---The Grandmaster of Assassins POV

 

“What are you staring at?” I ask, knowing the obvious. The view from the high balcony can be wondrous. The valley spreads out in the distance. On an excellent, bright, cloudless day, we can view beyond the forest’s eaves and across the grass plains. On rare occasions, we can even see the faint outline of Hobgoblin Town.

Today is no such day. Low, dark clouds hide the sun, and a bitter breeze assaults us. So, we must imagine Hobgoblin Town in the distance for now. We do minimal business there. As the saying goes, don’t crap where you live. No, we ply our trade elsewhere as much as we can. For the demand in the valley, we have an arrangement with a proxy of sorts.

Her delicate white linen robe with fur trimmings swings in a pleasing arc as she swivels about to face me. I offer her a goblet of mead, which she snatches from my grasp. My hands reach behind her and close the shutters on the window.

“I am trying to send a curse to the bitch we allied with.”

The angry quiver in my wife’s upper lip is endearing but also a warning sign. I assume it’s more bad news. Over the past several months, we lost two trusted assassins in the service of Sakvorpa of The Eater Clan. She needed encouragement to confess the truth and pay compensation for each.

Losing one of our dark advisors is the equivalent of losing one of Sakvorpa’s brats. The point is that they are like family to us, but in this case, an absolute truth. One is a nephew of Karo’s blood, and the other is a nephew of Ligia’s blood.

I sip from my goblet. “We haven’t lost our third. Missed a scheduled drop is all.”

“You are mistaken, husband.” She flashes a parchment in my direction. “He has missed a second drop. Not of Karo or Ligia blood this time, one of our trained strays. Nevertheless, one of our family.”

A banging on the grand hall doors draws our attention. None dare be so rude as to bang on the door, ordinarily.

“Enter,” I shout.

Mud, brush on his dark clothes. He sweats and puffs. Our two bodyguards reposition themselves from their high perch over the doorway, easing their way closer to the intruder. He drops to his knees and holds out a scrap of parchment.

“Please,” he gasps.

I advance on him and snatch the offering from his weak fingers. About to turn away, I pause and hand him my goblet of mead. His slurping is loud in my ears as I join my wife.

I scan the writings. “How can this be? The Eater Clan is no more. The clan’s responsibilities and resources haggled over like cheap trinkets in a marketplace.” 

She shakes her head as I hand her the report. My wife’s voice pitches high. “Our assassin used as a guide to chase a rumour and, if encountered, test the truth of it. What madness? Cleaved from head to groin. Ten female hobgoblins, once of The Eater Clan, were also found dead by various means, not all by crafted weapons. Clan Head Durlarg’s game, apparently. Clan Beastbane delivered the death stroke. Oddly, Lord Klar’s people dealt them justice. Why? How?” She shakes the parchment above her head and glances towards the balcony.

“When did she leave?” I ask.

“Several days ago. I doubt she would have returned in time to deal with Clan Beastbane, husband.”

“You still believe in her blood?”

How many days had passed since I had objected? To invite a hobgoblin into the citadel is a sacrilege. Torn armour, various scrapes, some treated with blood-soaked bindings. Not from blades, from the mountains. A wretched but proud creature stood before our old walls.

My wife convinced me. While not a crone, she smelt the female hobgoblin’s blood when they met face to face. Our farmers had raced ahead, of course, to warn us. The hobgoblin didn’t prevent them or seem concerned. When she arrived, she asked for two or three days to rest and recover. Then she swore she would be gone.

She agreed to spar with my wife on that last day. My wife drew our guest’s hobgoblin blood. Like a seasonal blossom, the aroma of pure Farmer Hob, Lord Klug lineage, wafted from the wound, confirming once and for all my wife’s suspicion. Several heartbeats later, better proof. She licked her blade and tasted the sting of the hobgoblin’s helpers. She needed tens of her own to quell them. The blood of this hobgoblin wasn’t only of Lord Klug’s lineage but activated.

