The old scout dashed forward.
THUD!
Aureum landed, still.
None of the soldiers even thought to catch her.
Hiems' arm still reached out pointlessly, the pearl clenched in it. His other hand held a sword stuck in a soldier's stomach.
The only ice he could have summoned would have broken her fall in worse brutality. And it had happened so fast while he was distracted.
He had found himself completely out of reach to save her.
The sight of her little figure on the ground shattered something in him.
"WAHHHHHH! AURY! AURY!"
Gemmo was alive and crying his heart out.
Instead of issuing any command, the old scout Nimbi ran to snatch the little boy off of her back. The blanket she'd tied Gemmo to her with slowed Nimbi down.
Hiems jumped down, but with a slice of Nimbi's sword, the old scout darted away. A few soldiers of Nix stepped up to block the scout.
"AAHHHHHHH!"
If fury could suffice for destruction, Nimbi was already twice dead in Hiems' eyes.
Hiems didn't bother with words. He killed the two men in front of him before standing overtop Aureum, killing anyone else who dared get too close.
"What? Not chasing after lil' ol' me now?" Nimbi said.
"Ah! Ah! AaaaAAHHHH!" Gemmo cried and cried.
Hiems eyed Nimbi.
The old man was holding the kid just out of his range.
"I'll kill you," Hiems said, voice hoarse.
"But yeh can't move," Nimbi said. "She might still be livin'."
This was fact. If Hiems chased after Nimbi, the men of Nix would attack Aureum. Hiems held out his fist. The pearl shined a pale white.
"I have the pearl of your leader," Hiems said. "Doesn't that matter to you?"
"Thought yeh was gonna kill me," Nimbi said. "Now yeh wanna trade? I weren't born yesterday. With how stable that thing is, there isn't much chance of reattaching it back to Sir Canes."
"So? Isn't it still all of his power?" Hiems said. "Even if he can't use it, don't you want it?"
Nimbi scowled back at him. He spat.
"What could'a have expected from a traitor? Especially one who commits taboo?"
Nimbi raised his hand before swinging it down.
This silent command was Hiems' only warning.
The men of Nix attacked. Hiems gave them a few flesh wounds, and then they withdrew.
Nimbi watched at a distance, rocking Gemmo.
"WAAAAH! Ah, ah!" Gemmo sort of hiccuped between sobs now. "WAAAAHHHH!"
Words forgotten and words yet invented failed to describe it, yet the heartbroken wails of a toddler sufficed.
"Argh," Hiems gritted his teeth.
If he continued like this, he would die, having failed in everything to the final moment. He gathered the mana around him once more.
"Urgh!"
It felt like a thousand needles stabbed into his skin through to the bone. But it was worth the cost.
He lowered the pearl and lifted his sword.
They'll only injure Aureum if they can reach her.
"Hah. Haaaaah!"
Hiems went forth with his own short laugh followed by a loud cry.
If they had to reach her to hurt her further, then, he just wouldn't let them reach her. The remaining men surged forward. Hiems took one wide step.
The swing of his sword was too short, but that was all right.
Fsssshhh!
Ice broke out from the sword's arc. Hiems had used the weapon to fling the cool shards. They hit. One fell.
It was not enough.
Hiems took a heavy breath.
Again!
Despite his bravado, every man on the field knew what this was. A man grasping at straws.
When Hiems fell, all would be lost.
"Augh!"
Each swing felt like it would tear his arm off. The mana felt like it was screaming through him. Or maybe that was just Gemmo's cries.
They sounded… oddly distant.
"Hurgh!"
That swing got three soldiers. Because his mobility was diminishing by the moment, so did the amount of mana he imbued into his swings increase.
Which only burned through his strength faster and made his mobility worse.
It felt like his blood was freezing inside his veins. Maybe it was.
Yet, even as he began to stumble, the few remaining soldiers of Nix began to tremble. Was it only eight left before him? Eight men out of the thirty soldiers that had been here.
