I vaulted the fence to shouts and curses from the gathered men, more of them taking aim with those strange repeating crossbows of theirs. I kept running at them, bolts whistling and flying wide of me. All the while I felt the familiar sensation of my heart thudding in my ears, the mad thrill of combat wrapping its arms around me like an old lover.
There you are a voice said in the back of my mind. A voice so much like my own, and yet simultaneously completely alien. The voice of a thing rather than a man. Are you finally done pretending? Have you grown tired of this absurd farce?
No, certainly not.
Don’t be a fool. You’re not a man, and you’re no farmer. You’re the Bloody Wight. So act like it.
For a moment, as my fist shattered the iron-banded shield of one man before me, obliterating the arm holding it in the process, I felt heat flicker over my body. An ember that tried to spark a flame, to forge my old armour anew.
But I knew that if I did that, if I drew out that much power... I had no idea if I’d be able to stop myself. When I became the Wight, armoured in my own pain and rage, my rationality died away, as if any decent emotions I had were walled off from me.
It had taken years of grinding warfare for me to feel some measure of sanity again. And I dreaded to think I wouldn’t be able to turn it off again, if I gave into that temptation.
And, of course, there was the risk of that surge of magicka serving as a beacon to Novos, even across an entire ocean.
I snuffed the thoughts. I didn’t need the armour.
A sword caught me in the shoulder and shattered against my flesh without leaving so much as a mark. I kicked the swordsman and sent him screaming into a nearby tree, the sound of snapping bones echoing across the plain.
I heard the click of another crossbow behind me, but the shot never came. A shadow leapt from the darkness, teeth gleaming in the moonlight, and I was shocked to see a snarling shape tear the throat from the marksman, wrestling him to the ground.
“Smoke!” I said, shocked. And a little heartened by his intervention, I would admit. It was... nice to know you had someone in your corner.
But seeing Smoke in motion, I was shocked at how fast he was. He darted between men, bounding with enough speed to dodge their bolts, and the slashes of their blades. And any man who got too close was swiftly brought down either by talons that ripped through their leathers like cheap cloth, or pounced and flattened by his great weight.
Boy wasn’t fully grown yet, but he was far stronger than a normal man.
Through it all, as Smoke and I tore through the bandits one by one, Inumi stood idle and rested his weight on the shaft of his halberd. He looked almost bored, and certainly had no care for the fate of his men. I had known officers like that in Novos’ army, among the worst breed of bastard he had in his employ.
Leave it to a bandit leader to embody the same evils.
He’d get his, but... even at a glance I could tell that he was a cut above those underlings of his.
Suddenly he stood to attention and spun around, jumping away to avoid a sharpened edge of steel as it whirled through the air. The blade curved mid flight and spun back around to the source... gouging the throat out of one unlucky bandit on the way back, who collapsed gurgling to the grass.
A figure jumped high, catching the forearm-length billhook in mid-flight. A woman, I saw, as she flipped through the air. A damn tall one, for an easterner, and strongly built beneath her fur cloak and riding gear. She came to a skidding halt a few paces away from me, casually jerking her head to one side to avoid a spear thrust from a bandit.
“Another bounty hunter, huh?” she asked, casually deflecting several spear thrusts with her billhook. She shot me an irritable look, strands of shadow smoking from the corner of her eye. “Don’t think I’ll split the reward money on these guys!”
“I don’t give a shit about money. This is my land,” I growled. I spun away from her, stroking one bandit in the jaw with such force that his head snapped 180 degrees around.
“Ah, good. Makes my job a little easier, Foreigner. And is that a tame Hellcat I see? Night’s full of surprises, then.”
She surged forward, so fast that she became invisible to the naked eye, and a single instant she sliced through three men, severing two of them at the trunk and decapitating the third. And Smoke had taken down his fifth man, dark blood staining the fur of his jaws. But, even in the dark, I could see a few thin scars in his coat.
“Yomi, the Stray Hawk herself,” said Inumi, chuckling. “Goodness. This evening has become a disaster.” Not that he seemed particularly bothered.
The last of the men were running, screaming in terror. I was content to let them go, rising to my feet while a slick of blood and bone shards dripped from my fists, but ‘Yomi’ wasn’t feeling so merciful. I caught flashes of silver as she rapidly flicked several throwing knives from the roll of them on her belt. Her aim was accurate, even at a distance and in the oppressive darkness, striking each man between the shoulder blades and sending them screaming to the ground.
Then it was just the four of us.
Inumi sighed. “I never liked that lot,” he admitted, shrugging. “But what else could I have expected? You go out to recruit human criminals, you’re bound to be surrounded with scum.”
“Not even trying to help your boys?” Yomi aimed her billhook at him. “That’s low, even for scum like you.” An ill wind blew up from Inumi, flicking the small braid of hair off her shoulder.
“They were useful idiots. That’s all.” I stood to attention, watching the strange masked man. He showed no sign of leaving, and even the slaughter of so many bandits had done nothing to bother him. Inumi held a hand aloft, and suddenly a white bird fluttered in and perched itself upon one finger. A massive snow white raven with three purple eyes. With his other hand he offered a strange rounded black vase to the bird, who gripped the rope around the neck with is beak. Then it took to the air, swiftly flapping away.
The thing had been too far away for my Babel stone to pick up on the writing inscribed upon it, but I sensed... something off the vase. The same kind of foul miasma that lingered around Novos’ black crystals.
“Hey, Foreigner.” Yomi moved to my right side, while Smoke padded to my left. His eyes were locked on Inumi, his bloody fangs bared while a deep, guttural growl ran up his throat.
“I got a name,” I said, not taking my eyes off of Inumi. The masked man was stretching, as if preparing for a run, his arms propping his halberd behind his neck. All the while that sense of malevolence was growing stronger in the air, an aura of black magicka rising like streams of smoke from his body. “It’s Eamon.”
“Well, Amon, I hope you’re as strong as you look. Because that bastard sure is.”
Inumi moved swiftly, dropping into a wide-legged fighting stance with his halberd cocked back in his left hand. His eyes blazed behind his mask, and a gale kicked up around him. It struck me like a mule’s kick, knocking Yomi and myself back a step. Smoke anchored himself to the ground by his claws, snarling and growling in defiance.
“Right then,” Inumi said. “You’ve had your warm up. Time for mine.”