. 30-31

!!! Content Warning: Chapter 31 contains scenes of violence, blood, and gore.!!!

Chapter 30

"Let me guess. Big, red, and horny decided to stay in his own room?" Lethelin asked when Allora returned without him.

Mitchell looked up from where he was trying to arrange his sleeping area between the cot and Lethelin's mat against the far wall and saw the pained look on the elf's face.

"What happened?" he asked.

Allora drew in a deep breath and said, "Revos will not be traveling with us across the mountains. We will leave without him in the morning."

Mitchell felt a knot of fear begin to grow in his stomach. He had been counting on Revos having their backs.

"What happened? Should I go talk to him?" Mitchell asked.

Allora wobbled her head.

"No, do not. He made his position quite clear. He will return to Kazig."

Allora took a deep breath and seemed to put the matter behind her.

"The plan Mitchell suggested has not changed. We will get what sleep we can and leave out well before dawn. I will ward the door, just in case.

Allora spent the next several minutes with a piece of chalk drawing runes on the door frame. The actual door itself was not a flat enough surface to get a powerful rune inscribed without line breaks, but she managed some basic alarm runes and one minor shock rune that would go off if it were opened from the outside. She used the moment to introduce Mitchell to how wards worked.

"They function much the same way as a spell rune that you form in your mind but they must be modified to hold the mana that is required to charge them."

Off to the side on a segment of wall to the left of the door, she drew the rune for the light cantrip he had learned. Her strokes were deft and sure and he envied her confidence.

"This is the rune you have learned. Look here, here, and here. See where the channel lines extend past the boundary line?"

Mitchell nodded that he did.

"These allow the power to be directed where you wish it to go. Preferably into a sevith. Try to channel into the rune, but don't shape it beforehand. Touch it anywhere inside the boundary line and push the mana into it."

Mitchell did as he was instructed and there was a small flash of light that went out almost immediately.

"The mana filled the circle but it escaped through the lines that broke the boundary. If you maintained the flow it would stay lit, but would go out as soon as you stopped. But if I do this..."

Allora drew an elegant curve off of each channel line that broke the boundary and connected it to a section of the encircling boundary line that touched another of the channel lines inside the circle. It gave it an almost floral appearance.

"This allows the mana to flow back into the rune and maintain its energy. Try it again."

Mitchell did and this time it stayed lit. He watched in awe as the mana filled the channel lines, hit the boundary, broke through, and then funneled back in. It lasted all of ten or fifteen seconds before it emitted a small puff of smoke and winked out.

"What happened?"

Allora held up her piece of chalk and explained.

"This will not hold the charge for very long. The runes I've drawn on the frame are passive, so the energy doesn't degrade the chalk very quickly. But the light spell is more intensive. The small shock spell was about the limit of what it could do and it will fail before the sun rises."

"That's all fascinating but if the lesson is complete, some of us would like to sleep," Lethelin quipped from the floor. "By my count, we've got less than five hours before we need to be on the move."

Allora gave a small smile of embarrassment but agreed.

Mitchell thanked her for the brief lesson and then crawled into his mat. Allora laid down in her cot and shifted about several times before settling into a position.

"I think you two had the right idea sleeping on the floor," Allora said with a grimace. "This cot is... uncomfortable."

She blew out the candle and the only light was the soft glow of Ithstasy coming through the window.

Mitchell tried to sleep but found it would not come. He was nervous. It didn't seem to bother Lethelin, who was softly snoring beside him. He heard the cot creak, the wood frame groaned, and then Allora's arm slipped down off the bed. He felt it brush up against his wrist. Very delicately, he moved his hands and let his fingers touch hers. To his shock, she hooked her fingers into his. It was tentative at first, but then she held them firmly.

Mitchell opened his eyes and saw her face was just at the edge of the cot and she was looking down at him. They stared at each other for a long moment. Mitchell almost got lost in the dark purple pools of her eyes. Rather than looking alien to him as they first had, her eyes had become one of the things he liked most about her.

"You know," he said quietly. "I think a lot about that night you found me."

"As do I."

"I wonder if you were just a regular girl from my world and we had met under normal circumstances and that had been our first time meeting, would we have liked each other?"

