Chapter narrated by Fin:
15/14/95
Drip. Drip. Drip.
For an instant, the only sound that filled the street was my blood hitting the floor.
"Fin!" Balyn screamed.
"I will be fine, Bal."
I would, in fact, not be fine. The knife had pierced my stomach, and the only thing stopping the blood was that the weapon was still there.
The new attacker moved fast. Faster than the girl. A beastman — I could see the fur and claws on his hand.
After stabbing me, he just continued moving until he was between the girl and Balyn.
He picked up the sword from the floor and gave it to the girl.
Shit.
I hated cursing. It reminded me of her. But a situation like this deserved at least that.
We were equal in number. I checked, and the beastman had the same blindfold on.
He also couldn't see.
He was probably more dangerous than the girl. Beastmen have incredible senses of smell.
The ones I've met at the guild normally take hunting jobs — with their noses, they can track prey easier than most.
If he shared that trait, the blood was constantly giving away my position to him.
This had turned into a battle we could not win.
The girl was easily on par with a rank 3 adventurer. The new enemy moved faster than her.
How could we get out of this?
Think, Fin. Think.
We could try to get away. We were near the exit of the southern district, and the members of the Church of Reval should be present there.
The beastman jumped at me. He had pulled a short sword from his cloak.
I blocked the attack with my sword.
We were in a clash.
He was strong. I was using all the strength I had in my arms to hold the position, but it was not enough.
I tried to disengage, moving backward to create distance.
He did not allow it.
A claw slashed at my arm — a superficial cut, but blood started pouring from it immediately.
The beastman was ready to continue the attack, but Balyn intervened.
He hit him in the chest with his mace.
The beastman left the ground briefly and landed on his feet three steps back.
I did not have a moment to breathe.
The girl was already beside me, ready to attack.
Our swords clashed.
Fuck.
Another swear.
The wound in my stomach was bleeding more, and the pain was distracting.
Her dominant hand was broken.
The difference was noticeable in the clash.
This time I was able to throw her off balance, but before I could continue, she moved back.
Same posture. Same tilted head.
I looked at Balyn.
He was breathing hard.
This was not a battle Balyn and I could win.
Nor was it a battle we could retreat from.
What could we do? We needed help, but we could not go to the guards.
We would need them to come to us.
"Balyn."
"What is the plan?"
"Throw a fireball at that roof."
A brief pause.
"That is someone's building," he said.
"I know. Throw the fireball."
Balyn was not the most precise mage, but he was capable enough with fire that a single fireball would not exhaust him.
He raised his free hand.
The fireball hit the roof.
The smoke began rising almost immediately, dark and visible against the evening sky.
The Church of Reval's protocol stated that soldiers could not leave their boundary positions to respond to incidents in other areas unless five minutes passed without the situation resolving.
The protocol existed to prevent unnecessary mobilization.
It also meant that this had turned into a fight to see if we could hold them until the soldiers arrived.
Five minutes.
We can do it.
The beastman's head turned toward the burning roof. Then back to me.
He understood what the smoke meant.
He understood that they had a deadline in this fight.
He jumped, trying to cut me down.
I moved right. He cut the air where I had been a moment ago. Without waiting a second, he adjusted himself and jumped again.
I moved right again. He adjusted again.
He was following the scent of the wound in my stomach. Every adjustment I made, he compensated for. I could not continue dodging him much longer.
"Balyn," I said.
He understood and intercepted the jump.
The collision was not clean — both of them crashing into the wall of the nearby building.
The girl was already beside me, swinging her sword at me.
I parried the attack and pushed her backward.
Four more minutes. We can do this.
The beastman had pulled free of Balyn and was back in the street.
Balyn had a new cut across his forearm that he was ignoring.
Three minutes and forty seconds.
The girl came at me again. Lower this time, targeting my legs — she had learned from the previous exchanges.
I was slowing down.
Not by much. But the wound in my stomach was a constant drain.
Even so, I needed to keep moving at the pace this fight demanded.
I parried. Held my position. Pushed her back.
The beastman disengaged from Balyn and turned toward me.
He was following the blood.
"Balyn," I said.
Balyn intercepted once again.
This time, a punch was delivered against the beastman.
He stopped his charge and went to clash with Balyn.
Three minutes.
Our swords continued clashing.
Blood was pouring down.
I couldn't stop.
If I did, Balyn wouldn't last long.
She continued her attack.
I blocked and took the initiative this time.
I swung horizontally.
She dodged, but my attack was a success.
Once again, there was distance between us.
Two minutes.
The girl and I were circling each other.
My sword arm was shaking.
She heard the sound.
She went on the offensive first, our swords clashing.
She had lost most of her strength but kept pushing.
I grabbed my sword with only one hand and used my now free right to punch her in the stomach.
The hit landed.
One minute.
She had not heard it coming, and it took most of the air from her lungs.
I used the chance to push her off balance.
When she fell to the floor, I rushed to help Balyn.
The beastman was about to use his claw to slash Balyn's left side.
This time, I was the one who intervened.
The attack hit my sword, throwing me off balance.
Balyn did not take long to join me on the floor.
Zero.
They should arrive at any minute.
Footsteps began to be heard.
The beastman launched himself, trying to finish us before Reval's forces arrived.
For the first time in the fight, he was not fast enough.
An arrow pierced him in the air.
His body fell lifeless to the ground.
Reval's soldiers surrounded us.
I tried to stand up. The blood loss was taking its effect. I felt dizzy, and everything was moving at an undesirable pace.
With the efficiency expected of the church in charge of the region, they used magic to put the fire out.
The girl was still on the floor, seated, not moving.
"You two are the adventurers that came to investigate," one of the soldiers said. "What happened here?"
I looked at him.
"The people in this district have been intimidated into silence. Your soldiers are gone from this area — someone removed them before we arrived."
The soldier's expression shifted.
He looked at the girl on the ground. At the beastman with the arrow in him. At the gnome still on the cobblestones where he had fallen at the beginning of all of this.
"We need to get you to a healer," he said.
"You are bleeding from your stomach."
"Balyn," I said.
"Yes," Balyn said, from somewhere to my left.
"Tell him the rest."
"I will tell him the rest," Balyn said. "Fin."
"Yes."
"Stop talking now."
I stopped talking.
He was worried about my stomach.
I looked at the smoke still fading above the roofline where the building had burned. The fire was out now, but the sky above the southern district was darker than the rest of the city, visible from a distance.
Which meant something else was also visible from a distance.
A second column of smoke.
I looked at it for a moment.
Then a third.
Not from the building Balyn had hit.
From further south.
The soldiers had gone pale.
A fourth one.
I tried to stand.
Balyn put a hand on my shoulder.
"You cannot go to help," he said.
"I know," I said.
"Then stop trying to stand up."
I stopped trying to stand up.
The southern district was loud around us now.
The soldiers moving and shouting orders.
Above it all, the smoke kept rising from four separate points, dark against the evening sky, visible from anywhere in the city.
Anyone in Vareth who looked south in the next hour was going to see it.
"Bal," I said.
"Yes."
"With that much smoke rising, they are going to have the entire Church of Reval here."
"Yes," he said. "I think so."
I looked at the girl. She was surrounded by soldiers.
"These people started four signal fires," I said. "They are not afraid of the Church of Reval coming."
"No," he said. "They are not."
I looked at the smoke.
The last clear thing I remember was footsteps coming closer.
It sounded like an army of beasts coming toward us.
And then knives and screams flying everywhere.
The girl making a noise for the first time since her partner died.
A laugh.
She was laughing at us.