While my wife rested to deal with Zergoa’s helpers, I knew I had to convince the hobgoblin to stay longer. Teaching her some of our assassin weapons, like the blowpipe, worked initially. But eventually, she begged to leave. She needed to return and report her failure at what she wouldn’t say.

Only after Zergoa had left, days after initially tasting the hobgoblin’s blood, did my wife give up on trying to convert the hobgoblin’s helpers. She could only destroy them. That raised our interest in the stranger even more. Lord Klar had somehow risen above his station, and now they had proof in the blood of at least one of his wives. A plausible explanation.

Activated Lord Klug’s blood, a rarity that we thought only we had preserved and mastered across the generations. Fortunately, we had agreed to have her trailed and assigned two of our best assassins. One of Ligia’s blood and the other a trained stray. We would never send two with family blood together ever again.

---

We thanked our messenger and sent him away to be tended. I arranged for servants to clean our beautifully dressed stone hall and noted that our bodyguards had returned to their stations. My wife, though, was no longer in the hall.

I find her in our study.

Busy before our grand table, she is sifting through several reports. I sneak up behind her and look over her shoulder. She snorts. I assume that means I have failed to sneak up on her again.

She is reading a report written by a trainee assassin. We usually consider these of doubtful importance or, at best, impressionable exaggeration. I sidle up beside my wife and read the parchment.

We have utilised the Temple of Lord Klug as a training site for our apprentice assassins for many generations. But also to search for the armour. None of our infiltrations of Lord Klug’s Temple had found any clue as to the whereabouts of Klugrath’s Warrior Hob armour. This was the key we had decided would ultimately determine the true master behind the Klugite religion.

Over that same time, we had steadfastly refused any commissions to assassinate High Priestess Rexa. While evil in her own way, she offered stability, order, and reliable trade within the valleys she infected with her version of Klug worship. These conditions suited assassin tradecraft best while we searched. This also offered the convenience of one head to sever from the snake when the time was right.

As ordered, our assassin attacked the new High Priestess of the Klugites. We needed a sample of her blood and accepted an assassin’s life would be the price. Another assassin would recover the specially crafted dagger used. The one with the concealed, blood-filled sampling cavity. The catch and release of our assassin was a genuine surprise. It seems the new Oath Keeper High Priestess enjoys conversation, and our assassin delivered the learnt backstory well enough to be believed, including the false assassination plan.

“Our granddaughter was fortunate,” I murmur in my wife’s ear.

“You say those words every time you read this report. I prefer to believe she was a natural.”

I chuckle. “You say that every time.”

The report confirms many things. Oath Keeper Naro, High Priestess of Lord Klug, was genuine and fake. Her blood pure Lord Klug, not a drop of Oath Keeper. This meant the priestesses of Oath Keeper Tower favoured her.

I recall our ancestor’s journals. Three witnessed Lord Klug’s last instructions before his death: Zoria, Ligia and Karo. They harvested his blood, his strength. Zoria claimed all his blood since she still had his blessing. Our ancestors, Ligia and Karo, didn’t understand what they failed to fight for.

Later, they learn Zoria shared some of Lord Klar’s blood with Rexa to improve her chance of surviving childbirth. Not because of any grand plan. Simple survival. A guarantee that the First Wife of Lord Klug, on her childbearing deathbed, wouldn’t order the Ten Spears to slaughter Zoria. Of all of Lord Klug’s wives, she was the childless one. The wife the other wives did not embrace, and so she turned to Rexa for protection.

For High Priestess Naro’s blood to be pure, she would have been suckled on Zoria’s secret store of Lord Klug’s blood from birth and beyond. Much like how Rexa hoarded her supply of Lord Klug’s blood, fed herself and favoured priestesses. Oddly, none of her family except her sons. Assassins could learn a lot when they adopted the mantle of spies.

We expected the blood to be dormant, an Oath Keeper speciality. The Oath Keepers, we discovered, would awaken their blood, purify non-Oath Keeper linages in their blood and then quieten their blood.

