I've been chased around by people who were mad at me for stealing things before, but this was different for a few reasons. First, this guy seemed like he wanted to actually murder me rather than have me arrested. And second - probably the most novel part of the whole thing to be honest - in this case I actually hadn't stolen anything. It was a relief to be facing a problem that didn't seem to be my fault - not counting a few monsters it seemed like everything that had threatened us so far had been at least partly my doing. I looked around for a way to escape or set a trap, but there wasn't much hope of either. There were some gardening tools, which not surprisingly looked pretty similar to what I'd seen on Earth, and some sacks of something - plant food or whatever. The gardening closet was big enough that we could move around without elbowing each other, but not really big enough to fight properly in - although that could work to my advantage, since it seemed like I did best when I could charge right up and headbutt someone.

The door burst open, and the beefy dude was standing there scowling at us. "Thief. Murderer. Make your peace," he said, "and know that it's better to die here than to be stabbed in the face and thrown into the core of the world."

"Wow, okay. That was oddly specific. Listen, we don't know who you are or what's going on so how about we just knock off the murder talk and sort things out?"

"Ah. Now you want to talk. Of course."

Errod sighed, and I saw him reach down with his left hand to loosen his sword in its scabbard. "Sir, I don't want anyone to die here today. We don't need to do this. We can pay you for whatever you believe we stole, and part ways peacefully. We were about to leave the city - I assure you, you'll never see us again."

"It's too late to save your skin, child."

"I wasn't talking about me," Errod said, "though I certainly don't want to die."

"Your concern for your sister would be admirable under other circumstances, but I am afraid she must die with you."

"I wasn't talking about her either. Please reconsider."

The man laughed, a sort of rough bark that shook his ridiculous mustache. "You imply I should be afraid I might lose in a fight with you?"

"No. If you lose to me I would show you mercy. What you should fear is killing me, because unfortunately if you do that my sisters will fucking murder you. I'd much rather we just work something out. I've never met you, and I have to say I'm not really sure how I've wronged you. But there must be a better way than the two of us trying to kill each other in a dirty supply room."

The man laughed again. "I suppose you haven't met me. Odd to consider. My name," he said, "Is Elrebar Iron-hand. And I know for a fact I can defeat the two of you without breaking a sweat."

The hooded one, who must have been following behind and had finally entered the garden, cleared their throat. "Actually, you moron, you need my help to kill them. And I'm not going to right now, because it will. Not. Work. You want to stop the world from ending? Fine. Me too. But you can't kill them right now. You'll throw this kid into a river of lava when the time comes, and not a moment sooner."

What.

Elrebar didn't even turn around. "You're over-thinking this. No prophesy is guaranteed; the gods didn't show up when the storm chalice was shattered, they won't show up now."

I shot a look at Errod, but he was busy staring at this Iron-Hand douche. I didn't like the fact that someone was mentioning a prophesy right after I learned that fate magic was a thing - it felt too much like we were in some badly-plotted story. If it was a coincidence then fine, but if we were being manipulated by fate magic I was going to be extremely cranky.

"Well either way," the hooded one said, "I can't hang on much longer. We have to go back."

"You go. I'll kill these two, then I'll take the long way. Maybe I'll stop at the keep and shore up defenses so we don't have another incident."

"You can't - ugh! You're insufferable. We came together, we need to leave together. The strain is too much otherwise."

I leaned close to Errod. "Stall them," I whispered. It sounded like whatever teleportation spell they'd used wanted to yo-yo them back for some reason, and it was possible if we held out for a few more minutes they'd be forced to leave. Unfortunately, this meathead wasn't going to wait long to start swinging.

"Fine. Hang on another moment while I take care of this."

Errod nodded and drew his sword with his right hand, then reached over with his left and adjusted his wrist somewhat as if he was fixing his grip. It gave the impression he was trying to match some drawing of a proper stance out of a book, and wasn't exactly helping him to look like a worthy opponent. Elrebar drew his own sword, and it crackled with black lightning - it was curved and had a sort of fishhook thing going on at the tip, overall looking very much like some high level loot you'd see in an MMO rather than a real sword someone would ever be holding. But regardless, it looked very dangerous especially compared to Errod's simple blade.

"Elrebar, I ask again that you let us pay you for whatever you believe we -"

Elrebar lunged forward and Errod stepped back, immediately tripping. Oh, Errod. I hurled a throwing knife and watched as that curved blade flicked it out of the air effortlessly. Errod flung a handful of manure up at Elrebar's face with his left hand while stabbing with his right, and managed to get the point of his sword into the man's calf through a gap in the armor.

