I took in information through my senses at a blinding speed while Yaavtey soared towards me. The explosion of dust where Yaavtey had stood just fractions of a second before was caused by him kicking off of the ground using an amount of force magic that was, in my estimation, at least three to four times the maximum output I was capable of. He didn't even bother to draw a weapon before attacking, instead rushing directly towards me with a vicious right-handed straight. Thankfully I had predicted the move from his footwork and was moving to avoid it before he even kicked off of the ground. Even in his weakened state I had suspected that Yaavtey was simply too strong for me to overpower in a fight like most humans. Instead, I would have to attempt to fight in a more technical style and make avoidance my main goal, like I would when facing warbreed with a combat knife.

After ducking to the left to avoid the punch aimed at my head, I sprung upwards with my core muscles while simultaneously swinging my sword in the same direction to clip the end of Yaavtey's hand. To my surprise, the sword did cut his flesh, passing between his middle and ring fingers like it would have with any other human and spilling a small amount of blood. I reversed the direction of the sword once it had passed above Yaavtey's hand and turned it downward for a follow-up swing with my weight behind it, and that was where the problems began.

The downward swing would have, under normal circumstances, cut off the right hand of its victim with ease. A fight with someone using force magic, however, was about as far from normal circumstances as possible. Just as my blade was about to touch Yaavtey's skin, it stopped as though it had impacted something. There was no recoil or indication that an object had struck the blade, it simply stopped moving while I was still holding it. In surprise I tried to pull it away, but found that the weapon was stuck in place. Yaavtey's left arm cocked back, his fist flew towards me, and I had to choose between letting go of my weapon or getting hit.

I braced for impact, turning at the last second, and felt a fist as hard as steel crush my right upper ribs. My sword came free of the magic which was holding it and I staggered back around a meter and a half, only barely managing to avoid another right straight that would have shattered my skull. I coughed and spat blood to clear my lungs, ignoring the burning of rapid healing, then used my own force magic to jump three meters to my left and reposition. In midair, I threw one of the utility knives in Yaavtey’s direction. It was caught, much like my sword, before impacting Yaavtey's temple. With a roar, he grabbed the knife and threw it back at me, missing completely.

The pitiful throw was followed up by Yaavtey charging in my direction, forearms up like a wall, yelling obscenities as he did. I deftly stepped out of the way at the last moment, swinging once again to try to cut off a limb. My sword stuck to Yaavtey's left forearm and wrenched my shoulder as it continued with the full momentum of the man's run. Planting my feet and pulling back on the handle as hard as I could, I managed to dislodge the blade and nearly lost my balance in the process. Yaavtey stomped to nullify his momentum, then drew his weapons and turned in my direction.

He's catching my sword just like I did with Yehpweyl's leg, I realized in the brief moment of respite, but he didn't catch it the first time. Was he not ready for it? My train of thought was interrupted by a hatchet swinging towards my forehead. Yaavtey's strikes were precise and powerful, but hatchet fighting was similar to baton fighting and just by watching Yaavtey's movements I knew I had the experience advantage. I didn't even try to block, knowing full well that doing so would probably break my weapon or my weapon arm. Instead, I used Yaavtey's obvious telegraphs to only allow his strikes to graze me at most, causing minimal harm. Some had to be deflected, though I used an absolute minimum of force when doing so. Even light contact between the metal of our blades sent sparks flying between us from the energy involved.

In order to keep up with Yaavtey's speed, I had to use spurts of force magic in my evasion movements. Every three or four strikes I had a good opening to get a strike of my own in, and every time I struck back my sword stuck to the air near Yaavtey's skin and needed to be wrenched out. Twisting the weapon seemed to lessen the force required to remove it, and after a few repetitions I became used to breaking the predictable magic grab. As well, I noticed that it wasn't always exactly the same. Strikes I made that were aimed at areas closer to the edges of Yaavtey's field of vision, and strikes that were aimed at less conventional areas like the thighs and chin, penetrated deeper into Yaavtey's “shield” than the others. He's limited by sensory information and prediction, I realized, and despite his strength, his reflexes aren't as fast as mine. He needs to either see the sword, or know where it's going to be, to catch it quickly. If he doesn't expect a strike, it's harder for him.

A glimmer of hope and a twinge of the strange feeling I had experienced when struggling to survive Yaavtey's knife in my heart rose in my chest, and the left side of my mouth curled into a grin. I can win, I thought as I avoided another strike, he has a weakness that is matched by one of my strengths. The next strike of Yaavtey's furious barrage swung across my chest, and instead of dodging fully, I let the tip of the axe sink a centimeter into me. The plate in the chest of my armor did its best to bear the brunt of the attack, bruising my skin and bending my entire ribcage, and I used Yaavtey's obstructed sight line to stomp at his foot with force magic. Bone crunched, and Yaavtey grunted.

