The clouds above our heads began to audibly crackle, and as me and Wulfram both ran for shelter, the only thing that didn’t get drowned out in the white noise of the thunderstorm was Fulgir’s war cry. Indiscriminately, bolts of lightning started to pour out from the sky and onto the entire fishing village. Before the storm intensified even further, Wulfram and I managed to hide inside one of the abandoned wooden cabins.

Multiple cracks of thunder ring out second after second, although fortunately, they don’t seem to have converged around the home Wulfram and I hid in. The world outdoors has become a perpetual, blinding white – regardless of their state, both my hands became physically locked in place, shielding my ears from the deafening roar outside. In the meager few moments when the barrage let up, I could see that the fire which had slowly been eating away at Cupram village now blanketed it in its entirety.

The stretches of time between each volley of lightning became longer and longer, as though Fulgir was becoming increasingly more winded. Wulfram waves at me to get my attention, but I can’t hear anything he’s saying; at this point, deafness is not off the table. Very quickly, his expression turns from seriousness to alarm, finally pointing to the ground where I put down the metal arrowhead that pierced me earlier. The ringing in my ears finally begins to pass – just enough to hear a few words Wulfram was yelling at me.

“Hold … close …! … know … coming from!”

Immediately, I clutch the arrowhead in my left hand, but I still don’t know what Wulfram wants from me. I try yelling back.

“What do I do with this?!”

Instead of sounding out the answer, Wulfram gestures a fist with his left hand, and moves it towards his chest. I mimic the movement with the metal tip, and finally, Wulfram nods. What was this for? The tattooist gets up and looks out the window, and then I realize – the deluge of lightning had stopped for much longer than any other gaps before it. After getting up, I carefully creak the door to our cabin open. The dirt road outstretched all the way to the front gate of the fishing village, which itself became engulfed by inferno. I squint to see through the smoke, and gradually, Fulgir’s silhouette materialized therein.

I slam the door, but it’s too late – we’ve made eye contact.

Not even a second passes before all the air is expelled out from my lungs. None of my other senses have registered the tremendous force that’s collided with my chest – in an instant, small explosions of pain erupt across not just my ribs, but the entirety of my back. The only thing I’m able to perceive is the fact that Fulgir has somehow attacked me.

Then, as quickly as it appeared, the pressure on my chest vanishes. Time around me seems to dilate; suddenly, I’m tumbling across the sand like a ragdoll, and only when I stop are my eyes able to piece together what happened. In the blink of an eye, I’ve been dragged out to the far reaches of Cupram village, just by the saltwater bay. Straight ahead, I can see a direct, uninterrupted path cutting right through multiple houses and fences, as though a giant boulder trampled everything in that path. Wulfram was nowhere to be found. Where was Fulgir?

“A pain in the ass ‘till the very end…” My near-deafness made the loud voice sound like a mumble, but I could immediately tell it was the magus. “I try to be cordial, and professional – give you an opportunity to leave right away – and where does that get me?”

I realize that Fulgir was also sprawled out on the beach, and once he’s picked himself back up, I can see him pull an arrowhead out from his torso. I squeeze my left hand, but the metallic tip isn’t there.

My brain begins making connections.

If Fulgir tackled me while running at lightning speed, then even a light prick from something metallic could’ve dispelled his magick. He burst through the door, so he’d have no time to react… If he went from sprinting faster than sound to the speed of a normal human, it’s no wonder he lost his footing. The arrowhead was the only reason I’m still breathing, and while this realization causes a small shiver to run down my spine, I can feel myself becoming desensitized to these life-and-death scenarios.

I try getting up, but my body flat-out refuses. Did I push it too far for too long? The most I can manage is pushing myself upright with both my arms. I feel the grainy sand seep into my wounds, and the pungent odor of whale oil coming from the bay. Wulfram wasn’t going to make it here in time. I look up, and see the lightning magus tower over me.

“You know… he told me I’d be running into mercenaries at some point, and all I needed to do for a weighty bonus was scare you guys off.”

Again, he’s bringing up this ‘he’.

“But then we started to scrap, so I thought ‘alright, let’s just fry him a bit, knock him out...”

The magus grabs me by my neck. I can’t do anything to fight back.

“…and here we are.”

I can feel my windpipe being flattened by his grip.

“Congratulations. You can’t even use magick, and you’ve managed to make killing you worth more to me than a small fortune. I’ll just have to knock the tattooed-one out later.”

Black clouds once again materialized above me. I wasn’t able to focus on the fact that I might die, nor on a potential method of escape. I would’ve expected my life to flash before my eyes, but for some reason, I could only think of something Rum mentioned during our conversation.

“There’s a tiny voice somewhere in your head, and so long as it furthers the voice’s agenda, you’re willing to do anything for it.”

And then, a voice I didn’t feel was my own, spoke using my mouth.

“It’s pathetic… without your precious magick… you can’t even choke me out.”

Fulgir’s grasp didn’t tighten, but the clouds above us began to rumble ominously. Why did I taunt him now? The crackling air causes the hairs across my body to stand at attention, and the corners of my vision begin darkening.

“It doesn’t matter if an ant is the weakest, or strongest of its kind – it cannot do anything against a–”

“…aaaand!”

…What was that?

“Erlaaaand!”

