Chương 51: Fight or Die

With wind swirling through her fingers, Paige fired off a series of daggers towards the two guards. The wind spirit propelled them at monumental speed, but they simply pinged off the heavy plate armour and clanged onto the floor. Seeing its futility, Paige drew her jewelled sabre and stood side-by-side with Aaron. Tim cowered behind them. He was in no fit state for fighting.

"Last chance. Put your weapons down!" the peacekeeper said.

"Just kill the bitch," the other one said callously. Paige ran forward towards the left man. He drew back his pike and lunged it towards her. She expertly knocked it to the side with the padded leather on the back of her wrist and thrust her sword towards the man's neck. The sword missed its mark, instead glancing off the side of his helmet. The peacekeeper responded swiftly by smacking her in the face with the back of his plate gauntlet. The blow was so hard, it sent her spinning backwards.

She landed on her front and scrambled to her feet quickly before he could impale her with the pike. Paige looked at her sabre in disbelief as if it was defective. She was mocked by a deep bellowing laugh. The other guard hadn't even tried to help. He stood next to him, watching and laughing as if they were fighting for sport. They hadn't even called for backup. No one else knew they were there... Probably.

The same guard who Paige just tried to hit threw his pike onto the floor and put his arms out as if daring them to strike again. It was surely a show of mockery. Paige stabbed rapidly with her sabre, but each strike missed its mark, glancing off the plate armour instead of hitting the weak points between the metal sheets. With every miss, the laughter grew louder and louder, and Paige grew more frustrated, stabbing faster and harder, but never came close to wounding the man.

"It's pointless, give up before you get hurt!" The man said. The visor was so thick that Aaron couldn't see his mouth move beneath the vents. Red in the face, Paige fired a forceful gust of wind into the man's chest. He staggered backwards by half a step only as Paige lunged with her sword. The man used his entire arm this time to bat her away, smashing her chest with the back of his heavily plated wrist. The blow sent her flying onto the floor, where she rolled around, clutching her chest in pain.

"Do you want to try your luck, little man?" The peacekeeper said. Aaron's knuckles grew white as he tightened his grip on his dagger. The peacekeeper beckoned him by calling him over with his finger, then opening his arms up and exposing his neck between his armour by looking upwards. Aaron took his chance and ran forwards. He placed one hand on his stomach for balance and then stabbed repeatedly and ferociously into the gap between his chestplate and cuisses.

Each stab missed, as if an invisible force was guiding the blade towards the armour instead of the vulnerable areas. The guard punched him in the face with a closed metal fist. His vision went black, and his head hit the floor. It throbbed as his vision slowly returned, but the ringing in his ears continued for longer. Aaron grew furious as the hulking large man's laughter bellowed over him. Soul Forgers, he thought. Soul forging was a guarded and secretive magic class used by the king's elite guard.

They enchant their armour and infuse their soul into it to give it magical properties. He had only seen the black guard of the city a handful of times, but they were notoriously fierce in combat. This man must have had some sort of enchantment on his armour which drew weapons towards it, making it nearly impossible to land an effective blow with a blade. Aaron dragged himself to his feet. Paige was still coughing and gasping for breath on the floor. The blow to the chest must have winded her badly.

"Aaron, no. Just run!" Paige coughed.

"Yes, listen to the girl," The peacekeeper cackled, "but you won't get very far." Aaron wiped his face. Wet sticky blood smeared across his hand, which clasped his bone dagger tightly. He ran towards the man again, using the same tactic. He put his hand on his plate armour and stabbed up into the gap below his armour. The guard just stood and laughed, as if Aaron was a desperate fool, but that's exactly what Aaron wanted him to think. Aaron focused Absorb Remnant on the peacekeeper's armour.

The ability was rusty and neglected, but still there. He instantly felt feedback as mana from the platemail flowed into his open palm. The resistance was minimal. Unlike draining from a person or creature, the armour had no will of its own to resist. Aaron was right about Soulforging. It was teeming with mana and heavily infused with remnants of his soul. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

[Skill proficiency increase] Absorb Remnant: Level 3 The flow of mana was almost overwhelming. The innate resistance in animals must have made the bolus of mana easy to manage. Where that was a trickle, this felt like a flood. His fingers may as well have been glowing with the heat he felt from the mana flow. The Peacekeeper's eyes widened through the small gaps in the visor. He tried to jump back, but it was too late, Aaron's dagger sunk deep into the gap beneath his chestplate and into his stomach.

Screaming in pain, the guard pushed Aaron off him and tripped backwards to the floor. He held his large, unwieldy plate-covered hands over the wound. Aaron's experience as a healer told him that the man wasn't doing anything to stop the blood loss with those gloves on, but frankly he didn't care. He wasn't a healer in that moment; he was fighting for their lives.

"You little bastard," the other man shouted as he approached Aaron with his pike. Aaron's senses were dulled, and his thoughts were hazy and clouded. He knew the dagger made from a Mana Hound claw was very likely to kill the man unless he was treated immediately. Stabbing that man was the right thing, but he had never done anything like this before. His heart raced, and his ears rang loudly, like he was standing inside a giant bell.

