Chapter 45
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While the enemy continued their approach to what I designated was our kill-zone, my hand reached out for the handle of my new weapon which was strapped to my side.
Well, that wasn't completely right. It was still the same wooden sword-hilt with its twin falcon crossguard and beak pommel. There was only one difference. The handle felt lighter than it did as a bronze-tier weapon.
Zarz Mildew, the Foolhardies' artificer, explained to me when he gave me back my reforged falchion that it no longer had a tier because its new core wasn't among the list of metals officially used for weapon crafting. On the flip side of being essentially rankless, my sword now possessed new traits I was dying to try out. Tonight presented the perfect opportunity to do so.
I poured my killing intent into the formless shadow crystal encased in the iron arcane focus of the weapon's core. Immediately afterward, I felt the sword hilt shaking roughly in my hands like a Playstation controller with its vibration setting set to max.
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Coils of shadows shot out of the crossguard like arrows in flight and the blade formed from this roughness was blacker than any charred blade I'd ever seen. Gone too were the fiery veins common on the surface of shadowblades. In their place was a blurry blue line that traced the edge of the blade.
What I found most astonishing was how the vibration I'd previously felt from the sword-hilt had transferred to the shadowblade. I could even hear a soft humming noise emanate from its new blue edge.
"Damn... I think this thing's a vibroblade... cool," I whispered to myself.
Although the falchion felt a little unwieldy because of this constant vibration traveling down to my sword-hilt weekend my grip on it, the lighter weight of the sword-hilt more than made up for the difficulty of maneuvering it.
The anticipation of trying out my falchion's new ability was building up inside me to the point where I wished the enemy would march faster. It overrode the worry and fear that had gripped me during the waiting. Thankfully, the enemy did not disappoint me. The time for planning was over. All that was left was the execution.
As the ten large covered wagons—each pulled by a fully grown elken with each wagon surrounded by a rectangular formation of soldiers—entered my kill-zone and passed the point of no return, I sent Qwipps the go signal.
Qwipps notched an arrow to his bow. Then he took aim toward the front of the lead wagon.
His actions were mirrored by the pixies and elves hiding in the bushes or behind the trees on my side of the road. I could only assume Aura's group was also in the middle of preparations.
The head of the supply caravan passed right below me.
A knotted tenstion became stuck in my lungs. The anticipation was unbearable, and I wanted to scream out the stress building inside me.
Then it happened like I feared it would—an unexpected problem arising from changing circumstances.
The elken mount of the enemy elf commander reared its head in agitation like it could sense what was about to go down. Noticing his mount's distress, the brown-haired elf was immediately wary of the surroundings. His eyes darted left and then right.
However, thanks to quick thinking on Qwipps' part, the elf wasn't able to warn his soldiers to be prepared because an arrow with midnight blue fletching suddenly sprouted out of his neck.
Shouts of "Ambush!" could be heard among our targets. Their warning came too late.
Arrows flying from both their left and right sides pierced into hobgoblin and human flesh but bounced off elven steel plates.
Cries of pain and confusion reached my ears from below when I called for Donar to "Start the fire!"
Seconds later, I felt the telltale heat of fire magic coming to life from close behind me. This was immediately followed by half a dozen flame arrows—each the size of spears—zooming past me and down to the enemy's supply caravan.
These flame arrows exploded on the ground beside the wagons, causing frightened elken to disregard the commands of their riders. they charged forward and wagons crashed into each other.
We all heard the cracking sound wood makes when it collides with something heavy.
Grinning at the success of the initial ambush, I glanced behind me and called to Donar, "Get ready to launch another volley of flames arrows when we charge."
The salamander magician jaunted to my side with a hop in his step. "Ready to burn the flesh from their bones and boil their blood, Commander..."
This super dark comment made me want to step away from the fiery haired pyromaniac beside me.
"Uh, yeah, sure... Try not to kill the elken... we can make use of them later," I ordered.
Donar nodded as if he understood, yet his eyes blazed with a kind of fanaticism while he glanced down at the fires he'd started below. I could only hope he'd show some restraint when our soldiers were down there too.
Enemy soldiers called out to each other. They were trying desperately to regroup, but a combination of fires and frightened elken made this difficult.
"Luca, get ready," I ordered. "We'll end this fight quickly..."
My brow creased. I worried that the sounds of battle would attract more enemies to our location.
"Soldiers trying to flee on our right." Luca draped his new broadsword over his shoulder. "Want me to take a few guys and go after them?"
I shook my head. "Don't bother. Varda's got that area covered."
Even though I said this confidently, it wasn't until I saw Varda jumping out of her spot northeast of our position that my worries subsided. Hold on. Something was wrong.
Varda was running down the hillside and heading straight for the enemy's rear. She wasn't supposed to do that. She was supposed to cast her Earth Wall spell from the safety of the hill.
"Muddamit! Something's wrong with the plan, Dean!" Qwipps asked while he launched another arrow from his bow. "Varda's gone ad-lib... and she really sucks at improvising!"
