A small hand gripped the bottom of my chest piece as I charged the two shield bearers. Rather than counter charge, the pair braced to form a tiny shield wall. Both of their shields touched the wall on either side. Small tendrils of mana, visible as only a heat haze, stretched from the smaller of the pairs’ shield to latch onto his companion’s. Yet, at lower Tiers shield walls had a major flaw. They required mass.

  The Impact sent the smaller of the two over the catwalk’s half wall into the dense fog beneath, one of Mika’s golems visible as it ran past the opening he left. Their partner slammed into the office wall and rattled the nearby door frame. The shield bearer groaned in pain as I stomped down on his ankle, passing him to reach the more dangerous members of this group.

  A shield of crystalline ice manifested inches from the [Mages] face and shattered back into mana rather than snow as my hammer drove through it. Panic flared in the woman’s eyes as she ducked to avoid the follow through. I moved in time with the war hymn I quietly hummed, pursuing the woman and trusting Ellen to keep the [Archer] from stabbing me in the back.

  The [Mage] threw up shield after shield. The ice grew opaquer with each one, but she fended me off. A knife thrust that would have killed Nora forced me to step away from her and deflect.

  The fight ended when I feinted overhead with my hammer and brought my shield around the ice wall to drive the wind out of the [Mage]. In an amateur display of pain management, she doubled over and allowed me to end the fight.

  I turned to deal with the [Archer], who slashed at Ellen wildly with her bow, knife held in the off-hand to defend. The woman caught sight of me out of the corner of her eye and turned to face me, her eyes going wide.

  “Bran!” Nora screamed.

  I heard metal sheer before I felt a searing pain in the back of my left thigh. Iona’s hand tightened further. To the point air would have stopped, if her hand had been physical, and the fire that pulsed from my leg drained away.

  A numb ache spread from the wound before I heard a loud snap, and I lost all strength in my left leg. I dropped to one knee. A flash of fire surged up my torso at the impact, but like a dog with a ball, the Howling Winds chased the pain and left me with a sensation like frostbite.

  I swung wildly behind me, to the crescendo of the war hymn, and barely missed Tina, who jumped away into the now open doorframe. Just in time to avoid having my hammer spike driven into her temple. My vision tunneled in on her, silhouetted by the light of the warehouse against the pitch black of her windowless office.

  Forest green eyes wide in a euphoric smile, she wiped the blood off her dagger onto her cheeks, like some of the other cults in the forest did. Still on one knee, I gingerly reached behind me with my right hand, my shield out protectively in front of me, to find the wound.

  When I touched the wound, pain tried to explode from it, but I could feel the Howling Winds pacing back and forth nearby, waiting for another meal to come before it. A feeling like having salted ice pressed into the wound replaced ragged fire.

  “Bran, are you okay?” Nora yelled as she rushed to me, Ellen still fighting off the [Archer].

  I was not okay; this was a massive failure. We should have checked that door; cleared that room. I’d been too eager, too absorbed in the fight. I expected Ellen to know and follow Black Hand procedure and check the door. My failure to verbalize that got me injured and let an enemy combatant behind my line.

  “The manic dog hamstrung me.” I deadpanned.

  Tina attacked as soon as I verbalized what she’d done. She’d waited for me to realize I was damned before she launched her assault. My misery compound when out of the corner of my eye I saw the [Archer] weave around Ellen to launch herself at me.

  Restricted by the confines of the walkway, Tina and the [Archer] had no way to slip around me. Forcing them to fight me head on. Knives rained down on my shield as I blocked what I could not sway away from. Years of flexibility training allowed me to move in way usually restricted to slimmer individuals and saved my life. My efforts alone, however, would have seen me dead, a knife in my throat.

  Ellen’s maul kept the pair honest and kept them from launching the kind of full-on assault that would have killed me. She was smart about it, waiting until they were too close, or had a knife stuck within the boards of my shield before she attacked. My kneeling form serving as a protective half wall between her and them.

  I would have preferred to move and reposition myself as we fought, to actively search out faults in the others’ form or opportunities to exploit. But because the injury forced me to kneel, I could only be passive. It was a strange thing to feel no fear when fighting for your life. No anxiety, no rage, no shame. Nothing hot could overpower Iona’s hold on me. Beneath her grip, the sound of steel against steel, steel on wood, the pained screams of the dying and damned, and Tina’s mad giggles as she danced around hammer and maul blows all faded to the ambient chirping of birds.

  There was nothing for me but the safety of my party. I was a sentinel, I was a guard, I was a weapon. I failed my duty when I allowed Tina to get behind and injure me. That failure needed to be rectified. I could not stop so long as my party was in danger. Duty required me to die before I allowed those in my charge to do so.

