The Son of Rome

In the time it took my heart to beat twice, Scythas had covered a distance that contained hundreds of citizens and lesser cultivators. I followed as fast as I was physically able to, but the difference in our cultivation was undeniable. Two more heartbeats passed, and I reached the mouth of the alleyway.

Scythas was already rounding a corner, piercing deeper into the unlit bowels of the sanctuary city. I plunged into the darkness myself, the screams and wails of injured citizens and those still grieving fading to echoes that rebounded through the latticework of alleys.

I followed the sounds of Scythas raging.

“Cowards!” he hollered. “Unfilial sons! Rotten, scavenging Crows!”

I heard a powerful impact, and then a suffocating sensation enveloped my senses. Hands in the dark, reaching insidiously for the tattered edges of my cult attire. Wearing it properly is a skill, Griffon’s airy voice reminded me. I pivoted, stepping adroitly past the grasping hands and then leaping into the air. I caught the rail of a terrace on the third floor, jutting out over the alley, and swung myself up and over the limbs of shadow intent.

The nameless technique, or perhaps simply the murderous intent of the Crows we were chasing, pursued me down the alley. The sounds of vicious struggle carried from around a corner, off to my right. I slid down the stone face of another building and bolted for the conflict.

I nearly died in that moment.

A man that stank of shadows lunged at me as soon as I rounded the corner. He had a filthy, rusted knife in his hand. The sounds of conflict I’d been following vanished all at once. I’d been tricked, guided into a trap by false sounds and his own vile intent.

The knife - an assassin’s weapon, all red rust and filthy, chipped edges - tickled the skin of my throat.

Gravitas.

The weight of command slammed him against the western wall, pressing his knife hand flat against the stone. It only lasted a moment, the overwhelming heat of his Heroic spirit burning through the captain’s virtue in the time it took me to plant my feet and lurch forward.

I drove a fist into the Crow’s gut. I’d have been better off punching the stone wall behind him. The third knuckle of my right hand cracked nauseatingly against his stomach, and he wasn’t even winded. The knife came back around. I only just ducked it before it could take my left eye. I drove a knee up into his crotch and viciously headbutted his face, and this time we both reeled. Even still, he managed to wrap five fingers around my throat like a vice.

Gravitas.

The pressure to lead drove the masked cultivator through the stone wall entirely, tearing his hand away from my throat in the process. A woman shrieked from inside, and as I bolted through the new entryway to the residential building I saw her scrambling for the door while the Crow pulled himself from the rubble.

I didn’t give him the chance. A Heroic cultivator’s speed was too much for me, that much was clear. The only chance I had was to disorient and dispatch.

Gravitas.

The captain’s virtue threw him sideways through the rubble, punching through another wall into a room filled with colorful threads and bolts of cloth, a loom in its center. Another woman, older than the first, cowered in the furthest corner of the room, visibly fighting the urge to scream.

My foot missed its legion-issue boot as I drove it into the Crow’s stomach. Silver threads of pain shot up my calf, but this time the cultivator gagged from the force of the blow. Even now he was faster than me, whipping around like a snake and letting fly his rusted assassin’s blade. Fortunately, I already had my pirate blade in hand. I deflected the thrown knife-

And my sword shattered.

I didn’t have time to gawk at the impossible interaction. The knife had been knocked off course, but now I was without a weapon and the cultivator was regaining his feet. So I returned his projectile with a projectile, viciously throwing the empty hilt of my broken sword at his face. He flinched back, just for a moment, and I pressed down on him with the captain’s virtue.

Gravitas.

The Crow’s skull hit the marble floor with an ugly crack. By the time he’d regained his senses, a moment and an eternity, I had the loom in my hands - raised up above my head.

The lady of the house winced and covered her face as I shattered her loom on the Crow’s face.

When all was said and done my hands were a bloody, bruised mess, and my shoulders ached beneath the weight of so many consecutive uses of the captain’s virtue. I picked the unconscious cultivator up and threw him over my shoulder. As an afterthought, I pulled the midnight hood off his head. I didn’t recognize the man’s face beneath, obviously, and wouldn’t have even if it wasn’t just as battered as my hands. I committed his features to memory anyway.

“Apologies for your loom,” I told the woman crouched in the corner. She stared at me. Apparently she didn’t speak Alikoan either. I sighed and left her home the same way I’d entered.

