Mahon, Zac and the cultist froze for an instant as they suddenly stumbled upon each other. Mahon was the fastest to react, as his years of constant fights against Amentiae had more than sharpened his mind. A blink was enough to grasp most of the situation.

Tiarsus, agonizing on the ground. Probably dead.

Travaran, wobbling and shaking while holding his head. Injured, probably out of fighting condition.

The green-robed cultist, bloody knife in hand, still immobile. In fighting condition, probably still surprised.

Zac, sword unsheathed, but motionless and not in position. In fighting condition, probably still surprised.

Place, dark alley, unwelcoming and away from the main streets. Probably more cultists than city guards nearby.

Myself, weapon in arm, ready to fight.

A plan formed in his mind as he processed the situation they were in and the logical conclusion came as naturally as if he was in Nightmare. With a few adjustments.

Mahon whistled shortly and flashing a hand sign to Zac, he moved forward to attack the cultist. His sudden sound and movement shattered the eerie break, and the action resumed.

The cultist moved backwards just in time and blocked the attack with his dagger. Mahon followed with a series of rapid strikes that forced the man to step back even further while avoiding the blows. Just as Mahon’s offensive ended and before the cultist got the time to breathe, Zac passed Mahon and engaged their opponent, pushing him even further.

Without waiting another instant, Mahon went to check Tiarsus' condition. The noble was bleeding from at least three stabs in his thorax, plus one that had punctured his neck, just over the shoulder. His eyes were already glazed and his life gone.

Mahon did not insist, as the signs of death were more than obvious. Instead, he stood up and went to Travaran. The man was holding his head with one hand while trying to stabilize himself with the other. Mahon grabbed the man under his arm and pulled him straight the best he could, while grimacing under the strain. The noble tried to resist him at first and Mahon realized he was still completely disoriented.

“Travaran! You’re ok, man. It’s me, Mahon.”

The noble stopped fighting back as he heard the familiar voice and he tried to turn to face Mahon.

“Mahon? Help me, there is a cultist nearby! Tiarsus is injured. We need to help!”

“Ok, ok, Travaran. Calm down. Can you see?”

Mahon moved his hand in front of the noble’s face and, after some time, he noticed his eyes struggling to follow his movements. Mahon grumbled at the noble’s inability, but he couldn’t leave him here. With his eyes, he searched for Zac and saw him disarming his opponent and threatening him with his weapon. He whistled again to draw Zac’s attention.

“Forget about him! We move now!”

To Mahon’s pride, his duo didn’t hesitate a single instant and ran back to them. As he noticed Mahon struggling to drag Travaran, he swiftly passed his sword in his other hand and grabbed the noble under his free arm. With Mahon and Zac on each side of a stumbling Travaran, they managed to carry him without trouble and Mahon even started to jog.

“Let’s get out of here fast.”

“Tiarsus?”

“Dead. And if we don’t hurry, we’ll share his fate.”

“What? Tiarsus is dead? It’s a lie! He was just injured. We need to go back!” All of a sudden, Travaran started shaking in their arms and they had to slow down to hold him.

“Fuck, Travaran, don’t be stupid! He got stabbed at least four times, he's dead!”

“No, no, no!”

Travaran screamed and struggled even harder and Mahon hit him in the back of the head with the hilt of his sword. The noble went limp and Zac puffed under the increased weight he had to carry. They stopped to readjust their hold on the now unconscious noble.

“What do we do now? Can’t we call the guards?”

“Not a good idea. We’re in unsafe territory. Cultists will come before the guards. We need to move towards the main streets first.”

Zac nodded and together they carried Travaran as fast as they could. As they were only a few streets away from the largest roads, they heard muffled footsteps following them. They glanced behind and the cultist that Zac had fought just before was fifty meters away, escorted by two other green robed men, swords in hand.

“Shit. What do we do? They’ll catch up quickly.”

“Start blowing. We’re close now. Worst case, we drop Travaran and run.”

Zac obeyed, and he pulled out the whistle every patrol had and put it in his mouth. A shrilling noise echoed between the walls of their small back alley, way more strongly than Mahon’s own whistles during the fight.

The cultists behind them started to run even faster, and Mahon and Zac did the same while carrying Travaran the best they could. Every few steps Zac continued to blow on his whistle and they could already hear a few distant responses somewhere in the night.

“One more street and then we hold our ground.” Mahon managed to say while panting from the hard run.

Zac kept blowing to indicate their position and after another street they were still not on the main streets, but the cultists were already at their heels. Without ceremony, Mahon dumped Travaran on the ground and turned back to face the incoming cultists. Zac moved closer to his duo and took his own fighting stance.

“Don’t try anything fancy. We play it defensive and hope the guards arrive in time. If I say retreat you run without looking back and fuck Travaran.”

Zac adjusted his posture, and both men stood in front of their comrade’s motionless body. The three cultists closed the gap between them and stopped two meters in front of the duo. They eyed them oppressively, but did not attack.

Mahon gestured for Zac not to move either and the two groups glared at each other without any side seizing the offensive. Long seconds passed and they could all hear screams and people running in the nearby streets, but they did not move from their strange staring contest. Until two green robed men appeared at the end of the street.

