Chapter Forty-Two—Abassir Swashbucklers

Ali screamed and rushed forward, slicing the guard across the back after he had fallen to his hands and knees. His face slammed into the tiles as he went down in a spray of hot blood.

Razul jumped, spun and lashed out with his sword, taking down five men all at once with his fish-fin blade. Breathing heavily, Ali took a moment, feeling like he was on the precipice of death, as the Sultan and Debaku crossed blades in a whirlwind of skill not even Razul could match.

“Come on!” Raz called. “We have to keep the Scorpion Guards from overrunning us!”

Ali could hardly hear his half-brother through the screaming guests as they scrunched up against the walls and shook and crawled like so many rats trying to run up the backs of one another to be the first to escape a torrential rain.

“What?!” he yelled back.

Razul took a deep breath. “I SAID WE HAVE TO STOP THE SCORPION GUARDS!” He pointed, then flicked his sword causing a shaft that would have penetrated his face to fall away harmlessly.

He jumped forward, slicing and dicing the endless waves of Scorpion Guards.

“Agh!” Ali growled. “I am going to die tonight!” He ran forward, broke left, then right so that he was parallel to the wall beside the door. A Scorpion Guard rushed through and he took the man in the shoulder. Without a cry of pain, he went down while Raz lunged in, sliding on his knees and then swiping upward with his thick-bladed sword of blue iridescent metal.

Shouting erupted from the other side of the thick doors as Razul arched his blade multiple times between the narrow space. Blood prayed, hitting him in the face and chest.

The tiles were a mess of slick death.

Taking pause, Raz growled in evident frustration and then grabbed one door with his free hand. “Help me!”

Ali leaned in and grabbed the door ring.

Two Scorpion Guards rushed in, the spear point of one nearly taking Ali in the face as he lunged back. Razul slashed the head off the spear, then stabbed forward several more times, but the Scorpion backed away.

Ali dropped his sword and pulled on the ring, his feet slipping in the blood. As the door began to move from his desperate efforts of kicking and slipping, Razul let go of the ring and grabbed the corpse stopping the doors from shutting and yanked it through.

Ali grunted and pulled with renewed effort. Razul took hold of the ring and shut the door. “Now,” Raz said, “picking up a fallen sword. We lock it.”

Scorpion Guards on the other side pounded against the heavy doors, but with the swords between the rings, it was effectively shut up.

“It won’t take them long to get through,” Ali said, wiping his face and bending to pick up his scimitar. He sucked in a deep lungful of air, and turned at the sounds of battle behind them.

Debaku lashed out at Darius, but he was far too quick to be hit so early in their duel. Countering, he moved in and nearly cut the Black Cobra in two with a powerful slash and a scream worthy of a madman.

“Come here, you Mar’a Thulian coward!”

Backing away, Darius made eye contact with Shiro on the steps. To prevent the sultan from lashing out and finishing Jessamine, or perhaps Shiro, Debaku lunged forward, his scimitar moving like the wind as Darius blocked and parried all of his blows.

Darius countered, flicking his foot forward. Countering, their shins buffeted each other. Darius renewed his efforts to kill Debaku and pressed forward.

He had to retreat, to give himself room to maneuver. It was all Debaku could do not to be hit with the deadly edge of Darius’ red blade.

Then the sultan shouted and struck with a powerful blow at such speed, Debaku tried to dodge, but Darius changed the trajectory of his slash, and had it not been for Razul, screaming like a madman as he came in for an overhead slash, Darius would not have pulled back at the last instant, resulting in the Black Cobra’s added lifespan.

The swashbuckling adventurer jumped away from Darius, then forward again, his blade slicing through the air. Razul was outmatched and couldn’t maintain prolonged contact with their opponent.

Suddenly his sword was knocked away. Razul’s eyelids flicked in surprise just before Darius slammed his fist into his chest with such force that he fell away like a dead tree, his sword clattering across the tiles.

To finish Razul off, he swept in with his blade, but Debaku, lunged forward with his arms outstretched, the side of his own sword blocked the deadly taper of Darius blade, aimed for the Abassir’s heart. In a screech of metal, his sword glanced off of Debaku’s.

Darius threw his bodyweight to the side, using his feet to maneuver around the fallen Razul.

With a snarl, he said, “I grow tired of this, Mar’a Thulian.”

“So do I,” Debaku said. “If you wish to end this, then do so.”

With a sneer, Darius flourished his sword about, then raised it up into the air, his left forefinger perfectly adjusted against the back of the point so it wouldn’t cut his skin. A plume of red magic burst forth that seemed to connect with the tip of Darius’ sword.

That red magic coursed through the back of the blade, and then into the red ruby in the pommel. It began to glow, and then the blade became, not red, but a bright orange—like metal in the forge.

Debaku narrowed his eyes.

What is this magic?

Darius sneered as his blade grew hotter and hotter until it became a white hot bar of magically enhanced metal.

“Now you die, Mar’a Thulian!”

“Then come at me, Sultan.”

Darius’ mouth twisted into a malicious smile.

Mushkah had run at the first sign of the assassin freeing the prisoners. The Abassir among them was a top-tier adventurer and the black-skinned one was surely of the same class.

Running down the steps toward the towers and the warning bells, Mushka ignored the guards who were getting up and standing as they looked up at the colonnade surrounding the throne chamber above them.

The screams and the loud clashing of metal bespoke of either a massacre or a battle. Palace guests and servants alike began to run as he fled across the courtyard. But he didn’t care. The more confusion, the better.

Glancing up at the watch tower, he waved his arm, but the guard didn’t see him. “Fools!” As a mid-tier adventurer, the fight in the throne chamber was not his place. But he could direct men to the area—to save the sultan!

But his heart burst into his mouth as he realized the Hajja sorcerers were up on the upper terraces and making their way to the throne chamber, their faces hidden under heavy hoods as the hems of their robes trailed at their heels.

How…

His mouth hung open and a thrill foreboding bad tidings to come, travelled up his back. How did they escape?!

Gritting his teeth, Mushkah called out a magical invocation and hurled a fireball at the guard tower. As it hit the inner chamber, it exploded, sending fire and black smoke billowing up into the sky.

Moments later the guard threw his arms around the bell toll and the warning bell was sounded.

Now every Scoprion Guard in the palace would be alerted to the danger.