We collected and tasted the blood of all our marks. None proved near half Lord Klug pure like ours, a legacy of our deliberate isolation and purity. The son of Karo and the daughter of Ligia were the first grandmasters of the family.

I now understood why my wife returned to reading this report. The blood of the wife of Lord Klar was pure Lord Klug, yet there was no way anyone had fed her from birth as there were only two known sources, one with Rexa and the other with Zoria. So how does this impossibility become possible?

What complicated the mystery was another impossibility. High Priestess Naro’s blood was passive. The blood sample, when tasted, didn’t infect the assassin, our granddaughter. This state promoted general health and well-being with or without the host knowing. Faster healing, for example. Typically found in any of Rexa’s bloodlines. Our granddaughter stabbed the High Priestess multiple times, and the wounds healed rapidly. This healing rate was beyond what we thought passive blood could accomplish.

Gaining Lord Klug’s purity from being fed from birth meant we found another variation. This version of passive blood provided aggressive healing. We both quickly understood what that meant. To kill her would require something drastic, like beheading her. A beheading would require multiple assassins and something always in short supply on a mission: time. 

With one half, Lord Klug’s purity and Ligia or Karo’s the other half, our family had several members who mastered their blood. Activating it. In fact, a grandmaster and his wife needed to show that mastery before being able to challenge for the position. High Priestess Naro didn’t realise her potential, while Zergoa, the wife of Lord Klar, did, or mostly did. A strange circumstance. What if they met? The wife could enlighten the high priestess. What then?

“You finished, wife?”

She arches her head back and kisses my cheek. “How can a High Priestess of the Klugites be oblivious to her potential?” She throws the last page of the report back onto a pile. “How can another exist, the wife of a nobody, carry pure Lord Klug blood in her body? How can we gain that same purity?”

I pick up and slide another report before my wife. This is a summary of other reports from the length and breadth of the plains. Many hobgoblins had turned to dust. Those most loyal to the High Priestess Rexa, her favoured Priestess’ and those of her family tree, especially Klugrath’s branch, were so cursed. Not that High Priestess Naro missed many when she usurped the position. The report notes how, upon Rexa’s death, she also turned to dust.

“Did Rexa turning to dust on her death, the first in such a manner, unleash a plague of some sort on her worshippers, or did they draw an unknown power from her, and without it, they also turned to dust?”

My wife huffs. “Some victims were cursed days, possibly weeks after. The two events are surely too far apart.”

“Sometimes curses take time to spread. Wouldn’t this suit us? Blame Rexa’s death for others dying the same way? Any doubters would flock to the new High Priestess, and we will have a single head again for when the time is right.”

“What about goblin Klugites? Why didn’t they or any goblin turn to dust from the curse? I would think we would be especially vulnerable. After all, the common link is Lord Klug’s blood, and ours is at least half of that lineage.”

“Why didn’t Lord Klar’s wife turn to dust? Surely someone with the potent presence of activated Lord Klug’s blood in her body would be especially vulnerable.”

My wife skirts around the table and shuffles through an older stack of reports. With a celebration, she lifts one out and shoves the parchment under my face.

As I read, I suspect a certain truth. The number of Lord Klar’s wives seen alive has decreased. I scramble for another report in the rumour pile.

“Could this be true?”

My wife taps her chin. “The wise council was that the Oath Keeper goblins lied to cover their incompetence. Especially when Duzsia rode into Hobgoblin Town on a wolf.”

“What if the curse dusted her because of the activated Lord Klug’s blood in her body? Another then wore her armour to re-establish her existence. Most reports agree that none have seen Lord Klar for weeks, and the only thing holding any of the Clan Heads back is the threat of his potent wives.”

She smashes her lips against mine in a passionate kiss. We break for air.

My wife’s eyes sparkle. “This is our opportunity. If Zergoa is who she says she is, she will return to Lord Klar’s holding, and if they are as vulnerable as we suspect, we could offer them protection for their blood.”

