As she ran for the swordsman and Amberly, she spotted Thelonious’ discarded dagger and grabbed it off the ground, even as she began her incantation. Syline didn’t need to take aim; she simply raised her wand and from it came three arcane darts, one after the other with perfect accuracy at the ankle of the man harrying Amberly. She hadn’t the strength of spell to kill him outright, but three magical darts to the ankle were enough to trip up most anyone.
The man stumbled to the ground, getting a face full of snow. Syline ran for him in that moment of weakness. She fell to one knee in her sprint and stabbed the blade into the back of his thigh. A painful wound, one that would leave him out of the fight and rolling in agony, but not a lethal one, she hoped, Thelonious or Amberly might’ve gone for a killing blow, but as long as he wasn’t getting up, that was enough for her. The blade sank halfway to the hilt into his thigh. The man shrieked, shrill and incoherent with agony. Syline’s heart fluttered with guilt before she forced it to harden.
Corax, startled, flew up and out of Syline’s robes.
‘Corax! Help Thelonious! Get in the archers’ faces,’ she called to her brave little familiar, even as she prayed the bird would be alright as he flapped away.
Her eyes were on her goal ahead as she scrambled back to her feet past the man, her staff and axe left behind in the snow. She thrust her wand down her robes; if it fell out, she could retrieve it later. For now, it was fairly snug there. She went as low to the ground as she dared and didn’t slow as she grabbed her staff and axe, actually skidding through the snow a bit as she turned back to the fight. She was out of breath already. That damned dragon beast had left her sides aching and she was still finding it hard to catch her breath.
Thelonious was harrying his foes, his sheer mass and rage pushing them back as they struggled to form a fighting front, but Teagan had joined the fight. Their numbers would give them an advantage if Syline didn’t intercede. That came to her when one split off from the trio, his fellows redoubling their assault to stop Thelonious going after the man as he came for Syline, seeing the wizardess alone. She had her staff now and she felt a fair bit more confident with it in hand. The man was rushing for her at full pelt. He wore no true plate armour like Thelonious, just studded leathers, and carried a small buckler in one hand, a short, jagged blade in the other. He ran with it held back and the buckler forward as if expecting a blow to deflect.
Syline didn’t give one to him, murmuring an incantation, she held the staff up as if to attack him with a spell and disappeared.
The man pulled up short and cursed, head turning this way and that. Syline ran to the side, but unexpectedly, the man followed. Heading straight for her. He swung wildly at the air and received a squeal as his blade opened a deep gash along Syline’s bicep. She floundered, stumbling.
‘I can see your feet in the snow, you daft bitch!’ the man cackled.
Syline would have cursed herself a fool if she had time. Instead, she used the advantage she still had he couldn’t see her movements. Nor could he see as she ducked under his next swing. Dropping her axe and grasping her staff in both hands, she stabbed it like a spear, right between the man’s legs.
Her mother would curse her out for it, but in a battle where they were so massively outnumbered, Syline didn’t feel all that bad for not fighting “fair”. The man made a noise all too similar to a stuck pig, hands instinctively going to cover his crotch. Right as Syline’s invisibility spell ended, she pulled the staff back, ready to stab the butt of it into his nose as he doubled over. That was when she felt a terrible weight slam into her back, and she found herself sent sprawling, pain blossoming all down her right side as she was thrown into the snow. Bounding past, both her and her opponent, was Yaldabaoth, Amberly on its back, barely holding on as the demonic creature bucked wildly.
Syline heard the crunch of foot on snow and turned just in time to hold her staff up, blocking the slash the man had thrown at her back. He bore over her, grabbing the staff and wrenching it down as he flipped his grip on his sword. Syline began to panic, not just at the situation but at the memories it brought out. Her heart raced. His face melded with that of the man in the woodshed. Syline kicked out, striking him in the crotch yet again. He held on, but his eyes widened. He tried to strike down, but she jerked her body to the side and the blade embedded in the snow, just beside her head. She screamed her defiance and kicked again and again, but the man’s only reply was to wrap an arm around her throat and hold her in place as he slowly brought his dagger down to her. His grip was shaking, his eyes watering, but he didn’t let go.
Syline had begun to cry as well, tears streaming down her face as fear really did fill her now, when the man suddenly tumbled off her in a heap with Amberly, who had leapt from Yaldabaoth’s back to protect Syline as they passed. The man shoved her off and Amberly was quick to her feet. The man was a fair sight slower, his legs shaking with agony, but he still managed to deflect Amberly’s opening thrusts on his buckler. That did little to help him, however, when Syline rose, trembling with terror and trauma-fuelled fury and came running in behind Amberly, swinging her staff at his knee like it was a great club. A most terrible crunch followed as the man’s leg bent in entirely the wrong direction. He screamed, tumbling to the ground, holding his leg and shuddering, as he still vaguely waved his buckler above him to protect himself.
Content that he was no longer a threat, both girls left him there. Syline turned to Amberly, smiling through the pain wracking her.
‘Thanks, er, thanks Amberly.’ She couldn’t get it out of her mind that this fight only began because of Amberly and that creature.
Amberly didn’t reply. Instead, she interrupted any further words by grabbing Syline and tackling her into the snow right as a rush of flame went over both their heads. Amberly’s beautiful, white hair blackened and burned. Her robes smouldered and she grit her teeth against the pain. Syline screamed as Amberly fell over ribs which were most surely broken now, even if they hadn’t been before. Amberly rolled up to her feet, facing Yaldabaoth once more. She offered a hand down and helped yank Syline up to her feet to face the beast with her. Flames still licked at its chops as the beast snarled at them, pawing at the snow, ready to charge.
