Bregg held up a hand, and I stopped at once to keep from running into his broad back. That signal was just for me and something that I’d convinced the others to start doing. I still hadn’t worked out exactly how they communicated, but they did, and that communication didn’t include me. I was fairly sure it was magical in nature—maybe they were linked by one of Aeld’s spirits—but as of yet, neither Sara nor I had figured out how it worked. That meant that when they stopped or went silent suddenly, I didn’t, and I kept running into people or talking loudly into the ensuing quiet. Thus, the hand signals that told me to stop walking or shut the hell up.
The hunter held his hand out, palm-downward, and I dropped into a crouch a half-second behind the rest of the hunters. I reached down and scooped up handfuls of snow, rubbing it into my fur so that it blended in even better with the surroundings, then slipped to my left, my spear held low and my senses questing for any sound or shape that was out of place. For the past two days, Bregg had taken me ahead of the others and showed me how to be quiet and stealthy in the snow or ice. He’d also taught me how to spot common dangers, like ice spills or crumbling rock, and how to recognize various animal tracks. I’d gained three more ranks in Tracking, bringing it to Adept 7, one in Stealth to bring it to Adept 9, almost at the Savant ranks. What I hadn’t gained is XP for my professions, and the hunter’s signal gave me hope that soon, I might.
Bregg’s signal meant that one of the shaman’s spirits had sensed something amiss and probably dangerous, something that happened less and less frequently during the trip north. The nightly attacks stopped after the foxes, and I no longer saw any signs of large predators along our path. According to the hunter, it was simply too cold and barren for them; with the Bright Season past—which I guessed was a time when the sun shone all day, the way it did in the northernmost reaches of Earth—the small game left the valleys and headed for warmer areas, and the big predators followed their food. That made our nightly watches easier, but it also meant the end of free XP and skill boosts.
Despite the lack of attacks, the past two days had been the hardest of the journey so far. The air grew colder, and the wind blew harder the farther we traveled. Snow fell frequently, not in raging storms like when I’d first come to this world but in short flurries that seemed to come from nowhere. That snow quickly froze into ice, making our footing treacherous and slippery, and we’d taken to roping ourselves together as we traveled. Twice, those ropes saved a hunter from disaster as the ice beneath their feet gave way, tumbling them down the slopes toward the valleys below. Ice-crusted snow filled those valleys, deeper than any of us were tall, and a fall like that could have broken bones or cut the hunter badly enough that they couldn’t get back out, meaning we would have had to climb down to rescue them. The only good part about the trip was that it seriously helped my Vigor and Celerity, as well as my Endurance skill, all of which rose a point each day. Endurance was now tantalizingly close to reaching the Master rank, and I wondered what sort of bonus or ability I’d get when it did.
Currently, the group stood at the bottom of a saddle, a low place between two slopes. Above, the wind whipped past the saddle, streaming snow over our heads and dumping it on us in a crystalline shower. A faint scent carried on the breeze, one that I recognized at once: the odor of salt water. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the whistling wind, but I guessed that we were finally nearing the ocean.
The ledge we followed continued below the saddle, but Aeld stared directly up at the gap in the mountains. He glanced back at Bregg, who knelt and pulled out a pair of snowshoes from his pack. I hesitated only briefly before doing the same, strapping the webbed contraptions to my feet. Bregg gave me a brief, approving glance but said nothing as he began to trek up the side of the slope, moving smoothly and easily despite what I knew had to be feet of snow beneath him. I followed, nowhere nearly as quickly since I didn’t want to tumble into the snow and have to pull myself out of it. The wind strengthened steadily as I climbed, pulling at my fur and whipping it around me. It bit at my face and fingers despite my Cold Resistance, and I resisted the urge to shake my hands to try and warm them. I squinted against the crystals of snow blowing against my eyes like tiny grains of sand, freezing into my fur and further camouflaging me. At last, I caught up to Bregg, standing just below the top of the saddle and peering downward. I joined him and blinked as the full force of the wind slammed into my face, almost rocking me backward and making my eyes tear up. I blinked them clear and looked out, catching my first glimpse of something other than mountains in this world.
