Chapter 21 #2
The archer emerges from the trees at a run, alerted by his partner’s cry. His crow mask sits crooked on his face, revealing part of his jaw. Dark blood coats his neck. My throwing knife must have cut deeper than I thought.
“You’re dead!” he rasps. “You’re fucking dead, Wolf!”
He draws another arrow but his hands shake with rage. I throw myself sideways as he releases. Under normal circumstances, he’d never miss by that margin. But blood loss and rage have destroyed his aim.
He’s reaching for another when I charge him.
These hunters forgot that I’m trained by the guild too.
We all learned the same techniques and survived the same brutal training regime. The hunters have advantages of course with their better equipment and the element of surprise but in terms of pure skill, we’re matched. I have something they don’t.
Nothing left to lose.
I close the distance before he can nock the second arrow and drive my shoulder into his chest. I feel his ribs compress and his breath forced from his lungs.
The bow goes flying from his hands. We go down together, rolling through dead leaves and mud.
His elbow catches my jaw as we tumble down a slight slope.
He bucks me off and we scramble apart.
We end up on our feet simultaneously, circling like animals. This is two guild assassins fighting for survival, and only one of us is walking away.
“Just die already!” He draws his twin falchions.
The blades appear in his hands smoothly, custom-made for his fighting style. The perfect balance in his stance tells me everything I need to know.
This bastard is extensively trained with dual weapons.
Shit.
He comes at me fast. The attack is a whirlwind of steel, both blades moving in deadly spins. His feints turn into real strikes. The falchions move in complementary arcs, creating an offense that’s nearly impossible to defend against.
I parry the first strike but I have nothing to stop the left. It slides across my forearm like a razor. Hot blood runs down to my palm, making my grip slippery. I move back toward a cluster of close-growing trees. The space between them is tight, barely wide enough for one person.
Come on closer. I retreat further deliberately, trading open ground for tactical advantage.
The archer presses harder, overconfident now that he’s drawn blood.
His patterns get wilder and flashier with unnecessary spins.
It’s the mistake everyone makes when they think they’ve already won.
The tight spacing limits his range of movements, forcing him to adjust his wide dual-blade style.
His wide sweeping patterns can’t fully extend.
He overextends on a thrust and I redirect it, sending one of his own blades into his thigh.
“Damn you!” He screams and stumbles. His own strength drives it deep. He looks down at the blade buried in his leg like he can’t understand how it got there. His other falchion wavers as shock wars with pain for control of his body.
My boot catches him in the chest, sending him backward into a tree trunk.
I’m about to press my advantage when instinct screams a warning. I throw myself belly-first into the dirt and dead leaves. My chin hits the ground hard enough to rattle my teeth.
The mage tosses a goddamn sword at me. His aim is terrible but the blade still nearly takes my head off. I hear it embed itself in a tree trunk behind me with a solid thunk.
“End of the line, Wolf.” The mage calls out. I can hear him moving through the underbrush, circling to get a better angle. He’s learned his lesson about getting too close.
“You were one of us,” he yells from somewhere in the undergrowth, keeping his distance. “You know how this ends. Surrender and we’ll make it quick.”
The offer is almost tempting. Quick death versus slow torture in the crypts. But I don’t trust them to keep that promise.
The archer is climbing to his feet, trying to pull my knife from his thigh with a grunt.
I watch him through the screen of leaves. He grabs the hilt with both hands and yanks hard. The blade comes free and blood immediately pours from the wound. He rips a piece from his cloak to wrap the injury.
I’ve used most of my tricks.
My throwing knives are all gone except for the blunt one in my left sleeve.
They’re stuck in the archer or lost in the forest floor.
I lost my short sword after being dragged by the mage’s vine.
The poison is making my movements imprecise.
My shoulder, forearm, and legs are all bleeding. I’m running on fumes and spite.
Time for something desperate.
I pull the blunt knife from my sleeve. It’s my smallest blade but it’s all I have left. I calculate the angle and distance properly, knowing I only get one shot at this.
My target is not the crow masked archer but at the heavy branch above his head.
The dead wood looks unstable, still clinging to the tree despite the rot.
I noticed it earlier when he slammed his falchion into the trunk.
There’s a visible crack running through its center.
It’s barely holding on, ready to fall with the right encouragement.
I release the blade and it sinks in.
For a moment nothing happens. The branch groans as the crack spreads. It’s beginning to give way under its own weight and starts to fall. The archer looks up just in time to see death coming for him. It crashes down where he was standing, exploding into splinters and fragments.
He dives aside just in time but the impact sends debris flying to his face. That should buy me some time. Seconds are an eternity when you’re running for your life.
I use them to run.
I can taste blood in my mouth and every breath is agony. But I’m moving. My vision blurs at the edges. The numbness has spread from my shoulder down my entire left side.
Fuck this poison.
The world develops halos, double images that make it hard to judge distance. I stumble over obstacles as the colors bleed together.
Behind me, the mage snarls something in the old tongue.
“Ghren’thasvik!”
The spell hits me mid-stride.
My legs lock instantly, every muscle in my body seizing at once. I can’t even get my hands out to break the fall. I crash to the forest floor like dead weight. Blood immediately floods my eye. I try to move but my body won’t respond.
Each breath is a struggle, my diaphragm barely responding to desperate commands. I manage shallow, gasping breaths that don’t provide nearly enough air. My vision starts to darken at the edges. Blinking is a monumental effort that I can only accomplish every ten or fifteen seconds.
