[41] Beginning of a Prodigy

[41] Beginning of a Prodigy

The night was filled with the sound of weapons clashing. The air was electrified as maya, magic and chakra battle for supremacy. Tanisha, Tyr and Owen faced off against Fuei, the sickle wielding gnoll. Fuei’s skill and experience honed her body into a weapon. She laughed with glee as she tightened her grip on her sickles.

Tanisha had limited knowledge on material users, which are those who use either chakra, prana, life-force or ki. Material users were less common than magic casters in wendigo and druid society, as most of them have magic. Choosing to be a material user would make it impossible to learn magic. Tanisha didn’t know the reason why, since she’d never had a reason to study the material users. Now that she was in the heat of battle with a material user, she felt that was a failing on her part.

The simple runes on Fuei’s boots flashed red for a moment, and she was instantly in front of Tyr. It was Flash Step, a short range burst of speed. Tyr narrowly dodged the first sickle, and the second was deflected by Owen’s spear. The gnoll locked weapons with Owen and kneed Tyr in the chest. His injuries were getting to him, and the gnoll knew it. She was targeting him.

Owen untangled his spear and repeatedly thrust the polearm to force her focus onto him. Tyr recovered and used Flash Step to get behind the gnoll. Before he could even strike a sickle was already swinging around to decapitate him. He raised his sword just in time to save himself, but the overwhelming strength of the gnoll clotheslined him and sent him to the ground hard.

“Tyr!” Tanisha yelled.

The young mystic swordsman didn’t move.

“Focus, Tanisha!” Owen said between strikes.

Owen was hard for the gnoll to pin down. He was definitely a material user but Tanisha didn’t know which one. He moved the spear with skill, interweaving feints with thrusts and slashes. His high mobility was his deadliest attribute. Anytime Fuei started to catch on to his pattern he would add more acrobatics, switching between aggressive jabs and wide slashes aimed at joints in her armor.

Tanisha continued to harass the gnoll with the Infernal Hands as best she could. Fuei simply dodged them or would shake them off between clashes with Owen. The goblin was proving to be a foe she needed to place more of her attention on. In the blink of an eye she used her Flash Step to back out of Owen’s range. She swung her sickles in a seemingly blank space. Tanisha felt the destruction of both of the Infernal Hands as the gnoll looked at her with a smirk.

“Tanisha, run!” Owen screamed. He had his spear in a throwing position.Diiscover new stories at novelhall.com

Tanisha became painfully aware of how far she had strayed from her vanguard. Tyr was unconscious and Owen too far away to keep the gnoll at bay. There was glint in the runes on Fuei’s boots, and in a blink of an eye she was standing over Tanisha. The warrior’s right sickle scraped the ground from a low hand slash as it swung upward. There wasn’t any time to think; Tanisha had to act. She held her combat knife to intercept the attack, one hand on the handle, the other bracing the spine.

The impact was instant, as was the pain that rattled her arms and chest. Tanisha felt weightlessness for a moment, and she realized she was in the air. She was lifted off the ground, momentum carrying her backward. She tucked her head as she hit the ground and rolled until she unceremoniously slammed into a tree.

Bjorn hissed as he bore his teeth, recognizing her as the most obvious threat. He uncurled himself from around Tanisha and rushed at the gnoll. The warrior reached for her sickles and screamed as she swung both weapons. They hit with only a fraction of the strength she’d had at the start of the fight, failing to penetrate the hydra’s scales as he crashed into her.

His claws and mouths ripped into the gnoll, tearing flesh from bone in a horrifying display of primal violence. The hydra didn’t stop; he just kept tearing as if driven mad with fury, spreading the gnoll's entrails across the camp. One of the creature's heads turned to look at Tyr; there was no recognition in his demeanor, only rage.

“Bjorn stop!” Tanisha screamed. “That is Tyr. You remember Tyr, right?”

Bjorn stepped off the pile of gore that used to be a gnoll. His heads all focused on the mystic swordsman.

“Bjorn, it’s me buddy,” Tyr said, sheathing his sword and putting his hands up. “See, I am not a threat, I am a friend. Remember?”

Tanisha moved at the fastest walk she could manage in her state and stood directly between Bjorn and Tyr. The heads of the hydra remained focused on Tyr. Tanisha remembered what Joha had said to her about the bond needing to grow as Bjorn gained power. Otherwise he might hurt her; he might go crazy and attack people. Bjorn was still Bjorn, he was still her baby, the only one that cared so much for her that he would risk his life over and over again just to protect her.

“Bjorn, look at me!” Tanisha demanded.

She jumped up and grabbed one of his heads, forcing him to look at her. The snarling head calmed as he met her eyes. Tanisha could feel the rage roiling inside him. The maya and the connection to the Infernal Planes within him. Something was latched on to him from the other side, something powerful.

“Tanisha, there’s an anti-magic collar on him,” Tyr said. “Can you keep him calm enough for me to cut it off?”

Tanisha saw the glowing anti-magic runes on the iron collar around his middle neck.

“Yes. But do it quickly,” Tanisha responded.

She forced Bjorn’s three heads to focus on her. Tyr gathered his chakra once again and with a Flash Step was in front of the collar. Bjorn was alerted by the motion and tried to rear back to strike, but Tanisha wouldn’t let go of his heads. Tyr’s sword sliced through the iron with ease and he used Flash Step again to escape from the enraged hydra.

As soon as the collar fell to the ground Bjorn slumped over. The black maya finally stopped coming from his middle head. In seconds he was again unconscious.