-Callia-
Using what little time I had left before the arrival of my target, I climbed up the backside of an adjacent house and slipped myself silently into the highest floor. The soft patting of my feet echoed so much louder as I split my focus between tracking my target, the sounds of the paladins back at the church rushing over, and doing my utmost to hide my presence. With my senses trained outward, I almost jumped in surprise when the sound of a baby echoed through the room I was observing from. Immediately I shifted back towards the window I used to enter, intending to move my position to the neighboring house. However, my window of opportunity to position myself before the conflict started closed. The guards outside all immediately began shouting as they finally noticed the incoming strike force.
“Crap,” I mutter soundlessly, crossing the room again like a blur of shadows. Well, at the very least, while I’m staying in the baby's room, I can provide some measure of safety to the baby. I reach the curtains of the dangerous side of the house just in time to see dozens of guards forming in front of the wagon, facing off against the paladins and vault guards who were jumping off their transport platform. The vault guards led the charge, barreling into the defensive formation like cannon rounds through the boards of a wooden boat. My heart hurt as I watched and waited, letting these men give their lives. In no time at all many broke away running in terror, some froze, but a few charged forward without hesitation. Watching from the outside, I think for the first time I felt the kind of courage charging at someone so much stronger than you must take.
Their lives were traded for precious seconds, and those seconds were vital. Norold and company arrived in time, charging into the back of the strike force. While the ambush wasn’t fast or quiet enough to hit an unprepared force, the nearby buildings still shook from the intensity of the clash between the central tower paladins and my allies. Nearly half the vault guard that had been butchering the regular guards peeled back to support the paladins; those that remained continued to make short work of the few that remained in their path. The entire time I didn’t let my eye wander in the slightest from my target. I watched as the mage and the vault guard captain jumped down from the platform and leisurely began strolling through the carnage as their subordinates cleared the way.
Their walking stopped as the line behind them suddenly cracked. Norold bursts through the defensive line like a raging bull. He grabbed a vault guard by the leg and was swinging the man like a club while he kicked and punched any other challengers in his way. His advance was immediately interrupted as the guard captain darted through the space between them, his sword flickering with the same speed that had overwhelmed me. His blade glowing with aura sliced cleanly through the vault guard who was thrown by Norold in his path. It didn’t slow him in the slightest until the air seemed to shake and the corpses strewn about wobbled from the sudden impact. The sword sparked and ground against the crossed gauntlets of Norold. They too gave off a glow of aura that matched the captain’s.
“Traitor!” the captain’s voice roared out while the shimmering clash of weapons held still in a deadlock. Norold pushed one step forward and then another before the captain skipped backwards, breaking the clash. Norold pressed forward after him, one fist cocked back and ready to punch while the other protectively screened him from the front.
“If I am the traitor, then why are you working alongside demons?” Norold’s retort roared out as his fist flashed forward. The captain gripped his sword with both hands, slashing the incoming strike with all his strength. The shadows recoiled as the aura flared. Norold broke the engagement this time, recoiling to the right while nursing his arm that was soaking the white paladin garbs red rapidly.
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“Am I the traitor for accepting the aid of those willing to give it? Don’t delude yourself, Norold; this world has been abandoned. Only those willing to bear the darkest price will have the power to preserve humanity!” The captain raised his sword overhead, bringing it down mercilessly. Norold pushed back the first and then the second strike as both went back and forth. My eyes were instinctively drawn to the big showy fight at the center, but I swallowed my concern and kept the majority of my attention on the mage. Unhurriedly the man reached the first of the carts unopposed, the last of the guards collapsing into retreat. One mistake or tell during my ambush could make or break the entire operation. As much as the bow was my best weapon, instead I chose to lean on the only thing that might be more instantaneous, a blink and a knife. I felt my vision starting to tunnel as I brought the full intensity of my focus on my target. Timing would be key; catching him mid-transfer of the goods would deny him the opportunity to respond.
Slowly he reached towards the first wagon with his hand, just like how Callen and I would touch goods to store them. The bawling of the child behind me rang out moments before my heart jumped as it screamed danger. Instead of blinking forward, I blinked backwards, grabbing the child and cradling them protectively as I brought us both to the floor. The entire wall and everything a foot above the ground twisted in place as everything twisted in place like it was caught in some kind of spatial blender. Once it was fully blended, the chips of stone and wood blasted downward. I could’ve blinked to safety, but that would mean abandoning the child to take the hit. Numerous surface-deep scratches and thin cuts covered my back, but the child was safe.
Before I could think of where it was safe to deposit the child, the mage appeared on the edge of the room, standing where the wall he had ripped to shreds had been moments before. My first thought was to charge, but moving at any realistic combat speed with a baby in my hands was a death sentence for the child. The same issue stopped me from running. The mage, however, didn’t immediately attack.
“It seems the runaway has managed to get herself caught again. The pope has expressed his strong desire that you in particular be captured and brought before him. It seems I’m in luck that you care far too much for mere commoners and a baby at that.” His voice reeked of smug satisfaction as he kept his staff leveled at me, ready to cast at a moment's notice. “Strip.” I swallowed nervously as I lowered the child to the ground. I tried to slowly move away, but he wasn’t having any of that.
“Stay between me and the child like a good protector. Listen to my commands, or I turn him to paste.” Not far away the sounds of battle raged, but I didn’t have time to think about that. Slowly I set down my bow, then my quiver; one by one I removed pieces of equipment. Then came the outerwear, leaving only my Under Armour; with each piece my movements became more hesitant. It wasn’t out of shame, but I was being confronted in real time with signaling the retreat of the paladins outside or letting them give their lives in vain. The moral choice of a baby or the lives of your comrades. I started tugging at the armor that wasn’t desired to be removed without my ability to shift it in and out of the void, buying seconds as my mind grappled with the dilemma. At the last second a haggard-looking woman lunged from the neighboring room with a knife in hand.
Somehow the mage didn’t notice right up until she jumped him from behind. Her dull kitchen knife jabbed repeatedly into him, but her strength failed to overcome his armor and vitality. A skin-deep slit along his throat marked her failed attempt to slit his throat, but the seconds of distraction she brought as the man batted her away let me blink right to the mage’s throat. I gripped it in one hand, squeezing vigorously, while the other seized the man's staff hand, crushing his wrist. I pressed forward, and we both tumbled over the side of the building. The staff was lost in the fall, but I ignored my impact with the ground as I felt the bones in the man's neck begin to crack. The muscles in his neck and the integrity of his arteries gave way shortly after the spine. Bit by bit I compressed the throat until I couldn’t clench my fist any further, having severed the man's head with my grip alone.
I continued to clutch at what once was a neck until my instincts flared up. I snapped my attention upward to find the vault guards rushing over to the both of us. In a single smooth motion I deflected the imminent attack while hurling the decapitated head of my target towards the melee with Norold. The guards tried to close in further, but I just used the man as a springboard, sending me back up. I flashed over to the warhorn, wasting no time blowing in it to signal the retreat. My attention then snapped to the injured mother, and in no time at all I was by her side. Alive, but not for long. Immediately I reached out to Callen.
“Void Gate Now!”
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Jeremiah 2:19 NIV - Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.
