Instead of bringing out the living “lots” one by one, Bull’s Blood had apparently decided to raise the interest by bringing out all the slaves at once. When several cages were rolled out from the passage, everyone stood up to see better. The cages, in addition to thick metal and wood bars, had thin wires woven in between, forming an obstructing gauze.
Most annoyingly, my perception was blocked by the cages, again. The term ‘Faraday cage’ popped into my mind, as it seemed that the shielding principle was quite similar. No wonder I had been unable to sense their location before that moment. I could only use my eyes, but that was only good to make out body outlines, nothing more.
Three large cages, twelve … persons in each. As far as I could see from the silhouettes, far from some of them being humans or even people, there were several that could barely count as beings.
—
“Something’s off, I feel.” – I heard a silent, but grave statement from Rabbi Es who was sitting besides me.
“What?” – I asked him.
“I’m sorry, but can’t say for sure. But something bad is happening.” – he admitted. Now then, he did tell me about his sixth sense just a while ago. Did it really work like that?
“So?”
Aitan hesitated, before declaring in one breath: “Then, if you do not mind, if something happens, I would like to make use of the clause in our agreement that asked for your cooperation with the civilian safety being the priority.”
I rolled my eyes so that he could not see: “Alright, I formally acknowledge your request.”
—
At the same time, the auctioneer clapped loudly, bringing everyone’s attention to him.
“Everyone should be aware that this time, our auction will be unique! As we had previously informed our esteemed guests, we, Bull’s Blood, will participate in the auction on an equal standing with everybody. Due to a certain project, we have been looking for as many rare, interesting and unique beings as possible. That allows any one of you to sell off your debtors, rivals, annoying pests” – he barked a laugh at that point before continuing: “…pets and unneeded dependants for a hefty sum. And only the coins used here can be traded for the rarest treasures and materials our small brotherhood has collected over the centuries! Remember to visit our brokers after the auction!”
For the first time in this auction, the auctioneer became visibly emotional. His gestures became larger, drawing the attention of the audience, as he began describing what rare goods could be exchanged from Bull’s Blood after the auction. As the noise among the audience rose, I understood that the mentioned items were of high demand and posed great interest for most participants.
However, as the auctioneer continued raising the interest of the crowd, I noticed how the lights outside of the auction area had dimmed. I doubted that was meant to save the electricity bills, so I nudged Aitan.
“Careful.” – I lightly gestured towards the darkness.
“I am.” – acknowledged Aitan in low voice, and slightly turned to show his gun he was keeping at the ready.
He then tensed as he swiveled around: “Oh-oh-oh, it is going to hit us now, I feel it.”
—
I felt how the auction was being surrounded by rows of Bull’s Blood, with heavily armored forced in front and all sorts of robed figures at the back.
I hummed a disordered tune, while I let my armor to retract the mask and started reforming the armor under my winter jacket. Meanwhile, under Aitan’s watchful glare, Maple, Pine, Fir, Birch and Elm helped each other to secure the bags filled with our purchases. I had not known that they had a special harness to carry the bags and cases on their backs. Judging from their code names, this operation was designed by a hobby dendrologist. As a side effect, the soldiers began referring to themselves as “happy tree friends”, which I personally found rather ill-omened.
The auctioneer had finished his advertisement and with steady steps approached the cages. Two armored warriors approached, one had to use his full weight to push open the lever blocking the door, while another one stretched out his hand and grabbed one of the persons inside.
In a few moments, he dragged out a young woman, who kept struggling fiercely. Her long nails caused the sparks fly as she stuck the armor, but the warrior did not even shake. Seeing that her attacks were ineffective, she tensed and spit out a glob of transparent liquid towards the visored face. Of course, that was also useless, as the lightly smoking liquid simply slid down the armor, leaving a few sizzling spots on the stone floor. Not even a drop entered the slits between the armor plates.
—
The auctioneer laughed, as the armored figure took hold of the captive, restricting her movements from behind. Then, he turned towards the audience, showing his teeth.
He pulled out a straight iron knife from his clothes, and shouted loudly: “Let the blood call the Bull!” – and slashed the woman’s throat.
The audience jumped to their feet as they understood that something was wrong.
“What?!”
“Hey, my power’s suppressed! What’s going on?!”
“Stop them!”
“Bull’s Blood, let us out now!”
“They have blocked the way!”
“Against the rules!”
