Valor and Violence

Ferez stood with his arms folded across his chest, his gaze shifting between the dozen men surrounding him inside the tent. They came from all corners of the land, a crash of different hair colours and skin tones, builds and clothing styles. The one thing that unified them was a patch sewn onto the right shoulder of their tops, a black diamond with the icon of a blood red dagger stitched into its centre. The heraldry of the Bloody Blade, the nom de guerre of the most powerful and infamous pirate king on the Continent.

“I thought this sort of thing was illegal in The Six Cities?” said the leader, a Calandorian with more scar tissue than unblemished skin on his face. Even staring directly at him from less than a few paces, Ferez struggled to identify where his nose, mouth and left eye were, or had been, at least. All that was left was a single beady eye staring out from the shiny, warped mess with something akin to hunger and glee.

“Human trafficking? Oh, absolutely,” Ferez replied. “It’s been outlawed for hundreds of years, at least.”

“Would be a bad look if this came to light then, aye? One of the vaunted High Mages consorting with scum like us?”

Ferez gave a dry chuckle and rolled his shoulders, still unused as they were to the weight of his new robes of office.

“Undoubtedly.”

“Why the risk, then? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“The girl-”

“Cargo,” the leader interrupted.

“I would rather not. She is a human being.”

“Once you own her, she can be whatever you like. For now, she’s cargo.”

“The girl may be one of the most latently powerful mages in the world. I have come to retrieve her and bring her back to her rightful place.”

“And that’s where that big ‘ol crate of gold comes into it, aye?” Leader asked, nodding to the chest sitting beside Ferez. The mage bent down and unlatched it, tossing the lid open to reveal enough gold bars to buy a small country. Or maybe a large one, so long as it was Marduk.

“As agreed upon. Here is your fee.”

The hunger in the pirate’s eyes peaked in intensity as he crept forward, the location of his mouth revealed when a gnarled tongue darted out to lick the remnants of his lips.

“All this for a little girl?”

“A mage.”

“Not yet, she ain’t.”

“What is your point?”

“If this is what your college would pay for an untrained little brat, I wonder what they would pay for a High Mage?”

Ferez sighed and folded his hands underneath his robe.

“I would strongly advise against this.”

“Why not? You brought the gold, all by your lonesome. No one to rescue you, because it wouldn’t do to have witnesses for this transaction.”

Around him, the men began unsheathing weapons, maces and swords and daggers and all assortment of nasty, stabby, things.

“Yes, because I am one of the most dangerous men on the face of the planet,” Ferez replied.

“True that, true. But you’re a mage. There’s limits to what you can do. For instance, if someone were to trap you under a net made of Resonance Ore…”

There was the sudden sound of movement behind the mage, and before he could move, a brassy metal net was dropped over his head. Not that he made any attempt to avoid it.

“Oh no,” he said in a monotone. “Whatsoever will I do now?”

“If you’re smart, you’ll come along with us. Quietly, and without fuss. If you aren’t smart, we’ll cut pieces off you until you take the hint.”

Ferez raised the netting to his face and peered at the material. It was a Resonance alloy, barely. Pieces of soft metal threads interwoven with a standard linen fishing net, he could cut through it with a butter knife if he wanted to.

“This is, without a doubt, the worst anti-mage net I’ve ever been captured in.”

“Ah! But you have been captured.”

“Have I? How sure are you I came alone?” Ferez asked, letting the net fall back into place as he smiled at the slaver. Leader frowned as shouts rose throughout the camp beyond the canvas, followed quickly by screams and the clash of metal.

“You piece of shit,” Leader cursed. “You!” he said, pointing at the slaver closest to the entrance, “see what’s going on.”

The man dutifully poked his head out of the tent flap as galloping hooves thundered past. He crumpled to the ground as his head flew back inside.

“Son of a bitch!”

Leader yelled, trying to restore order as the others panicked, and Ferez made his move. He drew the twin tulwars concealed beneath his cloak and slashed through the net in a smooth movement, falling upon the raiders while their attention was focussed outside. He had scythed through half their number before they realised the fox was already in the henhouse.

Leader was the first to counterattack, diving at Ferez with a pair of rusty hatchets. Ferez caught them with one blade and sliced the other across the top of the slaver’s legs. The ruffian dropped, screaming, but his example had spurred the survivors into action. They rushed at him in the cramped space, swinging cudgels and blades as they screamed bloody murder.

Ferez parried the first blow, dragging his attacker off balance and into the path of another. The unexpected obstacle tripped the man, and Ferez ran him through as his charge turned into an uncontrolled tumble. The unengaged fighters skidded to a halt, re-evaluating the wisdom of charging in half cocked. Ferez ripped his blades free and flicked the blood off with a flourish, taking stock of the remaining slavers as they fanned out around him.

“Know this, vagabonds. You stand before High Mage Ferez Abdul Ahud, the Avatar of Flame.”

The men glanced at each other, uncertainty in their eyes and posture. Ferez paused a moment more, letting his words achieve maximum theatrical effect before he smiled and raised his swords.

“You will die here today!”

He rushed the man in front of him, swinging high with one sword, then raking the other through his neck as he blocked. He spun around the body before it could topple, kicking it into an attacker and knocking him to the ground, before hurling a blade through the torso of another. With a hand now free, he fired a Flash Bomb into a third victim, blowing the slaver’s body apart from the waist up. The last survivor on his feet ran for the entrance, dropping his club as his feet slipped in the loose desert sand underfoot. Ferez pointed a finger at him, tracking the miscreant as he poured Talent into his fingertip, condensing the volatile Pyrian energies into an extremely dense, white-hot point.

