Faye tried not to get too angry with Gavan. It was somewhat inevitable that they were going to fight these men. She was wondering why he was being so nonchalant about thrusting her into danger, though.

“Any chance of a heal?” she asked.

“Not yet,” he replied, out of the side of his mouth. “So, how about it?” he called, louder.

Trying not to get angry, Faye took some deep breaths and rolled her shoulders a little. The fights were short but invigorating and she was getting warm. She knew that taking off the cloak would cool her down too rapidly, though.

The leader of the group was glaring at the pair of them, and Faye did not think this facade would last much longer based on his expression.

“How about we make this more interesting?” he said.

“What do you have in mind?” Gavan replied.

“It seems clear your… bodyguard is skilled.”

Faye bristled at his tone, if not his words. They had not revealed their nature. If he wanted to think of her as a bodyguard, that was not a problem. But, the dismissive tone he said it with was annoying. She had just demolished his men in one on one fights.

“She is,” Gavan replied, though not without a hint of warning in his voice.

“She can probably take on two of my men at once.”

Faye’s eyes narrowed. She was not as sure about that.

“Of course she can.”

A vein was bulging in Faye’s temple, she could feel the frustration building. She glared at Gavan, but he did not even look back at her. Instead, he opened his arms wide. “So, who’s going to try?”

Faye took some deep breaths. She did not want to actually hurt these men too much, but if they came at her too hard she would have to put them down. So far, she had not used her magic. There were few things that it could do other than kill… and she was not prepared to go that far.

Yet, she thought.

She did have the impression that the men were more likely to have access to non-obvious skills. At the end of the day, if passive skills were active, that would go against their so-called no skills rule.

The final two men stepped forward. This time, Faye caught the moment that they retrieved their weapons. One second, they held nothing, and the next: one held a large hammer in both hands — almost a sledgehammer — and the second one flourished two one-handed swords that looked like a pair of falcata; an ancient design that heavily favoured the front of the sword.

Her eyes narrowed and she glanced at Gavan, who was sporting a faint smile that made it look like he held a secret. She glared at him but he steadfastly refused to look at her.

“We’ll talk about this later,” she muttered, and she would have sworn that his grin widened.

The two men were already approaching, separating as they came so that they were too far apart for her to keep her eyes on both at the same time easily.

The one with the hammer growled and started lumbering forward with a half-run, half-walk that put him a little ahead of the other man. Faye did not like the look of the man’s strength. She doubted that she would be able to defend against his attack, if she let him make it.

Holding up her sword in a two-handed guard, she bent her knees and prepared herself. Then, with a brief flicker, she activated [Mana Sense].

The hammer-wielding man was veritably glowing with mana. Faye gasped and her eyes slid to the leader of this little group, who was grinning like a wolf. She had no more time to wonder what was going on with these people.

She gathered her mana and let it sheathe her blade, igniting it with a thought.

The hammer wielder flinched and slowed a step, which gave Faye the chance to spin and slash her sword through horizontally at waist height, the flames crackling and snapping as she pulled the blade through its attack, pulling it up to a high guard.

The wild horizontal swipe had brought the second man up short, he had to make a wild movement to get out of the way, and it meant his follow up attack was ruined. Faye stepped forward with a short step and feinted. Both falcatas came up in a cross to block the apparent downward blow, which never came.

Faye side-stepped and retreated, to put some distance between her and the two men. Hammer-man was only a few steps away, and his hammer flashed through the air with supernatural speed.

She tried to side-step again, but she knew it was not enough. Bringing up her sword, she swung at the incoming hammer. The collision blasted out with energy. Her sword flung away, narrowly missing cutting through her neck as it flashed past.

Some of the force of the hammer blast transferred through her hands and arms, and it knocked her back onto her back, stunned.

The man with the hammer came in again. His eyes were intense and fixed on her face. In a vague, semi-dazed state, she threw out her hand and brought forth mana for [Fire Dart].

The spell coalesced, and the fiery red glow reflected in the widened glow of his eyes before she let it cast. The blast of the dart caught him on the shoulder, he managed to get his face out of the way, but it threw him to the side.

The second man charged forward, too, and Faye held out both hands, gathering mana in both palms. Two [Fire Dart]s came out in quick succession. One launched for the man’s chest, but he was prepared and moved out of its way.

He was not prepared for the second, which slammed into his shins. The blast blew him off his feet, too. The small window of opportunity with both of them on the ground meant Faye could get to her feet.

She glared at Gavan and the leader of these men, both of whom were watching, but neither seemed inclined to stop the fight. She shook her head.

Her sword had disappeared into the dark and the two men were already getting to their feet. She did not want to turn her back on them, so she pulled her dagger from its sheathe and, with no small amount of trepidation, attempted to ignite mana around it, too.

Unlike with the longer blade, the dagger did not ignite in a flashy way that let the flames rise up and crackle and snap when she moved the weapon. Instead, the blade was covered in a low-lying flame that was almost invisible. She could tell it was there, though, which was the important thing.

A knife fight was completely different to the swordfighting Faye was used to. Her and her friends had practised a little with knives and daggers, too, but it had always been less interesting for her. A knife fight can be brutal and in your face, where the sword is all about keeping distance.

