“You know, she took a long time to start screaming.” Zilean was smiling; he knew he only needed to keep me busy for a few more seconds. “It wasn’t until I put the scalpel in—”
“Hey, Zilean,” I said. I was close enough now to make out the lines on his face. “What’s the energy limit on that shield?”
“More than anything you’ve got.”
“Good,” I said, and charged. I had an instant to see Zilean’s eyes go wide before I rammed the shield shoulder-first.
No matter how powerful you make a shield, you can’t get around basic conservation of energy. If something hits a shield, then most of that energy’s going to go into whoever’s holding it. Against bullets this isn’t a problem, because the shield spreads the impact. That means all the wielder has do is absorb the momentum, and there’s only so much momentum a quarter-ounce bullet can carry.
Absorbing the momentum of a 170-pound body is a little harder.
Zilean stumbled and tripped, the shield dissipating as I fell right on top of the Light mage. We scrambled on the floor, me trying to bring the gun to bear and Zilean desperately trying to fend me off, and I was just about to get him when a future flashed through my mind of bullets ripping through me. I dropped flat; the bullets whistled overhead, and the instant’s distraction was enough for Zilean to catch the barrel of my rifle and send a shock through it which numbed my hand.
Conventional wisdom is that grappling with elemental mages is a bad idea, but I’d fought Zilean twice now, and I knew he didn’t have much stomach for up-close-and-personal fights. He could have tried to blast me, but instead the future filled with electrical light and I knew he was about to use his lightning jump to escape.
I hit Zilean across the jaw. The angle was weak, but it was strong enough to stun him and the futures in which he cast his spell winked out. I hooked an arm around his neck and dragged us both upright.
The two gunmen had closed to less than thirty feet away. Both of them had their rifles levelled and they’d been about to shoot, but I was holding Zilean pressed against me, the crook of my elbow crushing his throat, and they hesitated. Zilean clawed at my arm. Electricity sparked at his fingers, but it sank into my armour and Zilean was too dazed to manage a more powerful spell. “Don’t shoot!” he choked out. “Wait!”
I kept my grip with my left arm while my right hand reached behind my back to my holster. “Tell them to drop their guns,” I said into Zilean’s ear.
“Do as he says!” Zilean shouted, a note of panic in his voice.
The gunmen stared at us with is he serious? expressions, and I knew they were trying to figure out what to do. As Zilean opened his mouth to give another order, I drew my 1911 and shot him in the back.
Zilean jerked. The gunmen’s futures forked crazily as they tried to decide whether they’d be in more trouble by shooting or by holding off. Before they could make up their minds, I brought the gun up over Zilean’s shoulder and shot one through the head. The other turned and ran and I shifted my aim, missing two bullets before the third caught him in the small of the back and sent him tumbling to the stone.
Electricity burst blue-white, making my limbs spasm. I staggered back, losing my grip on Zilean as the lightning mage tried to run, but his legs didn’t seem to be working right and he stumbled and fell. Zilean pulled himself to his knees, readying another lightning bolt, then his eyes went wide and he screamed.
My gun was levelled on Zilean’s forehead, while his hand pointed uselessly down at the floor. “Go ahead,” I said. Dots swam before my eyes, but Arachne’s armour had absorbed the worst of the charge and my hands were steady. “Try it.”
Zilean didn’t try it. He opened his hand and the lightning bolt dissipated. “Wait,” he said. “Don’t shoot. I’m bleeding.”
I looked down at Zilean.
“We can—” Zilean swallowed. There was sweat on his brow and blood leaking from his belly; I knew the gut wound had to be agonising, but his eyes were locked to the muzzle of the gun. “We can get you a pardon. A few security men—that doesn’t matter. Just get me to a . . .”
“To a healer?” I said quietly. I didn’t look at Anne, lying only twenty feet away. “Like her?”
Zilean’s face was white. “Look, Verus, you have to understand . . . it was just a job. It wasn’t personal.”
“It was personal to me,” I said, and Zilean’s eyes had just enough time to go wide before I fired.
Blood and bits of skull flew. Zilean dropped bonelessly, lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling. I stared coldly down at the body, then walked over and picked up the rifle I’d dropped, checking the magazine. Then I ran for the edge of the partition.
There weren’t many people still fighting. Richard was still taking on the rest of the Crusader force by himself, and incredibly, he seemed to be winning. I could see at least three bodies lying still, and Richard was engaged in a furious long-range duel with Jarnaff, while the air mage rained missiles down upon him from above.
It’s rare to see a master mage fight. For the most part, they don’t need to—very few people in the magical world will go up against one willingly, not if they know who they are. When master mages do oppose each other, their conflicts are usually political rather than physical, and if one starts losing they usually have plenty of time to withdraw. In all my life, I’ve seen maybe half a dozen master mages in actual combat, and every time I have, it’s stuck in my memory. Each has their own style, their own way of moving and engaging. Vihaela is like a dancer, darting and graceful. Landis is the only Light mage I’ve seen who can match her; he’s not as fast, but his technique is so perfect he doesn’t need to be. Morden almost doesn’t fight at all; he just overwhelms opponents with single crushing attacks which end the battle before it ever really starts.
Watching Richard in action was different from any of them.
It wasn’t that he was especially fast. He was quick, but not as quick as an air mage and with nothing like the eye-blurring speed of Vihaela. Nor was it that his weapons seemed especially powerful. He held a pistol in one hand and there was a flickering black shield around him radiating that strange untyped magic that I’d seen him use as Archon, but I could measure its power and it wasn’t all that much stronger than my own armour. The spells Jarnaff and the other mage were throwing at Richard had enough strength to cut right through his shield if they ever struck it squarely, yet somehow, no matter how quick the force lance or how well-aimed the air blade, Richard was never quite there when it landed. He moved and fired in a measured, unhurried sort of way, as though it was a shooting range, and one by one, the men facing him died.
One of the remaining gunmen went down to a bullet and the other scrambled away, searching for cover. The air mage sent another flurry of blades which darted out to surround Richard in a star pattern and converge. There was no possible angle to dodge, but somehow in the second it had taken the air mage to prepare the spell, Richard had changed his shield. The black screen caught the blades, whirled them around, and spat them out at Jarnaff like a shotgun blast. Jarnaff staggered back and while he was distracted, Richard lifted a hand towards the air mage and four black threads leapt out.
The air mage had his shield ready. The threads weren’t powerful enough to break it, but just as they struck, I realised they weren’t all the same. Each had a different type of countermagic woven into it, so that no single shield would stop them all. The air mage managed to block two of the threads and slow down the third, but the fourth went through the shield as though it wasn’t there. Blood sprayed and the air mage spun from the sky.