He held out the El’aras dagger. Somehow, it seemed as if doing that buffered some of the blows. They didn’t strike him quite as hard. He started to sweep it away from him, carving as he took each step. That softened the blows even more. The El’aras dagger cut through whatever magical attack was striking him.
Gavin fought his way forward with the dagger. The attack on him started to ease. Another step, and he reached the bed.
There was no sign of the sorcerer responsible for the attack, though Gavin was certain it was a sorcerer. It had to be, given the strength of that attack. It was far more powerful than any enchantment would be capable of.
The child lay there, sleeping soundly. Gavin held onto the El’aras dagger, then he scooped the child up.
What were they thinking, hiring an assassin to kidnap a child?
He should have left it to Gaspar and Imogen. This kind of job seemed more up their alley. Of course, this wasn’t so much kidnapping as it was rescue.
He didn’t see anything else in the room. The pressure continued to batter him, but Gavin ignored it and tried to fight through it. This proved more difficult now that he’d picked up the child, but he still swept the El’aras dagger out in front of him with his free hand. The power that blasted into him eased with each motion, though not quite as much as it had. Holding onto the child seemed to dull the dagger’s effect.
He started toward the door. There was movement beyond.
Had the guards gotten back up?
Gavin had been careful not to kill them.
He took a deep breath and stepped out into the antechamber, bracing for an attack. The magical pummeling persisted, a physical battering with an unseen power, but something else was there too. The two guards were still down, but there was another person here: thin and tall, with a sense of power that came off of him.
The man didn’t strike him as a sorcerer, though Gavin admittedly didn’t have enough experience with sorcerers to be able to pick one out at first glance. He could feel the magical effect and knew there was a danger to what he detected now.
Is there more that I’m missing?
This newcomer had a balding head, a prominent forehead, and dark eyes that swept around the inside of the chamber. A bright gold ring adorned one hand and a massive earring hung from his left ear.
The man cocked his head, studying him. “What do you think you’re doing, taking my child?”
Gavin looked down at the boy he was carrying. He seemed to be sleeping, but Gavin couldn’t be quite sure. “Is this your child? I thought it was—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish. The man darted forward, sweeping his hand around in a quick flick. The technique was familiar, but he hadn’t expected to see a Noru pattern here. Gavin blocked it, twisting around, but as he did, the other man followed suit, changing styles. He frowned at Gavin, but there was something else in his eyes: hunger.
Crap.
Gavin had seen that look on opponents before; the kind that suggested they wanted to fight. They longed for the fight. It seemed that this mission was about more than simply recovering the child. This man wanted to use this as an opportunity to challenge Gavin, to test himself. But he wasn’t going to get that chance. Gavin wasn’t about to be someone else’s sparring partner.
“The Captain, I presume?”
The Captain smiled tightly and tipped his head in a slight nod.
He flicked his wrist and held onto the dagger, using it as an extension of himself. The other man was forced to dance back. The Captain turned and dove out of the way, driving his foot upward as he did. It was an effective move, especially with Gavin holding onto the child. He wasn’t going to be able to react on that side as quickly as he normally would.
This man seemed to know.
Gavin took a step back. He wasn’t going to have much room to maneuver in the small space of the antechamber, especially now that he was holding onto the child and expected to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
He regarded the Captain, trying to take stock of him and get a sense of who the man might be. He was more capable than Gavin had expected.
Gavin rotated to put himself between the child and the Captain, and he sprinted forward, turning the movement so that he could catch the brunt of the attack. He pushed the sudden surge of pain down, forcing his mind to shut it out. He’d known so much pain during his life, and he could ignore it now.
Gavin would be ready for the Captain to make a mistake.
Everyone made mistakes.
The Captain surged forward, driving a twisting hand down. Gavin blocked by turning his hand against it, and he brought his knee up. The Captain parried Gavin with his own knee and twisted it off to the side. It was almost enough to force Gavin to stumble. He mixed in a hint of the drunken sailor technique by teetering forward and catching himself before whipping out with his leg, which he wrapped around the Captain. He kicked, and the Captain went flailing ahead.
Gavin used that opportunity to dart forward, and he drove with a chopping motion, catching the Captain on the back of his shoulder. The man started to fall but spun again.
Gavin was forced to jump back as the magical attack struck him, punching him on the side of the head. He was dazed and shook his head to push that pain away.
It didn’t seem fair that he was under both magical and physical attack, but he found that things often weren’t fair.
He decided to focus on the magical attack. He had an idea but didn’t know if it would work. If he had magic, it would, but otherwise… He embraced the core power and then exploded it outward like he had when he’d been
