Knives in the Night

by Nathan A. Thompson

  “Do you swear?” Sir Travis the Horde Douche asked, dark eyes shining with hatred. “Do you swear not to run from us?”

  “Fuck you!” I snarled again, and this time Teeth snarled with me. “Fuck you and your false oaths! I am Wes Malcolm of Earth and Avalon, Planetary Lord and Protector of Avalon’s worlds! If I say I am going to eviscerate you, I am going to do it, and I am going to do so without visiting one of your goddamned notaries first! And even if I did bind myself to an actual oath, there’s no way you bastards wouldn’t weasel your way out of it like the last bastard did! Tell me how to get to Anahita, or I swear I’ll find a way to make you feel every death I’ve ever experienced, all at once!”

  A surge of invisible power thudded through the air, and I realized that in my anger, I had somehow done the exact same thing I had sworn that I would not do a few moments ago.

  “Good enough,” Travis said with a satisfied nod. “It pains me that you are so devoted to the goal of letting prey debase you, but I will answer you now: the one you call Anahita is now past us, in the deeper chambers of the Vault. That is the entryway to the realm of our ally, but we have warded it with our own magics, per his request. You will not be able to enter it yourself unless you find a way to slay every one of us here. And you will not succeed, because we will kill you here and now.”

  Wes, look out! Breena shouted into my mind.

  I turned in that very instant, as something sharp scraped its way through my script shield and scratched painfully against my armor. The blow somehow passed through a seam in my Atlantean scale mail to stab against the light Woad chain shirt I wore underneath. Then my padding and enhanced skin blunted another large chunk of the force, but in spite of all that, enough power got through to bruise me heavily and activate my vital guard.

  I had been surprised to discover that the Pit Knight had somehow gotten behind me, but judging from the look in my opponent’s eyes, he was just as surprised to discover his strike hadn’t been a killing blow.

  But he leaped away from me the next moment, dodging my return strike.

  And then two more hooded enemies leaped at me from each side, each wielding long, curved daggers of their own.

  I parried one, and caught the other by the wrist with my free hand, but to my surprise, the Pit Knights were much, much stronger and faster than the normal Malus Men were.

  Their legs flashed up almost in sync as one struck me in the wrist and the other in the back of the knees.

  It was enough to yank the left one out of my grip and send me crashing to the floor, but now my reflexes had caught up with me. I arrested my fall with one hand, then used that same hand to push myself off the floor and sweep my own legs around in a trip attempt of my own.

  I caught one Pit Knight and knocked him off his feet, but the second one jumped clear by somersaulting several feet backwards, cape flapping in the air behind him.

  I rose up on both feet and grabbed the Hordeman still on the floor, hauling him up by the cape and placing him between me and the throng of black hoods rushing toward me.

  He swiped at me again with his dagger, but I jerked my body to let it skid across my armored arm and stabbed him back in kind.

  The Pit Knight grunted in pain, but I felt something hard absorb most of the blow, and I realized these former Earthborn were wearing mail under their cloaks.

  I growled in frustration over how long it was taking me to fight these assholes, and then I kicked him in the stomach. Again, the mail absorbed most of the blow, but I had still put enough power to send him flying away from me and into the mass of cloaked figures rushing towards me.

  If it had been the Malus operatives, it would have knocked them down like a group of bowling pins.

  But my shrouded enemies just flowed around their ally, with two hanging back to catch him, and the rest either leaped over him or dove to either side, running along the walls to get at me.

  I swore in surprise, then made a backwards leap of my own, giving myself a bit of distance.

  The closest Pit Knights reacted immediately, hissing in anger and increasing their speed.

  “You swore that you would not run!” the one in the lead swore as he charged me, knife out, free hand behind him as he articulated a spell.

  “I said I would kill you,” I corrected as I stepped to the side, extended a free hand of my own, and summoned Shard.

  The icy Atlantean polearm manifested in its spear form, and the Pit Knight didn’t have time to dodge.

  The powerful spear blasted through his cloak, mail, stomach, spine, back of his mail, back of his cloak, and finally the stone wall next to us, since I had summoned it at an angle.

  My enemy let out a choked gasp as he was lifted off his feet and pinned to the wall by a weapon that had already crippled him and was currently freezing his vital organs. He dropped his dagger to grip the spear with an increasingly feeble grip, and it was clear that even if his comrades stopped to help him, he would not be joining the fight.

  They did not stop to help him.

  The two trailing just a step behind dove for me immediately, and I had to let go of the spear to face the onslaught of their knives.

  My own white-hilted dagger flashed back and forth in a series of parries, but the Hordemen running along the walls caught up next, leaping to land behind me.

  “Surround him and bring him down!” Travis called out as he raced forward as well. “Pin him and end him, just like we practiced!”

