45 Grave Encounters (2/2)

The vibration of my shadowblade sent sparks flying as it connected with the armor's metal, and there was barely any resistance when I cut right through it and into his heart.

Blood gushed out of the wound. A final gasping sound escaped his paling lips. Then the elf dropped dead on the ground beside me.

I expected this result because I thought the vibrations of my shadowblade must have increased its sharpness but I was still surprised by how easily I'd killed my first opponent.

There was no time to expect the body, however, as I heard a wild screaming on my right. When I glanced toward the elf who'd made it I was just in time to watch his abdomen get cleaved nearly in half by the force of Shaqs' double-bladed ax head.

Shaqs' wide puppy dog eyes, which were a complete contrast to the bald monstrous face they were attached to, looked over to me. He gave me a big toothy grin that was full of jagged teeth.

I responded to his not-at-all terrifying smile with a charge, my falcon raised as if to strike at him. But before he could second guess my intentions, my sword came crashing down on the shadowblade spear-tip of the hobgoblin attacking him from behind.

Seeing that I'd just saved his hide from death by stabbing, Shaqs responded with a decisive blow. In one swift motion of his thick arm, he decapitated the hobgoblin with his ax.

”Commander, thanks,” Shaqs said after he'd covered me in a spray of elf blood.

Then he turned around and slammed his huge body into a runaway elken that had broken out of its straps and was running wildly toward us. Both Shaqs and the elken went sprawling onto the ground.

”You think he's going to kill it?” Luca asked.

He appeared beside me from out of nowhere looking nearly as bloody as I did.

”I hope not,” I answered him. ”Hold on... we've got company.”

Two viseres stepped in front of us. Both of them wore similar grey-tinted padded vests and carried the same type of unadorned longswords in their hands. They had the same brown hair. They looked older than me and Luca. Closer to Ashley's age. Even their fighting stance was similar. These little details told me they were obviously twins.

Luca exhaled a long breath. ”You take the one on the right. I'll deal with the guy on the left.”

”Are you ordering your Commander around, Lieutenant?” I asked half-jokingly.

Luca's response was to follow up on his plan without waiting for me to follow.

He attacked the visere on the left. Their shadowblades sang as metal clashed with metal.

The other visere didn't move to help his brother. He kept a wary eye on me instead. It was the smart thing to do.

Unfortunately for him, I'd already moved my hand to the back of my belt, and a second later, flung my shadowblade dagger in the direction of his brother.

His eyes went wide, but there was no hesitation in his steps when he moved to block my dagger's flight path. It was actually really impressive when he reached out with his blade and altered the path of my weapon.

Again I was reminded that most viseres were better fighters than your average Mudgardian. Of course, I'd taken this into account as I was already within striking distance of him by the time he found his footing again. Yet, despite my advantage, he managed to block my falchion with his longsword.

His mistake, however, was thinking his regular looking sword could match my uber-cool suped-up falchion. So when he pushed down on my shadowblade and his sword broke where our edges met, it came as a complete surprise for him. It stunned him long enough for me to reverse my grip and slam my pommel up his chin like an uppercut.

It didn't cause nearly as much damage as I thought it would. His head simply jerked back down in an attempt to headbutt me, but I pulled away before any harm could be done.

This sent me back to back with Luca who had also pulled out of his fight at nearly the same time.

”My guy's better than I thought,” he said grudgingly. ”I guess yours is the same?”

We stood back to back now.

”Well... it's a little harder when we're trying not to kill them...” I complained. ”Who thought of this stupid idea anyway.”

”You did...” Luca countered. ”You said you didn't want us carrying the burden of murdering our own kind...”

”Oh, right,” I sighed. ”Stupid me...”

Luca was right. After we were reunited, I made him promise not to kill any human enemies we came across in the Fayne because we didn't know what type of circumstance brought them to this place. I mean, what if they were like us? Recently, though, I had to scale back our no-killing-humans pact to not include monsters like Azuma. There was no point in following your principals if it only led to death.

”Want to see who beats their guy first?” Luca asked me.

It was just like him to psych himself up by turning this into a competition. Moments like this one really brought out the varsity player in him.

”Sure... loser has to clean our weapons and armor,” I yelled as I dashed forward.

”No fair getting a head start!” I heard Luca yell behind me, but I had no time to banter with him as I was knee-deep in round two of my sword duel.

Sure, I could have used Basilisk's Eye or plain old Fool's Insight to end the fight quickly but my opponent proved so capable with his sword, despite it being a third its original size, that the competitor in me had awoken. I wanted to beat him with my own strength.

The brown-haired visere parried each of my falchion's swings even as I began shaving off more pieces of his blade. When his sword was down to a mere three inches, he dropped it on the ground and put up both his fists in a boxing stance.

”Seriously... you really want to keep going?” I asked him. ”Why not just surrender?”

”Can't do it,” he growled in an accent that was distinctly southside Starlight City.

Damn, as if I needed more reasons to take pity on him. Now I knew for sure he was a fellow Starlightian. I nearly gave him a free punch. Nearly.

The moment his right fist drove forward, I jumped and came down on his forehead with the pommel of my falchion. It was like taking candy from a baby.

After he fell to the floor, I watched his rise and fall in steady beats. It was a good sign.

”At least you'll live...” I whispered.

With my fight over, I looked over to where I last saw my little brother but the fires Donar started were doing too well a job now. The smoke from the bonfires around me dampened visibility. I did see Edo though. He was on the other side of the wagon on my immediate right dealing death to any enemy who approached him. Very few of them did.

On my left, I saw my soldiers holding onto the reins of several frightened elken. This meant we'd secured the first objective. Now, all we needed to do was wrap up the fight.

I heard it before I saw it—the whistle of steel as it traced a diagonal line through the air. Then I saw the shadowblade tip of the glaive aimed at me slice through the cloud of smoke and I knew I was in deep trouble. My body didn't react fast enough, and although I knew I could dodge the would-be-deathblow, the shadowblade would still cut into me.

Getting wounded in this first conflict of the night was one of my worst-case scenarios, but thanks to the Flame Shield bursting to life in fiery fashion between me and my unseen enemy, the worst-case scenario didn't happen.

Aura's timing was amazing, but I had no time to look for her as my attention was drawn toward the enemy that had appeared on the opposite side of Aura's Flame Shield. It was the elven commander Qwipps had killed with an arrow to the throat. Somehow, he'd survived that and was glaring at me with murderous eyes from beyond the safety of the shield.

My forehead creased. Was it possible? Was Azuma not as unique as we all thought? Or was something else at work here?