This man, this creature with a hideous face and the mana of two different people surrounding him, the only thing left that looked human in the night were his eyes.
And what eyes!
Two pale green voids with one point of focus that never shifted. When he killed, he showed no joy. When he was cut, he didn't flinch.
Unfailingly, he crushed their lives before they could get to the woman behind him.
Their rage over Canes was dying out. Fear took root.
"Hold men," Nimbi said, stepping forward.
Hiems swung his sword up in instinct as Nimbi came before him.
There was a sheen of ice over a burn on the old scout's neck.
The old man spoke some words, but the sounds made no immediate sense to Hiems in his deteriorating state.
He began to swing down, but he saw that small and round face staring up before him in its path. As he'd seen it a hundred times before.
Gemmo.
It was scrunching up now, as he had watched it do every time before it cried.
Actually, Gemmo was crying that moment.
"WAHHHHH!"
Finally, the sense of Nimbi's words caught up to Hiems' hearing of them.
"Go ahead and swing," Nimbi had said.
Hiems dropped the sword in the middle of his swing. It was the easiest way to stop it, as it became him sloppily throwing the sword forward.
He fell down.
Like some stone or a marionette that had its strings cut. There was nothing dignified about his fall.
Nimbi quickly stepped back, holding Gemmo out of the way.
Hiems hit the ground and was momentarily still. Then he screamed.
"AugHhhhhhHhhhhHhHHHH!"
A sound of rage and sorrow filled the air.
In his failure and rage, Hiems began to do the one thing he should not have done.
He began to lose control.
Ice began to spread from the ground around him.
"Shit," Nimbi said. "He couldn't just die in peace? Bastard. Take him."
He foisted Gemmo into the arms of the closest soldier.
"Rest of you, help me!"
The men followed his command. It was obvious within moments that Nimbi was trying to rebalance the mana that Hiems was losing hold over. He placed his weathered hands on Hiems' back, about where his heart was.
One man boldly grasped the wrist of the hand that held the pearl. Others put a hand on the shoulder of the other two.
Hiems didn't have the energy to resist, though they were helping him.
Except for the soldier with Gemmo. He stood awkwardly and held the boy apart from himself as the boy's wails continued.
"Monster, hey ol' monster," Nimbi said.
He slapped the back of Hiems' head.
"Remember yeh kid!" He said. "Don't let go. Yeh're not allowed to let go just yet!"
The soldiers of Nix acted without question, at first.
They took the ice mana that was erratically breaking against itself in waves inside and outside of Hiems' body and forced it to submit.
This was not a kind procedure.
To say Hiems was aware of what was going on was half a lie. Even as he was awake, the mere pain going through him took nearly every sense from him.
But he held onto the mana past sense. It was more akin to instinct.
It was practice.
Nearly two decades of absorbing and refining mana became almost as natural as breathing.
Even as his breathing was a ragged cough that burned.
Hiems jerked against the pressure both internal and external, but the soldiers simply pushed him down and continued.
As Hiems slowly stabilized, a younger man finally asked the question.
"Why are we helping the bastard that stole Sir Canes' pearl?" He asked. "Scout Nimbi, we should kill him!"
Another soldier chuckled under his breath.
"Eh?" Nimbi replied. "Yeh ever even seen what happens when a sorcerer loses control over their pearl, boy?"
"N-no, but I've seen a pearl break—
"Some lil' pearl breakin' isn't close to a sorcerer's boy," Nimbi said. "An arm isn't what he'll lose. We'll be caught in it from his own pearl alone. And this man has been controlling two of em. Whaddya think'll happen if they go?"
"I don't know."
"Me neither, and I don't expect to find out," Nimbi said.
"There's another problem, First Scout Nimbi," a different soldier said.
The title was an old one, one that had been removed.
Not that it mattered. No one left was above him in the chain of command, anyways.
"Eh?" Nimbi acknowledged the man's question.
