Earl Ragni did not seem to be having a very good day. He was being swarmed, most of the allies around him already dead and his own neck seeming next up on the chopping block. He was backing away, eyes darting around and body twitching with the frenzy of anticipating a deathblow at any moment. And despite it all, he was moving fast.
Emma knew, of course, that the Sculds favoured personal skill in combat among their leaders, and she knew that with several thousand warriors under him Ragni would be one of the deadliest people in the region. It was another thing to see it.
Faster than Aexilica, stronger. Judging by the way a hammer crunched into his temple and just sort of bounced off—tougher too. But there were at least twenty men trying to circle him now, and some were moving with the effortless grace of superhumans themselves.
Moving fast, Emma helped level the odds with an energy lance. It caught one of them in the back, punted him fully across the room and left him to land hard with smoke hissing and broiling from where the heat had burned into him. He was twitching a bit. Still alive? Insane, but then Emma already knew she wasn’t the only one here with powers.
Her energy lance may not have obliterated the attack, but it certainly succeeded in drawing many of those involved to pay attention to her. That wasn’t exactly a good thing of course, and Emma’s next move was to beginshrieking and backing off as several very large men closed in on her.
Fortunately, her attack-Aexilica lunged in to intercept. Emma didn’t think she’d ever get tired of watching the woman fight several people at once, and was almost reluctant to put an end to it by shredding one of the men’s legs with a volley of energy flechettes. Almost. Her wrists still hurt.
Aexilica took the opportunity that brought and turned it on another of the men, opening his face up down to the bone. The other two backed away. Aexilica backed from them, too, and thus widened the gap enough for Emma’s energy lance to hit cleanly and just sort of rip them both in half.
She realised, then, how little the gore affected her anymore, how inured she seemed to have grown to it. Waited to feel some way about that…And didn’t. Emma was starting to believe this was all real, but she still didn’t blink at the things she was doing. What did that say about her?
Who cares?
The Earl was bleeding from a few more cuts, losing. Emma dropped a wall of hardened energy down between him and the enemies, then shoved it out with a blast of will. She watched it bowl two of the men over, trip a third. After a moment’s thought, she heated it up too. Heard flesh sizzling and screams splitting the air as the Earl took off another head at the collar.
Aexilica joined him, evening the odds by that little bit while Emma pulled up behind to keep anyone from getting past them and having a straight sprint to opening her up. Together, they fought.
An axe came for Emma, struck a hastily-conjured shield and deflected off. She shot a lance of energy at the wielder’s chest and saw it pierce his mail. Not deeply enough. He came barreling after her and bounced off another energy wall, then fell back as she blasted it into a storm of shrapnel. Hot shrapnel, that boiled and bubbled the flesh it was lodged in. Aexilica and the Earl bought her enough time for another energy lance to drop several more of the enemy, and all of a sudden the room was feeling emptier, floor more clotted with dying men, numbers less skewed against them.
In fact, the numbers seemed skewed the other way now. Newcomers were more dead than fighting, and they were backing away wherever the Earl’s remaining men still stood strong. The entire place reeked of blood. Tangy, like hot iron. It made Emma’s nostrils ache, made her eyes water. Clearly it had a profound effect on the men actually losing this little altercation.
Panting, Earl Ragni was the one to break the sullen, grating violence still lazily progressing around the room. Tired though he was, everyone else had become so exhausted that his words seemed strong and loud as gunfire by comparison.
“STOP!” He called out, and, ridiculously, actually imposed some sort of order on the violent chaos. “It’s over, all of you lay down your arms now and you may live.”
As far as promises went, Emma had certainly heard better. Apparently it was about as good as most of the enemy still fighting thought they were going to get.
Weapons hit the ground, rattled. The air was suddenly very still. It reeked, regardless, but now there was a stagnancy to it, all the feral energy of combat suddenly dissipating as if someone had hit the switch on some great pump and sucked it all out of the room.
Everyone looked tired, too. And Emma felt tired. Maybe that combative madness had been what was holding them all up. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
The Earl’s men, what was left of them, moved quickly to gather up the weapons. The priest was gone, Emma noticed, though she found it hard to care about that as Earl Ragni turned around and skewered her with one of the more edged gazes she’d ever been on the receiving end of.
“You.” He growled, walking towards her and pausing only as Aexilica took a step to put herself between them. Emma melted, a little bit, when she did that. Even knowing that her actual ability to stave the man off would be best measured in fractions of a second.
“You,” The Earl continued as if Aexilica were made of fog, “Have done a great service to me.”
Oh.
Oh.
Emma relaxed her hands, not having quite noticed when exactly they tensed themselves into fists, and let out a long breath.
“Right.” She nodded. “Yes, well, you know, I had to let you know what your options were—”
—”Not that.” The Earl cut in. “You turned your powers to aiding me when I was attacked, when you could easily have left me to die and made your escape. Why was that?”
