Chapter 23: The Skirmish (P3)

"Do you know how to use this?"

Held before me by Garland the Third was a long-curved dagger, glistening in the mornings sun. Around me was abuzz with murmur and excitement. The usual clear grassland before the river bed was now fortified in four places with wooden fence rapidly erected for what I was not beginning to understand was truly a duel to the end.

"Yes." I speak numbly. There was a lump in my throat, it felt huge and insurmountable. Perhaps I'd name it Perlman.

I'd gone and done it again. Walking in without proper intel. Perlman was a mage, that much I knew, and thanks to Elsa's story I knew he wasn't powerful enough to face D-rank monsters. To my knowledge I've faced off worse, the black bear in the cave fell victim to my most dangerous offensive skill, Soul Drain. Honestly, I'd jumped into this all with that as my main attack. With my large mana reserves, I could spam the skill quite a bit.

It'd be an easy win. I'd be declared winner of the match. I'd see his head roll and I'd be given his fortunes.

Garland did well to burst this bubble of mine. Apparently, Perlman has been training.

"Good, you'll need it. I don't know how you'll get close to him to use it since he's a B-rank water mage and is coming prepared with all his famous mana manipulating ring, you'll find it on his finger, it lets him…well, cast better. If you can take it off perhaps it'll be a fair fight. Hey, remember, what's your advantage?"

"I know how to handle weapons and have experience in hand to hand combat?" This much was true. I did have experience in these facets, my past life gave me the combat experience, I knew when to attack, how to feint and was a novice boxer before a bullet tore through my brain. My current life has given me ample experience in life preservation, dodging, blocking, being cornered.

"Exactly!" Garland smiles at me solemnly. His head lowers a bit and he bites out, "I'm sorry you have to do this. If only I had the aptitude for magic, none of this would have to happen. He wouldn't be here in the first place."

That much was true.

If Garland was even a C-rank mage, which was easy as pie to become I'm told, he would be able to run the village himself. I would have been dropped off by the Following at the gates of an entirely different village.

Perhaps I wouldn't have been robbed by Sem, because his father would still be alive to give onto him the privileges of a human and I would have bought a coat and lived on an apple a day while I battled with Anselm on whether or not I should rob the villagers.

Might be just me, but the possible future seems worse than the current one. At least, I had a back-up plan.

My makeshift tent flaps open as I set the dagger into its scabbard by my belt pouch, I look up and it's a pleasant sight. Elsa and Sem. She bows to Garland, having to slap Sem's head forward so he does the same.

Garland chuckles and nods, waving at them as he leaves.

"Great Mage." Elsa starts, she still hasn't gotten the title off her tongue, "We gather some food for you, before the fight starts." She and Sem heft a big pot, much bigger than the one they'd been using when I met them and set it on the table. Sem produces plates and utensils from the basket he held, in the process revealing fruits and a water skin.

"Thank you. You didn't have to do all this."

"I fear it's the only thing I can do." She looks terribly saddened at her ow words. I look to Sem and he avoids my eyes a pout on his face.

"Well, thank you anyway."

She doesn't answer but starts dishing out the food anyway. It's much more than the tomato soup we'd shared that day. This time there's ample meat and even some fish. And although I despised fish, I wouldn't tell ruin her mood any further by being ungrateful.

The two of us sat. there were chairs now in the tent, donated like nearly every other thing. Sem stood aside, still barely watching us or saying anything, only kicking the dirt beneath his feet.

"Won't you come eat with us?" I ask.

He murmurs something and fixes me with a piercing stare. "What? I didn't catch that."

He visibly flushes, his cheeks were still sunken from the starvation but they were slowly filling up. He repeats whatever he says in an even more inaudible manner. Feeling weird about asking him to repeat himself I look over to Elsa and she has a horrified look on her face. Did she hear what he'd said?

"What did he say?" I ask. Her head snaps to mine, then to the food shaking her head and taking a spoon full of the grub.

