by Logan Jacobs
Seoc scooped the halfling up and held him in the air by one leg while Dehn cursed and twisted and lashed out at his captor with his weapons.
Lavinia didn’t bother with any kind of warning, and a second after Seoc had lifted Dehn off the ground, an arrow pierced his wrist and he cried out in pain as he dropped the halfling.
Inry put his fingers to his lips and gave a sharp whistle, and at the leader’s signal, the other doors that led off from the room opened, and the rest of the Shrikes poured into the room. There were about fifteen of them in all, elves, hobgoblins, ladonae, even a dwarf, and I recognized the wiry black fur of a puca as it darted between their legs. When Merlin saw it, he arched his back and hissed.
Then I realized something even more troubling.
Though most of the bandits were armed with daggers or bows, at least, nearly a third of them were mages, judging by their mana. I didn’t have much time to think about what that meant for me, however, because Dehn was back on his feet.
The halfling charged at Seoc again. The hobgoblin was preoccupied with getting the arrow out of his wrist, and Dehn took advantage of his distraction to bury his axe in Seoc’s foot.
As the hobgoblin roared in pain and stumbled back, he collided with another of the Shrikes, who panicked and fired his crossbow. The bolt whistled as it sailed toward us, but Maruk was prepared and caught it in his shield as he moved into a defensive position in front of our group.
Lavinia was quick to retaliate with a shot of her own that took out one of the elven bandits, and the room erupted into pandemonium.
Merlin sprang from my shoulder and into the crowd in pursuit of the rival puca, his hackles fluffed up. Just then, I heard a swell of noise like a whirlpool and turned just in time to counter the spell of a ladona mage before he could finish casting it. I closed my hand into a fist, and the blue-green light of his mana dipped sharply. The mage coughed and clutched at his chest as he staggered back, eyes wide. A heartbeat later, a fireball sailed over my shoulder and struck him full-on in the chest, and he screamed and flailed as the magic flames erupted over his body.
I whirled and caught Emeline’s eye, and the panthera woman grinned and nodded to me before she turned and punched an advancing bandit in the face with a flame-covered fist.
Arrows and bursts of magic fire flew from every direction, and in such close quarters, it was almost impossible to keep track of anything. I glimpsed Merlin and the other puca, in more or less their usual forms except that they both had wings as they tumbled through the air, yowling and spitting like alley cats.
On my left, an elf with a pair of daggers lunged for me. I stepped back just in time to avoid a knife in the chest, but I then I was backed up against the thorny wall of the room. The elf spun with expert grace and lashed out at me again, and I did the only thing I could think to do. I ducked, and the elf’s dagger plunged into the wall where my neck had been a second earlier. Before the bandit could pull his weapon free, I kicked at his shin and he fell to one knee with a grunt of pain.
I unsheathed my own dagger and summoned the mana blade to it as I rolled out from between the elf and the wall of thorns, but before I could strike, the elf turned and kicked out at me. Whether through skill or simple luck, his boot connected with my hand, and my dagger went flying.
I scrambled back and as I did, I threw my hand up and summoned an illusory clone between myself and my opponent. While the elf grappled with the clone, I tried to see where my dagger had fallen. I caught sight of the silvery hilt next to an overturned wooden stool and lunged for it, but just as I did, the elf grabbed me by the ankle and tried to haul me back. With my free leg, I aimed a kick for his face, and I felt the bones of his nose crunch beneath the heel of my boot.
The elf released my ankle, and my fingers closed around the hilt of my dagger just as I was hauled into the air by the collar of my shirt. I slashed back with the dagger, but whoever had grabbed me held me just out of stabbing range. I twisted and caught a glimpse of Manas’ purple tattoos as the hobgoblin made to wrap one muscular arm around my throat.
He didn’t get that far, though, before a vial full of bright blue-green fluid smashed in his face. As soon as it was exposed to the air, it caught fire, and the hobgoblin screamed and dropped me as he pawed at his burning face.
I smacked at the shoulder of my cloak where some of the liquid had splashed onto me to smother the flames, and I heard Lena shout an apology from somewhere in the crowd.
