Bull’s Blood was unsuccessful in their attempt to crush us, and the rest of their forces were busy elsewhere. That resulted in an odd stalemate, where we were surrounded, but not attacked.
Spontaneously, a defence line was formed between the cages and the stage. The now-empty cage was turned over, extending the protection provided by the nearby pillar. With the cooperation of several freed captives, the cage had somehow sunk into the stone floor, turning it into a makeshift fortress.
With the increasing amount of freed prisoners, the other two cages were rapidly being emptied. The captives inside were pacified and freed at increasingly rapid pace, with different races and species making full use of their abilities and skills to help each other.
In one of the cages, Matthew-Mattea’s mentor found the people they had been looking for. Five teenage boys and seven girls of similar age, obviously students. However, he did not make them to skip the line to get them released ahead of the others. He had a good foresight, and so there was almost no dissatisfaction or conflicts between the different people, despite obvious differences in cultures and languages.
Aitan, who thanks to Mattea’s drink could now stand, pulled out a stack of photos from one of the numerous pouches that were attached to his tactical vest. Soon he also found some of the missing people they were after. Interestingly, three of them were actually part of the Akadem, so after a short discussion, he formed an official cooperation agreement with Mentor. I also noticed, that while he stood next to Mentor who was busy helping to break the manacles, Aitan kept scrutinizing the freed captives. I could not really blame him for that, as I had never expected to see such a variety of anthropomorphic lifeforms in my life.
—
At the same time, the elf was not needed to use his ability to isolate the prisoners from the manacles any more. Instead, he created a petal-shaped shield, a bird-head helmet and a curved saber and joined the frontlines. Even when decked in exquisitely detailed and carved ice armor and weapons, he had a presence of a seasoned combatant. Even finely decorated, the equipment did not lose its functionality, combining the freedom of movement with exceptional defence. He did not stop there, and by manipulating his surroundings, he soon covered the nearby area in slippery ice, forcing the troops of Bull’s Blood to withdraw even further away.
Using the moment when the retreating support mages had lost the connection to the warriors that were still entangled in Mattea’s scroll, he smoothly slid forward and disposed of them in two quick strikes. When he attacked, I sensed how the blade of his saber heated up to an extreme degree. Just a sun-bright flash and then two smooth, dully glowing cuts marked the vital spots of the heavily armored enemies. Did his ability to manipulate the states of water go as far as involve plasma, in addition to liquid and solid that had been confirmed before? If yes, then there was a real elf jedi in front of me, leisurely making some canned meat kebabs.
Compared to him, my understanding of my own energy was far too insufficient. I was not even sure what it was. It did not seem blood, and neither it was life, although it appeared to have the characteristics of both. My energy seemed to be something in between, but the understanding kept eluding me.
—
Meanwhile, the battle between the auction patrons and Bull’s Blood had intensified. To make matters worse, the former group was losing, and the encirclement kept tightening around them. The blood was flowing into the circles on the ground, making everyone to feel nervous as the intense feeling of dread caused some of the weaker ex-prisoners to panic.
A while ago I overheard Maple asking Aitan if they should link up with the other group. In response, he got rebuked for not having noticed that they had not enough information and that their capabilities were far too insufficient.
Aitan was supported by the Mentor-man, who pointed out that an attempt to penetrate through the battle lines that were being bombarded by scores of different spells was a rather suicidal idea. I had to agree, as I looked at one, perhaps not-so-fortunate surviving results of friendly fire trying to crawl away in its new shape. It looked gross enough. I also felt that Mattea’s mentor had a rather negative opinion of the other group, as he kept biting his lip and furrowing his brow each time he looked towards them.
With the battle on auction floor getting more brutal, the situation there became chaotic. Some of the individual patrons or even whole groups had earlier tried to settle some private grudges, not always bothering to make the attacks look like accidents. That, of course, ruined any chances for coherent cooperation, reducing their battle efficiency to the lowest point.
Several people fell rather stereotypically, having their backs pierced by daggers. Some soundlessly dissolved into puddles of goo.
At least two got caught into a vortex of tiny crystal shards. The vortex was obviously ineffective against the reinforced armored warriors, but reduced two of the lightly dressed nearby mages into small scraps of meat. Counting the previous losses, there were barely one hundred people remaining.
Mattea’s mentor fished out a silver pocket watch from his pocket. He held it in hand for a second without opening it, then said loudly: “We need to get ready in a punct!”. Oh wonderful, if somebody bothered to say what was the punct, it would be perfect.
Luckily, a captured Akadem youngsters asked the others: “What was a punct, again?”
“Minute?” – suggested one.
“No, I remember it should be part of an hour. Half? Tenth? Ten minutes? Anyone? – came a refutal.
Finally they agreed that it should be a quarter, so fifteen minutes.
—
I studied the helm I had looted while using my perception to observe the ongoing battle. I was planning to use this helm to dump the excess energy I kept accumulating from all the killing going on nearby. The helm had uniform thickness, and it really was around one centimetre thick, unprecedented thickness for real combat equipment. It had soft leather liner with cloth padding inside, but I had no idea what was the metal used to forge it. The shape of the helm continued the “Alla Romana” style of Bull’s Blood armors, with high ridge in the middle and the rather round overall profile. It even had the visor shaped into the likeness of human face.
