VIRAN

  Getting stabbed hurt a lot.

  Or at least, it was supposed to. Dovin had said that the point of training was to give your body practice, so you could still fight even when you were in too much pain to think. He had also said 'once' when Viran asked how many times you had to be stabbed for that to happen.

  Viran couldn't feel anything yet, even though he could see where the point of the blade had been caught, feel it buzzing and scraping against his mana's resistance less than a claws-width beneath his scales.

  He didn't even remember bracing, but he must have. Physical investment was supposed to make injuries less serious, but you needed to have almost as much mana as an Immortal to start shrugging off even bronze blades by accident.

  The blade was steel, Viran could see it for sure, nestled firmly in the newly carved gap in his skin. Sharp steel was supposed to break skin even for Immortals that braced, up to a point. Viran didn't really remember all the math Auntie had made him do about it, just the important parts about how overinvesting in durability was a trap that could leave you helpless.

  It was harder to agree with her now, feeling the results.

  Until his mana reserves plummeted.

  The squire had stopped gawping to work the blade back and forth, grinding against Viran's mana as he vainly tried to sink the knife deeper. The sudden drop in Viran's reserves wasn't enough to give him mana exhaustion right away, but Auntie's explanation was starting to make sense again.

  Durability only bought you time, not victory.

  Viran kicked out at the squire's wrist to get him to stop, and the pain finally hit when he made contact.

  Cracking his shin off a boulder at a full sprint had been worse, but that was years ago. Before he had made a mistake, this winter. The sensation still left him hopping on his uninjured limb, until he balanced on the borrowed polearm, leaning away from the crawling human.

  The battered haft of the axe finally snapped against the stone floor, and Viran stumbled when he lost the support he had been leaning on. The squire's knife had clattered to the ground too, slipping from Viran's leg while the boy crawled to his feet.

  "That was your something? He's barely even bleeding!"

  Squeaky sounded horrified at the other squire's dirty trick. It was too bad Viran was dueling him, so the other squire had to be the judge.

  His leg hurt a bit more with some weight on it, and blood finally began to trickle down his scales.

  "Ow," Viran said, more out of reflex than pain.

  The wound kind of stung, but half of it was the prickle of natural regeneration telling him he was still being fixed. Maybe it would hurt more later.

  It was definitely going to slow him down during the duel.

  "Shut up, we can still do this!" Bossy yelled. "Get upstairs!"

  Viran almost grumbled something about not being able to follow that fast because of his leg, but the squires had already turned away to shove each other up the stairs, noisily climbing to the barracks and leaving him holding the half-melted axe with a charred handle.

  Neither one of them seemed to think that hurting him before the fight was cheating, so they were going to have to wait until he had taken care of it.

  At least he had a properly sized weapon now, even if it was by accident.

  "I'm keeping the knife too, if I win!" Viran shouted up the stairs.

  They were too busy yelling at each other to reply to him. Some of the furniture was making concerning scraping noises on the ceiling above him, but people were more important than furniture.

  And there were a lot of people in actual danger outside, that Viran needed to check on.

  Viran hobbled over to the window, careful not to lean out while he studied the terrain again. The battle was going... kind of okay?

  The Venatrix had stopped retreating halfway across the pass, even driving the Warlord back a dozen paces at a time before the slingers on the cliff were in range to pressure her away again.

  Viran didn't care about that very much, until he watched the Warlord's armor drink a fireball. The defensive artifact would be important for Auntie to know about.

  A silk awning absorbed a stray bolt from Sariel, and the archer sheltering underneath sent another streak of light across the battlefield to burrow into the dirt. A miss. Viran added the tent to his list of important things for Auntie to know.

  The shot didn't even look close to anyone, until other movement brought Viran real relief.

  Mirri was alive, busy dragging an unarmored human through dips and bends between boulders and runoff channels before the archer could draw again. She had escaped the pillars of stone that marked the border without running into Saah's men, and seemed to be working her way towards the Venatrix for safety, circling the very edge of the archer's accurate range.

