Holding my hatchet blade to the throat of the injured twin stopped his brother--and all the other soldiers.
It didn’t stop Kathina. Her shield sizzled through the air toward me. She could shape and aim the force-field a little. Enough to narrow the leading edge to about an arm’s length, though apparently no smaller. Which was good news. I didn’t want her to start jabbing lightning spears at me.
The bad news was that her shield moved too fast for me to dodge.
She yelled, “Take him! Kill him! Now!” and her crackling lightning struck glancing blows on both twins before hitting me.
My Fortitude--or my gem--protected me a little. Well, my Fortitude, my gem, and my desperation. So despite my weeping eyes, I slashed the twin’s throat as leaped around the shield toward his stunned, horrified brother. The sizzling shield knocked me aside and blasted tingling agony through my shoulder, but with my other outflung arm I managed to pound the mace-head of my hatchet into the surviving twin’s chest.
He screamed with pain and with rage--and grief. He screamed like ... well, like he’d just seen me cut his twin’s throat. And even though my blow had cracked something in his chest--his amor or his ribs--he managed to grab me in a bear-hug.
We rolled around for a few seconds, in a hail of crossbow bolts. The twin squeezed and the bolts fired and--
Health: 23/55
I turned to smoke for three seconds. When I re-solidified, I was already throwing both hatchets at Kathina. For once, she was too slow, or too drained, or too surprised to use her lightning shield.
I thought I’d finally draw blood, but instead a soldier blocked one hatchet with her buckler and then goddamn Kathina parried the other one in mid-air with a rapier I hadn’t even noticed her holding.
Right. She was gemmed. That meant she was stronger and tougher and faster even before taking her impossible magical powers into account.
Then her shield slammed into me again. So she wasn’t too drained, apparently. There was no lightning that time, but I took a hard smack that made me stagger, and Tiral-ur almost caught me with his mace. He was faster than a normal person, too, but not much. Thank god. I dodged and weaved and my websenses felt Kathina’s shield intensifying but she didn’t strike again, probably because I was surrounded by her soldiers.
Instead, she snapped orders at them and I summoned both my hatchets and lifted them overhead and bellowed, “Tiral-ur, face me! I challenge you to a duel!”
I had absolutely no idea where that had come from. A duel?
Still, the soldiers spread out off while Tiral-ur stalked closer to me, rolling his shoulders in preparation for engaging me one-on-one. The surviving twin straightened from the floor, wiping blood from his mouth and shooting me a look of pure hatred.
After taking a single step toward Tiral-ur, I spun and raced in the other direction. Fleeing like a bunny rabbit. Well, like a three-legged bunny rabbit, considering the ache in my knee and crossbow bolts in my side, and the thunder of blood in my ears from getting fried three times.
More crossbow bolts fired at me, but I managed to catch them in my domain as I stagger-ran down the hallway. I heard the Tiral-ur bellowing and Kathina snapping commands as I veered toward the courtyard, the one where Tansy had taken cover--the one where we’d killed the bears.
I wasn’t sure why she’d retreated there--
Still, I was pleased for two reasons. First, the courtyard was more defensible than facing the Sixers in a hallway. And second, there were hidden caves beyond the bear den.
When I staggered through the entrance, I almost smacked into Wren, who must’ve been seven feet tall, and as bulky as I’d seen her. She waiting just inside while Tansy was covering Usim in the back corner. She’d pulled the crossbow bolts from her stomach and packed the punctures in her armor with some kind of goo or fabric. I’d thought you were supposed to keep impaling object inside your body so you didn’t bleed out, but I didn’t have ollie hide--or magicland fantasy healing herbs.
So I looked away and told Wren, “The cave, there’s a den in the corner. There’s a path, an exit, go!”
“I need to hold them off,” Wren growled at me. “Or they’ll get Usim and--”
I shoved her, which felt like shoving a tree. “Take them and go!”
She went, hustling Tansy into the corner, then toward the crack in the wall.
Princess murmured in my mind.
Which, yeah. That made sense. I knew that. I was still new to this, though, and it was a teensy bit hard to think with invulnerable crab dudes and electro-spark demon ladies after you. So for a second I froze, standing gormlessly in the courtyard.
Then I wondered if I should try to hold off the Sixers at the courtyard entrance.
And finally I realized that the back of the cave was narrower, and a far better place to make a stand.
So I ran to follow the others as boots slammed and metal jangled behind me. I’d only gotten halfway across the courtyard when the fastest of the soldiers appeared from the corridor.
I threw both hatchets at him, barely even looking behind myself, and got lucky. One caught him in the face. He reeled backward and I reeled forward, staggering for the skinbear den ... while rummaging in my domain with my mind.
As I stumbled into the den, the floor turned spongy beneath my boots. A thick carpet of dried bearshit spread from wall to wall. Perfect. I bamfed a skin of lamp-oil into my hand, then popped the top and drizzled oil behind myself as I staggered toward the smaller cave with the cupboard and tunnels.
