Valor and Violence

They had stayed in the cellar for a week, Louis the barman bringing them food and drink while they recovered their Talent. The assassins had left after a couple of days, obviously assuming the three of them had escaped the town. It was good news in that it meant they were out of immediate danger, but bad news because their mark was out of their grasp, too. Ingrid thought she had an idea as to where he could be headed, though. Ferez had showed her the full list of DuBois’s victims. It surprised precisely no one when they were all part of her smuggling network.

“If he’s working back through the chain, the only stop left after me is the dig sight where they found the artefact,” she’d said.

And so here they were, on a few horses they’d borrowed from Gascoigne’s stable master (may he rest in peace), making the long ride into the mountains along the Ader-Marduk border. The roads out here were old and ragged, the only reason the tracks hadn’t been overgrown was because there wasn’t much vegetation to do the reclaiming. It wasn’t desert like back home, but it was sparse, and Ferez felt incredibly exposed as they made their way in silence.

“Did Louis tell you the casualty tally from the castle?” Leo asked Ingrid. She glared back at him.

“Keep your damn voice down, Leo.”

Leo threw his hands up. “Oh, for the love of- we’re in a fucking desert, Ingrid. I doubt they’ll hear us before they see us.”

Out of the three of them, Leo seemed the only one remotely comfortable with what they were doing. It was probably because he hadn’t seen DuBois, or rather the artefact, in action. He had a point though, in terrain like this, the guilders would see them from miles away, especially once they reached the foothills.

“He’s right, Ingrid. Never thought I’d speak those words about Leo, but there you go.”

Ingrid turned her glare on Ferez, then relented and ran her hand through her hair. It was the wounded hand from her battle. She had covered it in bandages, kept damp to stop it sticking while the skin underneath healed. It was in good condition, all things considered, Ingrid had the foresight to own an Aetherial device that prevented infection somehow, but it couldn’t do much to speed the healing process. She remained stoic as ever, but Ferez knew she was in constant pain.

“Almost all the men at arms were lost, though a few deserters fled when the Guild kicked the door in. I’ll have to flush them out of the forest when we get back before they turn to banditry.”

“Gascoigne?” Ferez asked.

“Dead too, he was the particularly fat chunk of barbecue in the entertainment hall.”

“Shit, what does that mean for the town? For you?”

“Nothing really. The useless prick didn’t do much but steal a cut of our profits and piss it away on food, wine and whores. The town will come under the jurisdiction of the nearest noble house, but I doubt they’ll pay much attention so long as they get their taxes on time. We’ll be fine, maybe even better off.”

“By ‘us’ you mean?”

“’Us’. Me and the villagers.”

“The whole town was in on it?”

“Easiest to keep a secret when there’s no one left to tell it to.”

Ferez grunted an acknowledgement as Leo jumped in.

“What about the other people in the castle? Aside from the soldiers.”

“Most of the staff buggered off as soon as the shouting started. A few didn’t make it, but such is life. Could have been worse.”

“I can see you’re distraught at their loss,” Leo replied.

“Piss off, you useless cum stain. I run a business out of there, not a fucking shelter for wayward children.”

“Something tells me you wouldn’t care anymore if it was.”

Ingrid flicked her wrist and Leo sailed out of his saddle, landing in a heap on the side of the road.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten or forgiven what you did to my brother, Leo. We’re together in this until DuBois is dead. After that, whether you live or die depends entirely on my mood, so I would recommend you shut that garbage chute you call a mouth until I get back to town.”

Ferez sighed and dismounted, walking over to pull Leo to his feet. Leo sprang back up before Ferez could reach him, though, and held a palm out towards Ingrid. She screamed and bent over, clutching her bandaged arm in pain.

“You… bastard!” she said through gritted teeth.

Ferez put a hand on Leo’s arm. “Easy there, Leo. We need her to take on DuBois and the Guild.”

Leo glanced at him and lowered his hand. After a few seconds, Ingrid sat back upright, still hissing through her teeth. Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.

“Didn’t think you had it in you, runt. I forgot the bandage was soaked.”