I hear Sem stomp his feet, surprisingly childish for his age, "You know what, I'm not hungry!"

He picks up the basket of fruit, pulls and apple and takes a bit out of it before storming out of the tent, completely contradicting his outburst.

Leaving me confused and with his mother who stared at her plate like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

***

The bliss of eating in an awkward silence with Elsa was savoured as much as possible. A trumpet sounded, or something that looked like a trumpet did anyway. A path was cleared for Perlman, the Diviner and the guard carrying a neck stool and a glistening axe. I'm not sure why I expected a guillotine but I did and was disappointed.

Perlman had come wearing his previous robe and held his staff in hand. The staff was long, easily surpassing him in height and noticeably had a blue orb of sorts melded into its wooden stalk. But it wasn't his staff I was wary of; it was the sliver ring he wore. The one that cut his mana usage and upped the efficiency his mana manipulation.

He grinned at me. I could genuinely say he was happy, very happy.

Garland stepped forward, my self-appointed advocate and representative for this. "Is it all here?"

The Diviner nods, "It's all there, you may count it yourself," he hands Garland a brown coin bag, reluctantly, "If you must."

Garland grabbed it and rummaged through, counting it a few times to be sure before fixing the Diviner with a look of disgust, "You had all this in gold and you couldn't give it out to the needy? You're supposed to be a man of the Synagogue."

"The needy as you so eloquently put it, were the elves. Be reminded."

Garland looked like he had some more arguing in him but he swallowed it and walked back over to my side.

"It's complete. Fifty gold will be handed to you upon Perlman's death at your hands or his surrender."

I nod. His surrender was unlikely but that is the way of a death battle was it not?

The trumpet sounding and looking thing is blown again and Garland whispered in my ear that it was time. I step forward, standing only a few feet away from Perlman. The Diviner stands between us, a scroll in hand.

He read, "And so it is by law that a ruler of capable stature, health and well mind may be challenge by a commoner of their domain for the right to rule, to pillage and seize all that is theirs, including teeth and limb and life. With the sole exception of other life and limb and teeth and riches belonging not to the ruler but to his spouse, ward, concubine, slave or pet. The winner is declared solely by surrender or death."

Grim.

"Are participants acknowledged?" he looks between myself and Perlman.

I nod and Perlman grins, shouting out an excited yes.

"Very well. You may begin." The Diviner bursts into flames blocking my view of Perlman as he disappears.

Sensing danger from behind I duck to the side as a water whip sprouts out from the river behind me, snaking about in the air. Bulging and then taking a spiked form.

My eyes go wide at the immediate frontal assault from Perlman, I look to him, he's cackling, his staff held high in the air, the blue orb glowing with mana. I've got to get close.

I jaunt to the side again, careful to run in a zigzag pattern as Perlman's large water whip shoots out spiky, heavy shots of water at my head. The ground is quickly muddied.

For the first time I notice there's barely a crowd about to watch the fight. Wise, I wouldn't want to in the way either. The wooden fences meant nothing now.

Perlman's assault continues behind me, I was running out of dry ground ahead and Perlman himself was no fool it seemed. He kept moving farther and farther away from me as he unleashed his watery fury.

"Do you think you can get me, Necromancer?" he jeers, "I have barely even begun to show you the true extent of my power!"

That doesn't bode well.

He raises both his hands and I hear a rush of water behind me. The river had risen. It began to split into long thin ropes of water, taking on the look of some kind of tentacle monster.

Okay. Time to pull out my back up.

Not waiting for Perlman to skewer me with water, I quickly summoned up my own mana and directed my arm at his neck, "Death Grip!"

I feel the necrotic mana flow out and reach for my target. Fear and desperation wrack through me as I fear I won't make it in time before he is done getting himself ready to kebab me. The water swirls threateningly behind me, the entire river his weapon and mine a game of chance and hope.