"Focus on your job, Qwipps... I've got Varda," I answered.
Unfortunately, Luca and I were parallel to the center of the supply caravan and were too far away to reach its rear before Varda would be swamped in desperate enemy soldiers. Luckily, I had a contingency plan for a similar situation happening.
A group of soldiers on my side of the ambush charged down from our hill with their bronze shields raised, and they actually reached the road before Varda's tiny legs could take her there.
It was a good thing I had Ashley's unit covering the rear in case we needed them to blockade it. It was especially good that Ashley was leading it. Her calm levelheadedness meant I could trust her to handle the situation without any micromanagement from me.
"Let's go, Luca!" I rose from my hiding place—and raising my falchion forward with one hand—charged down the hill. "We are the Foolhardies!"
"Foolhardies!" As he ran to the right of me, Luca joined me in my rallying cry with his own wild yelling. "Foolhardies!"
On my left, stomping through the downward sloping ground like a mini-tank, the troll, Shaqs, smashed through trees while he too yelled, "Fo~~olhardies!"
Two dozen soldiers in total followed me down the hill. We were accompanied by a wave of flame arrows cast by the hands of Donar Firemonger.
Seeing our approach, the scattered enemies formed a line and braced themselves for impact. Unfortunately for them, Donar's spell reached them first.
I heard the pained screams of elf, human, and hobgoblin as our enemies tried desperately to avoid the fire. I smelled the scent of burnt skin as it wafted up to us. I felt the heat from the flames rise to meet us as we fell upon our enemies.
Usually, Luca was first to reach our enemies, but this time, my eagerness to test my weapon urged me past him and right into the path of a chain-mail wearing elf running toward me. In his desperation to avoid the fire, he ran headlong into my falchion's path which snaked forward and cut into the steel breastplate over his heart.
The vibration of my shadowblade sent sparks flying as it connected with the armor's metal, and there was barely any resistance when I cut right through it and into his heart.
Blood gushed out of the wound. A final gasping sound escaped his paling lips. Then the elf dropped dead on the ground beside me.
I expected this result because I thought the vibrations of my shadowblade must have increased its sharpness but I was still surprised by how easily I'd killed my first opponent.
There was no time to expect the body, however, as I heard a wild screaming on my right. When I glanced toward the elf who'd made it I was just in time to watch his abdomen get cleaved nearly in half by the force of Shaqs' double-bladed ax head.
Shaqs' wide puppy dog eyes, which were a complete contrast to the bald monstrous face they were attached to, looked over to me. He gave me a big toothy grin that was full of jagged teeth.
I responded to his not-at-all terrifying smile with a charge, my falcon raised as if to strike at him. But before he could second guess my intentions, my sword came crashing down on the shadowblade spear-tip of the hobgoblin attacking him from behind.
Seeing that I'd just saved his hide from death by stabbing, Shaqs responded with a decisive blow. In one swift motion of his thick arm, he decapitated the hobgoblin with his ax.
"Commander, thanks," Shaqs said after he'd covered me in a spray of elf blood.
Then he turned around and slammed his huge body into a runaway elken that had broken out of its straps and was running wildly toward us. Both Shaqs and the elken went sprawling onto the ground.
"You think he's going to kill it?" Luca asked.
He appeared beside me from out of nowhere looking nearly as bloody as I did.
"I hope not," I answered him. "Hold on... we've got company."
Two viseres stepped in front of us. Both of them wore similar grey-tinted padded vests and carried the same type of unadorned longswords in their hands. They had the same brown hair. They looked older than me and Luca. Closer to Ashley's age. Even their fighting stance was similar. These little details told me they were obviously twins.
Luca exhaled a long breath. "You take the one on the right. I'll deal with the guy on the left."
"Are you ordering your Commander around, Lieutenant?" I asked half-jokingly.
Luca's response was to follow up on his plan without waiting for me to follow.
He attacked the visere on the left. Their shadowblades sang as metal clashed with metal.
The other visere didn't move to help his brother. He kept a wary eye on me instead. It was the smart thing to do.
Unfortunately for him, I'd already moved my hand to the back of my belt, and a second later, flung my shadowblade dagger in the direction of his brother.
His eyes went wide, but there was no hesitation in his steps when he moved to block my dagger's flight path. It was actually really impressive when he reached out with his blade and altered the path of my weapon.
Again I was reminded that most viseres were better fighters than your average Mudgardian. Of course, I'd taken this into account as I was already within striking distance of him by the time he found his footing again. Yet, despite my advantage, he managed to block my falchion with his longsword.
His mistake, however, was thinking his regular looking sword could match my uber-cool suped-up falchion. So when he pushed down on my shadowblade and his sword broke where our edges met, it came as a complete surprise for him. It stunned him long enough for me to reverse my grip and slam my pommel up his chin like an uppercut.
It didn't cause nearly as much damage as I thought it would. His head simply jerked back down in an attempt to headbutt me, but I pulled away before any harm could be done.
