Quinn turned a corner. “This way!” she shouted, noise be damned. The fangs were coming and they would sniff us out with or without it.

  I helped the old professor up a ledge and into the rubble of a broken house. His body felt near weightless in my hands, as did the assistant’s who came behind him. Reluctantly I helped the other civilian personnel up to join them. They scurried off further into the rubble of a prayer tower. Quinn’s hand rested on the pommel of her thin fencing sword as she gazed out at the streets behind us, keeping watch as we moved the civilians.

  Wet snarls and barking made its way to us through the streets. They were just a turn away.

  “Hurry!” Quinn urged us, and hurry we did. The other soldiers helped me toss the civilians out of our way and into the building.

  I looked back as the first fang rounded the corner. It was weird, I didn’t feel the tension I’d grown so used to. They didn’t really feel like a challenge. I glanced at Nyla to my side and she looked much the same. Only the whispers and civilians tensed at the sight of the approaching horde. There were hundreds, the largest of them about as tall as my waist, and the smallest about as tall as my knees. They moved like a stream and followed a scarred brown hound that led. It looked like it had seen more fights than even I.

  “Don’t let them reach the civvies,” Nyla said lazily. “I’ll thin the herd.”

  Her body blurred and she rushed through the street like a streak of black, leaving lingering traces of violet lightning in her wake.

  The fangs didn’t know what hit them as their bodies were sent flying through the air. Nyla’s figure flashed into being before disappearing again, flickering into being like some sort of ghost. She moved with the grace of a dancer among the snapping jaws of the monster dogs.

  Daryl grinned like a fool at my side. His fingers trembled as they curled around the handle of his baton.

  A fang tore through the air as it launched at Nyla. She bent back at her waist and the snapping jaw clicked shut where her face had been just moments ago. She hit its chin with an uppercut that sent the fang’s teeth flying through the air. The monster crumpled to the ground and she was already moving to the next.

  She spun and grabbed one by the scruff of their neck as her leg tore through the air to shatter the ribs of another. Each of her movements were efficient and practiced. She blocked a bite with the hound she kept in one of her hands and quickly cranked it around to snap the neck of the attacker.

  When the fangs realized they weren’t her match, they poured around her and rushed at the rest of us. Even a fighter of Nyla’s caliber couldn’t hold back the tide as it came rushing.

  I looked up at Quinn and winked. “Stay close to the civilians, let me know if you need me.”

  The power of Burst flooded through my veins, it felt great to move my body again. I moved like a hurricane, ripping the fangs to shreds as they entered my killzone. I sidestepped the lunge of one and bisected it just below its ribs.

  The others howled in anger and formed a circle around me, trying to box me in. This was precisely the problem with humans. They always wanted to fight according to some plan, some strategy. Which coincidentally left them shit out of luck when their opponent did something completely unexpected. And the same went for the fangs as they tried to form an orderly formation around me.

  I rushed at the one closest to me. It tried to dart back but slammed into the rest of the pack. Just as I was boxed in, so too were they. Only I was more dangerous than them.

  The fang whimpered as it realized its doom approached. It tried to lash out in retaliation. I stunned with a quick fist to the snout. Bone cracked as it jerked back. A piece of large tooth fell to the ground, clattering like a piece of marble.

  The circle closed in on me and I finished the dazed fang with a quick lunge. My blade slipped into the flesh between the collarbone and front leg. It didn’t suffer. Not from the last blow. The surroundings fangs studied me warily and gave me a second to take in the condition of my allies.

  Nyla moved through the horde like a natural disaster, leaving broken pieces of flesh in her wake. If we were alone the fight would have been easy. I glanced at the broken building.

  They were the problem.

  The soldiers shouted at each other and tried to regain a semblance of order in the chaos. They hadn’t seen a fight like this before, much less been a part of one. If they had, they’d know that there was no order to be found when outnumbered twenty to one.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  They learned this as they flailed against the crushing waves of sharp toothed monsters. And they paid for the lesson in blood.

  Behind them, the civilians didn’t stop their climb up the building. It had fallen some time ago, but still stood taller than the others in the street. It was the only feasible spot where they could find shelter. As long as the soldiers managed to do their damn job and hold the line.

  They didn’t.

  “Fuck, Dave!” Quinn screamed from the back of their formation.

  He couldn’t hear her, he was already gone. A fang tore out his throat, using the long canines like a pair of wrenches. Blood fountained from the wound, showering the swelling mass of bodies below.

  The fang jumped off his body, hurling itself at Quinn even before Dave fell to his knees.