“What if we can’t tame it?”

She runs her finger across my chin. “Then dear grandmaster, Lord Klar, when he returns, he will need to service the strongest females of our tribe.”

“Not you!” I scream.

“Duty to the tribe will demand such a sacrifice. A grand mistress must lead by example.”

I storm from the room.

 

---Duzsia, the Relentless, Wife of Lord Klar POV

 

“It is cold. I am cold. I prefer to remain in the village,” whines Solgia while hugging herself for warmth.

“Command your nanorobots to warm you. We have been through this. Vorlora and Voria aren’t wives. Klaria and I can’t speak to them, and itching their skin can only get us so far.”

The Head Scribe’s bodyguards glance at her. They have heard her mumble to herself over the last few days. While they still occasionally exchange glances, they have evidently decided this is nothing they can question or prevent. Good for them. I approve.

After a short while, her eyes open.

“Better?”

“Much.”

“You won’t need to wait long and then instruct Vorlora to release Old Wolf. With luck, we will have them all wrapped up soon, and you can return to the village.”

I rise and then glide over to the enemy’s camp. Pre-dawn. The watch has spotted Old Wolf, and they stir.

They are hunters, and the massive wolf interests them as I thought and planned for. Their leader, though, isn’t. He rolls over in his bedroll!

“Others will talk around the campfires for a season, maybe longer, about such a kill.”

This agitates their leader, the son of Clan Head Jarlgren, into action. He gets up and smashes the nose of the night watch, knocking him to the ground.

As the night watch gingerly touches his nose, I overhear his leader.

“It’s a trap, fool. They say Duzsia rides an enormous wolf now. She waits for anyone to take the bait.” He rubs the sleep from his eyes and shakes his head at the stupid look on the night watch’s face. “Go then.” He glares. “If you want to, find another fool to go with you.” He waves the night watch away.

Our trap is big enough for all of them, but only two. Disappointing.

“Why did you let them go?” asks another hunter.

“Only those who heed my commands are any use to me. We were to rescue Morgren from his folly. But, given the wolf’s visit, I suspect the fool is dead or captured, so now our mission is to find and slaughter Lord Klar’s wives.”

Blood drains from the hunter’s face, and the green of his skin grows pale. “But you can’t.” I chuckle silently. “Duzsia’s wolf!” His eyes dart about. I assume he seeks support from the other awakening or awake hunters. The other hunters must not have recognised Old Wolf. Only Vormgren did. Is he selling the idea that Duzsia, me, is still alive? I thought Vorlora wearing my armour without my helmet into the village proved I had died.

I overhear his reply. “If you leave, I will inform my father of your cowardice.” He reaches over the campfire embers to tear off a leg of the fawn on the spit and bites deep into the flesh. I observe the face of the hunter, and I assume Vormgren does as well. Various twitches and false efforts to speak are the telltale signs of a mind rolling through the many options he thinks he has.

Vormgren puts him out of his misery. “Choose. Stay or go. I make the same offer to all of you.”

---

We capture the two fools hunting for the Old Wolf in a pit trap. Too easy. I appreciate why Vormgren wasn’t trying too hard to keep them with him. We stake both out on the trail ahead. At the narrow and deep end of a gorge, which began wide and shallow. A perfect ambush site.

His scout scurries back to him. “Cries for help.” His pleading eyes are sincere. Surprising. “I am certain they are two of ours.”

“A trap. We continue. I am just as certain we will find Morgren’s tracks if we keep heading towards Lord Klar’s village without risking an ambush in a gorge. Morgren was nothing, if not direct.”

“Leave them?”

“They made a choice. That doesn’t mean we have to pay with our lives. Now, move.”

Vormgren leads his hunters away. Cries of help echo behind them.

---

“Jarlgren considered him the smarter of his sons,” says Solgia, stating the obvious.

“We will need to pick them off. Your bodyguards are the most proficient with bow and arrow, so they seem the obvious choice.”

