The man with one arm laughed, and the others laughed with him.
This man really is just like Cardin, Maziar sneered internally. Really thinks he’s something.
“I don’t think you’re quite taking this seriously enough, boy,” he said, pointing his sword at Maziar.
War stepped up to Maziar’s side as an offer to help, but Maziar shook his head.
He wanted to do this alone—at least until he couldn’t. Hitting Cardin would have been more trouble than it was worth—but these men? Bandits?
That was doing society a favor, wasn't it?
Plus, who could they talk to that would believe anything they had to say?
Grinning, Maziar took his stance and shrugged. “Take it as you like,” he said. “But I was looking for something to hit. Your face already looks like it’s been used as a punching bag a few times. How fortunate.”
“Are you trying to bait me?” the man asked, almost impressed. “Hear that, men? This little brat thinks he’s something! Look at you, in the face of all my men, and you still have the balls to taunt us! Not bad—not bad at all—it’s too bad you have to die.”
“We’ll see about that,” Maziar said, but before he could finish his sentence, the man’s blade came flying at him.
Maziar waited till he knew where it was going to sidestep and parry. The blades struck one another with a sharp clatter as they exchanged blows, one after another. He had to hand it to the man—he wasn’t bad. At all.
Panting, the man fell back after a few blows and started giving non-vocal commands to his men. Maziar’s eyes darted between two of the men closest to him as they closed in on him—one with dark brown hair in leather, and another, a blonde one in a deep green gambeson. Both had swords, and the one in leather had a sturdy round shield with a fox painted on it.
Though they posed an immediate threat, the last thing he needed was to be blindsided by the others, so after blocking their initial assault, Maziar fell back towards War and scanned the area.
There was an archer behind them in tattered, red and orange patterned cloth who raised his bow, arrow nocked as he pulled the string back to aim.
There were roughly three others—a large darker-skinned man with black hair and amber eyes with a hatchet who stood on the edge of the foliage, another archer who’d yet to take aim to his right, and a skinny gray-eyed boy with a lute on his back was trying to lead War away by the reins behind him.
That was going well for him—not.
War steadfastly stood at Maziar’s back, watching just as close as Maziar was, but obeying Maziar’s wish to handle them alone.
Understanding all the pieces on the board, Maziar smirked and settled his feet into position.
The one-armed man seemed to better understand the fact that Maziar wasn’t going to accept death quietly and said, “Get him.”
The two swordsmen rushed forward. Deciding he had a better chance of disabling the man without the shield first, Maziar eyed the right, targeting the man in the green gambeson.
The man in leather swung at him first, slashing downward, then taking a step back to raise his shield up. Almost in tandem, the man in the gambeson sliced across, about where Maziar’s head should have been.
Maziar leaned to the left and bent back just enough to watch the blade cut through the air. The man in the gambeson followed up with another quick slash that Maziar caught with his sword and rode the edge down to the hilt. The man grunted as he pressed, but Maziar pushed his weight forward and up, catching the man in the face with his elbow.
The man in the gambeson yowled as he retreated back a few steps. The one with the shield then came at Maziar recklessly, sword raised high above his head. The gesture was so large it was easy for Maziar to block high, so he kicked the man in the chest so hard he went flying back onto his ass.
As he was about to pursue, War whinnied a warning just before an arrow went plummeting into the ground beside Maziar’s feet.
“Hey, now,” the skinny gray-eyed boy with the lute was saying urgently to War’s uncaring face. “Why won’t you just come with me?”
Another whinny as War’s head bobbed, and Maziar noticed the second archer had his arrow nocked now.
Tsk-ing, Maziar’s attention divided four ways as he left War to handle himself.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” the one-armed leader said, raising his sword. “Kill him and take the damn horse!”
The swordsmen charged again, and Maziar was doing all he could to dodge, parry, and keep track of the archers.
This isn’t great, Maziar admitted to himself as he dodged another arrow. They were getting uncomfortably close to hitting War, and he realized that their aim was only so terrible because in their eyes, War was just another valuable asset. What they saw wasn’t an errant fae shapeshifter but a destrier—and a destrier like him would have cost a knight a year’s worth of a commoner’s salary.
“He’s too close to the damn horse,” the archer that was in treelines said, stepping up beside the leader. “Push him out of the way!”
The order created a pause in the combat, and Maziar took the chance to create a small magic circle of mana in the palm of his free hand, and another on his sword. He could feel War’s eyes boring into him as he pulled from the small pool of magic he’d saved up—but it was better for him to do that than die like the kind of idiot Cardin Zyers and the others thought he was.
The man in leather’s sword swung at him again, but this time Maziar caught it with his hand. The blade bit into his flesh, but with just a small, calculated burst of magic, the steel shattered to the hilt.
Wide-eyed, the man immediately backed off at the display of new force—but the other man hadn’t yet noticed his companion’s predicament. Still concentrating on the circle on his bloodied hand, Maziar grabbed the other man’s sword as well. Cutting from above, it struck him even harder. Maziar winced but pulled it towards him, throwing the man off-balance and allowing him to slice at his opponent’s chest with his own blade, covered in magic.
