Warrior, Renewed: Book Two of the Comhairle Chronicles

Chapter Thirteen: Unexpected Consequences

There weren’t as many as there had been at Masquerade or the Longhirst Training Centre. Eallair hoped that meant the Comhairle forces had taken out enough marionettes on the night of those attacks that the puppeteer hadn’t yet had time to replace all those he’d lost. Even if he’d had bodies on ice, perhaps he hadn’t had the time or magic to initiate whatever process gave him control of the dead. Not on the scale needed to replenish their numbers. Or perhaps he just felt confident no back up would be en route. Not this time.

Whatever the reason, the lesser number of enemies offered the only hope they had for survival. The puppet-master didn’t agree with his optimism, though...

“Ag-heshr... I did not expect you to be so eager to return to me. I thought you might go to ground; hide away like you did in the past,” the marionettes drawled as one, seconds before their first row reached them.

Tancred tensed beside him, a furious growl tearing from the chief’s throat, then he raised his sword and sent it arcing through the neck of the first puppet. Body and head tumbled to the concrete floor, black, congealed blood barely oozing from the corpse’s severed neck. As always, its flesh and muscle deteriorated as soon as it lost its connection to its master. Or rather, as soon as its master no longer had a use for its brain. In seconds, the puppet’s decomposition matched its date of death, its flesh liquefying, sloughing from its bones, no longer recognisable as the pretty blonde woman who must’ve taken her own life and left her corpse to be enslaved.

Her cruel fate didn’t matter, not right then, not as another puppet lashed out with an iron blade. Eallair jumped back, the knife whistling past the tip of his nose. His sword came up, slicing easily through easily through the knife-wielder’s arm, sending both it and the weapon clattering to the ground. Twisting around the now armless ex-man, hefted his sword again, plunging it into the creatures neck at the base of it’s skull and severing its connection to its master. He didn’t pause as it rotted, yanking his blade free then ducking under the swinging sword of another enemy and stabbing his weapon through its gut as he surged upright again, precision driving the steel through the puppet’s spine and rendering its legs (and therefore its continued existence) useless. It decomposed as quickly as the others.

Beside him, Tancred kicked out, a booted foot shattering the kneecap of the marionette whose blade had locked with his own. The creature fell, and the chief twisted his blade free of the other weapon and plunged it through the puppet’s eye and into its brain, efficiently ending it’s time as a weapon. As he withdrew his sword again, he spun sideways around yet another foe, his weapon cleaving its head from its shoulders in a graceful movement that seemed as beautiful as it did deadly. Eallair couldn’t help but admire the chief; the bunching of honed muscles, the precise application of strength, and the determination in his stern expression. He moved like no warrior Eallair had ever seen; poised and precise. He could’ve watched his chief fight all night, but he also needed to do his part to ensure they both got out of Haze alive.

As it happened, the longer they fought side by side, the more in tune with each other they seemed to become. When Tancred moved, Eallair found his own body responding, instinctively shifting into place to defend any opening. When he engaged with an enemy and left an opening in his own defences, Tanc did the same, seemingly without conscious thought. They worked in tandem with an instinct that bordered on telepathy, as though some strange magic had connected them for the soul purpose of defeating their assailants.

It felt right in a way Eallair couldn’t have predicted. Electrifying, even. His body sung as he moved it through practised attacks and blocks with Tanc at his side. No matter who he’d trained with before, he’d never felt such an affinity with any other fighter. Not even with Tor; someone he knew almost as well as he knew himself. His hyperawareness of Tancred’s body might have been a distraction, but it wasn’t. Instead, it forged a thread that kept them synchronised. So beautifully synchronised. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt at home fighting at Tancred’s side. He belonged there. He felt that right down to his soul and that strengthened his resolve. They worked together; they were strong; he almost believed that they were undefeatable.