Eight 4

I spun up a pair of Spiral Pierce spells, one for each knife, and crouched to make the positioning easier for Snow. Then, in an instant, I was in the plaza facing Theloc’s back. Teila had gone first to draw his ire.

Dog’s Agility pumped through me, stronger than the adrenaline. It drove me forward, but an urgent, wordless warning from Mumu sent me dodging to the right, and the plaza stones shattered behind me, leaving a long, jagged slash.

Issa had managed to launch one of his long-distance sword attacks, after all. Which meant he could see me despite my Camouflage. We knew Theloc carried an alarm stone. Issa must too.

I dropped the spell to save qi, and I saw Teila do the same. She repositioned to put Theloc between Issa and her. We didn’t know if the guard captain was capable of originating his attacks from anywhere besides himself, but anything we could do to cut off lines of attack, we would.

That left me in the more dangerous position, but I should be able to manage with Yuki’s and Snow’s help.

Dashing in, I smashed both Spiral Pierce spells into him, but the alchemist’s shields held; this time a blue-hued glass rang like a chime from the blows. Dancing around, I kept up the attacks, my arms whirring like whips, aiming for speed and distraction.

He wasn’t a combatant, so he should’ve been dead long before now—silvered or no—but it was those damn shields… and the speed too. He’d seemed to have gotten faster while Teila and I had had to heal.

‘We need to hurry,’ Yuki said. ‘Haol is nearly out of magic, and Mumu’s not far behind.’

Issa, on the other hand, was a combatant and an incredibly capable one from the snatches of him I’d seen. Mumu must’ve been at the top of her game to hold out for as long as she had, even with the support of the rest of the expedition.

‘Focus Theloc,’ she commanded. ‘Overwhelm.’

Haol’s response was instant resistance. ‘Mumu, no.’

‘Do it. The alchemist dies.’

And she wasn’t wrong. Between the two enemies, Theloc was the one who could do more long-term, more insidious damage to Voorhei and Albei.

A clay jar appeared in the alchemist’s hands, so Teila and I both dodged back. He smashed it at his own feet, though, and the blue-stained shield around him thickened, becoming visible for all to see without us constantly attacking it.

I dove back in, but it was like trying to stab stone. I tried a fist attack supported by Ram’s Head, but all I got for my trouble were aching knuckles.

‘Mumu thinks this is his last artifact,’ Yuki clarified.

“I said do it!” Mumu yelled, the words carrying across the plaza.

And so the expedition did as they were commanded.

First, Theloc stumbled as Anya’s debuff hit him—a disruption of his inner ear. Yuki tried their Cold Snap trick again, but the blue shield ran under the alchemist’s feet, so it didn’t work this time. Switching gears, they dropped their Iron Heart to run a Bear’s Strength instead.

High on the spells coursing through me, I felt like I could fly, and a dangerous part of me wondered if it was possible to Blink inside Theloc’s shield. I might lose an arm in the attempt, so I held off, slipping to the side to make room for…

Tegen’s spear smashed into the blue shield like a freight train, and we heard the first instance of it cracking. Then he rolled aside as one of the plaza’s paving stones was flung by Weni at the shield. The cracking sound came again, more brittle and delicious.

Followed with a Spiral Pierce from Teila, the knife jamming in place, held in the air by the shield. She and Tegen switched positions, and he hammered the knife, splintering a section of the shield. It fell and shattered on the ground. A slice was now open, and a wall of bows suddenly appeared at the crowd’s edge.

The sly hunters of Albei, those skilled and serious pranksters, they’d sent four to support us, while the others pretended—pretended!—to remain uninvolved, when in reality they’d simply waited for the right opportunity to take action.

The thing about Diaksha—or at least the parts of it I’d seen so far—was that everyone knew how to shoot a bow. The militia required it. The Long Dark demanded it. So, when several full expeditions of hunters and soldiers, philosophers and artisans, drew and released, they knew how to put an arrow on target.

Somehow, none of them managed to hit Issa, but Theloc wasn’t so lucky.

Behind the blue shield was a crystal-clear glass, and it broke under the combined onslaught of all those arrows.

I tossed a Spark at Theloc, and he jolted as his muscles locked with the spell’s impact. The way was finally open, so I leapt over the tangle of splintered arrows—the wind rushing—and I put my knife through his eye, breaking all the bones around it and driving the blade deep into his brain.

For a moment, his face was stunned, unbelieving, and then he slipped to the ground. What was left of the blue glass burst apart. I was inside, so it didn’t affect me any, but Tegen had to raise his own Unbroken Shield to protect Teila and himself.