This sent me back to back with Luca who had also pulled out of his fight at nearly the same time.
"My guy's better than I thought," he said grudgingly. "I guess yours is the same?"
We stood back to back now.
"Well... it's a little harder when we're trying not to kill them..." I complained. "Who thought of this stupid idea anyway."
"You did..." Luca countered. "You said you didn't want us carrying the burden of murdering our own kind..."
"Oh, right," I sighed. "Stupid me..."
Luca was right. After we were reunited, I made him promise not to kill any human enemies we came across in the Fayne because we didn't know what type of circumstance brought them to this place. I mean, what if they were like us? Recently, though, I had to scale back our no-killing-humans pact to not include monsters like Azuma. There was no point in following your principals if it only led to death.
"Want to see who beats their guy first?" Luca asked me.
It was just like him to psych himself up by turning this into a competition. Moments like this one really brought out the varsity player in him.
"Sure... loser has to clean our weapons and armor," I yelled as I dashed forward.
"No fair getting a head start!" I heard Luca yell behind me, but I had no time to banter with him as I was knee-deep in round two of my sword duel.
Sure, I could have used Basilisk's Eye or plain old Fool's Insight to end the fight quickly but my opponent proved so capable with his sword, despite it being a third its original size, that the competitor in me had awoken. I wanted to beat him with my own strength.
The brown-haired visere parried each of my falchion's swings even as I began shaving off more pieces of his blade. When his sword was down to a mere three inches, he dropped it on the ground and put up both his fists in a boxing stance.
"Seriously... you really want to keep going?" I asked him. "Why not just surrender?"
"Can't do it," he growled in an accent that was distinctly southside Starlight City.
Damn, as if I needed more reasons to take pity on him. Now I knew for sure he was a fellow Starlightian. I nearly gave him a free punch. Nearly.
The moment his right fist drove forward, I jumped and came down on his forehead with the pommel of my falchion. It was like taking candy from a baby.
After he fell to the floor, I watched his rise and fall in steady beats. It was a good sign.
"At least you'll live..." I whispered.
With my fight over, I looked over to where I last saw my little brother but the fires Donar started were doing too well a job now. The smoke from the bonfires around me dampened visibility. I did see Edo though. He was on the other side of the wagon on my immediate right dealing death to any enemy who approached him. Very few of them did.
On my left, I saw my soldiers holding onto the reins of several frightened elken. This meant we'd secured the first objective. Now, all we needed to do was wrap up the fight.
I heard it before I saw it—the whistle of steel as it traced a diagonal line through the air. Then I saw the shadowblade tip of the glaive aimed at me slice through the cloud of smoke and I knew I was in deep trouble. My body didn't react fast enough, and although I knew I could dodge the would-be-deathblow, the shadowblade would still cut into me.
Getting wounded in this first conflict of the night was one of my worst-case scenarios, but thanks to the Flame Shield bursting to life in fiery fashion between me and my unseen enemy, the worst-case scenario didn't happen.
Aura's timing was amazing, but I had no time to look for her as my attention was drawn toward the enemy that had appeared on the opposite side of Aura's Flame Shield. It was the elven commander Qwipps had killed with an arrow to the throat. Somehow, he'd survived that and was glaring at me with murderous eyes from beyond the safety of the shield.
My forehead creased. Was it possible? Was Azuma not as unique as we all thought? Or was something else at work here?
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While the enemy continued their approach to what I designated was our kill-zone, my hand reached out for the handle of my new weapon which was strapped to my side.
Well, that wasn't completely right. It was still the same wooden sword-hilt with its twin falcon crossguard and beak pommel. There was only one difference. The handle felt lighter than it did as a bronze-tier weapon.
Zarz Mildew, the Foolhardies' artificer, explained to me when he gave me back my reforged falchion that it no longer had a tier because its new core wasn't among the list of metals officially used for weapon crafting. On the flip side of being essentially rankless, my sword now possessed new traits I was dying to try out. Tonight presented the perfect opportunity to do so.
I poured my killing intent into the formless shadow crystal encased in the iron arcane focus of the weapon's core. Immediately afterward, I felt the sword hilt shaking roughly in my hands like a Playstation controller with its vibration setting set to max.
Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.webnovel.com for visiting.
Coils of shadows shot out of the crossguard like arrows in flight and the blade formed from this roughness was blacker than any charred blade I'd ever seen. Gone too were the fiery veins common on the surface of shadowblades. In their place was a blurry blue line that traced the edge of the blade.
What I found most astonishing was how the vibration I'd previously felt from the sword-hilt had transferred to the shadowblade. I could even hear a soft humming noise emanate from its new blue edge.
"Damn... I think this thing's a vibroblade... cool," I whispered to myself.
Although the falchion felt a little unwieldy because of this constant vibration traveling down to my sword-hilt weekend my grip on it, the lighter weight of the sword-hilt more than made up for the difficulty of maneuvering it.
