Pyre threw another fireball. I dived and rolled, heat washing over me, a scream from behind dying away in a gurgle, then I came up in a run, aiming for the fallen AK. I caught up the assault rifle, worked the action, then opened fire, short controlled bursts. Pyre fell back, staggering, one hand held up before him to focus his shield, the other clutched to the blood leaking from his body. Bullets sparked off his shield, melting and bouncing away, but the assault rifle had far more power than the pistol, and Pyre was hurt. The shield weakened, fracturing under the hail of bullets. I held Pyre’s gaze and saw the dawning realisation in his eyes. “Wait!” he shouted, throwing up his other hand. “Wait! I’m done!”
The futures aligned and I picked out the one I needed. A three-round burst shattered Pyre’s shield, then another went through his chest. Pyre jerked and fell. I emptied what was left of the magazine into him just to make sure.
Turning, I saw that only three others were still standing. A guy with a handgun, another with a combat knife, and behind them, Onyx. I started walking.
The two boys looked at me wide-eyed, then raised their hands. “Don’t shoot!” the one with the gun called.
“We give up!” the other shouted. “Okay? We give up!”
I kept walking.
“You said we could go if we dropped our weapons,” the guy with the gun said, the words spilling out hurriedly. He dropped his handgun. “I’m going.”
“Yeah.” The other guy dropped his knife. “I’m done. We’re both done.”
I walked up and they backed off to the wall. I dropped the empty AK-47, bent and picked up the handgun. It was an old-model 9mm, scuffed and damaged. Five bullets left.
“Just let us go. Okay?” The first guy glanced fearfully at Onyx, but when Onyx didn’t react, he looked at me. “We won’t do nothing.”
I looked back at him, then raised the gun. His eyes went wide and his voice rose to a scream. “No, wait, don’t—!”
I shot him through the head. His friend tried to bolt for the door and I shot him too.
All of a sudden, the room was quiet. After the shouts, screams, gunfire, and explosions, the silence was eerie. The only noise was the quiet crackle of fires and the moaning of the last one of my attackers still alive and conscious. It was the one whose hand I’d half severed, and he was curled up on the floor whimpering. Without turning to look, I put a bullet through his head and he went still. Now the only sound was the fires.
Two others were left alive. One was Selene. Pyre had dropped her early in the fight and she’d scrambled away into the corner: she was staring at the carnage with eyes wide in horror. And there was Onyx, standing in front of the door, arms folded.
I looked around. The floor was covered in bodies, killed by fire and bullets and blades. Blood was everywhere. I studied the slaughterhouse for a moment, then turned to Onyx.
“Well,” Onyx said. “Guess Morden was right about one thing. You want a job done right, you got to do it yourself.”
I glanced down at the 9mm and tossed the pistol aside. It clattered to the floor and I walked to the body of the adept with the sword.
“Had a feeling it’d be this way,” Onyx said. He walked forward into the room, kicking aside the 9mm. He turned his head to watch me as he moved. “I’ve been waiting for this a long time.”
Without taking my eyes off Onyx, I bent down and took hold of the weapon’s handle. Most of the gang’s equipment had been junk, but this wasn’t. It was a focus item, well-crafted, designed to channel the wielder’s magic through the metal. Not really meant for a diviner, but it would resist spells better than a normal sword and had a slight ability to pierce shields.
“So let’s do it,” Onyx said. “You and me.” A plane of force sprang out from his right hand, the length and shape of my own weapon. He held his left hand out towards me and beckoned.
I advanced, studying Onyx’s shield. Onyx wasn’t Pyre; his shield was a shimmering weave of force, planes meshing and overlapping. It was optimised against ranged attacks, but effective in melee as well. Futures of the next few seconds unfolded, a thousand Veruses attacking a thousand Onyxes from every position and angle. None broke through.
I did a short lunge, testing Onyx’s defences. Onyx blocked the first attack, let the second glance off his shield. He stabbed for my eyes and I leant away, the thrust stopping an inch from my face.
“Come on, Verus,” Onyx said. “Show me what you got.”
I attacked, careful not to overextend. My bladework was better than Onyx’s, and more than half of my strikes got through. None broke his shield. The planes of force shifted to block the incoming blade, the focus item’s magic meeting Onyx’s with a tiny flash at each contact. Onyx counterattacked from time to time but his strikes were casual, almost careless; he was feeling me out.
One of my thrusts glanced off Onyx’s shield, and his face twisted in disgust. “Come on!” He walked towards me, his arms spread wide. His shield glowed brightly in my magesight as he reinforced it. “Hit me!”
I backed away. Onyx swiped his blade through the air in short cutting arcs, pushing me into the middle of the room. “Hit me!” Onyx said again. “You beat me with that fateweaver once. Made me run. It was the first time, you know that? After I became Morden’s Chosen, I never lost a battle until you. So hit me with everything you got!”
I kept backing up, watching Onyx warily. The last time we’d done this, I’d used the fateweaver to redirect Onyx’s attacks, turning one back into him. He was being more careful this time.
“Morden never treated me the same after that,” Onyx said. “When I found out you were going to Fountain Reach, I was ready. It was going to be a rematch, just you and me. Except you didn’t, did you? You ran away.”
I was still studying Onyx’s shield. It was strong—very strong—but there were gaps between the planes of force, chinks where an attack might slip through if he were distracted.
“Pissed me off so much when I learnt what you did,” Onyx said. He slashed as he advanced; each time I skipped away. “Yeah, I could kill you, but I wanted to face you full strength. That was half the reason I took that statue. Pyre thought he was going to get the fateweaver for himself, but I didn’t give a shit. I knew if I waited long enough, you’d come. So bring it, Verus. Give me your best shot. I want to take you on with that fateweaver and kill you with it!”
Onyx had backed me up against the statue, and with the last words he lunged. I stepped aside and brought my sword up, picking out the future I wanted. Onyx’s blade drove into the statue just as my own sword slid through a chink in his shields and scored his arm.
Onyx jumped back with a snarl, raising his left hand. I dived aside as the statue exploded into a hundred pieces, shards of stone cutting my back and pinging off the walls. Onyx came on again, teeth bared; blood was dripping from his right hand but he was obviously more angry than hurt.
I parried, backed away. There were no futures where I broke Onyx’s defence, and I had to give ground. Onyx forced me into a corner, then raised his free hand: blades of force appeared from every direction and arrowed in. I saw myself die in a hundred futures, found one in which Onyx made a slight mistake, pushed. It was close. Two of the blades were too accurate to dodge and I had to block with the sword, the impact jarring it out of my hand.
Onyx slashed and I rolled under his blow, jumping over a body and snatching up a machine pistol. I fired at Onyx blind, the automatic weapon chattering; Onyx advanced through the hail of fire, bullets glancing off his shield until the gun clicked empty. The combat chain was lying near the ruins of the statue and I caught it up.
“Come on!” Onyx snarled. “Room’s sealed, only way out is through me, so stop running and fight!” He slashed for my head and I leant away, lashed the chain against his arm to deflect his next strike. I took the second’s breather to step back into a ready stance.