  The Stubs themselves looked a bit worse for wear, and the next shot from the archer actually collapsed one of the pillars on the south side, over where Viran had seen Saah's knights. He didn't know why the ammunition was being wasted, instead of directed at the Venatrix, but at least it meant the knights couldn't rush across the field towards Mirri and her charge.

  To the west, Dovin's wards were holding their ground alone, without any of the Bessos men helping. The Seraph had carved a swathe through every tree within thirty lengths of the bottom of the slope, piles of lumber crackling with heat and and steaming under the storm's wrath.

  The wood failed to shield a group of horde slingers who had crept too close for Sanctum's representative to tolerate. Viran had seen meat cut before, but blades only divided flesh. The globs of light the Seraph was using as fireballs seemed to erase what they touched, leaving the rest to burst into flame.

  There were fewer screams than he had expected.

  But where were the—

  Viran felt a low growl escape his throat.

  The Bessos men were pressed up against the northern cliffside. Abandoning the squires Dovin had come to help in the first place. Letting the Venatrix fight the Warlord alone, even though they were in a perfect position to ambush the Immortal. Leaving the Wards to hold the mouth of the pass, not even distracting the slingers atop the cliff.

  The cowards were sneaking away instead of helping, and leaving everyone else to clean up the mess.

  Furniture tumbled down the stairs in the corner with a clatter of wood on wood, reminding Viran of his other responsibility.

  He sighed. The humans sounded like they were making almost as much of a mess upstairs as they had downstairs. They must be clearing a lot of space for the duel.

  "Guys, stop doing that," Viran yelled at the ceiling. "You're making a mess."

  "Come stop us!"

  "Shhhhh! What are you doing? He almost forgot about us!" Squeaky lied.

  "If that's actually Viran, the auntie he's talking about is the Warden," Bossy's voice drifted through the floor. "We need time to—"

  The humans upstairs devolved into a whispered argument. Viran rolled his eyes.

  Maybe if he left them alone a little longer they would figure out what was going on. There were windows upstairs where they could watch, too.

  Looking over the mess, Viran decided to prioritize his wound and the weapon on the floor. A little water on the ground was fine, and he couldn't fix the melted lamp fixture on his own.

  The dagger glinted in a puddle of water and blood that Viran did clean up, tossing the red-tinged liquid out the window. The rain would spread the blood enough to ensure nothing went silver from drinking it.

  He couldn't see any residue on the blade, but maybe only the tip had been poisoned, or he had accidentally washed it away. Viran didn't feel poisoned though, everything was working fine, even his leg. The wound was already giving up on spilling over, his natural regeneration sipping at Viran's mana reserves to knit flesh together and slow the bleeding.

  He decided to wash it out anyway, while the squires got ready for the duel upstairs. A clean wound left the body more power to spend on closing, and he was in no rush to leave his perch.

  "One scaleswidth a minute." He muttered, sticking the dagger through his belt and spending a little more mana to grab water from the barrel while he watched the wound close. It seemed to be healing at the normal rate, so there was no poison on the blade.

  A pass or two cleaned off all the errant blood running down his scales, and left Viran eyeing the progress his body had made while taking in the battle. The narrow gash looked bigger through the lightly stained water, but that was a trick water's surface played with light. The real opening was barely big enough to fit one of Viran's clawtips into, and was a similar wedge shape.

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  It looked exactly like a wound an Immortal would take, fighting someone normal. Cosmetic. Already-healing.

  It still hurt, though.

  He wouldn't be able to let the gash finish closing before the actual fight, but Viran wasn't worried about the duel itself. He was just going to throw more water at Squeaky's casting implement, and then—

  Viran frowned again. Part of dueling was setting the stakes and picking weapons, but they had only picked weapons. They would have to set stakes when he went upstairs.

  Either way, he would end the fight quickly, however they agreed on things. One opponent was easy. Simple. He might not even need to hurt the squire at all to get him to cooperate.

