…combat is inimical to the goals of a Shadow, and should be considered an absolute last resort…

* Shadows of Inveritus training manual.

Sal jogged through the manor as quickly as he could. He was worried about Sarina, even a little about Kalissa, but he was also exhausted. Running from the Hunters had taken a lot out of him, and his breath was coming in gasps. He turned down the stairs to check on Sarina…

And almost ran straight into her.

“You’re okay,” Sal said, relieved.

“Just cuts and bruises,” Sarina said. “You’re the one who got chased off by two Hunters. I thought you’d be dead by now. I am glad you’re not.”

“I’m glad you’re not dead too. Those were the last of the Hunters. They’re all dead now.”

“Good.” Sarina said gravely. “Those things shouldn’t be.”

Sal nodded. “Is the girl alive too?”

“The girl is right here,” Kalissa said, coming up the stairs behind Sarina. She was moving stiffly and her hands were bloody. “Yes, I’m alive. I could use a couple of stiff drinks and about a month in bed though.”

A roaring noise came from outside.

“Sounds like the rest of the Tower’s thugs are here,” Sal said.

“Carrus and the guards won’t be able to hold long against them,” Kalissa said. “And I’m in no shape to fight. You two need to go help them.”

“I’ll help them best from up here,” Sarina said, heading back into the bedroom she had been stationed in earlier and drawing a pair of arrows from her quiver.

“And you?” She asked Sal. “We used most of our resources dealing with the Hunters so you could use forceshaping, you had better be worth the effort.”

Sal smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. I am.”

Sal leapt out of the bedroom window again, this time bouncing force off the tiles to launch himself through the air. He sailed over the roof and towards the ground. He bounced more force off of that and landed softly amidst a band of attacking Lhintish. To their credit, they adjusted to a master thief dropping from the sky rather well, and four of them came at him with spears.

And Sal went to work.

He pointed his right hand at the ground to the left of the soldiers and released force. He bounced the force off the ground in vis-state and pushed on the soldier’s spears, sending them wildly to the right and into their fellows. Only one of them was seriously wounded, but all of them were slowed down. Sal turned to the Lhintish soldiers breaking through the hole in the manor wall and sent force into their legs, knocking their feet out from under them and allowing Bermont’s guards to easily finish them off.

A mounted archer drew down on him but one of Sarina’s arrows took him in the throat before he could loose a shot. Another came up behind him but Sal used force to send one of his horse’s legs off to one side, causing the animal to crash violently to the ground.

Several soldiers had gotten organized and had begun to surround Sal, to take him from all sides, but he bounced force off the ground and shot himself into the air and over the men. While he was in the air he turned and sent force out to push a soldier’s sword into his comrade’s shoulder. Then he bounced more force off the ground and cushioned his landing.

An arrow whizzed by Sal and he turned to see a group of four archers with arrows sticking out of them. Sal nodded his thanks up at the window where he knew Sarina was watching.

Then three soldiers came at him holding no weapons, clearly trying to avoid Sal making them stab each other. Sal hit them with a big, unsubtle blast of force and they went flying like leaves before a storm. He normally looked down on that sort of heavy-handed tactic, but it was undeniably satisfying.

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Then the soldiers started getting smart. Six of them came at him from different directions, too quickly for him to blast all of them. He took the legs out from one of them with a blast of force and the man fell on his face. Then he absorbed the force from another’s right leg and caused him to come to a crashing halt as well. An arrow took a third in the throat. But then Sal had to launch himself into the air again to avoid getting overwhelmed.

More of the soldiers were orienting on him now. Even with his skills and Sarina’s covering fire, he couldn’t take them all. And he was burning through force awfully quickly. At his current rate, he figured he’d be out in half a minute.

He had done his job and broken the momentum of the Lhintish advance. It was time to get back inside before one of the soldiers did their job and killed him horribly.