"I do not know," Allora said. "It is hard for me to imagine living a life there. I do not know what kind of woman I would be in your world. Who would I be without my magic and my training? It is all I have ever known." After a small pause, she added, "But I am glad you are with me in mine."

Those words were like a jolt through Mitchell's body and he squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.

"Do you think we will be okay without Revos?" Mitchell asked her.

"He was never supposed to journey back with us. I had planned for only the two of us to return to Awenor. We would have traveled quickly along the Diran road and made it here weeks earlier. But this worked to our benefit as we had the time to train you with the sword and your magic. It would have been harder to teach you magic without him. He is much more skilled than I in that area. He has decades of experience and knowledge. His departure is a loss, but I think we will be okay."

"Lora..." Mitchell began, weighing his words carefully before he spoke. "I am glad I'm here."

She raised her head up to look at him more fully.

"A lot about this has been terrible," he continued. "And I've accepted that we're probably all going to die, but... I think this is where I'm supposed to be. I never believed in destiny before, but if there is such a thing then I feel like this is mine."

In the soft glow of the moonlight, Mitchell could make out a glistening around Allora's eyes. She smiled warmly and then put her head back down without answering. She didn't take her hand out of his, though.

***

"The common room is empty," Lethelin said as she stuck her head just inside the door where Mitchell and Allora stood waiting. "I say we go now before Yarlest shows up in the kitchen to get breakfast started."

Lethelin started to back out of the door then suddenly stopped. There was some digging around under her cloak and her hand emerged with two gold talons. She put them just inside the door on a ledge, then ducked out.

Mitchell looked at Allora who looked at him and then shrugged. Mitchell shrugged too and they exited as quietly as they could. He didn't know how she did it but Lethelin's feet were near silent even on the old floorboards of this ramshackle inn. To Mitchell, his and Allora's steps sounded loud enough to rouse everyone within two blocks but no one emerged telling them to keep it down and before long they were out the back door of the inn near the stables.

"Let me scout ahead," Lethelin said, her voice a near whisper. She raised the cloak of her hood and immediately her edges blurred. After only a half dozen steps, she was nearly invisible in the darkness. Mitchell glanced about and tried to ignore the feeling that they were being watched. He felt a tightness across his shoulders and lower back and every small gust of wind made him want to bolt.

As for Allora, she wasn't taking any chances. She'd swapped out a couple of partially used gemstones from her sevith and her sword was out and ready. Mitchell had his out as well but didn't feel nearly as confident as he would have liked. He tried to remember that he already had more training than a lot of common cutpurses and petty tough guys they might come across but since he'd never swung his blade in real combat before, it was all theory. While they waited, he began reviewing sword maneuvers in his head, recalling the positions and footwork that each required. It wasn't much, but it helped calm his mind. If he had to guess, he would say he'd done a lot of those moves hundreds -- maybe thousands --of times in practice. Reviewing them now was almost meditative.

Around five minutes passed before Lethelin's hazy form emerged from the darkness nearly on top of them. Mitchell and Allora both jerked in surprise but recovered quickly enough.

"There was a sentry at the end of the street. A local from the looks of it. I took care of him. We're clear until the large intersection at the end of this row of buildings."

Mitchell looked at Allora, expecting her to argue about needless killing again, but whatever misgivings she had had about Lethelin's actions earlier, she didn't have them now. Instead, she nodded grimly and they set off, Lethelin leading the way about ten meters ahead and invisible. Allora had excellent night vision but couldn't move as silently as the thief and stealth was preferred here.

As they walked, Mitchell started humming the tune from Mission: Impossible. He couldn't help it.

"Dun dun dun-dun dun dun dun dun-dun-dun, dadada!" he whispered.

Allora turned to look at him like he was a crazy person.

"What are you doing?" she said, her tone incredulous.

Mitchell grinned. "Sorry, it's just that we're trying to be sneaky and it reminded me of this--"

She stopped walking and stared at him with a flat face.

"Never mind"

They made it to the end of the block without incident and Allora whispered the next couple of streets they had to get through before making their way to the merchant's shop.

