Two Necromancers, a Dwarf Kingdom, and a Sky City

by L. G. Estrella

  “Are you serious? You’re going to throw fire at me? Me? Where have you been?” She gestured at the fire consuming large sections of the compound. He must have realised his mistake because he tried to scuttle back into the building. She growled, and her attack melted him and one corner of the building.

  “Dumb bastard,” Avraniel muttered. Her brows furrowed. “Hmm… am I getting stronger, or is everybody getting weaker?”

  In the decades prior to meeting Timmy – and getting whacked over the head by a shovel – she hadn’t really exerted herself all that much when fighting. That had changed. Sure, she didn’t fight powerful opponents on every mission, but she usually ran into at least one or two who weren’t completely hopeless. And even if she didn’t fight any strong opponents, she was almost always tasked with crowd control. If magic was like a muscle, she was finally beginning to get some regular exercise. She grinned. If she could get a pardon and get stronger while robbing her enemies, she wasn’t going to complain about her good fortune. No. She’d had plenty of bad luck over the years. She was due for some good fortune. “Look out world,” she drawled. “Because here I come.”

  The building that housed the treasury was – surprise, surprise – absolutely bristling with magical defences. On one hand, that was pretty damn annoying. She’d been hoping to walk straight in, so she could begin blasting away and looting. On the other hand, it was also a good sign. Nobody would use this sort of magic to defend an empty treasury. Her first attack was answered by a brilliant display of emerald and sapphire light as a barrier rippled into existence to ward off her flames. She frowned. She wasn’t an expert in barriers like the idiot, but she’d learned a lot from watching him. She’d even borrowed some books about barriers from the twerp. She might be powerful, but what had happened to the vampire was a perfect example of how even someone powerful could be captured and imprisoned under the right circumstances.

  A sufficiently strong barrier might be one of the only ways to keep her locked up, and she wasn’t about to give up her freedom without a fight. Studying might not be her favourite thing to do in the world, but she couldn’t afford to leave herself so vulnerable. Her second attack was weaker, but it was supposed to be. As the attack hit, she focused on her eyes and deepened her magical perception. As an extraordinarily powerful elf, her ability to perceive magic was well beyond what most human mages were capable of. It was possible that only the people eater and Spot could see magic more clearly than her when she was this focused.

  Despite her best efforts, the details of the barrier were still a bit fuzzy. However, she took careful note of the areas where the flow of magic was denser, as well as the way magic flowed from place to place. Those must be the anchors. If she’d interpreted the books she’d borrowed correctly – and if what she’d seen of Timmy in action was anything to go by – then her best chance of bringing the barrier down was to concentrate its power somewhere else and then hit the anchors hard and fast enough to destroy them before the barrier could adjust. A damaged or destroyed anchor might not bring down the barrier immediately, but her next attack would if it was big enough. Most people wouldn’t have been able to generate a big enough attack on their own, but Avraniel wasn’t most people.

  Avraniel drew on her magic again. The flames around her brightened from smouldering orange to blinding white. She smirked and pointed with one hand. The blast struck the top of the barrier, and the air was once again bathed in brilliant shades of blue and green. Her fire raged against the magical bulwark, and the barrier hardened, growing more and more opaque and solid as it fought to ward off the assault. Her next attack was a needle-thin lance of pure heat aimed near the base of the barrier where it had begun to thin as more and more power was redirected toward the top where her first attack had hit. The lance pierced through the barrier and struck one of the anchors. The anchor melted, and the flow of magic throughout the barrier grew wild and choppy.

  “That’s more like it.” Avraniel clenched one fist. “Let’s see how you handle this.”

  Her next attack was the biggest one yet. The shockwave it produced threatened to rip Bramante off her shoulder. The rat squeaked in alarm and dug his claws into her cloak as the remaining anchors struggled and failed to manage the increased load. The barrier shattered like glass, and she laughed in delight.

