Think. Think! What do I know? What can I assume?
Fulgir is standing roughly five paces away from me. I have to assume he can fry me with a single touch, so this distance is a must. What about lightning bolts? No, if they were in play, he could’ve incinerated me the moment I didn’t stand down. The only magick I have to take a gamble on is his sprinting – if there’s some kind of buffer, or rules he has to follow, then I might not die in the next second.
Fulgir takes a step forward, and…
He didn’t use it!
That just leaves his electrocution magick, which I can deal with using…
Using what? All I have is a dulled gutting knife, and a javelin. My palms sweat. The cheaply-made stick is made entirely of metal – there isn’t anything here designed to be held, let alone thrust. Even compared to a regular sword, the reach advantage the javelin gives me is trivial. I have one shot, and if he so much as grazes me, I’ll turn to ash.
Fulgir takes another step.
Broader. Broader! What else can I use? Obviously, I can throw the javelin, but between its quality and my lack of proficiency… Could I kick up a dirt cloud to hide in? Maybe, but then I wouldn’t see where he’s coming from. Should I run? Yeah, and then get enslaved by that damn Lord and his contract?! If I rammed into his armor, would I be safe from–
Armor?
We’re in Ferroth – the nation of metallurgy – where did the magus even manage to get a set of leather armor? It must’ve been specially made – why? Come to think of it, why doesn’t Fulgir have any weapons? He doesn’t strike me as someone cocky enough to give others handicaps, and he for sure had access to armaments; the men he sent as tinder were each given a halberd…
A metal halberd.
Meanwhile, he doesn’t have anything metal on his person at all. Looking closer, I can’t even see a single nail or stud holding his protective vest together. What if that’s one of the rules? That Fulgir can’t be in contact with metal when using his magick? If the material has a dispelling, or more likely, a channeling effect on lightning, then it’s no wonder why the villagers were forced to carry halberds – that must be how he hit all ten so accurately!
Fulgir takes another step. At this point, the distance between us is just under 3 paces. If I mess up, I could be dead in the next moment.
My thoughts began slowing down. All my focus went towards my muscles.
“Loosen everything. Move from knot to knot of your physical instrument, untying each one as though it were string. Lock eyes with the man who can kill you on a whim, and marvel at your own indifference. Feel the bubbles of air trapped in your skeleton, massaging extremities you didn’t know you had. Ready?”
Ready.
“Let them pop.”
Without tensing any muscles or breaking eye contact, I toss my spear at Fulgir. The throw doesn’t pierce through the air in the direction of the magus – it’s more akin to a clumsy pass with no ill intent behind it. From the corner of my eye, I see bewilderment. Before the metal pole can even reach Fulgir, every individual sinew in my legs tighten simultaneously. I launch myself at the lightning magus, already unsheathing the gutting knife and aiming at his side. The rational thing to do would be to ignore the javelin and grab me before I make contact… but I’m willing to bet you aren’t thinking straight right now, are you Fulgir?
Please work.
Before processing anything else, I feel a firm grip on my right forearm. For a split second, my heart sinks down to my stomach; without being able to control it, I start gasping for air – the exhaustion and stress hitting me all at once. And then I realize… I’m not dead. At my fingertips is the gutting knife, which I just barely managed to drive through Fulgir’s armor and into his. The rusted blade starts sharply crackling with electricity. Then, the sound fades, like a barrel gradually losing all its water. Without releasing his grip, the lightning magus tears the knife out of his side and lets it fall.
“Smartass little prick!”
In one quick motion, I shift my free arm onto the right side of my head. Immediately, I feel as Fulgir’s knuckles dig into my forearm. The force is immense. The sharp pain radiated through my arm, and continued migrating across the left side of my head. All of a sudden, my feet were no longer planted in the ground.
Something was wrong.
I could hear a tremendous crack, but I wasn’t sure whether it was the sound of wood breaking around my body, or my body itself. What even happened? My back must’ve been bruised something awful… Around me I could see furniture and some loose clothes. Did I get launched through the wall of one of the houses..? Where was the lightning–
Duck! DUCK!
Last second, I swerve my head to the right. My gutting knife cuts through the air, landing squarely in the wooden wall where my head was a second ago. Without thinking, I scramble further into the home. My head feels like it’s tearing itself apart… Did Fulgir punch me hard enough to cave in a wooden wall?! What does strength like that even have to do with lightning?
Then, suddenly, a flash of light. The next moment, just before a crack of deafening thunder rang outside, the lightning magus appeared inside of the house – a cloud of sawdust and debris following him indoors. I felt myself becoming hopeless. It took a million-to-one chance to put a cork in his magick, and now, he was ready to use it again.
“I specifically remember telling you I wasn’t huge on the ‘thrill-of-the-battle’ thing,” Fulgir spoke while holding his bleeding side, “but credit where credit is due: you’re the second person to figure out metal’s a part of the mojo.”
I began to scamper further back into the room, desperately trying to stop my head from spinning.
“Before I… y’know. Just tell me this:” the magus stepped closer. “Why didn’t you use any magick when you had me skewered?”
