Chapter 42: CONTRACT AND SIGNATURE

Angle flinched beside him, but Arch twisted midway through the swing. Instead of crossing either neck, the sword swept across the locking sections of their restraints with frightening precision, and metal cracked against the platform as both mechanisms split open.

The cuffs loosened around Sio’s wrists. He tore his hands free before he had fully understood what Arch had done, reached for his Claim on instinct and opened a portal beside himself at almost the same moment heat spread around Angle’s freed hands.

Angle spun toward his father so quickly he nearly lost his balance. Arch had already thrown the executioner’s sword aside and was flexing his right arm as the Siphon Aegis formed around it, while pieces of his equipment shifted into place across his body.

Baron surged to his feet. "What are you doing?" His chair scraped backward behind him, but Arch barely had time to glance his way because the large Riven was already moving.

Rough black armor spread over the man’s forearms, shoulders and chest as he crossed the platform far faster than his size suggested. Arch brought the Aegis across his body just before the first punch landed, and the impact rang through the platform hard enough to shove him several steps backward.

The gauntlet absorbed the force and vibrated around his forearm. When the Riven immediately followed with another heavy punch, Arch stepped outside its path instead of trying to absorb a second strike.

"You signed the contract yourself!" Baron shouted from behind his fighters. Arch ducked beneath another swing and answered while circling the Riven, "You never contracted me."

Baron’s anger paused just long enough for confusion to show. Before he could demand an explanation, the grey-coated woman sent her three silver rings snapping outward into different positions around the battlefield.

Sio recognized the pattern from the previous night. Invisible pressure closed around his left wrist and right ankle first, while another restraint began tightening around his waist.

He opened a portal beside his trapped foot and pushed the leg through it, then shifted the exit several steps to the side. The sudden change pulled him out of the alignment the woman was building before she could lock his knee and shoulder as well.

"Angle, the rings!" Sio called, but the blue-scarred woman had already moved to keep Angle occupied. The pale markings from her jaw to her fingertips brightened as she compressed the air in front of one palm and released it directly at him.

Angle crossed his arms before the blast struck, but the force still sent him sliding across the platform. The woman fired another compressed burst behind herself immediately afterward, using the recoil to launch her own body forward and reach him before he could properly recover.

Angle twisted away from her first strike, caught her wrist on the second and pushed heat through his palm. She blasted air sideways from her free hand and threw herself out of his grip before the flames could spread, landing several meters away with both hands already raised again.

Behind them, Baron had snatched the final agreement from the innkeeper and opened it to the last page. "Your signature is right here, Arch. I watched you put it there."

The black-armored Riven charged again before Arch could answer. This time Arch let him commit fully, stepped inside the path of the punch and drove the Siphon Aegis into the armor over his chest.

The force stored from the first impact discharged through the gauntlet in one concentrated strike. Cracks spread through the rough black covering, and the larger man lifted from the platform before crashing through part of the wooden railing.

Arch glanced briefly toward the contract in Baron’s hand. "You have a signature. Just not mine." The answer made Angle turn despite the blue-scarred woman still circling him.

"What does that mean?" Angle demanded. Two residents rushed Sio before Arch could answer, forcing him to open a portal directly in front of the first attacker and let the man stumble through.

Instead of creating another pair for the second resident, Sio shifted the existing exit into his path. Both men ended up several meters away without Sio having to strike either of them.

"The name I gave this town wasn’t mine," Arch said as he caught a guard’s wrist and redirected the man past him. Angle nearly missed another attack because he turned toward his father, but a compressed-air blast snapping past his shoulder reminded him that explanations could wait half a second.

The three silver rings moved again before Angle could ask anything else. Invisible pressure caught both of Sio’s wrists, then his waist and one knee, pulling him backward hard enough that controlling his portal became awkward.

The blue-scarred woman noticed immediately. She turned one palm toward Sio, and the air in front of it compressed until the space seemed to bend.

Arch saw the attack forming and shouted for him to get down. Sio strained against the invisible restraints and answered through clenched teeth, "I would love to," which was enough for Arch to understand that moving wasn’t currently part of the available options.

Arch kicked a broken section of railing toward the portal Sio had left open beside the platform. Sio understood what he wanted, shifted the exit beside the grey-coated woman and sent the broken wood bursting out near her shoulder.

She recoiled on instinct, and her concentration broke just long enough for the restraints to vanish. Sio dropped flat while the compressed-air blast tore through the space where his chest had been, and Angle sent a burst of flame above him a heartbeat later to force both women apart.

Baron’s voice followed them across the platform. "If the contracts never affected you, why did you change after signing them?"

Arch shoved one resident aside without seriously hurting him and used the man’s momentum to disrupt another attacker. "Because I needed you to believe they had."