  “Not bad… not bad at all.” Avraniel waved one hand at the front doors and blew them off their hinges. “I might have to pick on the twerp a little less when we get back home.” She pointed at some of the rats. “Stay out here. I do not want anyone sneaking up on me. If anyone does get past you, it won’t be fried snake on the menu tomorrow – it’ll be fried rat.”

  The rodents in question chortled and took up their positions, some hiding behind debris while others hid amongst the charred bodies scattered throughout the area. They were confident little bastards, weren’t they? Her lips curled. They were lucky she liked them. Otherwise, they really would end up on the menu. On her shoulder, Bramante took careful note of their surroundings as they entered the building.

  “Yeah,” she muttered. “This guy is rich, all right. Unless he blew all of his money on the foyer, there should be plenty of good stuff in the treasury.”

  The fine marble floor and the intricate sculptures that greeted them in the foyer were good signs. If Gerald were there, she’d have asked him to pocket the statues. They had to be worth a decent price, and the paintings hanging on the walls weren’t half bad either. She’d have to be careful about accidentally burning those. She might not have liked them, but there were plenty of people who’d pay good money for crap like that.

  Naturally, that was when someone leapt out into the open to spoil her fun. He was dressed entirely in black, so her first thought was that he was an assassin of some kind. But what kind of assassin leapt out into the open? The answer was obvious: a stupid one.

  “Halt!” the darkly clad man cried, holding up one hand. All she could see of him were his eyes, which were a bloody, unnatural crimson. Was he a vampire? She reached out with her magic and senses. He was definitely cooler than a human or an elf would be. “You shall go no further, villain!”

  “Really?” Avraniel pointed over her shoulder. “Did you not see what happened outside, or did you maybe miss the bit where I blew up your barrier? Give me all of your treasure, and I might let you run while you still can.”

  “Hah! You have no hope of defeating me! Brute force is no match for exquisite skill!”

  To Avraniel’s utter disbelief, the vampire actually struck a pose. Son of a bitch – it was worse than the poses Spot sometimes caught the twerp practicing in the mirror in a bid to look more menacing. Sure, she didn’t mind Spot going to the twerp for stories or lessons, but if he started posing, she was not going to be happy. Posing was for chumps, especially posing before a fight. If you absolutely had to pose, why not win the fight first? Besides, Spot was a dragon. Give him a few years, and he’d be absolutely terrifying without having to lift so much as a single claw.

  “I am the Great Reaping Wind!” the vampire cried, throwing himself into what Avraniel had to admit was an impressive series of flips and tumbles. The bastard might be stupid, but he was agile. “No foe has ever escaped me, for I am the greatest assassin in these broken, war-torn lands.” He struck one more pose and jabbed one finger at her. “Consider yourself honoured to fall…” He clenched his fist and struck his chest. “At my hands!” He paused and looked at her meaningfully. She stared back. He raised one eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to do anything?”

  “Okay. Yeah. Whatever. I am not posing.” Avraniel shrugged. “I’m in a hurry, so are you going to fight, or are you going to just stand there and pose?”

  The Great Reaping Wind tensed at the insult – and at her refusal to engage in a posing battle – and then blurred into motion, his every movement enhanced by centuries of relentless training with the vampire monks of the eastern lands. With speed so great that Avraniel couldn’t hope to react in time, he rushed forwar
d. Dozens of wind blades sprang to life around him, and before she could take even a single step, she was cruelly cut down, her body sliced into hundreds of pieces as the rodents that had accompanied her were reduced to clouds of blood and gore. Skidding to a stop behind her, the Great Reaping Wind struck his legendary victory pose, one arm extended up and back, his head lowered into the crook of his other elbow, and his knees slightly bent.

  Once again, victory was his.

  At least, that was what was supposed to happen.

  What actually happened was rather different.

  Unfortunately for the Great Reaping Wind, Avraniel had sparred against Old Man plenty of times. Despite his age, the old codger was unbelievably fast, even without his magic. With his magic, he could not only teleport but also move so fast that he might as well have been teleporting anyway. The Massive Reaping Idiot was fast, but not nearly as fast as Old Man was when the swordsman decided to pour on the speed. As he rushed forward, she raised one finger and pointed. A beam of immensely concentrated fire lanced toward his heart.