The North Ocean—looked like any cold sea, to be honest. The dark blue, almost black water churned in long waves, driven by the wind that whipped over the surface and slammed directly into the peaks that stretched out like a wall to either side, shrouding everything nearby in a haze of white crystals. In the distance, large white chunks that I assumed were ice drifted and bobbed along, caught in a current or pushed by the wind. As I looked farther north, the ice floes grew more numerous until they became a solid line of blue-white banding the very edge of the horizon.
The wind scoured the outward slopes free of snow, leaving bare faces of dark gray stone clawing upward toward the deep blue sky overhead. Tiny specks that I guessed were birds circled in the sky above the waves, occasionally dropping toward the surface in search of fish—or whatever lived in those waters, which could have been anything, really. It was stark, forbidding, and a little beautiful in its own way, but I only spent a moment taking it all in before turning my gaze downward.
The snow cresting the saddle quickly turned to ice, then vanished as the hill dropped, revealing a relatively steep slope of ice-coated rock. It looked like at one time, the saddle stretched higher, but eons of erosion had broken loose a wave of tumbled stone that stretched like a ramp down the mountain and spread out to create a small, gravelly beach jutting about twenty feet into the ocean and reaching a hundred feet or so across. That beach seemed to offer the only harborage in sight in either direction; the ocean crashed directly into the mountains to either side, carving out hollows in the slopes but leaving no shores behind. The gray stones of the beach glistened and gleamed wetly as waves surged against the lower reaches and hurled spray up higher, spray that remained liquid on the sun-warmed stones but probably froze quickly overnight. I was no expert, but it seemed that this particular strand wasn’t a great place to stay. The wind practically screamed along the shore, snow swirled constantly in heavy curtains, and the rocky shoreline looked unstable and difficult to walk on.
Despite all that, someone was obviously making at attempt at creating some kind of encampment there. A dozen large tents shaped like half-cylinders dotted the shoreline, held against the wind by ropes anchored in the rocky ground. The greenish tents stood out against the gray stone and navy sea, and they looked too thin to provide any real shelter from the cold and wind. The green tinge and odd vertical striping along the sides made me think that they were designed for somewhere flatter, warmer, and grass-covered, not for this close to the poles and the arctic ice I assumed lay on the horizon.
Bregg tensed beside me as one of the tents opened and a figure stepped out. At five hundred feet up through swirling snow, I couldn’t make out details, but the figure moved with an odd, almost galloping gait and seemed strangely shaped. Something about their proportions looked wrong, but through the white curtain, I couldn’t make out enough details to be sure what. The figure strode out to the edge of the water and busied themselves there doing something beyond my ability to discern. I peered closer, trying to see what they were doing…
I jumped slightly as Bregg’s hand touched my arm, but I mastered myself quickly. He pointed back down, and I followed him down the slope toward the others. The old hunter stared at Aeld for long seconds, then turned and faced me.
“As you saw, the Oikithikiim have established a landing on the beach below,” he said in a quiet voice filled with hidden anger. “We must drive them out.”
“Why?” I asked in an equally quiet voice.
Bregg’s eyes flared as he spoke, his voice a quiet snarl as he spoke. “The four-legs are the bane of the Menskallin, Hemskal!” he growled. “If they are allowed to carve a path through the High Reaches, they will seek to use it to destroy us all!”
“Can they, though?” I looked back up at the saddle above us. “They don’t look like they’re really outfitted for the mountains, and those tents of theirs won’t be much good up here in the snow. I’m not sure what they’re doing, but I don’t think there’s any way they can cross the High Reaches.”
“Don’t underestimate the lowlanders, Freyd,” Aeld said gravely. “Their arts are profane but powerful, and they are more dangerous than they might appear. Bregg is right; they must be dislodged.”
Which, of course, meant killed, since it looked like whatever ship brought the oik-people up here also left them behind. Unless their tents doubled as boats, there was no way that they were just going to be “dislodged”. They would have to be slaughtered. My earlier thoughts seemed confirmed: there was a war going on, and I was about to be dragged into the middle of it. I could probably refuse to fight, and from the way everyone had behaved so far, I doubted they would say a word against me, but I was certain it wouldn’t sit well with them. If these guys were supposed to be some sort of racial enemy, refusing to fight them might piss off every Menskallin around, and that I didn’t need.
