Distracted as I was by the firing squads setting up on the ground floor, I had to trust our [Mages] to do their jobs and focus on the group of six who’d just climbed up the stairs.

  “With me, Nora, stay close.” Nora did so. A thin wave of mist emanated out from her feet as she walked.

  A large man I hadn’t seen before led the squad, and none of the leadership was present amongst them. The disheveled group looked like they’d just woken up. Their clothes thrown on with ill-fitting and poorly equipped patches of armor, small plates belted over vital organs and the like.

  Whoever these people were, they’d just picked up their weapons and thrown on whatever they could, which I was grateful for. What I was less grateful for was that the man leading the charge was not only the oldest of the squad -and most likely the highest Tier – but he was also only barely smaller than me.

  I knew I’d be able to weather this man and kill him. Fear and nervousness could no longer touch me within the grasp of the Black Hand. My confidence was unshakable.

  My confidence did not mean I could be passive, however. Mass moves mass and the tightly packed group of six that walked down the catwalk. The sound of their footfalls, a discordant rhythm against the wooden flooring, probably had close to a thousand pounds on me.

  I shouted behind me again for Nora and Ellen to stay close as I charged, shield focused on stopping any stray arrows from hitting Nora or me as we ran.

  The broad-shouldered man up front was the first to notice. The rest of his squad too focused on what was occurring on the ground floor. Soundlessly, he picked up speed and charged, leaving the other five behind. As he ran, he lowered his two-handed great sword like a lance and a thin tip of grey mana extended from the sword.

  I batted aside the sword point with my shield, the mana tip fuzzed and cut through the rim of my shield and two inches into the board beneath before I flung the sword to the side. The man repositioned fast and drove the point back towards my neck. I side stepped and lunged forward to drive the head of my hammer into his unguarded stomach.

  The head of my hammer lacked the spike I’d seen on other designs, but five pounds of steel driven into your guts was not something endured without pain. The man wheezed out a bellow’s breath. I punched forward with my shield hand and cracked the rim of my shield against his jaw. The punch snapped his head to the side, but he didn’t crumple.

  A three fingered hand snapped up and tightened around the rim of my shield, denting the wood slightly. The man’s missing ring and middle finger stood out prominently to me in the moment, a stark contrast against his unscarred face and arms.

  The man's grip was far stronger than his body should have allowed, likely backed up by some kind of skill, I resisted the pull only hard enough to delay his movement a second and slammed my hammer down on his wrist once, twice, and a third time.

  His wrist broke on the second strike but he still held, his skill allowing him to keep his grip. One handed the man twisted his sword and tried to drive it into my stomach. The third blow from my hammer shattered his wrist and the ragged scream of pain the man released overshadowed the sound of bone fragmenting, his sword blow skittering off the plates on my stomach

  He brought his hand back to cradle it against his chest. It flopped against his wrist like a short-chained flail. Small shards of bone writhed beneath the skin.

  Ellen and I traded places as I stepped back on instinct and got my shield up just in time for a sleek bodkin bolt to drive through my shield almost three inches. The head coming to rest only an inch above my forearm. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Ellen emerge from behind me to cave in the unarmored head of the large man as he cradled his arm to his chest.

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  Had we been defending the catwalk I would have let their corpses pile up in front of me, a macabre wall to give me time and sap their morale. However, time was of the essence and we needed to get out of this position as fast as possible. I stepped over the corpse and had to drag a dazed-looking Nora over the corpse.

  The first of the remaining five to reach me died with his throat caved in. The fatal strike traded for an ineffective cudgel blow to my thigh. I had to take the next man’s charge head on because there was enough space for me to get set over the suffocating man’s corpse. Ellen saw me brace and pressed herself into my back. Through my armor, I could feel the ridge of her helmet pressed into my shoulder.

  I held up the charge, the force of it collapsing my shield arm against my chest, but worried this would be where we took the first injury. Ellen and I occupied this was the perfect time to hit us with an arrow or spell.

  Rapid short steps drove me forward as I slowly pushed back the ragtag street rats that thought to get past me. Behind me I felt Ellen reposition to get a better grip of me, the shaft of her maul pushed against my lowest ribs, and push. Together, the two of us slowly pushed back the four.

  Worried about the ground floor, I tried to listen to see if I could hear any orders, but the sounds of exertion and screams of pain filled my ears. My own breaths echoed around in my helmet.

