Metal mage 5, p.23
Metal Mage 5, page 23
I fired three arrows in succession, and two daggers came sailing back, before all hell broke loose.
The five elves took a running leap over Aurora’s flames and didn’t miss a beat when they landed. They scattered and threw their daggers as they went, and as we drew our bows, an elf with a fiery red tunic lunged straight for me with his glaive drawn.
I ducked his blow and countered with an arrow that the elf somehow dodged, even though I was only two feet from him when I fired it. He snarled at me as he swiped his glaive across the ground, and I stumbled just in time to save my legs.
Then I pulled the revolver from my holster and took my aim, only to get a dagger in my thigh before I could pull the trigger.
My breath hitched in my throat, and my adrenaline went into overdrive as I ripped the dagger from the meat of my thigh and wrenched the earth open in one violent motion. Blood spurted from my leg as the elf in front of me dropped into the trench I’d formed, and I fired a bullet between the elf’s eyes just as he released another dagger.
It sailed off course as he lurched with shock and went limp, and I flipped around to fire another bullet at the elf who had knocked Cayla’s own crossbow from her grip.
The deadly princess had her glaive at the ready now, and Aurora snarled as she hurled her flames over the attacker’s head toward an elf who stalked in the shadows of the trees at her back.
Then the air whooshed behind me, and I whipped around in time to catch a glaive on the edge of my steel bow. I quickly cast the weapon aside, and I ducked and rolled to snatch up the dwarven sword that had been beside the bed.
I countered the elf’s attack just in time, and the heavy clash of steel rang out through the jungle as the women began to spar with their attackers as well. Three shuriken glinted as they soared past me, and a loud yelp came shortly after.
The flames flashed as they encircled us, and in the amber light, I registered the metal vambraces of the elves who deflected our blows with angry growls, and then I quickly melted the metal on my own attacker’s arms. He snarled and raised his exposed wrist, and before I could react, he brought a heavy arm down and pummeled me across the head with it.
My vision spun as I dropped to my knees, but I drove my sword forward and managed to slice the elf’s thigh open.
He only stumbled slightly from the pain, before he raised his glaive once more and brought it down with full force.
I rolled and split the earth as I went, but the elf swiftly leapt aside and pulled a dagger from his boot to hurl it straight toward my head.
I lunged to my feet and melted the blade as I pulled the hammer on my revolver, and just as I took my aim, three more shuriken flew past me and impaled the arms of the elf in front of me.
He let out a furious snarl and quickly started to rip the golden discs from himself. I grimaced as I watched the flesh tear on the hooks of the blades, and as the meat of the man’s arm splattered to the ground, I pulled the trigger. I thought the elf was distracted with the last shuriken in his forearm, but to my shock he somehow managed to twist enough that the bullet only split the edge of his shoulder open.
My eyes went wide at the unbelievable speed of the elves, but my shock was derailed when I heard a heavy crack at my back. Then I saw the giant trunk of a tree leaned forward into the light of the flames as it came down above me.
“Look out!” I warned the women.
The three deadly beauties did their best to scatter, even though their attackers came at them with heavy blows of their blades, and the tree crashed into the clearing as it took two more giants down with it.
The ground shuddered and briefly sent us all off balance, but Aurora easily righted herself with her sword drawn and already swinging.
My pulse quickened as I watched the elf she battled, and he managed to wield his glaive with three arrows buried in his gut without so much as flinching in pain.
The half-elf snarled and sent her flames to engulf the man, but he swiftly flipped out of the way and finished his spin to bring his glaive within an inch of Aurora’s neck.
I fired the revolver through the back of the elf’s shoulder, and he only stopped swinging long enough to turn his hideous sneer my direction as blood dripped down his back.
Then he rushed at me in a full out sprint, and his feet moved quicker than the trench I ripped in the ground beneath him.
I ducked and caught his ankle as he leapt to impale me, and the elf finally cried out as he hit the dirt. I turned swiftly to fire a bullet into the fucker’s head, but the elf continued his roll and disappeared into the flames that encircled us.
