Chapter 43: Who were they?

I lay in bed with Mira and Lia on either side of me, the sheets tangled around our legs.

We had finished a while ago. All three of us were exhausted, and after cleaning up, we had settled into the quiet that comes afterward. Lia had her head on my chest, and Mira lay on her side with one arm thrown over her eyes. I stared at the ceiling and felt my eyelids getting heavy.

BOOM!

A massive explosion ripped through the floor below us.

The whole building shook. Dust fell from the rafters, and a cup toppled off the table and shattered. All three of us jerked up at the same time, eyes wide, the sleepiness gone in an instant.

"What was that?" Lia whispered.

Nobody answered. Something crashed into a wall downstairs, and then something heavy hit the floor. I was already out of bed.

Better to be prepared than caught like this.

We moved fast. Mira pulled her clothes on in seconds and strapped her blade to her waist. Lia grabbed her cloak and fastened it, her fingers working quickly. I tugged on my shirt and trousers, buckled my belt, and reached for my sword. In less than a minute, all three of us were dressed and armed.

More noise came from below, heavy boots and splintering wood, and it was getting worse. The floor trembled again, and something that sounded like a wall collapsed.

I turned to Lia. "Make sure the elf and Leah are safe. Don’t leave them for anything."

"Understood." She nodded and rushed out of the room toward where they lay.

I looked at Mira. "Go down and see what’s happening. I’ll come from the outside."

"The outside?"

I glanced at the window. Mira followed my gaze and nodded once, then slipped out the door, her footsteps fading toward the stairs.

I crossed the room in three strides and threw the window open. Cold night air hit my face. I climbed onto the sill, took a breath, and leaped.

The ground rushed up. I landed in a crouch on the street, my boots skidding against the stone, and rose to my feet.

At that exact moment, something large came crashing out of the inn wall.

CRASH!

Wood and stone burst across the street, and a figure tumbled through the rubble and rolled to a stop. I stared. It was the old man.

His shirt was burned and torn. Blood ran from his mouth and from a raw, ugly burn across his chest. He lay in the broken pieces of the wall, one arm twitching. I took a step toward him, wanting to see what was going on.

But then two figures stepped out through the hole in the wall.

They were cloaked in black from head to toe, their faces hidden behind glassy metallic masks. One was tall and broad with a huge sword on his back, and the other was smaller, her hands loose at her sides. They walked slowly, with no hurry at all, over the broken boards and glass.

I stopped. I pulled back into the shadow of a doorway and watched.

The old man coughed. He rolled onto his side, then pushed himself up with trembling arms. One knee at a time, he got back to his feet. Dust fell from his hair. He spat blood onto the stone and lifted his hands, and I saw the two cleavers still gripped in them. He spun one lazily by the handle, then the other, and a crooked smile crossed his bloodied face.

"I’m not down yet," he said. "You two can’t take me down that easily."

Pale light began to rise around him. It was soft at first, and then it rolled outward in waves, white and clean, wrapping around his body and running down his arms to the blades. The street lit up. The shutters on the nearby houses rattled in their frames.

My eyes widened.

What is that?

I had seen this man for days, standing behind the counter, cracking jokes and wiping stuff, handing out keys. He had never looked like anything special. Yet here he was, standing in the middle of a ruined street with something shimmering around him that made the air itself feel heavy.

Questions piled up in my head. What was this energy? How did an innkeeper come to have it? Who was this man, exactly?

I didn’t move. I kept watching.

The smaller figure tilted her head. "A warrior who can use aura," she said, her voice flat again. "What is someone like you doing in a place like this? And why are you protecting the elf?"

The old man said nothing.

"Do you have an affiliation? Did someone ask you to do this?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," the old man replied.

She was silent for a moment. "Then we continue."

The larger figure shot forward.

He crossed the distance in a blink and swung, and the huge sword came down in a wide, brutal arc. The old man brought both cleavers up and caught it.

CLANG!

The force rang through the whole street. The old man’s boots dragged across the stones as he was shoved back several feet, sparks flying from his blades. Cracks spread across the ground beneath him.

The larger figure stopped. He lowered the sword and shifted into another stance, his feet planted wide.

Then his aura exploded.

It burst out of him like a storm. It was twice as large as the old man’s, a dark, heaving mass that rose up around his body and spread across the street in a heavy wave. But it was rough and wild, jagged and explosive, nothing like the smooth, fine-tuned light the old man carried. The air howled around it. The nearest windows shattered.

The old man gritted his teeth.

He didn’t wait to be crushed. He rushed in, cleavers swinging, one after the other with everything he had. The first cut came across at the neck, the second at the ribs, then a downward chop, a spinning slash, a rapid stab. Each blow came in hard and fast.

The larger figure answered every single one.

His sword moved with ugly precision, catching each cleaver and pushing it aside. He didn’t retreat a step. Then he began to push forward, and his attacks came with a ferocity that drove the old man onto the back foot. The huge sword hammered down again and again, and the old man barely managed to get his blades up in time, his arms shaking, his feet sliding backward across the ruined street.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

From the side, the smaller figure raised her hand.

A fireball formed in her palm and shot out. The old man twisted, but another followed, then another, and fire exploded across the stones around him. He was forced to turn his cleaver and cut one out of the air, and in that second the large sword came crashing down. He caught it with a grunt and was driven to one knee.

It was two against one, and he could no longer fight back. He was being pushed, hit by hit, into a corner.

I watched all of it.

I was considering what to do. These two were here for the elf. I didn’t know what she had done to them, or whether they were in the wrong. Maybe she had stolen something. Maybe she had hurt someone. Maybe they were right. The thoughts crossed my mind and didn’t stay long.

I pushed them aside.

I don’t care what’s right or wrong. I do what I want.

And right now, what I wanted was to know what was going on. To find that out, the old man had to survive. So did the elf.

I stepped out of the shadows and thrust my hand forward.

A wide blast of flames roared across the street, rolling toward the two cloaked figures like a wave. The larger one turned at once. He swung the massive sword in a single sweep, and the flames split apart on either side of him, passing harmlessly around him and the smaller one and scorching the walls behind them.

But I had already leaped.

The flames had been a distraction. I cleared the street in a single bound and came down above the larger figure with my leg drawn back.

BAM!

My boot slammed into the masked face with full force. His head snapped back, and he staggered several steps, nearly dropping his sword.

I landed and didn’t stop. I grabbed the old man by the arm, hauled him up, and retreated a few feet, dragging him out of reach.

"You alright, old man?"

He was breathing hard. Blood ran down the side of his face. He didn’t thank me. He didn’t even look at me properly.

"Why are you here?" he said between breaths. "Take the elf and run. Don’t look back."

"What?"

"I’ll hold them back." He gripped his cleavers tighter. "You can’t deal with these two, boy. Not at all. Go, now."

I frowned. Who exactly are they? The question was on the tip of my tongue, but before I could ask it, I heard the heavy tread of boots and looked up.

The larger figure was already charging, his sword raised high, his dark aura roaring around him like a wave about to break.