*******************************************************************************

Sweat dripped down Carrus’s face. His muscles burned. His breathing came hard and heavy. He had only been holding off the Lhintish for a couple of minutes, but he was already exhausted. He had forgotten how taxing combat could be, and it had been years since his old army days. The Lhintish would have broken in already if Sal hadn’t leapt in from out of nowhere and started tossing soldiers around like children’s toys. It was really something to behold, and it had given the other two guards time to join with Carrus and the remaining able-bodied guard and give them all a chance to catch their breath.

But now Sal was leaving the battle, and soldiers were turning back to where Carrus and the guards stood.

Carrus raised his spear, planted his feet the best he could amongst the heavy pieces of lumber still filling the room, and prepared to meet the onslaught of Lhintish soldiers.

*******************************************************************************

Kalissa stood by Sarina and watched the battle. It was going better than expected. Not well exactly, but it could have been a lot worse.

Sarina had run out of her own arrows a while ago and had moved on to Bermont’s supply. But this only reduced her accuracy to that of an excellent archer, rather than a legendarily gifted one, and she was consistently putting arrows through the heads, throats and hearts of whatever Lhintish soldiers were causing the most bother.

Carrus and the guards still seemed to be holding the manor, in large part due to Sal’s interference with the Lhintish. So long as Carrus and the guards kept their heads, they could retreat further into the manor and bar doors behind them as they went, forcing the soldiers to fight their way through several bottlenecks that would mitigate their advantage of numbers.

The only problem was that that advantage was still significant. Even with Sal’s impressive display and Sarina’s efficient murdering, there was still more than thirty Lhintish soldiers out there in fighting shape.

And, as she watched, a group of them broke off from trying to force their way into the hole in the wall and went to go break down the front door instead.

Kalissa pointed them out to Sarina and she took one out with an arrow through the ear, but they disappeared below the cover of the roof before she could get another shot off.

“Well that’s a problem,” Sal commented from behind them.

“Can you do anything about it?” Kalissa asked.

He shrugged. “Probably not. It won’t take them long to get through the door, and I’m exhausted.”

Kalissa frowned. “Then we stick with the plan. We make them fight their way through the building. Hope they break before we run out of space to retreat.”

“It’s not much of a plan,” Sal said.

“True. But it’s what we have.”

Then a man on horseback rode up towards the manor. A man with his chest exposed and his body covered in one long scar.

Lukas.

“Sarina!” Kalissa barked. “Shoot that man.”

Sarina took aim at Lukas, who was still some distance away, and fired. The arrow flew straight at him, but he raised his hand and it caught fire and dropped from the air.

“Wait until he gets closer and then take him down,” Kalissa said. “He’s the priority. He’s their leader. We take him out, the others are much more likely to break.”

The man stopped his horse near the furthest Lhintish troops and dismounted. He had two men with large shields join him and stand in front of him. Between them, the shields covered all three of them from head to foot with just enough space for Lukas to stick his hand out between them.

Kalissa grimaced. “That’s going to be a problem. Can you get an arrow through that gap?”

“I could do it with one of mine,” Sarina said. “But I don’t know about one of these.”

“Sal, could you knock them down?”

“If I get close enough I could. But if I do, I’ll be in range of Lukas too, and I’d rather not be set on fire today.”

“Damn,” Kalissa said, turning to Sarina. “Keeping shooting the Lhintish. I’ll think of something.”

“Think fast,” Sarina said, loosing another shot into a Lhintish soldier. “He’s getting close.”

Sarina was right. Lukas was drawing closer and Kalissa had nothing. She just couldn’t see how they could win given their current situation. They needed a miracle, and Kalissa was confident they weren’t about to receive any help from on high.

“I see Eve,” Sarina said between shots.

Kalissa strained to see what Sarina’s delkin eyes had spotted. And sure enough, there was a group of six people on horseback in the distance, riding in from the city.

Kalissa grinned. They might not be getting help from any gods, but maybe help from some bouncers and whores would be enough to tip the scales.

Unfortunately, while Kalissa had been looking at their reinforcements, she hadn’t noticed that Lukas had reached the manor.

“Get back!” Sal barked. Sarina grabbed Kalissa bodily and hauled her back into the room.

The space where they had just been standing burst into flames.