Rather than the deep and ominous intonation Mitchell had expected, Dakath’s voice was almost lilting and feminine. It was clearly male, but it was the kind of male he used to see on K-pop boy band members back home. However, while they had been sculpted by the finest plastic surgeons in South Korea, Dakath’s masculine beauty was all natural. If it weren’t for the unusually long and pointed Spock ears, he would have fit right in on a fashion runway.

The men around him looked to be all local. Their clothing appeared to be whatever they’d shown up in that day and they carried a mishmash of weapons. Four had swords but only two of them looked like they knew how to use them given their stances. The other two looked less confident, their backbones stiffened only by the superior numbers. The other men held axes of various sizes but again only one or two of them looked like they had experience using them. Mitchell was somewhat surprised at himself that he could determine just by how they were standing who possessed ability and who did not. The hours of drilling had done more than teach him how to hold his sword, it seemed.

Dakath had stopped about thirty feet away and regarded them with an appraising eye. He squinted past Mitchell and then grunted.

“That is a clever disguise you have there, little human.”

“You like it?” Lethelin asked. “Come a little closer and I’ll show you how it works.”

The men with him jerked in surprise. To their eyes, the voice had come from nowhere. Whatever skill Dakath had used to see her, the others didn’t share it.

The tall elf chuckled.

“That would not go well for you. But you are not the one I was paid to find and bring in. I’ll grant you your life if you leave now. This is the only offer you will get. I am here for the knight and her companion. You don’t need to die today.”

Mitchell heard Allora inhale sharply and he thought he knew why. She had made her distrust of their companion clear from the beginning. Lethelin had made a deal with them, and had sworn on it, but could they really trust her? He hoped they could. That moment in the gardens at Besari had felt genuine. Like something had really passed between them. Mitchell had no way of knowing if it was more to her, though. This also wasn’t helped by the fact that she had been acting distant with him ever since. Would she abandon them now? The silence stretched. It felt like hours but in reality was only a few seconds.

“It will hurt me to kill someone as pretty as yourself,” she finally said from just behind Mitchell’s shoulder. “But I’ll get over it.”

Mitchell almost sagged in relief. She was not going to run.

Dakath’s thin pale lips stretched into an almost feral grin but he didn’t answer. He turned his attention back to Allora.

“The preference is to bring you in alive,” he said. “However, I think we both know you don’t intend to surrender. Still, I’ll give you this chance. Call it a courtesy extended to the last Onyx Knight.”

Before Allora could respond the man reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out three small black stones. He tossed them one at a time about halfway between himself and the three of them. They landed on the hard-packed dirt with small thumps.

Allora sucked in a breath at the sight of them and he could see her start to quiver with rage. Dakath noticed and smirked wickedly. He brought his sword up to the ready position.

Mitchell had a sneaking suspicion of what those stones were and he knew why she was so angry.

“If you keep him occupied, I think Lethelin and I can handle the others,” Mitchell whispered to Allora. He knew she was close enough to hear him with her superior senses, but didn’t know if Dakath could or not. “Once they’re dealt with we’ll assist.”

The only answer were the lights on Allora’s krisa which began to glow. Mitchell also summoned the one defensive spell he knew, the arcane missile and, almost as if on instinct, everyone leapt into action at the same time.

Mitchell flung out his hand and released three arcane missiles at the orc to the left of Dakath. At the same time Lora seemed to disappear and reappear just in front of Dakath, sword already in motion. Only one of Mitchell’s missiles found their target but it hit him squarely in his unarmored chest, sending him to the ground. Mitchell moved quickly, unsure if his opponent would rise again. He moved away from the assassin and towards the four men that had come up behind them. He looked for Lethelin but with her cloak she was all but invisible. One man was down with a dagger through his throat and two more were moving back to back trying to find her in the dark. The third one was charging at Mitchell, sword already swinging down.