Obviously, I didn’t have a problem with killing when it was necessary. The literal thousands of corpses in my wake could pretty clearly attest to that. I just wasn’t a fan of killing people when I didn’t have to. This time, though, it seemed I’d have no choice.
“Fine,” I said calmly. “If that’s what has to be done, then how do we do it?”
“It’s the task of the valskab,” Bregg said flatly. “Not yours.”
“Aeld, are you going to forbid me from helping?” I asked the shaman, not even looking at Bregg. “Will you have your hunters stop me if I follow?”
“Your path isn’t mine to guide, Freyd,” he said in a quiet voice. “Or Bregg’s.”
“But ours is ours alone to walk,” the hunter snapped.
“And if he wants to walk beside us, who are we to stop him, Bregg?” The shaman looked at me. “I take it you mean to?”
“Yes,” said firmly.
“Have you ever killed before, Hemskal?” Bregg asked coldly. “Not a beast, but a thinking being?” He gestured to his hunters. “We all have; that’s why we were chosen for this mission. It’s not the same, and we can’t have you freezing at the wrong moment…”
I turned to the man at that point and gave him a cold, lazy smile. As I did, I relaxed the barriers I usually held in my mind, the concentration I maintained trying to be John, the Inquisitor, and if not a good guy, at least not a villain. Bregg looked at me and froze. In that moment, he didn’t see a young hunter, a fledgling letharvis, or a Hemskal, whatever that was.
He looked directly into the soulless eyes of the Faceless Man.
“Yes, Bregg, I have,” I said in a perfectly even voice. The hunter stared at me for a moment, seeing the ice that I kept buried, the emptiness that lay in the center of my being—and looked away, unable to maintain my gaze. I didn’t blame him. I had trouble looking at that person in the mirror sometimes.
“Fine,” Bregg said roughly, looking anywhere but at me as I tucked the Faceless Man back into my depths, hiding him away until I needed him again. “We make camp here and wait for nightfall. Then, we remove this stain from our shores.”
Aeld simply looked at me, his expression thoughtful, but he turned away without a word.
Night seemed to come more slowly than usual. We set up camp, and while I expected the hunters to take shifts watching over the beach below, Bregg kept everyone inside the circle of snow.
“The Oikithikiim have their own arts, different from ours,” he told me. “Perverted ones, but effective, nonetheless. Within the bounds of the letharvis’ circle, we’re protected from them, but outside, we’re exposed and could be detected.”
“How do you know they didn’t use them to sense us coming?” I asked curiously.
“We don’t,” he replied shortly. “If they did, this will be a lot more dangerous, but it doesn’t change what must be done.”
The sun sank slowly to the southwest, draping the long shadows of the mountains over us and staining the sky overhead deep purple rather than pink or orange. At last, it vanished, plunging us into a deep twilight, which apparently was the moment Bregg was waiting for. The hunters all strapped on their snowshoes, rubbed more snow into their fur, and grabbed their spears. Bregg led them out of the camp in silence, and I followed, dropping in at the end with Aeld beside me, his face looking grave but determined.
We scaled the saddle, and at the top, the hunters lay down in the snow to keep from being outlined against the brighter sky to the south as they examined the camp below. It looked pretty much the same as it had before, with one exception: it was a hell of a lot busier. Someone had sunk poles into the beach, three of them equally spread along the shoreline. Lights glowed atop those poles, shedding cool white light along the strand and illuminating the figures that moved all over the shore—and the ship that now floated off the beach. I quickly counted twenty-three of the creatures, an easy thing to do since most of them carried some sort of personal light as well, a glowing spark that made them far easier to make out against the black water. I glanced at Aeld and saw puzzlement on his face; whatever they were doing wasn’t what he’d expected to see. Bregg’s expression radiated a similar confusion, but that shifted to grim determination; he didn’t know what was going on, but he obviously didn’t care as he moved forward, leading the party over the saddle toward the hopefully unsuspecting victims below.
