by TR Cameron
A deep voice sounded from nearby. “They are idiots, you’re right. I imagine you’ll find me a greater challenge.” She turned to see a dwarf with scars on his face and hands, hefting a battle ax.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so, short stuff.”
She repeated the lightning attack, and he raised the ax, which glowed as it sucked in her magic and nullified it. His grin widened. “Oh, you’re gonna pay for that comment.”
Idryll took care of the first two enemies with no problem, humans both, who wound up flying over the railing toward the bottom floor. The appearance of a wizard was unexpected, and she only realized he was there when a bolt of shadow slammed into her side and knocked her sprawling. Fortunately, she was low enough to fetch up against the railing before she followed the others over the edge. She scrambled to get out of the way and ducked behind tables and chairs to evade further attacks. He seemed to be mixing force and shadow, based on the number of things that went flying past her as she ran.
He had a better position, a clear, cover-free area where he could attack her if she moved toward him. It was a frustrating situation, made more so because she was in her humanoid form. Her tiger form was faster, and she would feel far more comfortable about her ability to reach him before getting struck were she in it. Still, this form had hands, which could be useful. She picked up a table and hurled it at the wizard. He batted it aside with a look of condescension, but a chair was already flying at him. Idryll advanced behind her improvised missiles, throwing one after the next, cutting the distance between them with each projectile.
When she was halfway there, he realized he was in trouble and threw up a wall of flame. Unfortunately for him, the barrier blocked vision in both directions, and he’d only made it about eight feet high. Idryll dashed forward, jumped up on a table that looked solid enough to handle her weight, and vaulted in a somersault over the top. The wizard didn’t realize she was there until she landed beside him and snapped out a quick jab to the side of his head. He staggered sideways, and she stepped outward and pivoted her hips to deliver a right cross to his temple. He went down, completely limp before his body slammed to the ground. Idryll grabbed his wand and regarded it for a second before snapping it in two, then turned to look for Ruby.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ruby threw a couple more spells at the dwarf, but that ax kept interposing itself and eating the magic. Fire, lightning, no effect. She drew her dagger in her left hand and spun the sword in her right, then stepped forward to meet him in the open space that separated them. “I have other things to do rather than kill you. You could go now and avoid dying.”
He spun the ax in both hands, and the heavy weapon moved so rapidly, it looked like nothing more than a toy. She positioned herself appropriately; her body turned perpendicular to him to provide the smallest possible target. She wanted to look for Idryll, to know whether she was okay or not, but couldn’t afford the distraction. He lunged forward with a downward chop, an inelegant move that was nonetheless so fast it almost snuck through. She stepped her back foot out wide and swung the dagger across to slap against the blade and push it out of line. She flicked it to cast a quick force bolt at him that he weathered with a grunt. He said, “Tricky. Should’ve kept that one in reserve, little cat.”
“Leopard,” she growled and stabbed in with her sword. He brought the shaft of the ax over to block. She went with that momentum, spinning around to slam a backhand at his head. He caught it before it struck and yanked her off balance. She intentionally kept going in the direction he’d moved her, diving forward and bumping into a table at the end. She hopped up in time to be hit with a shadow bolt coming from the top of his ax. It fed back through her shield and she gave a small moan of pain and forced words between her gritted teeth. “You have some tricks yourself, shorty.”
He laughed and charged, spitting magic from his free hand while chambering an attack with the ax. She set herself, waited for the right moment, and snapped out a beam of force at his feet. He tripped, and the weapon flew at her head. She batted it aside with her sword and moved forward, only for the thing to come flying back to his hand a moment later. She slid to a stop, panting. “Nice trick. Maybe you could teach me.”
He shrugged. “Join our side, help us do our job, we can talk.”
“No chance.”
“Too bad.” He raised his voice and shouted, “Boys?”
Two more dwarves with similar axes stepped out from behind some sort of magical concealment, one each off to the left and right of her current foe. She grimaced and muttered, “That’s going to be a problem.”
Idryll spotted her partner across the floor facing off against a dwarf but was unable to intervene. A giant Kilomea stood in her path, having thumped his way up the escalator a moment before. He’d seen her immediately upon gaining the second floor and had headed toward her in a lumbering jog. He was easily eight feet tall, muscles on top of muscles, and moved with far too much grace for someone that size. She knew that was part of their magic, part of what made them incredibly deadly. He held no weapon, but it didn’t make him any less dangerous. Taking a punch from those fists, or worse, getting caught by those hands would be quickly fatal.
She advanced toward him slowly, all her senses sharp, ready for whatever he might do. He seemed content to meet her in the middle, in a small area free of obstacles. Her palms ached with the desire to snap out her claws, but since he wouldn’t be impressed, doing so before she needed to use them made no sense. The boots she wore interfered with her balance a little, and she wished she could be without them, but time didn’t permit that, either. When they reached a distance slightly outside of combat range, they began to circle, as if by unspoken agreement. The look of anticipation on his face was almost pleasurable, and it drove a spike of irritation through her. Oh, you think it’s going to be that easy, do you? You need to learn a lesson about the relationship between size and prowess. She said, “One chance. Go now and live. Fight me, and you won’t survive.”