  The silence from upstairs was getting suspicious.

  Too suspicious for Viran to think the squires were actually waiting for Dovin, when he realized the furniture had stopped piling up on the corner stairs. There was no more whispering, the floorboards didn't creak, and something was tugging gently at the mana in the room, eddying it quietly towards the ceiling.

  More purple light flashed from the window, and the ripple in the aether scattered the swirling threads.

  Viran pulled himself away from checking on the battle, and opened the door to the tower steps instead. He knew enough to help Auntie pick targets now, and couldn't help anyone stuck in the pass, but if the squires weren't done surrendering by the time she arrived, they might cause problems.

  The walk up the half-spiral of stone stairs to the second floor took longer than it should have. Taking them two at a time aggravated Viran's leg, so he had to plod his way up to the door, dragging his tail and experimentally twirling his new weapon.

  He didn't hit any walls or the stairs with the weapon, so the change in length was working.

  All the weight had been spread out behind the edge of the blade, which then stretched too high, like a glaive made for carving rather than a proper axe. The pine handle was light, and reversing or even stopping his swing was difficult with the now-shortened weapon. The bottom of the haft was a jagged splinter made of jagged splinters in waiting, with no proper place to grip until nearly halfway up the unevenly-shattered handle.

  The squire had probably thought he was throwing away junk, giving the still-cooling steel to Viran.

  If there had still been spirit in the Wolfsteel, if the weapon had ever been Wolfsteel at all, Squeaky's lightning bolt had driven the last of it from the metal. Viran's manasight confirmed it, watching the currents in the aether veer away from the iron trapped in the metal. There were no channels up the handle either, the squire would have had no way to push power through the blade.

  Viran liked it much better now, playing with the way the shiny surface warped his reflection, like a pond with permanent ripples.

  The balance was still terrible, but the chunk of metal that used to be a blade had thoroughly wilted under the sudden burst of energy. It was practically a hammer now, and would need reforging to be an axe again, but that had been true from the moment it was struck. He would need to get it a proper handle too.

  Dead steel wasn't the best material for killing Immortals, but it was better than anything Viran had already.

  It could still fix things someday, even if it wasn't ready yet.

  The squires were also not ready yet, judging by the scene that met Viran when he nudged the tower door to the second floor open.

  The only furniture they had bothered to clear for the duel was still piled down the other set of steps. There was no circle drawn, and as Viran stepped through the door to look for them, he saw Squeaky, wand charged and held—

  The metal gauntlet struck Viran in the side of the snout.

  Pain exploded across his face.

  Viran tucked his chin and raised his arm defensively, but his forearm caught under the squire's arm, trapping his weapon behind the cowardly liar.

  Bossy was pulling his fist back for another punch already, pressing close inside Viran's guard.

  Dimly, the sound of something cracking reached his ears. Several somethings pattered across the back of his head, but none of it hurt, so the charred splinters raining over his head were safe to ignore.

  Tugging away just pressed his back to the door, which swung easily away. Viran got his free hand up, reaching for the shoulder.

  The second punch deflected off his helmet and caught under one of his horns, sending a bit of a jolt through Viran's skull.

  The squire was using an artifact, Viran could see it, steadily dimming on his belt. Maybe a strength enhancement. The boy hadn't been nearly this strong downstairs.

  Viran felt his lips peel back from his teeth. This wasn't a duel. The squires had never intended to duel him.

  They had blocked the other stairs because this was an ambush.

  And if he lost, Auntie might be late to help the Venatrix and Mirri.

  The squire threw himself against Viran's trapped arm to evade the grasp of his other hand.

  Viran pressed close as well, trying to make sure they stayed in contact, but a thrum of mana splashed off his back, the weak jolt of electricity seizing his shoulder for a moment. Not enough power to reach the other squire this time.

  Completely by accident, Viran's free hand found the haft of his borrowed weapon, still trapped behind the squire he was half-hugging at this point.

