The Book of End's End: Fighting Dogs - Chapter 9 (Patreon)

The cry met Crow’s ears like nails against a blackboard. Shrill, raw and filled with more pain than emotion. It was a sound to freeze the blood in his heart and bring him whirling around with a desperate urgency.

He saw crimson vapour coiling in the air like smoke caught in a gale. Blood stained the ground, pooling and dripping with terrifying steadiness. Its source chilled him more.

Unity stood with his back to Crow, face hidden behind his head and posture stiff from the strength of magic. His arm was clear before him; outheld and half-straightened, with paling flesh and redenning fabric. Its veins emptying out into the pooling ichor at the boy’s feet.

A spear haft protruded from it, hand of steel meeting a fathom of wood where the tip was buried in him.

“What?”

The question said nothing, asked everything, yet Crow found himself unable to form words with any greater meaning. The sight before him drove thought from his mind.

“I’m sorry.” Came a voice.

Even as he looked into Ethi’s face and saw the moving of her lips in time with every word, he still searched for the real speaker.

“I’m sorry.” The girl said again. The red smoke thinned, then broke like fog banished by a fire. Her eyes welled with tears as the shaft of her spear began to tremble in Unity’s arm.

For a moment Crow felt nothing but a stupid pity for her. Then the girl’s eyes hardened.

Her face twisted tight, lips peeling back to bear teeth as the sanguine, magical fog thickened around her once more. The drool of blood leaking from Unity’s arm became a shower, spliced with scraps of cloth and raced from him by a scream of agony as the girl yanked her weapon free.

It spun in her hand, scattering gore like rain, and Crow reached for his magic.

He touched it as she took a step towards him, her speed making clear that she’d reach him before his power.

Unity fell down at a pace equal to Ethi’s rush forwards, and Crow glimpsed the metallic tip of her weapon as it whistled for him. He threw himself back, hearing it cut through air inches from his throat, then grunted as he landed.

The girl didn’t pause, her feet shifted and sent her darting forth once more. Her charge was interrupted as Unity raised a leg, catching her foot with his shin and tripping the girl with a sickening crack.

Crow rose as she stumbled, then rolled as she swung. Sand was cast into the air by her weapon scraping the ground.

He was on his feet by the time she brought it back around, leaping from a thrust.

The magic came to him so very slowly, perhaps two seconds. It might as well have been an age. Ethi pivoted, drew her weapon in close and rounded her shoulders to stab as she froze with a momentary tension.

She’s no faster than usual. Crow realised. The sudden comprehension came but fractionally before another skewering stab.

He leapt aside, shifting the sluggish blow’s mark by inches where he ought to have by hands.

Metal bit through the flesh of one side, tearing rather rather than cutting and wreathing Crow’s ribs in flame-hot agony before it slid along the bone and leapt free.

Ethi adjusted her grip masterfully, clearly well experienced with the weapon, and moved to bring it back around.

Halfway through its retreat, the spear slowed. The time it had taken to move inches now shifted it centimetres, barely-perceptible quiver born from a cautious human grip sharpened into clear focus as it grew glacial.

Magic brought Crow on her before she could move again.

His elbow crunched into Ethi's nose, sending her reeling. A wild stab threw edged steel at his face, but it seemed to drag in Crow’s perception like the creeping of a spider. He sidestepped, seizing the shaft with one hand and bringing the other down on the girl’s wrist.

The move was executed no worse than he’d ever managed under Galad’s watchful eye, and it brought Ethi’s fingers springing apart to leave the spear falling harmlessly from them.

She swung with a punch, and Crow ducked under it. His fists flew faster than hers twice over, but the force behind them seemed barely enough to faze the girl.

Of course. I saw how fast she was, it only makes sense she’s just as strong now.

Ethi recovered, barreling after Crow with a rain of punches and kicks. His speed advantage made defence a triviality, but the power behind each of her attacks gave it urgency.

Another blow met the girl’s face, faster by far than she could match, and no more effective than the others. She stepped back, eyes wide and glare wild as her nostrils flared with thunderous breaths.

“Why are you doing this?” Crow asked, finding the rush of fear and panic suddenly ignited in his veins by a flood of anger. Ethi was his teammate. His teammate.

He would know why that seemed to matter so little to her.

Teeth flashed in a feral snarl as all the softness of her face became edged and tough. The girl met his question with a challenging stare.

“Why do you think?” Ethi spat. “You read your scrying slate just as I read mine. Only one of us can move on, and the only chance I had of ensuring it was me was striking before you could realise that.”

She took a single step forward, then halted as a grunting from the side claimed both their attentions.

Unity forced himself to sit, body moving slow and shaky like an insect. Pain racked the boy’s face, twisting his mouth and burning in his eyes. Behind it was a rage stronger still. Crow found himself relieved to see a torn rag binding his gashed arm, strangling its veins and drying the well of blood.

“Excellent work getting her talking Crow,” he hissed, lips moving with a strain similar to the rest of him, “Now you grab her and I’ll rip her in half.”

Magic tightened around his good hand like capillaries contracting in a heart, and Crow found himself stepping towards the boy with hands raised.

