“We’ve been looking for you, mór úcare. Ever since we got the calling.”
“What calling?”
A low chuckle escaped the mountainous magical, then his arm swung toward her like a fallen tree. Cheyenne slipped into her enhanced speed and sidestepped the guy’s clumsy punch. She tried to reach up and grab his head to slam into her knee at hyper-speed. Standing on her tiptoes, she could only reach the tops of his shoulders. A frustrated sigh escaped her. “Fine.”
The halfling stepped back and sent a high kick into the center of the ogre’s chest. Time sped up again, and the ogre flew into the wall just beside Bhandi with an ear-splitting crack.
“Oh, shit!”
“What the hell was that?”
The other patrons in the tavern backed away in surprise as the ogre dropped to the floor. The magicals at the table on the other side of him scrambled out of their chairs, snatching up their half-full tankards and pitchers.
Cheyenne looked at the four other dirtbags who’d stood when the ogre was still able to make threats, then pointed at the fallen mountain of gray meat. “You guys gonna come help your friend, or what?”
All four of the other thugs rushed toward her, snarling and conjuring flaring lights of different-colored magic in their hands. The troll let off a burst of icy-white shards. Cheyenne ducked, and the spell crashed against the back wall of the cavern.
She straightened again and rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant!”
The skaxen launched a shimmering vortex of silver and green like a miniature tornado. Cheyenne grabbed the closest thing at hand—the mostly empty first pitcher of grog from her table—and batted his spell aside. A green crackle raced up her arm, making her drop the tankard again. It toppled onto the table and spilled the last of the grog.
“Hey,” Bhandi shouted. “I was drinking that.”
I really need to master that shield.
The orc conjured a burst of green fire in his palm as the skaxen leaped up onto the vacated table with a hiss, clawed hands at the ready. The halfling hurled a crackling black sphere of energy at the orc, which caught him in the shoulder of his raised arm and sent his green fire hurtling into the floor. He roared and slapped his shoulder as the skaxen leaped from the table.
What is it with those guys and all the jumping?
“Watch—”
Cheyenne slipped into her enhanced speed and shot black, whipping tendrils from her fingertips. They curled around the skaxen’s chest and neck, and she jerked him back into the wall. Everything sped up again, the orange ratface crashed and bounced off the still-stunned ogre as Yurik finished his warning.
“—out!”
She turned toward him with a sarcastic nod. “Yeah, thanks. But I got—”
The orc rushing her made contact and bowled her over, lifting her partially up over his shoulder before slamming her into the back wall of the tavern. It knocked the wind out of her, and a collective groan rose from the tavern’s patrons.
The halfling slammed her elbow down once, twice, three times into the back of the orc’s neck before he finally pulled away from her. She ducked the huge green fist flying toward her face, and it crashed into the wall behind her instead. He stumbled backward, shaking out his hand and looking down at the floor to find his target. Cheyenne slipped between him and the wall and finally got to crack someone’s nose against her knee.
The orc roared when she released his sweaty, hairless head. Then she saw the troll stomping toward her. Yurik jumped up from his chair to get in the troll thug’s way, pulling his fist back for a swing. The troll’s attention turned toward the body-building goblin with the huge ring in his nose and yellow sparks in his hand.
Cheyenne sent her black tendrils flying from both hands. Half of them coiled around the troll’s neck and yanked him backward with a startled choke. The other half slapped against Yurik’s cocked-back arm.
“Ow! Fuck!” He shook out his arm as the drow halfling cracked her knee against the side of the orc’s face, spraying nearly-black blood and spit everywhere before he dropped. “Well, the hell was that for?”
She stormed toward the table and grabbed his shoulder, jamming him firmly back down in the chair again. Yurik landed with a thud, his eyes popping open even wider as he stared at her. “I said, I got this.”
The ogre roared and managed to pull back up to his feet. His skaxen friend scrambled off him with a little yelp before they both turned to face the drow halfling. “You can’t fight all of us off, mór úcare,” the orange ratface hissed. “Might as well make it easier for us.”
“This is easy.” She blasted his pointy, sharp-toothed face with a barrage of crackling purple sparks like automatic bullets and hurled another crackling black energy ball at the ogre. The skaxen shrieked, batting at his face, and the ogre just looked dumbly down at where her much more powerful spell had fizzled out across his chest. The halfling’s shoulders sagged. “Oh, yeah. That’s right.”
The ogre lumbered toward her and swung his fist again. She slipped into her enhanced speed to avoid the punch, but her head jerked back, with agonizing pain ripping across the back of her skull. With a scream of pain, she tried to whirl toward his other suspended fist and got a face full of bone-white hair.
“What the…are you kidding me?” Cheyenne slapped the back of her head and the giant magical’s fist right behind her. “Motherfucker grabbed my hair. What kind of—”
With another shout of frustration, she twisted enough to clamp both hands around the ogre’s clenched fists. His fingers wouldn’t budge, even in her drow speed, so she squeezed as hard as she could and summoned the churning spheres of black fire in both hands. This’ll be nothing like the puzzle box.
In less than a second, she felt his hand opening beneath hers, then she