  He didn’t need to give instructions, because every Pit Knight in range was either distracting me with their knives or already reaching for me with glove-covered hands.

  They were on all sides of me now. I deflected two more stabs, punched one grappler, kicked another guy who got his hand on my cloak, and then struggled with two more Knights who had managed to get a grip on my wrist.

  I head-butted one of the men and knocked him off of me, parried another stab, then started to sink down as someone kicked the back of my knee.

  As I went down, I twisted my grappled hand free to elbow my attacker in the crotch, and then someone tackled me from behind.

  He was strong enough to take me to the floor, whoever he was, and then two other Knights piled on top of him, trying to press me to the floor.

  I pressed against the ground to try and get up or buck them off of me, and almost succeeded, but then someone kicked at my hand, sending me crashing back on the ground.

  Then someone grabbed my dagger-wielding hand and stretched it out, letting another enemy kick it free of my grip.

  My taser-power discharged by then, shocking all my grapplers, but they just seemed to grit their teeth, fight through the pain, and wrestle me into a position to where I was completely prone.

  Then someone knelt over my head, and I looked up in time to see a cloaked figure direct a downward stab at my eye.

  CHAPTER 38: DRAWING THE SECOND BLADE

  Before his blade could penetrate my eye, a massive pillar of golden light blasted down the hallway. The Pit Knight over my head was incinerated before he could even scream, and the Hordemen restraining me fell away covered in golden flames.

  Stay down, Breena sent me, and a moment later sharp fragments of golden butterfly wings came tearing through the burning enemies all around me, tearing apart two more of our foes.

  Two more Pit Knights fell to the floor, and I was free to look around. I saw Breena in full Dawnfairy form, golden butterfly-like wings flapping as orbs of rose-colored energy traveled around them.

  I started to roll to my feet, but then I heard Travis call out for counter fire.

  Breena, look out! I shouted through the mindlink, just as blasts of dark-red fire billowed out from the hands of six different Pit Knights.

  My bonded familiar had shrunk to a much smaller size as soon as she had finished her second attack. She dove to the floor, no bigger than a pink dot, just as the hallway went red with dark heat.

  She had missed the brunt of the blast, but I could feel pain searing through th
e familiar bond.

  I’m okay! she said, even as I felt her activate Wood magic to heal herself. Watch out yourself!

  I kicked off the ground immediately, leaping for the wall as the same dark-red fire came blasting toward me.

  Like Breena, I had only caught the edge of the blasts, but I still felt pain sear into my vital guard.

  Teeth and I roared in unison as we battled through the agony and kicked off the wall, using our Gale Cloak to hover in place just over our enemies’ heads in the narrow, but high-halled corridor.

  Then, as the Pit Knights raised their hands to send more blood-like flames in my direction, I released several layers of my windy cloak and sent them spinning into my enemies as Friction Slices.

  The mass of dark-robed figures fell back, clutching their wounds and regrouping.

  I advanced upon them.

  They are in my way, I thought angrily, as lightning began to crackle around my left hand. My friend and lover is in danger, and they are in the way.

  If I hadn’t known that I would likely need the power to help battle Cavus, I would have already activated my dragon form and torn these bastards apart with my bare teeth and claws.

  She’ll be fine, Breena whispered to me. I can feel her, somewhat. She is scared, but she is also unharmed…and I can feel her resisting her fear.

  “Stand firm,” Travis called out to the rest of his little cult. “We have taken his measure. We know we can defeat him now. He is wounded. He is spent. He is restrained by his unnatural urges. Unleash!”

  At his last command, black scales began crawling over the clothing, skin, and armor of my attackers.

  CHAPTER 39: REAR FLANK

  I charged them, trying to attack them before they finished changing, but Travis himself leaped forward.

  “It’s time to die, traitor-prince,” the former human hissed as his cloak fell back. We caught each other’s weapon hand, but as we grappled I found that Travis was slowly overpowering me. The dragon scales continued climbing upward until they covered his face and gave him a second jaw.

  And as the lightning in my hand made contact with his scales, it fizzled harmlessly away.

  “Fall quiet and perish,” the once-man snarled again, “so that our healing can finally begin!”

  I snarled a random expletive at my demonic former youth pastor, then I kicked him in the torso to push myself away from him.

  He barely staggered back, but now that I was farther away, the rest of his Knights let out another, far more powerful series of fiery blasts.

  The hallway exploded with dark red, oily fire. It burned into me, siphoning away my vital guard in massive chunks, choking away my air, making me feel as if I was trapped inside an ocean of boiling blood.

  Stop hesitating! Teeth shouted into my mind. We have to do it now, or we’ll die!

  He was right, but I still tried to save my full power for the fight I knew would come after this.