Some cold, analytical part of Mitchell’s mind analyzed the thug as he watched the man coming at him. It was almost like time slowed down.

“He’s swinging from the shoulder, not the elbow. He thinks it makes the strike more powerful,” the voice in his head said. “Arm overextended, leaving his chest wide open. Running heel to toe, he’ll be off balance. Take the strike, deflect to the side, punch in the throat, stab through the chest as he staggers back. Aim for the heart.”

All this in barely a second. Mitchell blinked and almost as if his arm didn’t need the command, he brought his blade up to accept a wild swing from the hired muscle. The man was yelling a sort of war cry but it sounded far away to Mitchell. The blade’s blow sent shockwaves up to his shoulder, but he didn’t hit any harder than Allora had and he found he knew how to absorb it. Twisting his body and the sword at an angle towards the ground to deflect the downward force of the man’s strike, Mitchell could close the distance with him as his enemy’s momentum propelled him into arm’s reach. Just like he had imagined, his left hand formed a fist and jabbed his opponent in the throat with one quick, solid strike.

There was a wet crunching sound as something inside broke under the force of the blow and the man staggered back, a look of incomprehension on his grizzled face. He dropped his sword as both hands came up to clutch at his ruined neck. Mitchell was so shocked it had actually worked that he almost forgot to finish the job. He lunged forward extending his arm just as he had practiced hundreds of times and the blade slipped into his stomach just below his sternum with almost no resistance. The man tried to scream but his throat was smashed and all that came out was a gurgle. Mitchell stood back up, withdrawing his weapon from the man’s body and stared in disbelief as he fell over. The whole thing had taken barely six seconds and the man was dying, bleeding out on the ground in front of him. He’d never killed anyone before. Oh fuck, he’d just killed someone! Technically the man was still alive but he had only moments left. He–

“Behind you!”

Lethelin’s voice snapped him out of his shock. On instinct he rolled forward, executing a tumble and came up on his feet facing the opposite direction in time to see the follow through from one of the ax wielders swinging where his head had been a second earlier. All in a rush the world came back to him. The sound of steel on steel was ringing in the night as Dakath and Allora did battle about twenty feet in front of him. Their faces were contorted with concentration as their blades sliced through the air. As he watched, there was a detonation of some kind that exploded the earth around them. Allora had cast something that Dakath had defended against, though it did send him back a few steps. Behind them, Mitchell could see the orc he had hit with the missile stagger to his feet, one arm limp at his side. The other two men weren’t waiting, though.

They recovered from the magical blast and both began to stalk toward Mitchell. The one with the ax was walking with purpose and looked to know what he was doing. The other one with the sword looked less certain and when he saw his former companion on the ground choking out his last few breaths Mitchell thought he might bolt.

“You could run,” Mitchell told them, repeating the offer Dakath had made to Lethelin. His heart was racing and he was trying very hard not to hear the dying gasps of the man he’d just run through. “I don’t want to kill you.”

The older man, who looked to be some sort of human-dwarf mix, sneered.

“There’s a lot of gold for you and the elf lady, boy. I think I’ll take my chances.”

The older one glanced at the younger one with the sword briefly and said, “Get on his left. We’ll hit him from both sides.”

“He’s got a sevith,” the younger man said.

“Best move fast, then,” the older man growled.

The younger one, who looked to be about Mitchell’s age, nodded shakily and began to inch off to Mitchell’s right. He had his sword clutched out in front of him in both hands and he still looked like he might drop it. Mitchell knew he could take him but how would he deal with the older man? The old man looked like some sort of veteran. Someone once strong but who had been put out to pasture long ago. Mitchell saw he was favoring his left leg so maybe it was an old injury. His arms were shorter than Mitchell’s but the axe he carried had a long haft that gave him at least as good a reach as Mitchell. He spread his feet and held out his sword to the bigger threat. He would have to–

Mitchell stopped and blinked. What was he doing? The younger guy had said it himself. Mitchell had a sevith. He had magic. These guys had none. Neither had a sevith or a krisa. With the adrenalin and shock of killing his first enemy, he’d almost completely forgotten his own powers.

