Chapter 23: That Which is Mine

Ayla Rúth Harya

Just a few hours earlier…

The carbuncle leads me to the abandoned church, its pace urgent—faster than its diminutive size suggests—but I stay close behind, ignoring the burn in my lungs. When it scales the side of a building, I follow without hesitation, and soon we’re navigating the rooftops.

We reach the abandoned church in the poorer side of the city, where many of the buildings remain as remnants of the early settlement, untouched by renovation. I recognize the hole in the roof that I saw through Silas’s eyes and look up at the rift. Tonight, it looms like a yawning mouth, threatening to devour the nearby moon.

I climb carefully up the weary tiles of the church ceiling, which bend and creak with the strain of holding my weight. I tread carefully until I can peek through the lip of the hole. The collapsed portion of the ceiling spills onto an overlook, and onto the main space in the church.

Nugget climbs onto my shoulder and I grab hold of the exposed rafters and lower us down, careful to keep to the shadows. From my perch above, I see the shattered and ruined pews below, scattered like broken bones. My insides boil when I spot Silas’s crumpled form. His arms are tied behind him and his face is bloodied. He has been dragged under the altar, where he leans weakly against the stone dais.

The kidnappers are no longer four, but eight. I curse myself that I left in such a hurry that I did not think to bring my rifle… Or Jace. Even so, the number of enemies does not weaken my resolve.

I watch, and listen as murmurs of the men’s voices rise to meet me from below.

“Imbeciles! Just imbeciles.” He is fat, and the only one whose clothes are not black and made to be nondescript. Instead, they are a rich blue and red, more like the wealthy merchants and businessmen I’ve seen in the city. By the way the others defer to him, he must be their leader. Something confirmed when the scrawniest of the kidnappers with wispy patches of hair answers him:

“Sorry, boss. It just got away right when we caught the kid. No one’s seen it since.” The scrawny kidnapper looks to his fellows for assistance. The three men behind him nod emphatically. They echo his sentiment. Even from my vantage, I can tell they are the men I saw in Nugget’s vision.

“And you beat him?” The leader asks, but he doesn’t sound particularly reproachful. He can see for himself that Silas has been beaten from his bloody and bruised face. “Try it again. The buyer said the carbuncle is supposed to react to that sort of thing.”

The leader points to three of his men. Two immediately pick up the boy, and the third begins to punch Silas in the gut. I almost lose all sense of reason and rush into their midst and start swinging my blade, but that would not be a good idea. I need to be strategic.

Even if I can keep my wits, it seems Nugget cannot. He jumps from my shoulder and skitters along the length of the balustrade. I reach for him, but miss, and he nimbly makes his way across to the side of the overlook opposite me.

How I know what he is about to do is a mystery. But I know that I must capitalize on the distraction he means to create. There isn’t time to plan otherwise.

Creeping along the shadows of the balustrade, I find the broken staircase leading to the ground floor. An ear-piercing screech cuts through the air like a blade, and the men punching Silas stop and look up.

Looking down from his place on the overlook, Nugget stands on his hind legs. The gem on his forehead glows white hot, illuminating him such that he is impossible to miss.

“Finally!” The leader says, running a hand through his greasy hair, greed painted on his face. “You see? It worked like a charm. Carbuncle! If you want to save your little friend from any more pain, then come quietly and get in the bag!” He orders a man wearing his hair tied up in a bun, and he produces a sack large enough to accommodate the carbuncle.

Nugget continues to shine from his perch, and lets out another shriek. It is impressive how much noise he can make despite his diminutive size.

Nugget holds everyone’s attention. Several of the kidnappers inch toward the only set of intact stairs leading to the overlook on the carbuncle’s side of the church. Another pair of men shift uneasily toward the center of the church, almost as if they anticipate that the creature will jump down on them. Indeed, the creature was exuding a faint menacing aura that merited wariness. They move cautiously, careful not to spook the animal now that it has shown itself.

From below, Silas raises his head weakly, one eye swollen shut. He looks up at his friend and companion, his expression twisted in pure agony that has nothing to do with the pain from his abused body. His mouth opens in a silent scream.

“Oy, boss,” says the kidnapper with the patchy hair, his hands still partially covering his ears. “Can that thing even understand you?”