“Hold on,” he began. Unity was speaking before another word could escape him.

“No, you hold her, Crow.” A hysterical note seemed to seize the artificial’s voice as he moved forwards, madness mixing with agony to throw his face into spasms.

“You can fucking try.” Ethi snarled, the spear was back in her hands, dancing dangerously in her grip amid a rain of spittle. She seemed to challenge Unity with the wildness in her eyes.

Crow sensed the violence in the air, felt it sting his nostrils like gunfire. It gave him haste.

“Both of you need to back off right now.” He barked, surprising himself with the strength in his voice. Neither of his teammates seemed to even notice it. “We can’t afford to fight amongst ourselves,” he continued. Unity drowned the next of his words in shrill, mocking laughter.

“Pit, Crow, tell me you aren’t so stupid that you think our little coterie didn’t fall apart at the seams the instant she opened my fucking arm up.”

“I think that we’re all being hasty here.” He tried, yet Ethi cut in before another word could escape him.

“No, I think one of us is trying to lure my guard down so that the other can fucking kill me.”

“Oh fuck you.” Snapped Unity, bitterness mixing with dangerous amusement in his voice. “The only reason your spear isn’t sticking out of his spine like a fencepost is because you’re as incompetent as you are serpentine.”

Ethi’s grip tightened further, hands turning sheet-white as the blood was squeezed from them. Her spear strained, then buckled, under the preternatural grip.

Crow took a step forward, raising his voice in a desperate attempt to recapture both her and Unity’s focus.

“We don’t need to fight at all!” He roared. “All of us can reach the second stage together, this is completely unnecessary.”

For a moment neither the artificial or Takawan moved. Then both heads turned to Crow.

Ethi’s brown eyes and Unity’s blue seemed indistinguishable as they stared at him, the intensity in both overshadowing all.

“You have five seconds to elaborate.” Unity said at last.

“Read your slates again.” Crow pressed, brandishing his own for emphasis. He saw both of them hesitate, then saw their eyes flicker down- bodies tense and muscles taut in suspicion of the other.

“Oh.” Said Unity, exhaling the words more than speaking them. He stared at his slate absently, though his eyes had slid across it half a dozen times at least. “Oh fuck.” He repeated.

Ethi stiffened, suspicion lining her face no less than before.

“Drop the dramatics and tell me what I’m supposed to be seeing.”

“What does the slate say specifically?” Unity asked, his embittered anger giving way to some of the usual irritation he reserved for questions.

“It says that only one of us can leave.”

“No,” he hissed, “it says keys will only let one person leave.”

He stared at the girl, but his glare seemed to bestow upon her no stroke of comprehension.

“There are multiple keys.” Crow cut in, finding himself quite tired of the conversation’s dragging pace. “It says keys, plural. And if each key can give one person passage from the stage, then-”

“We can all move on.” She gasped.

The wrathful crimson energies coalescing about Ethi vanished like blood diffusing into water.

Crow felt the pressure subside in his ears as her magic withdrew, and a moment later he let go of his own.

The instant his touch left it a burning rush of emotion assailed him.

All the terror that had been driven to the back of his mind returned with a vengeance, inflicting the fearful paralysis which might have spelled defeat just moments before. It was only made stronger by the absence of magical fortitude or apathy to dilute the terrible realisation.

She tried to run me through. I wasn’t even looking at her, and she tried to stab me.

He fought to control his breathing, fought harder still to control his thoughts. Ethi eyed him with a vulnerability that threatened to shock the focus from him.

“I’m sorry.” She said, and Crow could tell she meant it. The apology did nothing to cool his temper.

“I think it’s a bit late for that one.” Unity sneered, taking a step towards the girl.

The fear that twisted her face was what dragged Crow from his fearful stupor.

“Stop.” He called out, levelling a stare at the artificial. Unity turned to meet it, confusion etched deep across his features.

“This isn’t the time to fight amongst ourselves, we need to focus on the task.”

“We can focus on the task when there isn’t a spear aimed at our backs.” Countered Unity, rounding on Crow with a look of utter amazement.

“I attacked because I knew I couldn’t beat either of you and thought I needed to.” Ethi cut in. “There’s no reason for me to do so now.”

“Wonderful!” Unity grinned, then dropped his face into a solemn and pitiless stare. “Crow and I have reason enough ourselves.”

Crow moved towards the boy, Ethi moved further from both of them.

“You’re injured.” He said, forcing his own bitterness down. “We can’t afford to fight her as we are now.”

His side stung sharply at the mention of wounds.

“And what makes you so sure she’ll leave it up to us?” Snapped Unity.

“Because there’s no reason for her not to. I can see that, why can’t you?”

From the corner of his eye he saw Ethi’s grip adjust on the haft of her spear. He silently urged the girl not to bring forth her power in a panic, to remain still and quiet while he difused things.

“Fine.” Unity relented. “But I’m not turning my back to that bitch, if you don’t want to fight her then she can fuck off and make her own way into the second stage.”

It was only then that Ethi spoke, her voice shrill and unsteady as it warred with emotion.