“Who will guard me?” I detect, wavering in her voice. Is she really this scared of the wilderness?

“You are a wife of Lord Klar and have nanorobots in your blood?”

“Yes, I healed my foot.”

“What else?”

“I, erm, I, have done lots of things!”

I don’t have time for this. The hunters are getting away. “Command them to improve your hearing. That way, if someone or something stalks you, you can scream for help before they reach you or perhaps hide.”

“Of course,” she scoffs.

“Tell your bodyguards to take orders from Vorlora and Voria. They will guide them. We will guide Vorlora and Voria.”

“What about me?”

While I didn’t want to, given his usefulness, I don’t think I have a choice. “Tell Vorlora to ask if Old Wolf can guard you or, better yet, allow you to ride him. While you are worrying, push your nanorobots to improve your hearing.”

“Ride the wolf?” Her hands clamp her cheeks.

She is definitely more confident inside the village! “Look at it this way? If they attack you, you only need to grab his fur and hold on as he gallops away.”

“Yes. Yes, that is good, isn’t it? Escape. Alright, I will let them know.”

---

All the next day, our prey was cautious. Klaria and I could assure Solgia of a safe path to follow. We caught up with them at dusk as they camped beside a river. Lord Klar’s village was upstream of this river. Vormgren and I concluded that Morgren had made good time because he assumed the world wouldn’t kill him. He being a Clan Head’s son and all.

“I see you.”

Vorlora stares directly at me. I am returning from a perimeter patrol. Klaria and I don’t require sleep, so it makes sense we keep watch. Yet my apprentice says she can see me, and I can hear her in my thoughts.

“How?”

“I met a stranger. She said she turned you to dust. She didn’t realise what would happen. Feeding me, her blood quickened Lord Klug’s blood within me. You can imagine my shock. This only makes sense if Lord Klar is Lord Klug reborn somehow.”

“No, you are wrong.”

Her laughter smashes my ruse apart. “Your apprentice has matured and senses the hollowness in your feeble reply, Mistress.” She scuffs her boot and adjusts her sword belt. She has more to say, words she has practised many times.

“Old Wolf and I became the scourge of the Oath Keeper goblins and many Klugite refugees, and yet when I fought the hunters on the plains, I doubted myself. I convinced myself only you could guide me and protect me. I surrendered all my confidence and made my nanorobots sleep. Even Gorgrin assessed me as not you and convinced me to not wear your helm, not pretend to be you.” I notice the tears roll down her flawless cheeks, and I am face to face with her, yet try as I might, I can’t will them away. Her hand reaches out and cups my imaginary cheek. Somehow, she overlays the former me over my wisp of a spirit form. I don’t comprehend how she can.

“You told Solgia, or perhaps Solgia herself ordered Voria to train me. As I sweated, I concluded Voria could teach me her combat style, but slaughtering goblins and hobgoblins with Old Wolf using your style had already prepared me to take life as efficiently as possible. I still have more to learn, but I understand now how you and Luda could work so flawlessly together. Old Wolf and I share a similar bond. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Why didn’t I tell her? How come Lord Klar shared a copious amount of his seed with her? A non-wife. Did he want to prove some sort of point? Was there no plan at all, just silliness, like trying to make Izga jealous? Did he know what his seed would do to her?

“You weren’t a wife of Lord Klar. None thought, you could reap any more benefit beyond healing your cheeks. In fact, afterwards, you seemed to be no more or no less skilled than the training The Eater Clan gave you. You couldn’t return, so I found you a place with me.”

“Pity then? I was nothing more than your pet, someone to teach tricks to?”

I don’t like where this is heading. “Maybe. Maybe not. If you had doubts, I had more. At the time, you were my first apprentice, the first apprentice of any wife of Lord Klar. None knew what the result would be, especially me. Then, without warning, I became dust, and you needed to survive without me. I wished it could have been different.”

There is bitterness in her reply. “Would you have awakened Lord Klug’s nanorobots in my blood?”

