Book Two - Chapter Twenty-Eight

Lusya approached the bandits’ hideout, her head cocked slightly to the side. It hadn’t taken long at all for her to get there in a hurry. It was still the middle of the night, though, with the moon shining bright, it was clear enough to see. Yet she found herself slowing as she approached. She was not sure why, but it did allow her to take stock of the place.

As she had been told, it was a makeshift wooden fortress, situated in the middle of a flat, otherwise empty field. A few scattered tree stumps attested that it had not always been that way. Roughly circular in shape, the fortress was larger than she had expected. At, she estimated, several dozen feet across, it was almost large enough to be a proper fortification, if a small one. Its defenses consisted of a palisade with a single gate leading in or out, as far as she could see. It was possible there were other entrances hidden from view. Banners were affixed to the palisade at regular intervals. They were a deep blue, with a symbol in white at the center. It was no symbol or crest that Lusya recognized, though she was no expert in such things. It consisted of a stylized feline head, perhaps that of a tiger or a lioness, with its mouth open in a roar, emerging from behind a shield. There were no archer posts or watchtowers that she could see, but there were guards posted outside the walls. There were two at the gate, then one posted every hundred feet or so around the wall, as far as she could tell. Torches were set up near each guard, though they were just bright enough for the corresponding guard to see the immediate area better than the moonlight allowed. It would have been trivial to cripple, if not destroy, the place with a single swing of Miudofay. That, however, was not an option.

Howls and roars echoed without end from within the fortress. She suspected those were the minor-rank demons she could sense. They had been trained, but not tamed. Being near so many mortals must have had the beasts desperate to shed blood, however they might have been restrained.

She continued her approach. Although the night was bright enough to see, the darkness did still make it more difficult. The guards were oblivious to her as she walked toward them.

One of the guards at the gate finally seemed to notice her when she was about one hundred feet away. He suddenly stood straighter, staring at her, then turned to his partner to alert him. She sped back up and was in front of him in an instant. She summoned Lunera and slashed his throat open, then swept his legs away.

The partner flinched, and she took the opportunity to cut open his belly and kick him away. His leather cuirass might as well have offered no protection from her attacks and his motomancy was much too weak to ward off Lunera’s edge. He rolled to a halt and tried to stand, but couldn’t summon the strength, collapsing in a rapidly growing pool of his own blood.

The first guard was still on the ground, one hand trying to stem the bleeding of his wound, while his mouth flapped in a vain attempt to breathe, or perhaps to speak. He looked much like a fish dying on land. Both their injuries were debilitating and would lead to a certain, though slow, death. She left them to it.

She kicked the gate, releasing a shockwave into it. It flew off its hinges and sailed into the yard beyond, where it fell with a loud thud. The yard beyond was dark and devoid of people. She could now confirm that there were no other gates. There was one way in or out. A poor design choice that suited her just fine. The minor-rank demons were thrashing about in a row of cages on the far left of the yard, and she could sense mortals inside the ramshackle buildings scattered about, however. They must have been sleeping.

They had been, at least, until they heard the gate crash. One of the building doors started to open, and she could sense the nearest guards moving toward her as well. A man in dirty clothing stumbled out of the door, still half-asleep.

“What’s—?” he managed to say, before Lusya closed the distance and crushed his throat in her free hand. Her hands were too small to fully grasp his neck, but she could do more than enough damage for a mortal wound. She let him crumple to the ground to suffocate with his ruined windpipe. He reached out, trying to grab her, so she stomped on his hand and unleashed a shockwave on it, grinding his bones into dust and sending up a puff of dirt around them as the ground shook. His mouth gaped in a silent scream, and she shoved him out of reach with her foot.

She whirled as the guards arrived at the destroyed gate. Before they could say a word, she used Lunera to warp them in front of her. While they were dealing with the disorientation so many mortals experienced after traveling through Lunera’s rifts, stumbling and struggling not to vomit, she stabbed one through the chest, then shoved him off her blade, using a shockwave to make him travel farther. His screams echoed across the yard as he sailed through the air.

For the other, she swept his feet out from under him and stomped on his chest, feeling his ribcage shatter and cave under the pressure, no doubt slicing his organs to ribbons in the process. He gave a cry of pain, then rolled onto his side to clutch his chest and cough up blood onto the ground.

By now, the other bandits were reacting to the noises they had heard and started to filter out of their makeshift homes into the empty, moonlit yard. It was remarkable they could sleep with the constant din the minor-ranks were causing. It must have taken some time to adjust to that. Some bandits stumbled out, half-awake as the first had, defenseless. Others were alert and ready for combat, weapons in hand. A few had even managed to get a piece or two of armor on, and some held torches for light.

It made little difference to her. She had the element of surprise, and most of them were too weak to put up a fight in the best of circumstances. They all hesitated as they emerged, gazes flicking between Lusya and their fallen allies. A few exchanged glances or murmured to each other, as if debating who would challenge her first.