They veered right into an alley, walked about forty meters, and then stopped at an intersection with a road wide enough for maybe two wagons abreast. Just across and to the right was Nothok's shop. A lone lantern glowed from a hook next to the door. There would be no cover as they crossed the street and they all knew it.

"What should we do?" Lethelin whispered.

"That's where we need to go, right?" Mitchell asked Allora.

She nodded and Mitchell could see her eyes examining the darkness in search of other sentries or ambushers. The wind was the only sound they heard at this early hour as it blew through the shabby buildings around them. Here and there, he could make out the creak of a window shutter or sign as they rocked in the near steady breeze. Nothing on the street moved and shadows cloaked everything.

"Let's go then," Mitchell said. "Dawn won't wait for us. We'll move together. Be ready."

That last part made him cringe a little. Be ready? Of course, they would be ready. They were strung as tightly as a bow. Still, it had sounded good in his mind. Like it was something the hero ought to say. They always talked like that in the movies, anyway.

Mitchell took the first step and they followed him, Allora on his right and Lethelin on his left. Her cloak was still up so anyone more than a couple of meters away wouldn't even see her. Their first few steps were cautious as they tried to look everywhere at once. Mitchell wanted to be holding a spell at the ready but Allora had warned him that the glow would be visible. There were krisas and seviths that kept the gemstones covered but they weren't popular since it made swapping stones in an emergency a difficult task and one that usually cost the caster's life.

Mitchell was just beginning to think their plan had worked as they neared the merchant shop when he caught a glimmer of light from down the street to his right. Allora noticed at the same time and uttered a cry as she flung her sword arm up horizontally across her body, the stone in the pommel glowing like a mini sun in the pre-dawn darkness. A few inches out in front of her a dome shimmered into existence. At almost the same instant, purple-black chords of energy struck the conjured shield with enough force that Allora staggered back and into him. There was a ripping sound and the shield broke under the assault, but it had done its job and stopped the attack.

"Stollar's hairy asshole," Lethelin whispered harshly from behind. "Four of them just stepped out from some sort of concealment spell."

Mitchell kept his eyes trained on the tall man who was walking down the center of the street. Three more men emerged from the shadows behind him.

"Three down this street," Mitchell told her. "Plus our boy Dakath, I think."

The one Mitchell pegged as Dakath was definitely a cut above the lackeys he had with him. He was at least as tall as Allora and had broad shoulders. His silver-white hair hung loose around his shoulders and his face was almost angelic in its angular pale beauty. In the paltry light of the lone lantern of Nothok's shop, his eyes were silver in color. He wore form-fitting black leather armor and from his right hand extended a long blade made with a black metal that reflected almost no light. In the darkness, Mitchell had to strain to see it. The man's cold eyes were locked on Allora.

"I would have been disappointed if that had worked," he said as he strode forward like he was out for a walk in the country.

Chapter 31

Rather than the deep and ominous intonation Mitchell had expected, Dakath's voice was almost lilting and feminine. It was clearly male, but it was the kind of male he used to see on K-pop boy band members back home. However, while they had been sculpted by the finest plastic surgeons in South Korea, Dakath's masculine beauty was all natural. If it weren't for the unusually long and pointed Spock ears, he would have fit right in on a fashion runway.

The men around him looked to be all local. Their clothing appeared to be whatever they'd shown up in that day and they carried a mishmash of weapons. Four had swords but only two of them looked like they knew how to use them given their stances. The other two looked less confident, their backbones stiffened only by the superior numbers. The other men held axes of various sizes but again only one or two of them looked like they had experience using them. Mitchell was somewhat surprised at himself that he could determine just by how they were standing who possessed ability and who did not. The hours of drilling had done more than teach him how to hold his sword, it seemed.

Dakath had stopped about thirty feet away and regarded them with an appraising eye. He squinted past Mitchell and then grunted.

"That is a clever disguise you have there, little human."

"You like it?" Lethelin asked. "Come a little closer and I'll show you how it works."

The men with him jerked in surprise. To their eyes, the voice had come from nowhere. Whatever skill Dakath had used to see her, the others didn't share it.

The tall elf chuckled.

"That would not go well for you. But you are not the one I was paid to find and bring in. I'll grant you your life if you leave now. This is the only offer you will get. I am here for the knight and her companion. You don't need to die today."

