I concentrated on the first attacker, stepping in close enough to punch him in the same kidney again. That gave me a chance to swipe at his other side with my sword, and this time, I broke through the armor.Thank you, Tan’s magic.
He hissed and yelled out angrily as he swung his sword yet again.
But I was faster.
I swiped his side, opening up his skin and muscle, blood spurting everywhere. With him howling in pain, I used his distraction to go for his head. I couldn’t get to his neck armor, but his head wasn’t covered the same way.
This was gonna be so gross, but it was the best I could do when there were other threats around us.
My dragonscale sword cut through the top of his head with a sickening squelch.
I didn’t get the chance to breathe because the last fighter—other than the actual blood witch—attacked before the first man’s body fell to the ground.
Lifting my arm, I did a partial shift, letting my scales grow over the skin of my arm in the blink of an eye, and I caught the new cultist’s sword with my scales. The strike reverberated down my arm, pain spiking through me, but it was easily forgotten when I was busy fighting the newcomer off, parrying and striking, swords smacking loudly, grunts and growls filling the air as the two of us really went at it.
He was a better fighter than the last guy, and after what felt like ten minutes but was probably only thirty seconds, I backed up two steps to give myself room so I didn’t trip over the dead body on the ground.
I couldn’t go too far because Roman had killed one of his attackers, so there was a body behind me too.
That was okay. I was good at combat. It came almost as naturally as breathing since I’d been training since before I could remember. My mother always told me I was swinging a sword before I could walk.
Never thought giving a baby a sword was a good idea, but then again, it was my mother, and she never gave a shit whether I was hurt or not. Half the time, she was the one hurting me.
But this guy had clearly grown up and trained in the cult too, and he wasn’t human. He was… shit, he was a blood witch too. Fuck me.
The second I had the thought, I watched him slice his palm—not wearing gloves like the others should’ve clued me into what he was.
I rushed him, trying to stop him, but he quickly drew a rune on his hand in his own blood and whispered a spell before I could reach him. Motherfucker.
A red mist came flying out of the man’s outstretched hand, aiming right for me. It wrapped around my neck and squeezed. I reached up to grab at it, but it was mist, it was magic, and it wasn’t my magic, so I couldn’t touch it.
I couldn’t touch it. I couldn’t pull it off.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
Panic made my vision darken around the corners, but I refused to give up. I refused to let a blood witch kill me.
I refused to let the Emissaries of Gepisha’s Iron win.
Keeping my sword arm up so the blood witch didn’t use his own weapon on me, I reached into another pocket for another spell. This time, I was looking for something specific. Or, well, two specific things, really.
I threw the first vial at the blood witch, but before it could break on the ground, another red tendril whipped out of the man and caught it, bringing it up so he could examine it—precisely what I wanted him to do.
Another tendril grabbed my wrists, yanking them back and leaving me completely vulnerable to him.
I couldn’t reach into my pockets anymore. I couldn’t move my arms. I couldn’t fucking breathe.
But this fucker wasn’t going to kill me. No fucking way.
His eyes were on the vial, and I already had exactly what I needed in my hand—a stick. He probably didn’t even notice it, or if he did, he dismissed it, not realizing the stick was actually a magical artifact given to me by Delaro Ellwood—he’d supplied all of us with lots of magical artifacts, tonics, potions, and spells.
It wasn’t easy, but I was able to move my fingers a tiny bit. So I snapped the stick in half, releasing the stored spell and using my own dragon magic to reach out to it and tell it where to aim.
Get that asshole blood witch!
It swooshed out and blasted the blood witch, blasted my enemy, with the power of death magic and moonbeams—or something like that. All I knew was that the magic smacked the asshole in the face so hard, his head snapped back with a loud crack, his body flew back several feet, and the shock of it broke the dick’s concentration. And witches, no matter what kind, needed concentration to hold spells.
His magic released me so quickly, it was as if it’d never been there at all.
