“Straight to the questions already, Lyrian?” Carver asked, shaking his head and making an all too familiar clucking sound with his tongue, his eyes shifting to watch the surviving members of Virtus carefully as they formed up around me. “No time to stop and catch up with an old friend before diving straight into business? Seems to me like plenty has changed with you; you look rough.”
“You aren’t our friend,” Freya spat from beside me.
“And we don’t have any business together, Carver,” I ground out through clenched teeth, feeling a hand touch my back and send a brief wave of healing energy through me, before Alistair appeared in the corner of my eye and doing the same for Amaranth. In the distance, I could hear the nervous whinnie of the horses pulling the wagon, along with the slow clop of their hooves as they drew closer. No doubt Thorne was concerned that more raiders could be prowling through the forest, attempting to circle us, and had decided to bring the vehicle closer to us.
“As wounding as your words are, they aren’t entirely true, you see, at least not anymore,” the half-orc replied, his voice taking on a scolding tone as he jabbed his spear in my direction. “I know we had a rather harsh parting the last time we saw one another, but I was willing to let bygones be bygones, assuming you all minded your own business. We all got swept up into Graves’s crazy scheme after all, and were just trying to find a way to survive.”
“But then several days ago, I get word that not only have you lot have been sticking your noses into places they don’t belong,” Carver continued, his expression hardening as he spoke. “But that you have managed to destroy one of my best-producing groups, root and branch.”
There was a pause in the air as we absorbed what Carver had just said, several of the newer guild recruits calling out as they put the man’s statement together.
“The Grey Devils,” Freya’s scorn filled voice split the air. “They were yours?”
“They are mine,” Carver corrected, his hand waving towards several of the unarmored Adventurers behind him who were now glaring at us with undisguised hatred. “You see…the little stunt you pulled, destroying their hideout and killing the lot, split them between Eberia and Coldscar, depending on where they last bound themselves, which you can imagine is more than a little bit inconvenient.”
“I can’t say that breaks my heart all that much,” I said, allowing my eyes to slide off Carver and towards the unarmored Adventurers, my mind trying to make sense of the half-orc’s admission and piecing it into what we had just learned from Stanton a few hours earlier.
If Carver was running the bandits, does that mean that there isn’t any connection with the other House Agents? I asked myself. He isn’t the kind that would take orders from someone else willingly…unless of course, it inconvenienced someone he didn’t like.
Like us.
“Mine either,” Carver replied with more candor than I was expecting, unaware of the flurry of thoughts passing through my mind. “I know now that they got greedy and were taking every single caravan or wagon that passed by. In hindsight, I should have caught that, given how much they were bringing in, but that doesn’t matter anymore, does it? We’re past that point now.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed, bringing my gaze back to Carver and banished my whirling thoughts, knowing that I was going to need to be present with what was coming next. “And because of that, you’re here to send a message by repaying the favor.”
“I knew you were a smart one when I first saw you, Lyrian,” he said, his face breaking out into a genuine smile. “That’s exactly what I’m doing. What I have to do if I’m to keep things nice and manageable on my end of things. I’m sure you understand.”
“I do,” I replied, tightening my grip on Razor’s hilt as I spoke, mentally readying myself for the second round of this battle. “But regardless of how this turns out, now that I know that you’re out here and setting yourself up as some sort of a Bandit King, I’m not exactly going to let that stand.”
“A Bandit King?” Carver repeated, giving me an incredulous look before he broke out into a laugh. “Yeah, I suppose that’s how you’d see it. On some days, I suppose it’s not all that far from the truth either. As for letting it stand, I suggest very much that you do exactly that, Lyrian. This…peace offering of mine is a one-time thing.”
“We know too well how any of your offers end up, Carver,” Freya growled, the surviving Thunder Lizards grunting in sympathy. “With a knife in your ribs when you least expect it.”