The old man was only about ten feet away with his ax held defensively across his chest. Mitchell couldn’t miss at this distance. He almost felt sorry for the old man, but he had tried to warn him.

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“Sorry, but you brought a knife to a gun fight,” Mitchell told him and extended his arm out and released three arcane missiles at near point blank range into the the old warrior’s chest. They materialized just in front of his hand and shot forward with an sizzling thwip-thwip-thwip sound. The first one was stopped by the leather jerkin armor but the second one blew a hole in it and the third impacted flesh with the sound of meat striking a well-heated fry pan. Mitchell could see the jerkin puff up at the strike and there was a small explosion of blood and flesh as it was blasted apart by the final one. The man cried out and fell back into the ground writhing in pain. Allora and Revos had told him that the spell wasn’t strong enough to kill generally, but it would do damage. Mitchell turned his full attention back to the younger one who stared frozen and wide-eyed at the sevith.

Rather than kill him Mitchell summoned the light spell and held it in his hand and gave the guy an ominous stare. It was enough. The guy dropped the sword, turned, and bolted. Barely ten seconds had passed on that encounter.

There was a flash of light. Dakath uttered a cry and Mitchell looked up just in time to see him stagger back. He had blood running down the side of his face and the other side was twisted into a snarl. Allora had knocked the cocky grin off his face, at least.

“I’m done being nice,” he said, his face tight with rage and pain. “Bringing you back alive was optional!”

Allora had her blade extended out in front of her, held in both hands and she was also breathing hard. Mitchell started to go to her but she must have sensed him. She called back without turning.

“No! Help Lethelin!”

As Mitchell watched, Dakath’s sevith glowed and a series of pulses rushed toward Allora. Some she blocked with a shield spell and some she stopped with her sword which glowed whenever one of the energy blasts hit it. However, one got through and struck her in the shoulder spinning her around and knocking her down. She rolled with it though and staggered to her feet with a grunt flinging an arc of lightning back at Dakath who dove out of the way.

As much as Mitchell wanted to help her, he knew he needed to trust her. Reluctantly, he turned and searched for Lethelin.

She was encircled by the two remaining men who had their blades stretched out on either side to block her from slipping past them. The cowl was down as, at such close range, it would do her no good anyway and she needed the peripheral vision. As Mitchell assessed the situation, he saw what their tactic was. The one on the right, who looked like he knew how to use his sword would feint towards her and she would dance back lightly on her feet while the other tried to take advantage and stab at her from the other side. She was barely able to dodge each time and they knew that, eventually, she would slip up and one of them would get her. They were so busy trying to keep Lethelin from getting away that they hadn’t noticed their companions were already dead or run off.

Not wasting any more time, Mitchell extended his hand, formed the arcane missile spell in his mind, and sent three shots towards the more dangerous of the pair. The first one missed but the other two struck true. One in his side and the other in his leg. Mitchell cursed a little to himself. He’d been aiming for his head, but a hit was a hit.

Staggered and off balance, he hit the ground screaming. Large holes were burned through the simple canvas workman’s clothing he wore and it had offered no protection against the spell.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Lethelin took advantage of not having to watch her back and slipped inside the other man’s reach to drive her stiletto right through the man’s chin and into his brain. Moving with the grace of water flowing around a branch in a stream, she withdrew the long, thin blade with a flourish and the man crumpled to the ground, dead before his body came to rest. The other one was trying to get to his feet but the leg Mitchell had struck didn’t want to support him.

Lethelin stepped over to him and, before Mitchell could tell her to stop, knocked his hand aside as he made a feeble attempt to ward her away, and stabbed him through the heart. Cold, efficient, and with no wasted movements. As the man shuddered and died she saw their other opponent was still on the ground, his body tense with pain at the wound from the arcane missile. She closed the distance and repeated the process. Her grisly work finished, she looked up at him, then down at the man he had killed, then back to him.

