A plume of fire left my hands, engulfing the five barren and incinerating them where they stood. The ghoul dove aside before the flames reached it, sprinting toward me with cruel purpose.
I unsheathed the Jian in preparation for his attack, but the window nearest to me shattered and a second ghoul flew toward me. It was too fast to avoid, and slammed into me, knocking us both to the ground as the sword fell from my grip.
The second ghoul sat on my chest, pinning me down, and unhinged its jaw, showing rows of razor sharp teeth as it tried to bite me.
I took hold of the second ghoul's jaw with both hands and forced its head to one side, using air magic to blast it off me. The ghoul flew through the air, straight into the first ghoul.
I didn't wait to watch what happened and dove for the Jian, grabbing it as another barren came charging out of the nearby house. A blast of air removed its legs from under it, sending it tumbling to the ground, where I finished it with a sword thrust to the back of the skull. I twisted the sword with a sickening crunch, removing it just in time to see the two ghouls get back to their feet.
'Okay then,' I said. 'Let's see what you both can do.'
The first ghoul ran directly at me, its razor sharp claws looking for purchase in my flesh. I dodged the swipe and smashed an air covered fist into its temple, sending it to the ground. The second ghoul didn't wait for an invitation, he was already moving from the moment the first had run at me.
I waited until he was close enough and then swiped up toward his neck with the Jian, but he anticipated my move and launched himself into the air, catching me with a clawed foot in the chest. It cut through my coat and I felt the familiar sensation of blood trickling down toward my stomach.
I reached out with air magic and grabbed hold of the ghoul's foot before it hit the ground, hardening the air in an instant and then using the ghoul's own momentum to spin him into the wall of the nearest building.
Brick and dust exploded from the impact, but I had no time to rest as the first ghoul was back, swiping at my face and neck with his claws. He was too close to use the sword effectively-all I managed were superficial cuts. And death by a thousand cuts wasn't something that worked well with ghouls.
I used air magic to push him away, but he'd sprung backwards, the gust of wind missing him by inches. We circled one another, watching for any signs of attack. My magic couldn't kill or seriously hurt him, but my sword could, and he knew it. And so could my other blades.
He avoided the first of the small daggers, but the second and third kept him on his toes long enough for me to close the gap between us and stab the sword through his heart.
The ghoul shrieked as I dragged my sword from its chest, black blood oozing out of the wound. The ghoul collapsed to the ground and I wasted no time in using the Jian to decapitate it, just before its friend rejoined the fray.
I barely managed to stop the second ghoul from tearing my ribcage apart, its claws glancing off my arm.
Blood dripped down the back of my hand, making the sword’s hilt slippery.
The ghoul barely paused before launching another attack, sprinting toward me and swiping continuously with its deadly claws in the hope that something would catch. I dodged or blocked the first few, but I couldn't keep it up forever, and the ghoul only had to get lucky once.
I released an explosion of fire directly between us, which gave me space, but the ghoul merely waited until the flames had died down and then walked toward me.
I waited until the ghoul was close enough and unleashed a fresh inferno. There was nowhere it could dodge in time to avoid the flames, and while it wouldn't kill the ghoul, the howls of pain told me that it had done enough. The ghoul flailed wildly in my direction, and I dodged aside, plunging my Jian into its neck and tearing open the jugular. A few seconds later its head joined that of the first, rolling across the ground until it stopped by a set of steps.
I left the ghouls to dissolve into the earth and made my way toward the bar at the end of the street. As I stepped into the shadow of the large building, several windows were smashed and shots were aimed at me. I sprinted behind the nearest wall and tried to ascertain exactly where the shots were coming from.
I edged to the far end of the wall and peered around to the bar again. The ground floor window was smashed and a rifle barrel poked through the broken glass. The same was true of the window directly above it. Both rifles were still aimed at the point where their users had last seen me before I vanished from sight.
A quick sprint across to the nearest building adjacent to where I was, and through the open front door, made sure that I was no longer a target for either of the two rifles, but it also put me in direct contact with another barren-the young red-haired woman who had been sent to kill me in the bath.
She was crouched on the ground, feeding on a small animal of some kind and hadn't noticed me. A small jet of fire left my finger tip and hit her in the temple, ending her suffering. She slumped forward just as a bullet crashed through the broken window beside me. I ran through the building to the rear and blasted the locked wooden door into tiny pieces.
I darted down the narrow opening between the buildings, stopping before it opened back out into the street. More shots were being fired at the front of the building I'd just left, and I wondered if the shooters actually had any idea of what they were doing.
I made my way to the edge of the opening and, still concealed by the shadows of the buildings on either side of me, used air magic to gather as much of the loose dust and grit from the street as possible, and set it rotating until I had something that resembled a small sand storm. The shots stopped as the mass of grit and dirt got larger and larger until I flung it at the front of the bar.
Glass shattered as the wind-controlled mass slammed into the bar windows, quickly followed by shouts and screams as that same glass was plucked up and added to the contents of the spinning cyclone.
The entire front of the building was ripped apart and flung inside at whoever was hiding there. I sprinted to the front of the bar, as the wind died down, and found two men inside who were rubbing their eyes, both of whom I recognised as having worked for the sheriff.
Too disorientated to fight back, they were easily put down with a gust of air, lifting them from their feet and slamming them into the nearest wall. They fell to the floor with a thud, as I made my way up the stairs to check for any other holdouts.
Sure enough, they were found without too much trouble. Two more armed men sat by the window at the end of the corridor. Neither of them appeared to be moving, and on closer inspection, I saw the long jagged piece of glass that had been torn from the ruined window and imbedded in the throat of one of them. The shock had apparently caused him to spin round and fire his shotgun directly into the chest of his companion-the same man that Chief Blacktail had taken prisoner. A fitting end to a partnership with murderers and monsters.
It took only few minutes more to check the rest of the upstairs and discover it empty, so I made my way back to the ground floor where I found Sheriff Bourne crawling toward the entrance. A large cut was seeping blood down his face.
'So what hit you?' I asked, as I kicked him onto his back and relieved him of the silver revolver still in its holster. The sheriff winced in pain. Apparently the cut wasn't his only injury. Good.
He pointed behind me at a table leg which had come loose from its home, and apparently struck him in the head.
'Well, you stay right there.' I punched him in the face, knocking him out. I wasn't finished with the town yet.
I took Sam's father's revolver with me and stepped out of the bar as the first drops of rain fell. I fastened my coat and walked toward the sounds of battle as Sam ran around it, followed by two barren.
'Drop,' I shouted, and he dove to the floor as I launched a jet of fire hit at the two barren, incinerating them where they stood.
'What the hell are you playing at?' I snapped at Sam, dragging him to his feet. 'I told you to stay back, to stay away.'
'And I told you, I need this,' Sam's retort was full of anger, at me or at the sheriff, I wasn't sure which.
I swallowed my reply and I got back to more important things. 'What are you doing here?'
Sam pointed behind him. 'Sergeant Roberts and Chief Blacktail are fighting barren at a crossroads up the road from here, and they're being overrun. Sergeant Roberts asked me to find you. They need your help.'
I was moving before he finished speaking, running in the direction he'd pointed. Sam kept pace for a few steps.
