The next day came around far too quickly for Jake’s liking, and he quickly busied himself packing everything away and moving it to a small space in the exit tunnel.
When the time came, they’d collapse the entrance, grab their things and run.
Felix made a show of moving his things as well, but from the worried look in Ari’s eyes, Jake wasn’t the only one who had concerns.
The problem was that he had no idea what to do about it. He was just too damn weak to be able to make a difference. A classer strong enough that Felix or Ari had to be involved would rip through Jake like he wasn’t even there.
It wasn’t even raw strength either; it was experience at fighting other classers, at dealing with the Abilities that they could bring to bear.
“Ari, do you have a moment?” Jake asked when the two of them were alone, deciding to take his concern to the one person that actually could make a difference.
“Sure, what’s up?” Ari asked, though he sounded distant and distracted as he sharpened the edge of his sword.
“I’m worried about Felix. It feels like he thinks he’s going to die doing this,” Jake said bluntly.
Ari stopped mid-motion and said nothing for several moments before finishing the stroke, not meeting Jake’s eyes. “What do you want me to say?”
“I hoped you would say that I was wrong,” Jake said, the icy knot in his gut turning heavy at Ari’s tone.
“Felix didn’t say how they were tracking us, but must Abilities like that are hard to get. They need Deeds that take a lot of time and a lot of effort, maybe even years of it. That means a high tier classer, and probably a combat one.”
Felix’s warning about fighting a dedicated combat classer of his tier came back to Jake, but he refused to believe it was so simple. “It feels like you’re already giving up on him!”
“Damn it, Jake!” Ari snapped, looking up at him for the first time, his knuckles white around the whetstone. “What do you want me to do? I could leave you and go fight by his side, but then what do you think the rest of the attackers will be doing?”
“We could hold them off on our own,” Jake said stubbornly.
“And if you don’t, then all of this has been pointless,” Ari said, the fire in his voice dying as quickly as it came. “No, all we can do is trust that Felix will give it everything he has.”
It wasn’t the answer Jake wanted, and part of him urged him to stay and argue more, but there was no point, he knew that. They were out of options and out of time.
Cursing the Fatesworne for pushing them into this corner, Jake turned to leave when he felt a tug on his bond with Moby. He’d kept the duck summoned so he could have all his Manifestation ready, and had sent him out scouting when they woke up.
“What is it?” Ari asked, seeing the change in Jake’s posture.
“Moby’s seen them, they’re almost here,” Jake said, his nerves and worries melting away in the face of the adrenaline that was coursing trough his veins.
Moby wasn’t far away, which meant they had maybe fifteen minutes before everything went straight to the abyss.
-**-
There were more of them than he’d expected. That was the first thing Jake thought when the Fatesworne came into view.
He’d been hoping for five, maybe six, but instead there was an even dozen people moving straight for the safehouse in a spread out formation.
They were moving quickly, clearly choosing speed over stealth in order to catch them before they could escape. Hopefully, that meant they weren’t expecting any resistance.
“Wait a minute,” Aspen muttered from where he was crouched opposite Jake. “That pair off to the side don’t have masks.”
Jake frowned, seeing the same thing. The other ten wore the usual masks that they’d come to expect with the Fatesworne, but not those two. He didn’t like that, not one bit.
A muffled hiss from behind him made Jake turn to see Nepthys giving him a wide-eyed look, her face pale. “I can sense Skryx from those two outliers. I think they’re Corrupters.”
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“Let’s take no chances. Give me thirty seconds, and then kick things off,” Ari said, pulling out a wand with an almost bell-shaped tip. “Remember, hit them hard and fast. Don’t let up for even a moment.”
Jake nodded, clutching his own wand tightly, and Ari left, moving to his own position to cover their flank.
The idea had been that they’d cover the right-hand side of the building, while Ari took the left. Hopefully, the five of them together could deal with any Fatesworne who came to their side.
“It’s time,” Gargan said, and as one, they rose and unleashed as powerful a barrage of attacks as they could.
Unfortunately, there was no real way to catch the Fatesworne by total surprise, but it seemed they hadn’t been expecting the fight to begin quite yet.
A few of them dodged and one or two used shielding Abilities, but several of the Fatesworne leading the way were left scorched and bleeding by the opening salvo.
An odd ripple struck a Corrupters as they rushed forward, knocking them off balance. Jake took full advantage and peppered them with thorns from his own wand, one catching the Corrupter in the throat and sending him to his knees, gasping for breath.
The other Corrupter shouted in rage before making a throwing motion and launching a billowing cloud of purple and black that came streaking toward Jake.
Ducking down, Jake felt the edge of the Skryx hit him like a cold chill, the rest hitting the wall next to him with a sizzling sound.