The anticipation of trying out my falchion's new ability was building up inside me to the point where I wished the enemy would march faster. It overrode the worry and fear that had gripped me during the waiting. Thankfully, the enemy did not disappoint me. The time for planning was over. All that was left was the execution.
As the ten large covered wagons—each pulled by a fully grown elken with each wagon surrounded by a rectangular formation of soldiers—entered my kill-zone and passed the point of no return, I sent Qwipps the go signal.
Qwipps notched an arrow to his bow. Then he took aim toward the front of the lead wagon.
His actions were mirrored by the pixies and elves hiding in the bushes or behind the trees on my side of the road. I could only assume Aura's group was also in the middle of preparations.
The head of the supply caravan passed right below me.
A knotted tenstion became stuck in my lungs. The anticipation was unbearable, and I wanted to scream out the stress building inside me.
Then it happened like I feared it would—an unexpected problem arising from changing circumstances.
The elken mount of the enemy elf commander reared its head in agitation like it could sense what was about to go down. Noticing his mount's distress, the brown-haired elf was immediately wary of the surroundings. His eyes darted left and then right.
However, thanks to quick thinking on Qwipps' part, the elf wasn't able to warn his soldiers to be prepared because an arrow with midnight blue fletching suddenly sprouted out of his neck.
Shouts of "Ambush!" could be heard among our targets. Their warning came too late.
Arrows flying from both their left and right sides pierced into hobgoblin and human flesh but bounced off elven steel plates.
Cries of pain and confusion reached my ears from below when I called for Donar to "Start the fire!"
Seconds later, I felt the telltale heat of fire magic coming to life from close behind me. This was immediately followed by half a dozen flame arrows—each the size of spears—zooming past me and down to the enemy's supply caravan.
These flame arrows exploded on the ground beside the wagons, causing frightened elken to disregard the commands of their riders. they charged forward and wagons crashed into each other.
We all heard the cracking sound wood makes when it collides with something heavy.
Grinning at the success of the initial ambush, I glanced behind me and called to Donar, "Get ready to launch another volley of flames arrows when we charge."
The salamander magician jaunted to my side with a hop in his step. "Ready to burn the flesh from their bones and boil their blood, Commander..."
This super dark comment made me want to step away from the fiery haired pyromaniac beside me.
"Uh, yeah, sure... Try not to kill the elken... we can make use of them later," I ordered.
Donar nodded as if he understood, yet his eyes blazed with a kind of fanaticism while he glanced down at the fires he'd started below. I could only hope he'd show some restraint when our soldiers were down there too.
Enemy soldiers called out to each other. They were trying desperately to regroup, but a combination of fires and frightened elken made this difficult.
"Luca, get ready," I ordered. "We'll end this fight quickly..."
My brow creased. I worried that the sounds of battle would attract more enemies to our location.
"Soldiers trying to flee on our right." Luca draped his new broadsword over his shoulder. "Want me to take a few guys and go after them?"
I shook my head. "Don't bother. Varda's got that area covered."
Even though I said this confidently, it wasn't until I saw Varda jumping out of her spot northeast of our position that my worries subsided. Hold on. Something was wrong.
Varda was running down the hillside and heading straight for the enemy's rear. She wasn't supposed to do that. She was supposed to cast her Earth Wall spell from the safety of the hill.
"Muddamit! Something's wrong with the plan, Dean!" Qwipps asked while he launched another arrow from his bow. "Varda's gone ad-lib... and she really sucks at improvising!"
"Focus on your job, Qwipps... I've got Varda," I answered.
Unfortunately, Luca and I were parallel to the center of the supply caravan and were too far away to reach its rear before Varda would be swamped in desperate enemy soldiers. Luckily, I had a contingency plan for a similar situation happening.
A group of soldiers on my side of the ambush charged down from our hill with their bronze shields raised, and they actually reached the road before Varda's tiny legs could take her there.
It was a good thing I had Ashley's unit covering the rear in case we needed them to blockade it. It was especially good that Ashley was leading it. Her calm levelheadedness meant I could trust her to handle the situation without any micromanagement from me.
"Let's go, Luca!" I rose from my hiding place—and raising my falchion forward with one hand—charged down the hill. "We are the Foolhardies!"
"Foolhardies!" As he ran to the right of me, Luca joined me in my rallying cry with his own wild yelling. "Foolhardies!"
On my left, stomping through the downward sloping ground like a mini-tank, the troll, Shaqs, smashed through trees while he too yelled, "Fo~~olhardies!"
Two dozen soldiers in total followed me down the hill. We were accompanied by a wave of flame arrows cast by the hands of Donar Firemonger.
Seeing our approach, the scattered enemies formed a line and braced themselves for impact. Unfortunately for them, Donar's spell reached them first.
I heard the pained screams of elf, human, and hobgoblin as our enemies tried desperately to avoid the fire. I smelled the scent of burnt skin as it wafted up to us. I felt the heat from the flames rise to meet us as we fell upon our enemies.