Without even realizing it, I pushed up to the very end of the room. My feet pressed against the wall that was trapping me inside. There wasn’t anywhere left to go.
“I don’t care for battle – it’s just how I make money. But that doesn’t mean I don’t take pride in my work. And to see some… no-name mercenary pass on such a golden opportunity…”
He knelt down just over where I retreated.
“…even I’m surprised at just how much it rubbed me the wrong way.”
An idea flashes before my eyes.
“Fulgir is about to grab you.”
Would I even survive a stunt like that?
“Probably not.”
What’s the best case?
“You survive, and continue the fight.”
And the worst case?
“You die. He loses consciousness. Maybe.”
What if Wulfram misremembered what he told us earlier?
“You trust Wulfram too much to be worried about that.”
…
How much will it hurt?
“Like nothing you’ve ever felt before.”
With all the strength I have left, I push off of the wall towards the lightning magus. Before he has any time to react, I end up on top of Fulgir, hands clasped tightly around his neck.
The pain is indescribable. The skin on my palms feels like it’s boiling. The searing heat began to spread almost instantly across my entire body – each crevice under my skin had sharp quills prickling them from every direction. The headache I already found agonizing amplified to levels I didn’t think possible. And even still, through my rapidly-reddening vision, Fulgir wore a worse expression than my own. Like Wulfram said, the lightning was tightening my muscles, hard. The meat on my fingerbones was nearly tearing itself off from my skeleton, cutting off the magus’ air-supply completely. Fulgir tried prying off my fingers from his throat, but to no avail. I began screaming in an effort to stay conscious.
The entire affair couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. The agonizing shocks stopped. I could feel my muscles loosen their grip over my entire skeleton. For a moment, I became completely limp. In between coughs, and desperate gasps, I could hear Fulgir’s haggard voice.
“Crazy… bastard.”
The lightning magus grabs me by the shirt, and hurls me out of the broken-down home at an incredible speed. Again, I get the impression that time has slowed down around me – while flying through the air, I watch the inferno begin spreading from the palisade to the houses of Cupram village. Even while my body tumbles across the dirt road, I can scarcely feel it. The sound around me feels deadened. Is this the fervor front-line mercenaries sometimes talk about? Somehow, my body still has enough left inside of it to stand me upright, and just in time to face Fulgir, who was still rubbing his neck.
“You… you can't use magick, can you?”
Even if I wanted to respond, balancing on both my legs was taking up too much focus. The magus began to chuckle.
“And here I was, racking my brain over what your ace-in-the-hole would be... Y’know, it was only a few seconds, but I really am surprised you’re still standing.”
I can’t even hear what he’s saying anymore. My eyes have hyper-fixated on a singular detail: his hair wasn’t pointing towards the sky anymore. Does that mean something?
Without forewarning, Fulgir starts sprinting towards me. There isn’t time to analyze! What can I see?
His hair isn’t standing anymore. His muscles look normal, even though his strength and speed are anything but. His chest wound is still bleeding. A bruise is forming around his neck. The hairs on his arms are…
Standing?
Fulgir swings a right hook straight at me, but the only part I can see are the hairs on his arm. It’s not just his arm - each micromovement of his body is forecast by the corresponding hairs suddenly standing at attention. Even with my distorted perception of time, the hook is moving too fast for any human to react to it. But I can see it before even Fulgir does.
Front shoulder muscle. Right triceps. Top right area of the ribcage. Left hip. It’s as if the lightning magus had become a wooden marionette, and I’m observing which pieces the string is pulling at.
My knees give out instantaneously, dodging right under Fulgir’s right hook. Before he can re-adjust, I slam my fist straight into his chest – exactly where my knife dug in earlier. The magus winces in pain, and steps back.
“What the fuck?”
He tries one more time. Biceps. Top of his chest. Hairs on the back of his neck, so… right shoulder blade. Right side of his abdomen.
I weave to the left before his uppercut has even been realized, and sucker punch him straight in his wide-eyed face.
Same muscles as the first time – another right hook. I dodge right underneath his fist, but this time. I don’t see any new hairs standing upright. I don’t realize in time that there isn’t anything stopping Fulgir from using his legs. His sweep is just as fast, and just as absurdly strong as all of his other attacks. I try to roll away from the ground on which I fell, but the lightning magus manages to snag me in a chokehold. I desperately try clawing at Fulgir’s face, biting his arm as hard as I can, but he doesn’t let up.
“Oooh, and you were just getting into the swing of things…”
I shovel handfuls of dirt behind me, trying as hard as possible to break out of the hold. Thunderclouds begin to roll in directly above us.
“Tell me, what’s the plan of attack here? Or are you just planning to grab my neck again?”
I desperately search for something, anything to leverage. I can’t die without wiping his smug grin off his face.
Come on. Come on!
Finally, a familiar voice calls to me.
“RIGHT SIDE!”
With all my remaining strength, I heave myself and the lightning magus ever so slightly to the right. The archer’s line of fire is cleared. The whistle of an arrow cutting through the air rings out, followed by a sweet, blood-curdling scream. For a moment, Fulgir released his grip over my neck, and that was opportunity enough.
Wulfram was here.
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