My classmates made their way out of Anamoor with three shadows. Bassi, Jitters, and I all had more than enough stealth training to avoid attention from the gate guards. I mean, not many people even leave the city anymore given how dangerous the world beyond the wall was.

I have to say, the satisfaction of going unnoticed by both the guards and my old friends, it was pretty good for my ego. Bassi mentioned that we’d need to teach them a little about situational awareness, otherwise we’d never be able to let them sit watch on their own.

The area outside the walls was in stark contrast to that within. Life still appeared to be trying its best, but it was obvious that a good kilometer past the wall was a frequent battlefield. Ancient and rotting siege engines littered the field like some post apocalyptic cityscape, dense clusters of them situated near the gates.

Recently dead monsters lay atop the decaying remains of their predecessors, each just as ineffectual as the last in their efforts to take the wall down. I was surprised about the siege engines to be honest, as my understanding had been that the monsters were too stupid to build such things.

“Hey, Bassi?” I asked in a hushed whisper as we picked our way through the rubble, shadowing my old classmates with several hundred feet to spare between us. “I thought the monsters were too stupid to make stuff like this.”

“They are, or at least the ones we see most often down in the tunnels,” she told me, sidling closer so we could whisper. “Look at that corpse over there though, the one with black flesh and white skin.”

I followed her outstretched hand curiously, then recoiled and averted my eyes, stomach churning. Fuck me, that was gross. It was slightly taller than a human, thinner too, like an elf. Two arms and two legs weren’t the only commonality, but it stopped abruptly at the head, which had a circular hole filled with razor sharp teeth for a mouth. It looked like one of those nasty limpet fish or whatever they were called. Four black horns protruded from its porcelain head like a grotesque crown, each tipped with wicked looking hooks.

“Yeah,” Bassi said with her low sexy chuckle of hers that I’m pretty sure wasn’t meant to be sexy, especially now. “We call them Alabasters, because of their skin. They are the ones truly in charge of the assaults. The rest are just fodder to them, meat-tools in their endless crusade to end humanity.”

“Very chill of then,” I muttered sarcastically. “If I still had one, the orifice on that thing’s face would give my dick nightmares.”

Bassi’s answering smile practically glowed out from under her hood as she restrained her laughter. I liked making her laugh and smile. New goal in life, continue to be the reason for that smile. Protect the smile with my life, although priority should be maintaining said life, because losing it would probably wipe the smile away. The smile is precious. My precious.

A flicker of movement off on the other side of the main road cut my thoughts off like a guillotine through a rich man’s neck. Giving my friends a series of quick hand signals to let them know I’d seen something, I dropped down into the shadows and rushed up the side of an old siege tower. I really liked having retractable shadow claws for things like this. They did make it easier to trace how I got into a place though, what with leaving big gouges in whatever you were climbing.

Once I was safely at the top, I narrowed my eyes and scanned the battlefield on the other side of the road. Flashes of movement presented themselves, but it was difficult to figure out just who was shadowing our friends.

Bassi flickered into place beside me, my hair dancing with the breeze of her arrival. “What is it?”

“Far side, there’s movement, human I think, but no idea who,” I whispered nodding to where our enemy was.

“Huh,” she grunted, raising her hands before her in a circular shape. A flick and turn of one wrist caused the air between her hands to condense and sharpen, almost like a lens.

“That’s new,” I commented while she peered through her nifty little spell.

Her eyebrow quirked. “I’ve known it for years. Not much use for it within the city walls however, because of the buildings and whatnot getting in the way.”

“Ah, right.” I gave a gesture towards our shadows, “And they are?”

“Fucking Docksgord,” Bassi hissed, collapsing the spell and frowning. “Why are they here?”

“We weren’t exactly subtle about meeting up with my classmates,” I shrugged, pointing down at them.

“True.”

Over on the other side of the road, I caught the glint of sunlight on steel. A crossbow. “Oh shit, they’re moving in!”

I dove off the top of the old siege tower and allowed my quickly improving fae physique to take the fall. It was becoming readily apparent that my body was not normal, my training having activated something within it. I was faster than I ever could have hoped back in my old body, stronger too, and my reflexes were wicked quick to boot. Goddess I loved this body.

Dust flew out in all directions as I sprinted headlong for my old friends, shadows writhing up and down my limbs in an unconscious effort to increase my abilities further.

“You’re under attack!” I called to my classmates as I bore down on them, one eye on the crossbowman as he took aim.

The man’s head came off in an explosion of blood and gore, one of Bassi’s fangs shining red with arterial blood. That moment hung in time for a second, blood arcing through the air, the boss of the Slate Snakes standing atop the rubble with sword raised. She looked fucking glorious.

