146 - Intruders

Riorke had a moment of disbelief, right as his knee connected with the general’s face.

He dropped to the ground and hopped back two steps to evade retribution.

It didn’t come.

Seemingly, the general was in just as much shock as Riorke himself, staring down at his own feet.

Clearly, neither of them had been expecting that blow to connect. Yes, Riorke had been giving this fight every bit of strength and pent-up rage he had built up from days of solitude, where there was nothing to do but stare at grey walls.

His blood was pumping, and fury had tinged the corners of his vision red, but it retreated now, as tendrils of common sense returned.

Something had happened, something very strange.

The general should have dodged his attack. Everything was set up for clean evasion. Riorke could picture it now, the general's knee cocked slightly, calf muscles tensed, his eyes gleaming with the dare.

Riorke had known he would miss him, even before his feet left the ground.

But then something happened.

The general's feet forgot what they were supposed to do and didn’t move nearly fast enough to get him out of the way in time.

What was that? Did he make a mistake with his spell?

[Rush] was a fairly common spell that Pissguzzler used often. It was highly unlikely he made a mistake, especially given how focused he was. Was it divine intervention then? Riorke didn’t truly believe in such things, but did some poor ghost take pity on him and decide to help him teach Pissguzzler a lesson?

If so…maybe they shouldn’t have.

Because Pissguzzler looked, well, pissed.

Fury spat out of his eyes, harsh breaths muffled by his hand over his broken nose, blood seeping between his fingers and dripping on the floor.

His rage trembled in the silence that surrounded them. A few onlookers had their jaws hanging clean off their sockets. That was the first blow Riorke had ever managed to land on the general, in all his years of antagonizing him.

The general clearly struggled to wrap his brain around that.

His eyes alone promised retribution, but Riorke decided he didn’t care. Just that one hit was worth another week in the dungeon. Two even. And he would dream about it over and over throughout his time there.

The shocking blow had frozen them all in place, but now Riorke was in motion again, taking advantage of the lull. He heard someone, likely Dan, shouting his name, but he ignored him, shooting forward, aiming his sword at Pissguzzler.

Sword met shield, but Riorke switched lanes, throwing himself to the side. The pulse still caught his feet and slammed him into the ground.

“Oof!” That body slam had more force than all the others combined, rattling his spine. It knocked the breath out of him, and Riorke’s vision blurred.

Yeah, Pissguzzler was truly out for blood now. His nose must hurt like hell. Riorke had heard the satisfying crunch underneath his knee.

He grinned with the blood in his teeth.

“Don’t tell me you lost a tooth or something,” Riorke mocked from the ground. "I thought you were made of tougher stuff than that.”

He saw the heel a second before it smashed into his face. Reflexes had him rolling out of the way on time, and he threw himself up to dodge the follow-up kick to his chest.

Though his landing was clumsy, he was already in motion, attempting another swipe. The general dodged, and Riorke cursed his current tools. He would have preferred daggers rather than a heavy sword for this fight.

It would have allowed him more versatility, and he could have followed up with a dagger throw, but he couldn’t afford to throw his sword now and lose it.

Especially as he needed it to block the general's high arc.

Steel met steel, with a resounding clang that hurt his ears.

The general, a master of the Relentless Sword, didn’t wait for the blow to settle before he brought his sword up again, this time aiming for Riorke’s shoulder. Riorke barely dodged in time a swing that would have taken his arm off, and a follow-up slash across his chest.

He went into full defensive mode as the general's successive strikes rained down fast enough to only leave brief flashes of steel in their wake, powerful enough that blocking them made his joints shake.

Riorke looked for an opening, a weakness in the other man's defense, but the general's offensive movements didn't leave much room for a counter.

He began waiting for the pulse again, getting his body accustomed to the jolting pain. He wouldn't fall this time. He would bear it and use it as an opening to go for the killing blow.

But he wasn’t expecting it to hit him in the throat.

Riorke's breath ceased. He fell to the ground and grabbed his neck, trying to force a breath to come, as a ball lodged in his airway.

“You brat,” the man hissed above him, and he heard a racket in the crowd as the sound went in and out of focus. The general sent more pulses to the environment, likely to dissuade interference, and he stared at Riorke. "You foolish boy. You refuse to learn things the easy way, so you force me to teach you the hard way."

Riorke stared up at him even as his vision swam. He didn’t beg. He didn’t plead. Even if these were his last seconds on the earth, he would leave gladly knowing Pissguzzler had never broken him. And Pissguzzler would know that he was nothing but a bully and he was inferior in every way to Riordan and that Riorke had shattered his nose in such a spectacular way that blood was now smeared over the bottom half of his face.

Riorke smiled at the fury in the other man's expression. He had just enough energy left to lift his left hand and curl his fingers until just the middle one was standing.

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Riordan had taught him that vulgar gesture from Gatawal, and the General clearly knew what it meant.

Pissguzzler held out his hand, and in his peripheral vision Riorke saw his father's men charging to the middle of the field to stop whatever was coming.

And just like that, something happened again.

Riorke had heard that thunderclap before. It was the sound of a spell failing spectacularly, and he dreaded ever having to hear it in spell-casting class.

But now it was a boon.

The sound waves struck the general in the chest, and he uttered a loud sound of shock as he flew.

When he hit the ground hard, several feet away, he didn't move.

Riorke's eyes bugged out of his head.

Dan slammed his large hand on Riorke's back, and breath rushed back into his chest, filling it. He panted and shakily braced himself on Dan's shoulder, struggling to think.

Sound and scent returned suddenly, but his mind was slow to make sense of the reality that the general was lying unconscious a few feet from them.

The trainees had divided themselves between rushing to Pissguzzler and checking on Riorke, but Riorke barely heard the questions they asked.