Using his momentary distraction I grabbed my sword with both hands and stabbed it towards the center of his chest. I saw Yaavtey's face tighten as his eyes tracked down to the weapon. He bared his teeth, and the sword slowed but did not stop fast enough. The tip of my blade sunk just over a centimeter into his sternum, and I snatched it away before Yaavtey's ethereal grip could lock it in place. His left hand swung another chop in my direction, but I had seen it coming before he made it, so I had already moved back to avoid it. The axe whistled safely past me and Yaavtey grimaced.

There was a lull in combat for a moment. I planned my next move, and Yaavtey was huffing and puffing to get more oxygen into his body. Eight centimeters, I thought, his grip won't extend to the blades themselves. That means I can attack his weapons. Taking an aggressive stance, I moved in and began a series of slashes towards Yaavtey, trying to draw out a block from him. Instead, he simply stood in place and tried to snatch my blade magically when it came into range. Of course he wouldn't even attempt to block, I cursed, it's like he has an infinite reserve of power. He can't possibly have an infinite reserve though... right?

Yaavtey swung at me again, and I decided to try another approach. Holding up my free hand to his face, I blasted as much light as I could in a single moment towards his eyes, then swung my sword towards his neck. Yaavtey winced when the light met his eyes, pupils turning to pinpricks, but my sword still failed to connect due to a magical barrier. Unlike before, however, it didn't stick in position relative to Yaavtey's body. Instead, it seemed to slip along an unseen surface, being repelled as Yaavtey grunted and stepped back. I stepped in and attacked again before he could recover his vision, knocking his right-hand hatchet from his grip and glancing another blow off of his invisible shield near his chest, which slipped along the "surface" just like the previous one.

“ENOUGH OF THIS!” Yaavtey roared, snapping bloodshot eyes open and flailing his left-hand weapon towards me wildly. His previous strikes had had telegraphs, but now that he had lost his patience he fought more like a wild animal. I was forced to deflect the hatched, spewing sparks between us and disrupting my vision for a moment. Yaavtey somehow shot his right arm out so quickly that I couldn't track it, grabbed my chest armor, then threw me three meters upwards in an arc towards the burning guild hall. Quick thinking and reflexes let me right myself to land on my feet just in time to dodge another overhead chop and deliver a counter-strike to Yaavtey's left armpit just inside his range of vision.

To my surprise, the blade skimmed his skin leaving a small cut, and Yaavtey grunted in apparent pain. I dodged a horizontal strike, then threw back my own stab towards Yaavtey's chest. My sword was caught by the shield and I saw Yaavtey flinch, then my sword lurched forward and was caught again before I wrenched it back into my grip. Yaavtey screamed and dived in my direction to try to tackle me, but I easily read the movement and avoided it. As he passed to my right, I chopped down with my sword, clipping out a piece of his skin and rib bone. Yaavtey stumbled and tried to catch himself, but then fell to the ground some three meters from me.

He's running out of energy, I realized, it's only been a few minutes, but he can't sustain the level of output he's been using. As if to confirm my suspicion I saw that Yaavtey's healing had noticeably slowed down, with the small cut I had left under his arm still oozing blood even though it should have healed in under a second. Yaavtey shoved himself up to his feet and growled, then grunted like a gorilla and smashed his right fist into his chest, following up with a roar. Tossing his left-hand weapon to his right, he dove toward me and began another series of attacks. Even his movements had gotten slower, and without the advantage of his extremely powerful force magic it was abundantly apparent that Yaavtey was only a middling fighter in terms of technical skill.

I sidestepped an overhead strike, cutting Yaavtey's bicep with a counter strike. I ducked a horizontal chop and then stabbed, getting deep enough into his abdomen to impale organs before my blade was caught. I bobbed my head out of the way of a punch, then followed it with one of my own, cracking his nose and drawing blood. Slowly but surely, Yaavtey was looking more and more beaten up, though I was also beginning to feel fatigue. I didn't need to check my heads-up display to know that the force magic I had been using the whole fight to keep up with Yaavtey was draining my own reserves sharply, but instinctively I knew I could keep going for longer than my opponent could.

Finally, Yaavtey overextended himself and one of my swings found a real target. My blade bit into Yaavtey's right wrist and cut clean through the flesh and bone of it like it was nothing more than grass. When his detached hand slapped the dirt between us, I knew the fight has turned fully in my favor. To his credit Yaavtey barely reacted to the mutilation, following up with a left hook to try to take advantage of any moment of hesitation or shock I may have had. Unfortunately for him, I had no such moment, and I caught his own fist a centimeter from my face with the same variety of force magic technique he had been using. The action drained my dwindling reserves considerably but put me in a perfect position for a lethal strike to the heart. A single gasp punctuated several minutes of grunting, roaring, and fighting, and Yaavtey's body went limp.

With my sword hooked under his sternum, through his heart, and poking out of the back of his neck, Yaavtey collapsed to his knees weakly. His breathing grew quick and shallow, then he tilted over and fell to the ground without any attempt to stop himself, and I saw the position of my strike's exit wound clearly. My blade had severed his spine somewhere just below the point of instant lethality, paralyzing him from the neck down. I felt my own body's exhaustion all at once, my muscles loosening and weakening now that my body knew it no longer had to fight. I took a knee beside my opponent, let go of the handle of my blade, and gulped down great breaths of air. My whole body seemed to tingle and spark with the sensation of rapid healing correcting damage from overuse and stress. The world tilted precariously, threatening to throw me to the ground alongside Yaavtey.

