With a pained cry, the unicorn tumbled to the ground. Tahir glanced back to see it struggling on the ground, and breathed a sigh of relief as the plant creature continued to thrash around with him on its back. He didn’t think he could hang on for much longer, so waited for a safe moment to leap off and roll to safety. He couldn’t see Hasio, but he could hear his footsteps moving through the glade. The plant’s creature put its attention solely toward Tahir, however.
He used too much mana freeing the unicorn to be able to teleport himself, the Unicorn, and Hasio, and he likely only had enough aura to withstand one good hit before his shield broke. For all of the nicks and cuts across its body, it didn’t look the least bit affected, so it seemed like Tahi and Hasio would have to keep it busy until help arrived.
As he pondered this, the creature charged him. Its thundering steps caused tremors along the ground in the glade, but with spirit-enhanced speed Tahir dodged to the side before it could trample him. He gave a passing swing with his burning blade against its side as it passed him. It skid to a stop, nearly slamming into a tree, before correcting its course and rushing at him once more. This time, as Tahir moved to dodge again, it stopped next to him instead of barreling past him, and began to swipe with his massive forelegs.
Tahir ducked and dodged away, stepping back to avoid getting too close. Some of its swings he could reasonably deflect if he had his earth spirit instead of air, but even those would cost him more aura than just avoiding its strikes entirely. While he continued to dodge, it made to try for another swipe, but then recoiled and whipped around to strike at empty air. Moments later, Hasio appeared a few feet away from Tahir, and something dripped from his daggers onto the ground. It looked too light in color to be blood, not to mention the plant creature they were fighting didn’t seem to have any. Poison, maybe?
“Can’t keep that up while fighting for too long.” He said, panting slightly. Tahir guessed he meant the invisibility.
“Keep it going a little longer if you can. They have to be close by now, and I still have mana left.” They could still run, but Tahir had no idea what this thing would do with the unicorn, who struggled weakly at the other end of the glade. He didn’t think they could kill it, but they could certainly keep its attention until help arrived.
Hasio nodded, disappearing once more as the creature moved to charge Tahir again. This time, Tahir cast a spell with most of his remaining mana, conjuring four bolts of flame to slam into it all at once. They caused the creature to slow, but not stop its charge, and it gave Tahir the opportunity to dodge to the side and swing across its flank. The soul flame-infused blade caused a deep cut through the plant matter, and he thought he cut through something solid, maybe wooden, underneath. Seconds later, another nick appeared on its side, and a set of invisible footsteps scrambled back as heavy forelegs slammed down on the spot where they once stood.
Just as he thought that this was going well, Tahir heard a creaking from nearly every direction surrounding the glade. Pushing through the foliage, a dozen more wooden men appeared, reinforcements to the six that Tahir managed to take out. Tahir’s eyes widened. Half of them came for him, while the other half seemed to make their way toward the unicorn.
“No you don’t!” Tahir rushed toward the wooden figures heading toward the unicorn. They’d worked hard enough getting it free to begin with and there were likely enough of them there to just carry it off. Hearing the stomping of the plant creature behind him, he rushed over to the nearest of the group beginning to surround the unicorn. It barely had time to turn around before Tahir cut its head off with a downward swing, then rolled to his left.
Thankfully, rather than barreling into the unicorn, the plant creature changed course and started to come after him again. Tahir misjudged his roll, however, and all but slammed into one of the wooden men, causing the plant to reach him before he could recover. Acting quickly, he poured nearly all of his remaining aura into his shield, but it still shattered as the creature struck him and sent him flying toward the opposite end of the glade.
He hit the ground hard, and he barely managed to hang on to his blade. A moment later, Hasio appeared at his side and he struggled to stand. “You alright?”
Tahir groaned in pain, but his head snapped up to watch for the wooden men and the plant, most of which gathered around the unicorn, who began to cry out in distressed and angry neighing. “I’m alive, out of just about everything though.”
“Same here.” Hasio replied between panting. “I don't think we can save the unicorn against that many. Think it’s time to cut and run?” As gentle as he could while trying to be quick, he grabbed Tahir and pulled him up to stand.
“I don’t want to just leave it, but-” He couldn’t finish, he didn’t need to. Both of them knew that without aura, or a strong enough shield, one good swing from any of them would probably take them out. Either from the wooden men breaking a limb or the plant killing them outright. “There’s got to be something we can still do.” He had the idea of switching from his air spirit to fire in order to use his remaining mana to torch the entire glade, but before he could voice it, he heard a whistle and a familiar voice behind him.
“This is quite a pickle for you two. I’m a little impressed.” Mubrabi spoke. As Tahir turned his head, he could see multiple waves of energy rippling past the two of them and into the glade. Snapping back he could see the waves flying into the wooden men, and cutting several of them in half. Murabi, Meti, Theo, and the Traveler strode into the glade past them, attracting the attention of the rest of the wooden men and the plant. “Stay back for a moment, I’ll handle the rest from here.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Meti and Theo moved to stabilize Tahir, who visibly had trouble staying upright after that hit. Murabi walked forward, holding his blade out in one hand. He looked around at all of the enemies in the glade, and then his gaze fixed on the distressed unicorn. As the creatures around all started to rush him, he took his blade in both hands. Tahir spotted the rise and fall of Murabi’s shoulders as he took a deep breath, and then he had trouble processing exactly what happened next.