  Ellen and I pushed a squished Nora between us, and I lashed out with my hammer. The strikes had no purpose but to cause pain. Even if it was just a glancing blow unarmored as the band members were, any strike would hurt. I needed to make them wary of advancing, convince them even subconsciously that it was better to back off. The plan was effective because a moment later the and members returned the favor. Swords and daggers dance around the edges of my shield to slide and dance off the scale and chains of my armor.

  Forged by a journeywoman of the Order of the Everbright Ember, my armor was good, but not infallible. These people needed to die before they landed a lucky strike. I stopped lashing out and only struck for the head or neck. The third person to die did so with the spike of my hammer through the top of their skull. Without their weight, I no longer needed Ellen’s help to stop them from pushing me backwards.

  Ellen noticed my new found ease and left the pile. The fourth person dropped when the ornate square head of Ellen’s maul carved a furrow through their neck and shattered their collarbone. Now even lighter, I shoved and drove the remaining pair backwards. The space open between us was suddenly large enough for Ellen to use her maul effectively.

  Ellen wasted no time and collapsed a woman’s chest. Her cry of pain sounded more like a pocket of swamp gas bursting than a human cry. As I stepped over, coldly, I noticed they were too stupid to realize they were dead and put them out of their misery. The next man died when a mana bolt from Nora took out his feet and I stomped on the back of his head. His brain exploded out from under my foot like a rotten melon.

  As I moved to confront the last person in the group, the wider picture of the battle forced itself on me when an arrow punched through the scales of my armor and pierced three inches deep into the top of my thigh.

  Seeing the impact and faster than his fellows, the man used a movement skill to slip past the edge of my shield and drove a dagger up towards the eye socket of my helmet. The knife was a wicked thing. Small barbs lining the back promised to tear out more flesh than they cut on the way in.

  Years upon years of muscle memory and I swayed out of the way just fast enough to be left with a minor cut under my eye instead of a hole in my skull. Instinct kicked in again and I lashed out in a wide arc, barely missing the wall beside us. The spike landed and took the man off his feet to throw him off the catwalk, dead before he ever hit the ground

  “Ellen, get the arrow out of my leg.” I called back at her, attention focused on a water spell shot towards us from behind a set of crates at the far right of the warehouse floor.

  Metal squealed as the slightly barbed arrow head fought to remain in my flesh. Without the touch of the Black Hand, I would have had to bite down on my veil to keep from screaming, but the pain was gone before I could ever notice it. The Howling Winds patrolled my body for pain or emotion like a loyal hound and scoured it away as soon as it found any.

  Immediate opponents dealt with, I moved to put Nora behind me and Ellen in as much of my shadow as possible. The three of us struggled to get our breath back, the air tainted now with the iron smell of blood and the pungent mix of foul substances that always came from corpses.

  Surveying my party, I noticed that the golem Mika had given us hadn’t even got blood splashed on it in the fighting. I would have to talk to him about that.

  “Nora, how’s your mana?” She wasn’t displaying any signs of mana exhaustion yet, but everyone had different pools.

  “I’m good. The spell’s fairly cheap on mana once it’s up. I’ve got another five minutes in me… probably.” She hedged.

  “Probably isn’t good enough Nora, how long?” I barked back at her. My attention still focused on scanning for more projectiles.

  “Five, I’ve got five minutes.”

  “Drop it in four. We don’t need you exhausting yourself. Ellen, any injuries?”

  “Small cut on my forearm, but I’m alright.”

  The sound of footfalls coming up the stairs ended our break. The new comers didn’t charge up in some reckless assault. Instead, they came already formed up, no one moving faster than the others could keep up with.

  Each of them had on light sets of armor. Gambesons with armor plates strapped over the vitals, and small skull caps to protect their heads. The two leading the charge both had small kite shields and marched down the catwalk shoulder to shoulder.

  The one of the left’s shield was painted yellow with three red bees that circled the boss on the shield, while the one on the right depicted some kind of aquatic monster on a field of wavy green and white lines.

  The frontliners weren’t the ones who held my attention. Behind them was a pair of women with a short horn bow and a mana focus. Made from a white-flecked stone, the small focus’ tip branched out in three directions to encase a hazy grey gem. The woman had her bow up, and an arrow notched, but she waited for some command before firing.

  These two would have to die first. They couldn’t allow them to take potshots at Ellen, or especially Nora. Losing either meant a quick death for me and whoever survived.