The rocky scree leading down to the camp was easier to navigate than the sheer faces to either side would have been—I wouldn’t have wanted to free-climb an icy face like that in full daylight, much less when shadows draped it thickly—but it was unstable, and we had to move cautiously to keep from dislodging rocks that would announce our presence. We left the snowshoes by the saddle, obviously, and climbed slowly and carefully down the slope. I expected to hear a shout and outcry at any time—it wasn’t really night yet, and while our fur blended in somewhat against the rockface, movement of any kind was always easier to detect—but it seemed that the Oikithikiim weren’t paying attention to anything inland and focused completely on what was happening offshore.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
We paused fifty feet from the edge of the camp, and I watched while Aeld arranged some stones in a ring about himself, then sat down within and closed his eyes. I activated See Magic, and while the circle of rocks glowed faintly, I couldn’t sense any power coming from him directly, and See Spirits similarly showed me nothing.
“I think it’s the circle, John,” Sara offered. “It’s keeping whatever he’s doing inside, so it doesn’t leak out. He said that these Oikithikiim have magical abilities, too, so maybe he’s worried that they could sense anything he’s doing.”
A tap on my shoulder returned my focus to the moment, and I looked over to see Bregg standing beside me. He pointed at my chest, then off to the right, and I clenched a fist, the sign we’d agreed on for acknowledgement since nobody nodded in this world, it seemed. I moved out to the right, circling the camp with another hunter whose name I didn’t know. As we walked, I got a better look at the camp and its inhabitants, and I quickly saw why Bregg called them four-legs.
The Oikithikiim reminded me a little bit of mythological centaurs. Their upper bodies were humanoid, more like a human’s than mine currently, in fact, lacking the thick, shaggy fur that hung from me. Their faces looked like a cross between a human’s and a chimp’s, with large ears that lay flat against their heads, human eyes and nose, and a slightly protruding mouth with overlarge lips. They had human arms, as well—at least, from what I could tell beneath their heavy coats and thick gloves—but at the waist, any resemblance to a human ended. Their spines continued on well past their waist, curving sharply and extending about two feet, and four legs sprouted from what I supposed were a pair of hips, separated by about a foot. Their front legs moved like a human’s, but their rear legs looked more lupine, with the knee close to the hip and a backward-bending ankle in the middle of the leg. That explained the odd, galloping gait I noticed earlier; they literally moved like horses, walking with a distinctive swaying motion.
The Oikithikiim—who I quickly decided I was calling Oikies because their actual name was just too long to say—were also clearly intelligent. They wore heavy clothing that looked like thick wool with a fur lining, and they spoke to one another in a high, fluid language that quickly resolved itself as Sara picked it up.
Omnilingual Activated!
You now speak: Common Oikithikiim
I listened carefully to the creatures, but their conversation seemed mundane, talking about the bitter cold, how much they hated being on that beach, and how much they wanted to strangle someone called Kateen, who I realized must have been in charge of the place. Basically, they sounded like any employee ever, bitching about their job as a way to pass the time while doing it. I thought at first that we were going to be slaughtering a bunch of general laborers, at least until one of them stepped closer to one of the glowing posts—the light of which, I now saw, came from a glass or crystal globe fastened to the top of it. As the person turned, the light flashed on the pair of what looked almost like flintlock pistols at their belt. I looked more carefully and saw that most of the creatures were similarly armed. I didn’t think this was a group of sailors or dockworkers pressed into service. They were soldiers, which meant Bregg’s concerns could have been legitimate.
However, that brought up another concern. How in the fuck were we, seven people armed with spears, supposed to fight twenty-three people armed with guns? The Oikies were smaller than us and looked weaker, to be sure, but they only had to be strong enough to pull out a pistol and squeeze the trigger. That didn’t take a lot of physicality. Spears may have ruled the ancient battlefield, but firearms ruled the modern one, and that many pistols—and probably rifles tucked away somewhere—would slaughter us all the moment we were spotted. If there was a war ongoing between these two groups, I couldn’t see how the Menskallin—the Menskies, to stick with my new naming pattern—hadn’t been utterly conquered long ago. In war, physical strength pretty much always lost out to technology eventually.