I feel it. His neck. I open the eyes I hadn't realized I'd shut and see he hasn't felt it yet. And just as the many razor thin water whips begin to descend on my I squeeze. Hard.

"Ack!" he chokes, his staff falling to his side and his hands fly to his neck. I'm baptized by a ton of water, harmless, but I don't flinch, I don't loose focus. I squeeze and squeeze some more.

I take eager steps toward him as I maintain my grip. He'd begun flooding his neck with his own mana, which I'm surprised to learn resists the effects of my skill. But I had mana too. I flood the skill with more mana, so much more I raise him up from the ground as he chokes on his own saliva.

I take some more steps towards him. Death Grip wouldn't be enough, not with him resisting me trying to snap his neck like Vader. The dagger would be his undoing. I just needed to get through the muddy, slippery ground without losing my focus on the spell.

Finally, a few seconds later through the mud, with the constant tug of war between his mana and mine it felt like an hour. But I held him before me. He was subject to my mercy. Despite being doused in cold water earlier I was dripping with sweat, it stung my eyes but I didn't blink. Couldn't look away from the pang of fear in Perlman's blue eyes.

"Ha, what do you say now? Can't I get you?" Tired, I awkwardly pull out the dagger from my right side. Even now I could feel the exhaustion of pushing out so much mana so quickly on me, I mean, it couldn't just be from all the running I did.

I brought him closer with my grip, I can see his neck closely now. He'd managed to stave off the necrotic damage Death Grip does to flesh with his mana. But it matters not now.

With my left I held the dagger to his chest and thrust. "Die!"

I pierced something. Just not his heart. I blinked. Behind him were more water whips. Immediately after making the identification I'm smacked away by a particularly heavy whip. Needless to say, I lost my concentration on Death Grip.

"Fo-ack!" Perlman is now held up by water, essentially flying as two whips from the ground hold him up by the armpit. He coughs, caressing his throat, especially the side eaten by necrotic energy.

"You fool. Did you think you had disarmed me?" Before I can get to my feet I am tripped and brutally shoved back down into the muddied ground by yet another water whip. "I wouldn't be B-rank mage if I couldn't control my magic without a staff. What did you think you were special?"

He scoffs at me, slowly descending into a full-blown laugh. He waves his hand and produces yet another water whip from the wet floor, drying it of water. He thins this one, and holds it above my heart.

I breathe. The air feels fresher than ever. Maybe it's because I'm about to die. Again. Either way, it doesn't matter, I didn't go out without a fight last time and I wouldn't go out docile this time either.

"Anselm!" I scream out on the top of my voice, gathering mana at the tip of my index finger. "Summon Spirit!" I flick the ball of mana randomly into the air. Hoping against hope that it finds him.

"Just die already!" Perlman pulls back and begins his strike.

Except, I'm doused with water yet again.

A blurry figure burst through and tackles him, spilling into the ground with him as he cried outrage.

My bonds are loosened and I'm quick to jump to my feet and search. The dagger. Where is it!

"Get off of me!"

I swirl around. Fear piercing my pounding heart. He was free already? I find Anselm pulled into the air and violently slammed down into the ground by a whip.

Fuck.

"This should have been over five minutes ago!" Perlman burst into a mad rush at me, the water whips holding him up carrying his fast and easy of the distance like a spider.

Before I know it, he is upon me, smacking my head to the side, griping me by the throat and pulling me up into the air to face him. "Just die already. Okay?"

My eyes are wide as saucers. I see what he doesn't and I smile. "Okay." I choke out just as he is run through with the curved dagger. Anselm glaring behind him.

"If I wasn't already dead that would have killed me!" he barks into Perlman's ear.

Water once again loses its consistency and I drop to the ground, landing firmly on my butt.

Perlman lies on the floor beside me. Anselm must have run him through his lungs, he was choking on his own blood. I'm not any better either. My neck hurts, my head is ringing and I was bleeding in a lot of places.

"I caught you bitch." I laugh. It hurt. I must have broken a rib or three.