by A. S. Etaski
*Hatchet and Pickaxe,* I answered, identifying them by their weapons. The other four held large axes or Dwarf-sized swords of impressive make. They all wore well-made armor of metal and made a lot of noise.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
*Some bend Radiants as camouflage,* I continued. *Catch in webbing or outline them the instant they start to fade.*
She nodded once. *You engage, I’ll cover.*
*Why, thank you,* I signed sarcastically.
*I have the bow.* She smirked. *You are melee. You get close, outline them for me. I shoot.*
A loud yelp caught our attention and as we looked up, I saw one of the Tragar was holding on to a rope with both hands. The other end was somehow connected to Jael’s leg.
“Barbed hook,” Panagan said aloud with a hiss, tensing and clearly wanting to rise and nock her bow.
She was right; I had to move now.
“Cover me,” I murmured. “Light pellets only with warning.”
“Right. Go.”
I surged forward down into the hollow where Jael resisted being pulled off the rock. She couldn’t last long and landed with a loud scream of pain; at the same time my boots hit the cavern floor.
Panagan waited until I was within distance, when my stride made enough sound to cause a Tragar to turn around, before she fired. It was a beautiful shot, lodged in the armpit as he’d raised his arm to prepare an attack. He barked in surprise, gripped the arrow with shock, and I finished him with a slim stab into the throat with my thinnest blade. Metal armor or not, there were weak points.
One down.
“Faeriluci,” I growled, flinging three magic pellets toward the backs of three other targets.
The small spheres broke, and the spell was released, outlining their bodies in soft, magenta light for Panagan to target, just as they all turned to grasp the new threat. I appraised our advantage with delight; the Tragar did not have any ranged weapons right to hand, but Panagan and I did.
They shouted deep-throated, Dwarvish curses at me as I exchanged my dagger for the short-distance hand crossbow. My weapon was prepared with only one shot, but I was very close. A squeeze of my hand sent Pickaxe reeling back, a tiny poison-tipped arrow biting into his bearded cheek. He’d be paralyzed within ten ticks, fifteen if he really fought hard. Eventually his lungs would seize, and he’d suffocate.
Just don’t get close again, and he’ll be gone.
Two down.
Then three of them, when Panagan pierced another outlined in magenta light with a poisoned arrow of her own.
The one with the hatchet was farthest from me, him and the last two of his brethren between Jael and me. He growled as he yanked on the hook buried in the cait’s calf, making her yell. His milk-white eyes gleamed with unfamiliar power, as did his teeth as he gritted them; they were all I could make out in his dark, bald head.
The other two Dwarves wore helmets. This one didn’t. I really didn’t like that.
They bellowed something unintelligible at me and the other two charged forward. I was faster and evaded their attacks, drawing them away from Jael and trying to give Panagan a clear shot at Hatchet. I nearly missed the large stone lifted without obvious aid off the ground, preparing to be hurtled through the air as if thrown by an invisible giant. It was aimed at the archer.
Alright, I was wrong about none having ranged weapons.
“Pani, down and cover!” I yelled so loudly my voice broke as I fished out a light pellet. I pitched anywhere in Hatchet’s direction where it would break with my command word, “Lucinitri!”
A single, bright light lit up the entire cavern for two ticks, centered in between the two Tragar in front of me. Roars of pain and surprise exploded at the same moment I heard the harsh bang of stone colliding with stone. With no sound from Panagan, I took it that she hadn’t been hit directly, but I wouldn’t know for the present if she was still in the fight with me.
I couldn’t see anything. I had to close my eyes and try to ignore the blotchy spots behind my eyelids and continue fighting that way.
The two Tragar tried to flank me; their confident but heavy movements told me they could blind-fight, too, but fortunately didn’t have my dexterity. I took the instant I needed to strain for any sound from Jael while I dodged away from the axes held by arms with a short reach.
Where was she?
Come on, make some sound!