"Aaron, move!" Tim shouted, but it was pointless. Aaron may as well be observing his body from the outside. All he could do was look down at the blood splattered all over the dagger, dripping back over the hilt onto his hand. Just as he was within range to stab Aaron, the guard paused on the spot, coughing and spluttering. He spat a ball of blood onto the ground. His pike clanged to the ground as he reached his hands up to his neck before collapsing to his knees and falling flat on his face.

His visor fell onto the floor and rolled around at Aaron's feet, revealing the man's long, blonde, and now blood-stained hair. Paige stood behind him, holding a blood-splattered pike. She was panting and bent over double, holding her free hand across her body onto her ribs. The other guard didn't have the same enchanted armour, unfortunately for him. She sat down on a wooden crate and gasped for air. Tim was by her side already, rubbing her back and reassuring her.

The first guard, whom Aaron had stabbed in the stomach, now lay backwards with his arms flailed out by his sides. He was either dead or close to it. A small puddle of blood started to build up on the floor beneath him. Aaron ran over to Paige, reaching for his Manipulate skill immediately. He felt a sudden sharp pain in his chest and lost all of his focus. He reached his arms around himself to the source of the pain. He felt something hard. A small icy spike had impaled his side.

A high-pitched unnatural whistle filled the room. Aaron looked to his side and saw a robed man with a Mana Hound on a leash next to him. Aaron locked eyes with the mage as he pulled the spike out of his chest and threw it to the floor. His True Sight told him that it had mostly been stopped by the chainmail and only pierced the surface of the skin, so he wasn't worried about the consequences. However, it didn't help the pain. Aaron walked forwards, ensuring Paige and Tim were shielded behind him.

"Leave us or suffer the same fate as your three fellow soldiers!" He gestured around the room, showing the three large men dead on the floor. He was exhausted, in pain, and his friends were in no good form to fight. But still he hoped gloating and intimidation would get them out of the predicament. And ideally he wouldn't have to kill again to save himself. A deep conflict built within him, from years of " do no harm" being drilled into him.

He buried it deep and convinced himself to do whatever was necessary to get through this alive. Not only was his life on the line, but also his friend and brother. The mage smiled and created a small ball of water above his hand. It lengthened and sharpened into a lance of ice as it fell into his open palm.

"AARON!" Paige called, "Get down!" Aaron threw himself to the floor and looked back at her. She launched a dagger with a powerful throw, backed up by a burst of wind from a conjured spirit. The dagger spun rapidly and bolted through the air towards the mage. As it flew above his head, it rapidly changed direction and arced downwards towards Aaron in a motion which defied the natural laws. The knife grazed Aaron's arm, leaving a painful gash down his forearm.

The mage didn't hesitate to react, launching the lance of ice with a powerful overarm throw towards Paige. Like the knife, the lance redirected in the air towards Aaron. He jumped to the side, landing flat on his stomach. The lance missed by the length of a hair and bounced across the floor, ricocheting off a wooden cage at the back of the tent. Aaron didn't have time to think; he just shouted at the dog, "ATTACK!" His words were infused with mana, creating a horribly icy sensation on the back of his teeth.

Snarling and whistling, the dog turned and bit down hard onto the mage's leg. He screamed in pain and flailed his foot around, trying to kick the dog off, but he quickly lost his footing to the powerful creature and fell to the floor. The mage shouted a series of commands and blasted the hound with bursts of water from his hand. The dog must have been well trained, as every word caused Aaron's mana to drain as he fought against the dog's will. Aaron suspected that the dog had instincts to attack these men.

Training and subjugating the animals is an unnatural practice which goes against their nature. With a final push, Aaron willed the dog to go for the neck. He was conflicted between relief and guilt as it climbed up over the mage and viciously tore at his throat. Aaron turned his head and refused to watch. Fight or die, he told himself. He had already crossed a line which he swore never to touch.

There were plenty of ways to rationalise the need for extreme measures, but he couldn't shake the heavy sinking feeling in his stomach. The dog snarled and ran off out of the tent, leaving a pile of flesh and blood behind. The face was so mangled that it would be impossible to identify the man.

"Paige, are you ok? I can heal you," he asked.

"I'm fine. I'll make it to the mine. We need to move fast before more of them come," she replied, rubbing her shoulder.

"More importantly, why are all the weapons honing in on you?"

"It's the guard's armour. I drained the enchantment out of it so we could hurt him, but I must have taken on some of its effects. I didn't even know I could do that," Aaron replied. The armour had attracted weapons to keep the peacekeeper safe. It was a fantastic property for armour to have, but a hindrance if directly applied to a person.

"We'll sort it out later. With a bit of luck, and a lot of speed, we won't have to fight our way to the mine," Paige said. Aaron nodded in agreement.

"Tim, are you okay to run?" Aaron asked.

"Yes, I'm fine at the moment," Tim replied. He was hunched over, resting on the wall. But Aaron had to trust he had enough strength for a short sprint. The three of them ran out of the tent to only be met with a familiar, blood-curdling screech from above. Tim covered his ears in agony, seemingly affected way worse than everyone else. They looked up to see a humanoid four-limbed bat swooping around the sky with at least twenty other smaller bats circling.

Hundreds of arrows and spells flew through the sky towards them. Aaron's aura must have attracted them. At least they now had a good distraction.