He continuously replayed the scenario in his struggling brain, the sound reverberating in his ears.

Whatever spell the general was going to cast broke.

For the second time, a spell of his malfunctioned. Just once could have been overlooked as a mistake, but the general making a mistake twice...

Maybe there was something wrong.

Perhaps with his wand. Or with his technique.

Or perhaps...

Alarm jumped into his chest.

"We might have an intruder," Riorke muttered hoarsely as he faced Dan. "Raise the alarms."

***

“That may have been overkill,” said the bird perched on Arielle’s shoulder.

“No, it wasn’t,” Arielle said. “He was trying to kill Riorke.”

"Maybe, maybe not." Vittoria remained quiet for a few seconds, but then she said, “He wouldn't just kill a Lord's son; he's not stupid. General Artis was just teaching him a lesson until his ego took over and he decided to incapacitate the boy.”

"A lesson?" Arielle took offense to that. "What lesson was there to be learned? That he was more powerful than Riorke? That much was obvious, so this entire exercise seems pointless."

"It's only pointless because your friend there is exceptionally stubborn. This method may work with some soldiers, but it won't work with him."

“Exactly.” Arielle had told Vittoria before she moved to break the spell, and Vittoria hadn't protested because she probably knew that Ari was right to be concerned. Perhaps there was a lesson somewhere in what General Pissguzzler was doing, but Riorke was choking on the ground, and the rest of the trainees were clearly trying to stop him, but Pissguzzler wasn't listening.

He wanted to hurt Riorke even more. Arielle couldn't stay still and let that happen.

Causing the man's spell to fail was the most merciful and indirect method she had available to her. The spell was only an adept tier, so the backlash wasn't fatal, and it could simply be assumed that the spell had failed for a variety of reasons.

No one would necessarily think there was outside interference.

At least that was what she thought, until she heard Riorke speaking.

"You're not listening to me!" he gasped as he struggled to his feet. "Raise the alarms."

"Why?"

"There might be an intruder."

"Rory..."

"I'm serious. Someone just did something!"

As the other soldiers tried to talk to him, Vittoria turned to stare at Arielle, who looked away guiltily.

“Well, at least he’s not stupid," Vittoria quipped.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I half-expected something like that to happen. We’re just about done here anyway. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” she said. Riorke still looked a little pale, and the general was recovering, albeit slowly. He wouldn't be in any state to continue the fight, but what about after? Would he blame Riorke for what happened? Would Riorke get sent back to the dungeon?

“You can check on your friend later,” Vittoria said. “Right now we need to go before they figure out that there really is an intruder.”

“But–”

“If we go now, they will probably dismiss your friend's concerns after finding no evidence of our presence. They might even buy that the general made a mistake. But if we stay and get caught, we will cause an international incident, because then they assume you're a spy being sent by their enemies. Do you understand?”

Arielle sighed and nodded.

“Good. I'll likely be back here anyway. You can come with me."

“When?” Arielle said.

"Tonight. After things die down."

"Okay," Arielle said. Riorke would likely be okay by then.

A second later, they appeared back in Vittoria's bedroom. They heard a loud thump outside the door as well as Inara’s chuckle, but they ignored it as Vittoria immediately materialized scrolls and folders that looked identical to the ones they'd found in the safe.

“You stole it?” Arielle asked.

“No. I duplicated it, at least the ones that were relevant to me,” she said. “From what I can tell, Lord Camhanach is aware of the flame blades, but he’s keeping it a secret so far. He believes they're still in the experimental stage and can't be distributed to his warriors yet, until he knows if there are any side effects. Once the experimentation is over, they have large shares in the ownership, sales, and distribution."

“So he’s going to be in trouble.”

“Yes, but so far there’s no evidence that he ever consorted with the demons or even knew what truly makes the flame swords magical. He likely thinks it's just the work of a controversial scientist and the Salvos family. He thinks that Nio is a dealer in illegal magical items and coincidentally found mines that produce what they're referring to as 'Calor gamma', but the researcher is elusive about details of his research, which researchers tend to be."

Arielle said, “But Lord Camhanach will still be in trouble?”

“Yes, but not as much trouble as you fear. It also depends on if he can cooperate with me. I’ll go visit him tonight, and we'll discuss it. That way I can also make sure that there’s no fallout from what you did.”

“I thought you weren’t going to tell him until the investigation was over.”

“Yes, but it's about over. I’ve discovered nearly everything there is to discover, and I just need to know if there are any more holes I need to plug up. Lord Camhanach is as good a way to find out as anyone. He’s always been an honorable man, and I’ll know if he’s lying to me anyway. He might be able to tell me more about who set up the factory."

“Can I go with you?”

"Yes, but we'll have to be careful."

"I can be careful."

"I'm sure." Vittoria sounded amused until they heard Inara say, "No, Sir Spendulon. Nothing is out there."

Vittoria frowned and opened the door, leading out of the living room, where she saw that Sir Spendulon was once more scratching at the door.

She frowned and then looked out of the window, before glancing back at Arielle standing there.

“Stay here,” she said. “I’m going out. And if anything comes close to the cabin, kill it first and ask questions later."

Arielle nodded.

Vittoria vanished, leaving a no-longer-amused Inara and an agitated Sir Spendulon in her wake.

Inara met Arielle's eyes fearfully.

"It's okay," Ari told them. "Everything will be fine."

"Yes," Inara said, but her fear didn't subside. Arielle couldn't think of what to say, so she spent time checking on Vittoria's protection spells, making sure that everything was still in place.

She used [Sensate], meditation, and sensed something dark surrounding them.

Something demonic.

The sand shifted slightly outside the door, and the air radiated with menace.

She waited, seconds, minutes.

Vittoria wasn't back.