by DB King
“You already have a weapons tutor, Raphael, namely me,” the elf said, giving him a mischievous wink. “Now put your armor on. We’ve got to get going.”
Raphael sighed as Eliza’s smile vanished.
“I’ll see if I can find a light crossbow to bring along. Maybe I can pick off a few wights with it.” The younger woman nodded and walked away, heading toward another weapon rack.
Fenix approached as Raphael buckled on the individual pieces of his armor.
“Not that I want to defend the elf,” Fenix said, keeping his voice low, “but she didn’t mean any offense to Eliza. We all want her to find her place among us, and if it’s as a noncombatant, so be it, because she will excel at that, too. But she must find it on her own terms. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Raphael nodded. As the war party’s High Captain, it fell to Sylvia to take on and vanquish the mightiest foes. Meanwhile, Fenix obliterated lesser enemies en masse with his battlemagic, and Raphael played the role of the armsman, which was equal parts offense and defense. Together, they were mighty, but they could all stand alone, if necessary, none of them defined by any other within the war party. If Eliza saw worth only in what she could do for Raphael, she would become dependent on and defined by him, which would undoubtedly stunt her growth. She needed to learn what she could do by herself and as herself, first, even if that meant that she eventually might walk a path that kept her from battle.
The armory’s teak door opened then, and Mr. Esposito strode in, several curious-looking belts of dark leather slung over his wrist.
“Hell Drakes,” he called. “The Guild Master has authorized your use of potion belts. I decided to save you a trip to the apothecary and bring you one each, instead. I also saved you from having your ear talked off by Ms. Winter, our apothecary.”
“Oof,” Sylvia grunted. “Bit harsh on ol’ Anja there, aren’t you, Ricardo?”
Mr. Esposito shrugged. “She’s a horrible chatterbox, even by your standards, Sylvia. You know it’s true.”
“Tell her I’ll swing by later with a bottle of wine. And you’d better be there too!” the elf said.
“Wouldn’t miss that for the world.” Mr. Esposito smiled.
Raphael marveled at the cheerful, relaxed demeanor Sylvia coaxed out of the dour-looking Mr. Esposito. It was clear that the two had been close friends for many years, though there was no doubt the elf was far older than the Guild’s clerk.
What would it be like to have friends who would only live a fraction of your lifetime? For Sylvia, wouldn’t it be like her blinking once and then opening her eyes to find them all gone? he thought. And Koshi was, as the passage of historical events suggested, much older than even Sylvia. Raphael glanced at Fenix and Eliza in turn. If I’m a Dragon Knight like Koshi, or that Magus thing, wouldn’t that mean that something similar awaits me?
Eliza caught his eye, then. She picked a small crossbow off a wall spike, slung it over her shoulder, and gave him a thumbs-up before rummaging through a crate of bolts.
“Hey, Raphael. Here’s a potion belt.” Fenix nudged him, holding out one of the belts Mr. Eposito had brought to the armory. “Have you ever used one of these before?”
“No, I haven’t,” Raphael replied, taking the belt from the battlemage and holding it up before him. The belt had an adjustable buckle, but even so, it seemed too small to be worn around the waist, even for someone as slender as Sylvia. Eight small loops ran across its length, each filled with what appeared to be a tiny metal tube. Every metal tube had a colored tip. Two of them were green. Another two were white. The next three were red, blue, and yellow respectively. The last was gray.
“You clip it to your actual belt with the catch on top, then strap it to your thigh. Left or right, it doesn’t matter,” Fenix said, demonstrating by putting on his own potion belt.
Raphael followed suit, only to be surprised by a tiny sting in his flesh as he secured the belt’s buckle.
“It’s a small needle through which potions are dispensed into your body.” Fenix grinned, obviously noticing the uncertain look on Raphael’s face. “Potions used to be drunk, but that’s not easy to do in the heat of battle. Also, a potion’s effects take longer to come into play if it’s got to go through your stomach first. The belt delivers the potion directly into your blood, allowing it to take effect almost immediately.”
Shaking his head, Raphael pushed back his doubts about pouring strange liquids into his bloodstream. After all, didn’t medicine work the same way? “What effects do these potions have?”
