RavensDagger

  Chapter Twenty-One - A Situation

  "Carnel, this is a bad situation," Lazur snapped.

  "We will win," Carnel said with confidence that Viridian didn't quite feel herself. Especially not when Carnel was backing up to rejoin them while the vilgers spread out.

  There were seven of them before Viridian and her companions. Two of the vilgers were trying to awaken the others and another was pressing a piece of cloth against the mayor's side.

  "Thin them out before they wake up," Carnel said as she side-stepped closer. It looked like she wanted to get into something like a formation, which made perfect sense to Viridian. They would be much harder to overwhelm if they were all together.

  The mayor wasn't going to allow them to have things go so easily, however. "Run them through!" he roared. "I want their meat added to the hoard!"

  The vilgers hesitated for only a moment before they started to move with more acrity. Viridian felt herself freezing up for a moment. There were a lot of bodies rushing closer, and she didn't know what to do, but then her eyes locked onto one vilger, a thin, weasel-faced man with a knife, and she narrowed her focus to just him.

  As he ran up, she lunged out to meet him. Her pike stabbed towards his face, but he ducked to the side, bumping into the man next to him.

  Her next jab was aimed far lower and punched him in the hip. He grunted something even as he twisted and started to fall. His knife fshed out and scraped against the front of her gambeson, then he was on the ground.

  Viridian stabbed him with the sword in her other hand, once, then again, barely even registering where she was stabbing before she started moving back.

  She wasn't very fast. Nor were her puppet siblings, but they were still faster than emaciated, starving peasants. If only barely.

  Lazur grunted as she blocked a blow from a stick with one arm, before managing to plunge her pike into a man's neck. On Viridian's other side, Carnel was making a pleased humming noise as she repeatedly stabbed a rger woman in the gut and upper chest, each jab accompanied by a small step backwards. The woman fell soon enough, repced by another.

  It wasn't time to stare around her. Viridian stabbed at another, but her pike was grabbed out of her reach, the wooden pole slipping through her grasp, so she swung her other arm up and around, chopping her sword into a man's forehead with a decisive thud.

  Seven on three became four on three, then Lazur tripped and crashed onto her back.

  Viridian realized then, that the 'line' of vilgers had shifted. Those on Carnel's side had gone down quickly, not ready for her level of aggression, and Viridian had managed with those who'd approached her. Lazur hadn't been so lucky.

  A vilger raised a long wooden staff far above his head, poised to bring it down.

  He never got the opportunity as Viridian plunged her sword into his side, burying it deep into his armpit. As he fell, she had to pull hard to keep the sword from staying in him. "Up!" she said.

  "Yes, I'm standing," Lazur said.

  The st of the vilgers that had moved towards them started to cower back, but Carnel put an end to him with a swipe of her sword that was almost dismissive in its casualness.

  The three turned towards the mayor. The man was red-faced with rage, his eyes were sparking gold, and there was actual froth gathering in his mouth. "Oh, great Aurynth, blessed be your reapers, that they may--" he began to chant, though his words were garbled and messy.

  "Quick!" Carnel said.

  She threw her pike, and the weapon soared ahead of her in a gentle arc. It cked some force, but the top-heavy weapon was still aimed true.

  The vilger who'd been helping the mayor stepped into the pike's path, then groaned as it buried itself into his back and threw him to the ground.

  Viridian and the others started to run towards the mayor. There were more vilgers on the ground, asleep or knocked out, some bleeding, and others trying to help them who might interfere at any moment, but their sole focus was on the mayor himself.

  "Thank you, oh lord, for your divine blessing of gold. May my soul join your eternal fields!"

  The mayor's back exploded outwards. The sash wrapped around his waist glowed bright, then between one moment and the next, as if caught in an unearthly wind, it fluttered out behind him and transformed into a ghostly, golden wing that stretched out behind the mayor.

  "Now, interlopers. Die," he demanded.

  Viridian tried to fling her pike at him, but a sweep of his new wing sent it flying off further into the town square. She stumbled back, her run meeting a wall of powerful wind strong enough to make even the corpses on the ground roll about.

  Still, the bst seemed somewhat directional. Carnel ran in from the mayor's side and tried to stab at him. He caught her pike with his wing, then flung it aside before stepping in and slicing at the air with his knife.

  Carnel raised her sword to parry the blow... and the knife cut through her sword like an axe through kindling.

  The tip of her sword went flying, but the knife didn't stop. With a dull thump, it stabbed into the side of Carnel's head all the way to the hilt.

  "Carnel!" Viridian shouted.

  She scrambled towards the mayor, who started to cackle with unrestrained glee. He wasn't paying attention to her until she plunged her sword with as much force as she could muster into his lower back, right where she knew the kidneys to be.

  The mayor screamed and spun around, wing extending to bat her away, but there was a sudden burst of bright light from nearby that made the man raise his wing and arms to protect himself.

  Nothing came from the light, but the momentary distraction was enough for Viridian to yank her sword back then cut across the man's back.

  Then, out of nowhere, Carnel reached out and sshed with the remains of her sword across the mayor's face.

  The man flinched back, screaming not in rapturous glee, but in momentary fear. He never saw Lazur running over to stab him through with her pike.

  The battlefield, such as it was, grew eerily quiet. The only living people were id out on the ground, asleep. The mayor fumbled with the pike jammed into him even as the wing attached to his back faded away into motes of golden light.

  He was crying, as he finally passed.

  "Carnel!" Lazur snapped. "Are you well?"

  Carnell reached up and gingerly touched the knife protruding out of the side of her head. "My eye is not working," she said. "Just one."

  "Should we remove it?" Viridian asked.

  "Leave that to the artificer," Lazur said.

  "It's fine, my head is mostly empty."

  "You're right, your head is mostly empty. You idiot," Lazur snapped. "We had a weapon that we brought just to kill this one. We didn't need to take such a risk."

  "It might have destroyed the body," Carnel said. "Then no essence for us."

  Lazur let out a long, mechanical sigh, then she started to undo the ties on the front of her gambeson. "You'd trade your skull for a few more points of essence?"

  Carnel shrugged. "It's repceable."

  "Idiot," Lazur repeated.

  Viridian finished opening the front of her gambeson, and with a bit of focus, she opened her front up and her siphon unfolded. She waited until the others had their out, and the three plunged their needles into the mayor's torso.

  He let out a faint groan, and Viridian was surprised that he was even still alive. By the time they were done pulling the essence out of him, he very much wasn't.

  556 her counter read. Even split three ways, the mayor was worth a little more than fifteen normal vilgers. "Lots," she said. "We should start on the others."

  "We can kill those that are sleeping too, before they wake up," Carnel said.

  "No!" Viridian said. "No, they are innocents."

  "They are filled with essence," Carnel said.

  Lazur looked between the two, then shook her head. "We can tie them and bring them to the pier. Magus Maldrak might want peasants. If he doesn't, then we take their essence."

  Viridian hesitated, then nodded. That felt acceptable. "Let's take the essence of the dead. Then we can loot. This mayor was staying in that building over there. I think he'd want to live in comfort, and he might have things worth taking."

  Lazur nodded. "Magic items. I'd like that."

  "I'd still rather have the essence. Why do magic items matter when you can just be stronger?" Carnel asked.

  "Your head really is empty," Lazur said.

  Viridian sighed. The two really couldn't get along sometimes.

  ***

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