Glade compensated for his disadvantages in magical strength with an onslaught of attacks. He’d fought Wren before. He knew if he could keep her on the back foot, he could keep the fight in his favour until he wore her down and won.
He spun his longsword back and forth, hacking at Wren and pushing her across the courtyard. She blocked with the blade of her axe-musket, which she guarded with a sheath of wood chips and sawdust, or simply deflected his blade with whips of sawdust. The swordwyrm fought beside Glade, hacking and slashing without a pattern or precision. Neither of them landed a hit.
When they reached the edge of the courtyard and Wren’s wings brushed up against the wall behind her, she smirked. “Nice try, but you never stood a chance. Not even with your little friend.”
She flicked a spike of wood out to the side, which struck the flat of the swordwyrm’s blade and sent it tumbling across the courtyard. At the same time, she smashed Glade in the chest with a palm-strike. He called his wisps of metal filings up, but he couldn’t use any Ward techniques without tearing his own body apart. He only managed to deflect the strike a little and redirect some of its strength into his shoulder instead of his ribs.
He still tumbled through the air and skidded back across the courtyard. Wren raised her short musket and fired. This time, she had loaded pellets of rusty grapeshot into it.
The swordwyrm jumped in front of Glade, blocking the majority of the blast with its thick fuller. A few pellets made it past still, though. One blasted him in the arm, and another scraped his ribs.
Glade leapt to his feet. She’d brought rusty grapeshot. Had she been looking for something to hurt Vayra with?
“It’s a real shame. You’ve always put up a good fight!” Wren cheered. “But I’ll be picking off Nathariel’s disciples, now! Maybe if you hadn’t thrown your chips in with the wrong side, we’d have been good friends.”
Glade raised his eyebrows. “Unlikely.”
Elder Eman-Fa had often told Glade to be picky with women—and to stay as far away from crazy as he could.
“Oh, well! You first, then the flame-birdy!” Wren flipped her musket over in her hands and held it like a regular battle axe now.
“You’re not getting through me,” Glade said. He didn’t know how far Vayra had made it while they were separate, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He ripped a second mana elixir off his belt and downed it, letting a new burst of pushing-power fill his channels.
He flourished his longsword, then held up a glob of metal filings above his left hand. It was all he had left.
The swordwyrm floated in the air beside him, its tip angled at Wren. It let off a metallic growl.
“Good boy,” Glade whispered.
Wren flung her arm outwards, launching a trio of wooden needles. Glade hacked one out of the air, and the swordwyrm blocked two more. She lashed out with a blast of sawdust, and although Glade cut through it, it exerted a pressure on his sword. He skidded back a few feet.
Wren attacked from a distance, flinging more shards of sharp wood out from her sleeves or from her belt. Eventually, she’d run out of larger shards, but she summoned up the chunks and sawdust and splinters and turned them into whips. Glade circled around the edge of the courtyard, trying to push his way in, but he couldn’t.
Wren had low spirit potential, just like him, but she’d have stocked up on mana before the battle, and she had the best elixirs money could buy—she was a princess of a silk-spinning empire. Glade would run out before she did.
They needed to get close again.
“Distract,” he commanded the swordwyrm. “To the left.”
The swordwyrm had a basic enough ability to speak and understand. It dipped off to the left, tip still pointed at Wren. It raced towards her as fast as an arrow, and she focussed all her attacks on it. The blade wobbled, and chucks of rust flew off the hilt, before she finally lodged a wooden stake in the central gap down the blade’s fuller and pinned the wyrm to the ground. It shook and bucked, but it couldn’t rip free from her control.
But it had done all it needed. Glade had closed the distance with five long steps, holding his longsword high. He slammed it down at Wren’s head, then blasted a spear of metal filings through her shoulder and wing.
Any second, he expected her to jump up and fly, but she didn’t. Either she was too exhausted, or too injured…and he suspected he knew which it was. The tip of one of her wings was charred and blackened. She might have been able to glide down into the courtyard, but she wasn’t taking off again.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“We will try that again,” Glade said. “It is you or me.”
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Vayra dove to the side. A knife of water sloshed over her head and splashed into the wall behind her. It broke apart with a splash.
Gnasher tackled her midair, pushing her across the room and into a control panel. He tried to bite into her shoulder, but she struck his muzzle with a Starlight Palm and sent him staggering off in a circle.
Vayra tried to activate the Astral Shroud, but she just didn’t have enough mana and Arcara in her body after the advancement. The technique sputtered out before it even began.
Larra flashed across the room, slamming her three-part staff down towards Vayra’s head. Vayra rolled to the side. The wind in the staff’s wake nearly flattened her to the panel, but she slipped down and rolled past Larra.
