Mitigating Risk (Nora Hazard Book 1)

by Blaise Corvin

  “Once I knew I was behind the slavers I crawled around looking for Jessica,” whispered Chris. “I think there are two slavers here.”

  I nodded, understanding. He’d needed help, but he hadn’t wanted to leave the spot. This portion of the forest looked like all the others. “Okay, fine; wait here,” I ordered.

  The tan-skinned man firmed his lips and looked like he might argue for a second, but nodded. “I will follow, then.”

  “Fine. Give me some room, though.” Chris nodded again, and I moved forward.

  The sounds of battle behind me created a bizarre and nerve-wracking background as I moved towards my target. The fact I was probably hunting a mage meant I definitely needed to get a decisive strike and end the fight immediately.

  Violence was not new to me, but I’d always been a fighter, not a killer. I had no illusions that I was planning to commit murder. The person I was slowly moving towards through the undergrowth was probably not exactly a good-hearted, charitable person, but I didn’t have any personal conflict with them, either. This entire battle wasn’t really my fight—my heart wasn’t in it.

  I just wanted to rescue Jessica and get the hell away. In fact, I needed to take my charges to Tolstey, so I was still in the wrong country!

  A nearby explosion startled me, but I kept my cool, and then I was rewarded for my patience. The sound caused the slaver to turn, completely turning her back to me. I took the opportunity to act, using Flight to lower my weight and bound forward. The jump cleared all the space between myself and my victim in one soundless action.

  I’d never killed anyone like this before, but I knew how. My spear arm snaked around the woman’s throat, and her hands went up on reflex. I used that opening to destroy her heart with Vistvis, punching the blade between the fourth and fifth rib at an angle. My target was dangerous, and I wanted to be extra sure about the kill. I continued to choke the slaver and drew my dagger hand back, then savagely stabbed both lungs from behind.

  Great torrents of blood soaked the front of my clothing and armor. She still struggled, so I drew my arm back and hit the woman in the head with Vistvis’ pommel. Her short, thick hair proved spongier than I’d expected, but the blow struck with the sound of a rock dropping on pavement. As the slaver collapsed, I noticed a flicker of fire on the fingers of one hand fade away as she lost consciousness. Dangerous. She had indeed been a mage.

  The kill had been relatively quiet but had still made enough noise to alert the other slaver guard. I saw the man come out from behind a tree, his obscuring mask down to reveal broad, unattractive features. He opened his mouth to shout, and I acted before consciously thinking about it.

  My arm darted forward like a shot, launching Eneas at the slaver. It struck true and hit hard. The spear’s blade hit my lightly armored enemy at an angle, and the long blade slammed through his entire body. The slaver dropped the spear he’d been carrying and stood transfixed, foaming at the mouth. His fading eyes were full of disbelief, denial.

  Death was always ugly.

  I stood staring as my thoughts caught up to my body. Before I fully recovered, I received a huge surprise as the cloth strip from Eneus elongated, its end slapping into my open palm. My body once again almost acting on its own, I grabbed the crimson sash and yanked backward.

  Eneus was pulled from the slaver’s body with a sick squelching sound and sailed gracefully back to me, its shaft landing in my palm. The mortally wounded slaver fell face first onto the ground.

  “Wow,” I breathed.

  I shook my head, dispelling my wonder. I could think about my mysterious spear later. At the moment, I was in the middle of the battlefield and still had a job to do.

  I opened the first tent and caught my breath. A heartbeat later, I had to suppress my gorge.

  “Those animals,” I growled.

  Rejection

  Small bodies lay on the ground. Children. The dead, staring eyes of a little boy shrouded by shadow would probably haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. I suppressed a gag again and just goggled, all my previous focus forgotten.

  Who could do such a thing?

  I couldn’t come any closer, but I couldn’t look away, either. My eyes were drawn to bruises, to torn clothing. These children had not died peacefully. All three of them, two boys and a girl, hadn’t been dead for very long, either.

