Chapter One #2
This was about him testing me, which meant I had to prove I was capable of fighting without the shard. I wanted to scare him off and realize that Gladewood wasn’t easy pickings, but I didn’t want to die in the process.
I signaled for the girls to hang back when I heard Raeth let out a low growl and step forward. This wasn’t for them to get involved with yet. I had to show Shaar that I wasn’t some whelp who could be walked over.
Another burst of compressed air barreled toward me from Shaar’s outstretched palm, but I leaped out of the way before it could get me. Loose stones and leaves spiraled behind me and shot straight into the villagers, but I kept my gaze on the stoic Lieutenant.
“Cheap,” I scoffed as I wiped the sweat forming on my brow with the sleeve of my shirt. “Is that all you’re good for?”
“I’m just warming up, Noah,” Shaar said as he cracked his knuckles against his palms. “I’m quite new to this magic thing, if you can believe it.”
“But Drakar gave you a little taste, right?” I asked as I rolled the hilt of the sword against my palm. “He’s done that before. An asshole named Malacor.”
“Mayor Malacor?” Shaar asked. “Yes, I know all about him. And all about his failure.”
“You’ll face the same fate if you fuck with me and my town,” I said as I prowled back and forth in front of him.
“Ahhh, but that’s where you’re wrong, Noah,” the cocky Lieutenant drawled. “I don’t plan on following in Malacor’s footsteps.”
“What do you plan on doing then?” I snapped.
“I plan on carving my own,” Shaar said, before he flicked his wrists upward in a sharp motion.
Two small daggers slid up from the long sleeve of his robe, and he brandished them with a sneer.
My eyes widened in surprise, but him using a physical weapon meant we were on somewhat equal ground. I got into a defensive stance by putting one foot further in front of the other, and I held the blade at an angle to protect my body.
Shaar let out a huff of laughter, but then he was sprinting toward me in a swirl of black fabric.
One dagger slashed upward in an attempt to gut me, but I quickly knocked the small blade back with Karrida’s shortsword. The other blade swooped across from the right in a wide arc, and I managed to bend my body out of the way before he could nick my arm.
Shaar let out a snarl at the dodge and spun his arms in a frantic spiral. He was a blur of black hair and scars. I shot my blade up to block the unpredictable attack, and the steel of our blades clashed with a hiss.
The Lieutenant pushed all of his weight against my sword and bared his exposed teeth at me like a feral wolf.
He was strong even though he didn’t look like it. My arms were shaking as I pushed back against him, but he was still pressing down on his daggers like his life depended on it.
“Noah!” I heard Ellyn cry out from behind me, but I didn’t take my eyes off Shaar’s.
“Don’t,” I growled out as I pressed my blade harder against Shaar’s daggers. “Stay there.”
This was between me and Shaar. I didn’t want his gaze drifting to my girls for any reason, and I definitely didn’t want him to see them as a threat, too, and try and get rid of them.
“Need backup, Noah?” the scarred elf sneered. “They look like they could be a bit of fun.”
“In your dreams, Shaar,” I snapped. “You touch them, and I’ll burn you to the goddamn ground.”
“Oh, now that sounds like fun,” he said with a flick of his tongue that almost looked serpentine.
Suddenly, Shaar pulled back, which sent me staggering forward, but he was already marching toward my girlfriends. Raeth stood in front of the three of them with her sword drawn and ready, but I wasn’t going to let her get a hit in.
I grabbed the back of Shaar’s robe and yanked him back with all of my might.
He jerked back in my grip and went flying through the air, and the nimble elf slammed against the cobblestones with a grunt. Despite being winded, he looked up at me with that infuriating grin and dusted off the sprinkles of stone that had settled on his chest from the fall.
“Quite the arm on you,” he commented as he leaned onto his elbows. “I guess I’ve found your weak spot.”
“Trust me, they can handle themselves,” I said as I put myself in front of Raeth. “If anything, I’m doing you a favor.”
“I suppose I’ll have to believe that when I see it.” Shaar’s words were punctuated by his palms slamming into the ground beneath him.
As soon as his skin hit the bloodied stones, the ground rattled. The cracks in the earth, which had swallowed the soldiers before, reopened like bleeding wounds, and from their inky depths, bright green fire crawled out and started to inch its way toward the villagers.
“Enough!” I bellowed. “This is between you and me!”
“Very well.” Shaar twisted his hands against the cobblestones, and the fire redirected its course.
It spat with fury, and I watched as the green flames crept closer toward my feet.
The shard tugged and pulled in my chest, but I refused to call it to me. It was too risky, and I wouldn’t let Shaar take it.
So, I braced myself for the fiery inferno, but it never came.
A sudden gust of wind blew the flames back toward Shaar, who quickly scrambled to his feet. I dared a glance over my shoulder, only to see Ellyn with her hands outstretched in front of her and a determined scowl on her face.
When I glanced back at Shaar, his mutilated lips twitched into a smirk, and he flicked his wrists one more time. The daggers slid out from under his sleeves and magically swirled in a circular motion around him.
Raeth took a step forward, too, and she raised her great sword in an angled position in front of her chest.
Tirii tugged Karrida back since the half-dwarf was defenseless, but I knew that just having Raeth and my wife behind me was enough.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t fend for myself or needed them to fight with me, but it seemed like the right time for Shaar to realize we weren’t a town of weaklings.
Shaar’s dark eyes darted between the three of us, as if he was sizing us up for dinner.
In one sudden, fluid movement, the daggers swirling in the air split in two different directions, like magnets being pulled apart. One shot straight toward me, while the other swerved toward Raeth.
My blade moved before I even processed it, and steel kissed steel with a harsh hiss. The dagger clattered to the ground before rising up again and flying back to its master.
Raeth had similar reflexes, but rather than letting it fly away, the intimidating half-orc had snatched the blade from the air and was now fighting against its strength as it tried to get back to its master.
While the other dagger zoomed toward me again, Shaar’s hand contorted as if he were pulling a puppet on a string. Fire trickled from the exposed cracks in the ground and barreled toward Ellyn, but my wife quickly knocked back the incoming plume with another gust of wind.
I swung my blade with more force this time as the dagger honed in on me, and when the steel met this time, Shaar’s blade shattered. Metal rained down onto the cobbles below my feet, but the Lieutenant was too busy pushing back against Ellyn’s wind to notice.
Raeth had sacrificed her sword to wrap both hands around the dagger’s hilt, and her large muscular body was being dragged forward.
She grunted, and that was enough to snap a fragment of Shaar’s attention. The hilt of the dagger began to glow bright red between Raeth’s light green fingers, and she suddenly let go of the burning dagger with a hiss.
The blade whizzed through the air and back to its master, but this time, he didn’t send it back out. It slipped back into his robe, and with a dramatic roundhouse kick, Ellyn’s wind was blown back against her.
Tirii caught her body before she could fall to the ground, and I let out a threatening growl as I turned my fiery gaze back to the intruder.
“You’re good,” the dark-haired elf said breathlessly. “I’ll give you that.”
“Leave,” I snarled. “Or this will be your grave.”