“Leo,” Ferez said, “what did you do?”

“Just a few miniature ice lances into her arm,” he said, eyes fixed on Ingrid. “I might not be on her level, or even yours, Ferez, but I’m done letting her treat me this way. Sure, I killed her brother, but you know what? He had it coming. You want to pick this up again when we’re done with DuBois? Fine. But we’ve got a common enemy now, one who’s more powerful than any of us, so you better pull your head in.”

Ferez was stunned. He didn’t think Leo capable of an outburst like that, let alone directed at someone like Ingrid. He positioned himself between the two of them, ready to diffuse any escalating tension, though he acknowledged neither of them would likely hold back on his account. Still, they had a day’s ride left and a battle on the other side. They couldn’t afford to be fighting each other. To his surprise, Ingrid grinned and swung her legs over the saddle, and dropped to the ground. She walked over and stood face to face with Leo and held out her hand.

“Alright then, truce?”

Leo hesitated, then grasped it. “Truce.”

As soon as he did, Ingrid pulled him in close, their noses practically touching.

“But if you do that again, I will rip your limbs from your body, one by one, and laugh while you bleed out.”

Some of the old fear returned to Leo’s eyes as he gulped and nodded. Satisfied, Ingrid let him go, turned back to her horse and flew into the saddle.

“It’s settled then. DuBois dies first, then we can start on each other.”

*

Sure enough, Ingrid had been right about DuBois’ destination. From their vantage point crouched on the edge of the canyon leading to the dig, they could see a bonfire, and a team of assassins shuttling bodies to it.

The excavators.

“Fucking shit,” Ingrid swore. “It’ll take weeks to find replacements.”

Ferez and Leo looked at each other, the water mage rolling his eyes.

“Tragic,” he said, “how many assassins do you guys count?”

“There’s only a dozen or so that I can see,” Ferez replied.

“The survivors from the assault on the castle,” Ingrid said. “I doubt the Guild would send more considering how many DuBois has gotten killed already.”

“Good news for us, then. The assassins won’t be an issue as long as we don’t get close.”

“True, but we’ll need to draw them out without DuBois in tow. We can’t defend against him while keeping the guilders at bay,” Ferez said.

“I don’t see how we can pull that off,” Leo said. “As soon as the alarm goes up, he’s bound to come running. He knows the assassins are useless by themselves, but they do present a dilemma if we have to fight them all at the same time.”

Ferez exchanged another glance, this time with Ingrid.

“Useless, you say?”

“Yeah, useless. You aren’t scared of them, are you?” Leo asked.

“No, no, of course not. It’s just interesting, the word you chose. Useless.”

“Indeed,” Ingrid said. “Like they aren’t a threat to a great mage like you.”

“They aren’t! Why are you two being weird- oh Pit, you’re going to use me as bait, aren’t you?”

*

The three of them had decided that waiting until night was their best option. Leo was currently approaching the dig sight through the figurative front door, one of their horses in tow. The horse was loaded with every drop of water they could find.

Ferez and Ingrid were already in position, back atop the cliff from earlier. Leo was to kill the sentries as noisily as possible, bringing out DuBois and the rest of the assassins, at which point Ferez and Ingrid would interdict the rogue mage. They weren’t worried about visibility, the bonfire was still going strong. As soon as DuBois came out of the excavation site, they’d spot him. Ingrid would fly down to intercept him, while Ferez jumped down and hoped to cushion the blow enough with his flames that he didn’t die. Assuming he survived in relatively good condition, he’d then help Ingrid.

It wasn’t an overly complex or elegant plan, but Leo had been the one to point out that simple was usually best. Fewer chances for things to go wrong.

As for DuBois himself, they had discussed it at length. The knowledge they had gained at the castle was invaluable. They hadn’t seen him use any of his innate magic; it was all the shield. Given his state of mind, Ferez wouldn’t be surprised if he could no longer cast magic himself.

