Dennis hated Lord Lorlen with a passion.

Immediately upon receiving his class, Dennis knew he was blessed by the God. He had received his mages classification and instantly rose from the son of two labourers who was destined to a life of poverty up to the noble class. Lorlen had insisted upon adopting Dennis himself, when Dennis’ father had complained to Lorlen, Lorlen merely snarled and ordered his father publically whipped. The screams and the agonized expression upon his father’s face had haunted Dennis’ nightmares for weeks. The half formed ghost of his father’s agony invading Dennis’s few moments of sleep. Lorlen was a conceited bastard. He might be the local lord, and he might be a Machiavellian manipulator but Dennis was determined to repay the slight against his father. He swore that one day he would send a magebolt flying through Lorlen’s throat and watch his lifeblood bleed into the dirt.

Lorlen, of course, had made some efforts to shift Dennis’ loyalties. All manner of luxuries had be thrust upon Dennis. He had been gifted the finest robes he had ever seen, embroidered with gold and striking red rubies. He had been given a mage’s sword, capable of channelling mana and also giving him a 5% mana recharge bonus. Dennis had made it clear to Lorlen that while the gifts were appreciated, Dennis would rather die than help Lorlen consolidate his power. He would never work for Lorlen as a mage.

In a fit of rage and fury, Lorlen had ordered his two knights to subdue Dennis whereupon Lorlen forced Dennis to wear a necklace enchanted to allow the lord to control Dennis. Dennis could only watch in horror as he was pinned down. His struggling was futile against the knight’s heavily levelled strengths. The collar was fitted around Dennis, he was powerless to stop it. The collar itself subjugated Dennis’ will. He could no longer willingly disobey Lorlen’s commands. Spitting with fury, even thinking about what Lorlen had done, Dennis was in a permanent state of rage. He couldn’t even defy his captor. He was little more than a slave.

In his permanent quest to control Dennis, Lorlen was still offering gifts to Dennis. Each gift was little more than a penny, thrown away by a rich man. But Dennis took them gladly, happy that he was able to waste at least a little of Lorlen’s apparently valuable time. He was especially thankful that Lorlen had paid for him to be tutored in the arts of magic. An untrained mage quickly became a dead mage in this cutthroat environment.

Today’s gift, however, was completely different. Lorlen had commanded Dennis to carry out an execution. Lorlen’s orders had simply been: “go to the town square, I have a prisoner waiting there to be executed by you, do not leave the city. Do what the knight tells you.” He expected Dennis to be grateful at the life essence he would gain from making the kill; he expected Dennis would be happy at the chance to level up. But something inside Dennis screamed at him, screamed that he shouldn’t do it. Intrinsically, Dennis was no killer. He wasn’t a murderer and he refused to allow Lorlen to forge him into one. Self-defence was one thing, but he would never resort to cold blooded murder. Dennis did not know what he would do, but one thing was for sure, it wouldn’t be what Lorlen wanted.

A few hours later, Dennis stood, looking down at the pale faced boy that had his head forced onto the executioner’s block. His skin was pale and frigid, as if he had seen little sunlight. It looked papery and thin. His body was painfully skinny, evidence of malnourishment and starvation. Hair the colour of bleached chestnuts highlighted the boy’s head, unruly and obviously uncared for. Bruises marred the boy’s body emphasising his “humane” treatment by Lorlen’s “civilised” guards. The only thing that seemed to mark the boy out, suggesting he wasn’t the usual street urchin was his right arm. It was covered in a beautifully elaborate and complex tattoo depicting black wildfire. Dennis shrugged, the boy probably knew a street tattooist, although Dennis had never seen a tattoo quite as magnificent as the one the boy sported.

Jolted from his thoughts by a tap on the shoulder, Dennis looked up to see one of Lorlen’s knights. “It’s time,” the guard commanded, although in a somewhat respectful tone. Lorlen didn’t want to see Dennis completely ostracised by his soldiers.

Reaching for his sword, Dennis lifted it up in the air, while simultaneously lowering himself down a small amount, so that his mouth was by the boy’s ear. “Do what I say if you don’t want to die,” whispered Dennis, before rising again.

Channelling as much mana as he could, Dennis forced it into his sword. The sword glowed with a faintly purple light, its edge becoming sharper, its blade becoming lighter. Beads of sweat growing on Dennis’ brow, he forced mana into the sword, until it was close to breaking point. Without pause, Dennis lifted the sword slightly higher, before swinging it down viciously.

