“Hyuuuuurgh,” Leo said as he explosively vomited all over Ferez’s feet. The earthen blade and tendrils lashing the water mage to the ground crumbled away, leaving Leo to slowly keel over, spurts of puke still dribbling out of his mouth.
“What the Pit?” Nezir asked, bewildered.
Ferez had no idea. That same technique had split Wogenreiter in two, but somehow Leo was still whole and hearty. Well, maybe not hearty. He seemed very, very sick from the impact, but he was still alive. Ferez quashed the elation in his chest, though. He didn’t have time to question the miracle. Leo’s unexpected resilience had shocked Nezir, and Ferez had to capitalise on it while he had the chance.
He dropped the torch and leapt over Leo, shamble sprinting at Nezir as he hurled balls of flame with his left hand and pooled magic into the tip of his right index finger. One shot would be all he got, but by the gods, it would be all he needed. Nezir rocked back from the attacks, even if it was more reflexive than due to the force of the blows. He recovered quickly, raising a forearm to cover his face and thrusting his other hand towards Ferez. The fire mage ducked and rolled as a volley of stone splinters whistled overhead, then came up to a knee and levelled his finger at the pirate’s heart. He unleashed the concentrated pellet of roiling fire magic; the air warping around its intense heat as it burrowed a path through the air and into the armour.
It hissed and sparked, droplets of molten earth dripping from the hole as it tried to burrow through the reinforced stone, but within seconds, the projectile’s energy waned and the bolt fizzled out. Nezir laughed and stalked forward.
“I learned my lesson, High Mage. You won’t break through my armour with that technique ever again.”
“Shit.”
Ferez honed his Talent sense and looked closer at Nezir. His stone armour throbbed with power, the pirate had invested far more energy in this suit than when first they fought. The bastard was right. There was no way a fire mage could penetrate that carapace now.
Ferez looked back at Leo. The water mage wasn’t vomiting anymore, but that wasn’t for lack of trying. He kept dry retching, pitifully, his stomach long since emptied.
No help there.
Ferez glanced back to Nezir, his hand going to the hilt of his sword, but finding nothing there.
Right. Naked.
He was left with precious few options.
“You see now, don’t you? A man of your meagre talents cannot defeat me. You should have taken the deal,” Nezir said as he took another methodical step. Ferez narrowed his eyes, there was something off about the pirate’s movement. His arms barely moved as he walked, and there was a long delay between each step. A smile spread across the high mage’s face.
“You’re almost out of power, Nezir,” Ferez said with satisfaction. “You can barely move. I think I was right to reject your offer. Now I can not only have my cake, but smash it in your face too.”
“Don’t be so confident without cause, college dog,” Nezir spat in reply. With obvious effort, he raised an arm and a lance of stone grew from his vambrace. Ferez felt the building Talent and ducked aside as the pirate loosed the missile.
Or tried to, at least. The stone spike shot from the armour, covering a total distance of half a foot before dropping to the ground. Which was just as well, since Ferez’s dynamic evasion had turned into a generalised crumple to the ground as his body gave out.
“Oh! It gets better!” Ferez laughed from where he lay in an awkward pile on the floor. “You can’t even throw projectiles anymore. Tell me, how long until you can’t even manipulate that armour? How long until your suit becomes your cage?”
Nezir glowered at him, silent, which spoke volumes in itself. Ferez cackled and dragged himself onto his knees, half turning to Leo as he did.
“Get up, Patriarch! You’re missing some quality gloating here.”
“Hyuuurgh!” Leo replied.
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“Suit yourself then. I can gloat enough for the both of us,” Ferez said, turning back to Nezir. “Tell me, do you think the Emrinthians will just behead you and be done with-”
He froze mid-sentence as Jasmine shuffled into the tiny circle of light cast by the sputtering torch. She was pale and unsteady on her feet as she rubbed her eyes.
“Old Man? Is that you? What happened?” she asked, slowly lowering her hands and opening her eyes fully to the scene before her. Those same eyes grew wide when she realised the figure in front of her was not, in fact, Ferez. It was Nezir.
“You’re not the Old Man,” she mumbled, taking a step back. She turned to run as Nezir reached for her, but Ferez was faster than them both. His body was broken beyond all semblance of function, but desperation leant it one last burst of strength when, by rights, there should have been none. He barrelled towards the pirate as his mind disassociated from the pain, leaping at the armoured man. As he sailed through the air, Nezir spun back to him.
