“TOUCHED!”

I moved to intercept the spear and was able to deflect it away from Eveth. She stared at the pointed stone on the ground with horror on her face.

“I’ll handle him, you worry about THEM!” I didn’t wait to see what she did. I couldn’t afford not to focus on the Touched.

I had to deflect another spear before I got to him, and once I got close enough to slice him, I was blocked by another stone spear, but this one he was holding in his hands.

The weight of the stone was slowing down his reflexes. Add that in on how clumsy he was swinging his weapon around and I knew this was not only a fight I could win, but it was one that I could win fast.

I pressed my advantage, driving him back. I was able to twist the spear to the side, grab the tip with my left hand so that he wouldn’t be able to block and lean in with my sword and stab him. I knew I’d gotten him in the heart, but it only looked like it hurt him. He said something under his breath and I jumped back as soon as I realized that there were spikes coming out of the ground.

He held his hand over the wound on his chest and started motioning at the ground and the air.

Stone started appearing everywhere he pointed, I knew I was going to be their target and I couldn’t stop moving, so I did my best to weave around and not run into a corner where I could get trapped.

He was littering the forest with rocks to try to keep me away from him, but I was content to keep up this chase. He’d run out of magic eventually and when he did. It’d be over. And as long as he was focused on me, there was a good chance that he wouldn’t be directing the zombies as well against the Wrangles.

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I wanted to check on them and see how they were doing, but it wouldn’t matter. They had their job and I had mine. Even if they were getting overwhelmed, I couldn’t turn my back on this Touched. That would mean death for everyone.

I deflected another rock only to run straight into another. The fist sized projectile hit me in the chest with almost enough force to knock the wind out of me. It would have if I’d still been human.

I called up fire in my left hand. Things would have gone better if I could throw it like Master Bran, but when I’d tried, the best I could do was it just kind of just dribbled in the direction I tried to throw it. Until I found time to practice more, the best thing that I had was fire in the palm of my hand. The thing was that the Touched didn’t know that.

I pointed my left hand at him as I twisted away from another rock. I was close enough that when I mimicked throwing fire, he dodged to the left, which put him two very quick steps away from me.

With a sword it was only one and I lunged.

A pointed rock grew out of the ground and I had to dodge around it, but before he was able to cast again, I was able to slash his right arm. He backed up with wide eyes as he realized that he couldn’t stop me.

“WAIT!” He held his hands up. “Don’t kill me!”

I grabbed his wounded arm with my fiery hand and tried to increase the heat, which either worked or it was the shallow cut leaking accelerant, because his arm started burning.

I pushed him up against the tree and pushed my sword against his throat.

“Why shouldn’t I kill you?” I spared a glance at the Wranglers. Only Berthre, Eveth, and Jaz were still alive and Berthre didn’t look good. They were trying to hold the Zombies back, while the Zombies were circling them like a pack of wolves.

“Because.” He knew he had my attention, “I’ll spare the Killers and…” The Touched smiled, “I’ll take you to my Master.”