1.48 In Which the Dark Lord Takes a Leap of Faith

1.48 In Which the Dark Lord Takes a Leap of Faith

For once, I didnt waste time shooting off my mouth, not when I had better things to shoot.

Slimeshot!

I was focused right on Lady Grays grinning face with my hand still extended from trying to cast Immolate, but the slime did not emerge. In fact, the spell did nothing; there was no sensation of the magic activating at all. Its familiar weight remained there in my mind, but it wouldnt fire. As if I were trying to use it on an invalid target, like casting Heal on a brick.

I zeroed my focus onto her left eye and switched spells, activating Heat Beam at its narrowest intensity, which should have fried her cornea. It also failed to activate. Complete no sell.

The whole process took no more than a couple of seconds, but they were seconds passing in silence, during which I stood pointing at the woman and clearly accomplishing nothing, all in front of an audience. Lady Grays smug little grin widened another fraction.

All right, thats a neat trick, I finally admitted. You should just stick to that instead of trying to make speeches.

She had the temerity to wink at me. Waitll you see my next one.

With her hand already on the handle of the dagger, she only had to flex her arm to yank it from the sheath, activating its invisibility effect.

Boss! Sparkspray! Biribo hissed in my ear, and then I was somewhat distracted by a blow to the chest toppling me backward. Even as I was falling, the knife sank into my gut and ripped out sideways, a sadistic and truly lethal wound to anyone who couldnt cast Heal, which I did before I hit the ground.

I tried to roll the way Goose had taught me, and somehow my recovery put me directly into the path of a vicious kick. Almost as if she had anticipated that move before I even made it and positioned herself accordingly. Invisibility aside, it turned out that my few weeks of practice at hand-to-hand fighting were not going to make me a match for somebody whod been doing it at the highest levels for longer than Id been alive.

However, even as the air was driven from my chest, the direction from which the kick came told me where my opponent was, and unlike some sorcerers (apparently), I didnt need to breathe to cast.

Sparkspray!

I had the satisfaction of hearing Lady Gray yelp in annoyed surprise as the burst of sparks momentarily revealed her invisible shape in their midst, raising one arm to protect her eyes. As an even more useful side effect of showering someone in sparks, a few landed on her clothes and continued to smolder, giving away her position for seconds longer.

And fortunately, I wasnt in this alone.

A crossbow bolt impacted her midsection. It didnt penetrate faryeah, that coat was definitely armored underneathand she didnt act injured, just grabbing the thing and ripping it loose with no evidence of blood, but even that just served to reveal where she was. Crossbows twanged and four more bolts ripped at her: two clean misses, another glancing hit off an armor panel in her coat, and the fourth sinking into her arm. She stayed invisible, but weirdly enough, the blood welling along the bolt itself came into view.

Its a targeting blocker! Biribo hissed. Area of effect spells should still work!

Id already put that much together and was rising back to my knees as Lady Gray ripped the bolt out of her arm and retreated. She threw it to the side, and undoubtedly was going to run in a different direction to throw off detection, but luckily my next trick didnt need to be precisely aimed.

Windburst!

A table was knocked over, chairs tossed to the side, and something invisible sprayed droplets of blood as it was flung bodily across the room, and straight through the front windows with a crash of shattering glass and thin akorshil blinds.

Oh, for fucks sake! Gannit shouted. When I said you could make a mess, I didnt mean bust up the entire place!

Thousand pardons, I wheezed, straightening painfully up, Ill try to get murdered more discreetly next time. Heal. Now if youll excuse me, that woman is still alive and in not nearly enough pain, two errors I intend to correct.

Why didnt you just set her on fire? Adelly demanded.

Because it seems she is immune to magic, I growled, at least up to a point. Wide-range spells connected with her but nothing aimed at her would even activate. Biribo, is it another property of that dagger?

No, all the dagger has is invisibility, he reported. She must have another artifact hidden under all those clothes; I cant analyze what I cant see. But I can tell you that based on the strength of her Blessing of Might and how powerful that dagger is and her spell-blocker has to be, she hasnt got the energy left to wear another artifact. Just the two.

Oh, was that all.

You wanna tell me why you got a second squeaky voice inside your hood, there? Gannit inquired.