I’d already fallen far behind Scythas, and now I’d wasted precious moments fighting. The Crow naturally didn’t have the courtesy to be light in my arms, either. I shrugged him into a more comfortable position and raced down the opposite alley at my best pace. I followed new sounds of conflict that I could only hope were genuine this time. Shouts, flesh striking flesh, and the whistle of projectiles cutting through the air.

Scythas’ pneuma suddenly flared like a beacon of light in the narrow corridor, and another hooded cultivator came hurtling out of the darkness.

I twisted at the waist, heaving the unconscious Crow over my shoulder and throwing him at the airborne cultivator with all the force I could muster alongside the captain’s virtue. The Crow flew out of my hands like a rock from a sling and hit the approaching cultivator with punishing force. My aim had been true. They both went flying through an open terrace into the apartment beyond. Panicked shouts and vitriolic curses sounded from inside.

Scythas was next, flying out of the shadows and slamming back-first into a stone wall a few feet away. The breath exploded out of him, and he sank to the cobbled street. He had another Hero in his arms.

“You took your time,” he gasped, struggling to regain his wind. “There were two more, did you-?”

“They’ll be coming back,” I said. I wasn’t optimistic enough to think otherwise. Scythas nodded and spat blood, wiping his mouth with a grimace.

“That one is strong,” he said. That one, it turned out, was a rapidly approaching pneuma that reeked of blood and unkept promises. The kidnapped Hero grunted urgently, shaking his arms. A wad of damp cloth had been shoved in his mouth to prevent him from calling for help, and a deceptively thin metal cord had been lashed several times around his wrists. He didn’t have the strength to break it. Bound by iron, his cultivation was suppressed.

Scythas struggled with the cord, trying fruitlessly to find the leading edge of it. The hostage grunted with increasing panic as the bloodstained pneuma drew closer. Following an instinct, I pulled the rusted dagger that had shattered my sword from a fold in my cult attire and slid its edge between the Hero’s wrists and the metal cord. He hissed in pain when it touched his skin, but the cord parted like silk when I drew up on it.

The Hero immediately pulled the damp cloth out of his mouth and spat the taste of it onto the ground, scraping his teeth across his tongue in disgust.

“They took me by surprise,” he said gruffly, nodding to me in thanks. “They won’t have such an easy time of it-”

Before he could finish his posturing, the third Crow exploded out of the shadows of the far alley. At the same time, the shadow intent of the Crow I’d beaten unconscious along with another, unfamiliar pneuma of similar intensity exploded from the upper residence behind us. They were awake again, and they were ready to fight.

I pointed a finger at the strongest of the three.

Gravitas.

Stone shrieked and flew apart from the walls and street both, but the Crow had already leapt back into the shadows the moment I made the gesture.

“Show me then,” I demanded. “Take care of the subordinates. I’ll handle this one.” Before I could actually think about what I was doing, I rushed forward into the darkness to meet the strongest of the three. Behind me, Scythas and the other hero shouted a challenge and leapt straight up, meeting the other two kidnappers midair as they vaulted the terrace.

Rusted blades clashed in the dark. I couldn’t see my enemy, but I could feel their breath against my face. I felt the hands of their influence gripping mine, pushing me back, sliding my knife away from theirs so they could punch it through my throat.

I was as thoroughly outclassed as Griffon had been against the scarred Heroine. The only difference was, I didn’t have him here to bail me out of my fight.

So I taunted them. “You’re not very good at this, are you? A real throat cutter is never seen unless they choose to be.”

A flurry of shadow motion made my senses scream. I crouched, jerking our crossed blades aside. Invisible knives buried themselves in the wall where my head had been. Dagger intent. Each one was dripping with poison that my eyes couldn’t see, that had no corporeal form, but it was clear as day to my pneuma sense. Poison, synthesized by their soul.

We exchanged a flurry of blows that I wouldn’t have been able to visibly track even if there had been light to do so. I operated solely on instinct and my other senses, reflexes hammered into me by my mentors and by war allowing me to block and deflect most strikes. I caught a stab at my temple with a forearm, and bit down on a thumb attempting to gouge my eye out with full force. I felt a tooth crack before the skin broke.