A few more of the Sixers entered the courtyard behind me. I recognized the twin’s voice growling in fury, describing all the ways he’d kill me. Then Tiral-ur snapped that he would take point, and Jikap should follow. Jikap cursed him as I splashed the rest of the lamp oil onto the manure-packed floor.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I pulled a sparkstick from my domain and said a little prayer. I knew that people burned dried cow patties for fuel. I knew that ‘fertilizer bombs’ were a thing. But other that that, I didn’t have a clue what would happen. I didn’t even know if skinbear shit was flammable.
I mean, ideally I’d start such an intense fire that the heat would drive the soldiers from the den completely. But barring that, I’d take smoke. A lot of smoke. So much smoke that they wouldn’t be able to find the smaller cave, much less the tunnels beyond. And even if they eventually found the tunnels, I hoped that the fire would cause enough damage to obscure any signs of our passing, so they wouldn’t know which tunnel we’d used.
So I crouched and fumbled with the sparkstrick, trying to light a puddle of oil soaking in bear shit. The first sparks didn’t catch, possibly because my hand was trembling too much. Neither did the second spray of sparks. Over the pounding of my heart, I heard Sixers shouting and Tiral-ur stomping closer. That guy never stopped. If we fought, he’d eventually win. I couldn’t even hurt him--but he and Kathina both could crush me pretty effectively. And the two of them were terrifyingly well-matched. He’d tank all the damage while she struck from a distance with an attack that I couldn’t dodge.
And frankly, I wasn’t even confident that I could fight off all the non-gemmed soldiers, not if they came at me at once.
I crouched there for about three lifetimes before the oil finally caught fire. Flames licked across the shitty floor, following the path of the oil I’d poured--then they started spreading with faint blue ripples.
I grimaced in discomfort as I stood from the expanding patch of flames. Crossbow bolts hurt. What a shocker. The blue flames turned a brighter yellow as I moved deeper, from the den toward the smaller cave. More of the floor caught fire, and the yellow flames danced brightly, casting strange shadows against the filthy walls.
Tiral-ur must’ve noticed, because I heard him grunt a warning to the others.
The sound of his boots grew louder and I pressed myself against the wall just inside the smaller cave. And when he rounded the corner, I attacked.
Sort of. I didn’t bother with my hatchets, I knew they couldn’t hurt him. Instead, I grabbed his mace with both hands and blipped it into my domain. He didn’t skip a single step. He immediately caught me with a hard, carapaced elbow to the side, then I grabbed his bandolier and tore off two pouches and lunged behind him toward the burning den and the courtyard beyond.
Then I turned to smoke.
Just another curl of gray fumes in the darkness.
Mana: 9/24
I didn’t have long, but I managed to waft around Tiral-ur as he lunged back toward the den, in the direction I’d gone. I heard a howl of rage from Jikap, the living twin, a howl of blind, mad fury. The sound would’ve given me goosebumps if I’d had arms at that moment. Then I drifted deeper into the small cave, past the cupboard I’d looted to the three dressing rooms--the tunnel entrances--and realized I had no idea which one to enter.
So I returned to my body with two mana left and stood there like a dumbass.
“Major!” Tansy hissed, from inside one of the entrances. “Here!”
I ducked into the tunnel to join her. “You waited.”
“Of course I waited, you prick. I’m your loyal goddamn servant.”
“On the other hand, you got shot by like five arrows.”
“Not too deep,” she said.
“Let me see.”
“After we get out of here.” Hunching over to keep from smacking her head on the rocky ceiling, she squeezed through the narrow tunnel. “Right, left, left.”
“What’s that?”
“The turns that Usim is taking ahead of us. And his Sixer mother. So if we want to follow them we can meet up.” Tansy turned her head to give me a sidelong look. “Which we definitely do, because of the kid, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Until he’s safe,” she said. “Then we don’t care about Wren anymore.”
“She’s gemmed, Tansy. You’re not going to beat her.”
“Not by myself,” she told me, and turned right when the tunnel came to a T.
“Let’s focus on getting the hell out of the Old City first.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” she said, and headed onward, limping slightly.
I followed her, limping more than slightly. The pain of my wounds flared as my adrenalin faded. My head pounded, my body ached. The damage from Kathina’s shield was fading fast, but I was still bleeding from a half-dozen cuts, and throbbing from at least that many bruises. Plus, I felt nervous because I couldn’t see where we were going; Tansy completely filled the narrow tunnel ahead. Eventually she turned sideways for a hundred feet, then stepped into a square whitestone chamber where a regular-sized Wren was talking earnestly with Usim. Having a low, important conversation that stopped when we entered.
“Do you know how to get out of here?” Wren asked us. “Back to the surface?”
“Sure,” Tansy said. “We need to head upwards.”
“We have no idea,” I said.
