Aiden was not much of a swordsman. In fact, he considered himself mediocre at best and poor at worst. His grandfather insisted that he learn it for self-defense and tradition, but Aiden had always felt it unnecessary. Pirates were rare, battles even rarer, and Aiden was a trader and captain, not a warrior. There were always more important skills to perfect, and swordsmanship fell by the wayside.

If Aiden lived, he would revise that opinion.

The captain deflected away a slash from one of the raiders with a clumsy parry, putting too much into the movement and throwing himself off-balance. He recovered just in time to block a second strike and swore as he was pushed back.

Aiden retreated, trying to draw the three attackers before him further up the stairs. There, he could force them to come at him one by one, which might be his only chance. Unfortunately, they seemed to recognize his plan. The raider on the left circled to one side, stabbing out and forcing Aiden away from the staircase and towards the middle of the deck instead.

The captain fought as best he could, relying on dulled instincts, rusty skills, and a healthy dose of luck to avoid being carved open like a hunk of meat, but it was a losing battle. All too soon, his good fortune ran out. Aiden went to block a thrust but mistimed it. The edge of the raider's blade slid past his guard, catching the edge of Aiden's arm and slicing a deep rend in his flesh.

Aiden swore, slashing out with a roar as he fell back further. Already, the wound throbbed, blood running down his arm and turning his sword's hilt slick. It was not a fatal wound, but it was enough. All too soon, blood loss would take its toll. Exhaustion would creep in, he would make a worse mistake, and he would die.

Then, there was a flash of green light.

The foremost of the three raiders froze as a blade skewered him through the chest. It tore through flesh and bone, sending out a red spurt in the air as it was ripped free. The silvery metallic edge flashed in lantern light as it wove through the air, slicing a second man low across the stomach. His intestines spilled out onto the deck, and he collapsed a moment later, howling as he clutched at his organs.

The third man took full advantage of whatever opening must have existed. He darted in, slicing down with his curved blade, but the strike slid off glowing emerald armor, sending up bright sparks but finding no purchase. A half-second later, he was dead, his head crushed in with the blunt end of a polearm.

Aiden finally had a chance to examine the green-clad man. His armor was transparent, a mixture of a strange, close-fitting suit of wispy energy with almost solid plates covering his chest, upper arms, and legs. Underneath it, the captain saw that it was not a man, as he first thought, but a boy. Barely one, but still a boy.

Lysandra's apprentice held what looked to be a spear with an elongated blade in his left hand. His right was open by his side, and his eyes surveyed the rest of the deck, narrowed as if trying to pierce the nighttime gloom. After a few seconds, his gaze returned to Aiden, his face icy as he said, "What's the plan?"

"What?" Aiden asked, entirely off-balance by the turn of events."

"Then plan," the boy repeated, gesturing towards the rest of the boat, "In case of an attack. What do you need me to do?"

Aiden finally caught up, and he forced down his burgeoning panic as he replied, "Right. Right. Okay, we need to make this raid more trouble than it's worth. If enough of them get wounded or killed, the rest will retreat or surrender."

"What about their ship?" the mage pressed. Strangely, he sounded almost...uncertain?

"Leave it! They won't risk blowing up precious cargo." Aiden insisted.

Again, the mage looked uneasy, but his face returned to the same cold look as before, and he nodded, "Got it. I can handle...fifteen of them, at least. No, twenty. Will that be enough?"

The captain felt a shiver run down his back at the casual way the teenager spoke about killing twenty people, but he nodded.

Vayne turned away, then said over his shoulder, "Stay safe."

Then, he vanished again in that same green flash as he had arrived.

***

I used a Force Step to launch myself away from the captain and towards the nearest group of combatants. Battles had broken out everywhere across the deck between half-drunk sailors roused from their sleep and the black-clad raiders. I suspected our side had more people, but the element of surprise was a great equalizer. If left to their fate, Aiden and his men would lose.

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So, I set about evening the odds, so to speak.

My opening "jump" transitioned into a powerful thrust, and I pierced a raider's heart from behind in one motion. The man to his right tried to take off my head, and I ducked under it, pulling my weapon free and flicking it up to slice his throat open. A few nearby sailors saved me the trouble, ganging up on the remaining two attackers and forcing them away from me.

It had taken precious seconds to detour to my quarters on the way outside to grab my swordstaff and vambrace, but I was glad I did so now. If I had not, I would have been forced to steal an inferior weapon from either a sailor or a bandit. Death would almost have been preferable to fighting with a club.

As I moved across the deck, something hit me. Since becoming a mage, I had fought quite a few battles. I had killed beasts and dueled mages. I had helped cripple a drake, battled a monster that had once been a man, and bested the heir to an ancient noble family.

Yet I had never taken a human life until today. I was not sure I liked how...numb I felt. The first time I had killed a magical beast, it had bothered me for days. A part of me wondered what that said about who I had become these past few years.

Then, an axe slammed into the side of my shoulder, and I put aside those sorts of distracting thoughts for later.

It was an unfair battle, truth be told. My armor made me effectively invincible to their weapons, and my Arcane Body spell granted me enough physical strength and speed to approach the limits of human capabilities. Even my skills with my swordstaff exceeded the crude, inefficient martial talents these thieves and murderers possessed.

