“It looks like you got what you wanted, Zed,” he announced and surprised the merc as his voice was much louder and higher pitched than normal. He had never heard him speak in anything more than a conversational tone and he wondered if it was merely a bout of bloodlust.
The assassin snapped his fingers and all but one of the orbs of light vanished to leave him beneath the last one. This one shrank so there was barely enough light to cover his form. Zed peeked out of his dark world to get a closer look at his foe, who looked down with his arms folded and his face obscured in shadow. The ever-shifting lights of his Madman’s Eye were still visible, however. His shoulders jiggled up and down as he continued to giggle quietly. “But I guess that getting what you want means you won’t get what you truly wished for.”
What in the hells was he on about? The merc leader slipped into the shadows. His adversary had surely lost it. He was right and the eye was getting to him. Perhaps the reason he hadn’t used it after all was because he was weaker now when he used it. Zed’s hold on Ebon Jackal tightened and he smiled at the thought that he would finish this. But as he moved about his dark space to a wall directly behind his target, Koli’s head snapped toward him with a devious grin that struck him with sudden fear.
His foe pointed directly at him and said, “I see you.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Koli looked directly at him and the shock made Zed move away. He traveled through the shadows to a position on the ceiling overlooking his opponent. The assassin didn’t move at first, but he finally turned slowly and looked up, again directly at the mercenary leader, and his demonic grin never faltered.
Beyond the first time he had used the power of Ebon Jackal, he had never felt any unease in his private dark world. Admittedly, he could only peek at the outside world from within, but he had overcome that in short order over the years. After enough time, he had grown to feel comfortable within the shadows and it became almost something of a sanctuary, even during combat.
But as the Madman’s Eye bore down on him and stared into his wide eyes, he felt compromised. Concern that bordered on dread made this a sanctuary no longer. He would not let his adversary change the flow of this fight. While he had delivered some minor strikes, he needed to end this before his enemy was able to find a way through—something he had thought impossible until now but given the situation, he had to think it probable. He had to strike fast and with most of the area around his target hidden in darkness, he could attack from anywhere. It provided a ludicrous advantage normally, so why did he hesitate?
He hefted his dagger and snarled as he darted to the area behind Koli, lunged out of the darkness, and attempted to backstab the trickster before he had a chance to turn. But something was wrong. His body shifted and his arm moved to the left beside his target’s ribs. The limb came down, now trapped by his adversary, who flipped him and landed a kick to his stomach that hurled Ebon Jackal’s user into a rocky wall and knocked the air out of him.
Since when the hell was Koli this strong? Zed wheezed for a moment as he forced himself to his feet and sank into the shadows, while the assassin simply stared at him as he took refuge in darkness. The merc had not feared him since the day he had betrayed him and his brother. Hate had taken any feelings of terror or sadness when he envisioned the man, but looking at him now, his face looked more like a twisted mask than that of a human. The sight stripped away the confidence he had in his power and that fear began to return.
Zed traveled to the ceiling again but stopped midway. His first thought was that something was wrong with Ebon Jackal.
“What’s the matter, Zed?” Koli asked and twisted his head against the strain of his suddenly immobile body to where his enemy stared at him with his hand outstretched. “I thought this was what you wanted, so why run?” The assassin yanked his arm back and the abrupt gesture pulled the merc from the shadows toward him. He raised his other arm and as soon as Zed was close enough, hammered it into his cheek and caused it to rupture from the force, and drove him into the floor. The man’s consciousness almost left him as a result of the strike and he tried to push past his bewilderment. His adversary was an assassin. He was physically strong, certainly, but even with Vis, he’d never had this kind of might.
The merc got to his knees and stood shakily. He tried to retaliate with a hard kick to Koli’s stomach, only for it to be ensnared by the distortion field of the malefic eye. The assassin prodded the boot for a moment.
“You need to keep your anima up, Zed. Are you nervous?” he asked as the boot slowly began to turn. Zed attempted to focus and empower his anima when he felt his foot about to break. “Because if you don’t, it’s easy for me to do this.” The boot spun suddenly in a full circle and a series of loud snaps and cracks resulted in a severely mangled foot and he uttered a pained yell.
Koli let the foot drop and Zed lunged at him with his dagger raised. With frightening ease, his adversary caught his hand, flipped him, and thumped him into the ground again. “I’m starting to see why you rely on hit-and-run tactics, Zed,” the assassin mused as the merc began to crawl away. “It seems you are not man enough for a face-to-face fight.”
“To the hells with you, Koli!” he snarled and again attempted to dive into the shadows as the other magi raised a hand. He had managed to get all but his mangled foot into the darkness but a searing pain made him cry out before he was forced out of his refuge to sprawl in the pool of blood that formed around his legs. The area was incredibly bright now and Koli walked closer and picked something up from the ground. A moment later, the merc recognized the object as his foot.