  The third punch came from around Viran's left arm, but the squire's reach was too short. His forearm jammed against Viran's elbow.

  The room stopped spinning from the first hit Viran had taken to the chin.

  Viran took a moment to ensure neither of his horns was about to go through the squire's faceplate before he braced the shaft of his weapon behind the human's head, and cracked his neck forwards.

  The shaft of Viran's new axe broke again when the squire's head snapped back through it. Viran's whole skull hurt, now, not just his snout.

  But he wasn't trapped anymore. His opponent had gone limp, and his free hand was grasping what remained of his weapon anyway.

  Another piddling splash of electrical mana across his lower back forced Viran's spine straight, and he let the squire in his grasp fall.

  Viran tucked his ching low and turned.

  Squeaky was frantically funneling mana into his outstretched wand, visible over the blackened edges of the top corner of the tower door, which had been blown apart over Viran's back when he walked in.

  "You know they're leaving you behind, right? Abandoning you?" The snarl sprang to Viran's lips on its own, but the words here his. "Even if you win this, you don't have anyone to help you get through the pass, unless you want to ask the Horde for help."

  The squire didn't release his weapon at all, still stretching the poorly-maintained tool out in front of him with both hands.

  "P-Please don't eat us." He stuttered.

  Viran blinked in surprise. He hadn't threatened to eat anyone.

  The wand was still outstretched. Viran pointed a claw at it and cocked his head to the side.

  Squeaky lowered the weapon just a little, and Viran saw the mana ebb out of the poorly constructed artifact. The mage-in-training was gasping for air. He had given himself mana exhaustion.

  Viran couldn't even do anything complex enough to run his own mana pool dry, much less tug at his reserves.

  Even failing, the squire was better than him with magic.

  "Then sit down and save your mana," Viran growled, pointing down. "He needs healing."

  Head wounds could be bad for humans, even if nothing was broken. Bossy wasn't twitching, so he was either fine, or dead. He looked like he was breathing, so fine was Viran's bet.

  But the other squire didn't know that, and Viran really needed a way to keep him quiet and out of the way while he did his actual job.

  And the squire's mana was dry, would be dry for a few minutes at least.

  Unless Squeaky was faking it.

  "I-I don't have anything," Squeaky stuttered. "I lost my pack. His too."

  Viran's headache throbbed.

  It was like the humans were being incompetent on purpose to waste his time. Maybe this was what Dovin felt like, when he complained about the gods trusting him with problems.

  Fishing at his belt for the healing patch, Viran hesitated. He couldn't fix himself with the rune, not more efficiently than his own body would use the mana naturally, so he wasn't giving anything up, if he handed over the array sewn into the leather.

  But turning his back an enemy and spending most of his mana through a healing rune was a bad idea. The Bessos knights had proven themselves untrustworthy already, and the squire across from him was one of them.

  Viran held up the patch where the squire could see instead.

  "Give me the wand for now, and I'll use this on him," He offered. "I'm not turning around while you have a weapon."

  "You're not gonna hurt us?"

  Squeaky sounded convinced he was about to die.

  "No. Dovin went to go find you before the Horde did, and sent me out of the way. I haven't even had my Proving yet," Viran said. "It's at the end of summer. Someone else will get the credit for capturing you, if you sit quiet here."

  He didn't say please about it.

  "M-me too. End of summer." The squire seemed to relax his shoulders after the assurance.

  He looked a bit small to be doing his Proving early like Viran, but he was already a mage, and humans didn't usually live as long as Dragonborn. Their Immortals needed much more mana to pass the aging threshold, so their nobility had to keep up by starting early.

  The wand thudded to the floor and rolled over to Viran's feet.

  He stopped it with a claw, knelt, and kept his promise, pressing the back side of the patch under the other squire's chin and channeling his mana, carefully at first, letting the squire's body use the mana however it wanted instead of trying to force anything.