The blood of a Heroic cultivator was far too hot. It burned, literally, and when I spit it out it caught fire in the air. For just a moment I saw the cultivator’s silhouette, before she bounded up the wall of the nearest building, vile green light flaring from the flames behind her eyes. Her Heroic pneuma rose.

Gut instinct told me I’d die if I tried backtracking now. There would be no regrouping with the other two. There was no one here to help.

But that was fine. Hopeless fights were the domain of legionnaires, against enemies of superior numbers, superior arms, and superior stature. To be expected, always, and good fortune if the gods granted you a fair fight.

It was all business.

The inferno of the Crow’s poisonous green eyes lit up the alley, and I watched as an impossibility was writ bold on reality. The blades of her dagger intent, coated in the poison of her soul, forced themselves into true existence. Real and corporeal. They whistled through the air, flying fast for my throat, and in their after images, new daggers of dagger intent spawned like fingers unfurling from a clenched fist. Three became twelve, twelve became forty-eight, until the entire alley was filled with her intent.

I brandished my rusty knife, knowing it wouldn’t be enough. I needed more.

They say that in the Legions.

They say that in the Legions! Three thousand dead men roared in my memories.

“The life is mighty fine.” It came through clenched teeth. I deflected the first of the corporeal daggers, the fastest of the three.

The life is mighty fine!

“You leave your home for glory.” The first dagger went spiralling off to my right, spawning new blades of assassination intent in its wake. Each one spun unerringly towards me, but unlike the daggers bolstered by the Crow’s Heroic spirit, these were susceptible to my own influence. My new Sophic sense batted them away disdainfully.

You leave your home for glory!

Two more impossibly real daggers swerved at unpredictable angles on their approach. I didn’t bother trying to deflect them. I knew I’d fail. And I knew I’d look weak in the attempt. In a place like this, in a fight like this, with allies like these, appearing weak was worse than being weak. I couldn’t fail to deflect them, and I couldn’t be cut by them.

Or could I?

“To Caesar you’re assigned!” I called cadence, taking a lash of poisoned intent across each of my shoulders as the two blades flew by. I slapped aside the dozens of pneuma blades that followed, diverting their paths just enough to not be cut.

To Caesar you’re assigned!

I stood stock still, frozen. The poison coating both blades tore through my body in seconds, flowing like lava through the channels of my tripartite soul. Breathing became difficult first, the insidious poison targeting my vital breath first. Without breath, there was no cultivation. Without cultivation, there was no surviving an invasion like this.

My muscles locked up next, clenching in sudden agony. My limbs refused to move, joints grinding like rusted hinges. Through the haze of horrible sensation, I felt as much as saw the Crow swooping down on me like her namesake. Descending for the kill.

“They say that in the legions,” I breathed.

THEY SAY THAT IN THE LEGIONS!

Gravitas struck her from the sky. The Crow somehow kicked off from the air itself, heart flames flashing, and managed to avoid the brunt of the blow. It glanced off her right shoulder and sent her spinning to the ground just ahead of me.

If I could call cadence, I could breathe. If I could breathe, I could cultivate. If I could cultivate, I could march.

And if I could march, I could fight.

“The meals are mighty fine,” I informed the cultivator trying to take my life.

“What?” she asked, baffled.

THE MEALS ARE MIGHTY FINE!

“Eat leather if you’re hungry,” I explained further. She lunged up at me with a blade in each hand, ebony edges blending with the shadows cast by her eyes. She attacked head on, with the confidence of someone who knew that their target couldn’t move to stop them. I had countered her dive, but I still couldn’t move my body. My rigid posture spoke for itself. She could likely feel her poison winding through me, body and soul. Paralyzing me entirely.

EAT LEATHER IF YOU’RE HUNGRY!

Unfortunately, she had failed to account for one thing.

“Drink poison like it’s wine!” I said sharply, and uppercutted her.

Something as banal as lethal poison was no excuse for a legionnaire to stop marching.

DRINK POISON LIKE IT’S WINE!

Breath exploded out of her from the force of the punch. Delivered in cadence, it struck her harder than anything I could have normally produced. She arched up above my fist, hovering in the air for a bare moment. I forced my body to move again before she could recover. I lashed out with my other hand and grabbed the back of her neck.

“They say that in the legions!” I shouted, slamming her to the stone.