Usually, Luca was first to reach our enemies, but this time, my eagerness to test my weapon urged me past him and right into the path of a chain-mail wearing elf running toward me. In his desperation to avoid the fire, he ran headlong into my falchion's path which snaked forward and cut into the steel breastplate over his heart.
The vibration of my shadowblade sent sparks flying as it connected with the armor's metal, and there was barely any resistance when I cut right through it and into his heart.
Blood gushed out of the wound. A final gasping sound escaped his paling lips. Then the elf dropped dead on the ground beside me.
I expected this result because I thought the vibrations of my shadowblade must have increased its sharpness but I was still surprised by how easily I'd killed my first opponent.
There was no time to expect the body, however, as I heard a wild screaming on my right. When I glanced toward the elf who'd made it I was just in time to watch his abdomen get cleaved nearly in half by the force of Shaqs' double-bladed ax head.
Shaqs' wide puppy dog eyes, which were a complete contrast to the bald monstrous face they were attached to, looked over to me. He gave me a big toothy grin that was full of jagged teeth.
I responded to his not-at-all terrifying smile with a charge, my falcon raised as if to strike at him. But before he could second guess my intentions, my sword came crashing down on the shadowblade spear-tip of the hobgoblin attacking him from behind.
Seeing that I'd just saved his hide from death by stabbing, Shaqs responded with a decisive blow. In one swift motion of his thick arm, he decapitated the hobgoblin with his ax.
"Commander, thanks," Shaqs said after he'd covered me in a spray of elf blood.
Then he turned around and slammed his huge body into a runaway elken that had broken out of its straps and was running wildly toward us. Both Shaqs and the elken went sprawling onto the ground.
"You think he's going to kill it?" Luca asked.
He appeared beside me from out of nowhere looking nearly as bloody as I did.
"I hope not," I answered him. "Hold on... we've got company."
Two viseres stepped in front of us. Both of them wore similar grey-tinted padded vests and carried the same type of unadorned longswords in their hands. They had the same brown hair. They looked older than me and Luca. Closer to Ashley's age. Even their fighting stance was similar. These little details told me they were obviously twins.
Luca exhaled a long breath. "You take the one on the right. I'll deal with the guy on the left."
"Are you ordering your Commander around, Lieutenant?" I asked half-jokingly.
Luca's response was to follow up on his plan without waiting for me to follow.
He attacked the visere on the left. Their shadowblades sang as metal clashed with metal.
The other visere didn't move to help his brother. He kept a wary eye on me instead. It was the smart thing to do.
Unfortunately for him, I'd already moved my hand to the back of my belt, and a second later, flung my shadowblade dagger in the direction of his brother.
His eyes went wide, but there was no hesitation in his steps when he moved to block my dagger's flight path. It was actually really impressive when he reached out with his blade and altered the path of my weapon.
Again I was reminded that most viseres were better fighters than your average Mudgardian. Of course, I'd taken this into account as I was already within striking distance of him by the time he found his footing again. Yet, despite my advantage, he managed to block my falchion with his longsword.
His mistake, however, was thinking his regular looking sword could match my uber-cool suped-up falchion. So when he pushed down on my shadowblade and his sword broke where our edges met, it came as a complete surprise for him. It stunned him long enough for me to reverse my grip and slam my pommel up his chin like an uppercut.
It didn't cause nearly as much damage as I thought it would. His head simply jerked back down in an attempt to headbutt me, but I pulled away before any harm could be done.
This sent me back to back with Luca who had also pulled out of his fight at nearly the same time.
"My guy's better than I thought," he said grudgingly. "I guess yours is the same?"
We stood back to back now.
"Well... it's a little harder when we're trying not to kill them..." I complained. "Who thought of this stupid idea anyway."
"You did..." Luca countered. "You said you didn't want us carrying the burden of murdering our own kind..."
"Oh, right," I sighed. "Stupid me..."
Luca was right. After we were reunited, I made him promise not to kill any human enemies we came across in the Fayne because we didn't know what type of circumstance brought them to this place. I mean, what if they were like us? Recently, though, I had to scale back our no-killing-humans pact to not include monsters like Azuma. There was no point in following your principals if it only led to death.
"Want to see who beats their guy first?" Luca asked me.
It was just like him to psych himself up by turning this into a competition. Moments like this one really brought out the varsity player in him.
"Sure... loser has to clean our weapons and armor," I yelled as I dashed forward.
"No fair getting a head start!" I heard Luca yell behind me, but I had no time to banter with him as I was knee-deep in round two of my sword duel.
Sure, I could have used Basilisk's Eye or plain old Fool's Insight to end the fight quickly but my opponent proved so capable with his sword, despite it being a third its original size, that the competitor in me had awoken. I wanted to beat him with my own strength.
The brown-haired visere parried each of my falchion's swings even as I began shaving off more pieces of his blade. When his sword was down to a mere three inches, he dropped it on the ground and put up both his fists in a boxing stance.
"Seriously... you really want to keep going?" I asked him. "Why not just surrender?"
