Chapter 35

“How did you….” Nessa trailed off. Rex and Nessa knew what had happened to Pilk and were astonished she was here and in good shape.

“Survive after you snapped my neck?” Pilk finished Nessa’s sentence with an evil grin, “Trade secret, may even tell you before I repay the favour back to you.”

“Once more, leave us the boy and that girl and you two can leave” said one of the men, talking to Lizz and Charr.

“You want him, must go past me” said Charr tapping his axe on his shoulder with a grin.

Lizz added in shortly after, “And me too.”

Rex looked at his friends and gave them a smile and respectful head nod at their statements, he couldn’t be happier that his friends were willing to fight with him until the end.

“Well let’s get this over with!” snapped Pilk, “you want to die for him, fine. We have a schedule to keep.”

Fighting was fine for Charr, he had an axe, Lizz had magic and Nessa had a curved blade, Rex was a little embarrassed because without Fafnir he did not have a weapon. He was scanning around for anything he could use, then it hit him. He still had the cursed blade that Nessa had tried to get him with. Was better than nothing he thought snatching his bag up from Lizz’s feet and finding the blade still wrapped up.

The moment he unwrapped the blade the kidnappers stood still for a bit, “Now why would you have one of those in your possession?” asked Pilk, she seemed a little surprised.

“Saved it, for situations like now” Rex said shrugging.

Pilk looked at her companions for a little while before saying, “makes no matter if you have that or not, come quietly or suffer the consequences.” Once she said that they started walking towards Rex’s group, this time a little more carefully than before. Everyone kept their eyes on Rex and the dagger he had in his hand.

Charr saw them paying a lot of attention to Rex took this as an opportunity to strike and once one of the men was within reach, he quickly swung the axe and lopped off the man’s head. Once Charr had done that he expected a large gush of blood to come rushing out so he covered his face a little, but once the man’s head was removed from his body, there was no blood at all. “What demon is this?” Charr said shocked. The other two kidnappers snarled at Charr’s actions and the other man changed his direction towards Charr. Once he was close, the man mumbled something under his breath, which brought a blade blue out from his wrist. The blade was the length of a short sword and was attached to his wrist, and he was skilfully swinging it around, almost like an extension of his arm. Charr stepped back a little seeing the blade, he had never seen magic like this. The man seemed to pick up on Charr’s sudden change in attitude and said, “You should’ve taken our deal before giant, now you’ll have to suffer.”

“I know what that is, that’s a blade of Urus! Rare magic” chimed Lizz, “dangerous and unpredictable at the best of times. Charr come here quickly.”

Once charr walked over to Lizz she spoke quietly to herself, dipped into her mana and drew her fingers over the blades of Charr’s axe. “Without this enchantment, his blade will cut through this axe with ease.”

Once the man saw Lizz coat Charr’s axe his face turned into a snarl. “Doesn’t matter, I’ll take your lives either way!!” he yelled and leaped at Charr raising his blade over his head and bringing it down onto Charr. Charr roared and lifted up with axe to meet his swing and the blades connected with a *THUD* and a light burst. Once the light burst had dampened, the man stood there with his blade locked onto Charr’s axe. They looked at each other for a few seconds and then withdrew their blades. The 2 men smiled at each other before they started their duel. For a large man Charr moved very quickly, and the man he fought was also very fast and fluid in his movements. It was not long before the intensity had risen to the point of the blades becoming light trails and the movement of the men became too fast for Lizz to keep up. She was going to add in some magic to aid Charr and damage his attacker, but they moved in and out too quickly for her to be able to target properly.

After a few minutes of intense fighting they broke apart for a few minutes again, both staring at each other and breathing heavily from the effort from the fighting. Seeing as how neither had gained an advantage nor able to wound either party, the man got agitated. Looking for an advantage, he kicked some sand from his feet into Charr’s eyes before launching at him again. Once Charr was incapacitated from the sand in his eyes, the man drew his blade back and swung, going for a slice across Charr’s neck. Seeing Charr about to lose, Lizz brought her magic forward and used the strongest statis spell she could manage, hitting Charr’s attacker and freezing him in place. Once the man knew would was keeping him in place, he tested Lizz’s strength by pushing against it. Seeing how easily Lizz’s spell weakened by him struggling against the spell, he decided to use everything he had, pushing and flexing and thrashing.

“Charr hurry, I can’t hold him much longer, he is too strong!!” Lizz cried out, sweat beads appearing on her forehead from the effort. Charr continued wiping his eyes the best he could, it took a little effort, but he soon had a little part of his vision back, grabbed his axe and brought it down onto his attacker’s head, just at the same time as he broke Lizz’s spell. With the force Charr put behind the axe it sank deep into the man’s skull, splitting his head open. Once again there was no blood from this man’s wound either. Charr pulled his axe out and the body slumped to the ground.

“Why these men not bleed? I not liking this” Charr said to Lizz looking at the 2 men’s bodies. Lizz nodded in agreement and walked up to the man Charr had just fought. Kneeling down she looked at the man to see if she could find out why this man did not bleed from the large opening in his head. She could see the brain in his skull, but the wound did not bleed at all, moving his head around she noticed that there were small tattoos in lines down the back of the man’s neck.