I had my answer a moment later as a sudden surge of power rolled out from my left, where Aeld and Bregg were. It was stronger than anything I’d seen Aeld do so far, a wave of magic so thick that I could practically taste it. I activated See Magic in time to watch fingers of energy streak out over the beach, wrapping around the three light poles. Strands of magic blasted into the globes atop the poles, all three of which shattered in a blaze of light, leaving the beach drenched in darkness.
That, apparently, was our signal, as the hunter beside me rushed forward toward the nearest group of Oikies. The creatures shouted in dismay as the sudden flare and ensuing blackness blinded them, but they weren’t the only ones. I stumbled along in the hunter’s wake, blinking away spots left behind by the orb’s destruction. Apparently, though, the other hunter knew what was about to happen or was protected against it as they reached the nearest Oikie and slammed their spear into the soldier’s chest. The blade flashed as it struck the Oikie’s clothing, which seemed to resist the thrust for a moment before the spear punched through and bisected their heart.
“Menskallin!” The cry rose from throats all along the beach as the shaggy, gray hunters appeared from nowhere and fell upon the Oikies.
“Fall in!” a commanding voice shouted, followed by a series of sharp whistles. “Fall into ranks! Covering fire for a withdrawal!” The Oikies fell back, forming ragged lines as they pulled out their pistols. The front rank dropped to their knees, their legs tucked beneath them, leveling their weapons and aiming them at the charging hunters. I winced in advance, prepared for the roar and smoke of black powder, but instead, small pulses of energy flared from each pistol, barely perceptible even in the dim sunlight, accompanied by hissing sounds similar to an air rifle firing.
My leg suddenly stung as something stabbed into it, and I reached down to feel something hard and metallic embedded in my lower left thigh. I yanked it free with a hiss of pain and held it up, staring at what looked like a thin, serrated dart maybe half length of my pinky and about as wide. More pain lanced through my upper arm as another projectile struck my right shoulder just past my armor, stinging and burning but not going in deeply enough to dig into the muscle or hit anything vital. I ducked my head—I didn’t want to take one of those darts in the eye, for sure—and ignored the inconsequential pain in my arm and leg as I rushed forward.
I’d expected Bregg to lead his people in a series of hit-and-run attacks—the Oikies still outnumbered us by more than double, after all—but the furred hunters simply crashed into the first rank of smaller creatures in a wave of fury. The Oikies pulled out short, thin swords and scrambled to their feet, but the hunters bowled them over before they could set themselves. Spears flashed and darted, quickly becoming stained with crimson blood. Screams and shouts rose along the beach as Oikies fell, their bodies pierced by spear blades, and the first line of the creatures died swiftly, impaled on spears and trampled underfoot.
I charged at the right end of the line, slamming into a pair of the Oikies. My spear darted out, leaping toward the chest of the nearer creature. The blade struck their heavy jacket, and I felt resistance, as if the fabric were leather rather than the thick wool it resembled. A thin, wispy haze of energy gathered around my spearpoint, pressing it back, and I realized that the defenders had some sort of magical shielding. Against the darts they fired, it was probably pretty effective, but against a 300-pound creature several times stronger than a human, it failed miserably. I proved that by shoving, leaning into the blow, and the spear punched through their armor and slid into their chest almost without resistance. I slipped it back and struck again, this time stabbing the second creature in the throat, above their jacket. That one lifted their pistol and fired directly at my chest, but the dart deflected off my leather armor and tumbled to the ground below. They dropped their weapon and scrabbled for the thin sword at their waist, but I lifted them in the air, dangling from my spear, and flung them into the next creature in line, bowling them over. I’d guessed that the Oikies weren’t as physically strong as Menskies, but apparently, I’d underestimated just how much weaker they were.