"Can't do it," he growled in an accent that was distinctly southside Starlight City.
Damn, as if I needed more reasons to take pity on him. Now I knew for sure he was a fellow Starlightian. I nearly gave him a free punch. Nearly.
The moment his right fist drove forward, I jumped and came down on his forehead with the pommel of my falchion. It was like taking candy from a baby.
After he fell to the floor, I watched his rise and fall in steady beats. It was a good sign.
"At least you'll live..." I whispered.
With my fight over, I looked over to where I last saw my little brother but the fires Donar started were doing too well a job now. The smoke from the bonfires around me dampened visibility. I did see Edo though. He was on the other side of the wagon on my immediate right dealing death to any enemy who approached him. Very few of them did.
On my left, I saw my soldiers holding onto the reins of several frightened elken. This meant we'd secured the first objective. Now, all we needed to do was wrap up the fight.
I heard it before I saw it—the whistle of steel as it traced a diagonal line through the air. Then I saw the shadowblade tip of the glaive aimed at me slice through the cloud of smoke and I knew I was in deep trouble. My body didn't react fast enough, and although I knew I could dodge the would-be-deathblow, the shadowblade would still cut into me.
Getting wounded in this first conflict of the night was one of my worst-case scenarios, but thanks to the Flame Shield bursting to life in fiery fashion between me and my unseen enemy, the worst-case scenario didn't happen.
Aura's timing was amazing, but I had no time to look for her as my attention was drawn toward the enemy that had appeared on the opposite side of Aura's Flame Shield. It was the elven commander Qwipps had killed with an arrow to the throat. Somehow, he'd survived that and was glaring at me with murderous eyes from beyond the safety of the shield.
My forehead creased. Was it possible? Was Azuma not as unique as we all thought? Or was something else at work here?
While the enemy continued their approach to what I designated was our kill-zone, my hand reached out for the handle of my new weapon which was strapped to my side.Well, that wasn't completely right. It was still the same wooden sword-hilt with its twin falcon crossguard and beak pommel. There was only one difference. The handle felt lighter than it did as a bronze-tier weapon.Zarz Mildew, the Foolhardies' artificer, explained to me when he gave me back my reforged falchion that it no longer had a tier because its new core wasn't among the list of metals officially used for weapon crafting. On the flip side of being essentially rankless, my sword now possessed new traits I was dying to try out. Tonight presented the perfect opportunity to do so.I poured my killing intent into the formless shadow crystal encased in the iron arcane focus of the weapon's core. Immediately afterward, I felt the sword hilt shaking roughly in my hands like a Playstation controller with its vibration setting set to max.Find authorized novels in Webnovelfaster updates, better experiencePlease click www.webnovel.com for visiting. Coils of shadows shot out of the crossguard like arrows in flight and the blade formed from this roughness was blacker than any charred blade I'd ever seen. Gone too were the fiery veins common on the surface of shadowblades. In their place was a blurry blue line that traced the edge of the blade.What I found most astonishing was how the vibration I'd previously felt from the sword-hilt had transferred to the shadowblade. I could even hear a soft humming noise emanate from its new blue edge."Damn... I think this thing's a vibroblade... cool," I whispered to myself.Although the falchion felt a little unwieldy because of this constant vibration traveling down to my sword-hilt weekend my grip on it, the lighter weight of the sword-hilt more than made up for the difficulty of maneuvering it.The anticipation of trying out my falchion's new ability was building up inside me to the point where I wished the enemy would march faster. It overrode the worry and fear that had gripped me during the waiting. Thankfully, the enemy did not disappoint me. The time for planning was over. All that was left was the execution.As the ten large covered wagonseach pulled by a fully grown elken with each wagon surrounded by a rectangular formation of soldiersentered my kill-zone and passed the point of no return, I sent Qwipps the go signal.Qwipps notched an arrow to his bow. Then he took aim toward the front of the lead wagon.His actions were mirrored by the pixies and elves hiding in the bushes or behind the trees on my side of the road. I could only assume Aura's group was also in the middle of preparations.The head of the supply caravan passed right below me.A knotted tenstion became stuck in my lungs. The anticipation was unbearable, and I wanted to scream out the stress building inside me.Then it happened like I feared it wouldan unexpected problem arising from changing circumstances.The elken mount of the enemy elf commander reared its head in agitation like it could sense what was about to go down. Noticing his mount's distress, the brown-haired elf was immediately wary of the surroundings. His eyes darted left and then right.However, thanks to quick thinking on Qwipps' part, the elf wasn't able to warn his soldiers to be prepared because an arrow with midnight blue fletching suddenly sprouted out of his neck.Shouts of "Ambush!" could be heard among our targets. Their warning came too late.Arrows flying from both their left and right sides pierced into hobgoblin and human flesh but bounced off elven steel plates.Cries of pain and confusion reached my ears from below when I called for Donar to "Start the fire!"Seconds later, I felt the telltale heat of fire magic coming to life from close behind