Knives in the Night

by Nathan A. Thompson

  With that, I put my heels to the ground and ran in a full sprint.

  Sand sprayed out from behind me as I finally cut loose and let my superhuman muscles and magical enhancements engage to their full potential. Streams of light shimmered around me as Breena cast off her own restraint, looping around me in dazzling trails of gold and pink. She had her wand out, and the tip crackled with blade-shaped electricity.

  In less than ten seconds, the distance between us and the mass of Mongrels and Miscreants shrank from hundreds of yards to nothing at all.

  On the eighth second, I summoned Toirneach and leaped into the air. I landed on the largest, most powerful-looking Mongrel I could pick out of the group. My feet hit his face and bore him to the ground. As I felt his face and neck crunch under my weight, I swung my axe through the waist of the second-largest Mongrel to bisect him, and then leaped back into the air. Breena trailed past a half dozen Miscreants as she chased after me, each one falling to the ground and clutching newly made holes in their now-scorched necks.

  “Will you stop yelling at me!” she shouted as Horde blood burned off of her crackling wand. “Not you, Wes. Sorry. Anahita is mad again.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said as I reached the apex of my leap. “I always seem to start off on the wrong foot with you guys.”

  The zenith of my jump happened to be over a hundred feet into the air, in the middle of the vanguard of Curs. I tossed Toirneach into the skull of one descending directly above me, dismissed it again, then summoned Claimh Solais, Breaker’s Woadland form.

  As the winged Hordebeasts fully surrounded me, I swung the sword of light around in a circular slash, releasing a ring of sharp, bright energy that bisected the several dozen gargoyles around me.

  I landed before their bodies did, turning Claimh Solais into Colada, the blade of the Sun-Jeweled Seas. The sword that set all fear to flight stabbed through the face of another large Mongrel, and then a wave of invisible power pulsed out of the weapon.

  The nearby Horde all went into a panic, screaming as they scrambled to get away from the traitor-prince.

  I would have torn into them even further, but with the armored Spawn incoming, I was out of time for cheap, quick hits. I took a running jump and activated my flight magic, soaring after Anahita as she continued to glide away from all of us.

  And apparently, she was still cursing me.

  “Ugh,” Breena groaned, “she’s still upset with you. She thinks you’ve doomed yourself to die with her and how I was supposed to keep that from happening and now I’m in danger too and how it’s all my fault even though you never listen to me anyway and apparently I’m the one who’s bad at her job now!”

  “Sorry about that, Breena,” I replied, twisting through the air as I followed the winged woman ahead of me. Just how long can her scarf exist in that form? I wondered privately.

  “You know what?” my little fairy said as she turned to me, still speeding through the air. “You should be sorry! Do you know how often I get caught in the middle of things? First with Stell and Merada, and then with Stell and you, and then with Via and you, and then with Via and Stell, and then with Stell and everybody! And what do I get in return for it? Nothin—”

  “Cookies,” I interrupted, and Breena’s rant ended immediately.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, giving me a hyper-fixated stare.

  “My mother actually helped Guineve bake me some cookies before I came here,” I answered, choosing my words carefully. “That kind of embarrassed me, but then I started wondering whether you’ve ever had white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies. And, if you don’t mind, I’d kind of like to know what you thought about my mother’s cooking.”

  “Macadamia—” Breena started to chitter excitedly, and then cleared her throat. “I mean, your mother was good enough to help Guineve—ahem.” The spiky-haired woman cleared her throat again, still spiraling through the air next to me. “Sorry. Sand in my throat. I mean, I guess I could help you eat those. Since you’re curious about Earth cookies—I mean, curious as to how they stack up with Avalonian cookies. And since you hadn’t eaten that kind of cookie in centuries—I mean, since you left Earth. Sure, Wes. I guess I can help with that.”

  “Great,” I replied. “Now let’s see if we can catch up with Anahita and get her to explain a little more as to exactly what is going on.”

  With that, I burned some more mana to increase the speed of my flight.

  “You know what?” Breena snapped, but not at me. “Why don’t you worry about your own mana, and let the other two big kids handle their own—drat. Doing it again. Sorry Wes.” I felt her displeasure radiate through the mindlink. “The worst part was that she didn’t even get to hear any of that. So now I have to go back to being a grown-up and helping,” she added with a pout.

  Anahita banked to the right again, this time putting an obviously angry amount of energy into the motion. We continued to close the distance between us, and I began to realize that she was flagging again. One of her energy pools was getting dangerously low. Her stamina, mana, vitality, or possibly even all three.

  “Ugh,” Breena sighed as she twisted another brightly colored spiral through the air. “Fine. She could have just messaged you herself from the beginning, and saved me long minutes of stress! She’s going to start messaging you with her Air magic, Wes. And the fact that it’s going to cost her more mana is making her even more upset at you.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, managing to shrug as I flew through the air. “When should I expect her to—”

  The soft, smooth voice crested across the air into my own ears.