A feeling of satisfaction rose up within me at the creatures’ deaths. There were invaders of my territory, trying to take what was mine, and I’d shown them how badly they’d fucked up. It was the right thing to do, the proper way to handle another predator encroaching on my land, and I bared my teeth at the next Oikie to pop up in my vision, activating Terrifying Demeanor as I did. The ability crashed into the startled quadruped, and they fell back, their eyes wide with panic. In their terror, they didn’t even try to defend themselves as my spear flashed out and plunged into their heart.
The first rank died swiftly, but it held long enough to give the second rank time to fall back to the edge of the beach and form up. They dropped to their knees and fired at us, and more pain lanced in my arms and legs as the tiny darts pierced my flesh. None of them were all that dangerous, but I had a feeling the point was to open bleeding wounds that would slow us down and make us easier to kill. On an open battlefield, where they could keep falling back and firing, that would probably be a decent strategy, especially if they had heavier weapons that could finish off badly wounded Menskies. Here on the beach, with nowhere for the smaller soldiers to retreat, I didn’t think they were going to have time to do much more than piss most of us off.
A figure appeared atop the ship, bearing a wooden rod about two feet long studded with what looked like bubbles of glass that glowed faintly. They were better dressed than the soldiers, wearing a long coat that fell almost to the deck, a woolen hat, and what looked like gleaming leather shoes—and they were most definitely female judging from the way that coat bulged out. The woman lifted her rod and began to chant loudly, shaking the staff up and down almost frantically, and I felt the power growing around her. Apparently, she was an Oikie version of a letharvis, and I had a feeling letting her cast a spell was a bad idea. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about it; she was too far for me to throw my knife at her—not that I was certain that would work, since the knife wasn’t really balanced for that—and I had no idea how the Oikie pistols worked, so I couldn’t snatch one up and turn it against its creators.
My prediction proved true as a grayish fog appeared around the tip of the Oikie’s scepter, swirling thickly and darkly, glowing with a sickly hue even in the darkness. A tendril of mist shot from that mass and slammed into one of the hunters, who cried out and stumbled as the grayish energy plunged into his chest. He dropped to the ground, clutching his chest and thrashing weakly. A sudden storm of glittering darts washed over him, piercing his body, and his fur quickly darkened with the blood that poured from the myriad wounds.
I growled and pushed forward, but the Oikies seemed to have gained a new confidence with the magic wielder’s appearance. Rather than falling back, the line before me stiffened and held as those behind them passed forward long spears tipped with metal points. I batted one aside but had to dance back as another thrust toward my chest. I winced as another gray tendril shot out and felled another hunter, and I realized that the enemy mage or priest or whatever was going to turn this ambush into a disaster if I didn’t do something—and I couldn’t think of a single thing I could do.
Fortunately, I wasn’t alone on that beach.
A lance of orange energy shot from the back of the camp and crashed into the enemy wizard. A bubble of transparent magic flared around her, holding the beam of power out for a moment, but it quickly shattered beneath the force of the magical assault. The beam pierced the magical shield, aimed not at the wizard but at the rod in her hand. She shouted out a curse as the rod erupted into flames and flung it to the ground, shaking her hand. She reached into her coat, no doubt going for another weapon, but a lash of power rocketed into her skull. Her head rocked back, and she flew backward a few feet to crash heavily onto the gangplank.
The Oikies seemed to lose their nerve as the woman fell, and their defensive line quickly crumbled as they scrambled backward, no doubt trying to reach the gangplank and retreat to the ship. Bregg roared in fury, and the hunters pushed forward, knocking aside spears and ignoring stab wounds as they fell on the demoralized defenders. I roared as well, slapping aside an outthrust polearm and driving my spear into the soldier’s chest in response. An enemy spearhead stabbed into my bicep, but I ignored the wound and hefted my weapon, lifting the impaled soldier into the air once more. I twisted and flung them backward, crashing them into the fighter beside them, and as they tumbled together to the ground, I stabbed downward, finishing them both off swiftly.