Other conjured attacks struck the rest of the building in their response to the ambush, but Jake felt a tentative swell of hope. One of the Corrupters was down, and a few of the Fatesworne at the front of the group were injured.
Rising back to his feet, Jake was levelling his wand to fire again when one of the Fatesworne further back in the group made a gesture and dozens of conjured daggers began to appear around him before shooting forward.
Jake ducked back, dodging the daggers, but Gargan wasn’t so quick and hissed in pain as one caught him in the shoulder. Barely a moment later a blue lance of Wyrd tore through the wall next to Nepthys, leaving a fist-sized hole in it.
More and more Abilities hammered the building, with Jake and the other returning fire as best they could. It wasn’t enough, though. He could feel the momentum shifting to the Fatesworne as the first of them reached the house.
A crunch came from just outside the window, followed by a howl of pain, but Jake’s elation was short-lived as the door was ripped from its hinges in a burst of Wyrd.
A stocky man wearing the Fatesworne mask stormed through, bearing a two-handed axe that he immediately brought around in a vicious chop at Aspen.
The Fatesworne classer was fast, and Aspen was barely able to get away before the next swing was whistling down at him, only to lose speed as a grey shield appeared in front of it.
“The Inquisitor is here!” The man shouted in a calm, neutral voice that was entirely at odds with his rapid assault on Aspen.
Flames sprung to life on Aspen’s spear as he fought back, and Jake rushed to help him, wielding his sword and wand. Whenever the Fatesworne blocked or dodged his sword, Jake would channel his Wyrd to launch long thorns at him.
The Fatesworne was wearing a mix of leather and metal armour, which blunted some of the hits, but not entirely. Aspen had recovered from the surprise entrance and was landing hits of his own as well, using Jake as a distraction to land blows.
The fight wasn’t all one sided-though. Aspen was bleeding from a cut to his leg, and Jake had a bruised rib from a strike with the haft of the axe.
Another Fatesworne had come through and was fighting Nepthys, though thankfully the newcomer was struggling as one of his legs was in the process of healing from the trap outside.
Backpedalling from a swing, Jake saw the moment the axe struck the wall of the safehouse and became wedged in place. Darting forward, he infused his sword with everything he had and hacked down at the Fatesworne’s hands, forcing him to let go of the axe.
Moving aside from the blow, the Fatesworne went for his belt to pull a long, serrated dagger but stopped dead, several inches of a greatsword poking through his chest.
“Good job, now help Nepthys,” Ari said, knocking the man over and wrenching his blade free as part of a finishing blow before rushing out the open door.
Turning to Nepthys, Jake blanched as he saw she was fighting both the original Fatesworne and the Corrupter who’d created that cloud. The Corrupter now held a sword that seemed to be shrouded in that same cloud, and Nepthys was bleeding from a wound in her side.
Furious sounds of fighting came from outside as Ari engaged more of the Fatesworne, but beyond that, Jake could hear other fighting. Felix had made his move.
Jake wanted desperately to see, to know what was happening, but he couldn’t turn away when Nepthys was injured, even when he knew Aspen was already moving to help her.
Rushing the Corrupter, Jake attacked with both sword and wand, just how Nepthys had helped teach him. His sword bit home, still infused from before, and cut through armour and flesh to slice down the Corrupter’s side.
The man cried out in pain and stumbled back, making a wild slash at Jake with his Skryx sword that missed him but caught his wand.
The shrouded blade ripped through the wood, causing the wand to shatter, spraying shards of wood at both of them. Jake felt the shrapnel dig into his hand and the left side of his face, but the Corrupter flinched, turning away from the fragments.
Driven by instinct, Jake conjured the Hidden Fang into his bleeding hand and stabbed forward, catching the other man in the shoulder as he twisted away.
Lethal poison pumped into the Corrupter, his veins turning black as he screamed in pain and stumbled away, right into Nepthys’s glowing sword.
The other Fatesworne was down in a pool of his own blood, but Aspen was pale-faced and clutching an empty potion vial with one hand and his stomach with the other.
“He’ll be okay. We have to help the others,” Nepthys said, taking a brief moment to drink a potion of her own.
Aspen gave a strained nod and bent to pick up his spear with a grimace, so Jake turned back to the others.
Alan and Gargan were sheltering behind what remained of the outer wall of the safehouse, while Ari was fighting three more Fatesworne outside with another dead at his feet.
Ari was a blur of continuous motion, somehow managing to keep each of the three Fatesworne engaged at once with heavy blows of his sword, but he couldn’t maintain that pace forever.
Determined to make a difference, Jake gave Nepthys a nod, and they rushed through the door to do what they could.