Knives & Levels - Chapter 77

Colt still felt amazed when that golden light of his Edict came through, warping the very air itself with a heaviness. Even now, with his knife just at his side, as he interrupted Finn’s capture, he felt the way the air chose to avoid his weapon. Afraid that even it, too, would be cut, as if it were a living thing…

Actually…

He felt the Edict underlying that air, avoiding the blade; groups of Edicts, knowing how thick the presence of Cut was. Still, one didn’t have to have the same senses as he did in Soul to understand what they were looking at—the group of guards took a step back, right towards that growing fortress where they had made their home. When they saw the light, it hurt their very souls, an awareness that it could slide through just about anything in this reality.

Unless, of course, they had an Edict powerful enough to press back against it.

But Colt’s eyes weren’t on them. His eyes were locked on the archer on the stadium roof, and Nick had an arrow notched.

Nick launched that arrow straight at him; it split into three—utilizing the trick that Colt had taught him, trying it on the very person who’d given him that key insight.

Colt threw out three quick and precise blades of death, infusing them with Movement to send them quicker, tearing through the arrows before they could hit the ground, and having a chance to become a dangerous rebound that would present even more problems. As they collided in the air, they cut clean through the light itself, erupting the preciously woven magic into small flashes of different colored light. In a different setting, they’d be similar to fireworks, only minus the sound.

He glared at Nick who even now was drawing another arrow.

The man really was going for it; it wasn’t surprising, given he’d shot Colt before. But it didn’t make the flaring anger Colt felt in response any better. Now wasn’t the time for emotions, it was time for cold and quick thinking.

“Holy shit, Colt! What are you doing here?” Finn said, and then the guy swore again as he tried to get on his leg; with a burning hole blown through it, there wasn’t much chance of that.

“Take it easy,” Colt ordered Finn—and then pointed his weapon at the guards who were still on edge. “I suggest you all turn around and run. I think you can feel my knife even as you are; those arrows present more of a challenge than any of you. Try me, and you face death.”

He tried to put menace into his voice and saw they weren’t convinced.

And so, he lashed out with his blade again—tearing a long, thick cut into the ground between them, scarring the earth itself in a pit that went ten feet deep. Expanding the range of the arc of his knife was a new trick; it held more weight to it now, and he felt that it could’ve gone longer.

But he stopped on account of another round of arrows being flung at him, like the annoying little buzzing of a traitorous bee.

Colt cut these too out of the air and saw Nick grow still on the stadium roof. No doubt reconsidering his approach. As much as he wanted to go over and confront the man for his betrayal, now wasn’t the time.

With a literal gap torn into the ground in front of them, the guards began to scream and run away, right back to New Nashville to report this incident and bring out their heavier hitters to deal with a possible attack. That meant they had a timeline now.

Colt grabbed Finn—throwing him over a shoulder, and then spun; he felt something coming.

He threw out a cut on instinct, tracking the disturbance of laws in the air—and tore through an arrow, this one was black. An absence of light… Or…

Was it refracting its light inward instead of outward?

He squinted as he considered Nick and this new ‘stealth arrow’ a handy trick. Did it mean that the guy had advanced his Edict again? Regardless, Colt began to run, listening to Finn curse; behind him, he felt a bombardment of arrows launch as Nick threw out everything he could, a veritable rain of light that Colt instead relied solely on his sense of the Edicts at play to avoid.

There wasn’t time to sit and play games with the light archer, not when Denny would be rushing out to start their fight with the rest of the army.

As the distance grew, the arrows missed their mark more and more.

Colt snorted; as much of a sore loser as Nick was, he hadn’t worked on a key deficiency in his overall strategy and what ultimately would always be the crux of the issue if he’d tried to fight Colt. Simply put, as an archer, he needed a certain effective range in which his enemy had to be—against Colt. He had no way of controlling whether or not the fight was going to be in that range.

Maybe he hadn’t thought of it like that, but as Colt easily put distance between them and reached the last line of trees, he’d escaped from what the archer would be able to target, securing the victory.

Or so he thought. Until he felt another swelling of a powerful Edict, and when he looked up, he saw the billowing cloak of the Wind Mage—he was even now flinging an attack downward at him and Finn.

Reacting quicker, Colt threw the cop and pulled on Movement, compelling him to go further and get out of the act. As for himself, Colt phased through it, feeling a rush of deadly downward pressure that never quite hit. By the time Colt had run out of Phantom’s Gambit, the Wind Mage had landed—right next to Finn, a hand pointed at his head.

The guy was damn quick, despite throwing Finn ten feet away, he’d managed to adjust and zoom in to where Finn had landed in a couple of seconds.

“Come. Or he dies.” The man said. There were two Edicts at play, the one that reacted with his wind magic and the one that was similar to the underlying power the Minotaur had, an Edict flowing from somewhere else and wrapping around and boosting whatever natural Edict this man had.

Colt looked at the hand and looked at Finn.