Pushing him onto his stomach she looked closer at the tattoos, “These are spells, like enchantments. I can only make out a few words though, this language hasn’t been used in a very long time. Its to hide someone from death by the look of the spell. As long as nothing magically intervenes, their bodies will always repair, no matter how close to death they were.”

“How we stop it?” Charr asked, “I no liking to undeads.”

Lizz smiled looking at his new found fear, “They aren’t undead so to speak, just hard to kill. I believe Rex’s knife to the spells centre should unravel it.”

Frowning they both looked at Rex and Nessa.

Pilk noticed his friend was also downed, she scowled at Rex and snarled, “You’ve cost me a lot of time and energy tonight, I will make sure you pay for this extra trouble.”

Nessa and Rex readied their blades before Pilk dug her fingers into her sword handle and the blade separated into 2 swords.

“This is problematic” Nessa exclaimed.

She hadn’t met anyone ambidextrous since her mother, and her mother was incredibly talented in sword play, it was very difficult to fight 2 swords at once in the right hands.

Seeing what Pilk had done with her sword, Rex stood there and stared at her. “Who are you? Really” he asked.

“I’m someone you don’t want to f**k with, and you’ve done just that!” Pilk yelled. She dashed at Rex with her swords crossed over each other in a X shape and an inch in front of Rex’s chest, she pulled the swords apart. She was going to hurt Rex badly for the trouble he had caused. Just as the blades were about to touch his skin Nessa kicked the back of Rex’s knees making them give out and he dropped onto his back, the swords just skimming him and giving a minor cut to his chest.

Nessa then brought her own sword forward and stabbed at Pilk. She saw that Pilk had over extended trying to cut Rex so she thought for sure it was a hit. To her dismay Pilk simply flicked her wrist backwards and stopped Nessa’s attack with ease. Great, so she is good Nessa thought. Rex jumped back to his feet still clutching the blade, he had almost forgotten what Fafnir had told him, ‘Do not let it cut you anywhere.’ Then it dawned on him, he didn’t need to stab Pilk fatally, he just had to cut her somewhere and let the blades magic do the rest. Rex knew he wasn’t a skilled fighter like Nessa was, so he walked behind Pilk in hopes she would not be able to fight them both in this way.

Nessa nodded at Rex as a signal to attack, and both ran in Nessa calculated with her strikes and stabs and Rex swinging it madly. This did not seem to work effectively, because for every strike, kick or punch aimed at her, Pilk was able to counter, landing a few blows of her own in the process. This made Nessa huff, she knew a losing fight when she saw it and had no idea how they were going to win this. She was about to concede when a bolt on lightning struck Pilk on the arm, putting her off balance for a second. Nessa struck at this time but once again Pilk was able to counter with her other sword but could not counter Rex’s next move. He dragged the blade across the back of her neck, he was not able to get a deep cut, but he saw it definitely broke the skin. Jumping back from Pilk’s reactive sword pommel strike, he looked at Nessa and nodded to try and let her know he had got her.

Pilk regained her balance, pushed Nessa back and stodd up straight. He stared at Rex and ran her finger across the back of her neck feeling where he had cut him. Just like the other 2 men she did not bleed. Laughing a little she said, “Is that all you’ve got? How embarrassing.” Gripping her swords tightly, she readied herself to go on the attack. Taking a step forward Pilk started to feel drained, confused she shook her head and took a few more steps. The feeling only worsened, it was then she realised something was wrong. “What did you do whelp!!??”

“I’ll make you a deal. You tell me what you did to me and I’ll help stop the poison from the curse” Rex replied. He had no idea how to stop the cursed blades damage, but he hoped she would tell him what she had done to him.

“I don’t know what the spell is idiot!” she snapped, “all I know is your uncle made it for this job and told me how to use it.” The blade had weakened Pilk to the point her legs started to feel like jelly. “What have you done to me!!??”

“I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what this blade does, all I know is its cursed and not to cut myself” Rex said with a shrug.

“You!” Pilk raged, this blade’s poison had brought her to her knees and her eyesight was going fuzzy. The blades poison was acting quicker than he imagined.

“They have a spell on their bodies that prevents death, I don’t think the poison will kill her. The spell is centred on their hearts. That blade possesses enough magic to dissipate the spell, effectively killing them.” Lizz said walking over.

“If your uncle finds out you killed me, he will seek vengeance” Pilk sneered.

“We need to do it now before the spell kicks in again!” Lizz urged.

Handing the knife to Charr, he nodded at the men signalling Charr to do what Lizz needed. He promptly walked over, plunging the knife into the men’s hearts. This time once the dagger was stained with blood. Once this happened the tattoos on the men disappeared and their pupils went white. Nodding in satisfaction he walked back to Rex once the 2 men had been dealt with. Handing the knife back to Rex he said, “You must use on her, I no like hurting woman.”

He handed the knife to Nessa before saying also, “I can’t do it either, you do it.” Something was still nudging the back of his mind at what Pilk had said, they were kidnappers, why would his uncle care about them to want vengeance, sure he would not be happy at his disappearance, but to seek revenge means it was personal. He couldn’t help but ask just as Nessa had lined the dagger up to her chest ready to push it in, “Why would my uncle care if you died? You are common bandits.”

“Because I am his daughter” she replied with a smile a few seconds before Nessa plunged the dagger up to the hilt into her chest.