‘Syline, I’ve got an idea. Hold your staff out sideways.’
The beast was charging. Syline didn’t question it; she did as she was told, and Amberly grabbed the head of it.
‘Rush it!’ she yelled, and with a fair bit of wincing from Syline, both returned the hound’s charge.
It seemed almost confused by this suicidal bravery, but it was too late for it to pull back from its charge; the pair met the joint of its front legs with the staff. It very nearly yanked Amberly from her feet, and indeed, Syline did go tumbling into the snow, but so did the beast. Its balance thrown off, it slipped on the snow and went end over end with a shocked yelp.
Amberly had run for Yaldabaoth before the beast had even stopped tumbling. Syline pushed herself up to her feet, holding onto her staff for support as she watched Amberly leap at the wolf. Syline’s duelling sword held in both hands, she plunged it down into the demon’s eye. It squealed, bucking and heaving side to side, but Amberly did not relent, pressing deeper and deeper until the beast went limp and began to burn away into nothing. Its death in this world, banishing it back to its own.
Yanking the blade from the dog’s skull with a grim satisfied expression, Amberly ran right after Thelonious, and Syline was soon to follow, though she struggled to keep up with her friend. The cut on her arm and the wracking pain in her chest was practically crippling her by this point, to say nothing of how hard it made it to catch her breath, which had escaped her long ago.
The pair found the fight at something of a standstill, though the way the fight was going was all too obvious. Corax flapped about the fight madly, cawing and screeching but never getting close enough to make a difference. The warriors ignored him. Teagan and her fellow fighter raining blows down upon Thelonious with a quartet of short swords, too fast for him to truly keep up with a weapon that was not even his own. The bodyguard had his back to a tree by now, and dozens of little cuts showed across his arms and any gap in his armour. The two lighter foes had taken a few blows from him in return. Teagan favoured her left leg, and one of her eyes was sealing shut, a cut above it weeping blood. Her fellow was missing fingers on his left hand and had a bad gash on his hip. But those were all Thelonious had managed in that time and he was being worn down, his breath coming to him in wet, gasping gulps.
Just as things were beginning to look very desperate indeed for Thelonious, salvation came, with a yell from Amberly as she ran into the fray.
‘Your dog’s dead, Teagan! Want to join him?’ For a split second, Teagan’s eyes flashed away. Corax – and in turn, Thelonious – were quick to take advantage.
The little familiar flew into Teagan’s face, scratching and pecking. The woman let out a scream, grabbing at the bird and hurling it away to hit a tree with a squawk, but that gave Thelonious the opening he needed. Batting aside an attack from her fellow on his bracer, Thelonious hacked down brutally at Teagan. Her life was saved by a desperate defence as she threw her arm in the way. Her hand hit the snow with a wet thump. Teagan screamed anew, stumbling back and falling off her feet as she stared, aghast at the stump turning the snow around her into a red vista. She frantically scrabbled for a bottle on her hip.
Amberly joined Thelonious against the remaining mercenary, and though he matched them in the number of blades, he could not match them in ferocity. Thelonious hammered away, shaking the man’s arm with every blow as Amberly snaked in, stabbing again and again. It was all he could do to dodge the majority. But he could not dodge the arcane darts that flew unerringly through the storm of blades, impacting once, twice into his stomach. He gasped for breath, blood flecking his lips, his guard thrown off completely. Thelonious brought back his fist and sent it into the man’s temple, and he joined all his fellows in the snow. Thelonious looked past the man, to see Teagan tossing an empty vial aside, her stump healed over as she stood, remaining hand drawing a shaking blade. Fear was in her eyes now.
‘Put it down. The fight’s over, grab your wounded and get out of my sight,’ he grunted angrily to her before turning to look behind him. Amberly and Syline were both in sorry states, but the mercenary had to know she was beaten. Syline’s bird’s wing hung at an awkward angle as he waddled pathetically to its master where she leaned, gasping against a tree and pale as a ghost.
The man Syline had stabbed in the thigh was back on his feet, but with only one ally still standing, the fight was out of him. He had no intention of getting himself killed today. He’d left his weapons behind and sat on a snowdrift, packing the snow in against his wounded thigh to slow the bleeding and numb the pain. Thelonious looked from Teagan to him and waved his hand.
‘Well! Get going!’ he roared.
Teagan faltered a second, looking to her horses, her supplies. Thelonious was in no mood for bargaining. It had been a damned long day facing these mercenaries right after that mess in the depths. He shook his head and waved her off.
‘Thelonious,’ Syline said from behind him, catching on to his line of thinking.
‘What? Syline?’ He turned to look at her, bloodied, breathless, irritated, but when he saw her flinch away at his tone, he forced himself to calm down, running a hand down his face. ‘What is it?’ he asked in a softer tone.
‘You’re not really going to send them out there with nothing, are you? It’s the middle of winter.’
‘Why shouldn’t we?’ Amberly asked. ‘It’s not like they’d do us the same kindness if our positions were flipped.’
‘She’s right, Syline, you know damn well this woman would kill us all given the chance,’ he said, waving his blade pointedly at Teagan, as her man slouched towards her. Syline shook her head, looking between her two friends… comrades. She knew it had been a long day but that didn’t excuse thinking like that. That wasn’t how you were meant to act. You honour your opponent even in defeat. She’d learned quickly that the real world didn’t always work like that, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make it.
‘Just because she would, doesn’t mean we should. We’re better than that.’
‘Syline that’s a nice sentiment but–’
‘What about a trade?’ said Teagan.
Thelonious turned, rubbing his temple, looking between her and Syline, who he knew he would not win this argument with. ‘We’re listening.’
