Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Cassius drew his sword and dagger.
I took up my staff in both hands.
Cassius assumed a battle stance as the first got close and the second came at us from the side.
Zees.
Damn it.
When there was one, there was not two.
There were twenty.
I started to make a slow turn and heard Cassius’s sword meet another sword as I saw three more rush into the clearing.
They did not all attack me, as was their way. They rarely meant harm, their intent was to intimidate and subdue.
Therefore, it was only one who approached as the others held check.
Steel clanged against steel at my back and I stepped away from Cassius, crouched low, swung around with my staff extended, and took the one charging me off his feet.
I then righted myself, twirled, lunging and thrusting, once, twice, three times, as a second Zee had come forward, I was fighting him, and he blocked each thrust, doing this grinning at me.
I swung my staff around, caught him at the arse, and when he came up to the balls of his feet, I scraped it down, hooking it at his bent knees and hauling up with great force, taking him head over feet to land on his belly in the leaves.
I swirled my staff in front of me as I faced off against the next one who was hunkered and shuffling side to side before me.
“You’re surrounded, do not fight!” was shouted from the trees.
“I am Nadirii!” I yelled. “Retreat or you’ll face my magic.”
At that, a berry red light illuminated the glade.
I looked over my shoulder and saw the streak coming from the wood and shooting toward Cassius.
A Cassius, by the by, who was battling three Zees with dagger and sword.
Apparently, they felt it would take more to subdue him, or precisely, assure he didn’t harm one of them while they were doing it.
But I could not have a mind to that. The streak was coming so fast, I had barely enough time to throw up a shield in front of him on which the streak erupted into a burst of berry and garnet sparks.
Fabulous.
These were Zees with magic.
“You cannot best Nadirii craft,” I yelled, forced to engage with the next one who’d scabbarded his sword and was coming at me with a staff.
Fair of him.
I had only the time to think that thought before several streaks of red charged our way.
I erected a globe around us that deflected the streaks as I fought back the Zee, staff to staff held in both hands. But their craft was so powerful, the globe disintegrated after it fended off the Zee magic.
I heard a pained grunt, ducked on a whirl and looked back to see Cassius had dispatched a Zee coming at me from behind with a hit of his hilt to the man’s skull.
Damn.
And I had only enough time to think that before I had to drop to my side, roll with knees up to my chest and come up on them with a thrust of my staff in the chest of the man charging Cassius.
The man fell back several steps.
Cassius spun and engaged him as the man who I’d been fighting came again at me.
“Enough!” I shouted, dropped to my back, kicked out both feet and used my stomach muscles to propel me onto them.
I pulled my staff back. Pivoting to the side, I thrust it, jabbing him hard in the soft part of his belly, hearing his pained “Oof.” Not wishing to hurt him (too much), I stopped thrusting and swung, hitting him hard in the gut, which made him bend over, then on his back, which made him drop his staff as he landed on his hands and knees.
I pushed out a hand and he went skidding on a blaze of coral into the forest.
It was then I heard the whizzing coming from all directions.
Goddess damn it!
I whirled, ran the four steps it took me to get to Cassius, staff raised like a spear at my shoulder.
A lilac shaft shot from the tip and ballooned into a wall. It wafted through Cassius, but when it hit his attackers, it sent them careening.
They did this just as I dropped the staff and tackled Cassius at his back, shouting, “Down!”
He went down on his front, me on his back.
But he instantly rolled so I was on my back in the leaves, he was lying over me, shoulders to my chest, sword raised and at the ready, as an explosion of garnet, scarlet and berry blinded us when multiple streaks collided where Cassius had been standing.
At that, Cassius spiraled around, covering me with his body, mostly my head, and for a man who did not wish anything to do with me, he certainly moved quickly to protect me from a little Zee magic.
I heard something fizzing and then Cassius’s grunt. He made a movement that was jerky, and I heard his sword thud to the ground.