I waited for a cry of pain, but nothing came, and as I sent my magic across the earth, I could feel the elf flee toward the east.
I whipped around and caught sight of Shoshanne as she fired four arrows into her assailant as he fled as well, but the elf scaled the flames without pause and was still running strong when he disappeared into the blackened jungle.
Cayla caught her attacker with the tip of her glaive and split him straight across the gut with a fierce smile on her face.
Then three of Shoshanne’s shuriken buried themselves along the elf’s back a split second later.
The elf cried out in pain and stumbled as his sword dropped, and Aurora curled her lip into a devilish grin as she ignited the man’s skull before emptying the rest of her bolts into his chest.
The elf finally fell to his knees, and the flames peeled across his bubbling flesh as he silently crumpled into the dirt.
Nothing but the beating of flames moved around us, and I turned my attention to the earth rather than scan the trees. There was no one left in the tree line, and even the footfalls of the fleeing elves were so far away now I could only register a vague echo of their presence.
“They’re gone,” I informed the others.
I turned to see each of the women had slashes on their arms, and Aurora’s lip was swollen where blood spilled down her chin. We all worked hard to catch our breath, and I came to their sides to study the angry gouges in their flesh.
“I’m fine,” Cayla assured me, and the wound in her upper arm appeared to only go about an inch deep. “Fucking dagger.”
I nodded and turned to Shoshanne, but the woman waved me away as well as she crouched to get a look at my thigh. “They’re only surface wounds,” she told me, then her eyes widened as another quart of blood spilled down my leg. “You’ll be unconscious soon if we don’t tie this.”
“Aurora,” I breathed, “are you okay?”
The half-elf rolled her eyes and came to my side. Then she took my arm firmly and led me closer to the light of the flames. “Sit down,” she ordered.
My head spun as I stumbled along with her, and I fell onto my ass just as Shoshanne pulled her healer’s kit from where our house had been only minutes before.
“How the fuck did they do that?” I growled as my adrenaline plummeted, and the pain in my leg began to take over.
“This goes straight to the bone,” Shoshanne muttered, and she took a bandage from her bag to tie it in a tourniquet above the dagger wound.
I gritted my teeth a split second too late, and as the Aer Mage wrenched the tourniquet into a firm knot, blood spurted up from the wound, and the pain forced my eyes shut as I screamed toward the flickering treetops.
My head dropped backward, my body went limp, and I heard Aurora and Cayla’s voices on either side of me as the blood loss began to muddle my mind.
I fought the haze and breathed heavily as I forced myself to feel the pain. I let the acuteness of it keep me alert, and I focused on the way it pulsed and shot straight through my leg and took over every inch of my body.
“Wake up,” Aurora growled in my ear, and I nodded but couldn’t speak.
I couldn’t even feel whatever Shoshanne was doing to my leg beneath the throbbing pain. I just hoped her hands were swift enough as the ground beneath me grew warm and damp with blood.
Cayla kissed my forehead and ran her cool fingers along my face. Then she ordered me to open my eyes.
I thought I might have, for a second, but nothing registered beyond the golden glow of flames.
Finally, I slipped into the black that took over my mind, and I panicked when I found there was nothing there waiting for me. I called out for Nemris but she didn’t call back, and for some reason this began to give me a sliver of hope.
I didn’t know how long I laid there in my own blood, but Cayla’s soft voice was suddenly there again, and I willed myself to follow it out of the blackness. She cooed softly near my ear, and as the feeling came back to my body, I sensed a soft touch on my chest and the side of my face. Every inch of me was cold, but I was grateful as the pain began to overwhelm my senses once more.
My eyes flipped open, and the light of day blinded me immediately. It was a hazy light that was dulled with fog, but it was enough to force my eyes closed again.
“He’s awake,” I heard the half-elf say, and her voice was strained.
I tried to tell her I was okay, but I couldn’t move my jaw properly.