“Of course it can.” The greasy-haired leader points behind him at the boy. “If you don’t come down here right now I’ll—”

A sharp cry of pain interrupts him, and he turns to look over his shoulder.

While they were distracted by Nugget’s screeches, I had not stayed idle. When Nugget first shrieked and drew their attention, I leapt down onto the ground floor, landing silently on the cold stone. Allowing the carbuncle’s screams to mask any noise I might make, I sprinted, sword drawn and sheath left behind.

I closed the distance to the first pair of kidnappers, and with a swift downward slash, cut down on the first’s head, freeing it from his shoulders in a bloody spray that soaked the left side of my face and body with hot blood as I passed by. The headless corpse convulsed at an odd angle as his nerve endings fired for the last time, and he fell forward. The jet of blood alerted my next target as he felt the warm liquid along the back of his neck. The man turned right into my upward slash across his chest, eliciting the sharp cry that made my presence known to the rest of my enemies.

Could I reach one more before they drew their weapon? The third kidnapper, positioned in front of the altar, was already fumbling for the pistol in his belt. No, I would come up short. And the others, gathered near the statue to my right, were recovering from their surprise too quickly.

In a last ditch effort as the third kidnapper frees his weapon, I swing my sword and throw it mid-swing. The blade arcs toward the man in front of the altar and he stumbles backward in surprise. The blade cuts between the shoulder and neck, then clatters to the floor. It is not a crippling blow, but as he twists to avoid it, he stumbles, and out of pure bad luck and pain, his arm, now in an awkward angle, points inward, and he accidentally shoots himself in the thigh just below the hip.

The man groans, and his eyes roll into the back of his head as he hits the ground and clutches the wound.

At the same time this is happening, I take a deep breath and gather my magic, fingers tingling with energy, then shout a name for the wind. A wall of air sweeps across the six humans to my right—including Silas—and they all stumble backward, assaulted by dirt and debris. Just in time too. The man with his hair in a bun had managed to unholster a thick tube from his waist and fire. The scattershot rang out with a thunderous boom, and a good portion of the pellets hit the face of the Mara statue above me. Chunks of stone rain down over me as I bend to pick up the wounded man’s pistol and my sword.

Then I dive behind the altar and take cover with my back against the stone dais, as a hail of bullets rain down on the stone.

Between the crackling gunfire, I hear the leader shout. “Who the hell is that bitch with a sword?”

“I don’t know boss! You think they’re here for the kid?”

“Is that bitch your friend, kid? Fucking gonna fill her with holes.”

It won’t be a good idea to stay here. At some point they’ll close the distance under covering fire and all I have is a pistol I stole from one of their men.

I’m not Jace. In a situation like this, I can appreciate the training and the many bloody combat situations he must have experienced. All elves learn sword dancing and bowmanship. It is a tradition as old as time, even if for nearly a century I never had the need to use my skills aside from sport. During the war and the subsequent years, I fought scarcely, and usually in a fighting retreat, escaping with other acolytes under the protection of seasoned warriors whose numbers dwindled so much over time.

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It wasn’t until the desperate battle in the Valley of the Damned, that I had fought and killed with hate in my heart and out of a desire for justice—and if I was honest with myself—for revenge. However, even then, one could make a case for that having been a defensive battle fought out of need, not one I’d necessarily chosen. In this moment, I suddenly realize—this is the first time I’ve chosen to throw myself into a life-or-death struggle, one I could have easily avoided. For someone I had no business feeling responsible for.

I don’t care. The moment of introspection takes all of a second, and is cast aside just as quickly. In my mind, the kidnappers are all that is evil in the world. The ones responsible for all the losses I’d ever suffered at the hands of humans. Silas is my sisters, my brothers, my friends. All the people I couldn’t save. It matters not that he is human. It matters not that he has no family. Yesterday he was an orphan, but my people have no orphans. Today he is mine. And no one will stop me protecting what is mine. Never again.

An awareness seeps into my mind. A familiar presence I immediately recognize as Nugget’s mind touching my own. I can feel the echoes of our shared rage resonate and feed off each other. There is also approval. Nugget is moved by the nature of my resolve, and somehow I know it empowers him. And once again, I know what he is about to do.