“Captain or not, you can’t stand against me!” Larra shouted.
‘Not without mana or Arcara,’ Phasoné said. ‘Buy time.’
Vayra sprinted across the room, putting as much distance between herself and Larra as she could. She hopped up onto a sloped panel halfway down the wall, getting as high as she could—and immersing herself in as much ambient mana as she could. The glowing flecks whirled in front of her eyes and filled her channels, but only wisps at a time. It was nowhere near as effective as immersing herself in Stream water.
And Larra wasn’t just going to let her stand still and recover. She charged across the room, reaching for Vayra’s mechanical foot. Vayra jumped off the shelf, but with her full-body Bracing technique active, Larra was a bit faster. She grabbed Vayra’s foot and tossed her to the ground.
Winded, Vayra rolled to the side. There was no time to think. She drove a Starlight Palm into Larra’s ankle, making the woman stumble, then sprang to her feet. Sprinting, she ran to the other side of the room and continued to absorb mana from the rich air.
She didn’t use a cycling technique just yet. She needed to fill her reserves. Mana poured into her channels and pooled in her core.
Now that she was a Captain, her core felt like it had twice the capacity it usually did. The mana pooled, ready to be used. She held it in place and kept gathering it.
Larra chased Vayra around the room, but she was too nimble. Sprinting, jumping, dodging, Vayra wouldn’t let herself be hit, and Larra’s current speed advantage (Vayra hadn’t activated any techniques, but Larra had Braced her legs) meant nothing when Vayra could swing under panels and spin aside like she was jumping through the alleyways of Tavelle.
Once she had filled her core nearly two thirds of the way full of ambient mana, she stopped on the opposite end of the room from Larra.
“Fight me, vermin!” Larra shouted. “If you have any honour at all, face me, toe-to-toe, and we’ll see who comes out on top!”
Halfway through the chase, Larra had dropped back down to Captain. She must have had enough sense to realize that Vayra was evading everything, and she didn’t have the agility—Admiral or not—to deal with it.
“Karmion picked the wrong heir to send against me,” Vayra said. “Gimme one moment.”
She tried to keep the exhaustion out of her voice, but it was hard not to pant. Adrenaline kept her going for the most part, but there was still a voice nagging her, telling her to collapse and fall asleep.
Larra must have sensed false confidence. She patted Gnasher’s head, and her spirit swelled to the strength of a Commodore.
This time, Vayra felt it right away. It was a pressure right in front of her, like she’d pushed her head too far underwater—but it only came from one direction. The tingle in the back of her head was still there, of course, yet this pressure had a specific pattern. It shook with a distinct frequency that could only have belonged to a Commodore.
Vayra almost had everything she needed. Instead of converting her newly-gathered mana to Arcara through rigorous cycling, she had another solution. She summoned an elixir from her corespace—one of the incredibly refined, top-grade elixirs she’d found in the control dome itself—and ripped the cork off. With a single swig, she downed a quarter of the bottle…
And regretted it.
Yellow energy burned through the channels in her body, visible even beneath her physical skin—and without any spiritual sight.
Larra threw her staff across the room, letting it spin on a horizontal plane. Vayra barely had the wit to duck down to the ground. She drew in quick breaths and exerted a firm willpower to maintain the elixir purification cycling technique.
The staff embedded itself into the wooden wall behind Vayra, shaking with a metallic twang.
Vayra looked back at it and gulped. Larra sprinted towards her, throwing a punch at her face. Vayra arched her back further than she would have been able to pre-advancement, then spun to the side to dodge the snapping jaws of Gnasher.
The elixir burned in her channels like fire, and it flowed with such violent strength that it threatened to rip them apart. But it was pure. It was almost already Arcara. She just needed to draw out the energy and integrate it.
Using her mana, she directed it into thin strips and pushed it through her channels. A pang of spiritual pain shot through her body, but she could take it. While dodging a few more punches and Gnasher’s swiping claws, she pulled the elixir under control.
The moment she had enough Arcara to Brace her legs, she did. She launched herself to the other side of the room, then finished integrating the sip of elixir.
“Fight me! Just fight me!” Larra yelled.
“I didn’t say I was ready.” Vayra shut her eyes. The elixir she’d converted was barely enough to fill the bottom sliver of her core with Arcara, but once upon a time, it’d have been enough energy to carry her from Mate all the way to Master’s Mate. It was enough to fight back with.
She pushed the simple Bracing technique on her legs harder, and with a snap, it burst into the Astral Shroud. Everything became clearer.
“Now I’m ready.”