Icarus deflected Mercy with practiced ease. I kept up the momentum by turning the deflection into an arc that brought Mercy sailing back towards him, even as I deflected his saber with the shaft of my weapon.
A blast of fire and magic slammed into my barriers and most of the force was redirected. The dance continued. Mercy scored shallow wounds even as he continued to sneak magic through my defenses. Normally I was able to interpose Mercy or counter with a blast from my gauntlet, but occasionally they got through.
We broke apart. Though only seconds had passed in the fight, it felt like much longer. “You are very good,” I complimented. Mercy reformed, shifting from long and slender to short, wide, and curved on one side. The heavier blade would be much harder for him to deflect, and the longer handle would give me more defensive abilities. “It is good you do not rely on class skills.”
“You are as well.” Icarus saluted me and I returned the gesture. “Only a fool relies on skills they do not understand. My dad was an Olympic fencer for France and taught me the art since I was a boy.”
Icarus lunged and a stream of fire flew past me and scorched a zombie. My heavy blade only partially deflected, this time scoring a nasty cut into his leg. Death magic flooded the leg as the disease took hold.
Icarus leapt back, swearing. “Forgot I could use magic?” I smiled.
His rapier finally made it through my defenses. I had seen the attack coming, but there was little I could do. Mercy had been extended and he had knocked it from my hands with a kinetic blast.
I already had my right hand stretched out to summon the blade back to me and his rapier snaked into the joint under my armpit, driving in deep. He twisted and ripped it free. I gasped in pain. I staggered even as Mercy hit my hand and I swung it down trying to catch him.
His blade had delivered a potent magical fire inside of my body. The power was continuing to tear at my insides far too near to my death core for me to be comfortable. I fell into a purely defensive posture, reshaping Mercy into a pure staff with only a small blade. The death energy was not overcoming the flames easily, so as I warded off blows and magical blasts, I channeled eldritch power through my body letting it break down the attack.
When the pain was gone, I glared at him. “If that’s not soul bound, I’m taking it.”
“Like my blade?” Icarus smiled. “Unfortunately for you it is soul bound. It is a legendary weapon I won in a duel against a cocky fellow who didn’t know what he had.”
The single blow he landed with his rapier had done huge amounts of damage to me, more than the numerous smaller cuts I had landed on him that were not healing. The death magic in his leg was making it weak. He was favoring it and moving slower.
I could sense my army had gotten moving again, Abimelech having finally organized them. It was time for me to wrap this up or call for help. I didn’t want to have Raven interfere, though I knew she would if she sensed I wanted her to. She lurked nearby, watching the fight.
Icarus seemed to sense the change as well. Deciding to go full offensive, I split Mercy in half, one side forming a sickle and the other a straight blade of eldritch plasma. I was willing to accept another blow if I could finish the fight. I would survive, I doubted he would.
As I faced off with Icarus, both of us ready for the final exchange, there was an explosion of white light that lit up the night. It was far more powerful than anything the priest had used so far. I turned towards it, still keeping a single eye on Icarus. I couldn’t tell what was going on, but the back line of the NPC army was suddenly full of flashes of magic and explosions.
“Merde,” Icarus swore.
Then it hit me, the army Raven had seen must’ve been from the friar. Who else would be wielding holy magic and attacking the army we’d been engaged with?
“Feel free to get your man out of here if you want to,” I said, taking a defensive stance. “But I am more than happy to continue if you want to.”
Icarus frowned. “No, I think not. If I want them to join me again, some should survive.” With that, he pulled out a horn in blew it twice before giving me one last salute with his saber and limped away.
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***
With the players drawing out of the fight and the NPC army being hit from behind the battle swung drastically. Before long, the army that had been engaging me was routing or trying to surrender. We let them. I didn’t think my allies would appreciate me slaughtering surrendering troops, no matter how much I wanted to or needed the material.
I left Abimelech to reorganize my forces, once again back out on the peninsula. While we were allies of the friar, I had no doubt my army would make his soldiers uneasy. I rode out with Raven and a tired Maxwell to meet the three figures coming down the peninsula.
I was still recovering from Icarus’s attack. The magical fire had destroyed a decent chunk of my insides and that did not come back quickly with pure energy. It would take a while before that was repaired.
I noticed before we reach them that the friar was not with them. The figure I assumed was the friar was not. His robes were simple, but not brown. While I could see well in the dark, colors were a little bit harder to tell.
