Chapter 37

As soon as Eric recognized Menikos, he knew he was hopelessly outmatched. Even possessing only two of the three pieces of his being, the casual power that the dead Ancient radiated was palpable, like the sun beating mercilessly down on him at the height of summer. It was oppressive. It smothered him, and, in spite of the fact that he knew he was an enemy, Eric had no thought of fighting him. He didn’t need the shout from Samuel, delivered a half-second later, to tell him to get away. His muscles were already bunching, ready to shove him in the opposite direction.

“Run, Eric!” Samuel shouted, momentarily forgetting about the figure pinned by his sword. He wrenched the blade free and charged toward Eric, desperate to intercept an attack. “Run!”

But what he hadn’t considered, and what nobody else had thought of, was that at the moment, Menikos did not possess a soul. This fact, while insignificant in most other situations, meant that he operated on pure physical instinct, with the power that an Ancient’s mind could steer toward its goal. When he’d lived, Menikos’ purpose had been to hunt Chaos and Corruption. That fact was a core aspect of his being, an immutable trait that he couldn’t ignore. And when he did rush forward, it was not at Eric, Samuel, or even Grimr. He attacked his oldest enemy, the being currently inhabiting Bora Bora’s body.

Chaos had but a moment to let out a shout of surprise as he realized that he was the one being targeted, and roll to the side. With one mighty swing, the jagged sword cut into the ground, and energy poured, no, flooded from the point of impact. It flashed out in a wide radius, faster than Eric could comprehend, buffeting into all of them. It was enough to send Chaos flying, but Grimr and Samuel were able to react in time. Grimr merely put a hand up, dispelling the energy that would have hit him, and Samuel conjured a barrier that diverted it to the sides.

“Why didn’t he attack us?” Eric asked, half-deafened by that blast of energy.

“I don’t know,” Samuel said through gritted teeth. “But you’re not sticking around to find out. Go! Take Megan with you!”

It was only then that Eric glanced over his shoulder to where Megan had been standing. She was lying flat on the ground and unmoving. He felt a stab of fear in his stomach and rushed over to check for signs of life, only relaxing when he saw that her eyes were open. Only stunned, nothing more. He hastily slung one of her arms around his shoulder and lifted her bodily from the ground, holding her in his arms.

“Time to go,” he told her when she looked up at him with a silent question. “We’re no use in this fight.”

Then the ground under his feet shuddered violently, and he saw a crack forming as the earth was literally split. It cut a sharp path that veered to split the ground in front of him, and he staggered to a stop. That had been a mistake. He should have leaped over. He possessed the strength to do it, but by the time the thought formed in his head, he knew it was too late. So instead, he turned on his heel and ran in another direction, trying to find another point of escape.

In no time at all, he could see that the crack had been widened all around everyone, forming a complete rough circle, stopping them from fleeing. Had it been Grimr? He didn’t think so, but Menikos was currently fighting hard against Chaos, his sword moving in a black blur. He had to have been focused entirely on that fight, with no mental energy spared to react to something that Eric was doing. He should have been beyond the dead Ancient’s notice.

But as he watched more closely, he could see that, while dueling Chaos in Bora Bora’s body, Menikos was indeed attacking everyone else. Samuel and Grimr were constantly blocking, deflecting, or diverting blasts of energy. They returned fire without hesitation, not seeming to care that he’d once been an ally, only interested in ending the fight. Then one blast caught Grimr in the chest, throwing the small body several yards away, nearly into the crevice formed by Meniko’s attack.

Megan thrust out an arm. Something about that last attack had still left her unable to speak, but she was able to summon a gust of wind that caught Grimr, pulling him smoothly away from the plummet into the earth. He landed on his feet with ease and spared the two outsiders half a glance. No time for thanks. He rushed back into the fray, his voice raised in anger. “Get hold of yourself, Menikos! Your end has already come, so let it remain that way!”

“He can’t understand you!” Samuel shouted back. “He doesn’t have a soul, so you can’t reach-”

And, quite suddenly, Samuel slid to a stop, frowning thoughtfully. Some thought had just occurred to him, and it had hit him so powerfully that he actually let his guard down. Sensing this, Menikos turned and, with his sword, slashed horizontally at the mage, aiming to cleave him at the hip. He was saved only by Grimr, who’d shifted into his panther form and attacked Menikos’ sword arm. It wasn’t expected, and the force of the tackle drove both Ancients to the ground, rolling in the dust. Menikos quickly threw his old comrade off, but Samuel was safe.

“Samuel!” Eric shouted, fear leaping into his chest and making even that single word difficult to form. “What are you doing?”

Samuel half-turned to him, the frown deep as ever. “He doesn’t have a soul.”

“What?” Eric couldn’t even begin to fathom what he was on about, but all he cared about was that Samuel was standing, totally unguarded, in the midst of the most powerful fight he’d ever seen, frowning as if he’d just been given a riddle.

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Just as quickly as he’d stopped, Samuel lifted his sword again. With his free hand, he pointed beyond the ring that had trapped them. “I have a plan, and I think it’ll work! Distract them!”

Eric followed his pointing arm and saw the Infernal named Umbric. He’d actually forgotten that he was there in the fear of Menikos’ arrival and the attempt to flee. Strangely, he was just aware enough to note mentally that Samuel had said ‘distract’, and not ‘kill’. Did that mean that Samuel didn’t think it was possible for him to kill the Infernal? Or did he need the Infernal to remain alive for his plan to work? Either way, he was relieved to see the cunning strength back in Samuel, and he wasted no time in questioning the order.