A change on the battlefield drew my attention. A young-looking, pale woman in normal-looking clothes with heavy wound in her abdomen suddenly went berserk. With an ear-piercing screech, she took hold of her long black hair and then tugged, ripping off her skin. As slimy, half-coagulated blood and strips of skin showered her surroundings, she revealed her figure beneath – sickly brown-grey body, glistening with oily sheen. While laughing hysterically, she started spinning on one spot. Spinning like a dervish, she released dark, restless smoke that rapidly covered her surroundings. Apparently, it was some really potent stuff, and it seemed to possess some rudimentary awareness.
Indiscriminately, were they of Bull’s Blood or other patrons, a dozen people were covered in that smoke. The smoke churned and turned into small vortexes that drilled straight into the bodies, ignoring any attempts to stop it. The protective light barrier covering the warriors could not stop it at all, and that was pretty scary on its own. After a few seconds, all the affected bodies fell on the floor, with no other external signs but few dark marks on their skin. With the last wheezing laugh, the woman who caused that, coughed out some dark blood and dropped on the ground, dead.
“Oh, that was a Visha Kanya there!” – Mattea who stood nearby had a pale face.
“Famous?” – I asked her, not raising my head from the helm in my hands.
“More like notorious! Mentor said that here won’t be any nice people, but if she was one of them, then the bounty would be enough to buy a small country.” – she explained. She added: “I don’t recognize the others, but at least sixty-seventy of people there got really wicked auras.”
She was interrupted when one of the fighters not too far away got besieged by two warriors. He demanded the nearby combatants to help him, but nobody risked to act. The enraged man bit his own hand and then sucked until his belly inflated like a balloon. His body shrivelled as he kept sucking the wound. Then, he spat out all of the blood at once. Shining jet of blood separated into a fan of hundreds of small arrows that flew out at unimaginable speed.
As the blood arrows touched the armored warriors, the protective shine dulled and their movements slowed down. However, they could not break through. Instead, the surrounding fighters that had ignored his pleas for help, were directly skewered by these arrows. Some lucky ones had only their limbs pierced, while the others ended up dead on spot, with holes in their heads, necks of chests.
I had not expected such speed from these arrows, and we were unlucky enough to have almost a dozen arrows fly towards our position. I managed to use my free hand to carefully push away Mattea and blocked three arrows with my weapon, but I could not teleport or be in several places at once. Because of that, the remaining arrows stuck our crowd. One freshly unshackled captive died, also Elm’s thigh was pierced and was now bleeding profusely. Two arrows were blocked by the elf’s shield and the rest were diverted by a gust of thickly packed ice shards that he had released as a counter.
Such unexpected turn of events signified that the battle was entering its decisive stage. Everyone had to keep their heads down, and all the discussions died down. Luckily, the dead captive had no close friends or family here, so we did not have to deal with emotional outbursts. Elm got a dosage of Mattea’s strawberry brew (“As bad as the fruit’n’berry beer I’d in Glasgow, blergh.”) and got the hole in his thigh patched up using a generous amount of spider silk (“That’s the fucking coolest boy scout stuff I’ve ever seen, thanks, ma’am!”).
The latter was provided by an extremely tall, but bone-thin woman with four pupils in both eyes. Aitan kept looking at her with an odd look. Was she some target? Or was he attracted to spider-women or flat-as-a-washboard body shapes?
—
Suddenly the earth shook. Earthquake? I instantly discarded that thought – Britain was not known for its seismic activity. Almost immediately, I connected the quakes with the energy pulses in the blood circle around us.
“Not enough variety! We don’t have enough here!” – I perceived a loud discussion at the back of forces of Bull’s Blood, sideways from the line connecting us to the restricted area of Bull’s Blood.
That was said by a figure in flowing, gaudily decorated robes. It was so flashy that even my rather vague perception could feel it. Lots of gold, Tyrian purple, pearls and embroidery.
He was answered by one of the nearby less-decorated figures: “Pontifex, salii cannot break through to the hostiae. We are running out of the time we have according to the dirus!”
“I know. Even if we throw all out all our forces for their devotio, we won’t be in time.” – Pontifex noded.
He was silent for a few breaths and then said: “Vitium is unacceptable. Porricere must be completed! Prepare ourselves as victima for do ut des, so that Taurus can descend and return our glory!”
All the robed figures nodded. Then, as if a wave passed through the forces of Bull’s Blood, all of them stepped forward, tightening the encirclement, pushing towards the circle of blood. The ground shook fiercely, and many freed captives lost their footing. But Bull’s Blood seemed to be unaffected as they blindly charged into battle.
Even in the backlines, instead of supporting the warriors, more than half of the robed figures pulled out their long iron knives and moved forwards. Some of them took out small clay pots, and shook out some dust that took the form of giant bulls. These bull-shaped clouds of dust bellowed in rage and ran into the defenders, blinding and choking them with their bodies. The warriors, still reinforced by the remaining support troops, dropped their shields and pierced through the frontlines.