Looking around, I saw that there were a few humans peeking out of the alleys at our fight, but otherwise no witnesses to the affair that had happened. No guards graced the streets, and not a word was said as Yaavtey lay dying in front of me. The fire in the guild hall crackled and popped and gushed in our direction, the door having long since collapsed from its wooden parts burning and breaking apart. No humans had exited the building after Yaavtey, suggesting that all inside were dead.

“Do it,” Yaavtey said weakly, “send me to my son.” It took a moment for me to realize what he meant.

“You'll be dead soon enough,” I replied coldly.

“Why...?” Yaavtey groaned. “Why did you-”

“Why!?” I snapped, my restrained anger finally breaking out of my control. “Why what? Why did I kill your family? Why did I kill your guild? Does it matter now? I can't believe I nearly let a human like you kill me.” Yaavtey gawked at me as I ranted. I had expected him to be angry, even give a final taunt, but the gall to question my motives was incomprehensible and enraging. Breaking my concentration, he coughed out blood and his eyes defocused, but his shallow and labored breathing continued. I took another deep breath and settled my temper once more. He'll be dead in two minutes at most, even with the healing, I told myself. “They died because you were too weak to stop me,” I finished venomously, “and because they, like you, you are nothing to me.”

“I should have listened...” Yaavtey croaked. His voice was nearly a whisper, his breathing so weak it couldn't muster the volume of normal speech. “They warned me about you,” he continued, “but I didn't listen... I didn't think... you were really...” Each breath was wet, and as he spoke air seeped out through his wound, bubbling the blood which was oozing around my blade.

“Who warned you about me?” I demanded. “Yehpweyl? Dawpvaol? Koylzmeyl?” Yaavtey coughed a few times in rapid succession, and then a faint smile on my face realized he was actually laughing. Just answer me or die you rat bastard, I raged, I’m not pulling my sword out of you to interrogate you.

“A jhaoyeyl would kill me...” he murmured incoherently, “who would have believed... something so stupid? But seeing it... I can't deny... even the prisoner in the basement... knew more than me... he knew... you weren't a... normal person.” Yaavtey’s speech grew less coherent by the moment, and his breathing began to speed up as his lungs and diaphragm tried to get enough oxygen to keep him conscious.

“Prisoner?” I asked. I didn't expect Yaavtey to react since he was so close to death, but his blank eyes turned towards me, and he smiled again. The spasms from his chest grew even more rapid, with each inhale and exhale coming quicker than the last as his body struggled to make up for its dwindling blood oxygen supply.

“You'll never- save him,” he gasped weakly, sparing a few huffs of air to chuckle, “That is what- you came here- to do- right?” What is he talking about? I thought frantically. “Fool,” Yaavtey laughed bitterly, “he's not as- strong as us. He's already- dead from the- flames and the- poison. You killed- him too. You useless- idiot.” Yaavtey coughed out more laughter, louder than before, mocking me. The blood from his mouth turned dark and clotted, with a texture like warm tree sap.

“What prisoner?” I pressed, grabbing Yaavtey's head and forcing him to face me. “What are you talking about?” Yaavtey grinned and another rush of dark, viscous blood poured out from between his teeth.

“That little- rat- you came- in with,” he hacked, spitting near-black blood in my face. “I've been- stealing- his- nuway- powm- but it- didn't- make a- difference. Truly- a thing- like you- is...” Yaavtey's eyes rolled around, then pointed up at the sky. “Ahvey- lehp- Zhawley- feyl- I- was- so... I'm... s...” Yaavtey exhaled, failing to finish his final word, then his body went still and the night went silent with it.

There's no way it's him, I thought, looking back to the burning guild hall, he couldn't possibly have meant Koyl. Koyl’s dead by now, they wouldn’t have kept him alive. I had expected satisfaction in killing Yaavtey, but instead all I felt was tension. My body urged me to run into the building, trying to get me to brave the flames, but I stayed still, head spinning. Rationally, my mind told me that I didn't need Koyl, and that Yaavtey was probably just babbling, but a pain in my chest argued the opposite. Why would the body care about that? I hissed. It's because... It's because if Koyl dies, I lose a resource. If Koyl dies, that means Yaavtey wins. If Koyl dies, and I could have saved him, I let my opponent beat me.

I knew it wasn't fully rational, and I knew it had little bearing on my overall mission, but I couldn't ignore it. He's still useful, I concluded, aligning my mind with my body, he provides useful functions, and can serve as a local guide. He knows the written language, and he's proven to follow orders as well as a human can be expected to. If he's in there, it's worth making an attempt to get him out. I stood up and searched the ground for my mask, put it on, then looked back at the inferno I created.