I lunged for the nearest child of Aurum, the one wearing silk, but moved into a roll when an enormous spear plunged deep into the earth in front of . I was right. Talen had soone else hiding in the shadows.
I summoned a quick shield around myself and closed the distance between and the silken warrior. She brought up their halberd and swung at with a horizontal swipe, but I dodged beneath it and stabbed up at her neck. She just barely managed to dodge, and my sword wound up above her face, so I brought the hilt down onto her nose. There was a crunching noise, and she stumbled back, sweeping with her halberd to gain space. Before I could close it, another spear buried itself near , but this ti, too far away for to bother dodging.
As I fought, I watched Stone, Hrig, and Kyren take on the one wielding two bastard swords. Stone and Hrig had closed the distance quickly—I assud to keep the spear thrower from risking hitting his companion—and I noticed a shimring bubble around Kyren. Hrig’s tattoos were glowing as she swung her axe, and she’d already left several deep cuts on her opponent. anwhile, Stone was using hamr blows to force changes in his footing and stance in order to keep him from gaining montum, and Kyren was flinging bolts of energy at him every ti he managed to break away.
I summoned a second multi-sword into my other hand and began another round of attacks focusing on Talen. The spears had stopped, and that let give my full attention to the fight in front of .
Talen was wielding a slender silver blade with a coppery edge and making lightning-fast strikes at while his ally did her best to keep pinned with her halberd. She stabbed at with it, and I caught the halberd with my blade, pulling her and it in front of in order to block one of Talen’s blows, but his sword glided through its haft, my shield spell, and my armor like there was nothing there. His sword was edged with elyrium.
As we continued, my opponents gained an edge, and I started to have large rends carved into my armor. The halberdier had made a few thrusts at with the remaining haft, but gave up when it broke against , switching to using large claws I hadn’t noticed before, and I found her close-combat abilities to be much more difficult to defend against.
As I fought, I began to repair myself, drawing on my internal reserves. Talen’s blade continued to cut , but as it did, it began producing fewer and fewer tears and getting caught on my armor. Soon, my steel body was laced with lines of bronze from the elyrium I was drawing from the bars I’d stored for Kyren. Talen’s every hit was just making stronger.
As I started to take the upper hand, pushing Talen and his ally back, I noticed that the man dual-wielding the bastard swords had started to push Stone and Hrig back toward Kyren, and he seed to be focused on reaching her.
Before anyone could press an advantage, there was a crash as three figures slamd into the town square from a nearby rooftop. There was a man with golden eyes twirling a spear, being pushed back by a woman wielding a rapier and a dwarf with long tal claws. Dorsia and Jade had joined the fight. It looked like I had allies of my own.
They looked a bit worse for wear than either myself or my other companions, but they’d held their own against a child of Aurum and had managed to keep spears from slamming into , so I took that as a victory in their favor. They joined Hrig and Stone in protecting Kyren, and the bastard sword-wielding child of Aurum fell in with his spearman brother.
I managed to break through the daughter of Aurum’s defense, slamming a sword into her side, managing to push it through her scales, before imdiately dismissing the blade and let her blood flow freely from the wound. Talen slashed at before I could follow up, but I let his blow hit and filled myself in with another line of elyrium. Their blows were rattling my essence, but that beca less possible as the golden lines across my armor grew.
I heard a cry from behind and saw that Dorsia had managed to drive her rapier deep into an axe wound Hrig had left on the dual-wielder. The spearman went into a rage, but lost his footing as gold chains sprang up and wrapped around his legs. The silken child of Aurum broke off from and let out a large stream of fire, sending my companions reeling and giving the spearn ti to break free of his bonds.
That left and Talen fighting one another alone. I began attacking with empty hands, summoning blades just before they’d strike Talen and then de-summoning them to repeat the process. It distracted him and moved him back, forcing him to watch my every movent.
Occasionally, I wouldn’t summon a sword, but he’d dodge thinking I would, and I’d manage a quick punch or kick. I could see that the fight was wearing on him. I’d managed no real blows on him, but his allies were losing in spite of their incredible strength, and I was much more equipped to fight him than I had been after I’d been injured by Caedus. Talen wasn’t used to fair fights, and it showed.
He made a mistake, and I pressed my advantage, closing in for what I hoped would be a fatal blow. Suddenly, his cloak whipped around and slamd into hard, just under my faceplate, sending flying toward my companions, crashing into Stone. Talen’s cloak unfurled, and I realized that it wasn’t a leather cloak, but rather large powerful wings that sprouted from him. They started to beat, and Talen began turning around, attempting to make a run for it.