While the gambeson absorbed much of the cut itself, it did nothing to stop the spell from melting the linen and cotton to his flesh.
As the man cried out and tried to pull back, Maziar shattered that man’s blade as well, and staggered back again towards War as he favored his injured hand. Blood dripped down his fingers, dripping onto the ground at a steady pace.
“He’s a damn Tower monster,” the man in leather spat. The leader tossed him his sword as the man in gambeson limped behind them with a look of horror clear across his face. “I told you this was too close to the Tower!”
“Relax,” the leader said, opening his hand and generating a circle of his own. “Tower or not, it’s not like he’s the only one that can use magic. Stand back. Aerin!”
The man with the lute nervously looked between War and the leader, but backed off just the same.
Maziar’s eyes narrowed as he read the formations etched into the air.
It was a fireball spell.
Shit, Maziar swore, thrusting his sword into the ground and kneeling beside it. There was no running, so the only thing he could do was take it. War pawed at the ground, and Maziar could feel how desperately he wanted to override Maziar’s orders—but not yet.
Not yet.
I can do this, thought Maziar, grasping the green gem that hung around his neck and using it to pull in his physical and mental magics to support what little he had left. I can still win. I can win, and I can live.
Fireball was a powerful spell, but judging from both the size and design of the circle, the leader wasn’t the most proficient caster—and he certainly wasn’t a wizard or a magician.
War laid down next to him as close as he could to ease the burden. He began carefully inscribing the formations necessary to encircle himself and War. It had to be tight. It had to be clean. It had to be perfect. That was the only way.
The circle that the leader created began to glow red. The formations within began to spin like clockwork as the energy built within it.
Maziar finished his circle just as the energy in the leader’s broke, hurling a fiery inferno towards them. The flames crashed into Maziar’s barrier with a flash of light, the flames licking the sides all the way to the ground. All his focus and energy poured into maintaining the shield, Maziar wavered. War leaned against him for support.
Finally, the fire died down, and Maziar collapsed, letting the barrier circle break.
Before Maziar had a chance to be relieved, however—before he even had the chance to find the strength to stand back up—an arrow came flying into Maziar’s shoulder.
Crying out through gritted teeth, Mazier grabbed the arrow and fell forward.
“Now, that’s better, inn’t it?” the leader said as the bandits pulled in closer to surround them. “Wouldn’t have been much easier if you just surrendered to your fate in the first place.”
Pathetic, Maziar thought to himself as his vision blurred. He could barely move his right hand at all. He’d lost too much blood and too much mana.
So that was all he had left?
No.
Glaring at them, he grabbed his sword and staggered up.
The men laughed and pointed at him, just like Cardin.
But before Maziar found the strength to lift his sword once more, a ripple of mana spilled out from behind him.
Panic was the first reaction. It was everyone’s first reaction.
One did not simply affect the mana of the world around them.
Maziar felt War stand behind him, and he knew.
A dizzying ebb flowed from the base of the ground on which War stood. Understanding what was about to happen, Maziar broke the arrow in his shoulder in half and stumbled back into War’s saddle.
The bandits turned to one other, flinching as if something was ringing in their ears too loud to be ignored.
Gripping the hair of War’s mane, Maziar said, “You didn’t need to step in. I had everything under control.”
“Sure,” War said. “Let’s say that and let me finish it anyway.”
With Maziar safe on his saddle, War pawed the ground, and the dirt road turned black; a horrid, rancid smell filled the air. It spread across the ground, eating everything it touched.
The bandits watched it with great uncertainty. They stepped back, further and further away from the invading blackness.
It was the man in leather who decided to touch it with his boot. The black ate the boot, which began to melt, and then it crawled up to his pants.
He began to scream as if he’d touched fire. The black consumed his foot, and his leg began to rot right along with it.
“N-No!” The injured man in the green gambeson cried, reaching for his friend—but the man with the ax pulled him back and held him so tight by the arm his knuckles were white.
“What magic is this?” Maziar heard the man with the ax ask the leader in a harsh tone. “We didn’t sign up for this!”
The leader had no answer for this.
He wouldn’t—for this was not magic of Gaiuel.
This was fae magic.
Maziar swallowed as he watched what happened when you angered War.
They fell back, further and further, but it was too late for the man in leather. In seconds the black had taken his leg, and then his other leg, and by that time it was too late. The others watched him as he screamed, writhing with what little life he had left until his body burned to soup and bones on the rotting ground.
“R-Run,” one of the archers said, and bolted into the woods. Gulping, the others escaped into the woods.
The black encroached on the forest line in pursuit, and the plants and trees began to wither away.
“Don’t,” Maziar commanded in a rough voice. “That’s enough.”
“They would have killed you.”
“But we don’t need to be like them,” Maziar said, turning War’s head in the direction of the Tower. “Let’s go home.”
Comments (8)
See all