“Keep talking, Mason,” Aurora ordered. “Wake up.”
I nodded and forced my eyes open once more. They rolled up into my head against my will, but I was suddenly propped up against a warm and supple body at my back.
“Drink this,” Shoshanne said, and my lips were parted for me.
Slowly, the cool water trickled down my throat, and shortly after a sharp smell wafted under my nose and jolted my senses awake.
I cringed.
Shoshanne chuckled. “Good, he’s awake enough to hate it, at least.”
I groaned.
“Don’t fall asleep,” Cayla murmured in my ear, and I felt her breath rise and fall against my back.
I nodded and focused on the plush pillow she provided, and how much I’d like to live long enough to see the woman’s supple curves again.
“How bad is it?” I managed to mumble.
There was a long pause. Then Shoshanne spoke up. “It’s better, but you’ve lost a lot of blood, Mason. Don’t move, okay? Just stay awake.”
I tried for half a grin. “You gonna make me?”
Aurora laughed with relief and laid a kiss on my lips. “If I thought it would help, I’d jump your bones right now,” she assured me.
“It’d help,” I mumbled.
Cayla’s breasts jolted with laughter at my back, and I heard Shoshanne sigh.
“I think he’s through the worst of it,” the healer chuckled lightly. “Here, drink this.”
More cool water slid down my throat, and I managed to lift my arm to bring the cup back for more. I drained the water quickly, and when my arm dropped back to the dirt, I was able to open my eyes, and I squinted against the bleary light.
It looked like dim early morning in the jungle, and the first thing I registered was the deep bloody stains all down my front. Then the Aer Mage came into focus beside me, and Aurora smiled through a split lip from the other side as she reached out to run her hand along my chest.
I grinned at the sight of them and tried to ignore the ridiculous amount of blood. “Hey … I didn’t die,” I sighed happily.
“No,” Shoshanne laughed, “you sure tried to, though.”
“Did not,” I shot back. “That took a shit ton of effort, I’ll have you know.”
Cayla sighed and slowly slid herself back a ways so I was laying out on her lap instead, and I admired the view from under her breasts as she smiled down at me.
Shoshanne’s cool hands began to work around my leg again, and the pain slowly became a dull throbbing rather than a raging inferno. I let Cayla trace her slender finger along my lips, and was about to compliment her lovely figure, when her head suddenly snapped up, and the other two women turned in the same direction.
I strained to raise my head, but I let it drop heavily when I recognized Dragir in the trees.
He came to my side and crouched above me, and I was surprised to see concern on his face.
“He is alive,” the elf said, more to himself than to the others, but Shoshanne nodded. Then he looked to me. “We heard the attack.”
“Nice of you to lend a hand,” I mumbled, but Cayla nudged me gently with her thigh.
“You put us all at risk,” Dragir shot back. “House Syru have never traveled this far south. You must leave these lands. We do not want your enemies becoming our own.”
I worked to reign in my irritation and focused instead on the weakness of the head of House Quyn in order to allow the elf some grace. It wasn’t technically his fault that I was laying in a pool of my own blood, and I couldn’t blame him for wanting to keep the elves we’d fought last night as far away from his House as possible.
So, I just nodded and let my eyes fall shut once more.
“If that’s all you came here to say, you can go now,” Aurora said, and I heard the fury in her voice.
The elf’s sword grazed the dirt as he rose to leave, but I opened my eyes.
“Wait,” I said, and I glanced to Aurora. “Check the body.”
The half-elf furrowed her brow. “What body?”
“In the dirt, over there,” I gestured, and I let a tendril of my magic loosen the ground that I’d locked around the elf with a bullet in his brain. “Check the body.”
Aurora looked over to the lifeless elf and then back to me.
I sent her a short nod, and her eyes seemed to spark with understanding as she swiftly stood.
I followed the half-elf with my eyes as she crouched and grunted, and after a good minute of effort, she managed to pull the body up out of the dirt.