Manas stumbled back and the other Shrikes scrambled to get out of the way as the green flames spread over his body. I could smell the fluid still, and the odor was sharp and chemical, like antiseptic mixed with gasoline. Whatever it was, Manas’ frantic beating wasn’t putting it out.
One of the Shrikes’ other mages started to cast a spell, a water spell of some kind, judging by the color of the mage’s mana, to put it out, but I raised my hand and quelled his mana before it even reached his hand. The mage looked startled and stared at his palms, and I cast a mana clone of myself, complete with dagger, behind him. The clone plunged its dagger between the mage’s shoulder blades and both the mage, and the clone exploded in a shower of blue sparks.
The other nearby Shrikes screamed as raw mana rained down on them, but there was nowhere to run. The mana burned through their clothes and scalded their skin. The smell of scorched flesh was sharp in my nose.
“Gabriel, duck!” Lavinia shouted from behind me, and I complied without hesitation. A second later, a volley of arrows arched over my head and struck four of the Shrikes through their throats and eye sockets.
It was hardly any easier now to make sense of the room than when the fight had first begun. The table and couch where we’d first found Seoc and Manas had been smashed to kindling, part of the thorn wall was on fire, and the air was thick with arrows and frantically cast spells, but I determined that we still had about six opponents still standing. Seoc and Inry were among them. The hobgoblin was trying to fend off a double-assault from Dehn and Aerin, so I focused my attention on the mage at the other end of the room, but I wasn’t the only one who was trying to take him down.
Maruk’s mana flared as he charged at the Shrikes’ leader, but Inry’s mana was even brighter as it coursed down the elf’s arm, and he finished casting a spell. The stone floor beneath Maruk split open like someone had taken a jackhammer to it, and the orc stumbled and fell to his knees.
There was a sharp whistle from my left, and I ducked instinctively as one of Emeline’s fireballs streaked over the remaining fighters toward the elven mage. Inry dodged just in time to avoid being hit full-on in the chest, but the fireball burned across his shoulder, and he hissed in pain as he ducked back toward one of the doors. That burn was far from a fatal wound, but it must have been more than Inry could handle because he collapsed to his knees, and I lost sight of him.
Merlin and the Shrike’s puca tumbled to the floor in a flurry of feathers, and only Merlin got up. He limped for a step, but before I could be too worried, he launched himself back into the battle and bit one of the Shrike’s archers on the hand before he could loose his arrow.
At that moment, Aerin slammed the blunt handle of her axe into Seoc’s solar plexus, and the hobgoblin staggered back. Dehn vaulted up and grabbed him in a chokehold, or the closest thing to a chokehold that the halfling could manage, given that his arms were barely long enough to clasp fully around the hobgoblin’s thick neck.
Seoc cried out in rage and pain as he tried to pry Dehn loose, but there was nowhere to grab the halfling that wasn’t covered in spikes or sharp edges, and after his run with the lobster-monsters earlier, Dehn was a seasoned wrangler. He flopped wildly from Seoc’s back as the hobgoblin whirled and tried to throw him off, but Dehn held tight.
Then an arrow, Lavinia’s or one of the Shrikes’, I couldn’t say which, struck Seoc in the ribs, and he stumbled back. Thinking quickly, I threw up a clone behind him, and he tripped over it and fell. I saw Den swing from his back the moment before he hit the
ground, but then the whole room shook. I hadn’t even registered what was happening when the second tremor ripped through the floor beneath us, and everyone, Shrikes and Shadow Foxes alike, was knocked to the ground.
I caught myself on my elbow on the gritty stone floor, and a chill went through me as I realized that this wasn’t a natural earthquake. Through the smoke and the tangle of limbs as everyone tried to get back up, I searched for the green light of Inry’s mana, and the world shook again. A stalactite from the cavern above crashed through the twisted briar roof, and I heard someone scream.
What was Inry thinking, trying to bring the whole cavern down? Did he think he could somehow use his power to protect himself while he buried his own gang just to stop us?
I pulled myself to my feet, though I stayed low in anticipation of another tremor as I cast about for the elven mage. The ground shook again, and I could hear more crashes outside as the weaker sections of the cavern began to cave in.