I heard the drag of a rope. That had to be good enough. I removed a spare steel dagger from my boot—the one that wasn’t pre-poisoned, because I didn’t need Jael pricking herself in the dark—and I knelt low to the ground to toss it in her direction. It skittered and bounced along the ground and stopped about where I thought she was.
I already knew she was very good fighting with two weapons, and if she had her wits at all intact, she’d scissor the thick rope that held her first.
I heard her grunt as she lunged where the dagger had landed—Good cait.—and I leaped away from the two blind, magenta outlines once again to get closer to the psion. I plucked a powder-filled bottle from my belt and threw it in the general direction of the bald-headed dwarf. If I hit him or the ground around him at all, I would be pleased.
“Vahsist—!” he exclaimed, not knowing at all what dusted all over his armor before he started coughing.
It would give Jael time, but after him, I heard her cough as well. Then I felt the tickle, hacking my breath once.
Fuck. Too much.
Good thing I wasn’t trying to hide.
There was a whistle in the air and a grunt behind me as Panagan took down another of the fighters. Only one remained when I heard the shink! of two blades crossing each other and a body rolling farther away. Jael had freed herself at last.
The bald Dwarf cursed, coughed again, and turned toward the escaping Davrin. I ignored the glowing, teetering outline of the lone ax-wielder and went instead for the most dangerous. My sight was slowly recovering, which meant his would be, too, and even if Jael could stand, it wouldn’t help her once he could focus with those blank, white eyes on her.
He must have heard me because something which felt like a stone golem’s fist struck me directly in the chest. I staggered backward, stunned and unable to breathe while the Tragar continued coughing on itch-dust in the dark. I heard an arrow clink off the armor of the final magenta Dwarf and, knowing Panagan had missed her aim, I had no choice but to dive awkwardly to the side as his axe struck the stone beside me, chipping it with a spark of light. Jael screamed somewhere I couldn’t see her.
No!
I heard her groan the next moment and knew she still lived.
Pressure inside my head made a sudden, a too-familiar, urgent attempt to build and overtake me. I strained to stand against the mind attack while simultaneously dancing with the swinging Tragar, only half my senses working.
Damn it, they were ganging up on me. My hand crossbow wasn’t reloaded, and I’d dropped it after the mind-fist had hit me anyway. My volatile poisons would affect me as well as the Tragar—range wasn’t an option. Where was Panagan?
Damn it to the Abyss!
As much as I did not want to go toe-to-toe with a Dwarf’s axe with my brain being addled by the thick, mental squeeze of another, I didn’t have much choice. I drew a pre-poisoned dagger from my boot; all I had to get was a scratch on this one. Time would do the rest.
Three things happened at once. Another arrow struck the Axe Dwarf, embedding in something meaty this time, though it wasn’t lethal; the Tragar howled, cursed, and moved to raise his axe over me again. Then Panagan cried out in alarm, stumbling like something grabbed or crushed her, as the pressure in my own mind eased by half. Finally, I heard Jael speak.
Clear, loud, and angry.
“Your turn!”
The psion shrieked in pain, and the psychic echo which lashed out took the last-standing Dwarf, Panagan, and me all down to our knees. Pain radiated out from my crotch, and I clutched
myself desperately, trying in vain to remove some invisible, sharp hook. The Axe Dwarf on the ground beside me whimpered, doing the same and grasping at his genitals. Panagan’s howl was the fourth call of agony.
We were feeling his pain after what our vicious little recruit had done to him.
~Let go of us!~
Shocked, his mind drew back from me. Just for a moment. ~K-Kain?~
“Jael, kill him!” I screamed. “Put him down!”
I heard motion, the sound of long metal slicing flesh, gurgling, and finally, the pain in my head and between my legs stopped. The last fighter did not recover as quickly as I did, and I attacked first, burying my dagger in his eye. He flopped onto his back and died fast, thank Braqth for some fucking favor! It had been a waste of a poison dose but…
Whatever it takes to win instead of die.