The man they had fought earlier, the only one with a dagger in hand, also noticed his backup coming and he grinned at the two students.

“Seems our side got here first. If you drop your weapons, then we ca…”

They would never know what he wanted to offer as Mahon stepped forward and stabbed, effectively interrupting the man’s speech. Zac joined him less than a second later and the two of them managed to push off the surprised cultists a few steps back.

Soon they were all entangled in a fast-paced battle only punctuated by the sound of clattering swords. Mahon blocked yet another attack aimed at Zac’s blind spot and swiped back. His target managed to move away in time and the blade passed by his side harmlessly.

As an incoming dagger tried to impale Mahon, he knocked it aside reflexively and stretched forward for a counterattack. He saw a sword coming for his left side, but Zac was already in position and fended the attack off.

The exchanges went faster and faster, but the First Red duo had trained together for months and it finally paid off. In a brilliant show of speed, Zac injured one of the cultists at the leg and the man stepped back out of the fight while pressing his hand on the bleeding wound.

The duo was now facing only two cultists and one of them only had a dagger. Soon, the fight turned to their disadvantage and, after a few seconds of fast attacks and ripostes, Mahon hit the man with the dagger at the hand and he dropped his weapon. As he moved back in pain, the other cultist stepped back with him and the combat stopped.

Without a word, Mahon and Zac returned to their initial position, closer to Travaran. Zac whistled again to draw the city guards to their position. The injured cultists were soon joined by the two that had appeared at the end of the street moments ago, increasing their size to five. One of them was still trying to prevent his leg from spilling blood, but the four others looked eager for a second round.

The cultist with the dagger approached his injured comrade and took the sword that laid unused on the ground beside him. He practiced a few circles with the sword before joining back his allies. The group of four cultists then split into two groups as they tried to use their number to circle the duo.

Holding their position, Mahon and Zac pivoted to keep their opponents in sight. Two versus four was close to their limit, but Mahon was confident they could hold their ground. Even after the strain of running while carrying Travaran and the first bout, they were still full of energy and adrenaline was continuing to fuel their body. For once, Mahon was glad they had spent most of the day sleeping.

The duo was close to its top condition, and they knew how to fight together, contrary to their opponents. Zac blew one last time before he dropped the whistle and focused on their opponents. Silence fell back between the two groups as their ears stopped buzzing from the whistle’s sharp sound.

The cultists were attentively observing their opponents while they moved to get in a better position. Before they managed to circle them entirely, Mahon gestured for an attack, but the cultists had been ready and the fight resumed.

Attacks flashed while Mahon and Zac avoided and parried in synchronization. Constantly aware of their duo’s movements, they supplemented each other without flaw. They were steady on their legs and their moves were efficient. Slander’s training had forced them to drop any useless embellishment to focus on the essential.

And now it was paying off as they managed to repel the assault of four swords with only two while holding their position. As far as possible, they still wanted to protect Travaran. The fight was quite intense for a long minute, but the duo didn’t falter. In the end, the protagonists split and pulled away from each other. The break was welcomed on both sides and the six fighters were panting. But, besides a few shallow cuts, they were uninjured, and the violence in the eyes of the cultists had been replaced by a look of concentration.

Before the fight could start again, a commotion was heard and seven more men appeared at the end of the street. Green-robed men. Mahon cursed, and he prepared to flash Zac the signal for retreat just as a dozen guards emerged from their end of the street.

For a second, no one moved as both sides assimilated the situation. In the middle of the street, Mahon and Zac were carefully eyeing the four cultists while each side had an injured person lying on the ground. At each end of the street, a group of allies had appeared, and they were approximately at an equal distance from the fight.

Due to their training, the guards were the first to move, rushing to their allies. In response, the cultists grabbed their wounded and swiftly retreated to their end of the street. They grouped back with their own reinforcement and moved away to darker parts of the city.

Mahon sighed in relief as he sheathed his sword back in its place. As the guards joined them, he noticed no one was higher ranked than First Red and so he focused on the next steps.

“You, you and you rush to Tulluin and tell him to send all his men here. We’ve got a dead noble and we need to go back to his body. You and you take that man to the infirmary. He’s just stunned and shouldn’t suffer any real damage, but he’ll be a dead weight here.”

Mahon watched the soldiers execute his orders, and he took the time to take a deep breath as he eyed the seven or so men still with him.

“To all the others, we move back to the main streets and secure a perimeter. We need to be ready to go back in once Tulluin’s force arrives.”

They retreated to a safer place and Mahon organized things until the guard’s captain arrived. After a brief talk with Mahon and Zac, he took control of the operations. He left the students behind with half of his men while he went himself to retrieve Tiarsus. They returned without having seen any cultists, but the body they brought back with them had been defiled beyond recognition.

HIs eyes had been taken out of their orbits. His cheeks had been sliced open, turning his face into a horrendous smile. His testicles had been removed and placed inside his mouth. His fingers and toes had been crushed or cut. His hair had been burned and insults were carved right into his skin. No surface had been left untouched.

There was no doubt about who had committed such horrific acts, however, as a message had been left on his back. The blood had poured out of the wounds and then dried up, but it was still very explicit.

‘Whoever slanders Fada doesn’t deserve to live.’