Lady Grays probably got several other artifacts lying around, said Sakin. She chose this loadout to deal with a powerful sorcerer.

It was a good choice, I had to admit. I was carefully watching the door and windows for any signs of movement, not that anything would stop her from circling invisibly around and coming in through another entrance. Im not sure how to fight that, exactly, but I cant afford to get pinned down or go on the defensive. Shes probably already tearing into the girls elsewhere on the street. Everybody with me; if you get stabbed, try to make a noise. As long as I can see you, I can heal you.

Hang on! Aster caught my arm as I started toward the door. You wanted that guys boots. Are they artifacts? Youll need every possible advantage out there.

Oh. Good point. Okay, everybody circle up while I loot this corpse and change my shoes, and then well go kill the invisible assassin. And on that note, fuck me running, why is this my life?

It was quick enough to get the boots off the dead guy and onto me, ignoring Gannits cackling and just grunting in response to Biribos assurance that artifacts were inherently sterile and couldnt transmit disease (or foot fungus, presumably). That seemed like an interesting point worthy of more exploration, but I didnt have the headspace at that moment. Every second I wasnt repeatedly slamming Lady Gray into a wall with Windburst until her skull squelched like a watermelon on the beach was a second in which I could feel the rage rising higher up the back of my throat as if it wanted to choke me.

It was already fairly obvious just from the sounds we could hear, but stepping out the front door of the Jostled Jugs immediately confirmed that all hell was breaking loose out on the street.

There were sounds of fighting, shouts and screams and impacts, and little sign of the people who would normally be about Yrshith Street at night. No doubt many of them had been driven off by the last few days of thugs terrorizing the whole area, but the few customers and pedestrians who might have ventured here were probably down to the three people I saw fleeing into nearby alleys. I couldnt exactly see who was fighting whom, thanks to the sizable knot of men and a few women with swords and clubs coming up the street at me; they filled the available space, denying me a view of what was going on behind them.

Not that there was much question.

I stepped off the Jugss front walkway and into the street. Smooth and unhurried, despite the seething cocktail of adrenaline and anger buzzing in all my limbs. I could ride that sensation, channel it into my performance as Id learned to on countless stages. Aster stepped down after me, bringing her huge sword up in a broad gesture to rest its blunt edge across her shoulders. Behind us, the people Id brought with me fanned out to cover the front of the Jugs, bouncers with clubs taking the front, ex-Alley cats aiming crossbows through the gaps between them, as Sakin had coached us.

Im Omura Seiji, damn it. When I feel awkward or off-balance, I talk shit.

Her nostrils flared in a silent snort of annoyance. I really appreciate how you keep bringing that up.

Its weird if you think about it! You are objectively the whole package. I think Ive told you this before, but youre gonna make some poor henpecked bastard very happy someday. Or at leastresigned.

Remind me to ask Sakin if he wants any help for when he inevitably betrays you.

My current theory is he never will, just for the fun of watching me welter in the anticipation.

Above us, on the roof of the Alley Cat, a figure in a dark coat rose up.

There she is! someone shouted, and multiple crossbows were discharged. On the rooftops it was darker than down here among the lamps, and the figure itself was dark gray, but even in the dimness, I recognized that coat. The dimness successfully disguised its unnatural motion until it was too late. Crossbow bolt tore around, past, and into it, and then the coat fell

Lady Gray stood up on the lip of the roof, catching her coat as it descended from the upward trajectory on which shed thrown it. A few crossbow bolts stuck through it at odd angles, which didnt seem to bother her as she deftly swirled it around her shoulders, slipping her arms into the sleeves and letting it settle over her from that one dramatic swish, which was too impressive not to have been practiced. It looked like something out of an anime. Even the bolts still dangling from it looked more like trophies from fallen enemies than evidence shed been shot at, and the difference was purely in the assertive confidence with which she held herself.

Damn, this woman understood the power of presentation. I was forced to respect that about her, which annoyed me to no end.

Presentation and tactics, I mentally amended. Now my trigger-happy followers all had unloaded crossbows, which would take an all-important few seconds to rectify. Turning the cranks on those things was easier than drawing a bowstring, but not nearly as quick.

