Elrick dropped to the ground and rolled. He had no idea how his body knew to do it. It wasn’t his own instinct. It must have been part of one of his “in-game” skills that overrode his natural lack of instinct. Either way, his skill was right, as he felt a rush of air as he fell, and saw an axe slam into the tree trunk, right where his neck had been.

Elrick sprung to his feet, catching the man trying to pull his axe out of the tree. He was tall and lanky, and wore leather armor and no helmet. He was alone.

Before Elrick could even fully stand, the man swung his boot. It hit Elrick near the ribs, but it wasn’t a clean hit. It just grazed him, and Elrick forced himself to his feet. The man’s neck muscles bulged as he tore the axe loose from the bark.

The axeman ripped his weapon from the tree, but the axehead stayed in the tree, and the man came away with nothing but the wooden handle. Poor quality craftsmanship. The highwayman stumbled backward, caught off guard at the lack of weight in his “axe.”

If only Elrick had thought to bring his sword with him to piss on the tree, he’d have an easy win against an unarmed opponent.

Elrick charged him. Mining and smithing had made Elrick strong, and the lanky axeman was taller, but visibly weaker than Elrick. Elrick lacked the Unarmed Combat skill, but he’d overpower him with raw strength.

Elrick punched. It connected against the man’s jaw. Elrick’s fist became an explosion of pain, but the man stumbled back even further, reeling from the blow. Elrick tucked his head down and tackled the stumbling man to the ground.

They hit the forest floor in a jumble of limbs, but Elrick was on top. He pinned the bastard to the ground, but then something hit Elrick’s balls. His balls that were hanging out of his pants still. He hadn’t had time to put his dick back into his pants, and his balls were not so much as protected by a modest layer of cloth. His body convulsed, and he felt the urge to vomit, but his stomach was mostly empty.

The axeman shoved Elrick off, grabbed the axe handle, and swung it hard against the side of Elrick’s head. As if the pain in his balls weren’t bad enough, the blow to his head overloaded him with agony. He curled up into a pathetic ball, hoping the next swing would just hit his back or arms.

The next dozen swings hit his back, legs, arms, and then his knuckles. The blows hurt the worst on his knuckles.

The swings stopped, and then there was a shout.

Elrick looked up and saw Elise, covered in mud and swinging Elrick’s sword. She wasn’t skilled, but she didn’t need to be. The axeman barely had time to raise his wooden stick, not that it would have done much. Elise jabbed the tip of Elrick’s sword into the axeman’s chest as if it were a spear. It sunk in, but stopped after just an inch or two.

Elrick was already on his feet. He rushed the axeman, lunged forward, and grabbed the sword handle. With his momentum, he rammed the sword in, pressing it all the way through the axeman’s armor and body. The axeman spat out blood, then fell.

Elrick panted for breath and looked down at the first man he’d ever killed. Well, he'd killed those guards as a Drinker, but that had somehow felt much less real than this. He pulled the sword out of the dead man’s body, then looked up at Elise.

“You couldn’t hold it,” she said, looking down at his exposed dick with widening eyes.

Elrick blushed and pulled his pants up as fast as he could, and the waistline going against his injured balls sent shockwaves of pain through his whole body.

“Why did it take you so long?” Elrick asked.

Elise brought her eyes up from where his dick had been and locked eyes with him, red-hot anger rising to her cheeks.

“I had to wait until the right moment,” she said, “to not waste the element of surprise. We have to run now. We can’t hide here after this. You thought with your dick again Elrick.”

Needing to pee didn’t count as thinking with his dick, but he was in no position to argue with her. She was right, they couldn’t hide after this fight. It was just barely beginning to get darker, but that guard would be expected to come back, and when he didn’t they’d know that someone had killed him.

“Can we get your potions?” he asked.

“We have to—”

It didn’t look like the arrow even hit her. It was more like it just appeared in her leg. She didn’t seem to believe it either for a second or two, but then she screamed and fell.

Elrick spun around, drawing his sword and closing in next to Elise as she groaned on the ground. As if his sword would protect either of them against arrows.

The rumble of horses approached, and then Elrick saw them. There were at least ten of them. The archer was on foot, and he had another shot nocked, trained right on Elrick.

This was it. They were dead. The two of them had barely taken out one of these guys, one with half a weapon. These ten were fully armed and on horseback, and Elise couldn’t even walk anymore.

Elrick held up his sword anyway, ready to fight.

The highwaymen surrounded them, forming a circle around Elise and him.

“Go ahead,” one of them sneered. “Use that sword. See what happens.”

Most of them wore leather armor and leather coifs, but the one dressed in jet black bronze armor and a black helmet with intricate ornamentation dismounted. The helmet had a visor, which was lowered. He walked toward Elrick. He had a large warhammer on his back, but he didn’t so much as reach for it as he approached.

“We just want the girl,” one of the men said. “It’s her guild who slighted us.”

“You attacked them!” Elise growled. “And they were not my guild!”

The Black Knight stopped ten paces from Elise, but Elrick put himself between them.

“Give us the sword,” another man shouted from the circle, “and leave the girl, and you’re free to go.”

“Wait,” the Black Knight said. His voice was muffled and metallic through the visor. He held up a gauntleted hand, silencing his men.

“What are you going to do with that sword?” The Black Knight asked Elrick. “Fight us? Fight me?”

No. But he wasn’t going to just leave Elise for dead. He might not be able to fight his way out of this, but maybe he could convince them.

