House Cleaning

Kieran was the first through the door, followed by Sophia. They arrived in a large entrance hall. A group of men were just rushing outside.

“Get that whoreson! Skewer him like a pig!” a man with a crossbow, running up the stairs yelled.

He turned around and noticed Kieran and the others coming out of the basement.

“Fuck! Someone got into the basement!” the man with the crossbow yelled and took aim.

Zing

Kieran parried the bolt making a swift flick with his sword. Some of the group that were rushing outside turned around and came towards him and Sophia. Kieran did not wait for them to attack. He jumped forward and took the first one down with a brutal diagonal cut. A scream came from outside and a few of those who rushed outside came back in. Shortly after a man came flying through the door, followed by a familiar swordsman.

“Where is she?” he bellowed and swung at the nearest target.

“Back to that, huh?” Kieran remarked and cut the next gangster down with two swings, one across the belly the next through the throat.

The swordsman turned around, his expression was full of rage again.

“You! Where did y—” he paused as he looked past Kieran and noticed Victoria, who stuck her head out of the basement door. “YOU!!”

The swordsman barreled past one gangster and cut another. Kieran slashed at one that tried to grab him.

“Oh shit…” Victoria exclaimed as she noticed the man with the very angry face approaching and vanished back into the basement.

“You stay here, young Woman!” the swordsman yelled and grabbed her by the shoulder before she could run down the stairs. “What were you thinking! Getting yourself kidnapped just to find their hide-out!”

“Worked, didn’t it?”

Victoria smiled sheepishly at him.

“What… You little…” he snorted angrily.

“Sorry to interrupt… but the time for a touching reunion will be later, first we have to deal with them.” Kieran interrupted as he parried another bolt coming from the man upstairs.

More and more gangsters came pouring into the entrance hall and they began to surround them at the basement door. Up top some more with crossbows took stance and fired. Kieran managed to knock three bolts out of the air, but four more went past him. They suddenly stopped mid-flight. Sophia, with her arms outstretched, groaned in exertion. She then flicked her hand and the bolts got redirected into the encroaching crowd of gangsters. Two went down with them stuck in their bodies. Sophia sighed exhausted and began to waver. Victoria quickly jumped to her side and steadied her. Thanks to being freed from the shackles, Sophia could at least use her magic again, but her energy was still very much exhausted.

“Aim for the men you fucking idiots! Not the girls!” the man atop the staircase yelled angrily and shot another bolt in their direction.

The Swordsman lunged forward and redirected the projectile with his sword into the wall next to them.

“Right… we have to deal with the scum first,” he said calmly and stepped next to Kieran. “May I count on your assistance in this tedious but necessary task, good Sir?”

“What the…” Kieran exclaimed surprised by his sudden change in demeanor.

The swordsman looked at him determined with no hint of the previous rage.

“Fuck it…” Kieran mumbled and took stance next to him. “Let’s get to cleaning.”

“Well said,” the swordsman remarked with a hint of a smile.

The gangsters rushed towards them from three sides. Kieran and the swordman went back-to-back, parried and countered every attack. The first wave of attackers had no chance.

“You know how to fight quite well, good Sir,” the swordsman commented in a small window of reprieve.

“And you can say other things in a fight too…” Kieran teased.

“Ha! Good one, Sir! How about we pick up the pace a little? This scum seems to be more persistent than I thought.”

“Let’s do that.”

The two of them started moving forward together in tandem, still back-to-back. After every swing they turned sideways, to make space for the other one. Like a whirlwind of death they moved through the gangsters, slashing at them. Sophia was impressed watching them pick up the pace even further. If she hadn’t known better, she would have guessed that those two had been fighting together for years and not just moments with the way they coordinated their attacks.

“I never thought I see someone keeping up with him in a fight,” Victoria marveled.

“Me neither…” Sophia admitted.

Although she suspected that Kieran was matching his speed to the swordsman’s, it was still amazing how quickly and in sync they both were. She doubted that she would be able to do the same. What was even more surprising was the magical energy she could feel emanating from the Swordsman, even though he wasn’t casting any visible spell. Kieran and the swordsmen continued their bloody path through the gangsters in the direction of the stairs. Sophia noticed that the crossbowmen in the upper floor had reloaded their weapons and took aim.