I brace myself, tensing for the moment to act. Nugget’s screech vibrates even in my bones. It is a sound in the air, from the depth of the earth, a distortion that transcends natural sound.

The shooting stops and I leave cover, sprinting at my foes. I watch Nugget leap from his perch on the balustrade and defy the laws of gravity, leaping from platform to platform of summoned light, descending directly toward the men who threaten Silas.

The leader of the kidnappers clutches his head with one hand, and the other keeps a tight grip on Silas’s wrist as he throws himself behind a church pew and orders his men to shoot, all notions of profit and greed overcome by the current turn of events.

A new mental impression from Nugget urging me to close my eyes causes me to do so. A brilliant disorienting flash of light erupts from the carbuncle, and when I open my eyes, I see two men who are blinded and shooting wildly. Two more are huddled under a bench near the leader, who still clutches Silas tightly.

I have only practiced shooting a pistol a handful of times at Jace’s insistence. Regretting that I didn't practice more, I raise my weapon, trying to recall the brief lessons. I close one eye and aim for center mass. I squeeze the trigger and there is a sharp report followed by one of the blinded men drop his gun and hunch over. I aim at the second blinded man, the scrawny brown noser with the wispy hair. I miss twice, then hit twice; once in the shoulder and the other on the side of the head and he crumples like a cut-string puppet.

Then my heart sinks. I remember one of the fundamentals Jace taught me: always know how many bullets are left.

I do not know this weapon.

Six shots. That’s how many rounds I’ve counted. But I do not know how many are in the pistol. It has no cylinder like a revolver, rather something called a magazine. From my time in the range, I know it varies from gun to gun. I could have one or two—or none.

These thoughts were a distraction. Fleeting, but every second counts. I am moving toward cover, sprinting for a column along the wall, when I hear the thunder of the scattershot and my head whips to the side, and I feel my head wrap shred and unravel as the force causes me to stumble and trip over a rotted pew that collapse beneath me. I am assaulted by searing pain as if the side of my head and face have been raked across by a half dozen tiny invisible claws. I am temporarily disoriented as the understanding finally hits me that I have been shot.

Hot blood and pain flood my senses. My ear, my scalp, my cheek, neck and shoulder have all been hit by tiny pellets. The effective distance of a scattershot is less the further away you are. I know I am lucky to have suffered so little damage. I huddle against the ruined pew. I am barely concealed behind it. It’s hard to think with the screaming from my injuries.

“Is she down?” One of the kidnappers asks. It isn’t the leader or the man with the hair bun, rather one I haven’t heard speak since I got here. And yet the voice is familiar.

“I know I hit her. Don’t think she’s dead.” I recognize this as hair bun.

“Well go check, you fools!” The leader says.

“Go. I’ll cover you.” Hair bun says. I hear him break open his scattershot to reload.

I can’t afford to wait. I heave myself up and point the pistol at the first human I see, only a few meters in front of me. It will be impossible to miss. The man starts and freezes. Then I know why I recognized his voice. I know him. He is the guard who threatened Silas at the market.

The implications of his presence here are largely a mystery, and unimportant. I squeeze the trigger and the mystery of how many bullets is answered. Pow.

A tiny hole appears in the center of the guard-turned-kidnapper’s forehead. The man’s eyes widen dramatically as his face muscles spasm, then slacken. Then he falls.

“Shit! It’s a fucking elf. An elf!” The hair bun man shouts hysterically. My headwrap has come undone and slipped off my head, I realize, exposing my ears and identity. This works to my favor as the man fumbles in a panic to reload a cartridge into his weapon.

My own pistol is useless. A spent casing is lodged in the ejection port. “Jammed” Jace would say—the magazine gun’s weakness that makes him prefer a revolver. I toss it to the side and sprint forward, grimacing from the pain. If I can reach him before he regains composure, I can cut him down with my blade. I pump what’s left of my magic—my wind spell takes up a frustratingly sizable amount of energy in this mana deficient world—into my body for an explosive burst of speed.

It has nothing to do with skill when his fumbling fingers manage to drop a shell into the chamber. He closes the gun and begins to raise it in the same motion.

