Behind him, Theis heard the archer's bow string draw taut, but it was almost imperceptible over the faint, high-pitched ringing that had spread out across the clearing while Grobin broke their pact. Each of the soldiers cocked their heads in turn, wincing as the piercing sound burrowed its way into their brains one by one. Groans and whimpers came from all around. The two closest to the goat-headed effigy sank to their knees, clutching their skulls and rocking in place.
A thin line of blood dripped from Grobin's left nostril. He swiftly wiped it away, but was unable to hide the look of alarm that flashed across his face.
Theis, unaffected by the shrill ringing, could only shake his head. “Give up now, and while you'll leave just as poor as you arrived, you and your men will at least leave with your lives.”
Grobin's lips curled in a angry sneer before raising his voice to address everyone in the clearing.
“Take him alive.”
He spat in the grass.
“And kill his friends.”
**********
Nevin's blood ran cold.
For a moment, no one in the clearing moved. A low growl built up in Aidux's throat. Soldiers looked to one another as if waiting for someone to make the first move and grant the permission for the rest of them to act. Theis watched the dark-haired soldier from the rubble of the collapsed hovel, still as stone despite the intermittent bursts of chill eastern wind.
Nevin brought the long, bulky metal weapon to bear. While its uncharacteristic lightness made maneuvering it a simple affair, too many tense minutes left his arms sapped of energy, and just holding the object at the ready set his arm muscles trembling fiercely.
Finally, Grobin whipped his head around. “Don't just stand there! Take them now!”
But it was Theis who would make the next move.
Pivoting on his back foot, Theis ripped his blade through the space between him and the nearby archer. Realizing her mistake too late, the archer leaned away from the incoming blow, but his brief duel with Grobin had succeeded in bringing the man in black within reach. His sword's sharpened edge exploded through the thickest part of her bow, propelling jagged bits of wood into her chest and face.
As the woman reeled back, Theis jolted forward and kicked her square in the breastbone. The blow drove the breath from her lungs loud enough for Nevin to hear it on the other side of the clearing. The woman crumpled around his boot like a cloth doll and flew backward, clearing the pile of rubble to disappear beneath the tall grasses.
Grobin lunged forward, seeking to catch the man in black with his back turned, but his feet failed to gain purchase on the damp soil and he tumbled face-first onto the ground. This seemed to wake the rest of the soldiers up, and the group sprang into action with scattered cries of determination.
This is really gonna happen.
Two men turned to approach him and Aidux – one spinning a bulbous wooden cudgel at his side, and another twisting his hands around the extended haft of a rust-speckled hewing ax. The uncertainty clouding their eyes during Theis' verbal exchange with their leader had vanished, replaced with gleeful expectation and the lust to do harm. Their leathery-bronze skin bore all the hallmarks of a life toiling in the sun, and callouses decorated their chapped palms and fingers.
“Okay,” Nevin whispered to the cat as the men drew closer. “What do we do here?”
Aidux sank into the grass like a coiled spring. “Well, for starters, try not to get hit by-”
The ax-wielding soldier rushed forward, pulling his weapon high over head and yanking it down with a feral grunt. Nevin and Aidux leapt to either side as the blade sank into the damp soil where they'd both been standing with a muffled plurrf. Losing his footing, Nevin skid through the grass on his right shoulder, the metal weapon leaving a trail of frozen grass in its wake.
Aidux was more nimble. Bounding forward as soon as his feet found the ground, Aidux flashed past the attacking soldier with claws spread wide. The man yelped and grabbed a handful of thigh. Blood seeped out around his fingers where three of the cat's claws had made it through the fabric of his trousers.
Without slowing, the cat drove his shoulders into the other man's knees, barely sliding beneath his swinging cudgel. The pair collapsed in a pile of flailing limbs and animalistic cries.
Stumbling to his feet, Nevin stood just in time to see the second soldier stick a boot in his friend's chest and hurl him to the side. Aidux's paws scrambled at the air before landing hard on his back. The second soldier rose and dashed toward the cat in the hope of catching him before he could stand.
Fear gave way to anger, and Nevin pushed himself to act.
Digging his boots into the soft earth, Nevin rushed forward, hoping beyond hope that he could reach his friend's side before the soldier did.
In his hands, the Sharasil jerked and spasmed, its smooth metal surface rippling at the behest of some unknown internal pressure. Cold light flashed through cracks in its exterior. A faint hissing-
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A rusty ax cut a wide, horizontal arc before him. Nevin barely brought the weapon up in time. The two objects collided hard enough to tear the weapon from Nevin's hands and send it hurtling end-over-end behind him. At the same time, a sharp crack overwhelmed the muffled clank of metal on metal as the ax's extended wooden haft snapped in twain. The ax head, now free to move as it pleased, bounced off Nevin's weapon to catch the surprised soldier in the shin. Though the blow was softened by his boot's leather shaft, the sheer weight of the iron head was enough to elicit another yelp of pain from the already wounded man and send him backpedaling to safety.
In the meantime, Aidux had somehow gotten to his feet to latch his maw around the other soldier's forearm, effectively preventing him from swinging his cudgel. The man tried punching the lynx, but his fur was so thick, and the blows hardly did more than annoy the cat.