  Except that it was laced three times over with simmering rage.

  “Are you deaf?” Anahita’s words drifted into my ears, and it somehow felt like someone was trying to smother me with a pillow. “I repeat: Are you. Deaf?”

  Still sounds so hot, Teeth said stupidly.

  I tuned out her words with painfully familiar practice and began examining the spell itself. My super-enhanced Intellect, advanced knowledge of Air magic, and long-practiced Path of the Archmage revealed to me that she was using an advanced version of an Air spell I actually had stumbled into some time ago, before entering the Woadlands. I tried to remember if I had actually casted it before.

  “Because if you’re not deaf,” Anahita continued, her voice somehow all the more menacing for its smoothness, “then you have spent at least the past fifteen minutes purposefully ignoring advice that was expressly designed to save your life! To save every person I still could, even as thousands of lives slip through my fists like grains of sand! Do you have any idea how that feels, vaunted Challenger from Earth?”

  Do you think she knows that her voice is hot? Teeth continued, ignoring my silent request to shut up.

  I had finished the spell just before she messaged me, so I had time to cast it and give her a reply. As soon as I did, my own spell tied to hers, and we had a solid method of communication between the both of us.

  “I am still pursuing you for two reasons,” I said as calmly as I could. “The first reason is to provide further bait, as my team needed more time to destroy the Pit. The second is that I cannot disengage from you until I gain further information regarding the threat you face, as well as what assistance can still be provided.”

  The angry, graceful, soft-spoken woman was silent as she continued to twist through the wind.

  The distance continued to shrink between the two of us.

  “Oh, no,” Breena said out loud. “Don’t look at me. I’m done being yelled at. You wanted to speak to him yourself. You work it out. And yes, I will say this out loud after we’re done talking.”

  The flying figure ahead of us visibly and tensely flexed, and then resumed its graceful glide.

  “I needed you to go away, so that I could deal with at least two powerful, dangerous hunters that will spell certain death to anyone else caught in their vicinity! But since you refused to do that, I now have to deal with my
two hidden hunters, as well as the leftover Horde you clearly tried to finish off in one go, but did not have the mana to do so! And so, now I have to figure out what to do with a man currently spending the last of his mana chasing after me like a useless idiot, further ruining my plans today to protect and save as many people as possible!”

  I heard the whoosh of flame perhaps a mile or so behind me, and as I turned to see three horse-faced Spawn in black plate armor and wielding heavy swords fly after me, beating wings of green fire.

  A moment later, Anahita provided another comment.

  “Oh, good, look! More pursuers!” Anahita hissed. “It’s practically a party, now! I get to entertain guests, right in the middle of the desert! It’s a good thing I had so much time to prepare, or I might not even look presentable for this event!”

  We should tell her that her voice is hot, Teeth suggested with all the intensity of the horny dragon-teen he was, because she totally deserves to know.

  Stop being a fucking idiot, I said to my inner dragon, and tried to think of what I should say to placate the irate woman.

  “If you want,” I began, speaking aloud as I spoke into the spell, “after you tell me about your other two pursuers—assuming I’m not already familiar with one of them—”

  “It’s totally Cavus,” Breena confided, “or I’m ninety-nine percent sure, based on her description.”

  “After we exchange knowledge, I can fall back and deal with the Horde, giving you more time to escape. Now that they are no longer in danger of activating any further traps, I can deal with the Spawn and other rabble below. I can also perhaps provide a distraction for your other two hunters—”

  “She says she’s not listening anymore,” Breena interrupted.

  I sighed again.

  Screw it, I replied. The Horde won’t stop chasing us, and we can just outlast them if we have to. Let’s just chase after her until she either calms down, or pulls a Merada and tries to kill me.

  That’s hardly a —you know what, fair point, Breena conceded, and we chased after her sister Satellite in silence.

  For her part, she returned our silence a hundred times over, in a way that still managed to impress Teeth, and made me want to throttle him.

  Don’t worry, Wes, Breena said, when this is over, I’ll explain that she’s teasing your dragon too much right now. I’m sure she’ll understand…holy shroom you hate that idea! she exclaimed, apparently reaching into her bond again. Nevermind, glad I checked. Good grief it’s so hard to figure out what to do with that thing. At least we’re catching up to her though!

  Indeed we were. Anahita’s flight was gracefully controlled, and her scarf…cape-wing-thingy apparently helped reduce the mana she spent while flying.

  But we could tell she was still taxed. She hadn’t been at a hundred percent before the assassination, if her exhalations during the Breath were any indication.

  And, while fantastically talented, I thought she didn’t have the same depth in her mana pool that Breena and I had. Combo-ing Saga and Ideal magic barely broke a sweat out of me these days, especially after absorbing all that power from Fragglerock’s construct.

