- Chapter 029 -

  The Easy Victory

  Another boom, this one harder than the last, sent a fresh tremor through the floor. The entire building seemed to groan under the assault, a testament to the magical reinforcements that were the only thing keeping the door on its hinges.

  Silas remained completely impassive, his expression unchanging. He had made his position clear. He was not involved, and he had no intention of becoming so. Tori, however, scrambled back from the chair, her face pale with alarm.

  Between the deafening impacts, a roar of pure, undiluted rage echoed from the street, a sound loud enough to rattle the windows on its own, loud enough to be heard in the market square.

  "SHILLING!"

  Mark let out a long, weary sigh. He knew that voice. It was Alex, the inevitable follow-up meeting, returned to finish his badly executed job. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he mentally confirmed he was unable to understand basic time, it was before noon.

  "You can't hide behind your girlfriend's cat this time!" the giant bellowed, his voice distorted by fury. "Open this door before I remove it!"

  Mark looked from Silas’s stony face to Tori’s panicked one. He could wait. Let the man bellow until the Militia arrived. Let someone else solve his problem. But this problem had his name on it. He pushed himself out of the armchair. Not from bravado of the first time, but of the acceptance he will not cower in fear.

  "Mark, don't!" Tori hissed, but he was already walking.

  He reached the door and, with a steady hand, unlatched it. He pulled it inward.

  Alex stood on his doorstep, a mountain of fury, his garnet-red tattoo pulsing with a furious light. There was no time for a word, no moment for a clever comment on his time keeping ability. A hand like a steel trap clamped onto the front of his tunic, lifting him off his feet as if he weighed nothing. He was helpless, a rag-doll in the grip of an angry giant.

  He wasn't thrown so much as he was launched. He sailed backward across the narrow street, the world a blur of stone and sky.

  The impact was a sickening crunch of splintering wood and breaking bone. A white-hot explosion of pain erupted in his shoulder and ribs as he crashed through the door of the house opposite, Lothar's house.

  The world dissolved into a blinding flash of agony and a high pitch whine. He landed in a heap amidst the wreckage of the door, the breath knocked from his lungs in a ragged, wet gasp. The last thing he saw before the darkness swarmed in was the triumphant silhouette of Alex Smith, framed in the empty space where his own front door remained.

  Pain was a white-hot sun that had exploded behind his eyes, radiating through every nerve in his body. He was on the floor, he knew that much, surrounded by the sharp splinters of broken wood. His world was a tilted, blurry mess, seen through a haze of agony. Breathing was a series of sharp, stabbing jolts in his ribs. Only moments since is his uncontrolled landing.

  Through the shattered frame of what used to be Lothar's door, he could see his own house. He saw Silas step out into the street, his movements calm and deliberate, a monument of stone in the face of Alex's raging fire.

  "You are going too far, Boy," Silas said, his voice a low rumble, not a shout, but a statement of simple, undeniable fact.

  Mark watched, his vision swimming, as Alex turned to face the old man, a triumphant, furious sneer on his face. He saw Silas raise a single, calloused hand, a simple, placating gesture.

  And in that moment, through the searing fog of his pain, Mark saw it, certain it was something and not his mind buckling against the pain.

  There was a flicker, a momentary pulse of light so fast he almost missed it. On Silas's shoulder, through the simple grey tunic, a flash of deep, solid green energy bloomed and vanished in an instant. He had told him earlier, and now he had seen it, Jade, the color of competence in this strange system.

  The green was instantly swallowed by a furious garnet pulse, a red light that flared to life on Silas's arm, perfectly mirroring the rage-fueled glow of his opponent.

  It was at least his ribs, his mind attempting to push some of the agony aside, to focus on what he could do, to mentally check himself, how bad was his injury.

  A new single, clear thought cut through the white noise of Mark's agony, a piece of critical data filed away by the analytical mind that was still, somewhere, somehow, running the numbers.

  He's hiding his power, Silas is faking it.