“I can help you. I-”

“No.” Crow cut in. “We can’t afford to fight you, but I’m not going to argue more to keep working alongside you. Leave us be and we won’t chase you, that’s all you get.”

His own arguments rang in his ears as he said it. Ethi would surely not betray them without cause, even if she had when thinking it necessary. Unity’s wound made her aid more vital than ever.

And still he couldn’t bear to face her spear with his back.

“Alright.” The girl said, eyes dropping and shoulders stooping as all fight left them. She turned wordlessly, taking off at a jog.

Crow found himself uncaring as he watched her leave. He hadn’t missed her eyes flickering to the key in his hand, nor the momentary consideration flashing within them.

He shifted his gaze to Unity, opened his mouth to speak.

The blast smothered his voice before it could even ring out.

Sand flew in all directions, kicked free a half dozen paces from Crow and hurtling bullets. The air struck him as a wall, rattling his teeth and sending stars to swim in his vision. A wave of heat touched his skin like scalding water, shrivelling hairs.

Then the weightlessness overcame him as his feet left the ground, sending his stomach shifting and flipping for several moments while the wind rushed by his ears.

Crow gasped as he hit the ground shoulders-first, legs continuing their flight and folding him over as he rolled. The world became a blurred mess to his vision as tears and pain distorted it, and when at last he felt himself stop it was all he could do to avoid crying out from the heap in which he lay.

His ears rang, his head pounded and his lungs spasmed as they fought to replace the air his fall had driven from them. Crow scrambled inwardly for his magic, heart surging at its touch before falling as he realised how slow it would come.

Move. He urged himself, pitting will against useless, slackening muscles. You need to move.

Fighting the wave of nauseous pain that ran down his body, Crow moved. He forced himself to kneel, then placed a foot flat.

He turned his position to a dive at the sound of rapid footsteps closing from one side.

Sand peppered his face and tongue. Crow spat it out, moved from dive to roll and leapt to a stand. He spun to see a boy some years older than him barreling forwards with the urgency and focus of a bloodhound.

Four heartbeats until his magic sparked to life, and the attacking mystic reached him in less than two.

A punch sailed for him so fast it blurred to a streak in Crow’s vision. His dodge brought him inches to one side, his block caught knuckle with forearm and left him spinning.

For the second time in a day he was weightless, and the ground made no softer a blanket than the first.

Three heartbeats. Or was that two?

Crow was prepared for the fall, shifting his legs and turning the impact into yet another roll. He felt agony run along his wounded shoulder like acidic lightning, and then he was up again.

He threw himself back as the boy charged him, his dodges quickly turning to stumbles before failing altogether against the frenzied assault. Fingers tightened around his wrist with strength enough to make the bone creak in protest, and with a single tug the boy hurled him to the ground.

The world seemed to slow as Crow twisted through the air, and even the steel of Utalis and ferocity of Cutaris fell second to the relief of feeling his magic rush forth.

Almost as soon as his back hit the ground he was moving back to a stand, the arcane proving a far greater propellent than muscle. He saw the boy’s eyes widen, his fist fly wild and reflexive.

It seemed so slow, suddenly. And Crow shifted from the blow’s path almost leisurely. He saw the shock on his enemy’s face, the sudden fear that came with realising how their battle had changed.

The expression disappeared beneath pain as Crow answered with a blow of his own.

He curled his lips at the disgusting sensation of flesh giving way as his fist sank into the mystic’s stomach, then stepped back as the boy stumbled away and began to fold around his gut.

For a moment pity stayed his hand. Then another pained twang ran from his jarred shoulder, and Crow twisted around to snap a kick out into the boy’s side. He felt something shift beneath the skin - buckling bones - sending his enemy down. The boy lay still, save the trembles of agony and shock.

Crow whirled without a moment’s pause, turning to see Unity rolling away from a girl whose dark hair was streaked with grey. He didn’t wait to assess the state of his teammate, only charged in towards his foe.

She turned as he came, eyes widening and fingers flexing.

Too late Crow recognised the sizzling energy about them, realised it was she who had produced the blast that had announced the attack. Five paces separated them, he cleared them at once.

As Crow reached his enemy, the air turned hot, spasming and boiling between them and spitting steam in all directions. He lunged with both hands, managing to slap hers aside just as the arcane conflagration she’d built leapt from them.

It disappeared to his left, and Crow forced himself to ignore the haywire magic as his momentum dragged him into the girl.

She wrestled for the briefest moment, long enough to make clear the fact that her magic did not bring any measure of additional strength. Crow dug a punch into the girl’s side, felt sick as ribs broke and splintered with the sound of snapping twigs, then watched as she fell back to lie still.

Studying her long enough to see through any act, he finally turned back to Unity.

“Are you alright?” He called, making his way to the artificial’s side just as he straightened up.

Pain twisted the glare he received, leaving it hostile and fogged with an aimless hatred.

“What do you fucking think?” He growled. Crow barely registered the words, his eyes coming to rest on the foaming spit that accompanied them.

Pink, or red. Either colour was damning enough. Bloody spit could be both, and one shade of vitae was as serious as the other.

