There were a lot of soulprints that increased physical power. Sorin was using one himself, though in his case Warrior’s Vigilance was more of an all-around increase than one specifically focused on raw strength. Nemari’s uncle probably wasn’t using a versatile soulprint, or if he was, he’d pushed it up to rank D. For a guy at rank 7, that seemed unlikely, so Sorin figured it was a pure strength buff.

  That was actually a good thing, because it meant that while Sorin was not going to beat him in a fight that involved taking turns punching each other as hard as possible, he could still use grappling techniques to apply leverage against Uncle’s joints. Admittedly, they’d be less effective against someone who so clearly outmuscled him, but it was his only real chance to punch up four ranks without trying to kill the man.

  Especially since he’s already got me on the ground, Sorin’s mind supplied as he tried to think past the rising dizziness. One of the rank 7’s hands was pressed against his chest to hold him down while the other punched him repeatedly in the head. With only one leg, however, he couldn’t effectively keep Sorin from wiggling around.

  That made it a lot easier to get a foot up and shove against the old man’s hip. Uncle went up, just an inch or two before he pressed back down, but that was enough for Sorin to squirm to the side. A fist bashed into the road instead of his face, and that was all it took to overbalance Uncle.

  Sorin pressed up with a knee this time, then used the extra clearance to get his foot in the way before the old man came back down. He flexed his leg straight out, flipping the man over him completely, then scrambled to his feet.

  It was hard to think, to do anything other than react by instinct, really. Nemari’s uncle had rung Sorin’s bell hard, and he was barely managing to hold onto consciousness at this point. There was really only one clear objective left in his head: to escape. Nemari was gone, hopefully far enough ahead of Muscles to reach the portal. Twiggy was still down, but Uncle was already rising to his foot and, as precariously balanced as he seemed to be, Sorin wasn’t about to count him out.

  So he did the smart thing. He turned and ran. It didn’t even matter which way he was going, just that he got away from the one-legged old man who was hobbling after him while literal jets of fire roared out of the man’s skin.

  He staggered into a stumbling run, lurching as he put one foot in front of the other. It was hard to keep his sense of balance, and he was sure it was only a combination of Warrior’s Vigilance and Vigorous Constitution that kept him from crashing into a wall or, more likely, another person. He juked sideways around a spectator—one who thankfully made no moves to interfere besides scrambling out of Uncle’s hopping pursuit—and fled around the corner.

  Under no illusions that breaking line of sight meant a clean get away, Sorin didn’t stop running. He had blood pouring down his face, getting into his eyes, though he couldn’t see much out of one of them anyway. Getting popped in the face had swollen things up there, which was killing his peripheral vision and his depth perception.

  Blind Sense kept him going without plowing into somebody, and there was enough noise that the addition of Echo Trace helped him keep track of stationary objects as well, but it also sadly informed Sorin that an old rank 7 with only one leg was still pretty damn fast. He was literally hopping after Sorin, each leap clearing fifteen or twenty feet, and he didn’t so much as wobble when he landed.

  Sorin spun in place and flung out a hail of ice blades at the man. He didn’t even think to blunt the edges until after he’d already cast the magic, but it didn’t make much difference in the end. Flames half-melted them before they could reach Uncle’s skin. It was like throwing a handful of pebbles. Maybe it hurt him, but it certainly wasn’t going to slow him down.

  Abandoning any thoughts of fighting back now that the heat aura had reached the point of neutralizing Sorin’s ice blades, he turned and fled for his life.

  * * *

  Nemari stumbled as she ran. Thankfully, her family hadn’t hobbled her legs, but even having her hands chained to her waist was making it hard to keep her balance. It was times like this that made her—reluctantly—agree with Sorin about having a more balanced build that included physical reinforcements to her agility and stamina.

  Dant had started perhaps twenty seconds after she did. That was a hell of a lead to overcome, especially since the people out and about were hindering his progress far more than they were hers. He was bigger and quicker, but so many obstacles were keeping him from putting his prodigious physical abilities to good use.

  Thankfully, the tax collectors weren’t there to keep people from going through the portal, just to steal from the climbers coming back out. The glowing red oval came into sight, no line or obstructions of any sort, and she put on a final burst of speed.

  I’m going to make it. I can’t believe that crazy son of a bitch actually pulled it off! Now I just need to link up with—

  A hand clamped down on her cloak, drawing it tight against her throat and jerking her to a stop. Unable to keep her balance, Nemari went down in a tangle of fabric as Dant pounced on her. Even if her wrists hadn’t been chained together, she would have been pinned in place by the damn cloak they’d thrown over her to hide the belt and shackle combo.

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  “Shouldn’t have run,” Dant grunted, driving a fist into her hip. That probably wasn’t what he’d been aiming for, but he was more than willing to throw blind shots into her body, content to hit something, as long as it hurt. “You don’t have to be in good condition for this. You just need to be able to answer questions.”