"You little shit!" Elrebar roared, wiping at his eyes as he retreated a step. Errod scrambled up but while he was still in a very vulnerable position that crackling curved blade swung at him - only to be stopped as Errod caught the blade in his hand. He grunted in pain, but while it might have broken a bone or two the glove seemed to be indestructible. Twisting the point away so the man couldn't thrust it forward into him, Errod stabbed into Elrebar's now exposed armpit, bypassing the armor - the angle was wrong to kill him but it looked like it would at the very least fuck up the man's left arm. He retaliated by headbutting him brutally; a spray of blood flew from Errod's face and he fell to the floor again.

I charged in, gripping one of my new daggers, and tried to stab him in his stupid mustache. I would have preferred to throw it, but the precision with which he'd deflected my other shot implied some magical assistance; probably he had some specialized skill from the fighter gift that was meant to protect him from arrows and things. I leapt up and grabbed the top edge of his breastplate while swinging towards his neck with my other hand but he dropped his sword and snatched my wrist. The point of the knife stopped just an inch from his jugular, but I couldn't move that hand at all. He kicked Errod, sending him flying, and squeezed my wrist so hard I could feel the bones rubbing together.

"Rest assured you do the entire world a great service by dying here."

I could hear Errod standing up, but he wouldn't want to attack while I was in danger. I considered letting go with my other hand, but I was a good foot off the ground and with my wrist already in pain I didn't want to dangle from it. He could pull me off at any time, but I got the impression he was enjoying having me so close but helpless to do anything. He whispered, his breath hot on my face.

"I had been planning on beheading you cleanly, but now I think I may crush your throat instead and let you die slowly. Was it worth it, child? Trying to stab me like a coward?"

He squeezed again and something in my wrist cracked. I was going to drop the knife, not that it would do any good to me anyway. Unless...

I was just barely able to position my thumb, and scooted the knife closer to him - it had no momentum of course, but the very tip of it just barely nicked his skin. The force enchantment triggered. It lurched forward another four inches in an instant, and Elrebar flung me aside to claw it out of his neck. He was bleeding, badly, but charged towards me as his sword flew up into his hand from the ground. Errod was close behind in the cramped space and stabbed again, but it glanced off the armor and Elrebar spun with his sword - the blade hit Errod in the chest and knocked him back, lightning discharging across him. Errod's new chainmail held and seemed to prevent enough of the damage from the electricity, so he stabbed again - it hit at a joint where there were no metal plates, but I suspected it had been stopped by the layers underneath. I threw another knife, which he yet again flicked away, and even worse Elrebar didn't seem to be at all slowed by his injuries - I was assuming magic was involved because as far as I could tell the neck wound had already stopped bleeding. Between the armor and whatever was patching him up I wasn't sure what we could do. It was Telen all over again, without some big trick we could throw ourselves at him all day - and he only needed to be lucky the once. I pulled out another magic knife, this one with a fire enchantment, and tried to look for an opening.

Elrebar hammered on Errod, who just barely kept his sword up. It wasn't elegant, or graceful, or anything like the swordfights I'd seen in movies. He was using his sword like a club, and it was working. The man had a huge strength advantage and while he also presumably had more skill he didn't need it. He'd just beat Errod into a paste. I grabbed a rack of gardening tools and tipped it, spilling everything onto both of them - a rake got all tangled up in his arm for just a second, and during that time I slipped past him and shoved my fire-enchanted throwing knife down the back of his armor. I felt the enchantment trigger as it broke skin - with all the padding under the armor I knew it was more luck than anything else that let me find actual flesh and it probably hadn't been more than a shallow gash, but all I wanted was a distraction. He screamed and threw me off, but of course he couldn't reach into his armor to get the burning metal out. His gauntlets were too thick, and he probably didn't have the flexibility to get to that part of his back anyway. Errod struck again, but rather than stabbing he hooked his sword under the cool but impractical fishhook embellishment on the end of Elrebar's blade and whipped it right out of the man's hands. I spun to glance at the hooded one, but they were backed against the far wall of the garden with both hands up. I considered demanding that they drop the staff, but it didn't seem like staves were particularly important to spellcasting anyway and all that mattered at the moment was that it was still just the three of us in the fight.

"Hey Elrebar Lead-Foot or whatever! I'm running away and I have that book you wanted in my backpack!"