I tapped Stone’s boots, absorbing the enchantnt within them. "Sorry, don’t try to use these for the rest of the fight."
I rolled up and let my companions continue their fight while I ran straight for Talen. He was starting to gain altitude, rising up past the nearest building and starting to fly over it toward the gate. I made it to the building and leapt up onto the roof, the enchantnt from Stone’s boots allowing a solid twelve-foot vertical. A few more steps to gain montum, and I leapt again, this ti landing on Talen’s back.
He fell a bit, but rather than landing, he angled himself upward and started carrying us high into the air as quickly as possible, trying to shake loose from him. I shifted the tips of my gauntlets into claws and drove them deep into Talen’s shoulders. He scread, but continued to fly us higher, jerking and twisting the whole way as he did so.
I started clawing at his back, tearing into him, but suddenly, I went from tearing out flesh to only creating sparks. Golden scales began spreading from his back and slowly covered him from head to toe. He dove, directing us toward the forest.
Wind whistled by as the ground ca closer and closer to us, and at the last minute, he curved upward. We slamd into the treeline, and from there, it beca a test of endurance. Branches and whole trees broke as we crashed into them. When we started to slow down, Talen began rising back up into the air.
The slowdown allowed to pull myself up and wrap my arms around his golden neck. He put on a burst of speed to launch himself into the air, and soon, we were even higher than we’d been before, almost reaching the clouds. I started to squeeze, putting as much pressure on his throat as I could, but unlike Donyin, Talen didn’t panic. He simply stopped flying and let us fall, with underneath him.
I held firm, not letting up and continuing to squeeze as hard as I possibly could. I solidified the shield I’d put up and extended the boots’ enchantnt to my entire body, hoping to absorb the fall.
We landed in the middle of the bonfire, sending embers flying across the town and cracking the earth. I held on, still not giving an inch. Talen began to tear across my arms with newly ford talons, but I swiftly replaced the missing steel with elyrium and squeezed harder, adding in the pressure from the shield spell to crush his neck by a few more milliters. We rolled through the flas as we struggled, and Talen’s wings beat, trying in vain to shake or move . Gradually, his will to resist faded, and I felt him draw his last breath.
I stood slowly, climbing out from beneath him and stood over him, looking down. His eyes flashed open as a white-hot burst of fla erupted from it. I could feel parts of lt, but I summoned a blade and drove it through his open mouth and through the back of his head. I saw pure hatred in his eyes as his body burst into fla. Another soul added to Aurum’s growing collection.
I turned toward my friends. They had acquitted themselves similarly well. The bodies of the three they’d faced were also burning up in intense heat. We’d won the battle, but a part of felt that by doing so, we’d quite possibly strengthened Aurum himself. Still, it made more sense to focus on the tangible threat his children were at the mont rather than the existential one he represented.
I walked over to them. The town had mostly avoided catching fire, but a few townsfolk had made their way out of their hos in order to put out what small fires remained. They gave us all a wide berth as they did so.
Stone was clutching his side, and Kyren was healing him. Dorsia was on the ground as well, seemingly after having been healed, with Jade holding a waterskin to let her drink. Hrig was leaning heavily against her axe.
She gave a once over and smiled. "I like a man with scars."
I looked myself over. I was now crisscrossed with threads of elyrium across my entire body. I found that I rather liked how it looked, too, though Hrig was right in calling them scars.
"Is everyone okay?" I asked.
"Aye, lad," said Stone, lifting himself up and wiping the blood away from his now healed side.
Dorsia gave a thumbs-up but didn’t move aside from that, and Jade just nodded. The fight had been hard, but this was likely the one group of people on the continent that could manage to survive it.
Stone moved over to Talen’s body, took a small gold coin, and tossed it into the flas. He let out a heavy sigh and returned to us. At our questioning looks, he simply said, "Still owed him sothing, from a long ti ago."
I nodded somberly. It was important to rember that before Aurum’s influence, many people had been harmless, or at least much less dangerous than they’d beco. Stone had described Talen as a middle man when he’d last seen him. With Aurum’s influence, he’d beco a duke, a lord of the underworld that ruled with an iron fist and ruthless thods. Donyin had been a beggar, Vash captain of a single ship, and Rubrus a hedge mage's apprentice. Aurum had made them more powerful, but he’d also made them selfish and terrible. I shuddered at the thought of what Caedus was becoming due to that influence. He was already a born king—the powers and influence of a god of sheer will on top of that was a terrible thing to contemplate.
I had to reach him as quickly as possible. With a war on the way and Aurum looming beyond that, I had no ti to lose. Luckily, between Stone and Dorsia, I had the perfect group to help smuggle into the capital.
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