The only sounds in the cavern were the three Davrin gasping hard in a three-point formation. My limbs shook from the lingering sensations and the exertion, and I became aware of the pain in my chest, a pinpoint bruise radiating pain as I breathed; the physical strike from the psionic Tragar that stopped me in my tracks.
He hadn’t thrown a stone at me. It was a mind “push” with the power of a thrown fist. Impressive to think he could form a club from nothing and strike me with it from afar, but I was still here. What were the limits on things like that? Had I met them already? I knew Tragar mistrusted and feared the Davrin, so had he begun with a powerful attack, but it wasn’t enough?
Maybe Tragar just aren’t as powerful as Ornilleth.
Maybe that was why Kain and I fell into endless rutting in the first place.
Shaking, I fumbled for a slower-acting healing draught and quaffed it. It was stupid of me not to have taken it prior to rushing into battle, but I’d forgotten and then, once in, there hadn’t been time.
Typical skirmish “plan.”
The magic potion warmed my stomach and filtered its soothing power through me; it became easier to breathe as my bruised chest, ribs, and back stopped hurting, as my headache went away and the phantom pain of hooked and shredded genitals disappeared entirely. While I waited, I checked on Gaelan’s Feldeu strapped to my lower back. It was still there as well, but it had been loosening; I reached to secure it in place. I was able to stand within moments and looked toward the ledge where my archer had been.
“Panagan!” I called.
“Not so loud,” she answered irritably, and I could see her holding her head as if she’d drunk too much wine the previous cycle.
Alive and talking. Good enough.
I moved over to Jael next. She’d cut the psion’s throat and dragged herself back from the freely-bleeding body. The cait was awake but struggling to remain so, and she watched me with extreme wariness through loose, tangled hair. She was not able to stand, or she would have been on her feet already, I knew. I appraised her injuries.
She’d ripped the barbed hook out of her calf somehow; I was amazed she’d had the strength. She’d then used the same hook on the psion. I started to smirk, hearing her quip just before the scream, and feeling what she’d done.
It had come at great cost to her, however. Her leg muscle was ruined, and she’d be permanently lame without magical healing. She breathed poorly, with too many hitches and grimaces of pain; some of her ribs were cracked, if not outright broken. I couldn’t count the number of scrapes and cuts on her skin, and it looked as though one of the axes had grazed her flank as the long cut gaped wide and bled freely.
My eyes returned to her face. It was clear she was at the end of her endurance, though she tried to hide it as the rush wore off. She grew paler before my eyes as she lost blood, and she had trouble holding her focus. She couldn’t make it back to the Great Cavern on her own, and scavengers would come to this place soon enough, attracted by the blood. She wouldn’t be able to defend herself anymore beyond this point.
Too late.
We hadn’t found her soon enough for it to matter. She was going to die out here as if we’d never come.
“You,” the cait said, slurring a little even as it took great effort and pain to talk. “Re’mber…you.”
I nodded. “Wicked work.”
“Th’battle or…these?” Her eyes flicked toward the Dwarf bodies.
“Both.” I crouched down and threaded my gloved fingers together. “Answer me something. You woke up next to that pond, you found your House’s blade. Then what?”
Jael weaved a little, side-to-side. “Mm.” She thought sluggishly. “Walked. Downhill. Thought someone was… behind me, moved faster.”
I nodded. It was probably Panagan and me.
She continued. “Heard stone chipping…ahead. Trapped between…too late once th-…they sensed me. Chased me…climbed on a stone. Hooked me, my leg, pulled me down…”
A look of pure hatred passed over her face as she gritted her teeth and gazed at her ripped flesh, then at the body of the one who’d done it. After that one flash of fire, however, hopelessness started to seep in. She knew she had no choices left.
Damn it. If it hadn’t been for… We could have been sooner.
I didn’t even know how much time we’d wasted while Panagan had to guide me in the tunnel. It was true that we’d dealt with the threat and Jael was still alive, but not for long. I felt regret that Panagan and I had inadvertently pushed her stumbling into the Tragars’ path. It had turned out exactly as I had tried to prevent: an unrealistic challenge that only ensured certain death of the recruit.