  I summoned Silent scream and threw it in one motion, like I had so many times before. The steel blade caught a ray of light in the air that it reflected and scattered into hundreds of smaller rays. Quinn yelped in surprise and raised her sword to fend it off. Too slow.

  My dagger slammed into the side of the fang’s skull with a bang, veering it off course and sending it down the side of the ruined tower that the others were climbing.

  Without me she’d be one head shorter. I wasn’t going to let her forget that anytime soon. Her eyes flitted to me and caught me grinning.

  Daryl quickly filled the gap left by their friend with his trusty baton. For all his faults he did know how to swing the damn thing. I pitied the fangs that got to feel the wrath of his hurt-stick, especially now that it was fuelled with grief.

  He let a fang sink its teeth deep into his forearm, then smashed its skull in with his weapon. The fang’s body went limp and he shook it loose from his arm. The wound spat steam as it closed up. A physical blessing that heals, kind of like Nea, I noted. A damn handy blessing to have. But I wouldn’t trade mine for the world.

  I tore my eyes from the squad, I couldn’t help them from where I was at anyhow, nor could Nyla. And if we somehow did end up fighting close to them, they’d just get in the way. They would simply have to do their jobs and protect the civilians long enough for us to wipe out the fangs. Easy.

  I flipped my sword into an underhanded grip and resummoned the dagger to my left hand. The fangs surrounding me lurched forward in unison. They bit at me from all sides, four of them. I activated Skin stitching and let three of them bite into my armour. I punched the last one with the sword’s pommel and sent it flying back the direction from which it came. The fangs who hoped to fill the vacated gap found themselves blocked for a few precious moments.

  Teeth screeched against my hard shell. I kind of expected them to break, but they were sturdier than expected. They bit into the material and the fangs clung to me like leeches. I made short work of them with my dagger. The soldiers were growing haggard in the distance. The blade of Quinn who guarded the last row of their formation dripped with blood.

  We needed to end this, and for all of Nyla’s skill she couldn’t do that fast enough. If she could, she would have. I noted that her blessing was likely one for duelling. There was more depth to her blessing than most I’d seen, but that was probably the case for everyone who stepped into the mid-ranks of acclaim.

  I swung the sword in a wide arc around me, forcing all the fangs who wanted to taste my flesh to take a step back. Ammunition clattered in the pouch on my hip. Bullets ground against each other in my pockets. I knew what I had to do, but damn did it hurt. I sheathed the blade as I completed the slash and dashed toward the densest gathering of beasts.

  I used Burst to close the last gap and softly kicked the head of a fang, planting my foot on its snout and using it to springboard myself into the air.

  For the first time in what felt like forever I summoned my remembrance. Threads tore themselves free from the veil and swirled into my hands as they formed the shape of the wand. Time felt like it slowed. I shoved a hand into my left pocket, grabbing all the bullets inside and tossing them into the middle of the horde below.

  The wand formed in all its splendor. A thick metal pipe surrounded in parts by a soft dark wood. The threadlike veins running through it made it look cracked. But the shining motes of magic told those who believed so that they were dead wrong.

  I reached the zenith of my ascent and whipped the wand downward as the hail of bullets found their mark. A manic laugh echoed across the street, and I realized as I squeezed the trigger that it was mine.

  The bullet ripped through the space between us like it didn’t exist and then all hell broke loose.

  My bullet burst into a cone of flames, setting the beasts below on fire and triggering the closest bullet I’d thrown just moments before. There was a sound of vacuuming as the flames reeled toward it. The fangs turned to the sound as the bullet burst and exploded. Inhuman screams followed. The smell of burning flesh grew thick, and the shockwave of the explosion rippled through the monsters. It sent the remainder of the bullets flying through the horde before they too exploded and spread the fires of destruction.

  From my view the chain reaction was nothing short of beautiful. It spread like a wildfire as it painted the world orange with its splendor. There hadn’t been that many bullets, only six or so, not counting the one I fired. But they were more than enough to lay waste to all the monsters in my direct surroundings. And even more than that, they were enough to show the fangs who was boss.

  They were quick on the uptake and scattered like their lives depended on it, running through the streets like their tails were on fire. Some were.

  My coat rippled behind me as I fell.

  I slammed back down onto the street. My joints groaned as I straightened. I looked around standing in the middle of the flames. The embroidery on my coat held up against the lingering heat.

  By the building, the soldiers heaved for breath. Many of them bore wounds from the battle. In fact the only ones who didn’t, were Daryl and Quinn. All the civilians were alive and well, albeit somewhat shaken.

  The sound of hard heeled boots smattered against stone. I turned to see Nyla hurrying back through the flames.

  I threw my arms out to my sides as she approached and smiled with elation. “Now that’s what I call wonderful!”

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