1st Ismethara, 998 NE
Everyone was evacuated – no one hung around long once she set the bugs on them. A fact she was thankful for; the sorcerer’s barriers broke when she toppled a third house on him, and within seconds she had rats all over him, chewing through the ligaments and tendons in his hands, his wrists.
No more shields, sucker, she thought, mending the surface damage he’d caused to her stupendous condor-form and moving in to take advantage of his sudden vulnerability. She spun in the air, casting off the last of the imps that had still clung to her pinions, and changed back into her mostly-elf form as she ducked beneath the broken beams.
He groaned – a few tons of rubble had hit him in the head and chest, and one of his limbs was snapped clean in two, yet he was merely groaning.
Then she placed her hand on his shoulder.
Gotcha.
“My, this was unpleasant, Tombclaw. Whyever did you insist on continuing to fight? I told you, there’s nothing shameful in surrender. Well…” She glanced about at the vermin trailing all over his dusty, half-buried body. “It’s certainly more dignified than this…”
He tried to raise his head, the generically-undead mask scraping on a stone.
“Aururueurgh…”
“Oh I know, but at least this way you won’t be forgotten, I suppose. Once they lock you away, they’ll use your bank balance to fix up this neighbourhood, unless I’m much mistaken. Three families get new houses, thanks to you. They’ll be singing your praises for years to come.”
She sensed as one of his unkillable demons, a ten-foot black-metal bull-man, finally tore through the net of shoots she’d grown around it.
“Maureurergh…”
The demon levelled its horns and charged at her.
“Fine,” she relented.
She didn’t have to do anything, really; certainly not something an observer could notice. She just adjusted her attitude, and her hand on the darkmage’s shoulder suddenly delivered a massive dose of soporifics into his bloodstream.
He slumped back in merciful slumber, and his demon – all his demons – vanished in bursts of scarlet flame.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The very instant she verified he was out cold, there was a terrible flash of light, and a thunderclap exploded right in the centre of the ruined neighbourhood, driving her hair back, stealing the air from her lungs. She almost wet herself, instincts screaming at her that she must’ve done something wrong, some god descending to punish her for her misdeeds – or one of the darkmage’s allies had arrived –
Then she saw who it was, floating in the middle of the rubble once the incandescence cleared.
Not him again.
“You?” Shadowcloud growled. “I heard there was a darkmage attack – someone got stung by a scorpion then there was, like, a thousand of ’em –”
“Barely. That was me, clearing the area, just as a crotchety old wizard once told me I must,” she explained. “And I categorically refuse to believe a scorpion in my entourage did anything to anyone.”
It was his turn to sigh. “What’re you up to, Glimmer?”
She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Would you like to see? One really must see it to believe it – dear Tombclaw looks so peaceful when he’s taking his afternoon nap.”
The arch-wizard’s tone changed instantly and he drifted closer. “Tombclaw? You got him?”
She lifted the hem of her mage-robe and curtseyed deeply. “Of course. When one gives one’s word, one simply must keep it.”
He chuckled, then put on a highborn accent, presumably in an attempt to mock her: “Well, fiiii-nally. It only took one a month – if one had taken up another’s offer of assistance, one might have had it done in two weeks –“
“One being two, so to speak…?” She only barely made it a question.
He nodded.
“And what of the platinum?”
He spread his hands in a gesture of supplication. “I’d be open to negotiation, in any future dealings.”
She grinned. “You really are getting on, aren’t you, old chum? Want a sidekick to do all the hard work while you hog all the glory?”
He shrugged, a gesture with more denial in it than a thousand shakes of his head. “I’m one of the longest-serving champions, now, I guess. I just…”
“You just what?” Her voice sounded brittle even to her own ears. “You wanna be my friend?”
She bit her lip behind the mask. She’d slipped there, with the ‘wanna’.
Too much emotion.
“Would that be such a bad thing?” he asked quietly.
Her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t voice a real answer. Not even close to the truth.
“Aha!” she managed to laugh. “You and I differ in more ways than we are alike.”
“I don’t think so,” he replied, and she heard the calm shrewdness there in his voice, the discerning quality that so aggravated her. “You’re trying too hard, Glimmermere.”
Tears started – for the first time since she came out of the sea. She couldn’t explain it, but the keenness of his perception cut right through her and everything blurred. She had ocean in her eyes again.
She shapeshifted to hide her face, changing into the great blue condor-form in the span of a heartbeat, then thrust a huge talon through the wreckage and hefted the comatose sorcerer between her toes.
With three beats of her wings she was gone, farther and faster than he could chase her without it looking like he was harassing her.
He didn’t chase her.
She looked back, then, and saw the arch-wizard, lingering in the destruction, ringed by the dissipating clouds of insects.
This time, she looked back.
* * *