“I don’t know what your problem with the Alchemists is,” Elrick said, “but this girl had just escaped them. She was their prisoner. They were chasing us, trying to get her back. What do you think the alchemists you killed were doing in this forest in the first place?”

Some of the men laughed, but the Black Knight was dead silent through the helmet. His face unreadable through the closed visor.

He took several steps toward Elrick. Elrick thought he saw the man’s head tilt from side to side, or maybe Elrick was just trembling.

“She wears their robes,” the Black Knight says. “The guild considers her one of them. She has to die.”

“Why?” Elrick asked. “Take my sword. Take everything we have, just let us go.”

“The guilds are corrupt,” the Black Knight said. “They demand more and more, and they give less and less back in exchange. Worse, they lock the full potential of magic from shaping Antium. This is why we’re stuck like this.”

Elrick remembered his experience with the mining guild. And the alchemists.

“I’m with you,” he said. “Fuck the guilds. But this girl, she’s not with them. I swear it. She killed a master with her own hands. I saw her drive the dagger into his skull. She blew a hole in their tower. I killed more while we escaped. We’re with your cause. We’re not your enemies.”

He’d say whatever he needed to get Elise and him out of this, but everything he’d said happened to be true.

“I can believe the girl did this,” the Black Knight said. “She’s a real killer. I saw her take down Lorham. Then I saw you, brave man, curled into a little ball while Lorham struck you with a big stick. Who rescued who? Maybe this small little girl rescued you?”

His men laughed.

“Here’s what I offer,” the Black Knight said, his voice silencing his men, “If you can defeat me, I’ll let you both go.”

What chance did he have? Or a better question, what choice did he have?

“Don’t,” Elise hissed up at Elrick. “You won’t win.”

“Let her go,” Erick said. “My life is on the line, but let her go before I fight you.”

The Black Knight stood silent for a long moment, then said, “No, her life is in your hands. You’re lucky I’m giving you any chance to save her at all. Stop whining and defend her life with yours!”

Elise grabbed his ankle and pulled him down so she could reach him. She whispered to him. “Elrick, my mother owes you a debt.”

“What?”

He was thinking too much about how bad it would hurt when that hammer hit him to fully focus on what Elise was saying.

“My mother,” she said. “Taalia. I’m sorry this is happening, but when you die, I’ll tell her everything. She won’t let you—”

The Black Knight pulled on his arm, ripping him from Elise.

Taalia. Oh. So, she hadn’t just used him. Well, she had used him, but it was at least for a good reason. They had somehow taken her daughter hostage, and Taalia had used Elrick to free her.

“Ready yourself,” the Black Knight said, pulling his warhammer from his back.

The man was about half a foot taller than Elrick, and a good deal wider too. Elrick doubted that these men followed him just because of his cool armor; he must be pretty good damn with that hammer too. These men feared him, and that fear seeped into Elrick. Elise had said “when you die,” not “if.”

Elrick raised his sword, and his eyes searched the Black Knight’s breastplate for places to attack. He wore a black tunic over the chest armor, and black pauldrons on his shoulders. A chain coif protected the man’s neck, and even his hands were covered with armor, though his fingers protruded, likely to give him a better grip on that huge hammer. His legs had bronze plates strapped to them, and from what Elrick could tell, only his knees and the backs of his legs were exposed.

“You’ll have a choice after I crush your skull,” the Black Knight said, “to go on as a ghost, begging the guilds for a new life as a slave. Or to simply die. Choose death. Don’t come back. You’ll fade away, and as you fade, you’ll realize that letting go was the only true freedom.”

One of the highwaymen lifted Elise up and pulled her out of the circle. The men closed in, tightening the circle and drawing their weapons, as if daring Elrick to run.

“And if I win?” Elrick asked. “Will you choose death?”

“I sold my soul,” he said. “This is all I have. I’ve chosen life!”

The Black Knight swung the hammer. Elrick jumped back.

He didn’t dare try to parry the swing. Even though his sword was a quality cast with an enchantment on it, he knew the hammer could likely shatter it, or warp it badly enough that it would be useless.

Elrick flanked along his opponent’s right side, seeing the opening as the Knight recovered from the swing.

Just as Elrick slashed at his shoulder, aiming just below the pauldron, the Black Knight began to spin, letting the momentum of his swing carry him all the way around.

Elrick’s sword grazed along the armored pauldron, and then the hammer came around faster than he thought possible.

Elrick didn’t dodge fast enough, the hammer connected right into his ribcage. The swing took him off his feet, and he flew back. He knew his ribs were shattered, he could feel his body breaking. The adrenaline surged enough that the pain was just an abstraction.

He hit the ground and rolled. He got his feet under him, jumped up--despite the growing pain-- and lunged forward even as he saw the hammer coming back down.

The sword tip hit true, jabbing into the Black Knight’s dark black armor. Elrick felt it pierce flesh, but it stopped short. It didn’t go deep enough. The armor had stopped his sword—it had barely penetrated an inch. Elrick tried to force it further through, but his body was pure pain, and he had no strength left in him.

The hammer swept across his legs. He felt his left leg shatter. It didn’t just break, it exploded open.

He lost his grip on the sword, which jutted out of the Black Knight’s chest.

Elrick’s back slammed against the dirt, and he looked down in disbelief. His leg was at an impossible angle. To be like that, it must be hanging on tendons and shattered bone. He couldn’t feel anything below his thigh.

“Choose Death!” a voice boomed, and then the hammer crushed in his skull.