In that moment, a diminutive furry figure with a glowing forehead and vicious snarl, lands on the kidnapper’s shoulder. Nugget chomps down on his ear and pulls. The hair bun man’s head involuntarily twists into the pull and his body follows. The scattershot goes off aiming at nothing, and I run him through the chest.

“Elf…” he mutters, then I kick him off my sword. He continues to mutter weakly in increasingly shallow gurgling breaths as his lung fills with blood.

Now there is only one human left. Their leader. My body suffers a wave of intense weariness as the last of magic from my muscles fades and I am left overextended and spent. Even when I fought with the darkling I was not so exhausted.

Muscles that suffered bruising when I crashed into the pew now ache, but nothing compared to the burning on the side of my head.

So much blood leaks down onto my right eye that I can not see through it. I take a deep breath and straighten. I cannot show any weakness now. Not given how the leader has chosen to spend his last moments.

“C…come any closer and I’ll kill the kid.” The leader stutters. His own gun is a snub nosed revolver. It quakes in his hand as he points it at Silas’s head. Silas, who the man struggles to carry because he has fallen unconscious.

The sight of the boy's bruised and swollen face, blood dripping from nose and mouth, stirs anger so hot in my body that I feel as though I’m being once more flooded with mana. My pain forgotten, my muscles screaming. My soul urges me to tear this bastard apart limb from limb; urges me to scatter his parts to the four corners of the world such that his soul will never know peace.

I feel a furry warm body alight on my shoulder. I realize my intense rage is being enhanced through the connection and feedback loop I am experiencing through Nugget.

“Release the boy.” My voice is cold steel, a grim reaper promising pain beyond death.

“B…bitch. You think I’m an idiot? You’ll kill me if I let him go. Get back. I said don’t come any closer!” His voice is a high pitched shriek. He’s liable to accidentally pull the trigger if provoked. No. He’s smarter than he looks. He has the wherewithal to keep his finger off the trigger. He knows if the kid dies, so does he. He isn’t a zealot willing to kill the boy if he doesn’t get his way. He’s a terrified man clinging desperately to life, hoping that a bluff might save him. It won’t.

Nugget won’t let it happen.

The rage that has been building into a preternatural energy fades quickly, like water siphoned from a jar with a hose and poured into another. That jar is Nugget.

An aura like red smoke seeps from his fur. It’s appearance is like flames, except they have no temperature. They are the byproduct of his body suddenly overflowing with magic power; I understand intuitively that Nugget has just transmuted our emotions into pure mana, something I did not know was possible.

The smoke coalesces into the carbuncle’s gem and it glows a bright, ominous red. I watch in awe as the last kidnapper’s body goes taught. He lets out a choked cough and increasingly loud and frantic groans of protest as his trembling hand moves on its own—until his revolver goes flush under his chin, and he pulls the trigger.

Nugget releases his mental grip and the man crumples. The last of the kidnappers is dead.

The carbuncle wavers on my shoulder and I catch him before he falls. In my mind I feel overwhelming gratitude that isn’t mine, but his. Then a plea that I should protect his home, and I know he means Silas.

Slowly, the carbuncle’s eyes drift closed and he goes limp in my hands.

“No!” My heart skips a beat and I press my ear to Nugget’s chest—and I sigh in relief. His heartbeat and breathing are steady. He is merely unconscious. I cradle him to my chest and limp toward Silas.

When I check the boy, however, the situation is much more dire. His breathing is shallow and labored. I raise his shirt and find intense red, purple, and blue bruising all over his chest and abdomen. A cursory inspection reveals broken ribs and likely internal bleeding.

“Danu. Please.” I hear the trembling in my own voice. I hear my own thoughts screaming he is mine.

These injuries require a higher working than ordinary healing magic. Ordinary medicine won’t help. My mind races, then settles on the picture of a red jeweled broken dagger.

Jace. I need to get Silas to Jace.

I find the remains of my headwrap and do a ragtag job of tying it around my head, yelping involuntarily as my shredded ear and injured scalp sting with bright pain. I collect my sheath. Then I unpin the brooch securing my cloak and wrap the boy as securely as I can. I tuck Nugget into one of the folds and lift Silas.

I offer another prayer to Danu, afraid that no matter how fast I run, I won’t make it in time.