I’m a Vampire. We live for a good three or four hundred years. I am considered a young Count. Barely in my thirties for you humans. I am the youngest Count on Earth in recorded history. My father died when he was young. Stupid accident,” he says, just as I am about to ask how he died. “He was trying to impress a human female he wanted to subjugate and ended up getting caught by what is now the FBI. Later,” he says, as I am about to ask about that as well.
Nodding, I say, “I’ll wait.”
“Now, should we go see our target?” Milta says, flying between us.
“I am sure he knows someone is here by now. We should not keep our host waiting,” Tallen says, standing up tall and tugging his white shirt down. His shirt has definitely seen better days. I can see several stains on it, courtesy of the swamp.
And just like that, we walk towards the pit and stop at the edge of it. As we get there, I get a look at Gordo for the first time. Holy shit, he is enormous! I thought Bower was big, but this guy is at least twice as wide and about three feet taller.
His long dark brown hair is in a ponytail, and his face, in my opinion, looks more like a weasel’s than a bear’s. He is looking up and glaring up at us. Suddenly, he shouts at one of the Trolls.
“Kill them!”
The Troll on his left lumbers forward and gathers speed. We let it come until it’s about fifteen feet away from us, and then Tallen lowers to one knee and places his hands on the ground. Without warning, the Troll sinks to his waist in mud, and then before it can move, the mud hardens to rock. The Troll cries out in anger, shaking itself back and forth, trying to get out.
Suddenly, a magical arrow of fire slams into its open mouth and it jerks in surprise, its large hands going to its mouth and trying to reach inside for the arrow that I am sure is still burning, as I can see steam or smoke rising out of him. Then, two more fire arrows slam into its eyes. Only one makes it in though, puncturing the liquid of its eye with a steaming whistle. His second eye had closed before the other arrow could get to it, and since the arrow was magical, it hit the closed eyelid and dispersed.
“Get them!” shouts Gordo in a panic.
I look up and see the second Troll hesitate. Not so dumb, after all. Gordo kicks it from behind and it flinches. The Troll, I guess, decides we are the easier, weaker targets, since it runs at us. Again, Tallen puts his hand down, but I guess this Troll is somewhat smarter as it notices the ground start to change and jumps over it in a leap.
On the other side of the soft ground, it grins. But its grin is short-lived as Tallen had taken advantage of its distraction by running toward it. Suddenly, Tallen kicks it in the chest and it falls over backward. Damn, how the fuck did he get down there so fast? He was just standing next to me! I stare at him in shock. Is that what he meant by speed?
As the Troll falls over into the soft mud, Tallen again puts his hand down on the ground, and with the Troll half-submerged, the surrounding ground turns to solid rock, trapping it. The Troll growls but those growls turn into yelps of agony as, out of the ground, spikes made of metal shoot through its chest. Yeah, fight those, you shit. Those aren’t magical.
Finally, once the Troll has a good ten or twenty spikes poking out of its body, it stops moving and its head slumps over, dead. I look over at the first Troll and he is dead as well, steam coming out of its eye. I guess Milta hit a good spot and cooked the Troll from the inside.
Unexpectedly, Tallen is thrown a good ten feet backwards by a spear that hits him in his side. I cast a shield around myself just in time, as I hear a gong sound and look up to see another spear just inches from my face, before it falls to the ground in front of me. Milta zips over to float in front of my shield in a flash. I reach my hand towards Tallen and call up a shield in front of his body as well.
“Shit,” Milta says. “I didn’t notice him grab the spears. Tallen! Are you all right?”
Tallen slowly gets up, groaning in pain. “Yes. But fuck, that hurt. I can’t get the spear out, though. No leverage. At least he was a shitty shot and got me in the side, not in any vital organs. Thanks for the shield, Kevin. Much appreciated and most likely a lifesaver,” he says, pointing to Gordo.