After about five minutes, I had matched my promise to Aiden. I had slain twenty, if not more, people and had done so without receiving a single wound for my trouble. Even my core pulsed, still two-thirds full of Aether.

I turned, trying to find a new target, as I felt the tides of battle beginning to turn. Then, before I could, a figure moved to engage me.

This one was different from the rest. They wore black, as did the other raiders, but their clothes were finer. More close fitting and concealing, with a mask made of cloth wrappings covering most of their face. I could spot bits of gray and silver armor poking out, and even their approach spoke of true skill and training. They did not step so much as glide over, slipping past bodies without even grazing them.

Their choice of weapons was the strangest of all, with a dagger in their left hand and a sword in their right. Sig had always insisted dual wielding was an impractical and foolish idea. Possible, yes, and even dangerous in some situations, but ultimately less effective than carrying a shield or using a larger, two-handed weapon.

I made the first move, trying for the same Force Step and thrust attack I had used at least a half-dozen times in the past few minutes. Skilled or not, the movement should be fast enough that only a handful could repel it.

The dark-clad figure slid to the side, and I felt my blade slice through cloth rather than flesh.

I slid along the deck, spinning just in time to parry a strike from my opponent. They followed up with three more strikes, slicing out with their sword in a dizzyingly fast combination of attacks. If I did not have my magic, I might be in trouble.

Instead, I simply pulled more on my core and pushed the Aether into my magic. There were diminishing returns to simply shoving more power into a spell, but I still felt my muscles strengthen and the world slow just a hair. The dual-wielder's attacks became just "very fast," and I began to push them back with a few exploratory strikes.

We moved back and forth across the deck, and I tried not to grow frustrated. Whoever this person was, they had intimate knowledge of how to battle a mage. If I tried to charge, relying on my armor to protect me, they simply retreated and shifted out of the way to avoid my attacks. If I tried to retreat and gather mana for either a ranged attack or my Force Step, they would press the advantage and break my focus.

Moreover, the way they moved seemed...strange. I suspected they had magical equipment of some kind, which seemed to make them quicker in some way. If I had more time, I might muse on how, but at the moment, I did not feel curious so much as irritated.

I allowed the charade to go on for about thirty seconds before I realized it was pointless. They could not kill me, but they could waste my time, and that was almost as good. My core had grown larger, but I would run out of mana sooner or later.

So, I turned away from them and started looking for a new target. There, at the entrance to the cargo hold, maybe a half-dozen sailors did their best to fight off at least twice as many raiders. I nodded once, but the dual-wielder tried for one last attack before I could move in that direction.

I saw them move from the corner of my eye. Half-focused, I turned back towards them, raising up my weapon to deflect their strike with a twist of my hand. I noticed at the last moment that they had thrust not with their sword but with their dagger.

It was an imperfect block, sloppier than I would prefer but functional nonetheless. I should have knocked aside their strike, but I had mistimed it. They purposefully pulled back on their speed, delaying the thrust just a little and slipping past my guard as a result. Still, it was not worth much consideration. My armor magic was more than enough to—

The dagger sunk deep into my side, slicing through my armor as if it did not exist.

I froze, my mind sliding to a stop as it tried to process what had just happened. There was no pain, and it felt more akin to a punch, but I knew this was only a trick of the body. Once the battle was over, the pain would come. All I had to do was survive.

Experience had taken the edge of the panic and uncertainty I had felt in past battles, but it was still there. I tried to focus and gather enough mana for another spell, but my will refused to cooperate. Conjuring up anything precise took more than I had in me at the moment. But there was one trick that did not require much precision.

I reached into my core and tore free about half of what mana I had left. It took just a second or two to gather up that power into a rough mass and maybe a heartbeat to throw my right hand up toward my would-be murderer's head.

Force magic was a blunt tool, first and foremost. I wanted to gain enough control to use it for more precise applications, but it was always a question of raw power first and foremost. And if there was one thing I had in spades, it was power.

Whatever magical equipment the masked figure carried did not save them. A flood of green mana shot out from my hand in an untamed telekinetic wave. It struck at neck height, and the delicate bones within snapped with a series of wet-sounding cracks. They crumpled, mercifully releasing the dagger's hilt while still impaled in my body.

I grabbed the hilt with my right hand, stabilizing it as I straightened up. The first rule of a stabbing wound was to keep the object inside until you could safely remove it. Otherwise, you might die of blood loss.

As I looked around, I realized that the group of sailors guarding the cargo hold had either died or ran. A few bodies sat on the deck, but it was too dark to make out who they were.

I could not do much more to help in my condition, but it seemed unneeded. All around me, the raiders had begun retreating, diving overboard, and swimming away to what I presumed was their own ship. Cheers rose up, and I heard Aiden shouting something over the gloom.

Then, there was a deafening boom. Flames shot out from the entrance to the cargo hold, and a moment later, the deck split open. I felt the heat even through my armor and staggered backward more out of instinct than conscious thought.

I did not have time to think or plan. I could not react. All I had time to do was close my eyes and brace myself as the explosion tore the ship apart and threw me clear. The last thing I felt was the impact as I slammed into the water, sinking beneath the waves with only the flickering light of my armor to illuminate its depths.