I reach for honesty. Does she still trust me? “I don’t know the answer to that question. Lord Klar fed you his seed. Only he truly knows why. Perhaps your awakening was his intent, the joyous conclusion to his experiment. What I can tell you is he didn’t share his plans for you with any of his wives.”

Her fingers wrap around the grip of her sword. Head down, she sighs. “Then perhaps my current life path is for the best.”

“Can you contact Klaria?”

She tilts her head, and then a cheeky smile plays across her lips. “Why do I sense our chat is done, and you are now plotting against our foes?”

Am I that obvious? Does she know me better than I know myself? We finished our conversation, didn’t we?

“Gobin got your tongue, Mistress?”

Mistress? Why does she still call me Mistress? Didn’t she decide she didn’t need me anymore? Wasn’t I the one who stole her confidence?

“Am I still your Mistress?” Somehow, I can’t keep the bliss I yearn for out of my reply.

“My stranger said that being a wife of Lord Klug, you would be reborn. She didn’t say when and, in any case, reborn now or later, you can still teach me, or have you lost the want to keep me as your apprentice?”

“Never. I would be honoured, but didn’t you say I stole your confidence?”

“I have grown.” A playful smirk spreads across her lips. “Now, to answer your question, I can sense Klaria, but only after great effort. Our relationship in life was closer.” She chuckles. “Sorry, but Solgia gave you away, or more to the point, her bodyguards. Not being a wife of Lord Klar, they asked me about her lapses. She would stare at nothing. Her face reminded me of what I thought I would look like when first learning to mind speak with the stranger. So, I failed until I succeeded. I could sense your spirit presence. I would wait for Solgia to stare to home in on you. More recently, I waited until night while in my bedroll and tried to find your presence without Solgia staring in the right direction. Does that make sense, Mistress?”

“What about now? How do you talk to me so easily?”

She blushes. But why?

“We kissed. Do you remember? I forgive you if you don’t, but that warmth is what I sense when you are near now. I can’t explain why, so don’t ask. But to mind speak with you is as simple as when I talked to you when I was alive. I didn’t fail until I succeeded. I simply succeeded on my first attempt. Perhaps being your apprentice creates a bond beyond death. All I know is, it works.”

Our bond to Lord Klug draws us back to him from death. Is it so difficult to imagine her apprentice oath draws her to me beyond my death? Can this all be because of the nanorobots in Lord Klug’s seed? Does his seed link us to a lesser or greater degree depending on the depth of our relationship?

“This is wonderful. I hope to ambush and capture Clan Head Jarlgren’s son tomorrow. Although I must ask. Does Old Wolf seem insulted he is the one to safe keep our scribe?”

“We have been through a lot together.”

---

Solgia’s bodyguards didn’t enjoy leaving their fine chainmail armour behind, but any chance of success would require stealth and preparation.

Pre-dawn. A bodyguard releases an arrow. Chest hit on the night watch, who screams like a stuck pig. The camp rises and scrambles about. Vormgren shouts at them to keep low. There is always one who stands up for too long. He looks at the arrow that spouts from his chest and then spares a glance for Vormgren before collapsing.

The bodyguards are under orders to only take clean chances. There are opportunities while the hunters gather their equipment and strap on armour, for example. Still, I didn’t want to reveal our numbers. Or allow them to count the arrows and the number of releases over time.

Vormgren sends two of his hunters wide, one left and one right. Meanwhile, the remaining hunters sneak looks or throw backpacks as distractions. Klaria informs Solgia, who informs our reserve. Vorlora positions the second bodyguard under my guidance and then returns to the first. Voria, wearing Klaria’s armour, finds an ideal ambush position by heeding the itching in her armour and lies in wait for the other hunter.

Then Vormgren surprises me. As one, he and the remaining hunters rise and charge. Their direction of charge veers off slightly, to begin with, but corrects immediately after an arrow strikes one of them. I hover above them, and Klaria joins me.