Nevin spun around, quickly searching the tall grasses nearby for any sign of the storm-gray metal. What in the Numbra was that? The weapon's otherwise unbroken surface had changed for a moment, emitting light and briefly revealing another shape hiding underneath.
He set his jaw. A detail that wouldn't matter if he couldn't find the weapon in time to keep himself from being killed.
**********
Theis ducked in time to skirt beneath another arrow. His opponent wasn't so lucky. The arrow caught the man in the shoulder, his woolen over-shirt offering no protection against its sharpened iron tip. A puff of red spray filled the air behind him and he dropped his club to grab at the wound.
The man in black didn't waste the opportunity. Twisting to deflect a swing from Grobin's sword, Theis buried the tip of his own blade in the wounded soldier's neck. His cry of pain was instantly silenced and his eyes glazed over as his soul channel collapsed and retreated.
And so seven became six.
Theis wrenched his blade free and shot between Grobin and another soldier in a bid to take out the remaining archer. The man was performing just as bad as expected, but despite Ivvilger's temporary assistance, the man in black didn't want to push his luck.
As he crossed the clearing, he slid around another incoming arrow and turned to check how the others were faring. The cat had his opponent on the ropes, as the soldier tried in vain to fight off the lynx's snapping maw from the flat of his back. Blood drenched the man's right side, and a number of the fingers on his left hand were missing.
He was more worried about the boy. His opponent fumbled with a long, straight blade dagger, finding it difficult to hold in hands slicked by blood. The boy kept one eye on him while he swatted at the grass in search of something.
Theis frowned. He's lost his weapon.
The man in black jerked his head forward. With another arrow already in place, the archer pulled back on his bow, but ended up stumbling from his perch atop the termite-infested stump when his bowstring unexpectedly snapped. The frayed string sliced into the flesh of his face – cutting a neat line from his jaw up to his temple - but the wound didn't even have time to bleed before Theis cut short his life.
And so six became five.
Theis flicked the blood from his blade, tilting aside as Grobin's thrust pierced the empty space beside him. The man's attempts to wound him were beyond sloppy. Overzealous and fueled by rage, not to mention under-trained.
More dangerous to himself than to me.
The other two soldiers were hot on Grobin's heels, circling around either side of their leader to surround. Theis knew he needed to handle these final three quickly. The soldier attacking Nevin might be wounded, but he was both armed and willing. The boy was currently neither.
Grobin smirked at the man in black, caught in the midst of a ring of bared weapons with nowhere to go. “You're good, old man, but I don't care what they say about you, you can't possibly make it out of this alive.
“Give it up now, and I'll let you keep your legs.”
“You should have paid closer attention to those stories, soldier,” Theis' eyes narrowed. “Maybe then your little boy wouldn't starve while you rot in these woods.”
The man's smirk vanished, and anger flashed in his widening eyes. Swinging wild, he aimed his blade for the meat of Theis' thigh, but the man in black was more than ready.
Theis stepped inside Grobin's reach, spinning around as he moved to drive his hip into the man's crotch and hooking his bicep under his opponent's armpit. A club and an ax caught only empty air where Theis had stood but a breath before. He shifted his weight and pulled hard, bearing down on Grobin's arm as he would the overhead slice of a sword. The soldier's boots left the ground, his body rotating around and over the man in black's hip.
He slammed head-first into the damp, unyielding ground.
Bone crunched in his neck, and the dark-haired soldier went limp.
And so five became four.
**********
“Come 'ere, boy,” chided the wounded soldier, waving Nevin closer with one hand while he brandished a vicious looking dagger in the other. Despite the gouge in his thigh and the blow to his shin, the unshaven brute was rapidly regaining his stride, but, in his rush to find his missing weapon, Nevin had failed to notice how close the soldier had actually gotten.
Metal flashed in the muted light, and Nevin cried out in pain.
Steel disappeared into the unprotected flesh of his torso just below his rib cage. The young man stumbled away, clutching the wound with shaking hands. Warm blood seeped through his clenched fingers. Nevin felt his head swimming almost immediately. A cold sweat burst from the pores on his face and the ground seemed to sway beneath his feet.
The soldier licked his lips like a hungry mutt. “Next one's in your throat, boy.”
Nevin pressed a blood-soaked hand to his suddenly throbbing temples, smearing the warm fluid all across the side of his face and through his hair.
Light exploded in his brain and the clearing melted away around him.
Dalen, wobbling on his feet, reached down into the straw dusting the bare dirt floor and hefted an old ax handle. He smacked it three times against his empty palm before he spoke, the wet clap it made against his sweaty flesh echoing between the walls of the barn.
“Give it back, or the next one's against your head, boy.”
Dalen's voice and the unshaven soldier's threat grated against one another over and over in his mind. “...in your throNext one's next one's Give it back in your against your head throat head throat boy boy boy boy BOY! BOY!! BOY!! BOY! BOY! BOY!! BOY!!!
The image flickered out of existence, and Nevin felt himself swinging Dalen's tarnished canteen with all his might at the wounded soldier's stupid grin.