The voice was coming from–

Suddenly, impact.

Fulgir couldn’t have seen it coming, and neither did I. Their speed blurs everything, but I’m still able to register that two horses ran straight past me – one of which collides neck-first with the lightning magus. The 400-kilograms of quadruped causes him to release his chokehold almost instantly, and as I’m falling down onto the ground, a wooden cart that the two stallions were heaving along zips right past me…

…and from the inside of the cart jumps out Rum.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I blurt out.

“Is lightning about to strike?!”

I was still processing the absurdity of the situation.

“You ran… why are you here?”

“Erland! Lightning! Yes or no?!”

“Yes! Any second!”

Rum doesn’t linger for one second longer. She hoists me up with her one hand, and before long, we’re both running in the opposite direction of where the horses were pulling. The whirlwind of thoughts going through my head was too intense for me to focus on any one thing. Why did Rum come back? Was Fulgir still alive after that collision? Why were we running away from the cart? Where did Rum even find–

*BOOM*

The all-too-familiar crack of thunder rang out from behind us, but this time, it was accompanied by a wave of heat that washed over my back. I turn to see a plume of thick smoke erupt from the cart Rum was riding, and a fireball ascending up into the sky.

“What was in that cart?” I asked.

“I rode it straight from the village that the magus got his cannon fodder,” Rum answered in-between heavy breaths, “and there just so happened to be a cart crammed full of whale oil.”

I could feel muscles I didn’t know I had loosening. The two horses Rum brought in managed to shake loose of their reins, and I couldn’t see Fulgir anywhere.

“Did… did we get him?”

For a moment, I disregard every voice of reason and intuition; they were all pushed aside by the thought that we might’ve just killed the lightning magus. My hands began to unclench, but as soon as they did…

*crack*

Another bolt of lightning strikes near the burning debris of the cart, and in the next instant, we both see a far-reaching crevice open up in the seawater bay – waves forming on either side. Myself and Rum both remain silent, but we knew what this meant: the lightning magus was alive, not on fire, and presumably, he just bolted to the opposite side of the bay.

The thought of our fight continuing redoubled every ache I could feel across my body.

“What do we do now?”

Rum glared back at me.

“I did not come all the way back here for you to throw your hands up in the air and call it quits.”

“I’m barely standing upright, Rum.”

“I don’t give pep-talks – if you want one, ask Wulfram. You roped all three of us into this, and I will kill you if you die and straddle us with your debts.”

I’d chuckle if the lower half of my body didn’t feel like it was falling apart.

“You sure you don’t just want to take a risk and run? Maybe the contract magus was a phony too.”

Her expression softened ever so slightly.

“I trust our resident phony in matters of calling bullshit.”

A wry smile meandered across my face.

“Find Wulfram. Tell him to bring arrows, and to find my javelin.”

“Erland, this is stupid.”

All three of us were reunited, and positioned across the sandy coast of the bay. For some reason, Wulfram, who was standing the furthest and safest distance away, was still complaining. Despite the fact that she was thoroughly briefed on everything, Rum promptly joined him.

“I know I was the one who lit a fire under your ass, but surely we can come up with something better than this.”

The number of dissidents was growing.

“Let’s go over everything one more time!”

Fulgir has four applications of his magick, but the most important one right now is his sprint. He’s able to run at a speed faster than what it takes the thunder to reach our ears, but every time he’s done it, a shot of lightning fired off right before the sprint begun. Furthermore, I don’t think he can turn while travelling at that breakneck speed – if he could, me and Wulfram would’ve both been grabbed, or worse, earlier on.

“We’re not really seeing how that conclusion leads to this weird-ass formation,” Rum interjected.

Her and Wulfram were both standing in the sand behind me, either to the left or right. The tattooist was ready to fire an arrow at any second, whereas Rum prepared to throw the javelin dead ahead. Meanwhile, I was standing knee-deep in the seawater, holding out the gatekeeper’s sword at a specific angle.

“Something that’s been bothering me is how Fulgir can even perceive the world around him when he’s running that fast.”

I twist the sword a little more to the right, and continue.

“Magick is all about visualization, right? So how could he visualize running through, for example, a forest, without hitting anything on the way there?”

Rum still seems confused, but Wulfram’s caught on.

“The dead knight in front of the gate…”

“Exactly. I think Fulgir showed up to Cupram village to get a good visual of the path there, not to send a message of anything.”

In other words…

“Unless it’s a short distance, I think the lightning magus can only sprint to places he’s seen before.”

Rum didn’t seem pleased with my rationalization.

“That’s why we’re standing here?! Your plan is to hope this Fulgir guy just… runs into your sword?”

“Rum, at this kind of distance, being even one degree off could end up with him ramming into a rock at full speed. I think he’ll reuse the same path, again.”

Our de-facto javelin thrower stammered, and this time, Wulfram asked a question.

“And how do we know he won’t just dodge everything we throw at him?”

“That’s… the only hair in the soup, really. I’m very much hoping he doesn’t have lightning-fast reaction time too.”

“And if he does?”

“Then I’m very much hoping we’ll survive long enough to worry about it.”

All three of us were dismayed, but the feeling of fervor and anticipation was staving it off.

I didn’t need to tell anyone what the signal was. Everyone’s eyes were transfixed on the horizon.

And then, it flashed.