“Bastards must have been here before we were.” The boy growled. Crow couldn’t help but find his words dragging, slowed as they were by his hastened thoughts and perception of time.

“They were probably watching our scuffle with the bitch. Must have had the carrions drooling.”

Grunting with the effort, the boy began to limp towards the girl’s unconscious form. He nodded in the direction of the fallen boy.

“Hurry up and go through his pockets.”

Crow’s ears popped as the shrivelled, blackened remains of the hairs lining his neck twitched to stand up. Unity’s magic gave haste to the boy’s words, an unspeakable relief to Crow’s tedium.

“I imagine they have a key of their own, unless we got ours through preferential treatment. Check up their arseholes if you need to, just make sure you do it quickly.”

He did as instructed, burying the pang of guilt as he hurried to the boy’s side and turned him over to reach his pockets. Crow had searched for no more than a dozen heartbeats when Unity’s voice rang out again.

“I found it!”

The chainbound crystal’s pale light flashed gold against a key dangling from Unity’s hand, and even from the distance between them Crow could tell it was near identical to his own.

He absently squeezed the metal in his pocket as he stood, finding reassurance in it and making his way towards the artificial at a jog.

“What do we do now?” Crow asked. Unity was already turning away from him as he said it.

“Look around. We have keys, now we need to find whatever it is that they open.” After a pause, he continued. “Keep moving, too. I’d rather not make ourselves a static target, there’s no guarantee the pair we just knocked out are the only enemies who spotted us.”

Unity led, and Crow followed in the wake of his surety. Though he kept his eyes front, he couldn’t help the distant movement drawing them one way and another as they walked.

Flashes of light dotted the landscape around him, a dozen different colours and a hundred different sources. Smoke and steam coiled from patches of sand scorched by the magic, shifting and sliding at other points where brute strength toppled dunes rather than burned them.

All around figures moved, numbering without end and rendered little more than dots by their distant positions. He needed no details to recognise them.

Warring mystics were an unmistakable sight at any range.

“We should hurry.” He called ahead, picking his own pace up as he spoke. There came no reply from the artificial, and anger began to bite at Crow.

This isn’t the time to ignore me, you bastard.

He came to walk beside his teammate, gripping the boy’s shoulder as he repeated himself. The words faltered in his throat when Unity stumbled, then dropped down to one knee.

“Are you alright?” Crow gasped, staring at the boy. He found his hands raised, palms open and wavering before him as if they might have brought Unity to his feet with but a gesture.

“Would it kill you to ask a question that doesn’t make my brain melt?”

The barb was weak, delivered with a wavering voice and fumbling lips. That Unity folded over, coughed and flecked the sand before him with blood the moment he finished was of no surprise. Yet it still sent ice coursing through Crow’s veins.

He looked to the boy’s wound. Obscured by the red-stained tatters that had been his sleeve, it revealed nothing to him. Yet the ground in their wake bore crimson enough to tell Crow all he needed to know.

“I’ll carry you.” He said, moving to prepare himself for just that. It earned another cough from Unity, accompanied by a hand waved as if to ward him.

“You fucking will not!”

More coughing, more blood. Unity fell almost fully to the ground before Crow seized him, pulling the boy upwards and slinging his wounded arm across his own shoulders.

“I told you-”

“I know, and I won’t carry you.” Crow said, interrupting the boy’s feeble protest with as much tact as he could manage. “I’ll just help you walk.”

The artificial fell silent, save for pained grunts and gasps as Crow stood half beside and half beneath him. His weight was akin to a feather, with magic to share its burden, and it was only moments before the two of them were hobbling forward once more.

“I have no idea where we ought to go,” he said to Unity, “But I think you do. So you’ll have to guide me, just lean whichever direction you think we should turn.”

“Why are you helping me?” The boy asked. His voice was as steady as a statue and pointed like a needle. It was almost enough to make Crow apologise for the aid.

“Why wouldn’t I?” He asked instead.

“Because you have your own reason for entering, and I can’t imagine why you’d want to compromise your victory here for the sake of some fucking miscarriage.”

Crow found the question hard to answer, would have even were it not for the shocking language making it. His tongue moved silent in his mouth for a few heartbeats, mind twisting around itself in search of the right words.

“You said Ethi tried to stab me in the back.” He said at last, turning to look sidelong at Unity. “But it was your arm her spear ended up stuck in. Why is that?”

“Because I don’t know how to smack a spear aside, apparently. What makes you think I even care about winning?”

Crow blinked at that. Unable to find an answer.

“Do you not?” He asked, feeling the touch of blood welling beneath his face.

“I do, it would be terribly inconvenient if I publicly failed. Antagonising my handlers relies on my actually doing well enough to get away with it.”

Unity’s tone was no more serious than normal, save for the disconcerting pain that racked his every word. He’d given away nothing, leaving Crow to guess everything. It infuriated him that, even in his state, the boy could lie so well.

Unless he’s simply telling the truth.

The uncertainty gnawed at Crow as they walked, pulling at his focus even as he kept eyes around them for any sight of enemy mystics. Occasionally a nudge or tug from Unity would adjust their course, often around dunes or to draw farther from particularly intense sounds of battle.