The third line formed up before the gangplank, which was really nothing more than a pair of wooden planks lashed together, connected to the top of the ship’s railing and probably nailed into the ground at the bottom. A figure stood on that ramp, shouting orders to the soldiers and drawing my gaze. Like the wizard, the apparent commander of the group was dressed more richly than the soldiers, with a longer rifle at his side and a heavier, saber-like sword in his hand. He was calling for a retreat, urging his soldiers to form up on the gangplank where only one or two of us could fight at a time, and if he succeeded, they might just escape. Part of me wondered if the Menskies would let them. After all, if Bregg simply stopped, the Oikies would run like hell, and his mission would be complete.
Part of me knew that he wouldn’t. Driving the creatures out wasn’t what the old hunter had in mind. He meant to exterminate them, and part of me felt nothing but satisfaction at that. I’d never let a mark slip away from me, and that commander—he was my next mark.
I rushed the flank of the line, letting Terrifying Demeanor roll forth even as I activated Adrenaline Surge. My body suddenly felt enormously powerful as all traces of fatigue and injury dropped away, and I slammed into the suddenly cowering Oikie before me like a wrecking ball. I didn’t bother killing them; I merely wanted them out of my way. My spear danced and slashed, punching into their flesh and sweeping them into the one beside them, ripping open a hole in their line. The commander saw what I was doing and lifted his rifle, and something heavier than a dart crashed into my chest, tearing through my armor and sinking into me. In the grip of Adrenaline Surge, I barely even noticed.
I rushed forward, and they dropped their rifle and lifted their saber in a competent manner. They clenched their other fist, and a glowing circle the size of a dueling buckler swirled into being above their wrist, shimmering tan in the waning sunlight. I lunged forward, but they slid nimbly out of the way, their four feet stable on the shifting, moving plank. They caught my spear on their buckler and pushed it aside, thrusting as they did so. Their blade lanced out, plunging into my shoulder just beyond my leather armor, but thanks to Adrenaline Surge, I didn’t even feel a sting of pain. I pushed with the spear, leaning my weight into it, and while they dug in with all four feet, my greater mass and strength knocked them backwards, sending them scrambling to regain their footing on the slick planks. I growled and moved after them, intending to bowl them over and beat them to death with my bare hands, then froze as that thought flashed through my mind.
What the fuck was I doing? This wasn’t how I fought! I was trying to overwhelm the man—or whatever—with brute force, not skill and finesse, and I’d been considering throwing my weapon away, accepting whatever wounds he gave me for the chance to tear him apart with my bare hands! It was absurd, but even as I realized it, I felt a surge of aggressiveness rise up in me, trying to push me to attack. I shoved that aside and ignored it as best I could, settling into my stance and holding my spear loosely but ready to strike.
The Oikie recovered and set himself to receive another charge, but I merely flicked my spear at him, testing his reflexes. His buckler moved to block the blade, but I slipped it back and let it dart out lower, aiming for his leading leg. He reared back like a horse to dodge and managed to deflect the next thrust, but I pressed my attack. I stabbed at hiim, my spear dancing out, whipping around and keeping him on the defensive. My light, fast jabs slid off his faintly glowing, magically armored coat, but I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I was simply taking his measure, and at last, I saw my chance.
I thrust high, drawing his buckler up, then swept my blade low once more. He reared back as I expected, allowing the spear to pass beneath him, but the sweep had been a feint, and my spear rose swiftly, punching into his exposed stomach. His coat held the initial blow out, but as he came back down, I shoved, and his own weight and my strength combined ripped the spearpoint through his defenses and into what I hoped was his solar plexus. He staggered as I yanked the blade free and tried to reset himself, but I lunged forward. He lifted his shield to block, but I knocked the buckler aside, slipping sideways to dodge a sword thrust as I performed a long thrust, sliding the shaft through my left hand and leaning forward. The spear sank into his exposed throat, and he coughed blood as he came back down, his eyes terrified as he felt his death approaching. He slashed at me with his sword, but I blocked the strike and pushed forward, driving him backward. His weakened legs crumpled beneath him, and he tumbled backwards onto the ramp. He tried to raise his sword and shield, but his arms came up too slowly as I thrust the spear into his chest, leaning on the blade to tear through his armor. He shuddered as the blade ripped into the center of his chest and fell still at last.