The second bodyguard slays her target and returns to the first bodyguard. Voria wounds her hunter, and it won’t be long before she can return. The bodyguard releases another arrow and takes out a hunter with a thigh hit. Vorlora, like Klaria, and I watch the ground and each step Vormgren takes. Another hunter on his left falls. He must consider himself lucky as he continues to charge. One on the right falls, and he falters.

He didn’t strike me as a coward.

He halts and growls at the charging hunters to do the same. Another takes an arrow to the chest as the remaining hunters find a tree trunk for cover.

“Klaria, tell Solgia to order Voria and the other bodyguard to circle around towards the hunter’s camp and attack from behind. We need this done before the hunters discover they face four instead of two.”

“We outnumber you, and your trap has failed. Surrender now and explain. I promise no harm will come to you as you have wounded more than you have slain. What say you?” he shouts.

I doubt the truth of his words. His remaining hunters dash from tree trunk to tree trunk, advancing on the bodyguard and Vorlora. A couple release arrows while others sprint forward and find cover.

Did he see the rope? I “land” where he halted and to check. Not the rope, then. I glimpse the bent-over tree trunk or, more specifically, the unnatural turn of the tree foliage. A death scream drags me from my thoughts. The bodyguard has planted a spear, and a hunter has run himself through. Behind him, though, others follow through. I race to Klaria.

“Get Voria and the bodyguard to attack.”

When I return, I see myself in every move Vorlora makes. The duck and dive, dashing about the melee, feint and thrust true. The bodyguard has her back to a tree, holding her own, although she bleeds from a couple of wounds. A hunter limps away in a hurry only to face Vormgren, who throws him to the ground, screaming my name.

Vormgren draws an arrow.

“Arrow!”

He releases.

“Lean left.”

He curses and nocks another arrow. Two of his hunters shield the bodyguard while Vorlora sword dances between her attackers. There is a scream from the direction of the hunter’s camp. That adds urgency to Vormgren as he throws his bow down and draws his sword.

“You are not Duzsia the Relentless. She is dust, you but wear her armour, and your death by my hand will prove it!”

As he charges, his hunters drawback to give him space. One stays to watch while the other two look to help the two already attacking the bodyguard and finish her. Before they can, Old Wolf, with Solgia on his back, leaps at one newcomer, knocking him down. He continues and targets the two hunters, pressing the bodyguard. From behind, Old Wolf knocks one off balance into the other to send both sprawling.

The remaining one, still standing, opens his mouth in surprise. He glances down at the sword through his chest and drops dead. The bodyguard moves to his companion and slices at his thigh. Her two original hunters are climbing to their feet, and while they spot her, they hesitate. They don’t know what hit them.

“There is a wolf!” shouts the hunter guarding Vormgren’s back while pointing behind them.

Vorlora dances away, avoiding Vormgren’s overhead sword strike. He grunts and draws his sword back. He swings his sword again, and this time, Vorlora parries. She then tries to counter by thrusting her sword’s pommel at his face. He stumbles back just in time while she circles and then thrusts again. He drags his sword across from right to left to fend off her sword with brute strength. She withdraws her sword and its resistance. He lurches further across, exposing his shoulder. She stabs with all her strength into his shoulder blade.

“Move left. A hunter is charging at you.”

He feebly backswings his sword. Vorlora shifting left outruns the strike and positions Vormgren’s body between her and the charging hunter. Vorlora thrusts at his wounded shoulder from the front this time, but Vormgren is aware enough to step back. His sword point is dragging in the ground when he does.

An arrow skewers the head of the hunter behind Vormgren. The other bodyguard and Voria announce their arrival splendidly.

“Your hunters are no more, Vormgren. Do you surrender, or do I slay you?”

He attempts to lift his sword. Between deep breaths, he says, “You are not Duzsia the Relentless.” He releases his sword. The other two hunters drop their swords as they desperately scan for Old Wolf.

P.S. If you are not reading this chapter for free on Royal Road or Scribble Hub, then the website you are on has stolen my story.