THEY SAY THAT IN THE LEGIONS!

“The pay is fine it’s great!” I kicked her up against the wall, feeling a crack that was either my foot or her ribs breaking. Maybe both.

THE PAY IS FINE IT’S GREAT!

“For every coin you gather!”

The kidnapper-turned-assassin recovered faster than I’d have liked, planting her hands against the ground and throwing herself up into a backflip that brought a slipper-clad foot a hair’s breadth away from kicking my head off my shoulders.

FOR EVERY COIN YOU GATHER!

She twisted her body in midair and lashed out with a rigid hand, slapping the knife out of my grip. In response, I caught her by the ankle and swung her into a wall with all the remaining strength of my poisoned body, the captain’s virtue, and my own furious influence.

In cadence.

“The captain gathers eight!”

For the second time in as many minutes, I threw a Heroic cultivator through a building.

THE CAPTAIN GATHERS EIGHT!

Eight poisoned daggers clattered to the stone at my feet, shaken free from the folds of her clothing. I heard a soft huff, the sound of a pouting woman, through the hole in the wall. Utterly disproportionate to this reaction, I felt a sickening wave of poisonous pneuma surge up and out of the rubble. It rushed towards me, grasping and ravenous. The sensation alone burned like acid on my skin. If it touched me directly, I’d drop dead in seconds.

Light and heat blossomed like the petals of a flower behind me, illuminating the alley in full. The short hairs on my arms and the back of my neck sizzled and curled, burning. Coiling streamers of flame careened over my head, colliding with the wave of poisonous pneuma and erupting into a noxious cloud of steam that made my eyes water and my spirit gag.

The Crow was gone when it cleared. I turned, every muscle in my body protesting the motion, to greet the Olympic athlete walking up behind me. I didn’t let the pain show. A captain never did.

“So it was a wolf after all.”

She had laughter in her eyes and a javelin in her hand. She wore the finely woven tunic-dress of yet another mystery cult, this one a pristine onyx that I had never seen before. She approached me silently on slipper-clad feet, and her influence brushed over me in bare fingertip caresses. Careful, but inquisitive. They finally settled on each of my shoulders, where the poisoned daggers had cut me. The cultivator’s touch was feather light, but it still felt unbearable on the wounds.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” she said, all feigned remorse and naked interest. She idly twirled her bloody javelin. “I heard you howling, but I had my hands full at the time. What did you want to say to me?”

I was too poisoned for this.

“My name is Solus,” I told her. “I’m hunting Crows.” The Heroine tilted her head, midnight ponytail falling sideways with the motion.

“Of course you are,” she said, a slow smile stealing across her lips. “Shall I join you, then?”

There was a clamor of noise and movement on the opposite end of the alley as Scythas and the other Hero came rushing to my defense. Scythas stopped short when he saw us, and then saw the Crow-sized hole in the building beside us. I watched in real time as his estimation of me rose. Wonderful.

“Sol,” Scythas finally said, looking between me and the Heroine with poorly masked unease. “She’s-”

“A fellow hunter,” she said, beaming at the disgruntled look he gave her. “You two seem to be in good shape. Still, would you like me to give you a look? Just to be sure.”

“Absolutely not,” the kidnapped Hero said without hesitation. Scythas only shook his head, looking faintly pale in the light of his own heart flame.

“If you’re certain.” The Heroine dismissed them from her notice, turning to me with anticipation. To my dismay, Scythas and his rescue followed suit. Three cultivators, each individually strong enough to wipe me from the face of the earth, looked to me for a cue. A familiar weight settled on my aching shoulders.

My body ached so fiercely that I wanted to die. Every time I spoke and blood didn’t come out in place of words, I was surprised. I wanted a skin of water, a hearty meal, and a dark room with a soft bed more than anything else in the world at that moment. If I was lucky, I’d get the water.

That was fine, though. Buried in every lie was a shade of the truth. I may not have been hunting Crows before, but there was a part of me that didn’t mind the thought of it now. Those three, at least, had been kidnappers and assassins. Their tripartite souls had borne the stains of their work eternal. If the rest of their ilk were the same? Well, I could suffer a few more hours of poison and shadow stalking.

After all, I had everything I needed laid out in front of me.

Every officer knew the only cure for an ill soldier was more marching.