  His eyes widened in shock, but he wasn’t able to stop himself. The attack pierced right through the storm of wind blades raging around him. As a vampire – and not an ancient one like the people eater – the effects of having his heart incinerated were both immediate and impressive. By the time he reached her, his winds had dissipated, and he was already disintegrating. A few seconds later, there was nothing left of him except ash scattering on the breeze.

  Bramante snickered.

  “Yeah, he was a dumb ass.” Avraniel rolled her eyes. His wind magic had been quite powerful. If he’d ambushed her and struck with all of his strength, he might actually have been able to do some damage. He must have gotten used to fighting weak people he could beat in a straight up fight. The whole point of being an assassin was to get people when they weren’t expecting it. Any assassin who had to charge at their target was crap at their job. “Let’s keep going. Hopefully, he’s the last idiot we run into.”

  She was both right and wrong.

  They did run into someone else, but he wasn’t as big of an idiot as the Great Reaping Wind. Of course, he was also the sort of person to verbally capitalise a ridiculous title instead of using his own name or at least something sensible.

  “So… you defeated the Great Reaping Wind?”

  The man on the opposite end of the hall had a bow. She’d managed to dodge his first shot, but he’d come very close to hitting her. If she’d relied solely on her flames to ward off the blow instead of dodging, he could have done some real damage. His arrow had been wrapped in several layers of powerful corrosive magic. A single hit might not have killed her, but it would not have been a pleasant experience. She might have been forced to incinerate the affected area to protect the rest of her body. It was at times like this that she appreciated Spot’s resilience. The young dragon could simply have waddled forward without a care in the world. Corrosive magic had about as much chance of harming a corruption dragon as a campfire had of harming an inferno dragon. It just wasn’t going to work.

  “I see… you must have some skill, and that was a most capable evasion. But prepare yourself! You now face the Master of Archery… the Great Dissolving Arrow! You may be an elf, but you are no match for my prowess!”

  “…” Avraniel’s eye twitched. She might not like her fellow elves – they were a bunch of tree-hugging bastards – but even she had to admit that elves, as a whole, were very good at archery. She wasn’t about let this dumb ass get away with thinking he was better than her. He launched another arrow at her, and she rolled to the side. As she got back to her feet, she drew her bow and loosed several arrows in quick succession while her opponent continued to rattle off threats. The Great dissolving Arrow found himself pinned to the wall with arrows through his shoulders, wrists, and legs. “And here I thought you might be less stupid than the other guy. The only thing you got right was trying to hit me the second I walked through the door, but are you really claiming you’re better with a bow than an elf? No wonder you work for a criminal. No one else would be dumb enough to believe that crap.”

  “How dare you!” the Great Dissolving Arrow retorted. “I was in the middle of my speech! It’s not polite to attack people while they’re talking!”

  “I didn’t want to be standing here all night, and politeness doesn’t matter when you’re trying to kill each other.” Avraniel glanced at one of the ninja rats, and the rodent knocked the man out with several precise strikes before summoning a creature made of rock to cart him off. She had no problems with killing people, but this guy might be worth more alive than dead. If nothing else, she could search him later to see if he had anything good on him. If he was as great an archer as he claimed, he should have some decent equipment. “What a dumb ass.”

  Shaking her head, Avraniel pressed on only to be confronted by yet another idiot. Where did they find these people? Was there a farm somewhere that grew idiots and shipped them to crime lords? If there was, then she needed to find it, so she could torch the place.

  “I, the Great Raging Fist, salute you for having the skill to defeat my comrades, but know that you could never hope to defeat me!”