Crow didn’t question the boy’s motive, it seemed wiser that he focus on defending them. Not that he could have even expected to receive answers at all.

Unity’s wound slowed them, even as their shuffling pace was sustained. They made progress more by the minute, and though time dragged with the tension and fear of attack, Crow soon began to see progress in the trailing footsteps behind them.

A sand dune gave them particular trouble, steeper than the rest and taller by half. Unity struggled to climb even with Crow’s help, and the time they spent scaling it made him painfully aware of the unseen rivals racing them.

Will I see them, if they ambush us? I know my Glimpses would…

Crow banished the thought of drawing on his second ability almost as soon as it occurred to him. He could feel his magic reserves; formerly a river, reduced to little more than a stream.

A fifth left, by his reckoning. Six minutes, or thereabouts, if he were to use both of his abilities and sustain his maximum output.

The idea of his precognition’s safety was as strong a temptation as Crow had ever felt, but fear of draining the entirety of his power and once more facing a mystic without magic won out.

Nine minutes if he maintained the use of only two thirds’ his potency by utilising physical enhancement alone. It would have to do.

“How far do you think we have?” He asked, trying to bite back the tremor of his voice and finding it beyond his control.

He turned before hearing Unity’s answer as shifting sand met his ears, head moving to stare at a charging mystic in less than a heartbeat.

Without thought he released his teammate, spinning to meet the boy head on. The motion was too slow by half. A fist cracked across his jaw, throwing him back and flattening Unity across the ground as Crow plowed through him.

Rolling sidelong, he came to a stop. Eyes affixed painfully on the glaring crystal above, mouth filled with sand. He fought off the disorientation to rise.

A boot shot for his face when he was half up, crashing into a raised arm and turning aside from Crow’s block. It threatened to topple him again, dragging a stifled grunt from his throat as he wrestled his own momentum for balance.

The boy wavered, pulling his leg back and hopping ridiculously- arms flapping like a wounded bird as he struggled to keep himself right. Crow was flat on his feet before his enemy’s struggle was over, ending it himself by swinging a punch into the mystic’s temple.

Brown eyes rolled back in his head, jaw slackening and body crumpling. Crow turned from the boy even while he fell- seeing movement further ahead.

He dove from the path of flashing magic, feeling its heat on his back as it tore past him.

Crow charged the moment he met the ground, heading straight for his attacker. He glimpsed the expanding shadow on the sand ahead of him, suspicion barely turning to realisation in time to keep him from stumbling beneath the new girl as she dropped down before him.

Sand scattered from her in waves, blonde hair spilling in the air and piercing eyes looking deep into Crow. He saw no mercy or hesitation within them.

The girl ducked down, sending him staggering back reflexively from the motion. The magic that shot over her head seared the flesh of his good arm like a hot iron, filling his eyes with tears and throat with screams.

Straightening from her duck, the girl pounced like a wolf even as his cry continued. Fists flew like sling bullets, beating Crow into a retreat and sending torturous pain lancing down his body with each guarded hit, jarring the gash on one arm or the burn on another.

He slowed his withdrawal, forcing his feet steady and meeting the barrage unmoving even as it continued to burn his limbs.

Pain, Crow. It’s only pain. That’s never been a match for you before.

Nothing had changed. Despite the urging of his muscles to give in and break down, Crow held his body still and firm. Confusion flickered in the girl’s eyes, then doubt.

He redoubled them both by bringing a fist to crunch into her ribs.

The girl folded over, but kept herself straight- impressive. She raised her arms to defend, and now it was Crow’s turn to drive his foe back with an onslaught of blows. His arms stung with each impact, fists falling upon guard like a pick against stone. The sensation brought nothing but a grin to Crow.

Hours of sparring with Galad washed over his thoughts, body falling into a haze. His senses were drowned, thoughts stilled, and the world became nigh inaudible for the deafeningly loud harmony of his flesh.

He struck without thought or error. Dropping the woman’s guard by targeting it at its weakest, then slipping by the openings he made to pummel her directly.

Their battle was music, every flash of uncertainty or hesitation its notes. And Crow’s body danced almost without his input.

It was clear he was faster than his opponent, stronger by an even greater degree, and whoever had taught the mystic girl to fight wouldn’t have held a candle to Galad. His victory grew nearer by the second. Then the girl ducked.

Crow realised what was to come in an instant, leaping in to grab the girl barely a moment after she crouched. Muscle buckled into handholds beneath his grip, and he hauled her back up with a grunt.

For the third time magic boiled air and birthed steam. Crow felt its heat even with the mystic girl blocking him from it, her body stiffening and lungs emptying in a cry to curdle blood.

He cast her aside, then broke into a sprint without missing a moment. Sand fled from his footsteps and rocked his balance, run slowed painfully by the poor terrain.

Ahead magic glowed in the remaining mystic’s hands. Brighter, hotter and more lethal by the moment.

It spurred him on, banishing weakness and strangling fear.

Quicker than Crow by a heartbeat, the girl’s power reached boiling. He dove as she loosed it, turning his shoulders into the ground and covering the last few yards by roll rather than run.

