by Hugo Huesca
Kes shook her head. “It won’t let me recover any further, it’d only add to the first potion’s duration. The way potions work, you need a more potent brew to improve its effects, not just more quantity. And potions with different effects don’t mix, either, unless you have a talent that allows you to do so.”
Then it made sense to spread the potions. Ed uncorked the vial, sniffed it, and discovered that it smelled even more unpleasant than it looked. He steeled himself and downed the liquid in one go. Next to him, Alder gagged as he did the same.
It’s like licking a horned spider’s fangs, Ed decided. He had to make a conscious effort not to puke.
The effects were immediate. Warmth spread through his tired muscles, and the cramps in his hands and legs disappeared as if invisible hands were giving him the best massage in the world. His lungs filled with air and fresh energy expanded across his body. He wasn’t fully rested, but he was back in fighting shape.
Kes stored the empty vials. Ed’s group reached the causeway shortly thereafter. The whistling of their pursuers was now so close that Ed had to look back every few steps to make sure they weren’t right behind him.
Alder positioned himself in front of Kes and Ed. He clutched his walking cane so tightly his knuckles were white. Ed drew his sword and held it with both hands, like Kes had taught him. The mercenary drew her round wooden shield from her back and unsheathed her longsword. The shield was wide enough that, in the tight causeway, she could easily use it to also block attacks meant for Ed.
The causeway was a tight rock corridor. Sections of it were completely engulfed by the canal, cutting off their retreat, and the rest of it was wet and slippery. Ed’s running shoes were soaked in seconds, and cold seeped through his feet and traveled upward to his legs like the bite of a snake.
The whistling came to a stop. Ed and the others turned back. The silhouettes were a stone’s throw away from them, two in the front and two behind. One of them, to Ed’s dismay, indeed carried a short bow in his hands and was in the process of loading an arrow.
“Can you see their stats yet?” Ed asked through gritted teeth. Kes shook her head. Well then, I’ll have to chance it. He couldn’t see stats without using his Evil Eye, and that was the kind of Dark magic that would make the Inquisition’s mages start fireballing entire city blocks as a preventive measure.
“We meet again,” came a vaguely familiar male voice. “Edward, is that right? I was beginning to wonder when you’d show up.” One of the men in the front stepped up, enough to let the faint moonlight bathe his features. It was Brondan, the elf Thief that had sold Katalyn to Nicolai and his ilk.
“You know him?” asked Alder hopefully.
“Not a friend,” said Ed. “He’s with Nicolai, was there when they raised the wraith.”
“Dungheap,” Alder said, his hope vanished.
Brondan was the one with the bow. He was in the front, which meant he had a vague idea of what he was doing: in the tightness of the causeway he wouldn’t be able to shoot from behind his partners without the risk of hitting them. So, his plan was most likely to shoot in close range, then step back and let the others take care of the melee. If needed, he’d drop the bow and use his dagger.
The man next to the elf was burly and shaggy, with wild, unkempt hair flowing in every direction. His arms were bare, and Ed could see wiry biceps, tense like cords, and covered in scars. Probably a melee fighter, although there’s no rule that says spellcasters can’t have high Brawl ranks. If the thieves had a Wizard, it was probably one of the people behind Brondan. Some spells didn’t need to be aimed, like Ed’s minor order, so it was better to leave the caster in the safety of the backline.
“How did you find us?” Ed asked, partly to buy time, and also because he wanted to figure out if Nicolai was coming.
“You’re kidding, right?” Brondan asked with a confident smile flickering in his lips. His eyes darted back and forth across Ed’s group, studying their formation, same as Ed was doing with Brondan’s. “You’ve made quite the ruckus in Undercity in the few hours since your arrival.” The elf licked his lips and tensed his bow slightly, but did not yet aim it. “The Treasury’s Diviners woke up the instant you set a foot on the city’s soil. They’re going mad trying to rouse the Watch so they can send patrols looking for whoever is around trying to sell booze without a permit.”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” Ed said.