Hold on. That wasn’t just the universe adding some cinematic flair to everything, time really had slowed! Somehow, the crossbowman had gotten his shot off before Bassi took his head off and the bolt was slicing straight for Victoria’s chest.

A part of me contemplated letting it land home, but no… she was a bitch, but she deserved to live.

My shadow-clawed hands closed around the slowly spinning shaft just as time seemed to remember it had a job to do. To her, I probably appeared out of nowhere, holding the bolt in my hand. Blood and shadow dripped from it, the force of the little length of wood, steel, and feather being very real, even if time had oddly slowed.

“You’re welcome,” I hissed, dropping it to glance at my palm. The damned thing had torn skin.

“H-holy shit,” she squeaked, eyes wide with fright.

“Look alive, people!” I shouted, shaking my hand out and allowing more shadow to fill the wound. It would hold until I had sorted out the problem that my girlfriend was currently dealing with. That and the weird time slowing thing. What the hell had that been?

I left them to get their shit in order and leapt up onto the nearest beam miscellaneous timber. Couldn’t even tell what type of siege engine it had been part of before, but it was sturdy enough to run across a patch of tough looking brambles and into the fray.

Bassi was already in amongst them, and I joined her with brutal speed, plunging my two inch long claws into the back of the nearest man and ripping downwards.

He gave a scream of pain and fear, dropping to the floor to writhe and clutch at his wound. A grizzled looking woman next to him turned with a sneer on her face, but it quickly turned to fear. I must look like some sort of demon by now, half covered in splatters of shadow that were forming armour and spikes, claws and weapons.

I placed a kick into the center of her chest, throwing her into her comrades to the sound of breaking ribs.

“You said they weren’t here!” one of the Docksgord men cried, voice shaking with fear as he turned to face me.

“They weren’t!” Another replied, voice shaking with fear. “Just that adventurer crew! I swear it!”

Interesting. They thought they were ambushing someone we’d made a deal with, maybe? It was probably a pretty big deal for a pair of thieves to walk into the halls of the adventurers, knowing full well of the bounty on their heads. I guess we should have realised that it would get the wrong kind of attention.

Well, I guess we were going to strike another blow to the Docksgords on our way out of town.

I dropped into the realm of shadow while they circled their wagons and my classmates arrived, rushing around behind them. They’d brought quite a few of their number, almost thirty in total… actually there probably were thirty before Bassi and I had gotten to them.

Arriving back in mundane reality, I drew my knives and got to work causing havoc. A stab at an exposed thigh there, a slice across the back of a hand there and they were in disarray just as Leon rolled in with a fucking enormous axe. It was my turn to stare in surprise as he cut down into a man’s chest through his shoulder, then tore the blade free and… ah, stared at the blood. Apparently he hadn’t killed a man before.

I slipped through the shadows and to his side, but I wasn’t fast enough to get my blade into the way to stop both the sword aimed at his head and the rapier diving for a gap in his armour. My shadowy fae instincts kicked in, forming a barbed tail out of shadow that intercepted the rapier just as my crossed daggers caught the sword.

“Leon, I know it’s pretty horrifying, but this is life or death, turn that brain off and let’s fight,” I shouted as more blows came in towards my stunned friend. Friend? Huh, I guess I still thought of him as a friend.

“R-right,” he rumbled, that massive new chest of his producing a voice that made my ears tickle. Kind of funny hearing the speech patterns of a nerdy game design student coming out of that mouth, I’ll be honest.

My new tail flicked at another attempt from the rapier dude to get at Leon, and with a burst of annoyance I lunged forward. The tip of my tail parted leather and flesh with ease, burying itself in his chest cavity. Gore followed its retreat as the barbs dragged all sorts of gross shit back with it.

“Please, mercy!” one of the survivors cried, dropping his weapon.

Bassi let out a gutteral growl of rage. “Did your gang show mercy when you had my friends on the point of your blade?”

Silence, except for the whimper of the man who’d spoken.

 “Exactly.”

We closed in.

QuietValerie

Hello everyone! In an effort to do something about my lack of inspiration to write, I began two little secret projects. One is just for fun, which I'll be keeping to myself for now, and the other is a gift to my girlfriend for valentines day. That second one will also be available to everyone else for reasons that will be apparent when it releases on the 14th. In the process of all that, my creativity engines were reignited and so here this chapter is! I'm already working on the next one in this story too, so hopefully I get that out in a timely manner too! Anyway, thanks yet again for everyone's patience and I'll see you in the next chapter!