“Inry, stop!” someone shouted. One of the Shrikes, but I couldn’t see who. “You’ll kill all of us!”
It seemed obvious enough by now that the mage didn’t care if his people died, as long as he was able to escape, but I didn’t bother trying to tell that to whoever had spoken.
Then I saw him, crouched near the wall with his hands pressed to the floor, wisps of silvery hair in his face. His mana flared up, but this time, I was ready to stop it. As I threw my hand up and closed it into a fist, the force of the elf’s magic seemed to burn against my flesh, even though he was almost a dozen feet away. I gritted my teeth and forced my fist closed, and Inry’s body jolted as his mana dimmed. The mage looked up suddenly, his face twisted in an expression of rage and shock, and then his gaze fell on me.
I ran forward and vaulted over the remains of the table and the ruined couch, my mana dagger in hand. Inry was halfway to his feet when I reached him, and I caught the flash of a knife in his hand a millisecond before I felt it pierce my abdomen.
A cry of pain tore from my throat, but I brought my knife hand up and plunged my own dagger into the other mage’s chest. Inry’s eyes went wide and then his body jerked and lit up with blue light. I smelled burning flesh and something like ozone as I dropped him and staggered back, my hand going to the wound in my side. Warm blood welled up between my fingers as I pressed my hand to it.
Lavinia, Aerin, Maruk, Emeline, and Dehn were back on their feet, finishing off the last of the bandits. I opened my mouth to call out to Aerin, but then I felt a cool hand on my arm and turned to meet Lena’s violet gaze.
The alchemist’s brow was furrowed in a look of concern as she guided me to sit on the floor and pressed a folded bit of cloth to my side.
“Drink this,” she said firmly, and she uncorked a potion bottle and passed it to me. If it were anyone else, I might have hesitated before I drank the bright red liquid, but I didn’t argue with Lena.
The potion wasn’t what I expected when I gulped it down. The liquid fizzed slightly, almost as though it was carbonated, but it was warm and bitter. I forced myself to swallow, and as soon as I did, the pain in my side decreased dramatically to just a dull throb.
“Aerin should probably still take a look at it,” the blonde elf said as she threw a glance over her shoulder to where Aerin was prying her axe out of the back of a dead bandit. “Otherwise there will still be a scar.”
“Thank you, Lena,” I said quietly. Just then, there was a crash as another section of the cavern collapsed, and I pulled myself to my feet. Shit. Inry’s quakes had done some serious damage. “We need to get out of here!” I shouted to the others.
“Wait, we need their notes to decode the rest of the message,” Lena reminded me.
I gave her a nod and turned back to Inry’s corpse. We didn’t have time to go searching through the base, I just had to hope he still had it on him. The cavern shuddered again as I dug through the elf’s robes, and then my hand closed around a folded piece of scrap paper. I shoved it in my pocket without looking and turned back to the rest of my guild. “Let’s go, everybody out!”
We raced back through the door and the thorny tunnel exit, and then we were in the cavern again. Shafts of daylight shone through from hundreds of feet above where parts of the cavern ceiling had fallen through, and deep fissures spiderwebbed across the floor. The tunnel we’d come through had collapsed.
There was a shearing sound as a stone column to our left broke and crumbled, and another crack formed in the ceiling above us.
“This way!” I ordered, and I took off toward the next nearest tunnel. As far as I was concerned, it didn’t matter where it led as long as it led away from here.
Merlin darted ahead of me into the tunnel, and I could hear the others close behind. We threw ourselves inside just as another section of the cavern ceiling collapsed behind us and ran into the darkness.
Thankfully, the tunnel we escaped through led almost directly to the surface, and we emerged after about a half hour into the warm light of midmorning. At this end, the tunnel entrance was concealed by a curtain of vines, and beyond were the Wilds. The forest here was alive with birdsong and the soft sighing of the leaves in the breeze. None of the world up here seemed to have been the least bit affected by the chaos we’d just escaped, though I knew there must be a new sinkhole within a few miles from where we stood where the cavern had collapsed on top of the Shrikes’ hideout.