Lady Gray raised her fingers to her lips and let out a piercing whistle which echoed over the street, then planted one boot on the lip of the roof and leaned over to smirk down at us.

So its personal, is it, Kadret? I will remember that.

At her signal, her men were regrouping. Nobody from behind Craed and Kadrets gangs, I saw; they had clearly done their work well. But on the other side, boots pounded as men streamed forward in groups of anywhere from two to ten. Clearly most of Grays organization was out to play tonight, and now they came pouring in from whatever cruel mischief theyd been up to among the brothels down that way. Looking at the imbalance, I surmised my new recruits had engaged in some clever misdirection to divert everybody from their end of the street. There was no way they couldve killed this many people alone, not without being caught and overwhelmed.

And now we were being swamped with fresh enemies.

Waitnot that fresh.

Lots of them were limping, bleeding, bruised, holding dangling arms. A couple of guys had singed clothing.

And behind them came women. Armed with weapons as makeshift as they were utterly vicious: chair legs covered in broken glass, mop handles with kitchen knives affixed to their ends to make improvised polearms, large pot lids bristling with nails. Lots of them dripping with blood. These women hadnt just impetuously grabbed objects and started hitting back; they had prepared and planned for this.

Somehow it was made all the more dramatic by the fact that they were armored only in the traditional uniform of whores everywhere, short and strategically slitted dresses that showed off a lot of chest and leg. Many of them were also limping, bloodied, and beaten, but they came anyway, making another line behind Grays thugs, or so I could briefly see before the men closer at hand blocked off my view down the street with their own bodies again.

Well, blow me down, I muttered.

Behind me, Gannit leaned out of the broken front window of her brothel and cackled. Oh, did you think you were the only game in town, Mister Big Scary Healer? You didnt teach these girls to stick up for themselves, you just reminded em it was on the table. Dont nobody need your permission to knife a bastard!

Unbelievable, Gray said from the roof, her tone dripping with sheer disgust. By Sanoras tits, why do I even pay you clods? Men, slaughter those whores!

I inhaled deeply, raised my head, and projected from the diaphragm as powerfully as I physically could, which was a lot.

WHORES, SLAUGHTER THOSE MEN!

The men obeyed, charging both backward at the prostitutes and forward at Aster and myself, but they did so in grim silence. From behind them came a furious roar of female voices before the clashing of weapons resumed.

I felt that roar ignite the fury in me again, but differently this time. Just as angry, but now there was something else in it. Something strangely optimistic.

Aster stepped past me, swinging her greatsword in a broad horizontal arc that felled three men who were trying to rush us. Behind her, I knelt and picked up a curved sword of striated green akornin from beside a corpse Id recently made. Straightening, looted blade in hand, I looked up at Lady Gray, who was still looming over the roof like a gargoyle.

Meeting my gaze, she grinned. Secure in her vantage point.

I stretched out my hand toward the pavement at my feet.

Windburst!

Immediately I realized why nobody had mentioned this possibility to me; local sorcerers doubtless had better sense than to do it.

Yes, you can fling yourself three stories straight up by directing a gale-force blast of air at the ground right under yourself, but it wont be with anything resembling a controlled trajectory. I went tumbling ass-over-hairdo into the sky, utterly disoriented and suddenly violently dizzy. My aim had been good enough; I did appear to be arcing in the right direction, and indeed I came plummeting back down right onto the roof of the Alley Cat, getting a good look at Lady Grays startled expression as I descended.

This would ordinarily be the part where I smashed through the shingles in a mess of broken roofing and my own blood, but now there came the catch: all those sorcerers who had better sense than to try this would be Blessed with Magicand therefore, by definition, not wearing Surestep Boots.

Despite the graceless tumble that had brought me there, I landed with my feet under me like a cat. My boots hit the slope of the roof, my legs flexed with perfect balance, and I turned the remaining momentum of my fall into a controlled slide. Straight down the slant of the roof until I shifted my footing at the last moment, regaining traction and coming to a stop at the very edge, right in front of Lady Gray.

I had the distinct pleasure of seeing her look shocked.

Below us, the roar of battle echoed from Yrshith Street as her forces and mine tore Cat Alley apart. I didnt spare it a glance, raising my sword to point at her.

Have you paid the price?