“The first two are healing potions. They are the equivalent of an Intermediate Heal spell. The white ones are anti-venoms, capable of clearing most poisons from your system. The next three make you more resistant to fire, frost, and lightning respectively. The last one turns you invisible for a reasonably paced count of twenty, allowing you to retreat or renew your offensive as you see fit,” the battlemage explained. “Just push down on the top of a potion, and the belt will dispense it.”
“Healing potions…” Raphael mused. “With these, I won’t have to cast Lesser Heal so often. All the others sound quite helpful, too.”
“Yes, they are. Just don’t fall too much in love with them, since overusing them can lead to an over-reliance on them. Also, certain potions can have some nasty side effects if used repeatedly over a long period of time,” Sylvia said, approaching. The elf had strapped on a potion belt as well. “To be honest, I never really liked using them, so I usually don’t bother, but things do seem quite dire now. Anyway, going back to the topic of overusing potions, I knew this fellow who had to have a dozen beer potions every day. He never amounted to much except burping and farting.”
“There’s no such thing as beer potions, only beer,” Fenix pointed out. “So that friend of yours was just a drunkard, wasn’t he?”
“Take your wet blanket elsewhere and sit on it, Fenix,” Sylvia snapped, before returning her regard to Raphael. “I should have gone over this with you earlier, but one thing after another kept popping up. It’s about Healing Magic. You remember how I had to use it on Fenix when we were aboard the Sparrow’s Light?”
Raphael nodded. “Yes. He was very badly hurt.”
“Good thing he had such an extremely talented, beautiful, and compassionate elf to put his various body parts together, then!” The elf cackled at the disgruntled look on the battlemage’s face. “But yes, even with Healing Magic of the Highest Order, he still needed a full day of bed rest and even more healing spells after that.”
“I remember. Fenix was still sore and bruised by the time we headed into Vitoria’s woods,” Raphael said.
“The point is, Healing Magic has its limits. There’s only so much of it a body can take within a given span of time.” Sylvia tapped the healing potions on her thigh. “That applies to these, too. Once a body has had its fill of magical healing, neither spells or potions will have any further effect. So tell me, what does this mean when you need to heal someone who’s very badly hurt?”
Raphael thought back to how Sylvia healed Fenix on the Sparrow’s Light. She’d stopped the bleeding from the battlemage’s throat first, then reattached his fingers and nose before mending the shattered fragments of his thigh bones. The rest of the cuts and bruises, all of them fairly severe in themselves, she’d left for the next day.
“I have to make sure the person I’m healing stays alive, and I do this by healing the most grievous injuries first,” he said.
“Exactly. No point regrowing someone’s fingernails when he’s drowning in his own blood because of his punctured lungs. Not like I haven’t not done that before.” Sylvia slapped Raphael heartily across the shoulders before he could ask what her confusingly phrased last sentence actually meant. “Good on you for getting it so quickly. We’ll make an outstanding armsman out of you yet!”
“Thanks, Sylvia,” he said, genuinely grateful. For all of the elf’s erratic and inappropriate behavior, she’d proven repeatedly to be an ear
nest and helpful mentor, striving to guide both Raphael and Fenix while also giving them room to figure out things for themselves.
Eliza walked up to them. She’d strapped on a potion belt as well on her right thigh. A pouch of crossbow bolts hung on her left. She was armed to the teeth. “I’m ready. If everyone else is too, we should go.”
“Step on the armory’s exit dais, and I’ll warp you out of the Guild House,” Mr. Esposito said. “Fortune in battle, war party of the Ninth Seat. Kill for wealth! Slay for glory!”
“I’ll see you in a bit, Ricardo.” Sylvia exchanged a final smile with him.
The war party followed Mr. Esposito’s instructions. He snapped his fingers. Purple light flared. A gust of wind struck Raphael’s face.
And then they were outside the Guild House, under the morning sun. The air was hazy with dust and scented with smoke.
“The southern city gates are our destination,” Sylvia declared. “Let’s go!”