Amazingly, it worked. It would have made more sense for him to focus on killing Errod while he was cornered, but he turned and ran at me. Maybe he was worried about the implied time limit on the return teleportation, or maybe he was just sure that he could kill me and return before Errod would have a chance to get anywhere. Either way, it bought me a moment. He held a hand back as he charged and his sword once again returned to him, though hilariously Errod was holding on with his gloved hand and slowing it down as he was dragged along. If my wrist hadn't been badly injured I would have wanted to take the opportunity to throw a knife while Elrebar was unarmed, but I didn't think there was much chance of hitting even if he'd been standing still with his eyes closed. Instead, at the last second, I dove at his feet and between his legs. I didn't make it all the way, but I had never meant to - I just wanted to wrap around one of his legs and force him to lean over, because it meant he couldn't pay attention to Errod and I at the same time. He leaned down to grab me and got a sword strike to his back which sadly didn't make it through the armor. He turned to grab his sword that was still trying to reach him, but Errod slammed into him and with me on his leg he went over onto the ground. It was the least dignified swordfight I could have ever imagined.

Errod stabbed again and again, and as he did I saw an opening. If we were going to be brawling and rolling around on the ground anyway, well... fuck it. I stabbed up at a gap in his armor with the other force-enchanted knife and felt it tear through his pants and then slam up into his crotch. He howled and kicked me free, breaking at least one rib, and I looked up just in time to see him swing on Errod again. He'd recovered his sword, somehow, and time seemed to slow as I watched it arc towards Errod's unprotected head. At the last second, lightning fast, Errod swung with his left arm and slapped the side of the blade to deflect it just slightly so that the edge passed over his head rather than slashing through his face. At the same time he stabbed with his sword and it drove deep into the Elrebar's throat. Lightning crackled from the sword into Errod's head as it passed by and his eyes rolled up. Errod collapsed onto Elrebar, and everything was silent for a moment.

"Well," the hooded figure mumbled, "I did warn him." And then he vanished.

I scrambled over to Errod to check on him and while he seemed to be breathing it was ragged and his heart was racing. "Hey buddy. Wake up, okay? Come on. It was just a little lightning to the brain, shake it off."

"Step back, please," a voice said from the entrance to the garden. It was professor Harmid Yanipliss. He sounded calm and authoritative, not at all like I would expect from a random teacher that had walked in on a murder scene. I reluctantly backed away up against a planter filled with some sort of purple vines, and Harmid leaned down over Errod.

"Well. I don't like showing off, the whole point of putting my Dumine on my forehead was so people would underestimate me, but I did want to build some trust with you so..."

White light enveloped Errod and he gasped, sitting up instantly and flailing around for his sword.

"Calm down, young man. You're healed, and it looks like the fight is over. Are you willing to speak with the authorities?"

Errod nodded, but I gripped his shoulder. "Errod, no. We can't. We don't know what just happened, and I don't want to get tied up in something else so fast. Plus that one guy got away, and if he comes back when we're unarmed in a cell... it's a bad idea. On top of that, Hammersmith might be looking for us -"

"Lord Protector Hammersmith?" Harmid asked, looking impressed.

Aw, shit. "I wasn't going to tell you that."

Errod stood up and sighed as he looked around. "I... yes. You're probably right. Would the savior of Brynnklar run away to protect his friends, or stay to be true to the rule of law?"

"If I know my history," Harmid said, "he would run away to protect his friends and then the Queen would retroactively spin it so that it sounded like he was upholding the rule of law. Fascinating, the differences between the official accounts and the eyewitnesses. If you two need to get out of here, I can... hmm. I've never had to deal with a dead body before. I suppose I'll just buy you some time and then report it - I can leave some of the details out. But you have to promise me you'll come back and see me. I still think there's something you're supposed to teach me."

"I... yeah. I will. Thank you. Um. Watch the door, will you? We need to get our things."

I found all my knives, though digging the one out from Elrebar's back was difficult. Errod cleaned off his sword and we retrieved the items we'd dropped before the fight started - Errod's backpack, and the book Harmid had given me. For the first time I opened it, and looked at the title page. "The Paradox of Fate, by... professor Harmid Yanipliss. Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just remembering what he said when he gave me the book. The finest text on fate, written by the most talented and intelligent..." I sighed. Well, it might still be true, even if he had a questionable sense of humor. "Whatever. Let's find Katrin and get the fuck out of this city."