The blue-scarred woman blasted herself sideways before he could say more. She appeared at Arch’s flank with one palm already aimed toward his ribs, forcing him to twist so the compressed blast clipped the edge of the Aegis instead of hitting him directly.

The pressure ripped through the railing behind him. Arch caught her elbow as she passed and redirected her toward Angle, who drove heat through one heel into the boards in front of her and forced her to fire another blast backward just to escape.

Sio dropped a portal beneath a resident charging Angle and moved the exit toward a pile of empty sacks beside the square. As the man disappeared harmlessly into them, Sio glanced toward Arch and asked, "You figured the contracts out before yesterday?"

"Not completely," Arch replied while pulling the small brass instrument from beneath his coat for a brief glance. "The first clue was the residents."

The black-armored Riven hauled himself back onto the platform with fractures still running across his protection. He started toward Arch, changed direction at the last moment and rushed Angle instead, apparently deciding the gauntlet was no longer the easier target.

Arch followed while continuing his explanation in pieces. "Ordinary residents showed nothing meaningful on this equipment, but when Baron exerted his Claim through them, the readings suddenly spiked."

Angle crossed both forearms before the Riven’s fist landed. His boots scraped backward several feet, but Sio opened a portal beneath the man’s rear foot before he could follow with another strike.

The Riven’s leg dropped unexpectedly through the opening. Sio shifted the exit behind him, twisting the man’s stance with his own momentum, and Angle immediately drove a flaming fist into the fractured section of his armor.

The Riven crashed sideways again. Sio closed the portal and looked toward Arch as the conclusion became obvious. "So the activity wasn’t actually coming from the residents."

"The activity wasn’t theirs," Arch answered while ducking beneath a guard’s weapon. "Something else was reaching through them."

The grey-coated woman sent her rings toward Arch next. One restraint caught his ankle and another closed around his forearm, but instead of fighting directly against the pressure, Arch stepped in the direction of the pull and used it to shift his body away from the blue-scarred woman’s next blast.

Sio opened a portal near the ring-user’s shoulder, and Angle immediately understood what he wanted. He punched through the entrance beside himself, sending his flaming fist out near the woman’s face and forcing her to break one restraint in order to dodge.

Arch tore his other arm free as the pressure weakened. "The two travellers who arrived before us gave me the next clue." He intercepted a guard coming toward Sio while Angle pushed the ring-user farther away with another burst of heat.

"The two the innkeeper mentioned?" Angle asked. Arch nodded while shoving the guard away and kept his attention on the fighters around them.

"They wanted to leave when they arrived, but after signing more agreements, one started asking about weekly lodging and the other about work." Arch shifted aside as another resident rushed past him, leaving Sio to redirect the man through a portal.

Sio remembered hearing the innkeeper report exactly that inside Baron’s mansion. The change had seemed strange at the time, but with Arch saying it now while Baron still gripped the contracts behind them, the pattern became obvious.

"The contracts were changing something," Sio said while shifting an exit behind two advancing residents and redirecting them away from the center. Arch agreed that they were the strongest connection he had, and by then Baron’s people were already calling him by the name he had given them.

Angle’s expression darkened as the rest clicked into place. "So that’s when you started acting like you wanted to stay."

The blue-scarred woman fired again before Arch could answer. Sio opened a portal directly in front of the compressed blast, swallowed the pressure through it and shifted the exit toward the black-armored Riven just as he regained his footing.

The blast struck his already damaged protection and knocked him back down. Sio stared at the result for half a second and decided he deserved at least partial credit. "I mostly meant to do that."

Angle gave him a brief look that made it clear he didn’t believe him. Arch answered the earlier question while stepping around another attacker. "I stopped checking the instrument where the innkeeper could see me, agreed to stay longer and let myself look comfortable enough that he would report exactly what Baron expected."

Angle knocked a guard’s weapon away with his forearm. "You also slept through everything."

"I wasn’t asleep," Arch replied. Angle almost turned completely around before remembering there were still people trying to hit him, and the offended look that crossed his face was somehow stronger than the one he had given Arch for the false name.

"I checked twice," Angle said while sending a short burst of heat into the ground between himself and another attacker. Arch moved past him with the smallest trace of amusement and answered, "That was useful."

Sio nearly laughed, but another group climbing onto the platform forced all three of them to move again. Arch stepped between Sio and Angle while the residents approached, and Angle burned a narrow line across the boards in front of them, forcing the group to stop rather than charge directly through the heat.

"If either of you knew what I was doing, you would have watched me for mistakes," Arch continued while shifting to intercept another guard. "The innkeeper was already watching all three of us, and genuine confusion was considerably easier to sell than coordinated pretending."