  But she doesn’t know she can lean on me yet, I reminded myself, and then did the one thing I could think of that would make the situation better.

  It would also probably make her even angrier at me, but I’d learned that just came with the territory.

  I flew just fast enough to slowly catch up with her, to preserve my mana pool. Thanks to the regeneration rate from my Blood magic and Wisdom trait, that wasn’t much of a problem.

  But I could tell that she didn’t believe that.

  The dark, golden-skinned woman gave me a furious look as Breena and I pulled up beside her. Now that her scarf had unraveled, I could tell that she had a beautiful face. Her high cheekbones were further emphasized by her narrow chin, but combined with her shining dark eyes, it gave her face a passionate intensity that was hard to look away from.

  Except for right now, because that passion was clearly anger, and clearly directed toward me.

  I met it as best as I could, then purposefully kept pace with her.

  “Fine,” I heard her sigh, her voice riding over the wind to reach me. “You want to try and help? You want to refuse to see reason. Go ahead and stick around. Maybe something can be done.”

  “Thank you,” I said gratefully. “Now, how can we help?”

  “We should continue to lure the Horde away from us until your allies destroy their Pit,” the soft-spoken woman advised. “Once that is done, we should try to kill off as many Hordebeasts still pursuing us as possible, and then make a break for one of the nearby cities—but not Tajam. If either of us somehow survive and retreat to there, it will provoke a much larger retaliation from our invaders.”

  “Noted,” I said, looking behind us. The armored Spawn and Curs were getting closer to us. I thought I could make out glowing green glyphs on the Spawns’ breastplates, and I wondered if they had activated some sort of mass-travel spell.

  At the Pit now, Karim messaged me through the mindlink. Only one Spawn and a handful of Miscreants are here. We’ve already shredded the Miscreants, and Breyn and Eadric are overwhelming the Spawn on their own.

  Glad it’s going so well, I replied, how long do you think you’ll need to destroy the Pit?

  Val’s already on it, the Testifier said, she just needs to…nevermind, it’s done. The Spawn was shocked, but I think Breyn was able to incapacitate him before he figured out what Val had done.

  I felt a surge of power pour into me, double in size, and then half of it poured out and flowed out in the direction I suspected Val to be. I could tell that her successful mission had increased my Wisdom, as well as advanced me further along the Paths of Kings and War.

  “The Pit has been destroyed,” I advised the local Satellite. “My team is currently freeing its former captives. Do you still want to proceed with the killing, or do you need a moment to rest?”

  The beautiful woman’s eyes brightened and widened, showing a strange mix of disbelief and hope. But the next moment, they narrowed at me.

  “I will ask you later how your people were able to destroy the Pit so quickly, cleanly, and easily, while saving its previously doomed captives. But when I said I was fleeing something, I wasn’t referring to the mass of vermin trailing in our wake. You are welcome to rest though, if you need to after that flashy display you performed earlier.”

  “Flashy display—” I cut myself off, but still finished the thought in my mind. Hypocrite.

  Still sounds hot, though, Teeth offered.

  “You know what?” I said next, challenging her in return. “Battle with me, sister.”

  My mind expanded as it reached for Anahita’s. I felt her regard it curiously, then, at urging from a third party that was probably Breena, her own mind opened up and allowed the connection.

  This…Anahita began, her voice echoing like smooth honey in my mind, even in her excitement. This is amazing! I could explain things so much easier this way! Why didn’t we do this from the very beginning?

  I opened my mind a little further, letting her see everything in the past few days that led us to this point, at least on my end.

  Yes, that does make sense…I see…you were not being purposefully obtuse…wait, you responded instantly! Which means you also heard me instantly! How do I keep from sharing something I do not wish to share?

  Oh, don’t worry about that! Breena interjected cheerfully, and Anahita started as she realized that others were in the link. Everyone lets something slip every once in a while with this thing. Especially me!

  But the woman quickly mastered herself.

  No problem, she assured us—and perhaps herself. This is fine. This is useful. This will save lives. I have no issue with using it. Now, let us fight together, Challenger.

  With that, Anahita dipped one wing downward and arced back toward our enemies.

  I grinned, tucked my knees in, then twisted a
nd somersaulted to face backwards, and began following her.

  Breena spiraled around me in a shimmering trail of light, but as we advanced toward the surviving flock of Curs she fluttered away and began casting another spell.

  Thanks to the mindlink, Anahita and I immediately realized what she was doing, and I halted in mid-air to begin my own spell while Anahita slowed down just enough to give us the time we needed.

  Wind whipped around the flying Hordebeasts once again, knocking them about. A few moments later, my Ice spell completed, sending a storm of frozen daggers slicing into my enemy’s wings. The torn, frozen membranes could no longer support flight, so the monsters began tumbling out of the sky—though I knew their vital guards would be working furiously to erase the damage.