He laughed deep and low, lifted a hand, and beckoned her forward. She accepted the invitation and charged. He spread his feet as she advanced, appearing as if his goal was to grab her when she tried to make her attack. She feinted low, then went to one side, trailing an arm behind to rake her claws against the leather trousers that covered his thigh. They skittered across the tough surface and cut parallel furrows into it but failed to penetrate. She ducked his casual swing easily and backed up, staring down at her hand. Her claws were fine, which meant he was probably wearing some sort of highly reinforced or magical armor. Well, that’ll make things more difficult.
He moved with a quickness she wouldn’t have expected as he crossed the distance between them and snapped out a kick. She leapt to the side to avoid it and barely evaded his grasping fingers by twisting further to the side. The move carried her into a table, and it fell backward as she regained her balance. He closed while she recovered and launched a flurry of punches that she escaped with a combination of dodges and redirections. The power of his blows was immense, and she couldn’t go strength versus strength with him in this form. She raked her claws across the muscles in his arms when she could, but the armor continued to protect him.
He blasted out a heavy punch with his right hand, and she barely dodged it in time. The distraction allowed him to catch her with the back of his left, and she went flying to crash into a table and chairs, rolling over them and landing hard on the floor. She pushed herself unsteadily to her feet, her head ringing, and readied herself for his next attack.
Ruby backpedaled slowly, and the dwarves moved to keep the distance between them consistent. She snapped a force bolt at the one on the far left with her dagger, but he blocked it with a shield on his left arm. Well, at least maybe not all their weapons absorb magic, so that’s something. She’d faced multiple opponents armed with physical weapons before, but a trio of casters provided a unique challenge that threw her mind into a series of whirls and spins. She asked, “
I don’t suppose we could postpone this so I can follow your friends up to the third level, could we?” She’d seen the invaders moving through the door to the higher level and figured they were after the owners again, assuming they were present at the casino.
The trio shook their heads, and the first one she’d fought said, “See, you should’ve joined up when you had the chance.”
Ruby set her stance and waited for one of them to make a move. When the attack arrived, it was all three at once. The one on the left cast a shadow bolt she caught with her shield. Lightning crashed in from the far right, and it ate away at the force barrier on her body, draining her. The third rushed in with his ax, ready to cleave her in two. With no other good option, she smashed her bracelets together again, summoning the dome of force and locking them outside. She scrabbled at her thigh and found an energy potion, flipped open the lid, and drank it. The pleasurable surge of the magic coursing through her almost made her pant with joy. She readied herself, still not sure how she would take on the trio, but as ready as she could be. Then the shield fell, and the dwarves came in again.
She circled to her left, hoping to at least put one of them at a bad angle, and used the shield on that arm to catch more magical attacks from the one on that side. The dwarf in the middle seemed to think he needed to handle her in a more personal fashion and stalked toward her with his ax at the ready. She faced the choice of shifting the shield in his direction and hoping the one that covered her body would be sufficient to handle what the left-side enemy was throwing at her when an arrow streaked in and smashed into the floor beside the caster.
A force burst exploded from the tip and sent him flying. Ruby didn’t wait to figure out what was going on but charged at the dwarf in the middle. A wide smile appeared on his face as he slashed his ax down in a diagonal strike. She used a force blast to lift herself up and over him, landing in front of the one whose angle had been blocked. She stabbed with her sword, no longer covered with a safety shield, and pierced his leg and arm with two quick thrusts, forcing him to drop his ax. She spun and delivered a sidekick to his chest, and he flew over the railing and dropped.
Looking for her benefactor, she spotted a hooded form crouched atop one of the lights that hung from the ceiling, already nocking another arrow aimed at a different part of the upper floor, and said a quiet word of thanks. Ruby turned back to the dwarf and smiled. “Okay, now, where were we?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Idryll staggered to her feet and dodged out of the way as the mammoth Kilomea smashed through the tables and chairs toward her. Her leg hurt enough to make her limp, and fury clouded her mind, turning her vision red. She snarled at her enemy, and his laughter doubled her anger. He taunted, “Come here, pretty little kitty. I will taste the marrow in your bones.”
She charged with a snarl, to all outward appearances lost in rage. However, Idryll was never that far out of control. He spread his hands wide to catch her, and she feigned a jump, then slid and delivered a kick to his knee. It buckled, dropping him, and she barely got out from underneath in time. She bounced up while turning and punched her claws at his neck, but he rolled forward with a sound like a tree falling and came up to his feet, spinning a back fist in her direction. Ducking under it, she stabbed upward only to find her wrist locked in his grip. A slash at the tendons in his wrist again failed to penetrate the tough hide of the armor he wore. She went for his bare hand instead, scraping bloody furrows in it, then slashed at the other one as his fingers loosened in reflex to the pain.
A new enemy appeared in the corner of her eye as she danced backward. She spun with a hiss toward the man who pointed a rifle at her, but she had no chance of reaching him before he pulled the trigger. An arrow struck him out of nowhere, and a blast of force magic hurled him into the wall, the loud crack signaling breaking bones. She didn’t question the lucky turn of events, only turned and charged at the Kilomea. It seemed as if he hadn’t noticed someone else had joined the fight, so when the archer’s next arrow hit him in the back and propelled him forward, he wasn’t ready for it. Idryll was.