He had heard of Resonant Madness, the sickness of the mind that afflicted those who abuse the power of Resonance items for too long or too much, but he had never heard of such a rapid onset. By his estimates, DuBois had the artefact a month or so at the most. Usually the insanity he displayed would take years. Still, it was scant consolation. Magic or no, the shield was always the primary threat, and the fact the wielder was irreversibly insane did not make their situation any better.

But the shield presented exploitable weaknesses too. It could only absorb magical attacks when it made direct contact, so the plan hinged on outflanking him and attacking from two directions at once. If they could neutralise the wielder, the artefact would be nothing more than an ornate and creepy paperweight.

Ferez heard a noise from further down the canyon; a scream of pain, followed by shouting and a roar like rushing water.

Not like rushing water, Ferez realised. It was rushing water.

From around the bend, a powerful jet launched an assassin into the rock wall, pinning him in place until the stream ran out. The assassin fell to the floor, his body crumpling into a sickening pile, his bones so broken his corpse couldn’t even maintain the shape of a human. The assassins around the bonfire raised the alarm and sprinted towards the fighting, more following from within the dig site itself. There were more than a dozen, roughly twice what they had expected.

“I hope Leo stays alive long enough for us to kill DuBois,” Ingrid said, adding “what?” when Ferez glared at her.

“I hope Leo stays alive, period,” Ferez replied.

Ingrid rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the scene below as DuBois appeared at the cave entrance. A pair of guilders flanked him as they followed the rest of the group into the canyon.

Without a word, Ingrid jumped face first, blasting air out of her hands and shooting towards the trio. She took the head off the first assassin with a blade of air as she shot past, then banked and planted a boot into the second on the return. The assassin sprawled, and Ingrid turned her attention to DuBois.

She was meant to wait for Ferez to get down before engaging, but she seemed to be doing well enough, so he followed her over the edge, concentrating on controlling his descent. He managed to keep the speed fairly steady as he sank to the canyon floor, though he still hit hard enough to stumble and fall. He shot back to his feet, hoping no one had seen, and dusted himself off.

He needn’t have worried. Ingrid and DuBois were going at it, DuBois launching wave after wave of black flame, Ingrid darting aside from each attack, her magic giving her incredible agility in the open space. It was already looking better than the battle at the castle. Ferez ran to join the fray, hurling balls of flame at DuBois while his back was turned.

The mage spun, collecting the barrage on the shield, but Ingrid seized the opportunity and blasted him, a gust of wind picking him up and dumping him on the ground at Ferez’s feet. Ferez wreathed his arms in flame and dropped to a knee, driving his fist down. He missed, the force of the blow gouging a blackened crater out of the dirt and stone as DuBois rolled to the side, found his feet and ran. He swung the shield across his back in a fluid motion as it dumped a stream of fire into Ferez that lifted him from his feet. It hurt, but it wasn’t as intense as the flames in the castle, and the Talent laced through his body protected him.

Not his clothes, though.

He hit the ground and rolled, swatting the flames climbing his cloak. When they were extinguished, he climbed back to his feet and spun, looking for DuBois. He found him disappearing back into the cave.

They exchanged a brief glance, and under the hood, Ferez saw a toothy grin before DuBois disappeared into the darkness. A second later, Ingrid tore into the cave after him.

“No! Wait!” Ferez called, but she either didn’t hear him, or more likely ignored him, as she too disappeared inside. “Shit!”

Ferez took off after them, knowing full well they were heading into a trap but not seeing any other options with Ingrid already inside. The stupid hot head! Out in the canyon they had the advantage of space and numbers, they could have run rings around him all night until he caved. In here? In here, he had the advantage.

Within the cave, the dark was almost absolute, but he resisted the urge to light a flame. DuBois was out there somewhere, invisible, but lighting the place up would likely only give away Ferez’s position. He groped along the wall, fighting a rising panic as the silence pressed in on him, the coarse granite beneath his fingers the only sensory input. He strained his ears, desperate for anything to tell him about where Ingrid or DuBois may have gotten to.

