The Premonition and the Blade

Time in the marketplace thickened around Nicolas like amber, not so much stopping as congealing. A tense calm that weighed more than any sound had supplanted the colorful turmoil of a moment before. The solitary point of defiance that was him was the focus of dozens of amber-yellow, predatory eyes, each one a blazing coal of primordial instinct. The chilly, calm promise of impending death now permeated the air, which was already heavy with the sweet smell of broken fruit and the harsh, metallic tang of blood. The thylacines started to narrow their circle like a well-coordinated predatory orchestra. Every slow, purposeful step and deep, rumbling growl was a note in a funeral lament written just for him, picking at the strained nerves.

The new and foreign force that had awakened within him, however, was spreading as an antidote rather than a venom beneath the rising flood of primal terror. His mind's eye began to bloom with the phantom echoes of the next second, which were now vivid, burning premonitions rather than faint murmurs. He could feel the phantom impact of the beast behind him as it prepared to bite into his flesh; he could see the ghost-trail of the thylacine on his left as it was ready to leap forward; he could see the lethal arc the one on his right would make with its claws as it carved through the air. All of them were present, their bright, lethal paths written on the canvas of the near future.

Before his conscious mind could even comprehend the threat, Nicolas's body shifted a fraction of a second before the first thylacine launched itself, a blur of striped muscle and hungry intent. With his hand simultaneously snagging a large iron rod from an overturned merchant's stall, he put his weight into an impossible-looking side-step. Instead of finding soft flesh, the jaws encountered unyielding metal. The hit sounded like a bone breaking in two, a sickeningly dull crunch. The howl of anguish tore through the silence as the predator was flung sideways.

The fracture that shattered the dam was that one deed. The pack attacked as one, moving with the icy cohesion of a single mind. The marketplace was suddenly a deadly whirlpool of striped bodies leaping, twirling, and slicing. And Nicolas started an impossible dance in the middle of that hurricane. Like a skilled puppeteer, the premonitions guided his limbs, acting as his choreographer. To avoid a sweeping claw, he dodged and rolled beneath a flour sack, which burst and briefly blinded a predator nearby in a mist of white. He kicked the beast's leg firmly, taking advantage of its bewilderment. He flung himself sideways as another jumped on him, allowing the creature's momentum to send it crashing into a stall filled with colorful fabrics.

However, this was a struggle for survival rather than a means of triumph. His endurance was eroded with each attack he avoided. The next, more intense attack seemed to be invited by each desperate counterattack. With each desperate heartbeat, his vitality was evaporating, and he was up against a dozen. He saw the simultaneous coordinated lunge of three thylacines in a flash of harsh clarity, and he was confident that there was no way out of their united rage through any branching path in his mind. The sound of the air itself altered in that instant of complete powerlessness.

A whistling, piercing thrum.

With a black-hilted blade thrust between its eyes, the charge's leader, a thylacine, fell in mid-leap. This abrupt, unexplained death caused the other two to hesitate, their predatory surety shattered. For Katrina, that one instant of indecision felt like an eternity.

She moved amid the confusion like a shadow-carved phantom. Her two tanto swords shone in her hands like trapped moonlight, and she moved with the fluid, deadly grace of a born predator. Unlike Nicolas, she was taking the initiative rather than responding. There was not a single wasted action or hesitating muscle twitch in her movements, which were a pure, distilled art of death. Before the second thylacine even saw her, she slipped beneath its defenses and drew a red line across its throat with her blade. Her second blade sank deep between its ribs while the third's thrust was met with a ballerina-worthy turn and violent twirl.

The fight's calculus was totally turned upside down when Katrina arrived on the battlefield. This was the concerted effort of two Zinox, not a lone man's last-ditch effort. Katrina's lethal accuracy blended in well with Nicolas's foresight.

"Two of them on the left flank!" Calling out the attack he already visualized in his head, Nicolas screamed. However, before the two creatures could finish their attack, Katrina was already moving, her body a blur as she caught them.

The marketplace was transformed into a gloomy play stage by their struggle. Katrina landed on the back of a thylacine and drove her blades down after vaulting over a butcher's block. Nicolas repelled two more attacks by using the wheel of an overturned cart as a makeshift shield. It was a dance of intelligence and intuition, of vision and perfect performance.

The pack's violent hive mentality was split by this unexpected and ruthlessly successful opposition. The alpha, the largest of the thylacines, paused. This hunt was turning out to be far more expensive than expected. The pack started to disperse with a roaring roar, an obvious order to back off. They disappeared into the maze-like streets of the city as abruptly as they had emerged, taking with them both their injured bodies and their irate frustration.

All that was left after the war was a panorama of ruin, a thick hush, and the coppery smell of blood. The NPCs slowly started to come out of their hiding spots, their gazes focused on the two people standing in the middle of the chaos, panting. They had no hate or fear on their faces. Only an overwhelming, earth-shaking surprise. They had been saved by the Zinox, the cursed ones. They were rendered completely speechless by the sight, which was so essentially incorrect and went against the fundamental rules of their existence.

The steady clang of armored boots on cobblestone broke this moment of silence and astonishment. The King's warriors emerged from each alleyway that intersected, their spear tips gleaming in the last of the light. In a matter of seconds, scores of them had surrounded the weary couple with a ring of steel, a well-organized, impenetrable barrier that prevented them from fleeing.

As they walked back-to-back, Nicolas and Katrina's faces conveyed a clear, unshakeable readiness to fight to the end, despite their muscles screaming with exhaustion.

At that moment, a loud, well-known voice came from the tavern. "Tell me I'm not too late for the fun part?"

Every head turned to see the enormous silhouette that filled the doorway of the tavern. With a smug smile on his lips, fat Bruno had pushed back his hood. Then an impossible event occurred. His body grew larger and larger, like a bellows. His armor's plates groaned in protest as the fabric of his cloak strained taut. He bloated into a gigantic, spherical shape twice the size of a typical man in a matter of seconds.

Bruno's increasingly loud and resonant voice roared, "Hold on tight!" as the men reluctantly retreated.

Before Katrina or Nicolas could realize what was happening, Bruno—who was suddenly a huge ball of flesh—sprang forward with incredible speed and snatched them up. He used enormous arms to force them against his chest, and then he squatted down, utilizing his body as a huge spring.

Then he leaped.

With a power that split the paving stones beneath them, they shot skyward. As they flew through the air like a gigantic rubber ball, bouncing from rooftop to rooftop in the direction of the city walls, the soldiers' horrified cries were left far below. They were bouncing higher with every collision, an odd and unpredictable escape. The odd trajectory of their flight made it impossible to trace the arrows that the King's troops attempted to shoot after them.

A city in shock and an army whose commands had been rendered completely worthless were left behind as they made one more, amazing jump, sailed clean over the city's battlements, and landed deep within the comforting, dark embrace of the forest.