It’s a paralysis spell perfectly executed.
Shepherd once taught me that it is one of the hardest spells to cast correctly. Too much power and you stop the heart. Too little and the target can still fight. This is perfect, the work of a savant.
There’s no room for escape.
I’m done.
No clever trick will save me now. I’m paralyzed, bleeding, poisoned, and surrounded by professional hunters.
This is how it ends.
Footsteps approach me. Two sets, one limping heavily, the other moving with ease. They’re taking their time now, savoring the victory. I’m not going anywhere and we all know it.
“That was significantly more entertaining than expected,” the archer says, limping into view.
He moves stiffly, favoring his wounded leg.
Each step leaves a boot print dark with blood.
The beak of his crow mask sits askew on his face, knocked loose during our fight.
But he’s smiling behind it. “Color me impressed. The failure actually has some fight left in him.”
“He’s exhausted, poisoned, and injured,” the mage observes coldly. “Hardly sporting at this point.”
His voice comes from my left, outside my limited field of vision. I can hear him but can’t see him.
The archer prods me with his boot, purposely pressing into my injured ribs.
Pain explodes through my chest. But the paralysis spell is absolute. I feel the pressure yet I can’t even flinch let alone scream.
The archer removes his boot from my chest, leaving behind a muddy imprint on my ribs. He circles me slowly, examining me from different angles.”He fights well for someone who failed his last three contracts. Better than his guild records suggested.”
“He’s a Wolven of the Sylverin clan,” the mage points out. “Of course he fights well.”
“Well, he made me bleed,” the archer says, touching his bandaged thigh. “Standard retrieval is boring. I vote we get creative.”
There’s an eagerness in his voice that makes my stomach turn.
The mage tilts his head. “So what do we do with him?”
My fate hangs on their whim and there’s nothing I can do to influence it.
“We’re supposed to deliver a fate worse than death for his desertion.
” The archer traces his knife along my paralyzed arm, the point dragging across skin without breaking it.
I feel every little inch of that blade’s journey.
The promise of pain contained in that gentle pressure.
“Let’s cut him open nice and slow. We’ll pack him with stones and sink him in the river. ”
An image of it forms in my mind. My belly split open, stones weighing down my corpse. It’s exactly the kind of death the guild approves of for failures who run.
The mage clicks his tongue.
“The river’s two days from here,” he mutters dryly.
His protest has nothing to do with kindness.
“Guild will pay us better if we deliver him alive.”
A live retrieval is worth more than a corpse. Delivered to the guild house in one piece means a full bounty.
He reaches up and removes his reaper mask.
The face beneath is younger than his voice suggested, smooth skin unmarred by scars.
There are no distinguishing marks except for those cold eyes the color of winter ice.
Pale blue, almost colorless. They’re completely devoid of empathy. I’ve seen warmer eyes on corpses.
I burn every detail and every line into memory.
If I survive this, I will find him again.
The vow forms in what’s left of my conscious mind, searing itself into my memory. I will make him pay.
The archer leans closer. He’s close enough that I could bite him if my jaw worked. “He doesn’t even have the Sylverin clans silver fang,” the archer says, studying me with disappointment. “Would’ve been fun to hunt an actual wolf.”
He wanted the prestige of hunting down a real wolven warrior. Instead he got me. A broken remnant who cannot shift.
Something flickers in the mage’s expression. “Wait. I think I have something.”
His eyes light up with the particular gleam.
The archer turns to the mage. “I know that face. What are you scheming?”
He steps back slightly when his partner’s fingers start to glow with sickly green light. Even the archer recognizes danger when he sees it. This particular shade of green means necromantic magic.
“You and your little tricks, Quinnlan,” the archer scoffs.
“It’s not tricks. This is art.” The mage kneels beside me, bringing those glowing fingers closer to my face. “Though I don’t know if it would work.”
The air around his hand shimmers with heat or power or both. I can feel the magic radiating from his fingers.
These fucking bastards. Stop…
I try to curse them but the paralysis holds my tongue as firmly as my limbs. Rage builds inside me with nowhere to go. I can’t even manage a growl.
As soon as the light touches my forehead the world detonates into agony.
Everything becomes pain. The paralysis spell keeps me from moving but doesn’t block sensation. I feel everything.
Pressure builds in my skull as the magic floods through me.
It feels like I’m being skinned alive from the inside out.
Every layer of skin, muscle, tissue is being peeled away by invisible hands.
My bones are breaking, reforming, and breaking again.
The cycle repeats endlessly, each iteration bringing fresh waves of agony.
I am being torn apart while something else builds itself in the ruins. The pain comes in waves, constantly layering on itself until there’s nothing else. I have no thoughts or awareness beyond the endless breaking. My mind fractures under the assault. I exist only as a scream that can’t escape.
Fur erupts through my flesh like a thousand needles piercing outward. My hands spasm and claws burst through where fingernails used to be. They tear through the nail beds, through flesh, extending far beyond where fingers should end.
“What’s happening?” The archer asks uncertainly.
“Mor’thesian Binding,” the mage answers casually as I writhe. “A curse.”
His voice is calm and utterly detached from the horror he’s inflicting.
The paralysis spell is still active, keeping me locked in place even as my body tears itself apart. I don’t even get the mercy of passing out from the agony.
There’s no escape into unconsciousness as I am being unmade.
All I can do is burn.