A short distance away, I saw slashes all along Mumu’s arms, as well as a nasty gash across her abdomen. Blood surrounded it, but none appeared to be leaking out at the moment.

Issa hadn’t stopped his attacks despite Theloc’s fall. Instead, there was an expression of pure rage on his face—his skin purpling and distorting—as if it would burst apart. For a moment, I thought it might reveal some monster hiding inside him.

Tegen hurtled into the fight to defend Mumu, his spear thrusting to tangle the enemy’s limbs. From the corner of my eye, I caught Teila slipping around to Issa’s back. As that was happening, the stones under the guard captain’s feet grew spiky, like the outer shell of a buckeye’s seed pod.

Wait, that left me to ensure Theloc didn’t turn undead.

A pulse from Snow let me know that I was being silly. She came to grab the body and transported it to our backline where Anya could direct those nearby to handle it for us.

Meanwhile, my teammates pushed and pulled at Issa’s attention, directing it away from where Teila approached. I paused to feel the flow of battle, then slipped deeper into the land to minimize my presence. There was so much disturbance, it was easy to hide among the noise—one movement amongst all the others.

When Issa wasn’t looking, I went to crouch beside Teila. While our hunt family fought for their lives, we two held back for when Issa forgot about us, even if it was for the briefest of lapses.

The expeditions shot their arrows, yet none had hit the guard captain except for that first one from Haol. The shaft still stuck out from his left shoulder, not that it made a difference with how Issa’s sword wove through the air. He parried every attack, and his sword energy cut down every arrow. Eventually, though, he must tire.

I caught flashes of the coordination between Mumu and Tegen. Then there was a warning for Teila and I to get ready. ‘Beat two,’ I heard, but wasn’t sure from whom.

That was quick timing, but we were ready.

‘Two. One.’

Tegen committed to trading wounds, forgoing his spear’s length to bind the enemy’s sword. It was enough for Mumu to pin Issa’s foot. Arm trapped, foot trapped, Teila and I rushed in. We dodged the sword energy he sent at us—two cuts aimed to take our heads from our bodies.

Teila went sideways, while I rolled under. We came to our feet, and three flashing steps later, we were within his reach.

Snow teleported in to claw Issa’s eyes. Normally, she’d hit and run, but this time she stayed. Our connection flared with pain. She’d sustained a wound in the exchange.

A pair of knives slammed into Issa’s back, both Teila and I aiming for a kidney each. Even with our spells and enchantments, though, it was like pushing an awl through tough leather. Still, he grunted.

Then, I was ducking and rolling to avoid his sword. Somehow, he’d thrown Tegen off.

In fact, everyone dropped to the ground, and the buildings around the plaza clanged as a sword wave extended dozens of yards to smash into their walls. For a beat, nothing happened while the assembled expeditions registered that they’d been attacked—perhaps unintentionally, but there would have been injuries if they hadn’t been paying close attention to the fight.

In that short time, Issa must’ve realized he’d just imperiled the hierophant’s race. He took off, running for the town’s gate. He was out in the open, all by himself for a short time, and I started to reach upward to the dark clouds above, electricity licking along my spine, but before the spell could trigger, the earth rose to impede Issa.

He cut through the stone to run through it, only for more walls jut up, cutting off my view of him. Then I saw Issa vaulting. And be caught midair by half-a-dozen stone javelins. Give the man credit, he deflected three. But if three missed, then three hit, and he tumbled out of view again.

That, that was why the element-touched were so prized and so dangerous. The flexibility of their powers was simply unmatched. Or maybe Issa’s death wouldn’t have been that easy if we hadn’t worn him down. We’d never know.

The impromptu walls sank into the ground, restoring the plaza to how it looked before.

Mumu jogged over to the guard captain’s body. ‘I’ll ensure his death and take his light. Eight, Teila—see to Tegen and Snow.’

Are you wounded? I asked.

She replied with a mental grunt. ‘I can wait. Yuki’s handled the worst of it.’

Snow yowled at me when I ran over. Without a waterskin, there was no way for our Yuki to cast Healing Water on her behalf, so I took care of her injuries—a pair of nasty gashes along her shoulders.

Teila knelt beside Tegen, casting Nature’s Spring in addition to Healing Water. It looked like Issa’s sword had carved into the older hunter’s side. A little more and his spine might’ve been severed.

As I was thinking about that—coming down from the fight, letting the adrenaline shake out—when it occurred to me that I’d forgotten something important.