  They’d even killed the little boys. Sweet, innocent little boys. “Rotting monsters,” I whispered.

  Finally, I couldn’t hold my gorge anymore and threw up. I had seen some terrible things before, but nothing like this. One of the little boys’ arms and legs had been bent the wrong way, his dirty face streaked with tears and terror. In death, his mouth had been frozen in a grimace.

  As I rubbed my mouth with the back of my hand, I felt the last of my innocence die. I had thought myself a worldly woman up until that point. Almost every challenge in life could usually be faced with fire in my heart and ice in my veins if I had time to center myself—at least this was what I had always told myself. But now? No, this was pure evil.

  How do you fight something like this? The fact that people did things like this to each other was something I’d known with my head, but not with my heart. I’d thought I’d known what evil looked like before, but this? This was just...darkness for the sake of darkness. Someone had had fun here.

  Crushing guilt descended. I’d never even considered that the captives had been in any real danger. The kidnappers were slavers, after all. Slavers didn’t sell dead bodies; they sold slaves. But as I looked down at the twisted little corpses, I realized how naive I had been. A wave of regret washed over me, so powerful I couldn’t breathe. While I’d been standing around in the woods, thinking about the battle going on, what had been happening to the captives? I’d even mentally complained about how this wasn’t my fight and had wanted to run away.

  Behind me, I heard Christopher yell, “Jessica, are you here?”

  That fool shouldn’t be so loud, I absently thought, but I couldn’t even turn. My world was upending, becoming something different—something dark and angular. I felt a tickle at the base of my heart, a feeling I couldn’t place at first, but it began growing.

  I registered noises again. Canvas tore, and I heard Christopher talking to someone, someone weeping. The tickle in my heart grew larger, and I realized what it was. Anger.

  There was water on my face. I was crying. That was a cue to move. I turned and walked to Christopher. He was freeing a captive, a woman who was weeping and babbling.

  “Nora, this is Jessica,” Chris said over his shoulder. His eyes were wild, his body tense. Signs of stress were in his face, and he hadn’t even see what I’d seen. He’d have to deal with it. I pitied him. I pitied myself.

  Chris bent down as he worked and I saw Jessica for the first time. She was lying next to a bound, gagged, terrified young man, and the corpse of an old woman.

  Jessica was everything I had wanted to be as a young woman, a shiner’s shiner. The only concession I made to those days now was dying my hair. I was who I was, and I had accepted it. On the other hand, Jessica was beautiful, blonde, curvy, and looked elegant even as she sobbed. I bent down and slashed the rest of her bonds with Vistvis. Chris nodded his thanks, his face grim.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Jessica sobbed. “There wasn’t anything I could do, not after they tied us up. I wanted to use it when we were captured, but I was afraid. I was so afraid. Last time I used it, it almost killed me. But then I was helpless, and I heard them hitting us, hurting us, and I couldn’t do anything. I heard them doing...terrible things. They laughed. They laughed, Chris!” Jessica closed her eyes and wailed, putting her hands over her face.

  “Shhh, I know,” murmured Chris. “You can’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could do.” He hugged his friend, and I wondered briefly what their relationship was. It didn’t matter, but we didn’t have time for this. I’d learned the error of my ways. This was a time for action.

  “C
his, check all the tents with me. We need to look for survivors. More slavers might come anytime.”

  He nodded, patted Jessica’s hand and got up. The woman grabbed at the air like she didn’t want to be alone, then collapsed backward, probably understanding. My respect for the woman grew. She seemed young, in her early twenties, but even after such a trial, she was still using her head. Jessica was thinking of the other captives.

  I knew now I was not that good of a person.

  To one side, I heard Chris throwing up. He must have found more bodies. The anger in my heart grew, and I felt it hardening, holding the heat of my rage in, letting it grow.

  Everything was all so senseless. Nothing made sense. The battle hadn’t really been real to me before now, even with getting knocked out in the ambush. Now everything was so intense it hurt. People were dying.

  Some of the captives were already dead. The rotting payu slavers had killed children. Innocent children.