“I think you do,” Brondan said. “It’s not easy for smugglers to bypass the walls. The Thieves Guild knows the name of all who can do it, and their schedules.” He gave Ed a nasty smile, and Ed discovered that city elves had as poor a dental hygiene as anyone else. “All of them protect their cargo from scrying, so when our spies in the Treasury caught wind of it, we figured the smuggler wasn’t one of us. I offered to take a look into it with my friends here, just in case, since I know a man who may have the precise combination of resources to be able to bypass the defenses, but not protect his cargo against scrying.”
“Fucking Wetlands,” Alder whispered behind Ed. “This is just our luck. All the idiots in the world, and we run into a backwater asshole who isn’t a total dung-for-brains.”
“I take offense at that,” said the shaggy man next to Brondan. “Just because we’re thugs doesn’t mean we’re idiots. I read in my spare time.”
“Good for you,” said Kes. She nudged Ed with her shoulder to get his attention and whispered into his ear: “Reader here is mine. Chick with scar behind Brondan has improved reflexes, and next to her is a mercenary caster, one spell, probably ice bolt.” Ice bolt was a starting spell in Ivalis Online, so Ed knew of it. It was easy to cast, but had to be aimed. It wasn’t armor-piercing, so it was mostly used against unarmored mobs or to finish off weakened enemies without wasting more important spells. “Brondan bought an enhanced elven-hearing talent, and the three Thieves all have sneak attack, so don’t let them catch you unaware.”
The shaggy thug whispered something in Brondan’s ears. The elf nodded back and fixed his eyes on Alder while whispering something, in turn, to the woman behind him, who had a long, angry scar crossing her face. Scar looked at Ed and grinned.
Scar takes me on to neuter my own improved reflexes, Brondan shoots Alder, who is our own spellcaster—they don’t know he doesn’t have any combat spells—and Shaggy holds off Kes so Mage and Brondan can gang up on her.
If Brondan’s plan was executed without a hitch, Ed and his friends would surely die. The thing with plans, of course, was that the enemy rarely felt like letting them develop without a hitch.
“Enough chitchat,” Brondan said. “Nicolai’s gonna pay good coin for your head. See you in hell, Edward.” He lifted his bow, but instead of aiming it at Ed, like the elf had implied, he instead aimed it at Alder.
“Jump left,” Ed ordered the elf as the bow rose to its intended trajectory. His veins tingled as he spent a third of his magical reserves, his will clashed at thought-speed against Brondan’s. The elf’s Spirit was high, but Ranger Ioan’s had been higher. With strength granted by desperation and sheer determination, Ed demolished Brondan’s defenses.
He watched in slow motion how the elf’s eyes widened in surprise, how his feet left the ground only a few inches—not enough to make him fall into the canal like Ed had hoped—which threw off his aim and saved Alder’s life when the arrow went high over his head.
“What—” Brondan said angrily, before slipping on the wet rocks and collapsing. He smashed, length-wise, onto the rocks, flailing and trying to grab a hold of something. Scar stepped away to avoid his grasp, which saved her from falling into the water like Brondan did an instant later. Black droplets of water showered both thugs and Ed’s group and the wails of Brondan pierced the tense silence of the city like a knife. “Agh, my ankle!” he managed to yell between screams cut short by the water.
Both groups stared at the elf splashing in the water for a second that felt like an eternity. Ed began to think that the fight could be a
verted now—
“That’s minor order,” Mage told the remaining two. “Steel your will!”
In the blink of an eye, Shaggy’s dagger scraped against Kes’ shield, causing sparks to flash against the black of night. He held a knife in his other hand and used it to swipe at Kes’ belly. The mercenary used the edge of her shield to deflect the knife and stabbed with her longsword like a modern fencer trying to score a point. Shaggy sidestepped, lost his footing, regained it, attacked again—
Alder screamed a warning. Ed caught movement from the corner of his eye and barely had time to step away from Scar’s dagger, which missed his neck by a hairline. His shoes held precarious purchase on the slick rock underneath. Ed’s back smashed against Alder’s torso, and for a second they almost stumbled onto the rocks. Ed cursed himself for his distraction. Scar had used her reflexes to bridge the gap between them faster than he’d expected.