  Encased in Winter’s touch, I waited for an opportunity. Minutes passed as I allowed Tina and the [Archer] to break upon my shield. They were the gale wind and I the willow. I would not break, but I would bend.

  My opportunity came when Nora, who’d kept to her own duty and focused on those below us, fired a basic mana bolt at Tina. The swirling ball of rock-hard water chipped her shoulder. Her slight stumble gave me the chance I’d waited for. Tina bumped into the [Archer] and forced the woman to widen her stance to stay up. Like a snake from the grass, I smashed my hammer into the [Archer’s] ankle. The woman dropped, her ankle reduced to powder, and Ellen silenced her when she brought her maul down on the woman’s solar plexus. Her meager armor doing nothing to protect her.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  The fresh gore that splashed onto my face nearly killed me; blinded for the moment it took me to wipe my eyes, Tina stabbed out at me. Rather than throw myself further out of position, I trusted my chain mail veil to stop the attack. Sparks flew as the chain mail turned the knife away and turned a slit throat to a small knick below my voice box.

  Some emotion tried to flare in my chest, and I fought down thoughts of Helena as I parried another stab of Tina’s barbed dagger. Iona’s grip tightened again and smothered the emotion. Her phantasmal grip on my neck was so tight that it hurt. I could feel each one of her intangible fingers pressed against my spine, ice cold, blackened skin against bone.

  Tina danced back away from my counter and I figured she would do the sensible thing and run. Gather more allies before returning. Her bloodlust was up, though. The sight of the [Archer’s] body only enflamed the madness I saw in her and she came at me harder than before. My blood ran down her cheeks in streaks, like flaming tears against her porcelain skin.

  Tina laughed as she danced away from Ellen’s maul and I tried to stand. Alone, Tina was much less of a threat, and I needed to stand. Kneeling was far too exposed.

  “Guys, hurry up.” Nora said, her voice concerned.

  Getting my good leg up underneath me was easy enough, but when I tried to put my left leg down and set stance, pain lanced down to my ankle and up to my chest. Dropping me to a knee again, which only caused another pulse of agony.

  Within my soul, I could feel the Howling Winds chase after the pain and drain some of its power, but I was too far from the forest and the pain too strong for the Winds to fully subsume it.

  Tina smiled at my futile attempt to stand coming at me like a rabid dog. She no longer attempted to weave around me and went only at my left side. Which forced me to cross my body with my shield, weakening me even further. Again, it was only the narrow confines that saved my life, because had Tina squeezed around me, there was no way I could have moved fast enough to stop her from shredding my back.

  Even though the confines had saved me, within the caresses of the Touch of the Black Hand, I knew with a grim certainty that it was only a matter of time before I made a mistake that cost me my life. Even with most of the pain silenced, that did not stop blood loss. I was on a timer before I weakened and could no longer do my duties.

  “Ellen left!” I shouted and leaned fully to my right, exposing as large a gap as I could.

  Tina snarled and rushed to fill the gap before Ellen could, but I punched out with my shield at the right time. Catching her on the hip and sending her tumbling back a few steps. Ellen filled the gap and painfully I dragged my limp leg towards me so she had the space to get set.

  Tina paused, five feet out of reach, panting. Her face twisted in a rictus grin. I was convinced she would retreat this time.

  Faintly, like someone touching the ends of my hair, I felt some skill activate and Tina rushed back at us, fury renewed. She fought with the reckless abandon of a prey animal backed into a corner.

  Wrapped in calm, I watched Tina attack. Detached from the reality that a mistake meant my death, and a life without a father for Helena. Tina began this fight with skill, a serpentine grace I respected. As the fight progressed, she lost that skill and fell back on animal instinct. Had I been a betting man, I would have guaranteed she had a berserker class responsible for that shift in style.

  Tina came in again snarling, her dagger held in an ice pick grip. She slammed the knife down in an overhead arch that I met with the rim of my shield. Tina hissed in pain as her knife as the curve of my helmet turned away her knife. The impact echoed around the enclosed space.

  Elongated canines that dripped with a clear fluid peaked out from beneath her lips as she hissed.

  Her pupils stretched and changed to the slit eyes of a snake as she threw herself at me again. Light green scales appeared at the corners of her eyes as I allowed a stab to skate along the metal scales of my shoulder.

  Tina weaved towards me around a mistimed swing from Ellen and lunged. I caught her dagger on the haft of my hammer and turned it away but she surprised me and surged forward. Her jaw dropped and unhinged to reveal a second set of fangs on her lower jaw that dripped with a green venom.