  Avraniel rolled her shoulders and smirked. A fistfight sounded kind of fun. Hopefully, this idiot wouldn’t disappoint. He was certainly big enough to be a hand-to-hand combat specialist. He had to be a shade over seven feet tall with arms like tree trunks and shoulders so broad she wondered if he could fit through a regular door without turning sideways. “Yeah. Whatever. Less talking and more fighting.”

  He shifted into his stance and then sprang forward to throw a punch straight at her solar plexus. Magic curled around his fist, and she stepped back to avoid the attack. His lips curled, and the air between them shattered. The sudden blast hurled her back, and the flames trailing in her wake wavered for a moment before strengthening again as she flipped to land on her feet. She skidded for almost a dozen feet before coming to a stop. Her eyes gleamed. Not bad. That shockwave – had it been compressed air? No. She would have taken more damage if he’d been able to direct compressed air straight at her at such close range. It hadn’t been wind magic either. It felt more like he’d shattered or exploded the air itself. Not bad. That was powerful, and if he could shatter or explode other things he touched, then it was no wonder he was so confident about his chances in hand-to-hand combat. She didn’t know if he could use it on people, but she’d have to assume he could even if her mantle of flames should be strong enough to ward it off. It would suck losing a limb to one of these idiots.

  “You’re quick.” The Great Raging Fist took up his stance again. “Few have the skills to avoid my first strike, but simply avoiding my blows will not spare you from their force.”

  Avraniel wasn’t famous for her hand-to-hand combat skills since most of her opponents either ended up as ashes or with an arrow through one of their eyes. What few people realised was how much her magic had grown since her childhood. Back then, she’d been forced to fight barehanded quite often to conserve her magic and to keep from being detected by the trackers the elves sent after her. Setting people on fire was much easier than pummelling them, but even a crap tracker would be able to follow scorch marks and explosions. Since she’d lived alone, she hadn’t been able to waste her magic – at least not until she’d gotten stronger – because she wouldn’t have anyone around to help her if she ran out. As a result, she’d gotten very good at fighting barehanded, and she’d eventually found people to give her more formal training as well, albeit for the right price.

  She’d hated parting with her hard-earned money, but she wasn’t stupid. In a world where the only person she could trust or rely on was herself, anything that made her stronger or more capable was a sound investment. She was not going to get captured because someone managed to get close to her and she didn’t know how to fight properly.

  The Great Raging Fist advanced, and she ducked and dove around a storm of blows, ever mindful of the shockwav
es he could create. He was very fast for a man of his size, and even without his magic to enhance his blows, he would have done a lot of damage if he’d managed to connect. His style reminded her of some of the warrior monks she’d encountered over the years. Either he’d been trained by one of them, or he was a warrior monk who’d left his order. As another shockwave threw her back, a small smile slipped across her lips. He’d been doing his best to kill her for several minutes now, but so far, the only thing he’d managed to do was to throw her back a few times.

  More importantly, she’d had time to study his magic. It might be highly destructive, but it took time to use. If she sharpened her senses enough, she could tell which limb he was going to attack with since he had to concentrate his magic around it beforehand. Moreover, he seemed to favour larger, more powerful blows, which was a mistake. With magic like his, even a glancing blow would have been potentially deadly. He should have focused on a style that favoured speed and precision. He might even have been better off hiding his magic and taking a hit on purpose, so he could land one of his own since a single blow could easily end the fight in his favour. He must have developed his magic later in life after he’d already begun to focus on strength and power.

  It was actually something she was working on with Spot. Once he had worked out how strong his enemies were, he needed to stop wasting valuable energy on overkill. Sure, a full strength swipe from his claws could turn an average soldier into a cloud of gore, but he didn’t need to go that far. A casual swipe would save energy and still rip any normal person into several pieces. It might not matter immediately, but against enough opponents, the difference would eventually add up. When he got older, Spot would have essentially limitless stamina. Adult dragons almost never got tired. But right now, he was still a young dragon, and although his stamina was impressive, it was far from limitless. The last thing she wanted was for him to get exhausted in the middle of a big fight. He might get hurt or even killed if he wasn’t careful.