Because I didn’t think I could escape and of all the factions present, you seem the least enthusiastic about human sacrifice.
She didn’t say it of course, people didn’t like hearing the truth.
“I don’t know.” Emma decided to say instead, “I just…Happened.”
There, perfect. Make it seem like she’d been overcome by some sudden convulsion of conscience, that ought to keep him satisfied. Believable, vaguely flattering for him, showed a good moral character and it could co-exist with almost any other kind of behaviour because even she didn’t understand it. The simplest lies were not always the best, but they were usually robust if nothing else.
Earl Ragni swallowed this one easily enough. Emma had found that people—especially men—were for some reason always receptive to the idea that others thought highly of them. She wasn’t complaining, it’d gotten her through college. Mostly.
“I see.” The Earl replied, thoughtful, and with a broad grin slowly spreading across his face. “I see. Well that settles it then. I want you by my side, whoever and whatever you are. As my own Wise Woman.”
Emma didn’t know what that was, but she liked the sound a lot. Wise Woman?
“I accept.” She replied at once. “And there’s going to be a few changes around here, believe me. But first let’s talk payment. If I’m going to hold this position I want a shit ton of silver, and my own harem of twinks and—”
—”You will get twenty pieces of silver each day.” Ragni cut in. “And free accommodations within the castle, so long as you continue to serve. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Emma glared at him.
“You’re not very good at negotiating are you?” She grumbled. “You’re meant to adjust your offer based on mine.”
“Shut up.” He told her. Emma shut up.
“The High Priest, old Hagor, has made his move against me now.” Ragni continued, pacing as he spoke. The whole room was turned to him, captivated by every word. Emma was just looking at the veins running down his biceps. Not bad for an older guy.
—”Are you listening?”
“Yes!” She lied, thought, took a guess, “Conflict is going to escalate from here now that neither of you need to be coy about it.”
His eyes narrowed as he stared at her for a moment, then almost reluctantly nodded.
“Lucky guess.” The Earl grumbled before carrying on. “We need to bolster our forces to meet his inevitable assault.”
Emma looked rather pointedly around her, tried to gesture at the carnage but, given that it was smeared across just about every surface she could see, mainly just sort of flailed her arms about for a bit.
“This wasn’t the assault?” She frowned. “I feel pretty fucking assaulted.”
Even Aexilica looked concerned, her perpetually stony face having cracked and crumbled down into a quivering frown. Earl Ragni only grinned.
“Pah. A mere hundred or so. I doubt either of us showed even a tenth of our forces in this, though he’s always been sneaky about letting me gauge what men he commands.”
“Does he know what men you command?” Emma asked him. The Earl frowned.
“Of course not, I’m far too wise and cunning to let him gauge that.”
“Right.” She nodded. “So the next move?”
Earl Ragni looked around, lip curling, and sighed. He wasn’t one word into his next sentence before Larry spoke up.
“How about you pick me up and take me out of this insane city full of dumbasses trying to kill each other?” He yelled at Emma, of course, because in Larry’s world everything was somehow her fault.
“Not now.” She told him, which for some reason only agitated the head more.
“What the fuck do you mean not now? This is the first chance we’ve had to leave you dumb asshole, take it! I’m not even sure you haven’t done it already!”
It was actually a fair assessment, why was she intent on running? Was it the sense of duty, some longing to carve out power and position for herself? Did Emma just want to finally belong somewhere, do what she hadn’t even managed on earth and secure herself a true home in this dogshit world that she could call her own?
No, no none of that was it. Thinking about it made her pretty sure it was just the harem of twinks, she was fairly sure she could weedle that for herself eventually at least.
“Silence, spirit.” Ragni growled, glaring daggers at Larry. It was a stark contrast from the almost reverent fascination Guldin had aimed at the head, and Emma found it really funny to see his reaction.
“Spirit?!” Larry glared back at him. “I’d rather be a spirit than reek of them you boozing monkey, I—” Aexilica hit him, quite possibly sparing the dumbass from death by boozing monkey. Ragni turned back to Emma at that, an eyebrow arched.
Ah, he wanted her to explain. And usually it was so convenient to have people assume she knew more about her own powers than she did.
“I…Bound him to that head.” She explained quickly. “It was an experimental spell. Worked. He knows more about magic than any mortal I’ve ever met, but he’s a prick.”
“And you’re a brain-damaged gremlin you little—FUCK!” Larry’s latest retort was interrupted rather more quickly by Aexilica’s fist, much to Emma’s relief. This negotiation was already beyond her, and she certainly didn’t need the input of someone who both hated her and didn’t fear death.
Fortunately, Ragni seemed to buy her words. Nodding slow and with understanding.
“I have heard of such things.” He sighed. “Very well, he stays too. Welcome to Vichin…Wise Woman.”