She was backing away as he rose, but a glance made it clear just how little potency she’d had to spare for her physicality.

With barely enough time for the widening of eyes, Crow was upon her. He brought a hand around to crack against her head; open palmed so as not to split her skull against hard knuckles, strength halved to avoid her neck snapping. She dropped instantly, and he spun to the shuffling of displaced sand at his back.

In only moments, the first mystic reached him once more. Her attack was as wild as it was fast, taking all the impossible speed granted to her by magic and hurling it at him like a set of knives.

Haste did nothing to make them less predictable. Each one was no less amateurish, wasteful and telegraphed enough that Crow predicted them as if with his Glimpses.

He parried, ducked. Beat a retreat for two heartbeats to draw the girl in and letting the glimpse of victory make her eager.

Then he struck at her throat, closed fist meeting cartilage and bringing her down spluttering and gasping.

Pain exploded across his back, swelling lungs as they spasmodically dragged in air and leaving the world to darken around its corners through Crow’s widening eyes. The scent of cooking flesh was sickly in his nose.

He whirled, ignoring the tides of agony it brought across his torso and staring down at the kneeling mystic- hand just growing dun from released magic, eyes hazy and unfocused from the blow to her head.

Crow snapped a kick off, thinking to restrain it only an instant before it flattened her against the sand. He left his gaze on the girl, saw her writhe and grunt as she tried to stand. More sound yet behind him drew his focus from finishing her.

Turning into a fist, he staggered away with blurred vision and ringing ears.

More blows racked his body; agitating the wounds about his arms and back, leaving a streak of fire running along the gash in his shoulder. Spilling pools of pain across the burns.

It held him. Seized his arms, seeping deep into the muscle and stiffening them with immobilising convulsions. Crow felt the familiar desperation rise within, knew he’d turned to the long-range mystic too quickly.

Knew by the exertive breaths still at his back that he’d turned from her more disastrously still.

His heart raced, and he nearly cried out in relief as his tortured limbs were finally drawn from their stupor. Crow lashed out with a strike no less clumsy or frantic than any of his enemy’s, connecting through luck and sending her stumbling with strength alone.

She staggered, and he twisted sharply to face the other. Razors of pain flayed at his back, jarred burn halting his motion and paralysing all but his screaming lungs midway.

Crow saw a hand raising, magic flooding into it as the mystic glared fear and aimless hate at him.

Three yards separated them; a short enough distance that Crow could feel the heat glowing from her coiling magic, yet too far for him to lunge. He urged himself to try, sent silent commands to his body through the fog of pain that seized it.

Beginning with a twitch and ending with a barely directional jerk, he took a step towards her. It was a fight to remain upright, a struggle to keep his legs from giving way under the screaming burn atop his flesh.

A terror to see how swiftly the power at his enemy’s fingers grew compared to the decline of his own.

I’ve failed. He realised, staring at the swelling light as his body relaxed its struggle against him. Just in time for Crow to move half a step. Too little distance for anyone to miss from.

The air flashed beside the girl, then turned red and wet. Crow stared agape at the haft suddenly protruding from her neck; two paces of wood, two hands of leafed steel. A crimson river ran down her shoulder where the spearhead had bitten, and her eyes were wide with shock.

None of the fury remained within them. Only disbelief, fear and pain.

A single gasp escaped her, bloody foam bubbling and bursting from her lips, before the spear was ripped free. Blood joined the hissing edge in a spray, raining down as the weapon fell back into steady hands.

He barely noticed. Eyes affixed on Ethi, head swimming from pain, exhaustion and bafflement at the girl’s presence.

“What?”

Crow’s voice moved almost without his thought; escaping as a wordless croak. Ethi gave it no answer, merely met his eye with a cautious and almost hesitant stare.

Sound behind him spun Crow, bringing him about to face the remaining enemy. A whistling by his ear was the only warning of the spear’s flight.

It struck home in her chest, metal prying apart meat and sinking in almost a hand. The sight left Crow paralysed, and as he stood slack Ethi rushed in to seize the weapon once more. She pulled it from her enemy’s chest with barely a tug, dragging the girl to topple forwards.

Crow eyed her as the sand drank its fill of blood.

“What are you doing here?” He demanded, steeling himself by sublimating confusion with anger. Remembering the look in her eyes as that spear had leapt for his own neck, it wasn’t hard.

“I’m helping you,” The girl snapped. She stepped away from her felled enemy, lip curling at the pooling ichor that sought to wet her feet.

Crow stared as a light shimmered across the fallen mystic, then a moment later she was gone. Only a quickly smothered dry patch in the crimson lake left trace that she’d been there at all.

“Why?” He asked.

Ethi gave no more answer than she had earlier.

“Where’s Eden?” She demanded.

Stomach dropping with the mention of his teammate, Crow turned to the spot he’d last seen the boy. The sight of him moving was no comfort. Every twitch seemed ragged and strained.

“Are you alright?” He asked, kneeling down beside him. Unity turned over slow and sluggish, eyes hazy.

A slurred mumble was the boy’s only answer. Crow turned him over as he moved to lift him, then gasped at the sight his displacement revealed.