  I activated my Battleform, and felt my Ideals surge with power as they intensified each other, as they always had. Every spell I cast now had a mixture of six Ideals and one Subideal, increasing its power by six and a half times over.

  The cloak of air surrounding me caught fire as it whipped rocks and water and ice and lightning and blood all around me. The Pit Knights flinched away from me as the powerful elements thrashed about the narrow hallway.

  They would rally and attack me in the next moment, I knew.

  But now I finally realized that despite the cramped nature of the narrow hallway, I would need a longer weapon.

  Breaker activated, and changed from Carnwennan to Claimh Solais, the Woadland sword of light. It was still a short blade, so it wouldn’t cause the same problems that Shard or Toirneach or one of my other weapons would.

  But its brightness added to the chaos in the room, and as my partially blinded enemies fired their blood-and-breath-like fire at me once again, I sent whirling disks of elemental power into their blasts, slicing their flames in half with the force of my powerful spinning blades.

  I charged forward in the wake of my magic, lunging and stabbing at the closest Pit Knight.

  Scale, cloak, and mail parted under the force of my blow, tearing the monster apart much like Breena’s Dawn Wings did. The Pit Knight gurgled as he tore his way off my blade, clutching the smoking new hole in his chest.

  Another scaled fiend leaped over the wounded Knight to attack me, hissing from under his cowl as he stabbed for my face.

  I deflected his blow with my longer blade, and found that this time, I could hold my ground as we grappled.

  The monster lashed out at me with his free claw, but I caught his hand.

  Again, I had to struggle to hold him back, but I was able to, and after a moment the gusts of elemental power flowing around me and the current of elemental power flowing within me struck out at his hand.

  The force of my new power blew his taloned hand out of my grip, scorching and shredding it.

  But the limb was still attached, which disappointed me.

  So was the fact that he was still alive.

  I moved to finish the black-scaled bastard, but three of his brethren rushed at me, attempting to encircle me as they had done before by running along the walls and leaping behind me.

  But as they tried to flank and overpower me, my cloak of elemental magic slashed and scorched across their bodies.

  It still wasn’t enough to injure them severely, but it created an opening for me. I managed to slash the chest of the one behind me, then sliced into his hooded head before the other two fired their blasts of magic.

  This time, the blood-red fire flared uselessly against my cloak, as the seven different elements battered the flames away.

  But it distracted me for a moment, and that allowed the rest of my foes to swarm forward and add their own blasts of fire.

  My elemental shroud buckled and rippled under the onslaught, and the fire blinded my vision, but I slowly, methodically forced my way through the blasts, raising my hand to launch an elemental bolt at just the right spot to finally clear the hallway of living enemies.

  But a sharp pain blossomed in my back, penetrating my wards, armor, and elemental cloak.

  Then a familiar burning sensation wracked my body, and Teeth screamed in pained rage as he struggled to overcome the Horde fire covering whatever blade had been shoved into my back.

  “Die now, traitor-prince,” Travis half-hissed, half-begged from behind me, “it is the only way both yourself and your once-family can ever be whole.”

  I could just barely see him out of the corner of my eye.

  He was covered in a green fire that had burned away his outer robe and cloak, revealing the black, armor-like scales covering his entire body. His dragon-like jaw was gritting its long teeth in desperation and hate, and I could feel him attempt to will me dead with his gaze.

  I struggled to free myself from his blade, but then two more Pit Knights rushed forward, braved their comrades' flames and the storm of elements around me, and stabbed their own blades into me.

  The weapons ignited with green fire just before they tore through my mail, and I felt my already-battered vital guard struggle to repair the many sources of damage.

  I sagged to my knees, bleeding from the outside, burning from the inside, cursing myself for not still finding a way to win without spending myself completely.

  But I could still do that, I realized grimly as I prepared to activate my dragon form and blast every stored spell left in my body.

  But a massive bolt of lightning blasted by, striking Travis and my two other assailants, knocking them and their weapons away from me.

  A moment later, a series of fireballs, lightning bolts, and arrows, blasted out from the hall I had first entered this place with.

  Wes, it worked! Breena shouted in my mind. I did it! They’re here! Now hang on!

  I took a moment to activate another rarely used signature spell, Corrective Flow. The Water spell worked its healing, empowered f
urther by my other Ideals and going a long way to restore my vital guard, completely reversing the damage that the green fire had done.

  We’re here, I heard Val say hurriedly in my mind as my team came charging down the hallway. Are you okay, bro?

  I’m fine…ish, I replied as I rose back to my feet. Breena flew next to me and began casting a healing spell, further restoring my damage, as Breyn and Eadric stepped in front of me with shields raised, taking up most of the corridor’s room with their armored bulks. They had drawn light blades instead of their normal axe and hammer combination.