“There was a third!” I said aloud.

Which caused Tegen to lapse into painful laughter. He grabbed his side and grimaced, but couldn’t stop wheezing. “Now? Now you notice,” he got out.

I heard a mental sigh from Mumu. ‘Our Eight still focuses too intently on the prey before him. Remember to save a portion of your attention for your surroundings while you fight.’ A moment later came the observation, ‘Issa has only one core.’

Oh, really? I wonder what— No, wait, first tell me what happened to—

I spotted Dooli Doolisson kneeling on the ground amongst our allies from Albei, surrounded by a ring of drawn weapons. There came a wave of pride from Snow; she’d grabbed him as he’d tried to run and deposited him in their midst.

“Oh, who’s a good girl,” I said, scratching behind her ears. “So clever. So very, very clever.”

Our Snow had ensured we had someone alive to question, and I could already see the anticipation rising among my teammates. It stood in stark contrast to the horrible despair on the faces of Theloc’s and Issa’s ghosts. Both seemed paralyzed in disbelief.

Snow was back to good health by that point, and Teila had Tegen well in hand, so I got up to face the ghosts. It’d be better to send them off now, while they were still disoriented. The silvered became a lot harder to move if their ghosts had time to settle in.

Then, they both turned to the west as if they’d heard someone call. A look of longing passed over their faces—a naked, needy thing that gave me the creeps—and they streamed away. Not to their next lives but toward the west.

For the first time ever, I felt a sense of wrongness emanate from my belly. Whatever that had been, my Taoism skill didn’t like it.

Back when I’d first been offered my choice of paths, one of the options had been Hobby Spiritualist.

Yuki tapped into my memories to recall the tooltip’s exact text: ‘You see dead people and things. Your skills focus on getting them to do you favors. This is an uncommon path, as there is a god’s injunction preventing the dead and living from communicating with each other.’

Right, that was it, I thought. And since then, we’ve read in the Book of Paths that there are other spiritualist paths. Not a lot, though, because there’s so little utility or economic benefit. The only people likely to become spiritualists are philosophers determined to understand the divisions between the living and the dead. I gazed westward. Whoever they are, they must be powerful to be able to call the silvered so easily.

Mumu came over. “Injuries? Status?”

We each signed, our hands flickering, as we reported our conditions to her. Tegen would need another cast to get back to full health, but otherwise we’d come out of the encounter relatively unscathed.

Thanks to Healing Water. Without it, we likely would’ve lost that engagement. I gave Ikfael’s figurine a bump and whispered, “Thank you.”

###

Enough light seeped through the dark clouds to signal that dawn had come and gone. It’d taken time to make sure there weren’t any other Maltrans present, for the expeditions to settle down, to take the bodies of the dead into the Wholesome Ox, for the reeve and town head to take charge of the situation, and for Dooli to be led away for interrogation.

All the while, Mumu and Tegen did their best to shield the rest of us from the investigation that followed. Anya had wanted to join them, taking responsibility for the expedition, but Mumu firmly declined. The actions we’d taken were in the realm of our lodge pursuing retribution.

Those of us not being questioned ended up sitting on the ground at distance from where the race’s proceedings resumed. A couple of land soldiers stood nearby as guards, the same pair that watched over us the night of the bombing.

The hierophant got up onto the stage, his voice echoing across the plaza. “Now that we’re finally done with the distractions, the race can begin. Shortly, the people of the Wholesome Ox will distribute to every participant a feather taken from a golden summer falcon. Each one is a precious treasure. You will return it back at the end of the race, but until then, you must carry it with you at all times. If you lose, drop, or somehow inconceivably forget your feather, you will be disqualified and fined its value.”

To the side, the inn’s staff began to hand out feathers about a foot long and glowing with the light of a late summer afternoon. As more and more were given over, the warmer the plaza seemed.

Xefwen continued, “We are fortunate; my divinations indicate that Old Baxteiyel’s treasures haven’t been jeopardized by these tumultuous events. You may yet succeed and win yourselves glory and wealth. But to do so, you must find a way into the pyramid!” The last words were emphasized by the hierophant’s influence pressing down on the assembled expeditions. The feeling of being overwhelmed lasted for a good ten beats before he released it.

That must’ve been a cue, because a goat was brought onto the stage. A shard of sharpened stone leapt from the ground to Xefwen’s hand, after which he murmured a prayer over the goat’s bleats. Then he plunged the knife into the goat’s heart.

