“Listen to yourself, Savitz!” I yelled, letting my contempt for Virram bleed through into my voice. “I thought you were a good man once, but it’s clear I was wrong; you seem happy to serve the man who so easily orders the murder of his own innocent citizens. What the fuck has he done to earn such blind devotion?! Is it his name? The big chair he sits in? His fancy crown?” I reached down to my belt and unhooked the woven golden circlet, placing it at a crooked angle on my head. “Will you listen to me now?”
He brandished his mace at me with a snarl. “Enough! I’ve endured your slander for far too long already.” Savitz let out a mighty bellow as he charged forward, swinging his mace with both hands. I lazily stepped aside and let him blow past me, stumbling over his momentum.
“Men of the Third Company!” I shouted to the remaining soldiers. “Your commander has failed you. He has put his own sense of honor above your lives.” Without turning to look, I ducked beneath another attack, extending a leg backwards to hook Savitz’s foot and send him tumbling again. “There are people who need you back in Yoria. Do not throw your lives away for this man’s blind devotion. Instead, drop your weapons and run. Run back to your King and tell him that I will kill any and every man he sends against me.” The commander’s yells grew increasingly frustrated as his attacks flew uselessly around my lithe form. “You have five seconds to decide.”
I spun to slap away another failed attack, then turned my head to stare intently at the front line of soldiers. “One!” I shouted in unison with the explosion of another troop transport. “Two!” Without warning, I whipped around and threw my sword into the crowd of frightened guards, impaling the second bowman who had shot Marin through the chest. “Three!” I recalled the blade and parried the commander’s mace, spinning the weapon out of his hand.
As I had hoped, the closest men threw their swords into the dirt and turned to sprint away. At the sight of the vanguard breaking ranks, others began to follow suit, and by the time I turned to confirm with my own eyes what my Detection had shown me, Savitz and I were alone. Disarmed and disheartened, he pulled a dagger from his belt and lashed out desperately at my throat. I caught the blade in my gauntleted hand and pulled it from his grip, then knocked him to the ground with a heavy blow to his already injured shoulder.
After a few labored grunts of pain, he managed to climb to one knee. “Even if you kill me...your life is over. You can’t run from an entire kingdom.”
“That’s your mistake, Savitz,” I said, kneeling down to his level. “I’m not running anymore. I might be leaving the country, but I’m not running.” I placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Virram threatened my family: the people I love, and the only reason I have to live. On my life, I’ll burn your whole fucking kingdom to the ground to keep them safe.”
He tipped his head up to meet my eyes, revealing a face set with disdain. “You don’t have the mettle. Behind all that bravado...you’re just a coward.”
In one swift motion, I flipped the dagger in my palm and stabbed him through the eye, embedding the blade deep within his skull. I let his body fall as I stood and brushed the dirt from my knee, looped Virram’s crown back into my belt, then turned and sprinted away to find my family.
---
The Corells’ wagon appeared at the edge of my Detection after a few minutes of running, and I breathed a small sigh of relief. Marin was resting peacefully on a bedroll with her injury wrapped in makeshift bandages created from her ruined dress, which were clearly visible under one of Marten’s shirts that she wore for modesty. Lia was also asleep against a stack of boxes, still holding the mana needle and both silver orbs I had given her. Hana sat between both girls with her hands in her lap, looking between them both at regular intervals with concern.
Marten had followed my orders well; the wagon sped across the countryside as fast as the horse could pull it, even as the sun began to disappear behind the horizon. If Lia had been awake, it would have been a simple matter of getting her attention through Detection and relaying the message to stop up to her father, but as things stood, I simply increased the mana to my enhancements and kept running.
When the wagon was finally within visual range, I shouted to get Marten’s attention. His head appeared around the side of the wagon momentarily, and it rattled to a halt a few seconds later. He jumped down from the driver’s bench and stood with his arms crossed at the back flap, waiting for me to arrive. Hana’s face appeared from behind the flap, and she smiled when she spotted me approaching. I skidded to a stop and put my hands on my knees, taking a moment to catch my breath and muse on the limits of my physical endurance. “Thanks for stopping, Marten. I was—”
With my enhancements still in full effect, I saw Marten’s punch coming with ample time to dodge the blow. I knew I deserved it after everything I had put him and his family through, so I activated my Pain Reduction and stayed in place, angling my head slightly to the side to lessen the chance of injuring my jaw. From the look of his form and the force with which his fist connected with my face, I could tell that Marten had at least some experience with fistfighting, and I made a mental note to ask him about it at