“Only if you step out of line again,” Carver warned, before slicing his spear through the air and waving all the Adventurers behind him forward. “But on that note, I think it’s high time we got this show on the road. Maybe if you’re lucky, one of you might live long enough—”
“MOVE!” Thorne’s bellow, accompanied by the pained sound of injured horses tore through the air, followed by the creaking rumble of hooves and wood.
“Wha—” Reacting instinctively, I moved to spin around and look behind me, my gut sinking as I thought that we were under attack from behind. But before I could complete my turn, Freya grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and dragged me off my feet as she leaped past me.
“Shit!” Freya cursed behind me as the two of us fell on top of a small bush that lined the path, just seconds before a pair of horses thundered through the spot that we had just been standing, the rest of the wagon following close behind.
Shaking off the impact, I craned my head upwards just in time to hear Thorne shout something incomprehensible as the wagon shot past us, directly towards Carver and the advancing Adventurers. No sooner did he finish, did a thunderclap of magic fill the air, followed by a shimmering wall of force appearing at the head of the wagon.
“Oh damn,” I gasped, realizing what both Thorne and Halcyon had just done as the wagon plowed into the horde of raiders with a loud crunch of flesh and bone, clipping or outright trampling all those who were unable to get out of the way in time, due to his timely Pryoclap and the press of bodies.
“Lyrian, let’s go!” Freya yelled, slapping me on the back as she pushed herself off the now flattened bush. “They bought us a chance!”
“Right!” I called back while getting my feet under me and staring ahead at the chaos that Thorne and Halcyon had caused.
The large cluster of raiders that had been threatening us had been thrown into complete disarray, a gaping hole now in the middle of their formation as they desperately tried to pick themselves off the ground or continued to writhe in pain on the ground. Their numbers, plus the heavy foliage on either side of the path had worked against them, many of them unable to get completely clear of the charging wagon in time.
The few lucky ones that had managed to avoid getting hit by the wagon stared numbly away from us, watching the departing wagon rumble and bounce furiously as the panicked horses carried it away from us and onto the distant plains.
At least the wagon is safe for now, I thought as I glanced towards the surviving members of Virtus and noticed that a few of our own had also suffered glancing blows from Thorne’s maneuver and were receiving healing from Theia. Something that I figured was a small price to pay for the damage that we had managed to inflict.
“Now’s our chance!” I shouted as I gripped Razor tightly and took the first step forward towards Carver and his band of raiders. “Let’s finish this or go down fighting! Virtus, attack!”
There was a moment of silence, my words taking a few seconds to register in everyone’s head, allowing Freya, Amaranth and I to take several steps before a disorganized cry rose behind us, the rest of Virtus finally rallying to my call. An echo of footsteps filled the air behind me as I led the charge back into battle. It was time for round two to begin.
The three of us slammed into the disoriented mass of Adventurers like a force of nature, Amaranth’s flying form taking down a quartet of the raiders as he leaped into the fray with a savage roar, his claws and teeth flashing viciously, rending apart flesh everywhere
they touched. A heartbeat behind my familiar, Freya and I followed in his wake, ruthlessly slashing out at the wounded still lying on the ground or taking advantage to attack those distracted by his rampage.
For the second time in the day, my world dissolved into chaos as the rush of battle consumed me. Blood and violence filled my vision everywhere I looked, screams of pain intermittently drowned out by thunderclaps of magic or Amaranth’s primal roar as he threw himself onto yet another victim. I had thought that the first battle with these raiders had been a brutal affair, each of us fighting with the burning rage of being ambushed out of the blue, but with the way this second battle was evolving, it had been almost cordial in comparison.
Carver’s presence struck far too many chords amongst the founding members of the guild, many of them having experienced his cruelty first hand. From the moment that he had revealed himself, this whole incident had gone from a simple ambush in the wild, to something very personal, something that would be impossible to stop until we were standing over his body.
Or he was standing over ours.