  The rage blossomed in me, becoming something I hadn’t felt since I’d fought Lisa what felt like a lifetime ago. Since then, I’d been afraid of myself, afraid of losing control. But I couldn’t stop remembering the little bodies in the tent, a sight I wouldn’t, couldn’t see again.

  I let the anger run free.

  Like a caged beast or a long lost friend, the rage enveloped me. I felt emotional barriers I hadn’t even known about dissolve.

  Chris was pulling someone out of a tent, a weak, coughing middle-aged woman. He must have found a knife somewhere because a few other living prisoners like Jessica were mobile and helping him save the wounded.

  I stalked over to Chris and grated, “Stay here. I’m going.”

  “But there are—” he began saying.

  I growled and chopped with a hand. “Stay. I will send help.”

  With that, I turned and bounded away. As I ran, I realized that I’d been holding back with my ‘Bonded powers too, afraid of my own strength. I soundlessly snarled and drew savagely on my Flight power, feather-jumping into the trees.

  ***

  The first group of Soron guards I found seemed lost, far away from the rest of their comrades. I dropped among them, and one reflexively slashed at me with her dagger. Well trained. My thoughts buzzed through my anger like icicles through a bonfire.

  I moved Eneus, blocking the dagger and ordering, “Stop.” The group of four guards froze, and I glared at them. I pointed towards the small camp where Chris and I had found the prisoners. “Go that way. Find the prisoners. Protect them.”

  One of the guards, a male, rabbit race Mo’hali sergeant, gave me a cool look. He said, “But you are a mercenary, who are you to—”

  I punched him in the stomach. When he hissed and went for my face, I grabbed his hand-paw and twisted it. “Don’t argue. No time. Just go.”

  The Mo’hali man laid his ears back, showing his teeth, but I glared at him, letting my rage dance in my eyes. I was completely prepared to kill this fool to cow the others into protecting the prisoners, which was their job in the first place. He must have sensed my resolve.

  His ears went back even further and pushed together behind his head. “Fine. This is not over, though. You’d better hope your actions are justified.”

  “If not, they can dock my pay. Go. Now.” I pointed. When the guards turned, I didn’t waste any more time. I jumped back into the trees. One turned back, noticed I was gone, and cried out. The small group of Soron guards began to mutter about how I’d vanished.

  I heard them with my enhanced hearing but shook my head and focused in front of me again. The guards were doing as I’d ordered. That was all that mattered.

  ***

  The first group of slavers I found had been fighting a smaller group of guards. They never had a chance. I smashed down from the trees, instantly killing two of them. My vib-blade enhanced short sword cut through armor and flesh alike. Eneus punched right through a slaver mage’s bare head.

  My eyes felt like twin flames as I tore into the group, using a combination of Vibration power, strength, speed, and skill with weapons. I danced among them, dealing death. Time for talk, for mercy, was over. Any group that could do, or even allow what I had just seen must be eradicated like a cancer.

  As I fought, my rage blazed, giving me strength, but my movements were fluid, cold. The more the righteous fury filled me, the more focused I became. Every attack I saw, every blow I blocked, I learned something new. I adapted, learned, grew.

  In the back of my mind, I remembered a little orphan girl on the streets of Bittertown. I remembered all the people who had tried to do terrible things, or take advantage of her. My past had been sad, but I thought I’d dealt with it, had worked through that my childhood was about as bad as it could get in Berber—but now I knew the truth. Everything could have been so, so much worse for me, and this reality offended me on a primal level.

  No children should ever go through what I went through, much less anything worse. The dead little boys I’d seen had affected me even more deeply. I’d barely even seen little boys when I’d been young. Little boys should be protected. It was a woman’s job to protect them. I internally railed against the new world I’d uncovered, I rejected it. Inside my heart, old wounds that I’d thought long healed burst open again, releasing a torrent of emotions.

  I turned it all into rage, and then into action.