At last, the first bandit, a tall, burly man who had come out wearing a cuirass and bracers with sword in hand, worked up the courage to face her. He screamed in a loud war cry. Maybe it was meant to encourage the others, to intimidate her, or to bolster his own morale. Unless it was the latter, it failed. He charged at her alone. He raised his sword to strike, and she never gave him the chance. She lunged and cut off his arms, letting them and his sword fall to the ground behind him. Then, she sliced off his legs, and left him to writhe and squirm in the dirt like a worm as he bled out and wept about how he didn’t want to die.

Only as she turned her attention away from him and back on the crowd did they seem to find the will to fight. A trio of bandits, two men and a woman, rushed at her. She used Lunera to warp the first man away and high into the air. He fell and was impaled through his belly on a piece of the palisade. Lusya transported the woman into one of the minor-rank demon cages. The beast pounced on the woman before she could get her bearings, sinking its teeth into a shoulder and raking its claws down her front as she cried for help that would not come.

The last man faltered for a moment, and Lusya cut down both sides of his chest vertically, slicing open both lungs, then kicked him away to collide with knock over two of the other bandits.

For the next man to try his luck, she slashed across his eyes, then warped a comrade in front of him to be struck by his wild, blind swings.

“Stop, it’s me, you idiot!” the comrade screeched as the man’s sword raked across his back. It was not cutting deep enough to do major damage, but it must have hurt.

The man gasped and ceased his attacks. He opened his mouth to speak, but only an incoherent wail came out as Lusya got cut off his arms, having gotten behind him during his panic. She tossed him across the yard. He landed roughly on the ground and did not stand. For good measure, she maneuvered back around the comrade, sliced his belly open and threw him to the ground. These weaklings were helpless to keep up with her speed, even without Lunera.

Another woman followed. Lusya tripped her, then planted a boot on the back of the woman’s head when she fell and slowly added pressure as the woman wailed in pain, until finally her skull gave out and her head collapsed in a red, bloody mess. The others recoiled at that one. A few retreated several steps, and all were too stunned to continue attacking.

“Was killing not one of your primary activities?” Lusya asked. No one responded. “Did it never occur to you that someone might try to kill you?”

None of the bandits answered her. Finally, one gave a defiant roar and ran at her. She maneuvered around him, far too quick for him to react to, and stabbed through his spine. He collapsed to the ground, his legs dead. Just to make sure his squirming didn’t obstruct her, she kicked him in the stomach, launching him across the yard to collide with the palisade.

The others seemed to find their nerve again at last and charged at her, all at once this time. Perhaps they thought that, with their sheer numbers, they could overcome the difference in strength. They could not. She left them all writhing on the ground. Some had limbs broken and twisted beyond recognition. Some suffocated from crushed throats or their own ribs piercing their lungs. Some were bleeding out from gut wounds or missing limbs. Most were defeated before they could throw a single blow or even begin to defend themselves. Those that managed a single parry or dodge were excelling. Relative to their peers, that was.

Even those who managed to attack accomplished nothing at best. If anything, they were hurting themselves. Most attacks she defended against. Some she dodged or parried, others she created barriers to block. Some she let through, and a lucky few even managed to get past her initial defenses by sheer volume.

It did not matter. Her enhancement was too strong. Nothing they could do could harm her. And the only thing that seemed to kill morale more than seeing an attack bounce off an invisible wall was seeing a greatsword strike directly on her throat and do nothing, not even draw a reaction.

After making the first dozen or so corpses, she started making her way toward Ariya as she killed them. Lusya was unsure why she had stopped to kill the first few to begin with. Ariya’s distinctive Malice signature was within the camp. Lusya had noticed it from the start, though it was rather far from the gate. Lusya would have to fight her way there.

Gisala was also there. She had been elsewhere in the camp but had scurried to where Ariya was at some point during the fight, if it could be called that. Lusya had made sure to memorize Gisala’s Malice signature as well, but she didn’t see much need to seek the woman out. A confrontation was all but inevitable.

So, she simply fought her way through the crowd. At some point, after she had lost count of how many she had killed, some of the remainder started to turn tail and run. Most were not quick enough. She chased them down and finished them as well. Many of those had been fools who had tried to run in the wrong direction, heading away from the gate or getting trapped by the thronging masses of their comrades.

A few managed to make it out of the gate by taking wide circles around the yard to avoid her. She let them go. She was tempted to go after them, but she did have to get to Ariya. Perhaps Lusya should have been worried about how much of this Ariya could see or hear from her position, or about later leading Ariya out through ground slick with blood and piled high with corpses and groaning corpses-to-be. But Lusya wasn’t worried about any of that. She could worry about it when she found Ariya. For now, she would just kill any foolish bandits who dared cross her path.