Swinging a crackling Razor in a powerful arc through the air, I bared my teeth in a vicious snarl as the blade connected with the side of an Adventurer’s head, biting deep into flesh and bone. Feeling the sword anchor itself into the man’s skull, I gave it a hard yank while simultaneously discharging the Shocking Touch I held, causing my attacker to jerk and twitch violently as he collapsed to the ground.
Wrenching my weapon free as the man fell, I angled my blade and stabbed it deep into the armpit of a man threatening Freya, before tearing it free and deflecting a scything axe that was aimed directly at my head. No sooner did I bat the axe away, did a single set of Amaranth’s claws sweep along the midsection of my attacker, tearing through both armor and flesh as if it were paper, exposing soft and vulnerable organs.
With no time for a merciful stroke to end his suffering, I lashed out with a heavy kick at my attacker, catching the stooping man directly in the face as he reflexively bent down to stuff his exposed innards back into himself. The blow sent him reeling backward as he fought to keep his balance, eventually causing him to collide with an all too familiar shape behind him. Before the man could even begin to recover, a jagged spear tip burst free of his chest from behind, then vanished with a wet sucking sound as it was pulled free.
“Pitiful fool,” Carver growled as he shoved the now dead man off himself and out of his way, fixing me with an angry glance, his stag bone helmet sitting awkwardly on his head, which was now missing a single antler, no doubt due to Thorne’s reckless charge with the wagon. “Not even worth the energy to keep alive.”
Bounding forward right at Carver’s side was the crimson spirit wolf that I had seen earlier, its hungry, feral expression shifting eerily as it faded in and out of sight. I had no idea where Carver had managed to find or befriend such a high-leveled creature, but the cunning glint that I saw in its eye made me doubt that it was a simple spirit.
“Nice to see that you haven’t changed, Carver,” I greeted the man, noticing that all of the other raiders around us had suddenly given us a wide berth after seeing him brutally dispatch one of his own, allowing both Freya and Amaranth a chance to break free and fall in beside me.
“He was weak,” Carver explained as he flicked the blood off his spear. “And if there is one thing I cannot tolerate, it’s weakness in my followers.”
“I missed my first chance to kill you, Carver,” Freya spat, her body visibly trembling as she readied herself to lunge forward. “I’m going to enjoy burying my spear in your heart!”
“Oh, I would like to see you try, Freya. The both of you actually,” Carver taunted, pulling his shield close towards his body as he glanced between Freya and me, waving his short spear through the air. “The last time that we met, you all had the levels on me, so I was forced to take a more…conservative approach. This time, however…I think the advantage is mine!”
Without another word, Carver suddenly thrust forward his spear and barked an incomprehensible word of power, causing a violet cloud of energy to shoot from the end of his spear and wash over Freya, Amaranth and I, immediately causing the three of us to hack and cough as a searing pain filled our lungs. A set of flashing alerts appeared briefly in my vision, before vanishing and leaving a single red icon in the corner of my eye.
You have been afflicted by Carver’s [Sickening Miasma]!
Carver’s [Sickening Miasma] hits you for 13 points of disease damage!
“Shit!” I exclaimed in between ragged coughs as Carver leaped forward after finishing his spell, his short spear jabbing directly towards my face. Caught completely off guard by the man’s sudden display of magic, I barely swung Razor up in time to deflect the spear, only to have the edge of Carver’s shield slam heavily into my side with enough force to crack ribs. “Ugh!”
“He’s a Shaman!” Freya called out, voice sounding raw as she too continued to let out several pained coughs from Carver’s affliction, her spear darting in from the corner of my vision and forcing the half-orc to take a half a step backward.
No sooner did Carver step out of the way, however, did my vision fill with the blurred form of the crimson spirit wolf as it effortlessly dodged around Amaranth’s attack and leaped towards me, its ghostlike paws slamming into each of my shoulders before I could even think of reacting. Landing with a heavy crash, I reflexively threw my free hand up into the air before me, just as an iron jaw clamped down on my forearm, filling me with both pain and a sickening draining sensation that I knew all too well.