“Jump left!” he ordered her, expending half of his remaining spell reserves. His will clashed against Scar’s, but this time it was like trying to collapse a brick wall by punching it. Ed instantly knew the spell had failed, and Scar’s grin confirmed it.
“Not as easy when they expect it, is it?” she asked before rushing him again.
Ed’s first instinct was to activate his Evil Eye and trip her up with a well-placed drone, but he shot that down—alerting the Inquisition of his presence would be far worse than being stabbed. He went with his second instinct and activated his own improved reflexes. Heat exploded out of his body in a wave. He raised his short sword to meet Scar’s dagger and struck it with the wide part of his blade. Scar’s attack missed, but she kept going forward: there was a knife in her other hand and he was wide open.
He kicked at her shin with his leg and used his vambrace to deflect the knife. The blade slid across the leather and Ed felt a cold bite just above the vambrace. Let’s hope that’s not my artery, he thought. His kick tripped Scar, and she fell on top of him, screaming curses all the while. They collapsed on the rocks. Ed hit the side of his head on something hard, and his vision went fuzzy for an instant. Then Scar bit him on the part of his shoulder right next to his neck that his chest armor left exposed. The fuzziness dissipated and was replaced by instant, red rage. The sounds of metal clashing against metal nearby fell silent, as if Scar and he had been transported to another world.
Ed struck the Thief’s neck with his elbow, pushed her away, and swatted off a feeble attempt at knifing him. Both fighters fought to stand up as quick as possible. Ed was faster by half a second and threw a punch at the side of Scar’s head using the pommel of his short sword like a club. The hit grazed her, and then all the muscles in her body jumped with tension as she activated her improved reflexes once again. This time, when Ed used his own, the effort almost knocked him out. The vitality potion couldn’t handle that kind of overuse. But it was enough to evade Scar’s kick. He punched her again, and this time he felt the heavy impact of iron against bone as the sword’s pommel struck. Scar’s eyes went blank, her dagger escaped her grasp, and her knees buckled.
The rage bubbling in Ed’s chest urged him to finish the job, to grab the Thief’s hair and slide his sword across her throat. He could imagine the blood leaving her like a faucet, could feel the steely taste on his lips, and could see the expressions of fear on Mage and Shaggy’s face as he showed them their friend’s severed head.
That was the desire of his new heart. It was righteous. She had tried to kill him, and he would kill her instead.
Scar went splashing into the canal. Ed dropped his sword, reached her stunned head before she went under the surface, grabbed her hair, and heaved her back onto the causeway, grasping the rocks with his free hand to avoid falling under himself. Cold water splashed against his trousers and torso, soaking him utterly, and he had to crawl his way back up, but Scar’s unconscious frame—feet still underwater—did not slide back under.
Gasping with exhaustion, Ed faced the battle again. He was surprised to see that at some point during his fight with Scar, they had left the others behind by several meters. In fact, they were almost at the edge of the causeway that was engulfed by the canal.
His rage receded, leaving only the adrenaline and the frantic fear for his life and the life of his friends. Kes was still locked in combat with Shaggy.
Alder and Mage were locked in ferocious melee combat between low-leveled spellcasters. The Bard attempted to punch Mage’s face, missed, slipped, and brought down Mage as he did so. Mage kicked Alder’s cane away from his hands and attempted a sideways punch that came more like a slap. Alder winced, and the both of them struggled on the rocks as they tried to end up on top of the other, but slipped around instead.
Just a few feet away from the spellcasters, Kes used her shield to push Shaggy away and swung at him with a vertical slash that was so fast it was more like a blur. Shaggy couldn’t parry the heavier blade with his dagger, so instead he dodged it by darting to his left. Kes had expected it, though, because the edge of her blade glowed a bright red—that was her power attack talent in action—and she made a flourish amid the sword’s vertical trajectory, then struck Shaggy’s leather chest armor with a light blow.