Too late, he realised the trap. His body was committed to its course, leaving him free to observe the stone spear sprouting from Nezir’s chest armour. Time moved obscenely slowly, it seemed, as the rock inched across the space between them and his body surged through the air, destined to be impaled on the jagged growth.
Nothing else for it, he thought. Guess I’ll take him with me.
He reached for Nezir’s face as their bodies clashed, his fingers finding the helmet’s eye holes as pain blossomed through his chest. With a thought, the little Talent remaining in his body poured out through his fingertips in a steady, messy stream, bypassing the magically impervious rocky shell and racing along the contours of Nezir’s body within. The pirate screamed, his own exhausted Talent insufficient to protect him from the onslaught as he roasted inside his armour.
The pirate stepped back, flailing, and Ferez dropped to the ground. Even as he fell, though, he kept his connection to the storm rampaging inside the suit, a steady river of flame gushing from his fingers and up into Nezir’s eye sockets. The rock glowed from the intense heat, Nezir’s screams eroding away as his seared lungs crumbled away in his chest until, finally, he stopped moving. Wisps of ash, all that was left of the dread Crimson Blade, poured from tiny crevasses at the joints until only the suit itself remained, frozen in a pose of agony and terror, an eternal record of the death of Nezir.
Ferez rolled onto his back, his breath coming in ragged gasps as his mind recoiled at the abuse inflicted on him. This was it. His last wound. The one that would send him to the great beyond. He closed his eyes and waited for death, feeling strangely at peace. The girl, Jasmine, was safe. Leo was alive, and so too was Ingrid. It was perhaps presumptuous to assume, but there was no way the chattel upstairs would ever fell her. She could have faced them alone and walked away victorious, he was certain. No, the only casualty this day would be him. And that was alright.
Also, the dozens of slavers. And marines. And raiders. But his friends were alive, and the slaves were safe. All was as it should be.
Although, did it usually take this long to die? Ferez felt like he had been lying there for a while now. Maybe he was already dead, and this was it? If so, he was going to be extremely annoyed. He hadn’t known what to expect from the great beyond, but he had hoped it would be a little more exciting than perpetual darkness and his own internal monologue. The pain in his chest was easing, though, which he imagined it would as his soul departed from its mortal trappings. Perhaps physical death was fast, but the actual process of abandoning his flesh puppet was more protracted. If that was the case, maybe the darkness would only be temporary? Any second now, there would be a burst of white light at the end of a long tunnel, or a sudden manifestation of elysian fields around him, or something in that vein. Just a little more patience, and his just reward would be his. He took a deep breath and interlocked his fingers, resting his hands on his belly.
“I don’t want to interrupt whatever it is you’re doing down there, Old Man. But I think we should get moving,” Jasmine said.
Ferez cracked an eye. The girl was kicking the suit just above the knees, again and again until finally something gave with a loud crack and the top half toppled over, leaving just the boots standing. Jasmine knelt down beside them and, one at a time and with great effort, tipped them over her leg, emptying the contents on the ground. Mixed in with the stream of human ash, that she sifted through without any trace of aversion, it seemed, was a motley collection of metal items that had survived the flames. A couple of coins, a belt buckle.
And a key.
Ferez sat up and went to rub his chest, not sure how he was still alive with a gaping hole in it, only for his hand to hit something hard, cold and wet. He looked down at the spiderweb lattice of icy mail stretching over his torso.
“Got that up in the nick of time, I’d say,” Leo said, his voice still tinged with nausea. He had propped himself up on an elbow and was facing Ferez with a broad grin on his face, the grains from his last meal still wedged between a few teeth after bringing them back up.
Ferez shifted himself around so he could look at his friend without craning his neck. Now the danger was passed his body was letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that he was in significantly more pain than the extreme agony he had felt in the heat of battle. As such, outrageous displays of flexibility such as turning his head were no longer permissible.
“I would have to agree. Although, how are you even alive?”
With a cheeky smile, Leo hooked a thumb in the front of his britches and pulled them down. Beneath the course, functional pants, was a gleaming pair of diamond underpants.
“I told you they were armour,” he said. They both roared with laughter as Jasmine scoffed in disgust, shook her head, and set off down the hallway, the cell keys jingling in her hands.