"He's taking back control, but not just that," the soldier warned. "He seems to be swallowing the mana back into himself!"
"Yeh," Nimbi said without surprise.
He had already noticed.
Nimbi spat his next word, "Monster."
"What if he ascends?"
"If Malum decides to work against us," Nimbi said, "we'll deal with it then. Stop speakin' ill upon us!"
"Urgh!"
Hiems jerked as the mana around him convulsed dangerously. They pushed him back down again.
The work on Hiems was tedious. To get him stable was a nightmare. His own mana fought against him, the mana of Canes fought against that, and it seemed as if his mana had been forced to flow. Almost like water.
"What a monster," Nimbi murmured.
He should have been dead. Yet if he died now, the mana he was holding onto would burst out.
So the men formed little chains of ice mana throughout his body. Like little soldiers, the chains began to align his mana in the way it should have been.
Sometimes Hiems cried out, sometimes Gemmo cried, and oftentimes Nimbi swore.
Without notice of the men sweating through the night, Gemmo had stopped screaming at one point. Though he still shivered.
It was done. The survivors that were left stood up.
"Look for the woman," Nimbi said. "And don't yeh lot dare hurt her further. She's the best chance of controllin' this monster now."
"Scout Nimbi, now that he has calmed down, now we should kill him—
"Kill em?" Nimbi said. "After all the lives we took to git em! No! He'll pay the price for Sir Canes' future! Death is too quick! Too kind! Come! We'll regroup around Sir Canes."
The last bit was spoken to the soldier who had Gemmo, and the two poor sods who had to carry Hiems.
There almost isn't enough of us for the carryin', Nimbi thought.
So many dead. This hunt had been a mess.
Yet Nimbi wouldn't call it a mistake.
"Gimme the kid," Nimbi commanded.
The soldier handed him back awkwardly.
"Anythin' odd happen while you held the babe?" Nimbi said.
"No," the soldier said. "Should it have?"
"Never yeh mind it," Nimbi said.
He touched the burn on his neck.
The kid of a monster also is… a lil' monster.
He had no idea what it all meant, but as long as Hiems was alive, there would be answers.
"Sir Canes, still among those breathin'?"
This was Nimbi's first question upon returning to camp. It felt empty.
But Canes' tent was filled. He was laid out on a clean pallet. Losing his pearl had caused his body to go into shock. The five soldiers of Nix who had carried him back to safety remained around him.
"Yes, but the prisoner escaped."
"Escaped?" Nimbi said. "Didn't we tie em up?!"
"We were too busy trying to save Sir Canes, we didn't—
"Excuses!" Nimbi declared.
Worse news were on their way. For Nimbi, that is.
"Scout Nimbi!"
The four men who'd stayed to look for Aureum entered the camp.
"What?" Nimbi said.
"We couldn't find the woman! We found the spot she lay, but only traces of her being dragged away!"
"Didn't yeh lot go after her? How far could she have been taken?"
"She was picked up about three yards away, and the tracks were covered. We couldn't follow any further."
"Dammitall," Nimbi said.
He looked away, wiping his mouth as if the solution to everything would suddenly appear. He shook his head.
"The boy we used to lure em here long gone too?"
"Yes."
"'Course," Nimbi muttered.
His eyes flicked over to Canes, then Hiems, and finally the little Gemmo, squirming in his arms.
Everything of most importance is here, he thought.
Whether they had saved that woman, or just dragged her body around wasn't his concern. Their words weren't enough to cause a war as long as their words were the only evidence.
Nimbi looked around at the empty tents around him.
Burnin' it all would leave too much, he thought.
"We need to leave," Nimbi said. "Gimme Sit Canes' ring. Everyone standin' and not keepin' him alive is to start taking down tents. Leave nothing behind."
"Scout Nimbi, what about our men?"
"Yeh, we're all takin' them back as well."
We'll bury these ones at home.
It was the last good they could give them. If that was any good at all.