“You’re hurt,” Usim told me.
“I’m okay. How about you?”
“Tansy--she spun around so the crossbows hit her instead of me.”
“I’m thick-skinned,” Tansy said, and I realized that she wasn’t bleeding from the crossbow wounds anymore.
Wren must’ve removed the bolts that struck her, too. Either that, or hers had fallen out when she’d shrunk back to normal size, I didn’t know. Blood was still trickling down her arm from beneath her shoulder armor, though.
“I have three more gold beads,” Usim said, rummaging in his pouch. “And my mother has one.”
I eyed Wren. “Use it now.”
“If you’re gemmed,” she told me, “gold beads heal you instantly. It’s better to hold off until they’re absolutely necessary.”
“If you’re not gemmed,” Usim said, offering a bead to Tansy, “you need to take them sooner. So they have time to work.”
“Keep that for yourself,” Wren snapped at him.
Tansy popped the bead into her mouth. “Thanks, kid.”
“I’ve got a gift for you, too,” I told Tansy, and handed her the leather bracelet with the blackbead that I’d stolen from the twin while he was bear-hugging me.
“Whoa. What is this?”
“Speed,” I told her. “It was already used once today, but ...”
“You took that from Jikap?” Wren asked, as she looked closer.
“Yeah, you know that human guy, Old Phil? He had it when I met him in jail. You know, the guy who needed extra speed to successfully cut me open for my gem?”
Wren eyed me with dismissive amusement. “Is that what he told you?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“That’s not how it works, major,” Tansy said.
“What isn’t how what works?”
“Philomel was lying to you,” Wren said. “He’s an interrogator. He was probably trying to con you out of information. You don’t need speed to extract a gem. We let him borrow the bead because you were an unknown danger.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me. So what’s it do exactly?”
“Boosts your speed. Makes you five times faster.”
I gingerly probed a wound on my side. “Yeah, I saw that. For how long?”
“Seven or eight seconds. Usable once every three hours, more or less.”
“Damn.” Tansy tried strapping the bracelet onto her wrist, but she was too big. “Oh, c’mon.”
“It doesn’t belong to you,” Wren said.
“It does now,” Tansy told her.
“It belongs to--”
“Mother,” Usim interrupted. “She saved my life.”
“I’ve got a theory about you, kid,” Tansy told him, as she plopped down on her butt on the stone floor.
“You do?” he asked.
“Yeah. My theory is, you take after your father.”
“I, uh ...” Usim glanced at his mother. “I used to think that, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Why’d you change your mind?” I asked.
“My father would not end up in buried city full of skinbears and kobolds.” He glanced at Wren. “Whereas my mother ...”
She grunted then tousled his hair. “Has got no sense.”
“Ha,” Tansy said, pulling off one of her boots.
“What’re you doing?” Usim asked her.
She wiggled her elephant-looking bare foot at him, then fastned the blackbead bracelet around her two biggest toes. “There we go. Nice and snug.”
While she pulled her boot back on, I checked my status.
Health: 33/55
Huh. So Kathina’s electrical damage healed relatively quickly. That was good to know.
“More gold beads,” I announced, as I checked the pouches I’d stolen from Tiral-ur. “Three of them, and a bunch of pearl. And some vials of, uh, I don’t know. What are these things?”
“Narcotics,” Wren said, when I showed her. “And wound sealant and disinfectant, and that last one looks like crachen brine.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Crachen,” she said.
“What kind of narcotics?”
“I don’t know. Maybe performance boosters or maybe just recreational.”
“Huh,” I said, and started to return them to the pouch when I remembered that I had magical powers.
INTUIT: hallucinogen, soporific, wound treatment, and crachen brine for crachens.
“What’s in the other pouch?” Usim asked.
I looked in. “A shell collection?”
“A what?’
“See for yourself,” I said, and tossed him the pouch.
“Oh!” He fished out what a glossy sand-dollar. “Charms. Crachen like these. And there are some notes, too.”
As he unfolded the crumpled paper, I peered around the square chamber. There was a charred patch on the floor, surrounded by the remains of an ancient bonfire. The ceiling glowed a dim white with bits of skystone, but instead of being matted with vines there were dozens of tiny stalactites. Also, there were two exits, which was kind of the most important thing.
The door opposite the tunnel where we’d entered led into a hallway that slanted slightly upward. The other door opened into a stairwell leading down.
I pointed to the first and said, “Let’s try that one.”
“Told you so,” Tansy said to Wren. “We need to head upwards.”
“They’re mostly recipes,” Usim grumbled, tucking Tiral-ur’s notes back into the pouch. “And shopping lists. Oh, and love notes from some lady named Foh.”
“No convenient maps to the Old City, huh?” I asked.
He stuck his orange tongue out at me.
“Stay between the traitors, Usim,” Wren told him. “I’ll take point.”
She cracked her neck and started up the slanting hallway.