Tempered by the Will

25 - Countered

Vica didn't wait for whatever hexes had been wrapped around the arrow to do their work. She knew what was coming, but that didn't mean she was going to lie down and take it. With a fierce scream between gritted teeth, she sent out another explosive ray of power, this one sharper and more violent than before. Grass blades flew from the top of the canal sides, and an entire sapling cracked through its slender trunk and landed in the water with a splash. She remained crouched over Bren's form, no longer able to stand thanks to the shrieking pain that scorched her right hamstring, but that was just as well: the closer she stayed to him, the less likely it was that she would accidentally hurt him. So long as she didn't use her rot-fire overmuch, this was for the best.

Speaking of which - as expected, hex ropes now began to stream out of the arrow embedded in her thigh and whip around before tightening around her legs and torso. Or at least, they tried, but she managed to keep her arms raised so that they couldn't be restrained at her sides. They weren't being controlled from a distance, it seemed; unaided by human intelligence, they made no attempt to reach up and bind her properly and remained wrapped around her lower body.

She couldn't get hit by another. Her rot-fire only worked on living things, and she couldn't blast the hex ropes off of her

The only problem was that the darkness strained her vision. They could see her, but she couldn't see them. Her best bet was to attack anything and everything that moved, which didn't bode well for any innocent animals she mistook for an enemy. Luckily, it seemed that all the wildlife had already fled, even the birds in the tall trees. But damn it, she should have known something was wrong: it had been too quiet, too still when she and Bren had come along this stretch of the canal. All the animals had already dispersed because someone had gotten there first. She'd grown up with hunters and regularly gone into the woods herself; how could she have forgotten something so simple?

Another concussive sweep, this one strong enough to nearly capsize the boat if it weren't for her grabbing onto the top of the sloping stone wall just in time. Strangely, she felt no weaker yet, couldn't feel herself slipping into unconsciousness. Against her better judgment, she dropped her chin so that she could spare the back of her thigh a brief glance.

...It was definitely piercing her flesh. Even with the slender hex ropes in the way, she could tell that the arrowhead was buried clean. The  cramp-inducing pain was more than enough to tell her that much, too. But other than that and an uncomfortable, accompanying tingle that buzzed up and down her thigh, she could feel nothing else, nothing to suggest that she was about to keel over as Bren had done.

Indeed, and a few seconds later after she sent out another several explosive waves of magic and bowled over one more unlucky man who slammed headfirst into a tree, even the buzzing began to fade. She didn't know what to make of it, but she decided not to question her good fortune and put it to good use instead.

The problem was that with the arrow buried the way it was without having penetrated straight through, there was only one way to take it if she wanted to regain use of her leg. But damn it, she wasn't Constantine; she couldn't sit there and yank it out herself, tearing muscle and skin with minimal fuss. She remembered only too clearly their time in the Yrol when she had had to un-pepper him with the arrows that he had taken for her while they ran from the pursuing archers.

Maybe Constantine had no qualms about shredded flesh and what should be agonizing pain, but Vica knew her limits. Stubbing her toe on a rock a particular way had sent her into convulsions before. Whatever animal resilience against pain the assassin had, she wasn't lucky enough to possess herself.

"Come on, Bren, wake up," she growled through her teeth as she attempted to pick the half-elf up with only one properly functioning leg. She could only use one arm to try to support his weight as well, or else she would have to drop her crude shield from around them. And judging by the way she heard two projectiles snap and bend against the barrier somewhere behind her, she knew that wasn't an option.

But she couldn't counter hexes, either. For the first time, she found her anger rising at Philio for making her so helpless, filling her only with the most useless knowledge of magic history that she wasn't even sure was all that accurate now. Elementary charms, rune literacy, even basic exorcism measures - he had taught her none of these, and now she was little better than an overgrown toddler in the world of magic with a penchant for being dangerous even when she didn't mean to be.

"Get UP!" she shouted, breathing hard between her teeth as she tried one last time to haul Bren over onto the side of the canal. And finally, she managed to toss him half up the low wall with his lower half draped down the sloping stone. She caught his legs before he could slip all the way down and quickly adjusted her shield again when she felt it begin to fall apart. Damn it, but it was hard to focus like this - and yet she had no choice if she wanted to keep Bren and herself safe.

She was not going to get captured here. She had fought long and hard, arguing back and forth for an hour before she managed to convince the others. If she failed here, then she would never be able to stand her ground again. Innocents would become collateral, people who had no business dying would end up falling like dominoes all around her while trying to protect her. She didn't trust the so-called Resistance yet, especially now that she knew there were two opposing factions of it divided by politics and conflicting ideology, but that didn't mean she wanted them to turn out little better than meat shields for her sake.

"s**t!"

Another arrow had slipped through her shield, nearly pinning her arm. She had only avoided it by sheer luck as she had stumbled after rolling Bren over onto the grass while she yet wobbled on the floor of the boat. Another stark reminder that she wasn't built to fight, not really; as horribly talented as she was at harming others, defending herself properly was another matter altogether.

With a heave, she pulled herself up over the stone as well, keeping one arm suspended so that she could maintain the barrier. The edges of it scraped against stone and wood now, which she couldn't enclose with her magic as she had with the water that touched the gondola, but at least she was on steady ground now. She stood up -

- and squinted at the dark shape that came flying out of the small grove of waterside trees with a blinding, pale blue flash. Magic, not arrows, and judging from the quiver that rolled off the prone body and onto the grass a short distance away, the unfortunate victim seemed to be one of the men who had been taking potshots at Vica all this time.

So who was her mysterious possible-ally? Couldn't be Constantine; she didn't feel him anywhere nearby. Maybe Felix had decided to take a closer route than planned and was coming to her rescue, but the figure that came gliding into view under the faint light moved with elegant strides far too quick. Felix had an aristocratic air about him, too, but it was nothing compared to this one.

"Get down."

A woman! Her command was so imperious and firm that Vica immediately trusted its authority, and she ducked just as an arrow came whistling over her head toward the approaching woman.

It was too late to scream for her to watch out - but there was no need at all: the woman's hand shot up and slashed sideways with another flash of powder blue, and the arrow plinked against the trail of light uselessly before falling onto the grass below.

Vica blinked. The movement had been so quick and effortless that she hadn't realized what the woman had done until it was already over. But even so, she would not be taken in so easily. This could easily be a trap, and even if it wasn't, even if this woman happened to be some coincidental passerby with a knack for saving strangers in peril, Vica knew better than to trust goodwill without clear motive.

"Stay there," she snapped, and she stood over Bren's body with one arm holding up her shifting domed barrier while the other pointed threateningly at the approaching mage. "Tell me who -"

"I was about to tell you that. Be at your leisure, we have plenty of time. He seems to have been the last one." The woman came to a slow stop, clearly of her own volition rather than out of intimidation. "It's good that we met like this, I was concerned that you would be with unfriendly faces."

Vica frowned. "I won't say it again. Tell me who you are."

"I'm Cicera. Lady of House Murena. We should speak."