He heard something, a whisper in the dark, a brief stream of gravel falling to the floor. He turned in the direction and started stumbling towards the sound. After a few minutes, he heard it again, this time behind him. Had he walked past someone in the dark? He spun as he heard laughter. He didn’t know if it was in his ear or a mile away, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. A shudder ran down his spine, and he could feel his eyes widening as the panic threatened to overwhelm him. The voice was impossible to place, but the words it spoke were clear and unmistakable.

A new toy.

He was about to cut his losses and light a flame when he heard a crash followed by shouted curses. A flare of… unlight… illuminated the space and Ferez realised he was at a tunnel intersection. He swore he had his hand on the wall just a moment ago, but somehow he was standing in the dead centre, the rough rock a few metres away from his outstretched hand as the darkness rushed back in to engulf him. He waited, his breath caught in his throat, before another flash of unlight lit his way. It had come from the tunnel to his right, and this time it was accompanied by a cry of pain.

Ingrid’s cry of pain.

He rushed down the tunnel as the sounds of battle resolved themselves, his way illuminated by the strange light. He burst into a room and realised what it was. DuBois was battling Ingrid. Every time the shield flared to life, the black flame cast a glow, though it wasn’t ‘light’ in Ferez’s sense of the word. It was dark, black as pitch, yet it somehow threw the combatants and the room into stark relief as they darted around the rotting timber support beams, the thick sandy dirt covering the arena floor reflecting the darkness as they kicked it up with feet and flames and blades of air.

Ferez charged in, hurling a stream of flame at DuBois. The rogue mage shrieked and swung the shield around, sucking up the flames as he started running.

Straight behind Ingrid.

Ferez cursed and cut the stream before he hit her, as DuBois turned and attacked Ingrid again. She backpedalled under a stream of black fire as Ferez tried to get another angle, but it was impossible in the enclosed space.

The saving grace was that DuBois was struggling to keep up with them, too. He was on the defensive most of the time, relying on the shield to suck up the onslaught, his counter attacks brief and ineffective. Ingrid was a blur, rocketing around his clumsy attacks whenever he turned to her, her feet barely touching the sand. Whenever he tried his luck with Ferez, the black and red flames clashed like a pair of dragons grappling and snapping, neither able to overcome the other. It was a battle of attrition that would come down to whoever ran out of Talent first, Ingrid and Ferez? Or the shield?

Ferez hurled a pair of fireballs that crashed against it. A brief spurt of flame fired back at him before Ingrid flew into DuBois, boot first. He caught the blow on the shield, but the kick itself wasn’t magical in any way, shape or form, just a normal kick driven by a heavily muscled and pissed off Skjar warrior. The lip of the artefact snapped back into his face. He squealed and fell backwards, throwing darkness as Ingrid laughed and danced back out of the way.

Somehow, it had never occurred to Ferez to try simply hitting the man.

“How rude!” DuBois shrieked as he scrambled back to his feet, muttering ‘stop laughing,’ under his breath. “But if that’s how you two want to play, then so be it! The fun is over!”

The shield flared, the bright unlight illuminating the room. It was the first time Ferez could see the whole space clearly, and he gasped.

It didn’t look like the tunnels he had run through to get here. The walls and ceiling were smooth rock, not the rough-hewn stone throughout the rest of the dig, and the ceiling was easily a dozen metres from the floor. Veins of brassy metal ran along the tall walls, crisscrossing in a jagged mess of geometric chaos that somehow suggested an almost organic form. The lines all converged at a single point on the wall behind DuBois. Peering over the other mage’s shoulder, Ferez saw a hole in the wall where the lines met. It was the rough size and shape of the shield.

Whatever this room was, the smugglers weren’t the first people here. They didn’t dig up the Resonance Ore and enchant it. They had found it as a fully formed Resonance artefact, buried in this chamber, gods only knew how long ago.

The glowing of the shield reached a crescendo, and a half dozen balls of black flame appeared around it. DuBois pointed the artefact at Ingrid, and the balls shot towards her, one after the other, moving faster than the eye could follow. They knocked her off her feet, Ingrid crying out as she was dashed against the stone wall. She slid to the floor in a heap, something falling from under her robes and hitting the ground in a puff of dirt.

