Eric mirrored my charge and finished the other burning man with a merciful punch to the temple. He looked at me with dread in his eyes. He’d always been a warrior, but that had been in the ring, not on the battlefield. The countless foes Eric had taken down had all walked away at the end of their matches. This was his first kill.
“They didn’t give you a choice,” I told him. “It was them or us.”
Eric nodded, and we retreated behind Abi’s shield. Our friend had strengthened his defenses in the respite we’d given him. We outnumbered our enemies. It was time to press our advantage.
“We have to move up on them,” I said to Abi.
“They can’t get past me now,” he said. “They’ll give up.”
I wanted to let Abi believe that. To him, we’d already won. We had gotten what we came for, and we could return victorious.
“It’s not that simple,” I said. “We have to finish them. If we let them escape, they’ll come back with reinforcements.”
“We’ll be gone,” Clem insisted.
That was true. If we were back in the School, the dragons would protect us. If we took what we’d learned and retreated now, we’d be safe. We’d also leave whatever the runes carved into the coffin in the hands of our enemies.
“We can’t leave this.” Before my friends could offer an alternative, I shook my head. “We can’t take it with us, either. The portal’s not calibrated to bring back a thousand extra pounds of rock. Look, I’m feeling better. If the rest of you want to leave, open the portal and go. I’ll take care of them and figure out how to catch up with you on my own.”
It was hard to accept the distance between my friends and me. They all knew my life had been in danger since I’d arrived at the School. I’d told them about the assassin I’d killed in the cabin. They’d seen me go through the portal to the Far Horizon to fight the Locust Court. But they weren’t hardened to the realities of the world we lived in. If I could spare them that, I would.
“No,” Clem said. “He’s right. We have to deal with those three, permanently.”
Abi nodded and offered up a quiet prayer in a language I didn’t understand. He bowed his head, wiped a single tear from where it had escaped onto his cheek, then narrowed his eyes with steely resolve and advanced on our enemies.
The four of us crossed the main cavern in a handful of seconds. We paused before the crooked passage that led to the cave’s mouth and listened for danger. My ears picked up traces of their mumbled conversation, no words, only sound. They were planning a counterattack, but they hadn’t expected to meet such stiff resistance. Killers always thought they had the upper hand until you showed them otherwise.
“On three,” I whispered to my friends. “One, two—”
“Three,” Abi growled and rushed forward. The edges of his shield scraped away bits of stone and lichen from the walls around us and sheared away tiny stalactites that had grown from the ceiling. The splintering crash gave our enemies a moment’s warning that we were coming for them.
It wasn’t enough.
The wall of force knocked the nearest gunner off his feet as we crashed into the cave’s entryway. He flew into their leader, and they both sprawled onto the stone. The third shooter, though, was smarter than we’d expected.
She’d taken up a position off to the left of the entrance. Her back was to the wall, and she was crouched low just outside the cave. She was set up for a perfect ambush. And she was behind Abi’s shield.
Her fingers squeezed her weapon’s trigger. Bullets screamed across the cavern toward Clem’s exposed side.
The Vision of the Design technique showed me what I had to do to save my friend. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and each of the bullets became a burning light that moved through the air slow as cold molasses dripping from a spoon. My serpents burst from my aura and struck in the same instant. Two of them flicked a pair of projectiles to the ground, but by the time I’d dealt with the third projectile, I knew there was no way to stop them all before the relentless flow of time pushed back against my technique. I willed my remaining arms to hurl me into Clem. The collision knocked her clear of the burning missile.
The world exploded back into motion.
The bullet meant for my friend slammed into my right side, just below my ribs. Cold pain radiated from the wound. My blood painted the cavern wall next to me.
There was just enough jinsei left in my core to channel into my legs for a burst of speed. I lunged out from behind Abi’s shield, caught the smoking barrel of my enemy’s weapon, and ripped it out of her hands.
She responded with the ruthless efficiency of a trained war fighter. She used the momentum of regaining her feet to drive a punch into my wounded side, knocking the air out of my lungs and blasting my thoughts apart with another wave of pain. Her hands tangled in the weapon’s strap and tried to tear it away from me. It was a smart move, and one that would’ve worked if she was any stronger. But her adept core didn’t give her the power she needed to finish this fight.
I whipped the ugly gun back in a swift, powerful arc. My opponent didn’t have time to let go of the strap, and the move yanked her forward.
Right into my knee, which I’d brought up in a sharp, powerful strike to her midsection. The air exploded out of her lungs, and she went limp over my leg. I brought my elbow down into the base of her skull, and her life ended with a