I wanted you to make it. So did Rausery.
“…I saw you… attack,” Jael said in a weak rasp, drawing me out of my thoughts. “One ran… before y-you.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Seven,” she whispered, drawing on some speck of will inside. “Female.”
I counted the bodies again—six, all male—and looked to Jael again, my gaze intense. “You’re sure?”
She nodded, wavered, and finally fell over to lie on her side. She seemed to be feeling less pain and if she still breathed at all, it was shallow. She didn’t have long.
Panagan had finally seen fit to climb down off the rocks and join me. She caught me taking another bottle from my belt.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
I kneeled beside an unconscious Jael and used my teeth to uncork the bottle, gathering the injured Davrin up into my arms so she was less likely to choke.
“Stop,” she said. “Don’t you dare, Sirana, that’s yours, you might need it!”
I ignored her and dribbled part of the most potent potion I had across Jael’s cracked, swollen lips. Fluid entered her mouth, that tiny spill just enough to revive her a little. I tipped again; she swallowed reflexively and coughed. Grimaced. Eyes still closed.
“We’re not to aid in her trials!” the archer barked. “Elders’ orders.”
I spat out the cork and hissed as Panagan moved to take the bottle from me. “I was ordered to take care of a threat and see the initiate get out of the threatened area. That’s what I’m doing.”
My Sister paused but got my meaning and made an ugly face. “Are you insane or just stupid? The Prime will just kill her! And then kill you, after making you sorry you helped her!”
I bore down on the fear trying to rise. Always more than one way to follow orders…
“We missed one!” I said, grasping for some justification. “A female Tragar. Jael saw her before we got here. We must track her now, or she’ll bring more Grey Dwarves to this area and they’ll follow us instead. I’m also not leaving a Davrin body behind for those mind-fuckers to take back to their stronghold. At the very least, they’d eat her!”
I fed the potion to Jael as I spoke, and she kept swallowing the bitter brew with intermittent, weak coughs. She wanted to live, though she probably couldn’t hear our words.
“You’re going to fucking drag me down with you!” Panagan said. “The Elders were extremely clear on paramet
ers!”
“They have to be, yet even a novice can sort priorities,” I retorted. “Nothing works like it’s supposed to after you release your first arrow, Panagan, you know that.”
She paused, taken aback, perhaps a bit scared how quickly all the consequences of this mission had changed. Hells, even I didn’t know what would happen back at the Cloister, because the mission wasn’t over yet.
Jael had finished the draught; I lay her back down and stood up, picking up the cork and putting it and the empty bottle in a pouch on my belt. Panagan shook her head, lips tightly pursed before she spoke.
“It won’t be a true test, it’s compromised. The Elders can’t justify it to the Prime to save your skins.”
That was true if I returned only with my current, limited knowledge and a set of empty hands. But there was more to be had, if I seized it, and my Elder Sorceress’s biting words after my first solo mission echoed in my mind.
I expect more from you. Every mission has an opportunity, and you have the ability to spot it. Your trials demonstrated this without any doubt on my side.
No doubt. Every mission has opportunity.
“Quit arguing, Panagan,” I said. “The Tragar is getting farther away. We have to find her.”
She hissed and ground her teeth as we watched the cait heal with unnatural speed. The wounds in flank and leg stopped bleeding first, and the ragged flesh knitting together rapidly within a subtle glow. Eyes still closed, Jael whimpered in discomfort as bones grew back together and swelling lessened, as the magic made her whole again.
She blinked, bewildered at first, but a cry tore from her throat as she rolled away from us. Before either of us could respond, Jael had seized her House blade and my dagger nearby. Grabbing both, she brandished them, growled something indecipherable at us.
“You little—” Panagan began.
“Excellent, you’re up,” I said, boldly held out my hand. “Thank you, Thietti. I’ll take my blade now.”