Ferez shouted and ran to her, skidding to a halt on his knees and pulling her into his arms. Her clothes were burned through where the balls had struck, the skin underneath black and cracked. She looked up at him and coughed.

“Gods damnit, he got me again,” she said, exploring the wounds with her fingers. She winced, though from pain, the sensation of her skin crumpling like dried paper under her touch, or both, Ferez couldn’t say. “He waited long enough to bring that parlour trick out.”

Ferez looked over at DuBois. He was charging up the shield again. Ferez was confident he could stop the balls with a flame wall, but he couldn’t sit on the defensive forever, and Ingrid looked to be out of the fight.

Think, man. Think!

In the shield’s dark glow, he noticed something at Ingrid’s feet. A lump of metal. He reached out and picked it up. The chains fell away from the Resonance gauntlets.

“You brought them in here?” he said.

“Well, I couldn’t bloody well leave them out there? What if the assassins looted our camp after they killed Leo?”

“First off, stop acting like he’s definitely going to die. Second, who the Pit cares! They’re just shackles.”

“Those shackles cost me five hundred gold pieces!”

“What!” Ferez shouted. Most people wouldn’t earn that much gold over the course of their entire life, and she had spent it on restraints? He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and was about to admonish her excess when the candle wick lit up in his head, eyes still trained on the roof in the darkness high above them. “Ingrid, can you still move Talent?”

“’Course I can. I just can’t physically move too much right now,” she said, pulling herself to a sitting position against the wall.

“Alright, when I say, start sinking as much as you can into the gauntlets.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to try something. It’ll either work amazingly well, or it’ll be the most embarrassing failure of my life. If I fuck it up though, we’re both dead, so may as well try.”

Ingrid narrowed her eyes and screwed up her mouth, but grabbed the gauntlets and thrust her hands in. “Just say when.”

Ferez turned back to DuBois and the shield. From the glow, it was almost ready.

“Alright,” Ferez said, watching the shield as it hit the same crescendo as before. “Three, two, one… Now!”

Black balls of flame burst into life around the shield as Ferez threw up a wall and Ingrid dumped Talent into the gauntlets. The first ball struck the shield and dissipated, lacking the raw mass of Talent to punch through, and Ferez smiled.

“How long to saturate the gauntlets?” he asked, Talent pouring through his outstretched hand into the wall.

“Few more seconds, then what?”

“You’re familiar with mage artillery, right?”

“Mage’s lobbing missiles at fortifications from a distance? Sure, why?”

“Today, I’m inventing mage artillery!”

“What are you-“ She stopped and her eyes went wide. “No…”

“Yes!”

“By the gods, you’ve gone insane,” she muttered, shaking her head.

“I do believe this is the sanest idea I’ve ever had, Ingrid. Toss me,” he said.

“This has almost zero chance of success.”

“Almost zero isn’t zero. Do you have a better idea?”

Ingrid went silent and shook her head.

“It’s settled then. Get ready.”

Ferez wound the gauntlet chains around his forearms, feeling the energies pulsing within. It was on the cusp, like an overripe boil about to explode. He scaled back the Talent he was pouring into the wall, careful not to let an errant surge stray into the gauntlets. When the chains were secure, the excess length dangling down to the floor, he nodded at Ingrid. She shrugged and pulled herself to her feet.

“Good luck.”

She held her hand out, palm up, fingers straight, and for a moment Ferez thought she was offering him her hand. Then she flicked it up, Ferez felt a gust of wind around his legs, and then he was soaring towards the ceiling. He kept his body rigid as he shot towards the ceiling, the dark stone growing in his vision as he barrelled towards it, passing close enough to almost scrape his head before gravity reasserted itself and he started falling again. He looked around and found DuBois below him. The fire wall was down, Ferez lost his grip on it when Ingrid launched him, and she stood, exposed, glaring at DuBois.