Just as the fool reached the open air, Ferez released the magic, firing a tiny, super-heated missile of flame. It entered the back of the man’s head and exited his forehead, shooting off into the distance as the villain toppled forward, cranial fluid leaking from the holes. There was no blood, the heat of the pellet had cauterised or fused the tissue it passed through.

“Please, sir. Mercy?” the last slaver whimpered from underneath his peer’s corpse as Ferez advanced on him.

Ferez regarded him, his gaze roving over the man’s face. Northern Emrinthian. Weathered, his thick stubble masking the heavy lines in his face. A face contorted in fear. The mage wondered how many times the slaver had seen that expression in the visage of his victims.

“No.”

Ferez plunged his tulwar between the man’s eyes, the heavy steel punching through the bridge of his nose, the curved blade severing the brain stem on its path through the cranium and out the back of the neck.

“Anything to say?” Ferez asked as he straightened, flicking his weapon clean and returning it to its scabbard. Behind him, Leader coughed and groaned, rolling onto his back to glare at Ferez with his one good eye. “You maggot. You planned this?”

“Of course.”

“You piece of shit.”

“Come on, you can do better than that, friend. You’ve already used that line.”

With a flick of his wrist, Ferez set the tent ablaze, mentally directing the flames to rapidly consume the canvas, exposing the rest of the slaver’s camp. It was carnage. Dead slavers littered the ground as Phoenix Guardsmen charged about on horses, running down the stragglers.

Ferez whistled and waved down one of them. “Asim! How goes it?”

The guardsman dutifully trotted over, shaking the blood from the head of his halberd. He cut a striking figure atop his steed, clad in vibrant red armour, the poleaxe head shaped like a stylised flame.

“It goes well, High Mage,” the large guardsman said, bowing his head to the mage. “The camp is all but razed. There are small numbers of slavers still breathing, though they will not be for long.”

“Excellent work, keep it up.”

Ferez turned away to interrogate Leader, but Asim cleared his throat.

“Is there something else?” Ferez asked.

“We have not found any slaves yet.”

“None at all?”

“None.”

“You cheeky little shit,” Ferez said, crouching before the stricken slaver. “You were never planning on honouring our deal, were you?”

“Heh. Like you can judge, mage.”

Ferez shrugged with a wry smile. “Fair point. I was hoping you’d be stupid enough to bring the girl anyway, though.”

“Not a chance. The Bloody Blade knows about you, High Mage. We knew you would never actually purchase a slave. Weren’t expecting you to bring back up, though. We figured you’d be cocky enough to come alone,” he said, looking around ruefully.

“What can I say, with age has come experience. I now know one needn’t shoulder the weight of the world by themselves. Also, I’m a High Mage. I have a literal army of elite fighters at my beck and call. Why the Pit wouldn’t I bring them with me?” he asked, smacking the slaver upside the head. “Bloody idiot. So, the girl. She’s still in your stronghold?”

Leader laughed, a harsh, hacking sound. “That’s right. She’s locked up nice and tight in the bowels of the Widow’s Wail. There’s any army of pirates waiting there. She might as well be a world away.”

Ferez frowned, weighing up his options in his head. He had known this would be a long shot, but he’d taken it because the alternative, sieging the largest pirate stronghold in the world, was an even longer shot. Despite sitting on the Emrinthian coast, just a metaphorical stone’s throw from the chief naval centre of a civilisation famously uncompromising about slavery, it persisted because it was, by conventional logic, unassailable.

It sat amid a most curious geological formation, a gargantuan nest of sheer stone spires rising from the seabed in a chaotic jumble. It was all but unassailable to anyone who did not know the safest paths through, and even then, navigating the narrow waterways was perilous and best attempted a single vessel at a time. Ferez had seen it once from a distance, in a lot of ways it had reminded him of the stone forest he and Leo had braved during their fateful first adventure, though the scale of the pirate’s haven was such that it was beyond the capabilities of any earthly mages.

The memory sent a pang through Ferez’s chest. He hadn’t seen Leo in decades, Ingrid in even longer than that. The three of them had gone their separate ways, pursuing their own goals. Ingrid had reforged her clan into the greatest power in Skjar. They called her the Jarlessa of Jarls, all the clans paying tribute of wealth and fighters in acknowledgement of her superiority, for the first time in that fractious nation’s history.

Leo, meanwhile, had continued to build his own empire, running a semi-legitimate privateer fleet out of the Tok Risim archipelago, selling his fleet’s services to the highest bidder, and running a healthy smuggling enterprise concealed beneath his more martial activities.

“Heh. You get it now, don’t you? She’s out of your reach.”

“What?” Ferez asked, startled from his reminiscing and realising he was wearing his emotions on his face. He cleared his throat and squared his shoulders, quickly stuffing the ache in his chest back down. “Sorry, my mind went on a small tangent there. I’m not too concerned about Widow’s Wail. There isn’t a problem on Telrus’ blessed earth that lacks a solution.”

“What are you talking about? There’s no way you’re ever getting your hands on her. Not to fear though, another summer or two and the boys will be all too happy to put hands on her on your beh-”

Ferez cut the disgusting monologue short, wreathing his hand in flame and punching it through the mongrel’s face. With a mental prod, he cast off the fire, blowing the head apart and, crucially, keeping any sticky bits from coming into contact with his own skin.

He turned and strolled out of the bone scaffold, all that was left of the tent, and started the long walk back to the Pyrian camp. Asim fell in beside him, reaching down and offering a hand to hoist the high mage onto the horse. Ferez smiled but shook his head.

“No, thank you, Asim. I like to walk when I am thinking.”

He paused as a raider shot out from between two tents, crossing his path. He incinerated the hapless pirate and stepped over the smouldering corpse without breaking stride.

“That disgusting fellow wasn’t entirely wrong, though. Widow’s Wail is conventionally unassailable. This will take some creativity, I fear.”