The lumbering beast came on, movements dragging like all else to Lichos’ hastened eye. Still, he found himself with barely moments to act before its sprinting form was on him.

He leapt aside, feeling the ground whip by farther and faster than it ever had before and rolling back to a stand. The sound of flesh scraping against stone told him when the bear ground itself to a halt, and he whirled to face it.

Drool splayed from its gaping mouth in great clotted strands as it pressed on after him, and Lichos was driven back by slashing claws and snapping fangs. His speed seemed a poor barrier to pit between them, but he had nothing else.

Left, right and ever backwards he danced, stumbling feet moving with the trudging clumsiness they always did. Barely remaining ahead as the creature practically sprinted for him. Lichos scrutinised the bear, their surroundings with it, desperately searching for something he might turn to wounding the beast.

There was nothing he could see. No length of bones left lying on the floor, no rocks or slabs, no lengths of timber.

In absence of a weapon, he continued his flight. Frustration rising with every dodge, wind grazing flesh with each as if to warn him. Lichos knew there was no victory in evading defeat alone, realised he had no choice but to press into the offensive.

His chance came when the brute stumbled for a moment. Righting itself quick, but too slow for the magic burning in his nerves.

By the time the bear’s charge was beginning again, Lichos had already stepped in. Closed fist tight and hard like a stone, blow carrying the force of a chisel behind it.

The bear stumbled, blood and chipped enamel falling from its mouth. Rolling eyes betraying its stupor. Lichos marvelled at his own strength, stared at the stunned animal even as it snarled and reclaimed its bearings.

He’d realised his advantage already when the animal was prepared to strike again, and Lichos beat it to the offensive with a pounce of his own.

Again he struck it, then again, then again. No blow landing so fortuitiously as the first, yet all driving the beast back through power alone. Lichos felt a grin touch him as the bear retreated, almost tempted to draw the battle out.

But to do that would be death, dooming him to die as the magic trickled away. Instead he waited for his moment, then lunged.

Lichos fell onto the bear’s back, snaking himself around it and slipping his arms to form a noose about its neck.

The beast’s size was awe inspiring, leaving him suddenly aware just how great the difference between them was as he found more room than his body needed atop its hide. Then his grip was closed, his strength drawing arms in tight.

The bear’s roars and growls cut off in an instant as the strangulation began.

Inertia worked to wrench Lichos free as the animal swayed and writhed beneath him, but his grip held strong. The bear dropped down, rolling over and bringing its bone crushing weight down on him. Magic lent his body the resilience to ignore it.

For moments the struggle continued relentlessly, yielding no fruit and wasting away precious moments of the predator’s remaining breath.

Lichos merely focused on holding himself in place, maintaining the force of his squeeze in spite of whatever the creature brought against him.

Then the bear’s paws began scraping at his forearms, claws quickly finding home against his flesh.

Pain assailed him with the abrupt intensity that came only from drawn blood and parted skin, threatening to shock his arms apart. He grit his teeth and ignored the sensation, maintaining concentration. Tightening the lock with yet more vigor.

Still the bear scratched and mauled, deepening the agony. Were he a normal man the raking claws would surely have stripped away skin and muscle alike. Lichos didn’t know how much his digesting magic did to reduce the damage, he couldn’t bear to wonder.

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There was no room for thought or doubt, only action. Still he squeezed, and the bear began to grow weaker beneath him.

Weaker, weaker, weaker still. The bear slowed, lowered, collapsed entirely. Lichos released his grip after a few moments more, standing beside the fallen animal and looking out at the crowd. He’d dismissed their noise during the battle, finding no time for it. Realised only as he met their gazes that they’d fallen silent completely.

“Should I finish it off?” He called out. “Or does this make me the winner?”

He met the leader’s eye as he spoke, making an open challenge of his stare. It was a foolish act, yet the magic coiling in his veins made the guns on clear display seem trivialities.

She called rope down with a gesture. Lichos hurried to climb it, all too aware of how little time it took for a strangled beast to wake from torpor. His strength drew him free in an instant, and he straightened in his victory once he stood outside the arena.

Looking around, he quickly spotted Pyrhic approaching the ganger woman. Then found his discarded weapons, already in the process of changing hands in the crowd.

Pyrhic’s interrogation of the head ganger was among the simplest they’d had. The woman seemed true to her word, answering questions as they came and doing little to paint ire across the dula’s face.

Still Lichos listened almost with no ears at all, his failing grasp of Paradisan leaving tone and expression alone to inform him of what was discussed. Only Pyrhic’s occasional pause to translate left any true knowledge in his hands at all.

“The woman we’re seeking isn’t here, but she’s currently using the alias Evelar Flecke. It shouldn’t be hard to find her.”

Lichos couldn’t imagine how a fake name alone would make it easy to find one woman amid a city. He bit his tongue as Pyrhic continued speaking with the head ganger, studying faces still.

The magic had halfway left him, falling to levels low enough that he found the conversation almost natural to follow. His mind adjusting to the pace and seeming to leave it nearly regular.

A mixed blessing, more than one flashing face left him wishing he’d had more time to study it.

For minutes more the women conversed, Pyrhic drawing whatever more knowledge she could from the ganger. When at last the dula was ready to leave, she signalled Lichos with a nod. They’d taken no more than five steps when the head ganger’s voice rang out again at their backs, still speaking Paradisan.

Lichos felt the bottom fall from his stomach as he saw Pyrhic’s face turn sheet pale and fearful.

“What is it?” He demanded.

The dula seemed to struggle with her words for a moment.

“She says that while she promised us information, she made no promise to actually let us leave with it.”

Immediately he turned back to study the ganger, found the smug, victorious smile that he’d grown to loathe so much among his officers. Even had the woman made no move against them, Lichos might have killed her for that alone.

“I’m going to say something.” Lichos said to Pyrhic, still eying the ganger woman. “I need you to translate as exactly as you can manage.”

“Okay.” The dula breathed, fear just barely eroded by hope in her voice. She nearly leapt from her skin as he whipped the rifle from his back and levelled it at their host’s forehead.

Too fast for any present to react.

“I am a pariah.” Lichos called, staring the woman in the eye. “And a damned powerful one. You saw me strangle a bear just now, let me tell you I’ve strength enough in my body to do much more than that. If you let us leave you’ll never see it used. If you don’t, I’ll kill every single one of you myself, then fuck off all the same.”

He puncuated his promise by projecting nihil outwards, straining to make the field large and dilute enough that it covered every man present in the sprawling hall.

The effect was immediate, fear and loathing suddenly present on all faces in sight. Sweat beaded, hands trembled, fingers twitched dangerously close to triggers. And Lichos kept his eyes on the ganger’s leader through it all.

It was a bluff in its entirety. If the enemy chose to attack, there was little he could do to fill himself with more magic before they killed him. Muskets would tear through his strengthened body like paper, and his temporary power would spill free through pooling blood.

Lichos could only hope that tales of magiphagi were as exaggerated and distorted in Udrebam as all other places.

Silence strangled the room for a dozen agonising beats of his heart, shifting feet and licking lips alone interrupting it. He held his gaze level on the gang’s head, deciding that if the worst came to pass he’d make sure to kill her before falling.

And yet it didn’t. The woman barked an order in Paradisan, and Lichos saw Pyrhic relax just moments before the crowd of gangers parted for them. They left at a quick pace, hurrying from the agricore and disappearing as soon as they could into the labrynthine streets surrounding it.

Even when they were long from the building’s sight, hidden by cowering houses and certain no scouting gangers followed them, the tension remained thick and choking.

Lichos didn’t doubt that conversation between he and the dula would prove scarcer than ever.