Chapter 25
Raphael felt his heart sinking as the war party raced through the desolated streets of Lucia City. It had been a despairing sight when he was looking down at them from afar through the Guild Master’s window. It was another experience entirely to see the destruction up close.
They passed rows of empty houses, their wooden doors broken or left hanging ajar on creaking hinges and their tiled roofs littered with holes or collapsed entirely. Raphael forced down a lump in his throat as they ran by a pile of smoking rubble that had been the schoolhouse.
I hope Maestro Colombo’s alright. He glanced at Fenix. The battlemage was pale, but his features were calm and resolved. What seemed like a lifetime ago, Raphael had run errands for Nonna Moreno, who was likely Fenix’s grandmother or grandaunt, so he knew that the battlemage’s family lived just beyond the docks, which were a fair distance away from the southern gates. The monsters likely hadn’t been able to reach the Moreno residence before being pushed back by the Hell Drakes.
“Halt!” a King’s guardsman called out to the war party as they turned a corner and began making their way down the final stretch of streets that would take them to the gates. A small group of the soldiers barred their path, forcing the war party to stop. The guardsmen wore skullcaps and breastplates of steel emblazoned with the Royal crest, three roses before an upturned sword.
“State your business!” demanded the guardsman who’d called for the war party to halt.
“More Hell Drakes here to rescue your sorry behinds!” Sylvia replied. “Or don’t you boys recognize me anymore?”
“It’s Sylvia!” a second guardsman shrieked, his voice breaking with horror. “The crazy elf!”
“Hey! It’s not my fault your nerves are so frail, Orlando!” Sylvia protested.
“I spent ten days in the infirmary because of her,” another grumbled. “Still can’t sit right, even after all this time.”
“That’s because you bit off more than you could chew, Fredo!” Sylvia snapped. “With your butt!”
“Be careful of that one, rookie,” a grizzled guardsman said to his fresh-faced fellow. “She’s bad news. Just stay far, far away. Don’t talk to her. Don’t even look her in the eye.”
“Do you want another pair of black eyes, Gerardo?” the elf snarled.
“Just... just let them through,” the first guardsman declared, sighing. “Let the monsters suffer her awfulness, not us.”
“You are awful, Fabio!” Sylvia yelled.
Amid a chorus of “yes, corporal” mutters, relieved sighs, and disgusted groans, the guardsmen stepped aside, leaving the way clear for the war party. Raphael wondered if he should be concerned about what Sylvia had actually done to the King’s soldiers, but he had come to learn that, as with most things concerning the elf, he was probably better off not knowing the details.
The southern gates lay straight ahead, its grand stone arch cracked and covered in scorch marks. As Raphael had seen from the Guild Master’s window, the wooden gates themselves were gone, reduced to broken kindling or charred fragments and scattered all over the dusty ground.
“Something tremendously powerful blasted through them,” he observed.
“I imagine a group of bale-wights acting in concert would be able to pull something off like that,” Fenix said. “For example, Flamebolt might be a spell of the Lowest Order, but when it’s coming from two or three dozen mages casting at the same time, that’s another matter entirely, even more so if they can combine their spells, something that bale-wights have been known to do.”
“We’ve got to eliminate the bale-wights quickly, then, or prevent them from grouping up,” Raphael concluded.
“Stow that discussion for later,” Sylvia said, pointing into the distance as they made their way through the broken gates. “There’s a collection of large tents there, with wagon trails leading to it. That’s probably where our forward base is and where we can find Bjorn.”
Raphael walked by the ruins of his house along the way. It was well and truly leveled. No one would ever live under its thatched roofs or within its zinc walls ever again. The thought infuriated him. The house had been empty, so there was no reason for the monsters to attack it. Yet they had, out of what could only be pure spite. It seems that skeleton warriors and bale-wights aren’t like sanguine treants. The treants were constantly hungry and cared mostly about eating. Skeleton warriors and bale-wights like destroying things just for the sake of it.