No! My eyes widened in sudden terror as I felt the energy in my body begin to fade, a damning message that I had hoped never to see appearing in my combat log.
[Malevolent Wolf Spirit] bites you for 76 points of damage!
[Malevolent Wolf Spirit] drains you for 37 points of mana! It’s draining my mana! I felt my mind go into a panic as I fervently tried to pull my arm free of the spirit’s maw and swung the arm that held Razor in an upward motion, hoping to stab the creature in the side. But before I could move my sword arm more than an inch, the wolf leaped off me, twisting my arm viciously as it evaded a savage swipe from Amaranth, who had since recovered from his missed attack just seconds earlier.
Not able to form a coherent reply to Amaranth from the panic that still consumed me, I instead choose to pull hard on the arm that was still trapped in the wolf’s mouth as my mana steadily continued to drain out of my body. Feeling both flesh and armor give way under the wolf’s teeth, I tore my arm free of the creature’s mouth, just as Amaranth rushed past me and finally collided with the ghost wolf with an earsplitting cacophony of canine snarls and feline hisses.
Completely in agreement with my familiar, I scrambled along the ground in an attempt to put some distance between Amaranth and the mana devouring spirit, before forcing myself up onto my feet and turning towards the sounds of Freya and Carver, reflexively checking just how much mana I had left in the process.
HP: 562/792
Stamina: 436/720
Mana: 351/790
Fuck! The wolf stole over a hundred points of mana! I blinked away the update as another searing cough forced itself out of my body. In the excitement of the wolf’s attack, adrenaline had allowed me to forget about Carver’s affliction, but not completely ignore the damage that it did to my system.
Pushing aside the searing pain in my chest for a moment, I rushed to rejoin Freya and Carver, the two of them brawling viciously in our relative oasis of calm within the greater battle that continued to rage around us. In the few seconds that I had lost track of the battle, the tempo had notably shifted, becoming even fiercer, neither side willing, or able to spare anyone to intervene in our fight.
For all intents and purposes, we
were on our own.
“So, Lyrian, did you like your first meeting with Valefor?” Carver asked me just as I re-entered the melee, disengaging momentarily from Freya and regarding the both of us warily. “I figured the two of you would hit it off; he has quite the taste for spellcasters!”
“What the hell is he?” I shot back, not truly expecting an answer as I lunged to attack Carver, Freya following me a heartbeat behind.
Given the level difference between Amaranth and the wolf spirit, I didn’t expect him to be able to keep it off our backs forever, but hopefully long enough for Freya and me to put an end to Carver. Or at the very least, drive him off.
Assuming Freya and I even can. The grim thought passed through my mind as Carver whirled his spear through the air, deflecting or avoiding our attacks with ease. It seemed that he hadn’t been lying about having a level advantage on us, which could have put him as high as level seventeen, assuming it was comparable to the wolf who seemingly followed his orders.
“A spirit wolf,” Carver replied unhelpfully as he blocked Freya’s spear with his shield and then thrust his own weapon towards me, the jagged tip piercing through the section of armor that protected my hip and drawing forth blood. “A special kind of spirit wolf though.”
“Very helpful,” I spat, burying the pain from Carver’s attack and launching myself forward at the man, swinging a crackling Razor through the air as I decided to take a risk and use up some of my mana while I still had it. Without using magic to augment my fighting style, I was at best, a lightly armored warrior and given the level disadvantage that we already had; this wasn’t the time to hold anything back.
Besides, I added silently as I finally managed to get Razor’s electrified tip through Carver’s guard, sinking it deep into the heavy leathers that protected his shoulder. I can always return the favor and steal his mana like the wolf did mine!
Legacy of the Fallen (Ascend Online Book 2) Page 33