  I stood among bodies. There were no more enemies to kill. A slaver’s head rolled down a slight hill my right. I was thoroughly covered in blood and smelled like death, but I was still mad as hell. I heard a cough and snapped my head around.

  Two Soron guards moved through the underbrush, supporting an overweight, wounded man. Another guard, a lean woman held up her hands in a surrender gesture. “Sorry, sorry. We’re on your side...I hope.”

  One of the supporting guards, little more than a girl said, “You really saved us. Torrie and Le-sun already took off after you got here, but we were in a bad spot. Wes here was our fire mage, and he kept them off of us as long as he could. Good job, Wes.”

  The wounded mage coughed, then said, “I just did what I could. You all protected me.”

  The scene pulled at me, drawing me in. I knew if I stayed, I could find out the names of these guards, accompany them, protect them. That was not the plan, though. The plan was to kill slavers.

  I pointed towards the camp. “Go that way. There is a camp with the rescued prisoners. You can regroup there.” My tone invited no argument. One of the guards was a lieutenant, but I really didn’t care. Anyone that argued with me was getting a boot in the ass, a fact that seemed to be communicating itself.

  None of the guards argued. They did as they were told, and I left to kill more slavers.

  ***

  At twenty slavers, I stopped counting my kills—they all ran together in my memory, anyway. It was hard to remember individuals when they all dressed similarly and used the same types of bronze weapons. Instead, I began counting groups. So far, I’d exterminated six groups of slavers. As I worked my way towards the heaviest fighting, I noticed each group getting stronger, more skilled. Strange.

  I learned something with each group I killed. New martial techniques were absorbed by my mind and my muscles. I’d never experienced anything like it. Now I knew what it felt like when I used my natural ability to its full potential.

  I was soaked in blood, so much so that I dripped as I traveled from tree to tree, high above the forest floor. Even my hair was soaked in it. I didn’t care. My rage still burned hot in my chest. At this point, I wasn’t even killing slavers—I was destroying everything they represented, mourning the loss of my innocence and the deaths of children I hadn’t known. Every time the terrible memories surfaced again, I gnashed my teeth and hurtled faster through the trees.

  It was so senseless! In one brief window of calm, I wondered if all the atrocities I’d seen had been sanctioned by the rest of the slavers, or only done by the slaver guards, but then I figured that it didn’t really matter. Slavers
were scum to begin with, and I was being paid to fight them in the first place.

  If was I was going to go on a rampage, this was really the ideal time to do so. Works for me, I thought.

  I paused my travel from tree to tree, listening. Then I snarled. I’d traveled to where the fighting was heaviest, where the best fighters from both sides were gathered, and where the slavers were most focused on keeping the Soron guards busy.

  By that time, after sailing high above the combat, I had realized one piece I’d been missing about the battle. It still didn’t make sense why, but now it was obvious to me that the slavers had been stalling for time.

  They were about to regret dragging the battle out, though. I snarled and moved forward towards the highest concentration of combat.

  Taunts

  I learned from my mistakes, so despite my anger, I paused in a tree to watch the fighting below. If any part of the current ‘battle’ could actually be called a battle, it’d be what I was witnessing.

  Two actual battle lines were present. On one side, the Soron guards were giving ground, harried constantly. Meanwhile, the slavers kept slowly but steadily advancing.

  In the loose Soron formation, Captain Mourad led from the front. She fought with great skill, and her huge, wavy-bladed sword was ferocious, but I didn’t see her use any magic. On the other hand, her great level of experience was on display as she used trees to protect herself or terrain to block line of sight.

  Three harried Soron guard mages fought to keep the ground their group was losing. One, an Areva air mage, protected the group of about three score from projectiles. I hadn’t seen many Areva people this deep in Berber, so the woman stood out.

  An older Terran woman was revealed as a fire mage as I watched from above. She was being sneaky with her abilities, probably partly why she was still alive. The magic technique she used was unique and powerful. She’d pick up rocks and focused on them until they glowed. Then she’d throw them, and after a short pause, they'd explode.