He also realized that most of the piles of garbage just before the actual junkyard itself still remained standing. Some had been knocked over and scattered, spilling old wagon parts, worn boots, and rusty barrel rims all over the ground, but these were fewer by far. Perhaps rubbish was the longest lasting testament to civilization’s legacy, Raphael pondered, wondering just how much Maestro Colombo would enjoy discussing such a topic.
I hope they’re all safe. All of them. The Maestro, the shopkeepers, the Sisters, everyone. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, trying to stem the anxiety weighing down his heart. Now that I’m here, I’ll protect them. I’ll find Koshi and stop the monsters.
Approaching the forward base, the war party soon ran into small groups of fellow Hell Drakes resting, eating, or talking among themselves. Raphael was reminded of the time he first set foot into the Hell Drake District within Lucia City. Then, he’d nearly been dazzled by the collection of grizzled mercenary adventurers, clad in armor or robes and bristling with the promise of adventure, as they caroused beneath the night sky. Now, these very same men and women looked grim and fatigued, with many of them swathed in bandages.
Raphael recalled Sylvia’s lesson on the limitations of Healing Magic. They must have been hurt very badly and very often. Things are worse than I’d thought.
The closest group of Hell Drakes turned to the war party as they neared. Among them, Raphael recognized the gigantic man with the red mustache who’d given him directions to the Guild House.
The mustached man gave Sylvia a respectful nod. “Hail, High Captain of the Ninth.”
“Cyrano! It’s been a while,” the elf replied. “How’s it going?”
Cyrano half-turned his massive armored frame to reveal a body on the ground. It was wrapped in a tattered cloak from the thighs up. Judging from the exposed robes, the dead Hell Drake had been a mage.
“We lost Jenna,” he said. “Damned monsters wouldn’t stop coming. We got tired, and one slip-up from her was all it took.”
“You did what you could, Cyrano,” Sylvia clasped him on the shoulder.
“I know,” the mercenary rumbled. “Which is what makes everything worse. How’re we going to win this, High Captain? Our strength dwindles, as do our resources, while the enemy returns over and over, unmarked and unscarred each time. It’s only a matter of time before we run out of arrows, bolts, or slingstones. Then Spell Dust. And then we’ll start running out of blood.”
“Grim as ever, eh? But here’s some good news for you. We can win this, and he’s how.” Sylvia thumbed at Rapha
el over her shoulder.
Cyrano turned his gaze to Raphael, blinked, and then grunted. “Ah. I remember you. The boy that walked into the District, all lost and confused and looking for Sylvia. I see you found her.”
“Yes, sir,” Raphael replied. “Thank you.”
“I’m just Cyrano, an armsman like you.” The huge Hell Drake nodded down to the corpse at his feet. “We’re out a captain at the moment, so rank isn’t relevant at all.”
“Who knows? I might be looking at one right now,” Sylvia said. “Anyway, where’s Bjorn?”
Cyrano pointed at a tent with an orange top. “The High Captain of the Second Seat’s there. Everyone’s been trying to catch their breath after the last wave. It seems to me that the monsters are getting tougher and tougher. Either that, or we’re losing strength faster than expected.”
“Thanks.” Sylvia thumped her fist against Cyrano’s breastplate. “And cheer up! I said we were going to win this.”
“Then let’s do so, High Captain of the Ninth,” Cyrano replied. “My war party and I stand ready for battle. All you need do is direct our wrath.”
Raphael gave Cyrano one last polite nod, for which he received an approving grunt in return, before hurrying off after Sylvia and the rest of the war party. They pushed or squeezed their way past many other Hell Drakes, all clad in a motley collection of armor or robes. Their progress was steady, with the other adventurers moving out of their way as soon as they recognized Sylvia. Soon, they found themselves peeling back the flaps of the orange tent and stepping within.
Surrounded by a ring of robed mages, a tall, bald man with a sweeping gray beard dominated the center of the tent. He wore leather armor that was far more intricate than Raphael’s, every inch of its burnished surface engraved with faintly shimmering runes. The man looked up from his conversation with the mages.
“Sylvia. Good,” he said. “Just heard from the Guild Master about you.”
“Hi, Bjorn.” Sylvia walked forward and clasped her fellow High Captain wrist-to-wrist. “Good to see you.”