Blood dried and clotted atop the pale ground; hard and blackening in some areas, vibrant and flowing hot in others. He couldn’t gauge how much there might have been, didn’t want to.

“You didn’t bind his arm?”

Ethi’s voice pitched high with surprise. It burned Crow’s face.

“I…” He trailed off, realising there was no excuse for slipping on something so important. Worse was the knowledge that Unity had. Unity, whose mind always seemed a dozen steps past all others. Unity, whose arm Crow had idiotically dismissed by his word.

Unity, whose directions he’d been following thoughtlessly.

Tearing fabric brought his mind back to the present, and Crow turned back to see Ethi dragging the strip from Unity’s shirt. Her hands were deft as a dealer’s and swift as a bullet, trailing the white energy of her speed enhancement.

She bound Unity’s wound tight, strangling it dry and pinching veins shut within the arm. The entire process took under a second.

“We need to hurry,” She said, turning to him. “I know where we need to go to reach the second stage, but dozens of contestants have already made it there.”

Without another word she stood, keeping hold of Unity’s arm and straining to pull the boy up. Crow stared dumbly as the white of her magic slowly bled, speaking only as it turned fully crimson and she hoisted the boy effortlessly over her shoulders.

Crow seized her arm, finding himself indescribably numb. He cared not for the urgency, nor even the terrifying dwindling of his magic reserves. Only the truth.

“Why are you here?” He asked, trying to bite his voice steady. “I need to know.”

Ethi met his gaze, and Crow saw something soften in her eyes. Instantly the pale magic dissipated around her, leaving the girl to grunt and buckle under Unity’s weight. He quickly stepped in to support it.

“Fucking magic of mine.” She muttered, nodding a silent thanks.

Crow didn’t reply, simply stared and waited. Ethi took only a moment to continue.

“Because trying to stab you in the back left me feeling like shit, and I know you have your own reason for competing just like I do… So I’m here to help you.”

“And you think I’ll just trust you?”

She looked away, hands tightening around Unity’s wrists and hair falling to obscure her face. Crow didn’t need to see her expression.

What on Mirandis could drive someone to such determination?

Crow already had his answer. He’d had it for months.

“Lead the way,” He said, “I’ll take Unity.”

Ethi’s pace was impressive, even without magic to aid it. He kept up effortlessly all the same. Even burdened by Unity’s weight, each of Crow’s strides covered twice or thrice the ground of Ethi’s.

It was only by actively checking himself to keep from making them even more numerous that he allowed the girl to match him at all.

It could be worse. At least Unity’s in no fit state to keep us from carrying him now.

They covered in seconds more ground than Crow and Unity had in minutes earlier, pace as steady as the rhythmic beat of Crow’s heart.

Around them the battles had begun to die. Smoke and steam thinned in the skies, screams quieted and softened. It was a simple matter to avoid the dwindled conflict by ear and sight.

The grace of their passage didn’t last long.

“We’ll come to a giant pair of doors.” Ethi told him, the weight of her words overcoming the tedium of their slowness. “Hidden between dunes. You won’t see them until we’re within a few hundred yards. Neither will anyone else, which is why we’ll need to be more careful approaching them than we’ve been so far.”

Crow was too tired to question the exit being hidden, too weary of overstaying his few minutes of magic for anything but action. With a nod, he redoubled his pace.

The girl hadn’t been lying. Whatever dregs of enemy mystics had remained in the stage were surely gravitating towards the exit, for every fifty paces seemed to thicken the signs of conflict.

It was only when they topped a dune that Crow saw its extent.

A hundred mystics fought around the great steel construct; doors built on levitating hinges, swung open to reveal a cascading torrent of light filling the space within their frame. Even from a furlong, Crow could smell the reek of magic built around it.

The scent was tinged by acrid smoke and the silicate burn of sand. It brought his focus back to the battle unfolding at the base of the exit.

“How do we get through that?” He asked, staring at the flashes and detonations leaving one scar after another in the desert.

“Quickly.” Ethi breathed, taking off into a run without another word. Crow followed after, keeping an eye on the girl as a thought suddenly occurred to him.

A key was needed to gain entry to the second stage. He had one, and he’d made sure Unity’s was safe and secure, but Crow had no idea whether Ethi had acquired her own. And if she hadn’t, luring him to the exit with her and regaining his trust would present her with a great opportunity.

One that her speed would be perfect to exploit.

He pushed the thought to one side, but didn’t banish it. There were far more pressing dangers, ones he and Ethi were growing nearer to by the pace. But he wouldn’t be fool enough to let his guard down twice.

There were no gaps in the crust of warring mystics, at least none big enough that he and Ethi would have any chance of slipping by unhindered. Crow braced himself as they neared it.

Magic flew in all directions around them, churning up the ground and boiling it sterile. It came in every form; fire, lightning, rock-hardened sand or simply broiling energy, all were made projectiles. Crow kept his head down, fighting to avoid pinching his eyes shut in fear.

He pushed on, Ethi beside him and Unity across his back. Each second brought a torturous leap to his heart from one near-miss or another, every heartbeat he grew more certain they would be stuck down.

