We set our attack for right as the sun was beginning to sink below the horizon when the shift for those on guard was coming to an end. Tomas had said that as a man knew that his break was coming, he tended to relax and become less alert. So if we launched our assault then, we were much more likely to get in before they could do much to stop us.

The sound of steel against leather caught my attention, and I turned to see Tamotsu to my left. He’d just finished sharpening his two swords and were sliding them home into their sheath. He caught me watching and flashed me a grin. He always seemed to get more excited at the prospect of a fight, I noticed. I could understand that, I thought. I wasn’t excited about hurting other people, but I too enjoyed the contest of a fight.

“Should be fun,” Tamotsu said in his snake-like voice. “Let’s hope you still remember what I taught you.”

“You make it sound like that was years ago,” I scoffed. “Are you so old you’re forgetting the past few weeks?”

It was strange, now that I came to think about it. I’d only been a Reaper for a month and a half, yet I felt like I’d aged four or five years in the process. Why couldn’t I have just died like a normal person? Then I wouldn’t have had to go through all this trouble. Yes, a small voice said in my head. But then I wouldn’t have really got to know Marisha. A silver lining in a humongous cloud of misery and pain.

Time to go, Tomas said in the back of my mind. I repeated the words to the others around me, and the mood changed to one of nervous anticipation. We stepped out of the cover of the trees and broke into a jog, curving onto the path that led to Death’s Castle. Marisha fell into place on my right, and Tamotsu stuck to my left side. Mikel moved until he was in front.

We were about three hundred feet from the castle gate when we were spotted. The length of a football field, I thought with a snort. I’d never been a big fan of football. Who wanted to run from one side of a field to another, and risk getting hit by a hard helmet? The sentry that spotted us blew a horn, the sound rippling across the plains and waking the other guards.

Almost at once, a huge surge of mana was launched from the wall towards us. It was large enough to hit all of us, and it looked dense enough to do some serious damage. We made no attempt to avoid it, and Mikel jumped forward to intercept it. He created a large pulse in its center that exploded, sending the hostile aura spraying harmlessly to the side.

Marisha and I slipped past him, both of us funneling a large amount of man to our legs to reinforce our speed. We rocketed forward at an incredible speed, closing the last two hundred feet in about ten seconds. Fast as we were, however, they’d already closed the gate, blocking our entrance to the keep.

“Well, we expected that,” Marisha said. “How do you want to tackle this?”

“Same plan as before,” I said, seconds ahead of Tomas’s identical statement in my head. “Hop on.”

I’d already spread my mana out on the ground around us, and Marisha stepped inside it. Then I condensed it, and, aided by the small explosion as it burst upward, Marisha and I jumped as hard as we could. We shot up twenty, thirty feet into the air, high enough to clear the wall. One Reaper was there, waiting for us, and leveled a heavy-looking crossbow at me.

He only had time for one shot, and the crossbow bolt made it within inches of my face before my defensive screen deflected it. The guy dove to the side to avoid my landing, but I was ready at once, throwing the scythe out. It smacked into him with the back of the staff, knocking him from the wall and returning to my hand. Marisha landed next to me, more gracefully than I had managed, rolling to absorb the shock.

There were more Reapers than we’d expected in the courtyard. Nearly a dozen faces looked up as we came into view, and they reacted instantly. A massive wall of aura rose to meet us, but I shredded it with one more swipe of my scythe. A week ago, we would have been unable to get on the wall so easily, and that kind of attack would have destroyed me. But I had a crapton of Granis’ energy flowing through my body, and these things didn’t pose nearly as much of a threat as they would have before.

I threw the scythe again, putting a large chunk of mana into it as it spun lethally toward the Reapers below us. It cut two down almost at once, and the others were forced to scatter. Then there was a roar of challenge behind us, and Ivan, who had moved as fast as he could behind us, hit the metal portcullis that sealed the castle shut. He punched through it as if it wasn’t there, and his momentum carried him into one of the Reapers below. The man was flung against the outer wall of the central keep and fell to the ground unmoving.

“We’re nearly there,” I called to him. “Help us clear this out!”

Ivan didn’t pause to reply or even hesitate in his attack. He dove at another small clump of Reapers who were guarding the door to the central keep. He slammed all three of them into the heavy oak door, knocking them out. Two others swarmed him at once, attacking on either side with long blades. They had no chance of breaking through his defenses, and he dispatched each of them with a swing of his heavy fists.

Marisha, who seemed a little impatient with her rather inactive role so far, jumped off the wall towards the last two guys. She landed on the shoulder of one, and even from where I stood, I could hear the nasty crack of bone as he was driven into the cobbles. Before his partner could react, she’d rolled off her victim and slashed with her long dagger. The second man fell with a shocked cry of pain.

“Easy done,” she muttered. “Why’d you have to hog all the glory, Ivan?”

Ivan nudged the squashed Reapers away from the door with his feet and looked up grinning. “You show off too much, little Marisha. My turn to bash some heads in.”

Marisha pulled a pouty face as I landed on the smooth cobbles next to her, but Ivan only laughed in response. She turned away from him to look at me, and a wide smile spread across her face. I tried to keep my face serious to match the situation, but I couldn’t help returning the expression. This relationship was off to a great start, I thought sourly. We’d had two real bonding moments so far, and they were both situations filled with pain and misery.

Mikel and Tamotsu walked through the giant hole in the portcullis Ivan had made, surveying the interior of the castle yard with looks of approval. Tamotsu saw Marisha and me standing together, and gave me a knowing smirk. I rolled my eyes at him and moved over to Mikel.

“That went as well as expected, Master Mikel.”

He waved one hand in dismissal of the title. “I am no longer your master, Silas. Your only master is the balance, and after today, nobody will think to question you.”

“Oh,” I said, thrown by his response. “Okay then. Anyway, how do you want to tackle the inside?”

“We must hold the line for our main force,” he replied. “They are nearly ready, and should be able to join us in an hour’s time.”

Right. The main force that we’d need to enforce peace once our mission was complete. But we could only rely on our own skill and momentum for the main goal. More or less resigned to my fate by this point, I just sighed quietly. I knew that we’d be alone until we broke through and I took out the Grand Reaper.

“Alright,” I said, hefting my scythe and standing behind the larger forms of Mikel and Ivan. “Let’s do it.”