“Rhea,” I said, dismounting. Maxwell got off Snappy, but Raven remained perched on Shadow in her cat form. I could feel her glare as she stared at Tyler, the third figure. His armor had been upgraded, and I was pretty certain he was on the paladin route. I wondered who it was to, since I doubted it was Olattee. “It sure took you a bloody long time. You know I assumed when I got your letter that you would be getting your asses in gear as well.”
My tone must’ve conveyed my annoyance because she winced. “I’m sorry, Zeke, things…” She trailed off not meeting my eyes, “happened.”
“What she’s not telling you,” Tyler glared at Rhea’s tone, disgusted. “Is that she sent that letter to get you to start the fight since Friar Brown was having a midlife crisis and was stuck in inaction.”
“I’m sorry, Zeke,” Rhea said meekly. “What Tyler says is true. Fortunately, it worked. You getting moving and being in danger got the friar to make the decision he had to make.”
I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. It was interesting how breathing could still have that effect on me. “Well, it’s water under the bridge I guess. It worked out.”
I was surprised by how angry Tyler was as he continued. “You only say that because you don’t know how close you came to being truly fucked.”
Rhea wasn’t acting like the fiery person I knew she was. Clearly, she did not like what she had done. “But it worked out. Tell me, who is your quiet friend?”
“This is Guide Nonus,” Rhea said. “He has been a long friend of Friar Brown and was one of the first people who joined us. He wanted to meet you.”
“Guide?” I asked.
“Yes, guide,” Nonus said, his voice clear and kind. He stretched a hand out for me to shake, I did. I watched his face closely. He didn’t react to how cold my hand was. Nonus continued, “Guide is the term we are using now, those of us who have chosen to walk away from Olattee and follow Friar Brown.”
“I see. So is he becoming a new religion? Have you all lost your divine power?”
“No.” Rhea shook her head, her normal personality shining through some. “We expected to, but somehow, we still have divine power. Friar Brown has lost quite a bit. That was what made him become stuck in inaction. Something about that rattled him.”
“I have a hard time picturing him rattled,” I said. Raven hopped off of Shadow and made her way over to Rhea, who began to pet her. Raven was careful to stay on the opposite side of Rhea from Tyler, glaring at him whenever she looked his direction. “Should we still be calling him Friar Brown? It sounds like he is a new super priest in charge of everything.”
Nonus laughed. “No. We tried to convince him of that, but even though he has lost a lot of his divine power, that man is terrifying. When he said we keep calling him Friar Brown, we just kept on doing it.”
Raven looked up at Nonus while getting pets from Rhea and hit him on the shin with a paw. The guide crouched down, starting to pet her as well.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m claiming all of this.” I gestured around the peninsula.
“We don’t mind,” Tyler assured me, looking at the other two to make sure they said nothing. “Well, those two do, but I figured you would need the stuff. The friar sent me with them because he realized I would have more understanding of what you would need to do to keep going. They may be here to help, but that doesn’t mean that their soldiers like you.”
“Hopefully I win them over with my charms,” I said. A snort came from Maxwell, and I looked over in surprise, he had been so quiet I had forgotten he was there. His eyes were closed, and I was pretty certain he was only barely awake, just listening enough to laugh at me.
“Ezekiel,” Tyler began, “I have a request, I—”
“The answer is no,” I cut Tyler off with a serious tone. “You cannot join me. I will work with you, but Raven will never be okay with it. And to be honest, you said and did some pretty fucked up stuff. From the perspective of knowing what you claimed to have known.”
Tyler hung his head. “Yea, I knew it was a long shot.”
“Well,” I changed my tone, “if you want to become a death paladin, I know a gal.”
“Maybe,” Tyler said.
“Shad’ehki?” Rhea asked, standing up. Raven came back over to me, where she transformed into her human form and hopped up on Shadow.
I shook my head in answer to Rhea. “Thiar. A priestess of his I knew from a long time ago found me. Her name is Freya, I gave her the main temple in Maltis. On that note one of you needs to go see Bishop Dolores. I’m fairly certain she will join your side, though I don’t think she likes me very much, not after what she saw me do.”
With that in mind, I was planning on not casting any mass creation spells while the holy army was nearby. They might one day be okay with it, but not right away. I brought Rhea up to date with what I had been doing, the temples I had conquered, and who still held them.
The next morning, Rhea and Tyler, accompanied by a group of 500 mounted soldiers, headed for Maltis while Nonus moved their main force farther away. I sent a letter back with them to Freya, wanting to see if she could hire Icarus. I was pretty darn certain he was a mercenary.