Since there didn’t appear to be any immediate danger, we all decided to take a few moments to rest here, recover from the battle, and figure out what we should do next. For a few minutes, no one spoke much while Aerin and Lena took care of everyone’s wounds, and we all appreciated being alive. In our line of work, however, near-death experiences only warranted so much reflection and the group’s priorities soon turned elsewhere.
“Think about all the loot they must have had hidden away down there,” Aerin pouted. She kicked despondently at a rock. “It’s all buried now.”
“I didn’t even get any tea,” Maruk muttered.
“But we got to kill a bunch of villains!” Dehn laughed.
“Who cares about that? I can’t believe we actually found Dredfen!” Emeline’s eyes shone with excitement. “No one back home is going to believe this!” Suddenly the panthera woman’s face fell as the realization dawned on her. “No one back home is going to believe this,” she repeated with a mournful groan. “We don’t have any proof we were down there, and we can’t even go back because, well, you know...”
At that, Lena looked to me, and I remembered the paper I’d taken from Inry’s body. I pulled it out of my pocket and unfolded it, and I felt a rush of relief when I saw that it was a copy of the heist plans, almost identical to the notes we’d gotten from the Fire Birds. I brought it over to where the others were sitting and spread it out on the grass so everyone could see.
“We did get this,” I said. “The Shrikes’ copy of the heist plans. We can use Zarina’s notes to decode it.”
Lavinia dug in her pack and handed me a stick of charcoal, and I scanned the notes and the translation Zarina had made of the cipher. Like the Fire Bird’s notes, the message was incomplete.
“Let’s see, this one says ‘blood’ and ‘masquerade,’” I told the group. “Then there was ‘cavern’ and ‘moon’ from the first copy. So it’s set to take place during the blood moon, but we already guessed that.”
“What does a masquerade have to do with any of this?” Lavinia asked.
“No idea.” I sighed.
After all the trouble we’d gone through to get these notes, it didn’t feel like we were much closer to figuring out the rest of the plan. I snapped a blade of grass against my thumbnail. At least we knew the Shrikes and the Fire Birds would no longer be contributing their services to the heist. That counted for something. The houses they were supposed to hit would be safe, at least, and we still had a few days before the blood moon to piece everything together.
“So, what now?” Lavinia asked as she gathered her long w
hite hair up into a ponytail. “Back to Ovrista?”
I studied the grass at my feet as it swayed. The councilors weren’t convinced by the evidence we had before, and I didn’t think our having decoded only ‘blood’ and ‘masquerade’ would change their minds. We really only had two options.
“We could return to the city,” I said slowly, “and try to convince the nobles who are being targeted to let us guard their property. Ambush the bandits when they arrive.” I took a breath. “Or, we could try to hunt down the rest of the groups on this list, figure out who’s behind this whole thing, and stop them.”
“We go after the rest of the bandits, of course!” Dehn leapt to his feet. “Isn’t that what you guilds do?”
“When there’s money in it,” Aerin replied with a sidelong look. “Do we even know where to start looking for the others? Going back to the city and setting up some good defenses might be a better use of our time.”
“What, you think those noble pricks are going to let us lay booby traps in their yards?” Lavinia snorted. “They’ll just refuse to believe they’re in danger, and we’ll be left cleaning up the mess when they get robbed. We should at least try to take out more of these bandits while we can. Then there will be that many fewer who can try to steal stuff on the big night.”
Emeline nodded. “I think we should keep looking for the other groups.”
“We could spend the next few days seeking out the other bandits, then go back the night before the blood moon and try to warn the nobles again,” Lena suggested. “They might be more receptive to our advice when the event is closer at hand.”
“As long as we don’t have to go through the sewers again, I don’t really care either way,” Maruk said.
They all turned to me. As the guild leader, how we moved forward was ultimately up to me. I considered our options. Aerin made a good point. We didn’t exactly have a wealth of leads on where to find the rest of the bandits, and if we tried to look for them, we could very well spend the rest of the week wandering around without accomplishing anything. The thing was, Lavinia and Lena were right, too. If no one in the city would take us seriously, we’d have nothing to do but wait for the blood moon and hope our ambush would be enough to stop the bandits. The trouble was, we didn’t even know for sure how many groups were still involved, and that made preparation that much more difficult.