“What kept you?” she finally said, as if he were a few minutes late bringing her coffee. Mitchell couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not.

From behind him there was a loud explosion, a woman’s scream, and then it was silent. After the clash of blades and bursts of magic, the silence was almost painful. Mitchell turned and felt his stomach drop.

Allora was down. She lay in a heap, smoke rising off her body, one arm soaked in blood and burn marks all over her clothing, some of which were still glowing red. She wasn’t moving. Her sword was on the ground a few feet away from her and Dakath limped over to her. No grin, no joke, just rage on his once-serene face.

“You filthy dock whore,” he growled at her as he came to a stop above her.

He landed a vicious kick to her stomach and she rolled over. But even with the power of the blow, she didn’t make a sound.

“No!” Mitchell screamed, and let loose a barrage of arcane missile spells. The first few struck Dakath’s armor but barely managed to even get his attention. Not bothering to look up from Allora’s body, he waved his hand and the three others that were still in flight veered off harmlessly around him. Mitchell gasped. That was all he had.

Finally, Dakath looked up and spoke, his voice raspy after the fight with Allora.

“Do you want to watch the death of the last Onyx Knight?”

His sevith glowed and suddenly Mitchell felt powerful bands of force wrap around him and pull tight. He dropped his sword as his arms were forced against his body and his legs pinned together. From the corner of his eye, he could see Lethelin had suffered the same fate.

“Don’t you touch her!” Mitchell raged at him. He flexed and tried to twist his body free but it was like he was encased in concrete. He wondered if this was the same spell Allora had used on Nothok. It certainly seemed like it. He could barely move his chest enough to draw a deep breath.

“So ends the Onyx Knights,” Dakath said and he sounded almost mournful. He took his sword in both hands and held it with the point down, directly over Allora’s heart.

Beside him he heard Lethelin whisper in anguish, “No!”

“Allora!” Mitchell screamed.

Just then, something caught Mitchell’s attention behind the assassin. From the darkness two golden points began to glow in the air about two meters off the ground. Almost like two fireflies stationary in the night.

Before Mitchell could put together what was happening tendrils of what Mitchell could only describe as glistening tar erupted from the earth just beyond Dakath’s feet. The elf began to scream as they swirled up and around him. He hacked at them with his blade but any damage was immediately undone the moment the weapon was withdrawn. The coiling vines of inky blackness ranged in thickness from about as wide as Mitchell’s wrist to his thighs and they swarmed hungrily encasing Dakath fully leaving only his face visible. The spell holding Lethelin and Mitchell ended and they both fell to the ground.

From behind Dakath a figure stepped into the small sliver of light that was cast from Nothok’s lantern. It was Revos. He was naked from the waist up and the glow from the tips of his horns gave his coppery skin the look of red-tinged gold. He looked down at Allora and the wicked light he emitted gave an angry pulse. Revos turned his snake eyes– no, they weren’t snake’s eyes, Mitchell now understood. They had never been snake eyes. They were the eyes of a demon. Mitchell was looking at a creature from a hell dimension that had been born in fire. And he was pissed.

Revos turned to Dakath who was still screaming and whimpering inside the rippling tentacles.

“Olep druzan vie lashetha,” the demon growled.

Mitchell felt a wave of dizziness wash over him as he and Lethelin broke from their fear and rushed over to Allora’s still-unmoving body. Lethelin too almost lost her footing. Revos twisted his wrist and Mitchell heard the muffled sounds of bones breaking. A lot of bones. A tentacle had wrapped around Dakath’s throat cutting off his screams but his anguished eyes said enough.

“Cinluma je, lashetha doi. Cinluma je.”

Mitchell had no idea what Revos was saying but it sounded like words to damn a man’s soul.

