A stiff breeze rolled in from the ocean, filling the air with a salty scent. Connor’s cloak flapped around him, and dark clouds boiled in the distance.

He pulled his hood up and scanned the docks.

Captains barked orders, and their men rushed up and down the ships like ants, offloading cargo at a feverish pace in the fading light.

No name or even a face… No way to tell who their contact was in this mess. They’d have to wait until sunset.

The approaching storm rumbled.

Well, if he got wet so be it. A small price to pay to get back to alchemy. Hopefully, he’d learn something to put Victor in a good mood…

Adelia and Connor scouted the east side of the docks while they waited. They saw nothing to indicate an ambush, but the docks were a big place, and it was never possible to be absolutely sure.

The sun dipped below the horizon. The sailors finished up and left in search of a good time.

They walked the length of the east side again, scanning every ship and straggling sailor for any sign of their contact.

A man stood, hunched over the far railing on one of the smaller ships.

“Do you suppose that’s our guy?” Adelia asked.

“Could be,” Connor said, “but…”

“But what?” Adelia asked.

“Doesn’t it seem odd to you? This guy is supposed to be extremely anxious to leave… why would he be leaning over the railing with his back to us? Wouldn’t he want to see us coming, get this over with and get out of here?” Connor asked.

“Hmm… you’re right,” she said, “but I don’t see anyone else out here. Do you?”

“No… let’s check him out, but keep on your toes,” Connor said.

As they approached, something felt increasingly wrong. Connor fingered the hilt of his rapier and scanned the horizon again.

A few travelers in fine robes talked among themselves, and some armed men strolled off a merchant vessel. Nothing too unusual, but even so, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

He stepped aboard the small ship, and a metallic scent filled his nostrils.

He rushed forward and turned the man over.

The hilt of a dagger protruded from the middle of the man’s chest, caked in dried blood. The body was already stiff.

Damn. If this was their contact… he’d been dead for hours.

The heavy thumps of footsteps rushed up from below deck.

“It’s a trap!” Connor called out as he drew his rapier.

The hatch flew open, and three men clothed in studded leather armor and brandishing rods covered in glowing runes burst out.

The first man through the hatch rushed Connor and swung his runed rod down toward Connor’s head.

Compared to Adelia, their movements were slow, sluggish, and incredibly predictable.

“Pathetic,” Connor muttered.

He took a half-step to the right. The runed rod passed through empty air. Connor flicked his rapier. The dwarven steel sliced through the man’s throat with ease and blood sprayed from the wound.

Connor spun and kicked the man hard in the chest, sending him flying over the railing even as he choked on his own blood. He landed in the water with a heavy splash.

Connor swished his rapier through the air, splattering droplets of blood onto the deck.

“Who’s next?” he asked.

The two who remained gritted their teeth and inched closer with their rods at the ready.

They attacked Connor at the same time, lashing out with a flurry of precise and coordinated strikes.

He parried and stepped back, his blade clinking against their rods. The green runes glowed ominously.

Damn. They weren’t bad… especially now they weren’t being overconfident. But, he didn’t need to risk attacking. Adelia should deal with them any second now…

He parried another flurry of strikes, focusing his senses entirely on his attackers and predicting their attacks before they came.

But, seconds passed, and still, Adelia hadn’t come to his rescue. Instead, he heard guttural cries, chanting, and the sound of steel tearing through flesh.

He parried another strike and spared a quick glance. Four men lay dead at her feet already, and another dozen or so were trying to board the ship, but she held them off at the boarding plank. If not for her, he’d have been swarmed already.

The three in fine clothes he’d seen earlier stood on the wharf. Two men and a woman. They weaved their hands through the air in complex motions and spoke words of power.

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Wizards too? Fantastic.

Even Adelia might have trouble with so many armed men and a trio of wizards. He needed to finish his own fight and help her.

He returned his attention to the two closest to him too late. One of the men slammed a runed rod into his right shoulder.

His whole arm instantly went numb despite the protection of his leather armor. His rapier slipped from his fingers and clattered at his feet.

The men smiled.

Great. So that’s what the rods did. Outnumbered by wizards and skilled thugs wielding paralyzing rods…

It was just supposed to be a quick little meeting. Couldn’t anything in life go smoothly? Just once?

The two men swung at him again at the same time with savage grins on their faces.

Just because he didn’t have his rapier, they thought they could finish him quickly?

How cute.

He dived toward the men and twisted his body around their blows. Their eyes went wide. He dodged one rod entirely and the second hit his already limp arm. A dull tingle spread out from the impact, and the right side of his mouth felt funny, but that was it.

He drew the dagger from his belt with his left hand and whirled behind the man on the left. He drove the point of his blade into the man’s neck and wrenched it hard. It tore open the man’s throat but got stuck halfway.

Fighting was so much harder with only one arm. Oh well… it was good enough.

He shoved the body at the thug’s friend and drew a throwing knife.

The corpse tumbled into the remaining man, who smacked it aside and out of his way without a care.

Connor raised an eyebrow even as he aimed. Hmm… not a friend then?

He threw his knife. It flew through the air like a dart and sank into the man’s right eye with a meaty thunk.

The thug collapsed on top of the body of his not-friend.

Connor bent down and snatched up his rapier with his left hand, his right still hung limply at his side.

Where on Terra did they get paralyzing rods from anyway?