Normally, a flourish like that would’ve lacked the potency to hurt someone without any armor at all, but the added power attack made her strike seem like her opponent had been dealt a solid blow by a mace: Ed heard the air escape Shaggy’s lungs, and his chest curve inward in a sickening manner, followed by the snapping of several ribs at the same time. The man coughed up blood, but managed to keep standing. Not for long, though, because Kes smashed the side of her shield against his temple, and he fell, half his body hovering over the hungry waters.
“Yes! Good job!” exclaimed Alder. He was on top of Mage, with a rock in one hand, arm high above his head.
What are you looking at? Ed thought. Apprehension bubbled in him as he saw Mage’s murderous scowl. He was hurt, but not seriously, and Alder shouldn’t have been looking away—
“Don’t get distracted, you idiot!” Kes screamed, and lunged at the spellcasters.
Too slow. Just as Alder’s sight traveled back to his opponent, Mage’s hand was already raised and hovering in front of the Bard’s face, and its skin shone cold blue as magical energy accumulated around it.
“Ice bo—”
“Quiet!” howled Ed.
The vitality potion extinguished itself as his will clashed against Mage’s, and the world faded to black in a wave of exhaustion.
15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
KARMICH
The pain in his hands startled him. He had managed to break his fall by stretching his arms out as he fell, and he saw blood welling up on his scraped knuckles. The world spun around him, the same sensation of standing up too fast after sitting for a long period, but amplified a dozen times over.
Panting, Ed managed to stand up. He blinked hard, desperately. There was a figure lying on the rocks where Alder and Mage had been fighting.
It had to be Alder. Ed knew, with terrible certainty, that his spell had failed, and that Mage had pierced his friend’s skull through with the ice bolt. Now the Bard was dead, or about to be… Amphiris, the spider Queen he had killed in Burrova, had taken a long time to die even with her head caved in. Ed was sure, then, that Alder’s death would happen in the same manner, maybe hours and hours of agony and terror…
But Alder was right in front of him. His concerned face was too close to Ed to belong to the shape lying on the ground.
“Ed?” Alder asked. “Are you hurt?”
“Ugh,” Ed spat. The world kept spinning around him.
“Give him some space,” said Kes. “He overextended, is all. We were already exhausted before the fight began, and too many improved reflexes must’ve eaten up his potion. I should have warned him.”
Ed nodded his agreement. Fresh air would do nicely. As he managed to regulate his respiration, the dizziness was replaced by white dust that slowly engulfed his visio
n. He feared that he’d lose his sight completely, but before that happened, the whiteness receded. He felt much better.
“What in the Wetlands…?” he muttered.
“You saved my life,” Alder told him. The Bard passed a hand around Ed’s shoulders, to help him carry his weight.
Ed glanced at his surroundings. The shape on the ground was Mage, still alive, but with his mouth transformed into a bloody pulp by Alder’s rock. Shaggy had crawled away from the edge of the causeway and groaned softly by the center. Brondan was nowhere to be seen. Had he drowned? But the water wasn’t deep enough for that. The cold, on the other hand, was deadly, and if the Thief had hit his head when he fell…
Once more I’m not sure if I killed a man, Ed thought. Scar was still where he had left her. She was clutching her head with both hands, like she had a terrible migraine, but this was the kind of migraine that bled a lot.
Ed’s strength—or part of it, at least—returned to him by the second. He found his short sword where it had fallen and returned it to its rudimentary scabbard. “Everyone’s alright?” he asked.
“Peachy,” said Kes. “I only wish Brondan had stayed to fight, since his experience points were at least decent. This lot are just rabble.” She kicked at Mage, who was trying to stand. The impact immediately dissuaded him from further attempts. “Barely worth the trouble. They got lucky to catch us in a bad situation, is all.”
“He’s alive, then?” Ed asked. “You saw where he went?”
“Used some kind of sneak talent to fuck off somewhere after you dealt with that Scar chick,” Kes said. “Turns out that Thieves aren’t very loyal at all. Who knew?”
Shaggy, lying belly up and with his arms extended, groaned at hearing that. “Brondan left? What a fucker. Smart enough to know when to fuck off, coward enough to leave us here.” He gave a wet cough and spat out something bloody and meaty. “Ah, dung, I think that’s my liver.” He groaned again.