  I punched out with my shield and hit Tina in the mouth hard enough that it should have taken her jaw off. Something about her transformation stopped that, but the suddenly flexible joint still dangled loose. Scales raced to cover the rest of her face as if in reaction to the pain, and slowly, I could see her jaw working to reattach itself.

  The pain of a broken jaw didn’t stop or slow the woman. Lost to her bestial rage, she threw herself at me. It was all I could do to defend at the onslaught. I abandoned the thought of counterattack as the woman hounded me. Her knife danced from hand to hand and cut jagged lines where ever I had exposed skin while I swayed around her fangs. The venom that hit the ground sizzling in small pools around me.

  I was out of position, Tina’s knife inches from stabbing up into my side when Ellen’s maul dropped the woman, her unarmored skull unable to protect her even after the transformation.

  Everyone around us dead I took a quick tally in my head of the band members I’d killed. Including John and his companion, I’d witnessed the death of fifteen band members, not including the people I assumed were dying on the ground floor.

  “I’m dropping my spell.” Nora whispered behind me; voice hoarse. “Need to conserve mana.”

  “You did well. Ellen, I need help standing.” I commanded.

  “What happened?” Ellen asked as she slipped her shoulder under my right arm. She sounded more concerned that I’d ever heard from her, but I was unsure if that was because of my injury or our situation at large.

  “Hamstrung.”

  “Gods, really? Are you going to be able to walk?”

  “The Grace Mother provides.”

  With a grunt, Ellen heaved me to my feet, our armor a cacophony of metal against metal. My leg refused to obey my will. Nothing I could do would move the thing. Though I kept feeling in it, numbed as I was, the sensations from my leg arrived at my brain as if through molasses.

  When I moved my hip in just the right way to get my foot underneath me, I put no weight on it and just allowed myself to adjust to standing. Shield still raised to cover Nora and as much of Ellen as possible. I let the pain and Howling Winds fight for dominance within me.

  “Is anyone else hurt?” I asked, trying to ignore the feeling of the pool of blood in my boot.

  “I’m fine, tired is all.” Nora said.

  “Couple of nasty cuts, but I’ll manage.”

  “Alright. Nora, I need you to bandage my leg. I can’t keep bleeding like this.”

  Ellen coached Nora through how to do it. I’d guessed who would’ve had the experience wrong, and rather than have Ellen take over, I let her teach Nora. Field first aid was a vital skill, and Nora would have to learn it.

  Nora tore a strip from the [Archer’s] shirt and tied it around my leg. I was so cut off from the sensation that the pressure was kind if nice. When Nora finished the bandage, she stepped just far enough back to give me room.

  Shield arm still raised to provide cover, I had my right on the office wall to provide stability as I tried to take a step.

  As soon as I put weight on the leg, my vision went white and agony exploded out from my leg so strongly it burned away Iona’s touch before she could reassert control again. I desperately clenched my jaw to stop from howling, but an agonized cry still tore itself from my throat and I collapsed, held up only by Ellen.

  Hesitantly, I opened my eyes and the twenty feet we had until the end of the walkway stretched out in front of me as if for an eternity. Pain receded gradually as Iona and the Howling Winds built back up the blizzard within my soul. Desperately I wished I could give them the time they needed to do so, but the next step would just burn away her touch again, and we were still under threat.

  “Nora.” I croaked. “What’s left?”

  “Three left.” She replied. The hand she had pressed against my lower back shook slightly, but her voice was resolute.

  “So little?” I expected her and Mika to do far worse than that. I could survive three.

  “They had a [Healer] but after I got to her, the rest fell quickly.

  “And the three?”

  “Fully armored in plate. I’m ninety percent sure Greg is with them.”

  “What are they doing?” Ellen asked.

  “They’re just standing there. Mika’s been trying to get to them but they destroyed one of his golems and he can’t get past their armor with the other two.”

  I raised my eyes from the black painted and red stained metal grating of the catwalk to look behind us. One of Mika’s golems was no longer trailing us. I wasn’t sure when it left, but I assumed it was sometime while I was getting bandaged.

  “Okay. Ellen help me to the top of the stairs. We are going to hold our ground there. Under no circumstance are either of you to move onto the ground floor.”

  “Why?” Ellen asked.

  “I can’t move. I’m useless if they get around me. I need to do my duty and up here is the only place I can.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ellen turn to give Nora a look I couldn’t parse.

  “Alright.” Ellen said hesitantly. “Let me know if you need a break.”