“Well, that’s one guess that turned out to be true.” His adversary chuckled and showed the severed appendage to the merc leader. “I shifted the light as you made your little getaway, which caused the shadows to move. Your foot was still on this side while the rest of you hid.” He tossed the foot to the side. “It seems it was caught between the darkness and the real world—much like closing a portal on someone while they travel through, it eviscerates the body,”
The merc turned and thrust Ebon Jackal through his own shadow, one of the only pieces of darkness left around him. He planned for it to pierce Koli’s shadow and skewer his leg to wound him in some fashion and break his focus. Instead, he felt something pierce his ribs and he hissed in pain and looked down at his blade that now dug into him.
When the assassin pointed above, the merc rolled back to see a distortion field above him. Koli shifted it so his shadow was now under his opponent. “I saw that coming.” He snickered, grasped him by the neck, and lifted him to look him in the eyes. “I’m mad, Zed, not a fool.”
Zed felt the field encircle his head but was powerless to react. He had lost so much blood now and the pain of his wounds made him lose focus. His anima faded and he could feel his head begin to turn.
“This must have been a win-win fight for you, Zed,” Koli stated and his demented smile returned to more to the casual, teasing one his enemy was familiar with. “If you won, I was dead and you got your vengeance.” The man struggled against the force around him. “And if I won, you got to see your brother again.” The light above began to fade and the cave darkened. “Tell him I said hello and no hard feelings, I hope.”
The merc spat on him and in an attempt at one final attack, tried to ram Ebon Jackal through the side of Koli’s head. The assassin knocked the blade aside, although did get a small cut above his ear in the pointless exchange. He smiled at the man in acknowledgment. “Respect,” he stated before Zed felt an immense pressure that forced his head around completely and the light and his life were extinguished.
Ramah delivered a final blow to the cavern wall. Tiso must have fortified it with more than only his mana for it to be this sturdy, but Zed must be within and he could surely hear that help was coming. With the last empowered punch, the wall finally cracked and crumbled away to reveal a dark cavern within with no noise or signs of struggle. The lanterns lighting the cave illuminated the new sp
ace for only a few feet as the wildkin held his hammer in his hands and debated about whether to step inside or not.
His deliberation ended when a figure walked into the light. It was a man with long violet hair and a narrow face, who wore an eye patch and was putting his shirt and vest on. He noticed the mercenary after he’d pulled the garments over his head.
“Hello there,” he greeted pleasantly and twirled something in his right hand. “And who might you be?”
Ramah looked at the object in this stranger’s hand. The dark dagger with an ornate hilt was unmistakable—Ebon Jackal. “You are Koli,” he stated.
The man chuckled and nodded. “I am indeed, but that’s not what I asked.”
“So you killed Zed then?” Ramah asked even though he was certain of the answer.
Koli shook his head before he nodded. “You truly don’t know how questions work, do you? Although yes, I have…ah!” He snapped his fingers and pointed at the newcomer. “You’re the wildkin in Zed’s little troop, of course! You must have been the one making that racket.”
He did not nod or move at all and the assassin lowered his hand and scratched the underside of his chin with the back of Ebon Jackal. “So, will you be another avenger? I should give you some advice and say that I’ve run into two today and both did not fare well.” He looked at the blade and it caught his reflection. “I should also tell you I have made something of a promise to myself to not leave any survivors to hunt me in the future. It’s become a nuisance, I have to say.”
In a somewhat dramatic gesture, he placed a hand against his heart. “But I will promise to leave you alive as the last one before I enact my new rule, assuming you promise to not target me in the future. Think of it as a kind of lucky prize for coming at the right time—or wrong time, I suppose. It depends on your outlook.”
Unmoved, Ramah continued to stare at him and Koli frowned. “Are you still contemplating the whole revenge scenario? Was Zed that dear a friend? Even when he didn’t want me dead, he wasn’t what I would call a good man.”
The wildkin drew a deep breath and nodded. “He was not. I agree with that but I do not think he was irredeemable.” He slung his hammer over his shoulder as he continued. “He was an angry, bitter man when I met him but he was not soulless. More than once I saw him give to the less fortunate, particularly children, and he would do jobs like running bandit camps away from small villages for no pay.”
“Truly?” Koli sounded genuinely surprised. “This is the same Zed who used to take pleasure in torturing people for information and who would beat his men on a bad day?”
Ramah shrugged. “I never saw him do those things. Perhaps he did, but he would say that his brother would do the same when I asked why he did certain things.”
The assassin paused and nodded after a moment. “I suppose he did every now and then. That one was a big softy. I suppose his death had an effect on him, which means I did as well.”
His gaze suddenly hard, the wildkin ground his teeth for a moment to keep from shouting. “My hope in life is to help people like that become better—to atone for my misdeeds that one inevitably has in this profession. But I could see that he would never move on until he had dealt with you, which was why I was able to call in a few favors and have the Council invite you to these trials to get you into a place where Zed could deal with you.”
Koli was genuinely surprised. “Wait, that was you?” He began to chuckle and it broke into a long, loud laugh. “I truly admire your dedication. I hadn’t even considered it could be a trap of some kind, at least by someone from my past.” He placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. “I commend your tenacity, although I suppose this did not work out as you had expected.”
“I could only hope,” Ramah admitted and closed his eyes a moment in regret. “Which was all I could do with Zed as well.”