We look over and see him glaring at us with another spear in his hand. He pulls his hand back, and the spear comes flying at me faster than I’ve ever seen a spear move. It hits my shield, making that gong sound again.
“How long can you keep the shield up?” Milta asks me.
“I’m not sure. I can feel my power drain a bit with each hit. But the shield will go down before I run out.”
“So, how many hits, Kevin?” she asks quietly.
“Four? Three?” I ask her, unsure.
“Good enough. Listen. Can you keep that shield around Tallen without having one around you?”
“Sure,” I say, looking at her with concern. “But that shield is also protecting me.”
She flies to my face and places a tiny hand on my cheek, moving back so I can see her without crossing my eyes.
“Kevin, I believe in you. I believe in your Magic. I believe in your strength and your speed. I think with all of that, you can avoid those spears. I also think you can take on Gordo. Not with strength, but with speed. Carmen told me how fast you caught that medallion from Tallen. You are faster than Tallen, I would say. How, I have no clue, but that is something to be explored later. You need to fight Gordo. Weapon to weapon. His spears and your daggers and,” she grins, “your Magic.”
“That’s a lot of believes in there, Milta,” I say, looking at her.
“And I trust you.”
“So do I,” shouts Tallen.
“Stop reading my lips, you white sheet of a man!” Milta yells at him, but I can see she is smiling.
“Kevin, you can do this. Trust in yourself. You are now M.A.G.I. Show Gordo why people fear the M.A.G.I. Hunters.”
I look at Tallen and he nods at me, and then I look back at Milta, who smiles at me with confidence. Confidence in me. Shit, I hate having to bear the responsibility for this. Sighing, I nod. Not so much to either of them, but to myself. She’s right. I need to prove myself. Otherwise, I will have the Council on my ass all the time. I also need to prove to Marrisa that I am not weak and can be her partner. And I need to prove to Carmen that I am worthy of her trust. We sent her on an almost suicide run. I can’t let it go to waste.
“All right, do you need a shield around you to get to Tallen?” I ask Milta.
She grins at me and suddenly she is no longer in f
ront of me. I look over quickly and she is floating next to Tallen, grinning at me.
“Guess that’s a no,” I say quietly with a chuckle.
Standing up, I look at Gordo, who is looking at me in confusion.
“Who are you?” he shouts across the pit. He is a good twenty feet away from me.
“I’m here for my wife and friend,” I shout back at him, trying to sound authoritative. “Gordo, I charge you with multiple counts of offenses that . I can’t even think of, but I am sure that you committed. I am here to mete out justice by being a Bounty Hunter of M.A.G.I. Hand yourself over, and I will be lenient.”
Shit, where did that speech come from? Oh, it’s information from that knowledge transfer. I even have the laws in my head now. Shit, he broke like three laws just in the last few minutes. Attempted murder twice with Tallen and me, as well as the law of injuring a sitting royal.
Gordo bursts out in laughter and shouts, “I don’t know who you are, but. I guess you have some gift of Magic. Well, come at me, Mr. Bounty Hunter,” he says with a chuckle. “As for your, what did you call her? Your wife? Marrisa Lalouton would never marry anyone, so good try on that one. And friend? Ah, that other Vampire I have in my pit there?” he says, pointing to the hole in question. “He might last another day or two,” he says with a shrug. “You are welcome to him if you can get past me.”
“Is that your answer?” I ask him, sounding more confident than I feel. My stomach is churning and I can feel butterflies dancing around in there.
Instead of answering, he cocks his hand back, and a spear comes flying at me faster than the other ones. This time I feel a slightly more substantial drain in my shield’s power.
“That’s my answer,” he says with a grin, and the weasel look on his face increases even more.
Shit, is that a Beast type? And just as I think about it, it comes to me. Yep, apparently that is precisely what he is. And they are mean.
“Very well,” I say, dropping my shield and calling my Foci out. I grin at him and rub my daggers together, making them screech. Gordo grabs another spear from the ground and quickly throws it at me.
