Elijah was elated that their non-verbal communication skills were still honed, as they stood before the old crowd. Subtle movements of the hands, eyes, and their heads allowed him and Aleksi to get messages between them without notice, though it was a long process when also having to talk with people they’d hoped to never see again. How much had their luck degraded for them to meet people from the old crowd here of all places?
‘Can we win the fight?’ Aleksi asked shortly after the two giants had hugged, words flowing from the man.
‘Not sure,’ Elijah signaled. ‘Two Mages. One fighter.’
‘One Mage. One Fighter. One hybrid,’ Aleksi corrected. ‘Right one has a dagger in her sleeve.’
Glancing at the very young woman to their right, Elijah inwardly cursed when spotting the slight dent that implied a blade hidden in the cloth. They had an Affinity of some kind as well, which implied they were self-reinforcing of some sort. Not somebody he wished to fight if he could help it.
‘We have a chance,’ Elijah sent along after a second’s deliberation. It wasn’t as if they had a choice in the matter, with how the one they called Fade was looking at them. While she didn’t seem to remember them, he did. She was a Dreamweaver, focusing on the darker end of that spectrum by manifesting Nightmares into reality and making them attack whoever she wished. He’d barely interacted with her group, seeing her at a distance, but he knew her tricks of looking into other’s minds. ‘We need to be quick.’
Taking them on properly would result in their deaths, no question about it, but allowing for underhanded tricks could prove to be their path to victory.
‘Close your eyes and look away when I move,’ he ordered Aleksi, getting a subtle nod in response. ‘Focus on recovering from the sound as fast as possible.’
Aleksi held back a frown at that, perhaps realizing what exactly Elijah was planning to do.
‘Dawn, are you affected by loud noises and sound?’ he asked the duck sitting in his pocket next to the vial he wished for. She pushed it right until it was at the edge, ready to be picked up.
‘Is being affected useful?’
‘No.’
‘Then no,’ Dawn replied, looking through his eyes and seeing the other giant of a man, Fang, take his axe into his hands. ‘Can I fight now?’
‘In just a second, yes.’
It was going to be very quick if Elijah wanted any chance of this working out like he hoped it would. The red-headed thief was already shuffling to the side, perhaps hoping to get around them while they were occupied with the two older folks. Not a bad idea, honestly, though Elijah hoped not to suffer from that fact either.
“If the reason you’re doing this is gold, we can get you ten times the amount you’re being paid right now,” Aleksi said, slightly shifting the grip in his axe as he prepared to defend himself. It was starting.
“Sadly not for gold anymore,” Fang replied. Elijah didn’t like the smile the giant kept wearing, the coldness from it made him even more on edge. “We can find the two kiddos without you, you know, so why waste your lives after so long?”
They really can’t understand, can they?
“It’s only a waste if we lose.”
The screams of abhorrent creatures covered the cavern in the same second that Elijah pulled out the vial and threw it as hard as he could. He was relatively sure it was closer to the others than it was to them, but he didn’t spend long checking as he turned away and closed his eyes, hands over his ears.
Yet even with that to help him, his vision was still flooded with nothing but pure light and sound, the loudest noise he’d ever heard screaming into his ears. It was a miracle in itself that his ears weren’t blown out, though what he could hear in the seconds after the flash was very diminished.
Aleksi had followed his words, preparing for the assault on his senses, as he was already charging forward by the time Elijah could blink away the light. The other giant stood there dazed but began to recover by the time that the distance had been closed in. A dodge stopped the first axe swing from ending it all, the counter nearly taking off Aleksi’s face instead.
‘Dawn,’ he sent, the duck already leaping to the ground before he could call her in. ‘Kill.’
It was barely needed as an order, the ground already starting to shake violently as massive amounts of Mana were spent as fast as possible. If the previous work done by the duck had caused rumbling, this was enough for him to become off-balanced. It was a struggle to stand, yet at least that fate also came to the thief who tried to approach him.
Only because of that stumble did he have enough time to side-step a dagger thrown his way, one that would’ve reached his heart without fail. Elijah saw the irritation at that, as the redhead was forced to try closing in properly.
Yet she didn’t manage that either.
‘Kill,’ Dawn repeated through the bond, as vines instantly shot out from the ground, grabbing her feet and causing her to fall. She wasn’t done there either, the plant continuing to wrap around her torso the second she landed. The first vine was cut through instantly, but the next took her arm as well, stopping the knife from helping.
Elijah heard her scream when the vines began to tighten, and he heard something break soon after.
“Shit!”
He diverted his attention to Aleksi who’d suffered a cut to the shoulder. The other giant had been faster, getting a slash in before Aleksi’s kick forced him back a few meters. Yet no pause was allowed, the black Nightmare creatures from before howling down on him.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
His eyes darkened when a chunk of the giant’s throat was ripped out.
No.
Dawn had already diverted her attention when she noticed his hand on the ground, feeling the Mana he sent towards her to accelerate the growth. What would’ve taken seconds to reach instead took a fraction of one, a sharpened branch shooting out of the ground and impaling the Dreamweaver's left foot.
She screamed, the Nightmares wavered in their assault, and Aleksi shook them off before an axe could embed itself in his chest. Elijah felt his heart relax for a moment before the Nightmares shifted targets. They briefly locked onto the Dreamweaver herself until she snarled and pointed them toward Elijah.
Seeing five blobs of pure darkness, each with dozens of eyes and mouths that all looked ready to devour him, brought a new sense of fear into him.
His dagger was at the ready, however, and he pushed off the first that tried to bite into him. The next four would’ve had their fill quickly a second later, if not for the Mage’s screams as the branch that impaled her continued to grow. It forced the wound to widen, for the bone to be pressed against, and for roots to start consuming the flesh from the inside out.