  The fight was a blur of red light and steel. From his tilted, pain-filled perspective, Mark saw Alex charge, a battering ram of armored fury.

  Neck seems fine, but head, back of his head feels wrong, the headache far beyond vodka and coke.

  His gaze snapped back. Silas didn't meet the charge head-on. He moved with an economy of motion that belied his size, a weathered stone around which a raging river was forced to part. Alex's first armored swing met empty air. Silas flowed to the side, and Mark saw the old man's fist drive into a gap in Alex's armor, just below the ribs.

  The sound was a wet, heavy thud that echoed between the buildings, and Alex grunted, his charge stumbling for a fraction of a second. Silas landed another blow, this time to the giant's thigh, the impact solid and crunching.

  Mark coughed, the taste of blood, that was never a good sign.

  Again he focused on Silas, the certainty of a one sided battle that was not happening.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  This wasn't a fight of equals, regardless of setup. It was a fight between a man in street clothes and a walking fortress. Alex roared, ignoring the blows, and brought his armored fists to bear. A barrage of steel gauntlets rained down on the old man. Silas blocked, parried, and dodged, his movements precise and controlled, but he was being overwhelmed by sheer, brutal force.

  A gauntleted backhand caught Silas across the jaw. His head snapped back, and he staggered. Alex pressed the advantage, a final, crushing blow to the chest sending the old man crumpling to the cobblestones in a heap.

  It was over in seconds. A seasoned warrior in full armor against a retired miner. A completely one-sided victory.

  Arms, his arms worked, but even a tiny movement caused more pain to consume him.

  Through the searing pain, Mark's mind saw a different result, a prediction that failed. He'd seen the Jade flash. He'd seen the two solid, damaging blows Silas had landed. He'd watched the old man perfectly match Alex's Garnet-tier power, and not an ounce more.

  It wasn't a defeat. It was a calculated loss for reasons he didn’t understand.

  A single punch, his mind concluded with a chilling certainty. One true hit, with his real power, a centuries old miner with a Jade multiplier of strength.

  That's all it would have taken.

  From his position on the floor, Mark watched Tori. She was frozen by the doorway of his own house, a pale statue frozen in fear. She couldn't do anything. Alex was a wall of armored contempt standing between her and her patient. He didn’t blame her, couldn’t blame her, his earlier assessment was correct, he was a monster.

  The giant turned from the crumpled form of Silas, his sneer a mark of ugly triumph. He started walking toward Mark, each step a heavy, deliberate thud on the cobblestones.

  "A washed-up, Guildless failure wasn't going to stop me," Alex boomed, his voice echoing in the sudden, unnatural quiet of the street. He stopped just outside the shattered remains of the door, looming over Mark. He jerked his head back toward Tori, his expression a mask of pure disdain.

  "You. Healer," he barked. "Follow. Keep him from bleeding out on the street. If he dies before we get to the guildhall, you will answer to me."

  The threat hung in the air, a cold, practical order. Through the haze, a part of Mark's mind noted the distinct lack of any other sound. No shouts from the Militia garrison. No one was coming, Alex had picked his time well, probably for this reason, a brute, but not a complete idiot. A coward.

  It was then Mark started to add up the situation, not the giant or the miner, but that he was not in enough pain to warrant what happened. His body was broken, pain screaming across his ribs, his head and nothing half way down his back… The panic was only held back by shock and his mind grasping anything to distract from the dawning inescapable horror.

  Another sound cut through the quiet. The slow, heavy tread of determined footsteps approaching up the street.

  Mark shifted his head, a movement that sent a fresh wave of agony through his body. He saw a figure walking toward them, emerging from the direction of the sawmills, a shadow being cast down the street. It was Lothar. Alone, probably an early finish for the day, or any possible reason that didn’t matter.

  He was covered in the evidence of a morning's hard labor, sawdust and woodchips clinging to his rugged leather clothes and thick, grey-streaked beard. In one massive hand, he held an axe. It wasn't a weapon of war, but a tool, a huge, brutally functional wood-chopping axe with a head the size of a shovel.