me. This was immediately followed by half a dozen flame arrowseach the size of spearszooming past me and down to the enemy's supply caravan.These flame arrows exploded on the ground beside the wagons, causing frightened elken to disregard the commands of their riders. they charged forward and wagons crashed into each other.We all heard the cracking sound wood makes when it collides with something heavy.Grinning at the success of the initial ambush, I glanced behind me and called to Donar, "Get ready to launch another volley of flames arrows when we charge."The salamander magician jaunted to my side with a hop in his step. "Ready to burn the flesh from their bones and boil their blood, Commander..."This super dark comment made me want to step away from the fiery haired pyromaniac beside me."Uh, yeah, sure... Try not to kill the elken... we can make use of them later," I ordered.Donar nodded as if he understood, yet his eyes blazed with a kind of fanaticism while he glanced down at the fires he'd started below. I could only hope he'd show some restraint when our soldiers were down there too.Enemy soldiers called out to each other. They were trying desperately to regroup, but a combination of fires and frightened elken made this difficult."Luca, get ready," I ordered. "We'll end this fight quickly..."My brow creased. I worried that the sounds of battle would attract more enemies to our location."Soldiers trying to flee on our right." Luca draped his new broadsword over his shoulder. "Want me to take a few guys and go after them?"I shook my head. "Don't bother. Varda's got that area covered."Even though I said this confidently, it wasn't until I saw Varda jumping out of her spot northeast of our position that my worries subsided. Hold on. Something was wrong.Varda was running down the hillside and heading straight for the enemy's rear. She wasn't supposed to do that. She was supposed to cast her Earth Wall spell from the safety of the hill."Muddamit! Something's wrong with the plan, Dean!" Qwipps asked while he launched another arrow from his bow. "Varda's gone ad-lib... and she really sucks at improvising!""Focus on your job, Qwipps... I've got Varda," I answered.Unfortunately, Luca and I were parallel to the center of the supply caravan and were too far away to reach its rear before Varda would be swamped in desperate enemy soldiers. Luckily, I had a contingency plan for a similar situation happening.A group of soldiers on my side of the ambush charged down from our hill with their bronze shields raised, and they actually reached the road before Varda's tiny legs could take her there.It was a good thing I had Ashley's unit covering the rear in case we needed them to blockade it. It was especially good that Ashley was leading it. Her calm levelheadedness meant I could trust her to handle the situation without any micromanagement from me."Let's go, Luca!" I rose from my hiding placeand raising my falchion forward with one handcharged down the hill. "We are the Foolhardies!""Foolhardies!" As he ran to the right of me, Luca joined me in my rallying cry with his own wild yelling. "Foolhardies!"On my left, stomping through the downward sloping ground like a mini-tank, the troll, Shaqs, smashed through trees while he too yelled, "Fo~~olhardies!"Two dozen soldiers in total followed me down the hill. We were accompanied by a wave of flame arrows cast by the hands of Donar Firemonger.Seeing our approach, the scattered enemies formed a line and braced themselves for impact. Unfortunately for them, Donar's spell reached them first.I heard the pained screams of elf, human, and hobgoblin as our enemies tried desperately to avoid the fire. I smelled the scent of burnt skin as it wafted up to us. I felt the heat from the flames rise to meet us as we fell upon our enemies.Usually, Luca was first to reach our enemies, but this time, my eagerness to test my weapon urged me past him and right into the path of a chain-mail wearing elf running toward me. In his desperation to avoid the fire, he ran headlong into my falchion's path which snaked forward and cut into the steel breastplate over his heart.The vibration of my shadowblade sent sparks flying as it connected with the armor's metal, and there was barely any resistance when I cut right through it and into his heart.Blood gushed out of the wound. A final gasping sound escaped his paling lips. Then the elf dropped dead on the ground beside me.I expected this result because I thought the vibrations of my shadowblade must have increased its sharpness but I was still surprised by how easily I'd killed my first opponent.There was no time to expect the body, however, as I heard a wild screaming on my right. When I glanced toward the elf who'd made it I was just in time to watch his abdomen get cleaved nearly in half by the force of Shaqs' double-bladed ax head.Shaqs' wide puppy dog eyes, which were a complete contrast to the bald monstrous face they were attached to, looked over to me. He gave me a big toothy grin that was full of jagged teeth.I responded to his not-at-all terrifying smile with a charge, my falcon raised as if to strike at him. But before he could second guess my intentions, my sword came crashing down on the shadowblade spear-tip of the hobgoblin attacking him from behind.Seeing that I'd just saved his hide from death by stabbing, Shaqs responded with a decisive blow. In one swift motion of his thick arm, he decapitated the hobgoblin with his ax."Commander, thanks," Shaqs said after he'd covered me in a spray of elf blood.Then he turned around and slammed his huge body into a runaway elken that had broken out of its straps and was running wildly toward us. Both Shaqs and the elken went sprawling onto the ground."You think he's going to kill it?" Luca asked.He appeared beside me from out of nowhere looking nearly as bloody as I did."I hope not," I answered him. "Hold