Elijah used the pause in the Nightmares to stab one of them, black blood spilling onto his hand. He cursed from the pain. It was acidic, burning into his skin and making the other Nightmares look at him once again.
They dived towards his head, and he fell onto the floor to avoid them. A second more to breathe, yet it was Dawn’s actions that made it become more permanent.
‘Kill.’
The scream of the Dreamweaver tightened and became mixed in with the continuous sound of tendons being ripped apart. Nerves were rapidly cut into, the muscles were stretched, and the bone was devoured like it was the greatest meal in the world.
Even the best of Mages couldn’t handle the sheer pain that came from that, and the Nightmares returned to their owner to feast on the torture and fear that came with it.
Elijah allowed himself a second more to breathe, watching the display in horror, but life rarely allowed such things.
‘Behind you!’
Only Dawn’s quick warning allowed him to roll to the side. Making him take a dagger to the arm instead of the head. What felt like hot iron shot through his body at the feeling, and it only got worse every passing second.
I can’t feel my Core.
He couldn’t feel his Mana at all, the connection to Dawn gone. Suppressed? Didn’t matter. Nothing could be felt, only the hot pain of the dagger in his shoulder flying through his system.
“Got you,” the redhead cursed, having recovered from the entrapment without their notice. She pulled out another dagger to finish Elijah off, seeming to enjoy it as vines tried to pierce through her before falling limply down when they were within half a meter of her skin. “No tricks this time, ducky.”
A set of dark green weeds sprouted a meter away. Even without being able to hear the command from Dawn, he looked away and held his breath.
“What—”
There was an audible crack from the weeds being opened before a wave of green gas covered them both. It made his eyes water but Elijah stopped it from invading his lungs. Painful regardless, and the dagger still embedded in him didn’t help either.
He pulled it out, feeling the air clear up while the redhead was on the ground clutching at her eyes and coughing. She was screaming, yet he had trouble really hearing it. The drums of his heart overshadowed everything.
Doesn’t matter.
He plunged the blade into her chest, but a rib stopped it from reaching too deeply. The pain seemed to have worked regardless, as that mild pressure he felt when nearing her vanished.
‘Now,’ he ordered Dawn, who immediately responded by impaling all four limbs with branches, wrapping them around to make sure even a loss of connection wouldn’t allow her to escape. ‘Could’ve just killed her.’
‘Later,’ the duck answered. Elijah didn’t press the matter, downing a vial of liquid Sundrop extract. It burned in his throat, yet his shoulder began to heal regardless.
With his vision fully returned, he could see the rest of the fight.
Surprisingly, it was… over already. The Dreamweaver still looked somewhat alive, with chunks of her flesh ripped out all over her body and with some noises leaving her mouth.
Aleksi lived as well, though his armor had been torn apart in the half-minute Elijah had been distracted, and there were a sizable amount of cuts and injuries on him. The deeper cut on his head, starting at his nose and going through the right eye, was especially disheartening.
Yet he was better off than Fang, the other giant lying motionless with his head removed from his body. There was still a bit of tensing, the elixir trying to keep the corpse alive, but it would stop soon enough.
We’ve won.
Ignoring the screams of pain from the redhead, he went over to Aleksi to check on the injuries a little more closely.
“You alright?” he asked in reflex, frowning at the half-formed eye that turned to look at him. While the left had survived, the pupil on the right was entirely gone. Could the elixir fix such a thing? It could bring back much of a limb if required, but the more delicate organs had a… substantial amount of tolerance for what the elixir deemed acceptable condition.
“I’m seeing endless flashing on the right side, and my heart might kill me in a few minutes, but I’m fine otherwise,” Aleksi dryly replied, looking down at the body of the other giant once again. Elijah didn’t bother waiting for permission as he pulled out some healing paste from his satchel, covering the largest of the cuts on Aleksi’s chest with it. The regained ability to breathe was instantly notable. “Nearly had me, at the end. Had to kick the axe away and take the head in one go.”
“Cost you an eye to do that?” he guessed, getting a nod back. “Figured. Want the pleasure of killing the others, or should I have Dawn do it?”
From what he was sensing through the Animal Bond, she was craving to do it about as much as those Nightmares had been.
“If you’re offering, I won’t mind getting a bit of frustration out,” Aleksi supposed, picking up his axe again and walking towards the fallen Dreamweaver. She looked terrible, with the patches of torn-off flesh bleeding heavily, but she was still lucid enough to see them approaching. “Thanks for letting me see the old bastard one more time.”
The axe was raised without much more ceremony, and the eyes of the old woman widened.
“Wait!” she screamed. Only when Elijah seemed interested did Aleksi stop the falling blade. “You want information? I can give it! I can tell you everything you want to hear!”
…
“From what your big friend said before, you never saw your client’s face,” Elijah pointed out. “What information can you possibly give us if you don't even know what your client looks like?”
“Rubeus Hayes, second-in-command at the Academy,” the Dreamweaver spat out, coughing blood from the strain of speaking. “He hides his face when we meet at the Lionheart Inn. Down here, nobody bothers with it. I have every face of every person involved memorized. Not their names but their faces.”
Aleksi didn’t need to be told the bad news. He’d already lowered his axe, in favor of pulling out a certain piece of paper. Elijah handed him a pencil, and he scribbled down a quick note about their current situation. It didn’t follow the agreed rules of symbols, but that hardly mattered. Vera needed to know she needed to get down here now, and that she needed to have contracts ready.
“I give the truth. You let us live,” the Dreamweaver demanded, looking up at them with completely blackened eyes. “Is it a deal, Hound?”
“Verbal agreements are for the Fae,” Elijah answered when Aleksi just looked down at the woman silent. “We prefer it in written form. Now, stay still while I make sure you don’t bleed out too quickly.”