Bound Evil

Hot blood splashed out into the cold air, instantly hardening into a half-dome shield that steamed as two arrowheads pierced a couple of centimeters through the film. Emily was panting as she took down the blood. A second later, and she would have had an arrow shaft sticking out of her eye socket.

Alex’s head was swiveled around as he searched the trees for their enemy. It was only now, that Emily put the pieces together, they had been intentionally led away from the main group.

The Noble had said there might be Assassins after them but Emily did not expect them to show up so soon. How had they even kept pace with the Rime wolves' speed?

Emily didn’t get much time to think as another projectile flew from the trees. This one was slower and looked more like a flask.

Alex however seemed to sense because he chucked one of his daggers at the object while it was still midair. The weapon flew through the air and shattered the object, on impact, Emily could hear what sounded like a clay pot being broken. A sudden cloud of vile green smoke spread through the air but luckily most of it was too far away to reach them.

Before they could react, a form burst through the cloud causing the vapor to stream behind a cowled figure. They already had their weapons drawn and it only took them a breath to close the distance. Alex dashed forward and went to meet the attack with one of his own. But When they collided Alex's blade went straight through the Assassins and their form burst into a faint cloud of green mist. Emily was surprised, but Alex didn’t seem to be, in fact, he carried through with a secondary attack seemingly aimed at the air in front of him. A shimmer revealed a second form just a step behind the last, also attacking but when their blades met this time there was a very real clash of metal.

Emily was about to lend aid when the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Without hesitating she dove forward. Getting only a light graze for her troubles as another Assassin appears behind her. Cupcake needed no coaxing and lunged at Emily's attacker in an attempt to take their head off their shoulders.

But when Cupcake’s teeth only closed around a plume of mist she knew the enemy had already moved.

Seeing as Alex had already found his opponent and didn’t seem willing to give him a chance to escape, Emily couldn’t waste time feeling in the dark.

With every attack these Assassins got in, it was a step closer to death and Emily didn’t like her odds. Luckily she’d been gathering quite a bit of lifeforce over the last couple of days.

The power shot from her chest and moved into the soccer-ball-sized orb of blood in Emily's hand. This caused the blood to roil and bubble as Emily scoured the scene for any sign of her enemy. She didn’t have to wait long as she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. Being that her enemy used illusions, Emily couldn’t be certain the man was real, but in this case, he seemed to need to get in close to inflict a killing blow.

So it didn’t matter what direction he was coming from when Emily lifted the blood above her head and detonated it in a fine screen of blood splatters. Everything around Emily became coated in a thin layer of blood. The man who had been approaching her side rippled as the blood passed through him and less than two meters behind Emily a form took shape. Turning, Emily locked onto the figure and pulled more blood towards him until not an inch was uncovered. Emily was about to crush the man when the burning stab of an arrow sunk into her back.

Grunting Emily turned to see a third man near the edge of the clearing. He was holding a crossbow and aiming for a second shot.

Emily turned to face him and dropped down onto one knee, pushing out a shield of blood to cover herself.

“Cupcake fetch!” Emily said as she pointed at the man coated in her blood, at the same time she pulled at it and wrapped his legs up in hardened blood.

The Rime wolf pounced as Emily turned to charge the other Assassin with the crossbow, splaying out her shield in front of herself. Three more bolts had lodged themselves in the screen before Emily got in range.As she did, she condensed the blood into a meter-long crescent and sent it out horizontally. As it flew, Emily expanded its size, making it nearly impossible to dodge, even if the man wasn't exactly where she anticipated.

What Emily didn’t anticipate was for the man to be real. He dropped his crossbow and pulled out his knives. Swinging them vertically he met the deadly scythe head-on and Because Emily had spread the attack so thin, the Assassin managed to cut through the incoming blade.

Diving through the gap he made, the cowled man stabbed towards Emily’s throat. Blocking the strike with a small shield was only a temporary fix as the next attack came just as fast, aimed at her gut this time.

Making distance right now was impossible, so Emily moved to block the attack again, only to have a burning wound open up in her ribcage.

Cursing she tried to block the next but once again another unseeable attack blindsided her with a gash to her leg.

Emily's body wanted to hunch over in pain but she couldn’t allow it to. The arrow from before was already throbbing as though it were filled with angry bees.

What were the chances these Assassins used poison?

What followed was an exchange of close attacks as Emily did her best to block and retaliate against. A stream of life force crashed into Emily's back and she knew someone had died behind her but she didn’t have the time to spare.

Wounds were appearing all over her body but the man wasn’t letting her concentrate on anything other than defense, so bigger attacks were almost impossible. Making turning the tables far harder than she’d hoped, then the gap she’d been looking for came when a voice tore above the sounds of battle.