Seven men now lay dead at Adelia’s feet, and she parried attacks like a whirlwind, her black daggers clinking against the metal rods.

She jumped backward, and a bolt of blue lightning snapped through the air and slammed into the chest of one of the thugs.

The thug flew off the boarding plank like he’d been hit by a six-horse carriage and splashed into the harbor water. Ozone and the stench of burnt flesh filled the air.

The wizard who’d cast the lightning cursed, even as his hands started weaving the next spell.

The other male wizard conjured a ball of blue energy between his hands. He met Connor’s eyes and threw open his arms.

The blue ball flew through the air like an arrow released from a bow straight at Connor.

Connor dived under it, and it detonated behind him.

He rolled over the floorboards, and a gust of frigid wind blew from behind him. His cloak snagged on something and yanked him to a sudden stop.

He pulled his cloak off and got back to his feet. A chunk of the ship was covered in a layer of ice, and the bottom of his cloak was trapped inside.

Already that same wizard was chanting and summoning another blue orb between his hands. Black and green energy swirled around the woman.

Connor gritted his teeth. If they didn’t take out those wizards soon, this wasn’t going to end well.

The woman finished her spell. Green and black energy pulsed from her body, writhing across the wharf and snaking their way into the dead bodies at Adelia’s feet.

“Necromancer!” Connor yelled.

The bodies jerked to life and grabbed at her heels, but she somersaulted backward just in time.

Damn! They really had to take out those wizards.

The thugs rushed up the boardwalk and onto the ship the second she wasn’t there to stop them and all the men she killed rose clumsily to their feet.

Ice cracked behind him.

He spun around rapier at the ready.

The thugs he’d killed only moments ago shambled toward him. They moved awkwardly, like puppets jerked by invisible strings and lacked any of the grace or skill they had in life.

He thrust his rapier at the closest of the two and skewered it through the heart. It didn’t even flinch.

It swung its runed rod, and he sidestepped. The rod sailed through empty air.

A shiver ran down his spine, and he dropped to the floor on pure reflex.

A bolt of lightning flashed through the air where he’d just been standing and into the animated corpse.

It flew backward and slammed into the deck, but immediately got back to its feet and shambled toward him.

Damn it! They couldn’t win like this!

If they jumped and tried to swim away, the wizards would fry them alive in the water, and the boarding plank was covered in thugs…

He glared at the wizards. If he could just get to them…

He sidestepped another clumsy attack and looked at the distance from the tip of the ship and the wharf where the wizards threw spells at them.

The bowsprit, the piece of wood jutting out from the front of the ship, ended just a short leap away from the wharf…

Could he make it?

Adelia gutted another man, and he immediately got back up as a shambling corpse.

He didn’t have a choice.

Connor sprinted along the deck, his right arm swung uselessly at his side, but he kept his balance even so and ran up the narrow bowsprit at full speed.

He leapt from the top, soared across the gap, and landed on the wharf. He broke his fall with a roll and sprang up to his feet again.

The closest wizard, the one who kept throwing bolts of lightning, raised his arms as though about to blast Connor into dust.

Connor swept his rapier up and slashed the man’s throat open. Blood sprayed like a fountain, and the wizard’s chanting turned into a gurgling cry as he clutched uselessly at his throat.

Connor turned to the necromancer and thrust his rapier through her robes, skewering her heart. She clutched her breast, and blood poured out from between her fingers.

The final wizard weaved his spell, a blue orb of energy forming between his palms as he screamed his incantation.

The wizard’s posture shifted slightly, and Connor sidestepped to the right a split second before the wizard flung his arms open.

The blue orb hurtled through the air. It sailed past Connor and detonated behind him, covering an empty stretch of the wharf in ice.

The man’s eyes went wide, and he raised his empty hands. Connor stepped forward and ran him through. His blade sank through the wizard’s robes just as easily as the others and the wizard slumped against him.

He pulled his blade free, and the wizard collapsed to the ground.

All this happened in only a few seconds, and Connor spun around.

The zombies lay on the floor. Animated no longer. Whatever spell the necromancer had cast, it ended with her death. The thugs, or what was left of them, lay in bloody heaps or floated in the ocean.

Only one remained alive, and Adelia held him pinned against the mast with a dagger through his shoulder.

“Yeaaaargh!” he screamed, “what are you?”

“Who are you working for?” Adelia asked.

The man gnashed his teeth and groaned between panting breaths.

Adelia twisted the knife. “I asked you a question,” she said.

He screamed and kicked her leg, but she didn’t even flinch. “Curse you! Curse you both!” he yelled, “The Syndicate… will… avenge me…”

His eyes glazed over, and he went still.

Adelia pressed her fingers to his neck. “He’s dead,” she said, “he didn’t even lose much blood. He shouldn’t have died.”

“Do you think we missed a wizard?” Connor asked.

The two of them spun around.

The night was empty and silent. If anyone had been there, they were gone now.

He picked up one of the runed rods their attackers used and put it in his bottomless bag. Victor should see this as soon as possible…

“Let’s head back,” Connor said, “more could be on the way, and we’re too exposed here just the two of us.”

The clouds rumbled overhead, and a drop of rain splattered on his chest.

He took another long look at the bodies all around them. Thank the gods he’d brought her along…

As they walked back, the storm broke. Rain pelted down amid howling winds and the already dark night grew darker still, lit only by flashes of lightning.

They moved in silence, alert and ready for an ambush at every turn, but none came.