The boy clenched his fists tightly, certain that this would be the end. He prepared to summon two etheric swords, to meet the boy’s blade, perhaps to have a last stand before being cut down. Before he could summon the blades, however, the boy felt a gust of wind travel across his neck.

Dennis averted his sword stroke, just above the boy’s neck. He could not go through with this execution. Swinging his sword forward, carried by its momentum, Dennis slashed at Lorlen’s knight to his right. The knight had far too much resilience and strength to be take down by such a blow, but Lorlen knew that he could perhaps stun the knight with a magebolt from his sword. As the stroke connected with the knight, cutting through his breastplate and making a small slash across the knight’s chest, Dennis released his magebolt. A flare of blue light erupted from the sword, shattering it to pieces. One such piece shot through the air and cut Dennis’ cheek, leaving behind a shallow cut.

The knight however, was not so lucky. The magebolt’s powerful knockback effect had shot the knight at least two metres backwards into the hard stone wall of the town hall. It seemed the knight’s head had bared the brunt of the impact. Dennis knew he was lucky to have knocked the knight unconscious so easily, he knew he would have had no chance without the element of surprise.

He had lost the element of surprise now though, the ten guards which had once flanked the stage had now turned, preparing to storm the stage and engage Dennis.

“Come with me!” Dennis shouted to the boy, “Help me deal with the guards.” The boy on the executioner’s block, spun and rose, a sword appearing in each hand. His manacles seemed to shatter, as the summoned swords had been materialized inside of the manacles.

Running to the right of the stage, Dennis fired another magebolt at the swarm of guards, much smaller than the previous one. It was a glancing blow, barely enough to cause the guard it hit to stop running. Dennis and the boy moved as far to the right of the stage as possible, intent on facing the least number of guards possible so that they could break through the line and escape the stage. The boy stepped forward, to meet the first guard who had already made a thrusting attack. Stepping right to avoid the thrust, the boy parried the blow with his left sword, holding the guard’s blade in place, while slashing straight for the guard’s throat with his right sword.

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The sword connected, slashing the guard’s throat in a shower of blood. The guard managed one horrified look, before collapsing to the ground in agony, foam spewing from his mouth.

Wasting no time and engaging the second guard which had just rushed towards the boy, the boy struck high with one sword and low with another. The guard had only one sword, he could only parry one blow. Both strike if landed would be likely fatal for the guard. The indecision of which sword to parry caused the guard’s death in the end. He parried neither and so found himself impaled through the gut while his throat was ripped to pieces by the boy’s darting blade. A mixture of shock and sudden realisation, the guard’s mouth parted in an O even as he crashed to the ground, dead before he hit the floor.

Watching in horror, the boy realised he had just killed two men, he had reacted on pure instinct and now was reeling from his actions. He felt violated and ill, like he was about to vomit. He couldn’t believe his ruthless actions…

But before he had the chance to actually throw up, a third guard rushed towards the boy striking for his left side. Without flinching, the boy brought his right arm up, as if he were looking at his watch while his sword was pointing downwards, his left sword was raised above his head like a scorpion. The guard’s thrust was met by the boy’s left sword, prevented from striking the boy. Stepping inwards, the boy blocked the guard’s sword with his body, preventing the guard from striking since the boy was so close. Slashing with his raised left sword, the boy spun his sword downwards, stabbing the guard through the chest, his sword passing through the guard’s leather armour and met some resistance, but not nearly enough.

The whole encounter took but a few seconds. In that time, the boy cut down three guards with deadly ease, Dennis hadn’t even reached the fight before it was over. Shuddering, Dennis grasped a new awareness of the boy. Perhaps it would have been better if he had executed the boy. He was a one man army. A deadly whirlwind of icy steel. The boy was relentless, fearless and expressionless as he killed. He seemed to have a malicious disregard for human life. Dennis wondered if he had bitten off more than he could chew with this scheme. The boy could probably kill him without a second thought. He was a level two mage and had barely enough power to make a basic shield. How could he defend himself against such a cold blooded killer?

Calling for the boy to follow him, Dennis decided to move forward with his plan, he was too far gone to have a chance of being forgiven if he gave it up. Lorlen would likely kill him despite his worth.

Dennis and the boy ran through the gap in the wall of guards that the boy had cleaved and sprinted to one of the many exits in the town square, the crowd backing away from them in fear. They then dashed through the streets of the city, sprinting around corners and pushing the city’s inhabitants out the way. They were greeted with many angry shouts and a few rude gestures but their mad dash stopped any angry labourers from chasing them. They were too fast, the labourers simply couldn’t catch up.