Damnit, get down, Ingrid! Ferez thought, but fortunately DuBois seemed more concerned with where Ferez had gone. His head swivelled, sweeping his gaze around the room, before he shrugged, hefted the shield, and pointed it at Ingrid.

“DuBois!” Ferez shouted as he fell towards him. DuBois’ head snapped up, his mouth open in shock as Ferez spun in the air, throwing the gauntlets. DuBois raised the shield, but the gauntlets weren’t travelling straight at him. As they arced through the air, the chain caught on the shield and started wrapping around the rogue mage.

DuBois squealed as the gauntlets finally came round and smacked him in the face, then fell slack, dangling a couple of feet off the floor.

“This ends, now!” Ferez shouted, flames shooting from his hands, along the chains lashed to his forearms and down into the gauntlets. DuBois looked up at him, and their eyes locked for a split second before the gauntlets detonated. A shell of solid air erupted, expanding through the chamber, dust mixing with wood chips in the shockwave as it splintered the support struts. Ferez had just a moment to register the shell surging towards him before it hit, flinging him back, spinning uncontrollably, before he thumped into the ground.

He groaned and sat up, wiggling his toes and fingers to make sure everything still worked, then climbed to his feet. He looked around, but couldn’t see anything through the pall of dirt.

“Ingrid! Are you alright?” he called.

“I’m fine. Give me a second,” she replied. A moment later, the cloud disappeared, though it was still too dark to see anything. He cast a ball of flame towards the ceiling, fixing it in place to properly illuminate the room. He found Ingrid, sweeping the remaining dust aside with her magic, and walked over to her.

His entire body felt like one enormous bruise, but he was thankfully fairly certain nothing was broken. Ingrid looked far worse off, though the fact she was up and about still was a good sign. As he approached, she gave him a curious look. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought it close to admiration.

“Mage artillery,” she said, giving him a small smile. “Insane concept, but I’d say it worked.”

“As though there was ever any doubt. It was inspired, if I say so myself.”

Ingrid scoffed, but her smile remained in place. “Sure. Let’s find DuBois’ body and get out of here. Hopefully we’ll get back to the camp before the guilders find it.”

They spread out through the room, and it wasn’t long before Ferez found DuBois. Part of him, anyway.

“I’ve got the shield!” he said. “And… an arm.”

Ingrid came over and looked down at the grisly mess at Ferez’s feet. The shield was lying face down in the dirt, an arm still secured through the straps. It had been removed at the shoulder, though not cleanly; the gleaming white head of the humerus poking out from amidst a mince of ligaments, tendons and muscle.

“Revolting,” Ingrid said, “any sign of the rest of him?”

“I am here!” DuBois’ nasally voice shrieked from behind them. They spun as he shuffled into view, clutching the bleeding stump of his shoulder.

“By the gods, how is he still alive?” Ferez asked.

DuBois was a mess. Aside from missing an arm, one of his feet was almost backwards, flopping around as he dragged it through the sand, and his stomach was split open, intestines bulging through the slit.

Ingrid sniffed. “Hardly matters, does it?” she said, extending a hand towards DuBois to deliver the killing blow. He screamed in rage and gestured towards them as though casting a spell. Ingrid laughed.

“What are you going to do? Use your own magic? You’re pathetic DuBois. Just accept your death with dignity.”

“They won’t let me! Not yet.”

Ferez frowned. He could sense pressure building in the air, but the signature wasn’t that of a Pyris mage. He turned and looked down at the shield. It was glowing.

He dived into Ingrid, wrapping his arms around her and throwing them both to the floor as the shield exploded. A wave of black flame picked them up and hurled them through the air, the heat scorching his body. The sensation of hunger from the castle came roaring back. The fire over his skin felt like a thousand tiny, serrated mouths were trying to devour him. He screamed as they crashed to the ground; the impact prising his arms open, Ingrid rolling away, limp.

“Ingrid!” he shouted, dragging himself hand over hand to her side. She groaned and punched a fist into the dirt, then pushed herself to her knees.

“He shouldn’t have been able to do that,” she snarled.