  He didn't run. He didn't shout. He just walked, his expression not one of anger, but of increasing annoyance. His gaze swept the scene with a practiced, critical eye. Alex, triumphant and posturing, the broken door of his own house, the unconscious Silas on the ground, the terrified Tori, and finally, Mark, a broken heap in his ruined doorway.

  Lothar stopped, his sheer presence a silent, immovable challenge. He wasn't impressed.

  A wet, racking cough tore through him, splattering a dark spray of blood onto the splintered wood beside his head. The taste was metallic and hot. Every rib felt like a shard of broken glass. The door... he remembered Valerie mentioning the enchanted utilities, the reinforced structures. Alex hadn't just thrown him through wood, he'd thrown him through a magical reinforcement. The thought was a distant, clinical assessment of the sheer, overwhelming force that had broken him, and his incomplete thought about how bad it was.

  Alex, blinded by the easy victory over Silas, saw Lothar not as a threat but as an annoyance. "Walk away, old man," he sneered, gesturing with a gauntleted thumb. "Leave before you become part of the trouble."

  Lothar didn't even glance at Mark. His gaze was fixed on the gaping, splintered hole where his front door used to be. "I expect whatever Guild is paying you," he said, his voice a flat, unimpressed and threatening, "to have my house fixed by tomorrow."

  The sneer on Alex's face curdled. The disrespect, the complete lack of fear, was a physical offense to him. "You should have listened," he muttered, the words a low growl.

  The garnet light pulsing from his tattoo intensified, the glow so bright it seemed to swell beneath the plates of his armor, making him look larger, more monstrous, a walking furnace of pure rage. He took a heavy, deliberate step toward Lothar, his gauntleted fists clenching.

  The odds played though Mark's mind, he saw Silas taken apart, he was laying here as a broken heap on the remains of a door, the odds did not favor Lothar.

  If the fight with Silas had been one-sided, this wasn't even a fight. It was a chore.

  Lothar casually tossed the huge axe, not at Alex, but at the ground beside him. The heavy head sank deep into the cobblestones with a solid, definitive thunk, the handle quivering for a moment before standing firm. There was no effort, no grand display. It was a man setting a tool aside before getting to work.

  To Lothar, Alex wasn't a threat. He was a tall, wide tree, assessed as worthless and to be removed.

  Alex charged, an unstable engine of steel and fury. A gauntleted fist, glowing with red light, slammed into Lothar's shoulder with a dull, heavy thud. The big man didn't try to dodge. He took the blow, his feet not moving an inch on the stone. A second punch, just as powerful, landed squarely in his chest.

  The scene didn’t make sense to Mark, this was the expected result of Silas.

  Lothar’s counter was a single, fluid motion. It wasn't a fighter's punch, it was a logger's swing. The precise and devastating application of leverage designed to bring down something a hundred times his size. A short, sharp crack echoed in the street, a sound of breaking bone and misplaced pride.

  The echo itself carried its own force, enough to shake what was left of Mark's bones into a new level of pain. Vision fluctuating from complete darkness to piercing white with few moments of sight in between.

  Alex stopped. The vicious red light of his tattoo sputtered and died. His eyes went wide with a look of pure, uncomprehending shock. Then, like a great tree severed at its base, he collapsed, his heavy armor clattering against the cobblestones with a deafening, final clang.

  Lothar didn't give the unconscious ruin a second glance. He simply turned and walked toward the injured, his face a mask of pragmatism.

  Tori, freed from the terror of the moment, moved into action, rushed past him, her face as professional as she could display as she knelt beside Mark, a soft healing light already glowing on her hands.

  It was breaking as she tried to hold his broken body together, each wave of energy fixing something, only to reveal something even worse, she was losing. Mark could see that in the moments between.

  Lothar walked over to the other crumpled figure on the street. He knelt, his massive frame casting a shadow over the old man. Before the darkness took him, Mark was sure he heard Lothar's voice, the first hints of concern and shock.

  "Silas?"