Then, he pulled on Movement—the world slowed to a crawl; the Wind Mage began to fire his burst of pressure, sensing the sudden swell of his Edict. To someone on the outside, his calling on Movement was like a powerful flare, a bonfire of power that came and went in an instant. Colt rushed forward, barreling into Finn and sending the two tumbling over and out of the oncoming attack—then, he twisted and flung a line of golden death against the mage.

When time returned to normal, he heard a scream from the man and felt pressure and wind wrap at his back as the Wind Mage fought for his life to keep the attack from bisecting him in half. Colt ignored the pained cries, grabbed Finn, and ran, once more pulling on a drag of his Edict for a sudden launch of power and speed.

Then, once that burst ended, he rolled one out again.

Above, he felt the wind swelling once more—seeing the mage tracking him, now missing a hand, as he must’ve somehow escaped the certain death that was Colt’s line of gold. He tossed two more lines of death; the Wind Mage danced in the air -playing a careful game of trying not to die via the attacks, and then took shelter behind a building to avoid more.

Annoying.

Colt used the broken line of sight to pull on Movement again, throwing himself through the forest with the cop.

He could sit and play with the mage. He could probably even end the mage once and for all—but in doing so and in delaying things, he was putting Finn more and more at risk.

It wouldn’t bode well for their morale tomorrow if the cop ended up dead delivering the message to enable their plans, so Colt knew what his priority was: distance.

He pulled on Movement again, this time coming out of the sudden burst of speed gasping. Pulling another person through it and going all this distance carrying the cop was wearing on him, as well as tossing around his Edicts. He’d been training for endurance and to refine his use of Edicts, but in the heat of a battle, it was hard to have a kind of measured control that best suited squeezing out every last dreg of power in one hand.

But slowly, yet steadily, they traveled further—Colt pulled another Movement. After coming out of that, he figured he’d have to be miles away from the city.

For once, he could settle down, letting Finn rest on the ground as he doubled over, inhaling lung fulls of air until he felt like his chest might burst. How long had that been? Thirty minutes of running? Even now, somewhere up there was the Wind Mage, searching for him. If he got eyes, he’d report them to Denny, and a whole army would be moving in on their position.

He carefully looked at their current surroundings: the deep trees above and the night sky. Enough to keep them safe for now. Once he caught his breath, he would keep abusing Movement as much as he dared to get them the rest of the way.

Finn groaned on the ground not far away.

Colt finally addressed the flurry of notifications he’d received in the chase.

———

Thread Weaver (Intermediate) has gained a level!

Soul And Mind Fortitude (Intermediate) has gained a level!

Hide Status (Basic) has gained a level!

———

He made good gains, and the recovery at least stretched his capabilities enough to see a fairly impressive return. Each little bit helped. And this helped more than others. Colt sighed and ran a hand through his sweaty hair, still feeling his heart going miles fast in his chest.

“You saved me,” Finn said, once more gasping as he tried to maneuver to get a better look at Colt.

Colt raised a hand—and turned his attention back onto the cop. The wound wasn’t bleeding much. With Nick’s arrow’s heat, he’d cauterized the hole he’d put in the limb. The muscles therein, including the calf, were probably fucked. The cop wouldn’t be walking anytime soon, and Finn’s part in the battle had reached an end.

“As an old man asked me the other day, ‘Do you have a death wish?’ Colt said, crouching down next to Finn and putting a hand to his head. There was worry there as he asked him, different than the fear he felt before. The fundamental aspect of it didn’t hold any terror; more it came from a place where he could see the logical outcome to further acts like this and saw the conclusion and how that conflicted with what he hoped for someone he saw as a good man. 

Interesting how the emotions broke down; the more he’d been living with this change, the more he saw how not everything was so isolated. Some similar thoughts ran through his head as before, only now, they lacked a certain color to them.

Colt tried to get a feel for Finn’s health after surviving the attack.

The skin wasn’t cold, nor was it clammy. Thank god. Nate had mentioned something about that being a problem before. Finn was looking with wide eyes but with perfect attention. While Colt wasn’t a doctor, he felt it was enough of a good sign that the cop would pull through. Good. He’d liked Finn since they met at the dinner his camp had made a home.

“I was executing my plan. I gave my friend the note, and then I was running.”

“You led everyone to believe that there was more to this plan than ‘run up, deliver a note, then run away,’ Colt said, shaking his head. “You put yourself and the whole operation at risk.”

“Like you with the Minotaur?”

Colt sighed. “I had the power to back it up.”

“I thought I did, too,” Finn argued back, bristling. Colt saw the cop in him coming out, the need to take charge of the situation. At another time, it could be useful. Here now, as a defensive measure, it was essentially pointless. Colt held back the need to say anything else after doing a quick calculation of where that conversation would go.

Things were said and done, poking holes in someone elses flawed plan that seemed to have worked just enough had no point to it. Finn was already going to pay the price in pain and rehabilitation until he could get to a healer—fine.

“Let’s get you home,” Colt offered, defusing any potential fighting. “…Just give me five minutes,” Colt sat down next to the cop and focused on his breathing. There wasn’t a reply to what he said. Not that he needed one since what needed to happen would happen regardless.

Dislike his methods, they’d delivered their message, and tomorrow, they would see if Denny responded the way they wanted him to.