  The lacquered platinum bead at the center of the array hummed in his sight instead of his ears, but Viran's channels were biased towards manipulating water mana. The rune had to convert the power twice, losing efficiency every time. Scaling up the amount of power he pressed through the array, Viran still barely filled half its throughput, even straining to his limit.

  There was no chance he would break it by overloading the rune.

  Viran added that to the list of things that were better because he had invested his mana physically. It was almost medium-sized, now.

  When he felt a buzz begin to seep through his fingers, Viran stopped. Giving himself mana exhaustion wouldn't help Auntie.

  "Okay Squeaky," He said, standing. "You can do the rest."

  "Sq— That's not my name!" Squeaky spluttered indignantly. "At least address me properly if we're going to—"

  Viran had had enough.

  He spun and pounded his fist on the doorframe.

  "We're not going to duel, because you two tried to cheat, and I'm busy!" He roared. "You're Squeaky, because you didn't even bother to tell me your name."

  Squeaky seemed shocked at the idea, flinching back even from across the room.

  Viran breathed heavily in the silence between them while the squire gathered his wits.

  "You don't know who I am," The squire muttered. "You don't know—"

  "I don't care who you are," Viran explained, only a little quieter. "I have better things to do than hurt you, you're just in my way."

  He threw the patch on the floor next to the wand, and turned away with a pit in his stomach like he was forgetting something.

  After a moment, Viran turned back around. He waved to his right, ignoring the way the squire startled.

  "There's a window, if you want to watch," Viran suggested. "They're leaving you behind. You can wave, or something. It might be a few days before you get taken to the city."

  Squeaky didn't seem to understand. The other boy was treating him like a monster that might lash out at any moment, cowering next to his friend and nodding without getting up.

  "You won't see them," Viran prodded. "Don't you want to... wave goodbye, or something?"

  "They're leaving us behind," The squire shrugged and looked away. "I don't really want to watch that."

  Viran clamped his jaw shut and slammed the door. One of his teeth wiggled against his tongue where the gauntlet had struck his jaw. Another charred splinter rattled to the floor, and Viran stomped down the stairs after it.

  He was angry all the way to his original perch by the water barrel, and then he looked up.

  The air was too thin to breathe, and he stumbled away from the howling storm outside.

  This wasn't happening. Not again. Viran had left and everything had—

  "Auntie. Auntie we need you." He whispered to the wind, hoping she was listening.

  Praying wasn't enough to fix this. It was already too bad to fix. She needed to get here faster, but if she flew, the archer would have a clean shot when she arrived, and she wouldn't know what Viran knew about the defensive artifacts.

  He had to go get her, so she could save whoever was left.

  Viran was halfway across the room when he heard a booming rattle, and the damaged door swung open on its own.

  The glimmering platinum shepherd's crook she used to cast, and occasionally beat other Immortals into red paste, led the way as the Warden arrived.

  Auntie's robes already had the sashes drawn up for battle as she eyed the messy room. Her horns fit under the door, at least, so she hadn't slowed down at all. She took everything in in an instant, from the melted lump of steel in his hand, to the blood on his leg and the water spilled all over the floor and the wilted lamp behind him.

  Auntie arched a brow at him, never changing her pace as she approached the tower door. His voice felt broken, but there was still work to do.

  "They need your help," Viran rushed out the words before she could get distracted. "Now, right now, it's already too late again."

  She nodded.

  "Tell me on the way up the stairs," She ordered. "The important details about the Immortals first."

  Auntie was taking the stairs two at a time, and charging her staff. Viran scrambled to keep up as she ascended the tower to the mage's platform.

  He spent most of his breath on the important parts, and hoped they weren't too late.

  Concussions are a class of temporary brain injury that occurs when cerebrospinal fluid fails to cushion the brain from impacts. While direct impacts to the head are the most obvious cause of this, significant changes in torso momentum can also indirectly impart force to the brain, and cause concussions.

  *This is not medical advice and I am not a doctor, go see one if you get a head injury.