Angle shoved an attacker away and glared at his father. "We are having a much longer conversation about this when we leave."

"That seems reasonable," Arch replied as he blocked another strike. By then, some of the terror that had followed Sio onto the platform had finally begun loosening its grip.

Arch was himself, the restraints were gone, and Angle no longer looked like someone waiting for his father to kill him. Only then did Sio’s usual energy begin returning.

He opened a portal beside himself, planted one foot back and raised his hands in what felt like a suitably impressive stance. Halfway through, he noticed Angle simply standing with flames wrapped around his fists while Arch had positioned the Aegis practically in front of him, so Sio slowly changed the motion into a shoulder stretch.

Angle noticed anyway. "Were you posing?"

"My shoulder was stiff," Sio replied while widening the portal, which only made Angle stare harder. "We were about to lose our heads two minutes ago. Let me enjoy being alive."

Angle’s mouth twitched despite himself, but the three Wayfarers gave them no time to continue. The black-armored Riven approached through the center while deliberately slowing whenever Sio placed an obvious portal in his path, the grey-coated woman spread her rings farther across the battlefield, and the blue-scarred woman compressed air behind both feet.

Sio understood what they were doing only a moment before they moved. "They’re splitting us," he warned as the blue-scarred woman launched herself across the platform and the silver rings simultaneously locked invisible pressure around Arch’s ankle and Angle’s shoulder.

The black-armored Riven ignored Arch completely and went straight for Sio. Sio opened a portal beside his hip as the massive fist came toward him, letting the punch disappear through the entrance before shifting the exit above the Riven’s own shoulder.

The man’s arm emerged overhead, and his momentum dragged his upper body off balance. Sio stepped inside his reach and drove an elbow into the fractured armor, immediately regretting the decision when pain shot through his own arm and the Riven merely looked down at him.

"That worked better in my head," Sio muttered as he opened another portal between them. A burst of fire came through from the other side before the Riven could grab him, striking the damaged armor and forcing the larger man backward.

Across the platform, Arch stopped resisting the restraint around his ankle and deliberately stepped in the direction it was pulling him. The forced movement carried his body away from the blue-scarred woman’s next blast by inches, and he used the opening to snatch a fallen guard’s weapon from the boards.

Arch threw it low toward the grey-coated woman, forcing her to shift her stance. Her concentration flickered for barely a moment, but it was enough for the restraint around Angle’s shoulder to weaken and allow him to tear himself free.

Sio immediately moved a portal exit behind the ring-user while Angle punched through the entrance beside himself. A concentrated burst of fire emerged behind her shoulder, forcing her to abandon the restraints and send two of the rings toward Angle’s emerging arm in an attempt to pin it before the strike landed.

Arch crossed the remaining distance while her attention was divided. He struck her wrist with the side of the Aegis, disrupting the final ring and breaking the formation completely.

The blue-scarred woman tried to capitalize on Arch moving away from the others by blasting herself toward his exposed side. Sio slid a portal entrance into her path, but she saw it early enough to fire another burst downward and throw herself over the opening instead.

Angle was already waiting where she landed. He kicked low, forced her upward and drove a burst of heat through his other hand as she tried to propel herself away, making her use another compressed blast just to avoid taking the fire directly.

For the first time since the fight began, all three of Baron’s strongest Wayfarers were forced backward at once. The black-armored Riven struggled to stand with fractures spreading through his protection, the three silver rings wobbled instead of maintaining their steady orbit, and the blue-scarred woman’s breathing had grown noticeably heavier from repeatedly launching herself around the battlefield.

The crowd had stopped cheering by then. Several officials near Baron’s chair had begun retreating, while the residents closest to the platform looked far less eager to rush into a fight they had expected to end with two helpless prisoners.

Sio opened one more portal and stepped through, emerging only a short distance from Baron. With an executioner’s sword no longer hanging over his neck, enough of his normal looseness had returned for him to brush dust from his sleeve and ask, "Are you eventually going to fight us yourself, or is sitting above everyone the entire strategy?"

Baron looked across the damaged platform at his exhausted fighters and the three people steadily closing the distance toward him. Instead of panicking or ordering another attack, his mouth slowly curved upward, and Arch stopped advancing the moment he noticed it.

Baron began laughing while looking past them toward the far entrance of the square. "Well," he said as people near the edge of the crowd started moving aside, "this is fortunate. Someone arrived at exactly the right time."

Sio turned toward the opening as footsteps approached through the crowd. Dust, sweat and the sharp smell left by Angle’s fire hung across the square, but another scent slowly reached him beneath all of it, carrying the smell of wet soil after rain with something faintly sweet underneath.