“Watch out! Crossbow!” she screamed and made a quick gesture with her hands.

Two firebolts shot out from her, hitting two of them before they could fire. An arrow struck the one next to them and another one in quick succession the next one down the line, keeping them from shooting. The remaining three sent their bolts on the way, but they got swiped out of the air by the alarmed Swordsman and Kieran. Sophia turned sideways to see who shot the arrows and saw Victoria grinning at her. She had picked up a short bow from one of the downed gangsters and was nocking another arrow. With one fluid motion she pulled the string back towards her cheek and let go. The arrow hit one of the three remaining crossbowmen right in the throat. Gurgling, he went down. Sophia shot the next one with another firebolt. The last one went down with an arrow stuck in his throat as well. Kieran and the swordsman in the meantime had reached the stairs and split from another, circling around to finish up the last of the gangsters.

“Fuck! Who the hell are you?!” the man on top of the staircase yelled and fired another bolt at Kieran.

He just moved his head slightly and let the projectile fly past him, right into the chest of a gangster.

“Fuck! Fuck!” the man on top of the staircase yelled again, abandoned his crossbow and turned to run to one of the corridors on the next floor.

“Oh no you don’t!” Sophia exclaimed and waved her hand.

The man suddenly tripped as if someone invisible had pulled the legs from under him. He began to tumble down the stairs and as he reached the bottom, Kieran and the Swordsman had finished dispatching the rest of the gangsters. They moved towards the upside-down man.

“Don’t kill that one!” Sophia yelled before they could strike. “I have I few questions!”

Kieran and the Swordsman held their swords at the man’s throat to stop him from moving. Sophia and Victoria got closer.

“What do you guys want? Who the fuck are you? Who sent you?” the restrained man yelled.

“You’re not the one asking questions here. You will only answer them, understood?” Sophia said with a cold voice.

“I ain’t tell you shit, biAAH”

Sophia had stepped on the mans left pinky finger, crushing it under her boot. Kieran looked at her slightly surprised, then turned towards the man.

“Better listen to her if you don’t want more fingers crushed… or something else,” he remarked, slipping into the good guard role, “Just answer a few questions and you will still be able to use your hand tonight.”

The man nodded.

“Who are you?” Sophia asked calmly.

“Gerald Gaun…” the man replied.

“You’re the boss of this gang?”

The man nodded.

“Why are you kidnapping people?” Sophia inquired further.

“We were told to…” he answered.

“By who?” Victoria asked.

“Can’t tell you-AAAh”

Sophia had crushed the ring finger under her boot.

“Wrong answer...” Kieran whispered. “Try again.”

“I can’t! They’d kill me for it!” the man said with fear in his eyes.

“And we will kill you if you don’t tell us, so choose!” Sophia said menacingly.

Kieran pushed a bit further with his sword on the throat of the man.

“T-The... O-Oash family…” he stuttered.

“For what purpose?” Sophia continued her questions.

“I don’t know! Sex slaves or something probably! They never told us. They just told us to bring them young and healthy women every month in exchange for free reign to do our… other businesses.”

“And where did you get that?”

Sophia held up the shackles that she had been bound with.

“They gave us them!” the man spouted.

“The Oash family?”

“Yeah… No, a guy that was with them… I don’t think he’s part of the family… He told us to also look for female mages and bind them with those! I don’t know more, I swear!”

“A guy? What guy? What did he look like?”

“I don’t know… he looked like a guy! Like…” the man looked frantically around and paused as his gaze fell upon Kieran, “him! It was him!”

“That’s impossible!” Sophia commented and stepped on another finger.

“Aaaah! I swear it was him! He looked exactly like him! No, he had deep blue eyes, other than that exactly like him, I swear!”

Before Sophia could ask another question, the door got kicked open and a bunch of soldiers rushed inside. They encircled them.

“Drop your weapons! You’re all under arrest!” a man in full plate armor yelled, entering the room.

The soldiers pointed their halberds at the surprised looking group at the bottom of the stairs.