Even with a tentacle choking his throat, the sounds of agony Dakath was enduring made it through the tortured elf’s throat. It sent ice through Mitchell’s veins and he broke out in a cold sweat. Mitchell looked and saw Dakath’s skin had turned the red of a nasty burn and he had begun to tremble violently. His eyes rolled back in his head and steaming blood exploded from every orifice on his skull. No, not steaming. It was boiling.

The skin of Dakath’s face had begun to blister from the inside! His eyes burst and bubbling ocular fluid spurted out, followed by a rush of sputtering blood. Blisters burst open and the searing red life began to spill out of those, too. Mitchell stared in abject terror at what he was witnessing. The stench was overpowering and Mitchell fought to control his stomach. Lethelin had scampered back and looked to be having the same problem.

With a final pulse of the light on his horns, the spell ended. The tentacles receded into the ground and what was left of Dakath landed with a sickening squish. Mitchell could feel the heat coming off the dead elf from a meter away. The charred blood began to flake off of his burnt skin as the ever-present wind gusted through the still-empty streets.

“Cinluma je,” Revos said with finality.

Mitchell’s stomach was still heaving and he tried to get control of body. He picked himself up to one knee, swayed uncertainly, then stood. The taste in his mouth was vile. Charred blood and bile. He spat, but it did little to clear it. His water skin was in his pack, which had been dropped on the ground somewhere. It could wait.

“Revos! Allora, she’s hurt. Can you help her?”

Revos pulled his eyes away from Dakath’s steaming corpse and focused his slits on Mitchell. Something about his face was different. It looked more… angular. The ridges around his eyes were sharper, his chin a little pointier. And his fangs were definitely longer.

“I will see to her.”

Turning his back to the dead assassin, Revos knelt down beside Allora’s unconscious form. He took note of her wounds and then began the process of repairing her. After a few moments, she began to groan and her eyes fluttered open.

“Mitchell…” she said weakly and her eyes, still half-lidded and confused, began to search for him.

“I’m here,” Mitchell said, taking her hand. Her eyes found his and she drifted off again.

“I’ve repaired the broken bones, the burns and the wound on her arm,” Revos said after a long couple of minutes. “But she will need to rest and she will need food. She was badly hurt.”

“We don’t have time,” Lethelin said. “We need to get moving before people stop ignoring the sounds of battle and come investigating all the dead locals.”

Revos grimaced then came to some decision. His sevith glowed and a small hole appeared in the air. It was about a foot and a half wide and it shimmered around the edges but was otherwise perfectly two dimensional. It had width but no depth. Revos stuck his hand inside and, from Mitchell’s perspective, it sunk into nothingness. Revo’s arm shifted about slightly and then emerged with a small black vial. The portal closed once his hand was clear. He grunted and handed it to Mitchell with instructions.

“She will awaken soon. When she does, have her drink this. It will get her moving for a few hours at least, but you need to stop and rest as soon as you can. And make sure she eats while she is moving. Do you understand?”

Mitchell nodded and accepted the vial from him.

“May Stollar guide your path and Denass shelter your soul if you fall, young kingling,” Revos said. Then, looking at Lethelin he added, “And keep that blade sharp.”

He stood to go but paused when he saw Dakath’s sword laying abandoned on the ground a few feet away. He picked it up to examine it more closely.

“This is Tayvn’s work,” he said. “I wonder how this pathetic sack of elf flesh got it. No matter. I’ll take it back with me.”

Mitchell and Lethelin watched him saunter away without another word as if he hadn’t just boiled a man from the inside.

Finally, Lethelin said, “Come on, let’s get her out of the street and into the shop, at least.”

“Wait,” Mitchell said suddenly. He went back and collected their travel packs and weapons. Then he went over to where Dakath had thrown the three black stones he had taken from his pouch and pocketed them.

Returning to Lethelin, they picked Allora up, Mitchell under her arms and Lethelin at her feet. Trying not to jostle her too much they made it to the shop’s door and let themselves in.