“You don’t have to do this.”
S̆ams̆ādur ground his teeth as he watched the Sapīyan commander try to talk his comrade down. It’s not going to work - they’re mind-controlled, stupid!
As he’d predicted, Captain Maras̆s̆amas̆ of Dūr-Sulmu didn’t even blink as she charged at them, lowering her spear with a guttural howl. Marīltu batted the blow aside with his sword, dancing to the side as she ran past him. “Snap out of it,” he begged. “I don’t want to kill you.”
She rammed into the wall, bouncing off the bricks with a grunt, and spun around. Blood trickled from the wound she opened above her eye, but she didn’t notice, as she charged again.
But whatever triggers the mage had planted in her mind hadn’t turned her into a mindless zombie. Marīltu was taken by surprise as her first strike proved to be a feint, and she scored a notch along his right side. A flurry of blows followed, strikes so fast that the durgu could barely track them as she sought to overwhelm his guard.
It was clear that Marīltu was the better fighter, but not by enough to overcome the advantage her spear held over the sword. She scored a second hit, and then a third before S̆ams̆ādur saw a window of opportunity open. For a brief second, Marīltu managed to pin her spear between his sword and shield. He couldn’t take advantage of the opening, not without letting the spear go, but the prince could.
Darting forward he slammed the blunt end of his axe into her back with two swift strikes and she crumpled to the ground, unconscious, but hopefully not dead.
“Thanks,” the man grunted, as he lowered his weapons.
“Couldn’t let her kill you,” S̆ams̆ādur said with a shrug.
“That wasn’t what I was thanking you for,” Marīltu replied.
He knew. The man’s reluctance to kill his former allies had nearly gotten them killed a few times during their frantic battle for Dūr-Sulm and, frankly, S̆ams̆ādur was fed up with it. It wasn’t that he wanted to kill the mind-controlled soldiers, but if there was a choice between their lives and the lives of him and his men, it wasn’t even a debate. Opting to ignore Marīltu, he cast a quick glance around the room, and spying his second in command, waved him soldiers over. “Is that the last of them, Ekdâru?”
“The castle’s ours, igîya,” the man replied. “We’ve tossed the survivors in the dungeon for now.”
“What about the city? Any signs Sarganīl has detected our presence yet?”
“It’s almost certain a few of their men escaped,” the commander sighed. “It’s only a matter of time before they know.”
“Have the men muster at the gates, then. We’ll strike while the hammer’s hot,” he ordered. “And the priests? Will they join us?”
Ekdâru gnashed his teeth. “They’re refusing-”
“The priests can speak for themselves.” The commander’s reply was cut short as a trio of old men entered the fallen barracks. The speaker cast a troubled look at the woman lying prone on the floor, though his eyes sharpened as he saw Marīltu. “I hope you did not kill her; Captain Maras̆s̆amas̆ did her best to protect us from Lord Sarganīl’s orders.”
“I have no doubt that is true, Master Babbānu,” Marīltu grunted, offering the man a quick nod. “Captain Maras̆s̆amas̆ is a good woman, and with luck, she will make a full recovery.”
The tension in the priest’s shoulders eased, and Marīltu continued. “Unfortunately, she and her men were left untouched by the mindworm. We had no choice but to fight them.”
“And now that you’ve taken the castle, what next? Surely you do not imagine that you can reclaim the entire city with the handful of troops here,” Babbānu questioned. “Birnah has never fallen.”
“And we are here to make sure it stays that way,” Marīltu growled. “You probably don’t know what the mindworm has been up to since your imprisonment, but there’s an army from Stryn marching on the city and, from our reports, it’s only a few days away. The mage means to open the gates for them.”
“A compelling reason,” Babbānu replied calmly, “but that does not answer my question. I will not send my men to their deaths for a hopeless cause - do you have a plan or not?”
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With a muttered curse, Ihra flung herself away from the door, where the dagger stood quivering in the frame, and not a moment too soon. Splinters of wood bombarded her as a giant maul smashed through the old wood. There was a grunt from the other side as the maul was withdrawn, and she caught sight of their attacker through the hole.
The man wore thick-plated armor, in the fashion preferred by the trolls and the men of Strynn. Every inch of his body was covered, except for his helmet, where small gaps in the helmet allowed her to see his face and eyes. His skin was weathered and scarred, and gray hair brushed across the top of his brows, but it was the milky sheen of his eyes that sent a shudder down her spine. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing.
Unfortunately, that didn’t matter. With an angry bellow, the man shattered the broken remnants of the door with his forearm and stepped through. He froze in place for a fraction of a second as a pale white hand danced in front of him, and then the spell shattered, too low in level to bind him in place.
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Sheathing her dagger, which would be all but useless against the man’s thick armor, she reached for her bow. Even that would have trouble breaking through his plates, but if she could rack up enough piercing, some of her abilities should be able to punch through.
The maul whistled toward her head, and she threw herself backward, getting off a hasty shot as she fell that ricocheted off his gauntlet. A second shower of splinters erupted as the maul buried itself in the floor, punching through to the lower layer, but the man ripped out with ease.
Seraph Burst. Blurring past her in a whirlwind of metal and wings, Jasper collided with Sarganīl, knocking the lord to his feet. The parqueted floor and plush carpet were shredded as they skidded to a stop against the back wall and Jasper tried to leap free, but a gauntlet wrapped his neck and slammed his face into the noble’s knee.
