Nua advanced.

Ether enhancement made her hyperaware of her surroundings. The scorching Great Sun, and the warm wind that blew through the desert, carrying grains of sand. The exact place where the sandstone stopped being hidden in shadow, cold and damp, and became so heated up it could make egg whites congeal. All the small movements and noises that came from nature, which she threw into the background. So she did with her fear. Her and Hessa’s survival depended on it.

Faced with the quickly approaching killer, the huntress tossed her bow – no time to reattach it - and with a quick, measured gesture, she pulled out the saber. She was left-handed and trained to use that advantage. Her footwork was better than that of most mercenaries, and her moves were fluid and precise. Her abilities in a close-quarters fight far exceeded what was usually expected of scouts. In the camp, there were rumors that in the past, she had fought in a mercenary group herself, or even that she had been a high-ranked officer - but Hessa never confirmed or denied anything. Whatever the truth was, she had some decent formal training, and the experience to go with it.

Which was the only thing that kept her from being sliced to pieces right at the start of the fight. She was hardly matching up to the assassin’s ether-enhanced speed. She was keeping her movements to a minimum, using the uneven terrain to throw his footwork out of rhythm. Her weapon had a longer reach than his dagger, and still, she was just barely managing to dodge or parry the blade. The attacker didn’t even risk going all-out in the offense. All he needed to do was wait for a slip-up, and he was more than ready for another participant in the fight. Nua got the impression that she was only going to mess up the flow of the duel, impeding Hessa more than the man. There was no time to change her decision, though. The killer was already aware of her giving chase.

When Nua was closing in, she noticed something else. The man was utilizing sorcery in short, well-timed bursts, and not burning it up all the time as she did. In a moment, she understood. Her stores of ether were coming from Anki. Compared to the assassin’s, they were boundless, and she was still drawing from them by the teaspoons. She did not have to save anything; the killer did.

She needed to watch his ether and strike when he wasn’t using it.

There was a brief moment when she joined the fight and the dynamic changed. The killer backed with a combination of masterful footwork and supernatural speed, not to be pinned between two opponents. Hessa tried to find an opening and lunged at the man, but the assassin dodged both her and Nua. Then, violet ether surrounded his limbs once again. He was preparing to strike. Two can play this game, Nua thought and pulled in even more power. It felt like scalding, but she held on.

This was a fortunate choice. While the two weeks of martial training had improved her skills, they were nowhere near her opponent’s. He focused on her now, his original target, giving Hessa only the amount of attention he needed to avoid her. He stabbed.

He missed by a hair. Sweat dripped down Nua’s nose.

“Anki, help!”

Hessa made a quick thrust. The killer parried again. She looked tired. He was fighting both of them, with a long dagger nonetheless, and still he was gaining the advantage.

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“Jump when I tell you! Jump behind him!”

Her Technique. Of course.

The assassin attacked Nua again, pressing her in a series of consecutive slashes, and throwing her off balance. At the same time, he sidestepped, going out of Hessa’s reach.

That provoked an all-or-nothing, complex attack from the huntress, composed of multiple thrusts and slashes at different angles. She meant to force the killer’s attention back on her, even if it came at the cost of her life.

“Now!”

Silver afterimages of her own silhouette accompanied Nua, as she jumped high up in the air, somersaulted, and landed behind her opponent. Too amazed by her own feat, she lost focus for a blink of an eye, almost losing the grip on her knife.

Then, a few things happened.

Hessa lunged.

The killer, hearing Nua landing behind him, hesitated. He still sidestepped Hessa’s attack and landed a successful thrust, stabbing the huntress between her ribs.

Instead of keeling over, Hessa used the last of her momentum to slash at his side with a profound force.

Then, Nua, feeling as if the time had stopped, thrust her knife at the base of the killer’s skull. Hitting the right spot required the precision she did not have, and lacking that, the strength to break the bone. It was more luck than anything else – even counting in the ether – that she succeeded. She saw the flesh split, and the blood came gushing soon after.

The killer fell. The blade, already worn out from decades of use, finally broke.

Nua stood still over the twitching body.

At that moment, both the ether and her thoughts left her.

“Nua? Nua?”

The sun was searing hot. Her muscles ached as if she sustained a flogging. Sweat was dripping from her face and soaking her clothes. There was a dead body under her feet, and it was still bleeding, the pool of liquid already browning at the edges.

“Nua!”

She wanted to answer, but her teeth were chattering, and she was not in the right mind to say anything, even without actually speaking. Only shock kept her standing now, locked in the same position she ended the fight in.

“Nua, Hessa is bleeding out.”

That snapped her back to attention.

“He’s dead.”

“Most certainly.”

“I have killed him.”

“To be precise, you have ended his suffering. The wound Hessa gave him would be fatal.”

“I have killed Hessa.”

Anki appeared in front of her face.

“Not yet, and not if you hurry. Help her!”

That was, perhaps, an unfortunate choice of words, one that Nua would remember for days to come and blame herself for the turn of events. Right now, though, it kicked her back into action. She hurried to her mentor, who lay face down on the hot sandstone and started turning her on the side, as she was taught to.

Hessa was still gripping the wound. Feeling Nua trying to turn her into a safer position, she opened her eyes.

“My sash. Bandages”, she said.

Nua nodded, then rummaged through the small supply bag Hessa kept at her hip. She still needed to slice open her clothes to see the wound and apply the bandages. Her knife broken, she used Hessa’s.

She frowned. The wound wasn’t wide, but the dagger went deep. Laying in the right position, Hessa would not bleed out. There was the risk of internal damage, though. Nua’s new anatomical knowledge was making her anxious. She didn’t know how people compared to hares, but they probably had the same fragile organs.

“Anki, can you look into her body like you’ve looked into mine?”

“Unfortunately, not. We’re not bonded”, Anki pondered. “Since I’m immaterial, though, and her body is open, I could shrink and have a… less detailed glance inside. I’m not sure if I can make it work, though, so no promises.”

After a while, he emerged.

“She has a punctured lung”, he said. “She will survive if she gets help soon enough.”

“Got that”, Nua took the alchemical flare out of her pocket and tossed it with considerable force. The gesture made her recoil with pain, the aftereffect of ether overuse. She glanced at the plume of smoke, just to make sure it was working, then went back to dressing the wound. When she was done, she started looking for a way to draw Hessa back into the shade. The heat could kill her just as surely.

It was only then that she noticed three hunched, long-armed silhouettes ambling towards them from the depth of the labyrinth.