Murabi gave a wide, horizontal swing, and each of the wooden men within ten feet of him were cut in half. He repeated this swing twice, and managed to take out nearly every one of them in the glade. As the plant approached, he held up his sword in the air. It rushed him with the same fervor that it went after Tahir, but before it could even reach him, Murabi’s sword fell down with such force that Tahir felt a breeze from it while standing several feet behind Murabi.
The plant kept running for a second more, before it collapsed. It too had been nearly perfectly bisected down the middle. Tahir could only watch in shock. To be able to end it so quickly, the amount of aura Murabi used would have had to be immense. Other than the visual waves that flew from his sword, Tahir didn’t feel any of it. The others must have had similar thoughts, because no one spoke as Murabi cleaned up the few wooden men remaining in the glade.
Meti was the first one to regain her senses, as she grabbed Tahir’s face and forcibly turned his head to look at her. “Your eyes.” She said, catching the silver glow. Theo grabbed one of his wrists, looking at the silvery tint to his skin.
“It’s the spirit magic, I used aura along with mana and it caused some physical changes.” Tahir clarified. He tried to turn his head to look forward, but Meti held his head firmly in place.
“Come on Tahir! What’re you doing out here with just Hasio!? Do we have to tie you to a tree or something?” Theo all but shouted.
Tahir opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of what to say. He wanted to break away from their shared grip, but he knew he’d have a hard time standing if he did. Thankfully, Hasio came to his defense. “Don’t be too hard on him, girls.” He said. “I’m the one who convinced him to sneak off with me, and I didn’t really try to talk him out of jumping through the fairy ring.”
Meti and Theo looked like they wanted to scold Hasio, too, but another cry from the unicorn caught their attention. With a brief look between each other, they all made their way toward the opposite end of the glade, with Meti and Theo helping Tahir along. Murabi kneeled next to the panting unicorn. He’d pulled out a potion, and started pouring it on some of its wounds. A slight sting caused it to cry out in pain the first time, but the relief as the wounds healed.
“What a mess.” The mithral ranked swordmaster murmured as he stood. “It’ll live, as far as I can tell, but I can only imagine how it must have felt. Trapped and slowly having your life drained from you - an awful way to die.”
“What exactly was that plant? It had the unicorn on its back before you got here.” Tahir asked.
“No clue, but even if it was somehow natural, things like that wouldn’t attack greater fey like unicorns. Something put it up to this.”
“Could it have been another fey?” Hasio offered. Tahir knew fey to be both benevolent defenders of the natural world they inhabited as well as mischievous tricksters that could get up to often deadly pranks and schemes. It didn’t feel like a stretch to assume that this came from another fey acting maliciously against this unicorn.
“Whatever it is, it isn’t our business.” Murabi answered. “We’ve saved the unicorn, but we’ve got somewhere to be. Maybe mention it to someone in Isanthyr, they’re more likely to look into the situation.” As much as this entire situation had roused Tahir’s interest, Murabi spoke true. They didn’t have any business looking into this anyway, and it was enough for him that they’d managed to save the unicorn.
They lingered around the glade for a while longer, until the unicorn regained enough strength to struggle to its feet. The horned horse looked between everyone briefly, before it snorted and trotted over to Tahir. He’d recovered enough to stand on his own by now, and the two of them shared a look. Tahir didn’t know what to think of the unicorn. He’d never really interacted with fey before, and like many things, all he had to go on were stories and reports from books that he’d read.
After a moment, the unicorn bowed its head down. Its horn touched the ground at Tahir’s feet, and he felt a slight tremor as plants began to grow rapidly around him. The one that stood out the most, however, was a white flower. It bloomed quickly, and in the center of its petals sat a large black seed. The unicorn then walked over and repeated the process with Hasio, growing another patch of plants around him,
After that, it gave another bow. This one seemed to convey gratitude to the entire group, and then it turned to trot away into the woods. The group watched the space where it left for several moments, silent, before Tahir finally knelt down to pick up the seed. It felt warm to the touch, but didn’t look like the seed to any kind of plant he’d ever seen before.
Hasio followed suit, and almost as quickly Theo got down to her hands and knees. “Wait, I can use some of these plants.” The way she scanned over the grove implied that some of them were pretty rare. She looked up to Tahir expectantly. “Step out of that spot really carefully. I don’t have my regular tools.”
With a nervous smile and a chuckle from Tahir, he and Hasio carefully stepped away from their plants to let Theo gather them. They stood together and held up the seeds, mostly identical. From the way they sprouted directly in front of them, Tahir thought that they were meant to be collected separately from any of the other plants that sprouted. “What do you think this is for?” Tahir asked Hasio and Murabi.
“No clue, I imagine it’s worth a lot if a unicorn gave it to us, though.” Hasio replied with a shrug.
“If anyone we can reach will know, we’ll probably find them in Isanthyr.” Murabi said, and then placed his hands on Tahir and Hasio’s shoulders. “Good work though, you two. I think you might have been able to handle this on your own with the four of you if I wasn’t here, but you made the best with what you had.”
“Right…” Tahir still felt floored watching Murabi end things basically in an instant, but he could attribute that to the massive gap between gold and mithral. Murabi certainly deserved his rank, but other than demonstrations during training, this was the first time Tahir had seen something that really confirmed it. Tahir would have to find some time to thank Fenian for formatting the sponsorship in this way. He couldn’t imagine getting someone with a mithral rank to mentor him otherwise.
Perhaps with some instruction, that massive gap would close faster than he ever thought possible.