“Stay! Astronomical midnight! They are cracking the way!”
“Look down!”
When I looked down on the floor, I could see how a small amount of blood from the woman had actually managed to spread out beneath our feet. Somehow, the scratches, cracks and grooves in the floor tiles had formed a giant circle that was now surrounding the audience.
A silent pop nearby could be barely heard in the clamou. The SAS man called Fir had used his gun to shoot at one of the armored figures without a shield that had tried to approach us by going around the pillar. A dull flash marked the spot on the breastplate where he was shot, but it was not enough to take him down.
Fir did not panic, and popped another two shots, further supported by Maple. In two seconds, four shots had landed into the middle of the breastplate. The third shot stuck the armor without any flashing effects, and together with the fourth directly pierced through. The armored figure stopped, before sagging down with a dull thud. A tiny sliver of energy flowed into me.
“Ruach! Save the people!” – Aitan almost shouted, as he pointed his gun at one of the approaching warriors. The pillar was of great help, as it blocked off most of the Bull’s Blood, forcing them to take a roundabout approach.
I did not answer, and with a shrug of my shoulders, slid out of my winter jacket. I liked it, and I did not want for it to get ruined.
As I revealed my armor, I heard a few silent “Woha”-s from Pine, Birch and Elm, who were aiming at the approaching figures on my side.
“I said that wasn’t some cosplay plastic, you owe me a ten.” – Pine nudged Elm while he made a shot.
Elm shoved his elbow into Pine’s ribs: “They said we had to check those costume makers, sellers and whatever because of his contacts, duh.” – he landed two hits into the approaching figure’s helmet, causing it to stumble and crash into the chairs.
Aitan interjected: “Pipe down! They are slow because they need to get close first, focus!”. Oh, Aitan knew something about armored combat. Energy and breath has to be conserved just until the engagement.
—
From my arm, my weapon slipped down as it changed from its bracelet form into the familiar poleaxe. I looked around, and noticed how the angry audience began fighting as they tried to resist.
But as soon as people reached the encirclement, the armored warriors turned out to be really fearsome in the melee. The robed members of Bull’s Blood that stood behind at the back, stretched out their hands towards the frontlines and began chanting something. That apparently provided a significant boost to their armors.
I could see, that while most of the audience used some real magic, it was not very effective against the armors. Fire, ice, water, flashes of light and even some dark shadows and tendrils did not help much. The warriors kept swinging their spears and used shields to ward off the attacks. Because of that, the audience was forced back into the ring of blood. With every bright splash of blood, I felt a tiny piece of energy rushing towards me, making me feel invigorated.
I, with SAS quickly following me, directly ran forward. Using my strength, I simply crushed the chairs on my path, and used my poleaxe to sweep the way clear for the soldiers. In a few seconds, I reached the front of the stage.
—
I raised my poleaxe in preparation to smash through the row of armored figures that separated me from the auctioneer. The man was already ready, waiting for another person to be dragged out of the cage. There were already two lifeless bodies lying on the floor, their blood forcefully running into the grooves on the floor, spreading out like a gruesome road map.
Just as I slightly bent my legs to jump forward, a cloaked figure appeared from the side and threw something into the middle of the stage.
With a loud crack of shattering egg, an area of around three meters in radius was invaded by purplish snakes of electricity. In front of me, the auctioneer’s figure brightly glowed for whole three seconds as he tried to rush out, but before he managed that, the glow dulled and his body turned into ash. The armored warriors fared better, and they turned to face the man who had thrown that lightning grenade.
I did not let the chance go by, so I jumped on the stage which still smelled of ozone. With a thrust, I attacked one of the figures before me. The resulting flash was not so dull as when Fir had shot his opponent. Instead, the light was now bright enough to rival a camera flash. A whining sound came from the point of impact, and the warrior was pushed back. That was greatly different from my expectations, as I had thought to run him straight through.
“They don’t drop anymore.” – grumbled Birch below the stage as he aimed at one of the shield-bearing armored figures.
I could also agree with that, as ever since the first killed warrior, the SAS had not succeeded in downing any other. They did hit, and quite precisely. But the points of impact simply flashed and did not even change in intensity.
“Aim at the ones at the back.” – I heard a shout from a side. The cloaked man had circled around the warriors and now threw small objects that looked like the dip pen nibs at the Bull’s Blood, making the robed figures to fall back. He was steadily approaching the cages, occasionally stomping down to create locally concentrated shockwaves that pushed the warriors back.