Our side was also attacked, but the numbers were less and the elevated stage and the cages made our position favourable. One of the dust bulls almost reached us, but was blown away by the combined effort of the freed students from the Akadem. One of the charging lightly armored support mages was shot down by SAS soldiers, which also depleted their remaining ammunition.
The elf intercepted one of the warriors and I blew back two others, mangling one of the armors enough to kill the man inside. I could keep up with several attackers at once, but even split seconds were enough for us to get surrounded. Aitan cut down one of the suicidal mage-priest-buffers that had jumped onto the stage. I was restricted in my movements, again, but now by the allies. I had to carefully move around our people, and carefully adjust my attacks to ensure that I do not hurt anyone by accident.
I sidestepped the gremlin, whose fist was now covered by the unproportionally huge metal gauntlet and who was currently doing his best to cave in the helmeted head of the warrior. He could do that, because the latter had somehow sunk into the stone floor, unable to free himself. I blocked one of the attacking warriors and side-swept his weapon before I stretched out my hand and grabbed the edge of his armor. Then, with a rotating shift of my hips, I sent him careening towards another group of advancing attackers.
While we were coping with the attacks, I kept observing the key figures of Bull’s Blood. The had pulled out their knives and one by one, began to calmly slit their own throats. As the lowest ranks died, the higher-ranking members kept mumbling something I could not really hear because of all the noise from the surrounding battles. The quakes became more violent and frequent, and blood shone brightly as it flowed through the grooves of the floor tiles.
The elf and another creature – a possibly male, hairless and infinitely androgynous person who had no eyes (and no eye sockets either) almost together shouted that we need to get out of the circle. Mattea’s mentor fiddled with his pocket watch as he anxiously looked around and I heard Aitan mumbling something that sounded like prayers in Hebrew. But even so, he still kept his combat knife ready and had already cut down two enemies.
I managed to break through the rather weak protection barrier of one of the armored attackers and pierced through his visor with my weapon that had currently taken form of short awl spike, ahlspiess. But in the moment it took, one of the suicidal mages that was dying on the claws of one of the freed prisoners, pulled out a small sack and threw it out. It fell down between SAS team and the people from Akadem.
“RUN!” – shouted Mentor, as he shook his hands and pushed away the people he could.
The bag, initially smaller than a fist, was rapidly inflating, already as large as two fists.
SAS team coordinated well, and almost instantly moved back. But Elm, as he suddenly stood up, stumbled because of his wound. Maple, next to him, stretched out his hand to grab Elm’s harness to drag him away. But Elm managed to turn around and shoved him forwards.
The sudden push separated them, bringing Elm closer to the rapidly-inflating bag and forced Maple away for several meters.
“Civs!” – shouted Elm as he used his good leg to jump at the bag, aiming to cover it with his body.
Mentor had used the pressure waves to push people away, but that also forced him away as well. And while he was rushing back, he was not going to make it in time.Some innocent people were left standing, frozen in shock and unable to move.
Just as Elm almost covered the bag, the thin, eight-pupilled woman stepped out from between the panicking people. She shook her hand and extremely thin threads latched into the sack. Then, with a tug of her hand, the bag slipped out from beneath Elm and was sent flying towards the advancing Bull’s Blood.
A loud sound akin to a thunderclap echoed through the hall, further amplified by the underground location of the structure. A strong shockwave passed through us, blowing some people off their feet. Dust and pieces of stone fell from above, and some of the people seemed to have a concussion as they held their ears and kept dizzily shaking their heads.
Maple returned to Elm, together with Fir. He wordlessly used his knuckles to knock on Elm’s helmeted head and with Fir dragged him away towards the shocked, pale-faced Aitan.
Everyone was badly surprised by such grenade, and the expressions turned wary- Luckily for us, the exploding pouch did not seem to be a common item, and the situation did not repeat itself. Good thing too, as at the spot where the sack had landed, five meters of thick stone slate floor were now pulverized into fine gravel. Close to the epicentre, there used to be two support mages as well. Now, not even a scrap of them remained.
—
At that time, only one of the robed priest-like figures remained standing. The one that was called pontifex, in gaudy robes and all.
He looked at the fighting going on and slowly raised his own knife. It looked similar to the other long iron knives used by Bull’s Blood, but it looked much more ancient, with dark spots of age covering the blade. He raised the blade and mouthed something I could not discern. Then, with one movement, he slit his throat.
As he fell down and his blood joined the rapidly expanding flow on the floor, the ground stopped shaking. The energy contained within ceased pulsing, instead raising in power until the pressure it emitted felt like strong opposing wind. The blood rose from the middle of the circle, spinning with increasing speed.
“Sard! They sped it up, we need to get out now!” – the mentor exclaimed.
“Aye. It is going to burst open pretty soon.” – the elf nodded, looking tense.
“Bollocks.” – said the large woman, scrawny man duo together.
Some of the freed captives nodded, some looked concerned, the remaining ones kept panicking just like before.
Circle of Shards 