The boy noticed that he was much faster than Dennis, he was slowing his pace to stop Dennis from lagging too far behind. He knew that the mage would be incredibly useful in his escape attempt. Even more so if he would consent to being the boy’s travelling companion. He knew he would be much more likely to survive if he wasn’t alone. Lone travellers would be at the mercy of all manner of threats including bandits and monsters. Wolf packs and stray demons would be much more likely to attack a solitary traveller than two or even a group of travellers.

Before he could continue down this line of thought, the boy realised that him and his executioner turned rescuer had reached the gates. The exit to the town. Four armed guards, two with bows were stationed at this gate. Without pausing Dennis and the boy continued to run towards the gate. The guards, noticing the commotion, raised their weapons and stood in their combat positions ready for an engagement. The first archer, most likely a ranger, after spotting the two boys nocked his bow, ready to fire. “STOP, in the name of the law,” he shouted furiously, “I will not hesitate to kill you.” The second ranger raised his bow, pulling back his bowstring.

The two boys were in no position to stop now. They had no hope of surviving a surrender.

Seeing the hardened determination in the boy’s eyes, the first ranger fired his bow, aiming straight for the boy’s chest. Feeling an odd itching sensation just over his heart, the boy instinctively moved his right sword to cover it. A millisecond later, an arrow smashed into his sword and rebounded away. The force of the arrow was staggering, it was obviously a ranger ability. The boy was surprised his sword hadn’t broke, but then it was resistant to magic. Dennis, to the boy’s right, was not as lucky, the arrow aimed at him, was deflected by absolutely nothing. It shot forward at deadly speed and slammed straight into Dennis’ heart. A fatal wound. Dennis’ body seemed to stop mid-air, before crashing to the ground. “My fucking luck” the boy growled under his breath furiously. He had to be confronted by two guards, the universe was conspiring to kill him and any companions he brought along for the journey.

He felt an odd sort of sadness at Dennis’ death. He had known the boy for a few minutes at best and didn’t even know his name. But this boy had obviously risked everything to save him. The boy respected Dennis and admired his mage class, he was sorry that Dennis hadn’t survived. He would mourn Dennis.

The boy couldn’t stop now though. Charging at the archers, so fast they had no chance to draw another arrow, the boy the cut first down with a deft swipe. Slicing the archer’s jugular the boy danced towards the second archer and quickly repeated the manoeuvre on him. Two down, four more to go. The boy would have liked to have decapitated the first archer, it would have been easier from a tactical standpoint, but he had such a low strength value that it would have been almost impossible.

The two guards with swords, that were supposed to be protecting the archers, looked on with shock. The boy had moved with blinding speed, massacring the archers before they had the chance to draw their knives. As if suddenly awakening, the guards began to fight for their life, taking up swords against the boy. Knowing he had little time, the boy charged the first warrior in what was known as an arrow attack. The boy purposefully lost his balance in a controlled fall designed to move him towards and then past the guard as quickly as possible while also confusing the enemy as to his motives. With a quick parry from his left sword, the guard’s defences were left open and the boy quickly sliced through another guard’s throat. Crimson blood and gore sprayed from the guard’s throat, covering the boy completely. The second guard, after seeing the first guard’s grisly fate quickly backed away, unprepared to sacrifice his life meaninglessly.

Although the boy seethed with anger that burned brighter than ten thousand dying suns and wanted to avenge his mage companion, the boy knew he had minutes, if that, to escape the town before knights and more competent warriors found him. He had to run.

Without looking back, the boy left the final guard and sprinted through the city gates, running as if his life depended on it. Which it did. The boy followed the road far out of the town, until he reached the forest, before plunging straight into the green canopy, intent on making himself as difficult to follow as possible.

As the adrenaline faded, the boy noticed a slight pain coming from the side of his ribs. His entire tunic was soaked in blood. Red rivulets mixed with dried rusty brown painted a picture of slaughter all over his body. Lifting up his tunic, the boy felt excruciating pain as his body complained wrathfully. Below his tunic, was a cut, quite a large one. Definitely not fatal, but one that if not treated could and probably would kill him. His muscles spasming with exhaustion, the boy knew he could run no further. Tying his tunic around the cut, in a makeshift tourniquet, the boy collapsed and fell into the embrace of unconsciousness.