Once he was laid out, she pulled his shirt open and began to search his bluish skin. Dragir remained where he stood and looked on in confusion while she moved to the elf’s waist and then ripped the boots from his stiffening corpse.
Suddenly, Aurora let out a gasp and lifted her emerald eyes to mine.
“It’s here,” she told me.
I nodded and turned my head toward Dragir. “Have a look,” I told him.
His pale eyes narrowed, but he quickly joined Aurora, and as he stooped near the body, his hand suddenly shot out to clutch the leg. He studied the ankle closely before he jumped back to his feet and took a harried step back.
“Believe me now?” I asked.
Dragir looked at me, and the fear on his face warred with confusion and shock. Then the undergrowth of the jungle began to rustle, and several elves arrived behind their leader.
The head of House Quyn stormed through the clearing in a rage, but I noticed that although he was braced all over with anger, he moved with difficulty, and his eyes were heavily bagged in the early morning light.
“Leave these lands immediately,” he growled, and he seemed to ignore the state I was in completely. “You have brought violence to House Quyn, and it will not be tolerated. Leave this instant or you will be slain where you lay--”
“Father,” Dragir interrupted harshly.
The leader whipped around. “Dragir, remove these people from my lands.”
“Father, come here,” Dragir said, and his voice was low and firm.
The leader flared with anger, but he listened to his son, and I could tell he forced his legs to move as assuredly as possible as he joined him.
He looked ready to speak again, but Dragir only pointed to the elf in the dirt. “He’s runed,” was all he said.
The leader froze at the words, and after a long moment he slowly moved to get a look. Dragir caught his father’s arm and helped him, and the leader breathed heavily as he worked to kneel. It didn’t take long for his eyes to find the rune embedded in the flesh of the elf, and he collapsed onto his knees as his face went ashen.
“It’s the same rune he described at the hall of the Elven Council,” Dragir said in a low voice, and the leader nodded.
The guards quickly gathered around the body to look for themselves and began to speak tensely to one another in Elvish.
The leader only stared at the rune in silence, before he waved his hand vaguely to the mark. “He … he could have put it there himself.”
Dragir shook his head and held his father’s sights steadily. “No,” he assured him.
Then he moved to help his father rise, and the old elf nodded blankly as two guards stooped down to help as well.
The leader breathed heavily as his shock and the strain of standing overtook him. I could see the sweat that beaded his brow with the effort, and I felt sorry for the man as he leaned hard on his son’s arm. Then he motioned in the direction of the house, and his guards led the way into the trees without another word.
Just before they disappeared into the brush, the leader stopped and turned slightly.
“Bring them food,” he told a guard, and then he slowly made his way toward the crystal bridge.
When the elves had gone, I let out a long sigh and closed my eyes. My head felt disconnected from my body, but I tried to focus on the relief I felt. At least the leader knew the truth finally. Even if it did cost me nearly all the blood in my body to prove it.
The relief was short-lived, though, and my pulse quickened as I processed everything that had just happened.
“Did he say House Syru?” I suddenly asked.
Shoshanne furrowed her brow, and Cayla looked to Aurora in confusion.
“Dragir,” I clarified hastily. “He said House Syru has never travelled this far south. Was that the name he said?”
Aurora came back to my side as she nodded. “Yes, I heard him. Why?”
“Son of a bitch,” I cursed, and I braced my arms on the ground as I sat up. Shoshanne grabbed my arm and looked ready to push me back down but I shook my head. “I have to go north.”
“Mason, you can’t,” the healer insisted. “You’re in no state--”
“House Natyr,” I interrupted. “They offered their vote if I assassinated the head of House Syru. That elf over there is from House Syru.”
“Are you sure that’s who they asked you to kill?” Aurora asked nervously as she eyed the dead elf.
“Positive,” I said with a nod. “They said House Syru were a plague in the lands of Nalnora, and if they’re working for the Master, then he’s already infiltrated the elves.”
