His bid to remove the Arakesh on his back succeeded, but the younger man was quicker to recover. From a prone position, the assassin heaved his body up and caught Asher in the face with his knee, stopping the ranger from rising. The next thing he knew, rough hands were grabbing him by the collar and the waist and throwing him out of the stall.
A low grunt escaped Asher’s lips as he pushed himself up onto all fours. Various parts of his body were crying out in pain, demanding his attention, as blood oozed from every limb and half a dozen smaller cuts on his face. Wounded as he was, he could still see and hear the chaos Avandriell was causing further down the stable. The dragon raked with her claws and opened arteries with her fangs when she wasn’t picking assassins up and dropping them from the ceiling. If it wasn’t for her, he would have been swarmed by Arakesh and probably be dead already.
The assassin who had thrown him out of the stall was storming towards him, his quick strides visible in the corner of the ranger’s eye. His instinct was to reach for his weapon, but the silvyr short-sword was halfway across the stables, impaled in Veda’s gut. Asher swore and took a breath, preparing himself for the brutality he was about to unleash on the younger man.
Those familiar rough hands grabbed at him again, but they failed to lift the ranger. In fact, they failed to do anything after Asher reversed his kneecap. The Arakesh fell back, raging with pain, and tried to crawl away, just like his master. Asher took a hold of the man by the waist of his trousers and dragged him back. Snapping his neck was muscle memory.
A light that felt as bright as the sun suddenly expelled every shadow in the stable, turning the ranger to Avandriell. Hovering in the air, the young dragon had set two of the assassins on fire. They ran into each other, their arms flapping around uselessly, before finally dropping to the ground, dead. Asher would have smiled at his companion’s efforts but a boot to his chest launched him from his knees and onto his back.
The woman that came down on him had a single short-sword, but both of her hands were driving it down towards Asher’s throat. At the last second, he managed to grip her wrists, halting the tip of the blade as it touched his skin. They both groaned under the effort, one driving down, the other braced. Again, Avandriell came to his aid. He saw her wings flap either side of the Arakesh before her claws sank deep into the woman’s back. Her attack on Asher was immediately over, giving him the time to twist the short-sword from her grip and run it across her throat.
Avandriell, the ultimate predator, wasted no time bounding over the ground and barrelling into another assassin. Asher spared a glance at Veda, who was still desperately trying to crawl away. The ranger gripped his enemy’s blade and started towards him, intending to finish what he had started. His first step, however, was the closest he got to the Father.
He heard the whistle of flying steel, but his senses had failed to locate its location before the blade was sinking into his arm. Asher roared and dropped the weapon he had taken. As he moved to take the dagger out, two more came hurtling in his direction, the blades thrown from the darkness. A last second shift of his shoulders allowed him to evade the first dagger which went on to find the post behind him. The second was lower and more central, catching him in the left hip.
The new pain in his hip forced Asher down to one knee, where he watched two Arakesh take shape from the shadows. Veda, it seemed, had staggered the attack on him, ordering a pair to hold back and ensure a fatigued ranger was met by fresh assassins. Regardless of the doubt it clearly showed on the Father’s part, it was a new tactic that must have come out of Asher’s time hunting them down. The ranger swore again.
The pair of killers ran at him, their short-swords coming into play now. Asher gritted his teeth against the inevitable pain and yanked the dagger from his arm. He launched it with years of experience behind him, but the blindfolded assassins felt the steel in the air and dodged it with little effort. By the time he got round to removing the blade from his hip, the duo were upon him. Asher could do naught but throw his arm out and hope to stop at least one of them from swinging their sword.
There was barely any time to perceive it but, in that fraction of a second, Asher felt the hairs on his outstretched arm stand on end. There was a rush of heat, pulsing from the bones in his arm down to the smaller bones in his open hand. The air in front of his hand fractured and rippled outwards at great speed, picking up the loose hay and dirt from the ground before slamming into the Arakesh. Their direction was instantly reversed and with violent consequences. Both men hit the side of the stables with enough force to push their bodies through the hard wood to the outside. They didn’t get back up.
Still in significant pain and down on one knee, Asher brought his hand back and examined the palm. There was a dull ache in his fingers but they were perfectly normal in appearance. He hadn’t used magic like that