“You heard him.” – I said to SAS as I exerted some effort and swept away two nearby warriors. A few muffled gunshots later and the intensity of light coming from the armors went down.
“Much easier.” – I nodded and after driving the spearpoint through one of the opponents’ visors I used the sharpened bottom end of the haft to knock back another approaching figure. Then, having cleared a sufficient patch of floor, I stepped forward while performing a short sweep from the upper back to my lower front, adding some extra force with a flick of my wrist.
As a result of me exerting my full strength, four surrounding armors simply exploded, as some sort of integrated barriers were torn apart. Bad, I had hoped to cut, not smash. Apparently, my pure combat skills were not that good. Not that bulldozing with raw power felt bad, it actually felt quite good instead.
In a few short steps we finally reached the cages. SAS, under Aitan’s command, had successfully picked off at least a dozen people at the back. That turned out to be a really effective way to reduce the abilities of the armored warriors. But now, these support mages had retreated further into the darkness. And while I could still see them, the soldiers could not.
—
I looked back towards the floor where the audience had been sitting. Now, there was a chaos as the encirclement kept tightening. There were only three or four physical fighters I could see, and each risked a lot with each attack. The armored warriors simply pushed on, using their weapons to strike down the people, and few of the magic-users could deal with such blows.
Occasionally, a powerful physical attack broke through, and then the damaged warrior was overwhelmed by attacks, falling to never rise again. But such cases were way too rare. Blood flowed and kept gathering in the grooves on the floor.
Aitan pointed at the flowing blood: “That feels like very bad idea.”
I nodded: “Looks bad too. I guess, your sixth sense again?”
“Aye, prickles straight between the ears.” – he admitted.
“That is a summoning.” – finally said the cloaked man who had meanwhile approached us. He was the man who had previously suggested us to leave the market.
“Of what?” – I asked him, tilting my poleaxe to let some pieces of gore flow off.
He hesitated for a moment before admitting: “They believe that the Bull who was slain by Mithras is a representation for some being beyond our World. An exiled god, perhaps. And to give him as much boost as possible, they intend to strengthen the ‘signal’ with as many unique types of blood as possible. Humans, half-humans, elder races, therianthropes and so on.”
I nodded as that explanation was fairly straightforward: “And let me guess, Academy had some students kidnapped?”
Now that was something that surprised the man, as he asked: “How did you know?”
“Well, there were talks about some people from Academy that had been caught and the danger of the retaliation from the Academy. And then while this is quite dark-sided event here, you tried to warn us, so you should be one of those in the know. By the way, I even know how you and your friend followed us for a while.” – I remembered him as one of the men who had stayed outside of the appraisal booth while we were there conducting the trade.
“Do you plan to stop them?” – AItan asked.
The cloaked man shook his head: “I’m afraid we can’t. We take a great risk by just trying to save the students.”
“Well.” – I said as I used a direct vertical chop to eviscerate one of the attacking warriors from its front. Most of them had stopped coming at us and focused on their attempt to finish of the rest of the audience first.
I continued: “Aitan, are the missing people here? Your bullets are useless anyway, check out.”
“Yes. Elm, check it, Maple cover him. Be careful, they may be aggressive” – Aitan ordered his subordinate.
“‘Yessir.’”
When the cage was opened again, Elm almost had his face smashed in by an attack from the inside. He barely managed to dodge as Maple reflexively aimed his gun at the attacker.
White hair, silver eyes. I felt a feeling of the unfamiliar excitement and as one of the warriors tried to approach, I got rid of the hinderance by blowing it off its feet. The armored figure slid across the floor, leaving behind a trail of powdered stone tiles. I used the recoil to swiftly approach the cage.
I almost blurted out: “Eale?”, before I recognized that the captive was a male. But long, sharp ears clearly revealed that this was an elf.
I tried to imitate the whistling language of the Taistealaithe, trying to spell out “Stop.”
That worked as the elf faltered and looked at me, looking unsure.
I switched to my awkward Old Irish: “We are friends, helping you. Any humans inside?”
He was silent a bit and looked towards the fight below the stage.
Then he sighed and said: “Cáemán is pronounced as keev-awun, and you just suggested you were somebody’s lover. I speak English just fine, dude. But i got the gist of it. If we get out of here, I pledge on my name that this favour will be repaid.”
Circle of Shards 