Their progress, he knew, was born from luck. Or that a young boy and girl with a wounded teammate were of little concern measured against the many active combatants to target.

Whether either or both, Crow murmured a silent prayer to the Teary Eyed Goddess for twisting the fates so.

It turned to a curse in his mouth as he caught a flash of light from one side.

He leapt forwards, flattening himself against the ground and feeling Unity tumble from his back to stop ahead.

Crow had only a single thought to spare worrying for the boy as he scrambled up.

Eyes moving wild and fast, he desperately tried to pick out their attacker. A few heartbeats of searching revealed none of the hectic mass of conflicting mystics were even looking at him, and he felt his breath settle- realising it was no more than a stray shot.

A familiar cry set his blood boiling once more, and Crow whirled to the sight of Ethi sliding and rolling just as Unity had- a mystic pursuing her with speed no human muscles could produce.

He reached the girl before she reached Ethi, striking her ribs from the side and laying her against the ground.

The girl’s strength wasn’t even close to his last enemy’s, nor was her toughness. Crow felt a stab of guilt at her rhasping breaths and bloodied cough.

A roaring assailed his ears, low and hollow, soft yet loud. Crow recognised the sound of burning gas just in time to throw himself from the path of a head-sized sphere of flames. It burned ten yards ahead before fizzling out like a candle in the wind.

His dodge had left him prone, his stumble back up terrified. Crow turned to see a girl fleeing from him, hair whipping behind her and hands still smoking where they’d sprouted fire.

Not going to engage without a landed sneak-attack?

For a second he considered chasing her, dismissing the notion. Time took priority. With barely more than a minute of magic left, it superceded even a secure back.

He quickly found his teammates, cursed at the sight of mystics battling around them. They wove around his fallen comrades almost without seeing them, eyes kept high. Focus reserved for those enemies that still stood.

The problem of getting by them without drawing their attention solved itself. Before Crow could even find a solution, their stumbling, clumsy battle drove them back along a dune and cleared the path for him.

Ethi had been thrown back near to where Unity lay, perhaps four yards from him. They seemed a mirror of one another; backs flat, hair strewn about and blood scabbing across them as they shifted and twitched in an enfeebled misery.

“Are you conscious?” He asked, kneeling down by Ethi and bathing her in a scrutinous eye.

The girl’s injuries were deceptive, looking worse than Unity’s yet lacking the terror of bloodied drool and glazed eyes. Her answer came quickly, though in a tone made rough by pain.

“I am.”

She coughed, spewing spit as her chest heaved convulsively. Crow found himself checking, once more, to ensure the spittle was pale rather than red.

“Can you move?”

Crow turned to Unity as he asked, seeing the boy climb, grunting, onto his knees. Face knotted with effort, eyes hard with annoyance. It was some kind of relief at least.

“I can’t.” Came Ethi’s voice, ringing loud in Crow’s ears and putting an end to the good news. His eyes ran over the skirmishing around them, heart sinking as he realised how thinned the masses of mystics had become.

“Alright.” Crow answered, hearing his own voice as a muffled echo behind the thunderous sound of his thoughts.

There was a way to win, and he would find it. There had to be.

Crow thought more, then more still. Every second he burned away in consideration brought an agonised twist of panic to the fearful knife in his gut, every unexpected sound scattering his wits and shifting his gaze in a paranoid terror.

Without slowing himself to the point of losing all hope for victory, there was no way to carry both his teammates. He had little enough time with his magic that he’d surely run out trying, and with only his exhausted muscles alone her weight might well flatten him beneath.

“We need to leave her.” Hissed Unity, speaking quickly, urgently. Dazed fatigue still clear in him even as he managed a moment of lucidity.

The realization that his teammate was right chilled him. It surely showed in his eyes, for Ethi’s grew wide and panicked as she met them.

“No.” She breathed. “No please. Crow, I came back for you. I came to help you!”

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, dropping his gaze and grunting as he rose to stand beside Unity.

A hundred paces from the doors, perhaps thirty seconds of magic. Enough time if he wasn’t attacked, not even close if he was.

“Crow.” Ethi cried, her voice giving way entirely to weeping. To his surprise, it only hardened him.

Does Galad cry, wherever he is? Does he weep and plead for my help, just as she does?

He didn’t know, yet the very thought was reminder enough.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. He shifted Unity’s limp form, pulling him over his shoulders one final time- making his choice and burning the bridge behind him.

“Fuck you.” Ethi hissed, sorrow and fear turning to toxic bile on her tongue. To Crow’s amazement, she began to writhe where she lay. Hate giving strength where fear had failed her.

“I came back for you, you fucking bastard. I trusted you!”

He met her accusing glare once more, finding a sudden fire behind his voice.

“You did.” He said, then took off in a jog, screamed curses chasing in his wake.

Ethi had trusted him, just as he had trusted her. And Crow saw now that it had been both of their mistakes. Unity seemed an obvious danger, with his twisted jokes and cruelty, but in the end it should have been obvious that he was never the real threat.

For it was Crow who’d had too much to lose.