“Emily, full shield!” Alex's voice yelled out as a wave of heat bloomed behind her.

Emily pulled her blood inward and pushed a thick coating from every pour of her skin, causing a thick layer of blood to surround her. At the same time, something detonated in the snow just left of where they were fighting. Flames licked up around her and the Assassin, making both of them retreat. The moment the smoke cleared Emily turned back to see the tip of Alex’s dagger glowing with flickering flame. His own man was dead in the snow beside him. With another flick of his wrist, a bolt of flame condensed near the tip of his blade and shot toward Emily’s asalent. The man blocked in the same manner he had before by creating a mist around his body and diving away. The detonation gave him a much-needed push as he retreated to the nearby treeline. Scanning the scene, the assassin looked at his allies and made a split decision to abandon their efforts, turning to escape into the forest. Emily pulled the blood from her shell and sent it forward as a spear, but when it made contact the man scattered into smoke. Half expecting this, Emily detonated the spear into dozens of blood needles. Not far from his illusion, the man's form took shape and dropped into the snow dead. Emily only looked away when she felt the life force hit; couldn’t have him playing possum.

She waited on high alert for another minute or before relaxing.

Luckily there had only been three people here, speaking of which there was still one more alive. Emily turned back to Cupcake and the first Assassin. With the chains in place rendering his illusions useless, Cupcake had caught the man before he could fully defend himself. Now, he lay bleeding on the ground, his weapons proving useless against the wily wolf.

At this stage both his legs were coated in blood and neither of his arms looked functional, yet the man still drew breath.

Emily and Alex converged on him as he lay on his back gasping for breath.

“You think he’ll tell us who he works for without fuss?” Emily asked.

Alex shook his head and crouched down next to the man who coughed up blood.

“You’ve been stabbed by my ally’s dagger… Good, at least I won’t die alone. Not even a healing tonic will help you against our venom, heretic.”

Now that he mentioned it, Emily’s wounds became known again, as though insects were buzzing and crawling beneath her skin. Emily glanced over to Alex and while he had some bruises none of them looked like the open wounds of a blade.

“Well then, how about you indulge a dead woman? You called me a ‘heretic’, so religious fanatic right?”

The man didn’t say a word but the twitch on his face betrayed him.

“If I take into account a certain Noble we met recently then I can assume this is about the holy war taking place between the neighboring cities. Or perhaps the valuable letter we’re carrying?”

Once more his face twitched but he seemed to be trying to hide it behind a blank mask.

“Last question, are more of you coming to kill us?”

"The Assassin spat out a globule of phlegm mixed with blood, his face a mask of unyielding spirit.

“We are the pillars that hold up the world order. We are everywhere, and more will come for you.”

Emily nodded and indicated for Alex to ask his questions, but the man shook his head, probably knowing he’d get no answer. Emily could probably wring some information from the man, but she didn’t want to get into that now—it’d take too much time."

Instead, Emily smiled as she held up her arm, pushing a clear poison up through her skin surrounded by the thinnest layer of blood.

“Then next time I hope they send more.” Emily let the droplet no bigger than a marble plop into the snow beside the man. Pulling him closer she sunk her teeth into his neck, and seconds later he was nothing more than a shriveled corpse.

Getting up Emily went over to thank Cupcake for her hard work

Looking back Emily saw Alex frowning over the Assassin's corpse. When he looked up she could see genuine concern in his eyes.

“I think we’ll need to risk opening the letter after all.”

Emily grunted happy she could finally satiate her curiosity. She watched as Alex rummaged through his backpack, pulled out a thick cream envelope, and tore it open. As he did so Emily suddenly got an ominous feeling of being watched. She glanced about in case there were more assassins about but couldn’t pinpoint anything out of the ordinary

Alex pulled out a stack of folded pages and began leafing through them, his face twisting in confusion, and then anger.

“Somethings not right, these don’t make sense…”

When he got to the last page he froze a pensive look etched onto his features.

“...This is wrong.”

Emily grasped for the documents and Alex relinquished them without so much as a word.

As She studied them she couldn’t quite make out everything but they had mostly to do with troop movements of the Keep’s two neighbors. The notes primarily focused on Sam’eth, and on the last page was the supposed reason for the whole war.

Apparently, Lorethil had tried to kill some bigshot from one of the main houses of Sam’eth–Which were second only to the religious order supporting the city.

In retaliation, the gods sent down a champion to fight for them. The very next day the church of the Five Pillars announced a holy crusade. Even though from what Emily could tell from their troop movements the war was ill-advised.

Blood points: 30