“I’ll help you,” Megan said, her voice restored. It was a little raspy, but she seemed otherwise uninjured. “I’ll suppress him.”

Eric nodded, glad to have her backing him up. The two charged around the circle the long way until they were at the level, and Eric jumped, knowing that Megan would catch him. Sure enough, he felt a powerful gust of wind hit him from behind. He didn’t land on his feet as Grimr had, but he rolled to absorb the worst of the shock, and leaped to his feet, swords ready to strike.

Umbric was ready for him. When there were less than ten feet of space between them, he vanished, replaced with the simple bartender that had attempted to dissuade him with charm. He didn’t look at all politely interested as he appeared now. He had a graceful thrusting blade drawn, either a rapier or an estoc, Eric couldn’t be sure. But he thrust it out before Eric could attack, forcing him to parry, and step to the side.

“I’m so close to my goal!” Selvik snarled, his eyes flashing with rage. “You won’t stop me!”

He thrust twice in rapid succession, and Eric blocked the blows with grim determination before swiping back. Selvik dropped to a crouch, easily ducking the blow. “What goal do you mean?”

Selvik didn’t bother replying. Instead, he lunged to the side quickly, thrusting up at Eric’s ribs. The tip of the sword glanced harmlessly off the barrier that Megan had just summoned to protect him, and he darted away with a curse. In spite of his apparent age, he moved quickly. But Eric could tell that his proficiency with the weapon was lacking in the extreme. He was fast, sure, but he was no martial fighter.

“You might as well use your magic,” Eric taunted, an idea coming to mind. “You can’t beat me with a sword. You’re too inexperienced with it.”

Growling under his breath, Selvik thrust out his free hand, already chanting a spell. Megan countered it with ease, and Eric charged forward. His first instinct would have been to go for a lethal blow, but, remembering that Samuel didn’t want him dead, he instead rammed his shoulder into the necromancer’s chest, knocking him flat. “Pin him, Hunter!”

The white wolf appeared, but so did another figure, dressed in tattered white robes. Issho-Ni robes, Eric thought. The wolf was batted away with frightening ease as the figure struck him with a backhanded blow. Immediately, Eric could tell that this person was a former Master of Issho-Ni, now undead and under Selvik’s control. It carried no weapon, but it didn’t look like it needed one.

“Meet my friend, Haraka Ito,” Selvik shouted, sneering triumphantly. “He was quite famous a while ago. Maybe you’ve heard of him!”

Eric had. Haraka Ito had been one of the more famous Masters of Issho-Ni, renowned for his devastating physical strength and expertise in unarmed combat. It was rumored that he could cut trees with one chop of his hand. And while pieces of his body had been rotted away by time, it seemed that much of that fabled strength remained. Eric backed away hastily, not as interested in the fight as he’d been a moment before.

He didn’t know what made him do it, but he spared half a glance toward Menikos, Samuel, and Grimr. The body of Bora Bora had fallen to the ground, lifeless and unmoving, and the dead Ancient was turning to face his two next threats. But then he stumbled as he took a step forward, nearly falling to the ground. Was he exhausted after killing Chaos’ host? Eric somehow doubted it. In any event, Samuel darted forward in that small moment and struck him with a small but powerful explosion of mana.

“Wake up!” The Archmage shouted at his old kin. “I give you this gift, so that you may return to your proper state!”

Whatever he did next, Eric couldn’t see, as he was forced to jump away to avoid Haraka’s lightning-fast chain of punches and kicks. He swung his sword back, but Haraka almost seemed to wrap around the blade, and then he was well within Eric’s reach, hitting him in the chest with a powerful palm strike. Eric could feel something deep inside him crack, and he was sent flying back a foot or two. Something about the blow had stunned him, and he just barely felt the swords slip from his slack hands.

Haraka, with an indifferent, unfocused expression, drew the same hand back once more to finish the job. For the third time that day, Eric was quite sure he was about to die. He could see the hand reach its full stretch, and curl into a fist, then move forward. He closed his eyes, accepting his fate. Then, just as quickly, he opened them again, as he felt someone push past him. Haraka’s fist slammed ineffectually against the individual's face, and then a long, jagged black sword ran through the dead Master’s chest, punching a large hole in its chest. Without the faintest clue of what had happened to it, the body fell limp to the ground.

Menikos the Hunter, the most powerful of the old Ancients, turned to face Eric, the jagged sword clutched in his hand. He was a full head taller than Eric, but at a close distance, he seemed twenty feet tall. He raised the sword, but Eric was too stunned, too behind the events of the battle to realize that the weapon was well within the distance needed to destroy him with a single cut. But instead, Menikos pivoted and threw the sword away from him.

The black weapon spun gracefully through the air, catching yet another undead figure in the chest and slamming it to the ground. Some warrior type, the body of which fell limp and dropped the nasty spiked club it was wielding. Only then did Eric feel the mortal fear hit him, for the fourth time that day, and he fell to his knees, too weak to stand.

“Terribly sorry about that. I nearly didn’t get here in time, but I’m glad I did.”

Eric glanced up, not recognizing the voice, and received yet another shock. But this was not of fear, just overwhelming surprise. For it was Menikos standing over him, but not the undead Ancient at the beck and call of a necromancer. It was Menikos himself, the original Ancient who had been taken down long ago by Samuel. His eyes, deep violet in color, sparked with quiet humor as he grinned down at the boy before him, and he grinned toothily.

“If only you could see the look on your face.”