on... we've got company."Two viseres stepped in front of us. Both of them wore similar grey-tinted padded vests and carried the same type of unadorned longswords in their hands. They had the same brown hair. They looked older than me and Luca. Closer to Ashley's age. Even their fighting stance was similar. These little details told me they were obviously twins.Luca exhaled a long breath. "You take the one on the right. I'll deal with the guy on the left.""Are you ordering your Commander around, Lieutenant?" I asked half-jokingly.Luca's response was to follow up on his plan without waiting for me to follow.He attacked the visere on the left. Their shadowblades sang as metal clashed with metal.The other visere didn't move to help his brother. He kept a wary eye on me instead. It was the smart thing to do.Unfortunately for him, I'd already moved my hand to the back of my belt, and a second later, flung my shadowblade dagger in the direction of his brother.His eyes went wide, but there was no hesitation in his steps when he moved to block my dagger's flight path. It was actually really impressive when he reached out with his blade and altered the path of my weapon.Again I was reminded that most viseres were better fighters than your average Mudgardian. Of course, I'd taken this into account as I was already within striking distance of him by the time he found his footing again. Yet, despite my advantage, he managed to block my falchion with his longsword.His mistake, however, was thinking his regular looking sword could match my uber-cool suped-up falchion. So when he pushed down on my shadowblade and his sword broke where our edges met, it came as a complete surprise for him. It stunned him long enough for me to reverse my grip and slam my pommel up his chin like an uppercut.It didn't cause nearly as much damage as I thought it would. His head simply jerked back down in an attempt to headbutt me, but I pulled away before any harm could be done.This sent me back to back with Luca who had also pulled out of his fight at nearly the same time."My guy's better than I thought," he said grudgingly. "I guess yours is the same?"We stood back to back now."Well... it's a little harder when we're trying not to kill them..." I complained. "Who thought of this stupid idea anyway.""You did..." Luca countered. "You said you didn't want us carrying the burden of murdering our own kind...""Oh, right," I sighed. "Stupid me..."Luca was right. After we were reunited, I made him promise not to kill any human enemies we came across in the Fayne because we didn't know what type of circumstance brought them to this place. I mean, what if they were like us? Recently, though, I had to scale back our no-killing-humans pact to not include monsters like Azuma. There was no point in following your principals if it only led to death."Want to see who beats their guy first?" Luca asked me.It was just like him to psych himself up by turning this into a competition. Moments like this one really brought out the varsity player in him."Sure... loser has to clean our weapons and armor," I yelled as I dashed forward."No fair getting a head start!" I heard Luca yell behind me, but I had no time to banter with him as I was knee-deep in round two of my sword duel.Sure, I could have used Basilisk's Eye or plain old Fool's Insight to end the fight quickly but my opponent proved so capable with his sword, despite it being a third its original size, that the competitor in me had awoken. I wanted to beat him with my own strength.The brown-haired visere parried each of my falchion's swings even as I began shaving off more pieces of his blade. When his sword was down to a mere three inches, he dropped it on the ground and put up both his fists in a boxing stance."Seriously... you really want to keep going?" I asked him. "Why not just surrender?""Can't do it," he growled in an accent that was distinctly southside Starlight City.Damn, as if I needed more reasons to take pity on him. Now I knew for sure he was a fellow Starlightian. I nearly gave him a free punch. Nearly.The moment his right fist drove forward, I jumped and came down on his forehead with the pommel of my falchion. It was like taking candy from a baby.After he fell to the floor, I watched his rise and fall in steady beats. It was a good sign."At least you'll live..." I whispered.With my fight over, I looked over to where I last saw my little brother but the fires Donar started were doing too well a job now. The smoke from the bonfires around me dampened visibility. I did see Edo though. He was on the other side of the wagon on my immediate right dealing death to any enemy who approached him. Very few of them did.On my left, I saw my soldiers holding onto the reins of several frightened elken. This meant we'd secured the first objective. Now, all we needed to do was wrap up the fight.I heard it before I saw itthe whistle of steel as it traced a diagonal line through the air. Then I saw the shadowblade tip of the glaive aimed at me slice through the cloud of smoke and I knew I was in deep trouble. My body didn't react fast enough, and although I knew I could dodge the would-be-deathblow, the shadowblade would still cut into me.Getting wounded in this first conflict of the night was one of my worst-case scenarios, but thanks to the Flame Shield bursting to life in fiery fashion between me and my unseen enemy, the worst-case scenario didn't happen.Aura's timing was amazing, but I had no time to look for her as my attention was drawn toward the enemy that had appeared on the opposite side of Aura's Flame Shield. It was the elven commander Qwipps had killed with an arrow to the throat. Somehow, he'd survived that and was glaring at me with murderous eyes from beyond the safety of the shield.My forehead creased. Was it possible? Was Azuma not as unique as we all thought? Or was something else at work here?