Which meant that when the man with the hammer got to his feet and cricked his neck side to side, Faye ran forward in a rush. He had not expected it, so was on the back foot when she got in his personal space.

He lashed out with the thick, heavy bar of the hammer’s shaft, but she had expected that and flowed back with the blow, which had very little range of movement. But, like a wave, she came back in when he retracted the strike. So did her knife.

She came in low with the blade, her left hand up and grabbing the shaft of the hammer in an attempt to distract. It worked, partially. Her knife came in enough to poke him in the belly before he flinched away.

But the man with the falcatas came in from her left, and Faye had to disengage. He was a dual-wielding maniac, because with the advantage of reach he was coming in aggressively. Before, Faye had the reach and was able to dictate the flow of the fight.

The falcata is a sword made with a heavy chopping design, with a slight downward curve of the blade, but the front third of the blade was double-edged and the tip came to a wicked point. It was perfectly able to thrust as well as chop. The man took advantage of that fact as he came in.

The first few swings were to make space between Faye and his ally, to give the hammer man a second to breathe, and then he reined in the strikes, adding lightning-quick thrusts that she barely managed to sweep to the side in time.

Each time she parried, she would end up with a cut or a nick on her arms. The dagger was of a decent length, but the falcatas were heavy and hard to move out of the way. In the middle of the fight, Faye flicked [Mana Sense] back on, trying to see the flow of mana in her opponent. The hammer man had been infusing himself with some kind of skill…

And apparently, so was the sword-wielder. It was not constant, like the build-up in the hammer user, but would flash through his arms whenever he made a lightning-quick thrust or jab. But, whenever he swung a falcata, there were no bouts of mana streaming through him.

It seemed the skill he possessed was narrow in scope.

But Faye’s eyes widened and she threw herself backward to avoid another strike and the follow-up slam from the hammer that came out of her blind spot. She had only avoided it due to a flicker of [Mana Sense].

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. They were hardly holding back their attacks.

Both men were in front of her, and she noticed that she had rotated around so Gavan was behind the men, now. Which left their leader behind her.

She did not like the idea of that.

She ran forward again. This time, the men were prepared, and she aborted her rush. But, just out of their reach, she jabbed forward with the dagger and cast [Blades of Flame].

Instead of the arcs of flame that would erupt from a longer blade, the dagger launched a rapid arrow of flame that was as narrow as the dagger itself. Feeling that the mana she had used on this spell was much less than normal, she jabbed again and again, launching at least half a dozen of the small blades of fire toward the hammer-wielding man.

He was not expecting it, and each arrow of flame seemed to cut straight through his armour and slice his body. He cried out in pain and dropped to a knee as one blade cut the side of his leg. He dropped the hammer.

Faye nodded, satisfied. But the falcata-wielding man was coming for her now and he was once again using his superior reach to great effect. But she had the measure of him now. She knew how far to be to avoid the strikes.

Until, of course, she slipped.

Something behind her heel caused her to lose her balance and in that split-second of gravity’s indecision, the man swarmed forward. His blades came together in a double-thrust to try and pierce her chest and gut.

In a desperate attempt to move faster, Faye overloaded the mana surrounding the knife, which she was still holding in front of her, and caused the flames there to explode with force.

The energy pushed her back to the ground hard enough to bring stars to her eyes but she avoided being stabbed. Either one of those blows might have killed her.

“Enough!” Gavan called.

But the man still came forward. He was sneering and he drew back his arm for a final thrust.

Faye was still processing the impact with the back of her head and could only struggle to move.

She heard the cracking that signalled the rapid crystallising of water in the air, but her eyes, when they finally focused, could only see the point of the falcata as he bore down on her. [Mana Sense] told her that he was building up mana in his arm and was about to unleash it.

Then, she found herself blinking and spluttering to get blood out of her eyes and face.

Her heart was beating a thousand times a minute, and she coughed and rolled to the side. She kept expecting the pain to arrive, but it did not. Instead, the familiar warmth of Gavan’s healing infused her limbs.

She had rolled onto her front and now she looked up, she could see the soft blue translucency of the [Ice Wall] that Gavan had cast. She rolled back and sat up, slowly. Her back hurt and a low-grade headache was threatening to rampage into full blown pain.

Lying in front of her, his arm still stuck in a raised position over his head, was the man with the swords. His sightless eyes stared forward. One of Gavan’s [Ice Shard]s was propping up his upper body.

Gavan himself was a few steps away, another [Ice Shard] he had formed was floating between his hands, dangerous end pointed squarely at the chest of the enraged leader. He was glaring at Gavan with rage in his eyes.

Literal, crimson rage that radiated from his eyes, leaving glowing afterimages every time he bounced on the balls of his feet.

“You are not who you said you are,” the man practically growled out. His breathing was intense and he was working himself into more of a rage.

Gavan was calm and collected, which Faye thought was impressive. She pushed herself to her knees.

Hammer-man had brought himself to his feet, but he was unsteady and was hobbling. The other two men were in the background, uncertain, but they were clearly ready to go.

“Seems like we were not the only ones,” Gavan retorted.