When he pulled the stone knife out, an assistant handed him a bowl to collect the blood spilling from the wound, which he then proceeded to drink. He dabbed his fingers in the remnants and gestured in the air what looked like a series of runes.

Anya saw me memorizing them and gave me a nudge. She kindly whispered, “Only portions are real, the rest are a show.”

But I’d already known that from watching Sheedi’s and Iseld’s rituals. The thing was… I had one of the world’s foremost pattern-recognition experts living inside me. Assuming the world speakers were even a little sloppy with the fake portions of their rune signing, Yuki should be able to pick out the crisper real portions. It was just an idea—one that hadn’t born any fruit yet, but it was worth trying.

My expedition and I were outside the affected area, so whatever blessing the hierophant offered, we missed out.

‘Looks like a boost to morale,’ Yuki observed.

People do seem perkier, I thought. Maybe a stamina buff too?

Yuki waggled their qi. ‘Maybe.’

The rest was cut off as the hierophant yelled, “Now go! Make all haste to Old Baxteiyel. The gods have blessed you, and surely you shall return victorious!”

Which wasn’t at all possible for everyone present, since this was a race with clear winners and losers. I didn’t say anything, however—not even as a whisper. We’d annoyed Xefwen enough, and he didn’t need me to point out the defect in the speech he’d given.

In fact, the hierophant didn’t even wait to watch the expeditions depart. He went back into the Wholesome Ox right away.

To keep a traffic jam from happening at the town gate, the expeditions started the race based on the status of their leaders. Tethdlen’s expedition went first, and then the others from Ganas Hakei and Sugrusu Hakei. The ones from Albei departed last.

We watched them jog by until it was our guards, the inn staff cleaning up, and us in the plaza. Only then did people start emerging from their homes, and life in Bashruuta seemed to resume.

I’d cooled down from the fight by then, leaving a crusty inner emptiness behind. I’d helped kill two more people. Yes, they were saboteurs, but a part of me worried I was becoming too callous.

Surely, I’d saved lives—many more lives—as result of the ones I’d taken. There were some people who it was better for the world if they were given an opportunity at their next life.

Now, I recognized that was a subjective point of view. No doubt the people of Maltra believed it would be better for the world if I was the dead one, but such was the nature of conflict. If you come after me and mine, I’m going to defend myself and them.

More than that, I really hadn’t liked what I’d seen happen to Theloc’s and Issa’s ghosts. It reminded me a little too much of the stories mi abuela had told me as a child of the dark sorcerers who used curses to steal the lives of people and their livestock.

While I’d been lost in thought, my hands had gotten to work, cleaning my gear and weapons, as well as those left behind by Mumu and Tegen. We’d need them in good order when the time came to leave. Slowly, I settled into the comforting motions.

I tuned into the conversation beside me, as Haol spoke to Aslishtei’s nieces of the necessity of killing. They’d only ever fought animals before, and he knew it was different experience when one’s opponent was human. I listened with half an ear, the words familiar—both from this world and my previous one. Mi abuelo had called it the bitter and sweet taste of justice.

As Teila held their hands, Weni and Anya took in Haol’s words. He was an experienced hunter, and they trusted him to know what was right. They were—in a way—honored to have been blooded alongside him and Teila and the rest of us.

Then it was my hunt sister’s turn, and Teila spoke about the time she’d nearly been kidnapped while in Albei. It was a story that Weni and Anya had heard before, but they listened to it again with new ears.

She’d been in Albei for the second Tournament of Masks, and our Hunter’s Lodge had been in a strange place at the time—becoming well known but also still in deep financial trouble. A handful of scoundrels had learned about Teila’s Wood-Wise talent; they tried to grab her early one morning as she was returning from the market. Their plan had apparently been to sneak her out of the city and sell her to a workshop hungry for qi. “Apparently” because none of the slavers survived.

The hairs along my arms rose, thinking how close we’d come to losing her.

“It’s a strange feeling,” Teila said, “to stab a man—so familiar and yet so different. I’ve taken a son from his father, a father from his children, and yet he’d tried to steal my life first. How is that any different from the creatures who come during the Long Dark?”

“And did you feel any different afterward?” Anya asked.

“Yes,” Teila said, looking her in the eyes. “Relieved, for I’d avoided a terrible fate. And also, I became like the others on my team. When I pass through Albei’s gate, I too am a man-killer. Only our Tegen is left innocent.”

How much longer would that last I wondered? If Maltra was sending infiltration teams into the Three-City Alliance, then the day when hostilities broke out into the open wouldn’t be that far away. Or perhaps… had it already arrived?