He folded his arms and focused on the larger warrior. “So then, where does that leave us?”
Ramah opened his eyes again and a few moments of silence passed between the two before he took his hammer in both hands and stared at him.
The assassin sighed and nodded. “I suppose that is how it works with your kind, isn’t it?” he muttered and seemed disappointed. “Hopefully, the next person won’t simply dismiss my hospitality.” He paused to think for a second before looked at his possible opponent again. “You don’t know me as well as you did Zed, but when you look at me—and knowing what you do as I assume your boss gave you an earful—what do you see? Am I irredeemable in your eyes?”
The wildkin frowned and took a moment to study the assassin before he spoke. “I used to believe there were very few who could not be redeemed. Deep down, we wish to do better and be better, but the circumstances of our lives force us down dark paths and corrupt our very souls,” His hands tightened around his hammer. “But seeing you now and how you seem so unbothered by everything that has happened, not only today but in your life…” He exhaled a long breath through his nostrils. “I cannot say you even have a soul. You live by your whims alone, no matter who it hurts, and your drive seems to be only malicious. If anything, I would say there is nothing to you but a desire to see death and destruction in your path. You are not even human but a vessel of chaos.”
Koli considered this for a moment before he nodded. “I would agree with you. I have to say you are quite good at reading people.” He took a step back and held Ebon Jackal up. “Very well then, at least make this entertaining, all right?”
Ramah lifted his hammer and uttered an angered battle cry as mana coated his weapon and he swung it at his adversary, who disappeared into the shadows.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The three young magi ran down a path strewn with bodies. This put Asla and Jazai on high alert but did not seem to worry Devol, who continued to race down the hall.
“Devol, what are you doing?” Jazai demanded, then gritted his teeth when he remembered to keep his voice down in case there were enemies nearby.
His friend didn’t respond. He was too focused on what was in front of him. Large quantities of mana indicated that someone was either producing a massive spell or there was a fight in progress. If the corpses were any indication, it was the latter.
As he turned the corner, he saw Ramah’s massive back and the two ends of the hammer he held in his hands. He was momentarily relieved and almost called to him before he realized that he felt another familiar mana. His friends caught up to him as the wildkin mercenary fell back, his body marred by cuts and wounds. He drew one long breath before he closed his eyes as his mana faded from his body.
The three looked at the large warrior magi in shock and surprise. The swordsman felt a twinge of remorse. He had certainly not known him long but he deserved a better fate than this, even if it was almost inevitable in these trials. Jazai placed a hand on his shoulder and pointed directly ahead. Devol looked up and his eyes widened. Koli leaned against the cavern wall while he balanced a dagger nonchalantly on his finger.
The assassin looked at them, his face partially obscured in shadow, but it couldn’t hide his satisfied grin. He tossed the dagger up and caught it before he focused his attention on them and put his other hand on his hip. “Well, hello there, young ones,” he said cheerfully and walked a few steps toward them. “I wondered if I would run into you again before the end. This is such a happy coincidence.”
Jazai and Asla both dropped into defensive positions while Devol remained unmoved and simply stared directly into Koli’s eyes. “So you killed him then?” he asked and gestured at Ramah’s body. It was obvious, certainly, but he wanted to hear the man say it.
He was happy to oblige. “I certainly did,” he confirmed and looked at the dagger. “It was interesting, mostly because I had to get used to this dagger, but he lasted far longer than I would have guessed.”
“That’s Zed’s malefic,” the diviner. “You can wield both?”
“It’s honestly not that difficult,” Koli said and he chortled and rolled the dag
ger in his hand. “Although I have to say I’m not sure how I feel about it. You would think that as an assassin, it would fit me perfectly but there is something wrong about it.” He frowned but eventually shrugged and looked at them again, although he remained thoughtful. “So, how have you fared? I hope you are ready to reach the finish. I would suspect that at least a couple have already arrived in the chamber.”
None of them responded as they waited for the trickster’s next move—or more specifically, to see if he would take the opportunity to attack. Koli shook his head after a few seconds of silence before he vanished, seemingly into the ground. They all jumped back in surprise.
Devol felt something touch his pockets. He turned as his friends checked their pockets and bags as well and both paled. Koli emerged out of one of the darkened walls and looked at something he held in his hands.
“I see the cat girl and the bookkeeper both have their sister signets,” he commented, glanced behind him, and lobbing the signets at the feet of their owners. “And there are six left. Look at that—enough for you to get in as well.” He focused on the young swordsman as he slid his hand into his vest pocket and produced his signet. “I suppose you don’t need mine, then?”
The boy reached for Achroma’s hilt. “I may not need it but I want it,” he declared and drew the sword. “I want to see what the difference between us is.”
Koli made a face that at first appeared to be surprise but soon settled in an expression that suggested he was almost enamored with the swordsman. “You are fantastic, little Devol,” he all but purred, took the boy’s signet out of the pile, and added his own as he tossed them to the young magi, who caught them in one hand.
“What are you doing?” he demanded as he examined them warily.
The Oblivion Trials (The Astral Wanderer Book 3) Page 26