  He hit her again, and again. It hurt, but Nemari had been through hell over the last few weeks. Compared to the manticore venom, or nearly being eaten alive, Dant was nothing. Unfortunately, she didn’t have anyone to help her, not unless Sorin showed up to rescue her again. He’d already done the impossible once; it was on her to make good on her escape.

  She needed to somehow roll, to get her hands angled up between them so she could fry him. The fire would do a fraction of its normal damage, but it might be enough of a distraction for her to slip away. The only problem was, again, the cloak she was tangled up in. It was pinning her down, restricting her movements, essentially making it like a sack she was trapped in while Dant tenderized her with his fists.

  At that moment, she didn’t care that the veltrum wasn’t completely out of her system. She needed to master casting without using her hands, or, if not master, at least become proficient enough in it to pull it off. Just once, she thought to herself, You can do it one time.

  And to her great surprise, the anima reacted. Before, it had always fought against her control, struggling against the artificial channels she built to force it anywhere but out through her hands. This time, it was weak, almost sluggish. The drug, she realized immediately. It made anima harder to control by weakening it, by forcing the climber to spend more of their own mental energy prodding it to movement.

  At the same time, it became easier to move it the way she wanted it to go because the anima couldn’t fight back. It was no harder to throw a firebolt from her hand than it was her forehead at the moment. The only problem was that even casting through her hands was difficult.

  It was harder than normal, but not outside her limits. She could do this, but she might only get a single shot. If she missed, there was no telling what Dant would do. She felt his weight on her, his knee digging painfully into her lower back while his fist slammed into her shoulder or her sides. That was enough to tell her where to aim.

  Flames ignited behind her, lancing out blindly, and for a single, endless moment that stretched into eternity, she took Dant’s lack of reaction to mean she’d missed. Then, like a breath of hope entering her lungs to lift her up, he bellowed in surprise and pain. The weight vanished from her back as he threw himself away from the firebolt aimed straight at his face, and Nemari pushed herself to her feet.

  Two more firebolts spun out of nowhere to strike Dant, eliciting more yelling and thrashing. All the noise had definitely attracted the tax guards’ attention, but Nemari didn’t trust them to take her side. She took the opportunity while she had it and sprinted for the portal. With her mind set on the Floor 2 hub and not bothering to look back, she leaped through it.

  * * *

  It had been almost an hour of cat and mouse with the Sildfall clan. Twiggy and Muscles had both joined Uncle within a few minutes, and the three of them were working well to flush Sorin out. It didn’t help that his head was throbbing and that he’d already thrown up twice. Even without the interference, it would have been a challenge to make it back to the seven-tower sign.

  The burns were also a constant ache, though he hadn’t yet had time to even evaluate how bad they were, let alone try to treat them. The only consolation there was that his new armor’s alchemical lacquering was working fantastically. It wasn’t fire invulnerability by any means, but other than some minor darkening, the leather was holding up unscathed, which meant his torso was also unscathed.

  He could only assume Nemari had escaped, based on the fact that Muscles had joined in the hunt for him. That kid had a serious aggression problem, but Sorin was guessing the fact that he was missing his eyebrows and about an inch or two of his hairline had something to do with that. He definitely hadn’t looked like that when Sorin had first spotted him.

  The downside was that Muscles was back to being Sorin’s problem. The trio was working well together, the two younger ones operating under their rank 7 leader’s direction to block off streets and limit Sorin’s options while Uncle swept the alleyways behind him. Whatever faults they might have, they knew Floor 0’s layout far better than Sorin did.

  None of it mattered now. He was barely a hundred feet from his exit, and the only thing stopping him from going for it was the time he needed to spend in his soulspace to activate Liminal Gateway. There was no cover near the sign, not even a convenient man-sized mound of garbage he could burrow into. Oh, there was plenty of garbage to be found, of course, but it was scattered everywhere like an ankle-deep layer of detritus.

  Gotta risk it, he decided.

  Blind Sense gave him a half-second’s warning as he started to move. A person who’d been completely still and silent lunged out of a doorway and grabbed Sorin’s arm. Maybe it was the dizziness. Maybe it was the blurred vision. It could have been the pain from the burns. Whatever the reason, Sorin didn’t react in time to save himself.

  Muscles gave him a glare that promised death, then twisted. Sorin didn’t have the time or the presence of mind to move with the man, and something had to give. Immense, bone-shattering pain radiated out of his arm, and he saw through a daze that his palm was facing up toward the sky instead of down toward the street now.

  Unthinking, Sorin skewered Muscles with ice blades, more than a dozen sinking into the man’s face and neck. Muscles screamed and let go, clawing at the bloody shards lodged in his eyeballs. Sorin didn’t give him a chance to recover. He drew his sword, some dim part of his mind thankful that his dominant hand was fine, and rammed it through Muscles’s stomach.

  The screams are going to draw attention, he noted. That was an easy fix. He simply clouted Muscles on the head with the pommel of his sword, cutting off the sound and dropping the rank 4 to the ground. He’ll probably live.

  Then Sorin hurried to the sign and fell into liminal space. Crawling on his hands and knees, he slowly made his way to the nub that led back to his team.