Arrows leapt off her hands, bombarding the seams of the man’s plate in search of a weak point, but coming up empty. At least, her piercing went up slowly with each successful hit, but she was barely inconveniencing him.
With another roar, the man grabbed Jasper by the leg and slammed him into the wall with enough force to knock him into the room beyond. Kruvas̆. More arrows bounced off of him, one or two now sinking a few inches into his armor as the piercing accumulated, but he still ignored her. A barrage of fiery orbs streamed through the hole, rocking the man on his heels, but when the explosions faded his armor remained scorched, but otherwise unarmed.
Sarganīl didn’t even glance at Ihra as he stalked toward the hole in the wall, dragging his maul behind him, and irritation flickered through her at being ignored. She wasn’t certain how Jasper was doing - clearly he was conscious enough to still cast spells - but he had to be in a world of pain after being tossed through a wall. Got to give him space to recover.
Without a second thought, she dumped a third of her health into The Still Pond. She grunted in pain as the damage hit her, but took off down the hall toward the noble, who had turned his back to her. Aphora’s dagger leapt to her hand, and she dedicated every last shred of The Still Pond as she leapt forward, angling the misericorde for the narrow seam between the helmet and his breastplate.
Sarganīl sank to one knee as the dagger punched through, blood bubbling up through the narrow seam. Unfortunately, Jasper hadn’t been able to see her coming, and a second later she was blown backward as a fresh stream of fiery orbs bombarded both of them.
Her bow went flying as she turned head over heels before colliding with the wall, and her thoughts stuttered to a stop. Her limbs were slow to comply as Sarganīl rose, still bleeding freely from the dagger entrenched in his neck, and turned his attention to her for the first time.
Fiery Shackles. The floor was further damaged as a pair of blazing manacles erupted from the ground, clamping around the knight’s ankles, but they delayed him only a second, snapping beneath his immense strength.
Thud. Thud. The ground shook as he approached her, and she somehow struggled to her feet, bereft of both bow and dagger. Jasper leapt through the hole in the wall, a spell blossoming from his hand at the same as Sarganīl swept his maul down toward her.
She tried to dodge, but her legs failed her. Bones cracked, muscles snapped, and her lungs deflated as the maul slammed her into the ground, but its trajectory was halted as Sarganil was flung in the other direction in another flurry of metallic wings.
Pain was all she knew, pain and the fear that her time had come and then the ability she’d almost forgotten about kicked in. Fawn of Ayyālu.
Her legs skittered across the broken floor as her arms lengthened, her head narrowed, and her skin sprouted a rich coat of dappled, tawny fur. Her antlers grew rapidly darkening and hardening into the same metallic sheen that coated her newly spawned hooves as she finally regained her balance, and her eyes locked onto the armored man, who had his gauntlet fists wrapped around her friend’s throat.
The red carpet muffled her hooves and he did not turn until the silver-tipped antlers punched through his breastplate, piercing the flesh beneath. She tossed her head, dragging the man across the ground while her iron hooves pummeled him, but he regained himself almost immediately.
His progress was halted as he buried his fist through the floor and braced his feet. For a moment, their strength was matched, but then, slowly but surely, her hooves began to slip. The deer’s thoughts were fractured, as much animal as human, as she tried to hold him in place, but she flinched as his remaining hand reached out for the maul. She didn’t have another healing spell in the back of her pocket.
His fingers slipped off the shaft, and with a concerted effort she dragged him a few inches to the left, but he dug in again and reached one more time. The maul slid forward slowly as his hand fought for purchase, slipping it closer and closer to his grasp.
But then the body behind him stumbled to its feet. Light blossomed between Jasper’s fingers as he cast a spell that chased away the deer’s pain, followed by a second as he muttered, “Equalizer.”
With a quick step forward, he wrapped the man in a bear hug and pulled him straight off her horns. He staggered backward as Sarganīl flailed, landing beneath the armored knight, only for the knight to be cast aside as Jasper kicked him off. The wounds the warrior had accumulated had begun to wrack up by now, and he staggered as the mage landed a flurry of blows on him, hitting the armor hard enough to dent, though his blows were aimed at the dagger stuck in his neck and the bloody holes where the antlers had gone through.
Raising his hand to fend off the blows, the man swung the maul in a wild haymaker, but the mage simply ducked beneath and rose swiftly, hammering a blow to the base of his helmet. The battered helm flew off, finally revealing the face of their opponent - his pockmarked cheeks, his broken, aquiline nose, the unseeing eyes.
The mage took a step backward, narrowly avoiding the rebound of the maul, and a long, shadowy whip unfurled from his fingers. Scourge of Despair. It only drew a thin line of blood as it lashed across the lord’s cheek, but that was enough. The hall suddenly grew crowded as a host of howling specters manifested around him, launching onto their wounded foe like a pack of hyenas.
Another burst of golden light rippled off the mage’s fingers as he stumped over to the deer, healing the gnarly gash across his cheek. “Are you alright?”
She was unable to speak, the spell on a timer rather than under control, and she ducked her head as he tried to pat it. Unsuccessfully. “Who’s a good deer,” he crooned, rubbing the spot between her antlers. But the levity was short-lived as a noise from the rubble-filled hall drew his attention - not to the noble, whose bloody carcass was still being ripped to shreds by the hungry ghosts - but to the room beyond. “Right, the bloody mindworm.” He sighed. “Ready for round two?”