She jumped toward her foe and wrapped her arm around his neck, curling her body over to sit on his shoulders. Jamming her claws into the gap between his armor and the flesh of his chest, she sank them deep into his muscles. She curled them, ripped them out in a spray of blood, and hopped off as he fell. It was a grievous wound although possibly not fatal if he kept enough pressure on it. She turned as the archer landed beside her. It was a Mist Elf, and one she recognized—Ruby’s sister. Her outfit was all about anonymity, a voluminous black hooded cloak that disguised her body and a matching balaclava covering her face. The woman nodded at her, then moved in her sibling’s direction.
Now that the odds were one-on-one again, Ruby craved the pleasure of bringing down this opponent. Even if she hadn’t wanted that closure so badly, she couldn’t safely leave him at her back, so her desire and needs were in alignment. She waded in and traded blows and blocks, her sword meeting the ax again and again, chimes ringing out at each intersection. She spotted motion from the corner of her eye but couldn’t spare the attention to see if it was an ally or an enemy. I need to end this fight and fast.
She banished the force buckler on her left arm and reached down to her belt, releasing one of the containers that held the special items Margrave had given her. Stepping backward, she slammed it on the floor between them, and the smoke and glitter rose in a sudden rush to completely occlude them from one another. She called up her veil and circled away and was nowhere in sight when the distraction dissipated. She charged from behind and slashed at his legs, cutting bloody lines through the back of each of his thighs. He shouted in pain and tried to spin and swing his ax but fell to the floor partway through the motion. She grabbed his weapon and announced, “I’m taking this with me. Always happy to go for round two if you want it back.”
She turned with her sword defensively raised as people neared, then her mouth opened in shock at the sight of the woman next to Idryll. Even with the balaclava covering most of her face, her sister’s eyes were unmistakable. She stammered, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Ruby, please. Don’t be an idiot.”
She sighed. “Fine, but what are you doing here?”
“Saving your ass, pretty much.”
“I don’t suppose it’s worth telling you to go home?” Her sister shook her head. “Fine, come with us. I saw a bunch of them go up to the third floor.”
They dashed across to the stairwell, Ruby leading the way in complete disbelief that her sister was here. Her accuracy with the bow was no surprise; she’d seen her sister’s skill with the weapon before, and her abilities equaled those of anyone she’d ever seen aside from Keshalla. How she’d wound up with magic-tipped arrows was an important conversation for another day.
She pounded up the stairwell and out into the casino’s main administrative area, the refreshing fact that the sprinklers on this floor weren’t active an immediate bonus. A glass-walled office sat in the corner, with the Atlantean casino owners huddled in the back of it. All three of them had their hands out, working together to maintain a defensive shield against the attacks the magicals and humans arranged around them in a semi-circle poured into it. Morrigan asked, “Why haven’t they portaled?”
Ruby shook her head, wondering the same thing. “Probably thought they’d be fine, then got caught with a rush and feel unsafe letting down the barrier to cast the portal. Stupid, arrogant, overconfident.”
Idryll chuckled. “Sounds like someone in our group as well.”
“Don’t talk about my sister that way.” She knew that Morrigan was sticking her tongue out at her even though she couldn’t see it. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll take the ones on the left, and you take the one on the right. The masked moron provides backup. All we need to do is knock them off balance long enough for the Atlanteans to portal out of here.”
Morrigan said, “I’ve got this.” Sh
e reached over her shoulder to draw an arrow by touch and came out with one with a bright red tip. Ruby groaned, “Oh, hell no,” before her sister loosed the missile. It shattered the glass wall, landed at the attackers' feet, and detonated, sending a wash of fire through the room.
The Chentashes took advantage of the distraction as Ruby had predicted they would, one of them maintaining a thinner barrier while another created a portal. An instant later they were gone, and the rift collapsed. The sprinkler system activated, drenching them all again, and Ruby shook her head. “Don’t suppose you have sleep gas or something in there?”
Her sister shook her head. “Nope. I could hit them with more force, though.”
“Let’s retreat and find a better plan.” It turned out they didn’t need to, as the attackers in that room picked themselves up, broke the windows, and jumped, the magicals holding onto the humans to carry them to safety. Ruby tapped her earpiece. “Glam, the bad guys just ran away. What’s the deal?”
The tech replied immediately. “PDA is in the building, and the attackers are bailing out. I have some bad news. The casino owners portaled to someplace weird. They’re in a garage that’s covered by the casino’s security systems. Deacon says it’s visible from the window of the room you’re in. There’s no way they’re safe there if the attackers are at all competent.”
Ruby ran over and looked out, remembering seeing that building on a tour or a plan of the property. Sure enough, three stories below was a big parking lot with a low structure beside it. “Idryll, Morrigan, we’re not done yet.” She dropped the dwarf’s ax and jumped, fearing that, as Glam suggested, the attackers could turn out to be competent after all.