She was right, even mages couldn’t activate Resonance items from a distance, physical contact was needed. How the Pit had he managed… unless.

“He channelled Talent through his detached arm,” Ferez said, dragging himself to his knees, and then slowly, torturously climbing to his feet.

“You can do that?”

“Apparently.”

Ferez tried to marshal his power, but the last attack had left him scrambled. When he reached out for it, dredging it up from his core, he found it trickling away like grains of sand running through his fingers. He looked up and saw DuBois staggering towards them, dragging the shield towards them by the severed arm.

“Ingrid, can you fight?”

“No. I don’t know what that last attack was, but I can’t control my magic.”

“Shit, me neither. Alright, he can’t survive long in that state. We just need to outlast him. I’m going to pick you up, then we’re going to run-“

He was cut off as a wall of black flame sprang up around them. They were hemmed in on three sides, the only way out through DuBois. He smiled at Ferez, a glob of dark blood spilling over his lips and dribbling down his chin.

“Nevermind then,” Ferez said.

He brought his fists to his chin. It was a terrible strategy for an untrained mage, but he couldn’t think of anything else than to fight. It had worked for Ingrid, right?

“You ever fought hand to hand before, Ferez?” Ingrid asked from the floor behind him.

“No. But it’s just hitting, right? How hard can it be?”

“We’re fucked.”

DuBois laughed and held the shield out towards them, the artefact swaying slightly like a pendulum. Except instead of a length of string, there was a ravaged arm. The shield started to glow again.

“I will die here, college dog. But so will you. And they will still be here. Waiting. Another disciple will discover them. You have bought time for this world, nothing more.”

Insane fucking freak, Ferez thought, grinding his teeth as he waited for the death blow.

“You realise this is all in your head, right?” Ferez said. “There is no them, just you trapped in your own head with your fractured psyche.”

DuBois cackled. “Oh, you would like that, wouldn’t you? But you are wrong. Though, I suppose, death is a mercy for you? So you need not see what happens next? Yes, yes, we’re right. You’re welcome, college dog. Accept my gift with a smile of gratitude!”

The shield started glowing, and Ferez charged. He knew he would never make it in time, but it felt better than standing still and waiting. Time seemed to slow, every step taking him closer to DuBois, feeling his boots sink into the soft sand as the shield’s light built to a terrible crescendo. He was still a half dozen metres away when the shield flared, the black flames bursting into life around it. Ferez met DuBois’ eyes again, though instead of wide-eyed fear this time, they were scrunched up by his manic grin.

And then they did widen as his features rippled and distorted. He dropped the shield as he reached for his throat, and released from his control, the black flames fired off at random, ricocheting around the room. One caught Ferez in the chest and flung him back through the air. He hit the ground and rolled, back on his feet and charging in a second, but he skidded to a halt as he realised what had happened.

As he watched, the ball of water encapsulating DuBois’ head shrunk, the fluid sucking into his body through his nose and mouth. DuBois gurgled, clawing at his neck, trying to expel the water filling his lungs and throat. He fell to the ground, thrashing, dust spraying into the air with every frantic contortion, his movements slowing, becoming sluggish but no less panicked before finally he went still. Leo strode out of the dark, palm out towards the prone figure.

As Ferez greeted him, he tried to keep the surprise out of his voice, but from the knowing smile on Leo’s face, he was unsuccessful.

“What? You didn’t think I could handle a few assassins?”

“There was more than a few, Leo.”

The water mage shrugged. “Maybe I’m more capable than you give me credit for.”

Ferez laughed, walked over and clapped the mage on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you again.” He turned to look back at DuBois lying in the dirt. “Can you hold that water there for a little while? I want to be sure he’s dead this time.”

“Picking up what you’re putting down, Ferez,” Leo said, then clenched his fist. DuBois’ chest exploded in a spray of bone, blood, and pikes of ice. “Think that should do it?”

“Yeah,” Ferez said, slack jawed. “I think that should do it.”

“Great! Let’s get the fuck out of here, then. This place gives me the creeps.”