Mitchell heard Allora inhale sharply and he thought he knew why. She had made her distrust of their companion clear from the beginning. Lethelin had made a deal with them, and had sworn on it, but could they really trust her? He hoped they could. That moment in the gardens at Besari had felt genuine. Like something had really passed between them. Mitchell had no way of knowing if it was more to her, though. This also wasn't helped by the fact that she had been acting distant with him ever since. Would she abandon them now? The silence stretched. It felt like hours but in reality was only a few seconds.

"It will hurt me to kill someone as pretty as yourself," she finally said from just behind Mitchell's shoulder. "But I'll get over it."

Mitchell almost sagged in relief. She was not going to run.

Dakath's thin pale lips stretched into an almost feral grin but he didn't answer. He turned his attention back to Allora.

"The preference is to bring you in alive," he said. "However, I think we both know you don't intend to surrender. Still, I'll give you this chance. Call it a courtesy extended to the last Onyx Knight."

Before Allora could respond the man reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out three small black stones. He tossed them one at a time about halfway between himself and the three of them. They landed on the hard-packed dirt with small thumps.

Allora sucked in a breath at the sight of them and he could see her start to quiver with rage. Dakath noticed and smirked wickedly. He brought his sword up to the ready position.

Mitchell had a sneaking suspicion of what those stones were and he knew why she was so angry.

"If you keep him occupied, I think Lethelin and I can handle the others," Mitchell whispered to Allora. He knew she was close enough to hear him with her superior senses, but didn't know if Dakath could or not. "Once they're dealt with we'll assist."

The only answer were the lights on Allora's krisa which began to glow. Mitchell also summoned the one defensive spell he knew, the arcane missile and, almost as if on instinct, everyone leapt into action at the same time.

Mitchell flung out his hand and released three arcane missiles at the orc to the left of Dakath. At the same time Lora seemed to disappear and reappear just in front of Dakath, sword already in motion. Only one of Mitchell's missiles found their target but it hit him squarely in his unarmored chest, sending him to the ground. Mitchell moved quickly, unsure if his opponent would rise again. He moved away from the assassin and towards the four men that had come up behind them. He looked for Lethelin but with her cloak she was all but invisible. One man was down with a dagger through his throat and two more were moving back to back trying to find her in the dark. The third one was charging at Mitchell, sword already swinging down.

Some cold, analytical part of Mitchell's mind analyzed the thug as he watched the man coming at him. It was almost like time slowed down.

"He's swinging from the shoulder, not the elbow. He thinks it makes the strike more powerful," the voice in his head said. "Arm overextended, leaving his chest wide open. Running heel to toe, he'll be off balance. Take the strike, deflect to the side, punch in the throat, stab through the chest as he staggers back. Aim for the heart."

All this in barely a second. Mitchell blinked and almost as if his arm didn't need the command, he brought his blade up to accept a wild swing from the hired muscle. The man was yelling a sort of war cry but it sounded far away to Mitchell. The blade's blow sent shockwaves up to his shoulder, but he didn't hit any harder than Allora had and he found he knew how to absorb it. Twisting his body and the sword at an angle towards the ground to deflect the downward force of the man's strike, Mitchell could close the distance with him as his enemy's momentum propelled him into arm's reach. Just like he had imagined, his left hand formed a fist and jabbed his opponent in the throat with one quick, solid strike.

There was a wet crunching sound as something inside broke under the force of the blow and the man staggered back, a look of incomprehension on his grizzled face. He dropped his sword as both hands came up to clutch at his ruined neck. Mitchell was so shocked it had actually worked that he almost forgot to finish the job. He lunged forward extending his arm just as he had practiced hundreds of times and the blade slipped into his stomach just below his sternum with almost no resistance. The man tried to scream but his throat was smashed and all that came out was a gurgle. Mitchell stood back up, withdrawing his weapon from the man's body and stared in disbelief as he fell over. The whole thing had taken barely six seconds and the man was dying, bleeding out on the ground in front of him. He'd never killed anyone before. Oh fuck, he'd just killed someone! Technically the man was still alive but he had only moments left. He--