Rise of the Living Forge

“Would you look at that?” Kraven screamed, his throat practically hoarse in disbelief and excitement. “A member from the Menagerie team has executed one of the competitors from the Kererus Coalition, going directly against the Secret Eye’s request to avoid death!”

For the immensity of the situation, Kraven didn’t sound all that bothered by the death. He was practically salivating over the corpse lying at Olive’s feet — and he wasn’t the only one. The entire crowd roared in approval.

When people came to see a blood sport, they didn’t tend to care all that much when someone got killed in the process. That was doubly so when the somebody getting killed wasn’t anyone they gave a shit about.

And, for all the power the Kererus Coalition had managed to gather for themselves, they were not fielding popular combatants. A bunch of assassins were just that. Assassins. Nobody cared if they lived or died. All they wanted was a good show.

Olive flicked the blood from her blade and pointed it at the closest of the two remaining assassins. Her wooden arm throbbed violently. She gritted her teeth as she felt its power worm its way deeper into her body like roots twisting toward her heart.

It could taste the blood on her blade. Could feel the tension thrumming in the air like the whistle of the wind — and it wanted more. The curse within the arm hungered for death. She’d given it a taste. Now it wasn’t going to be happy until its appetite was sated. Olive could nearly feel the bloodlust radiating from her arm like a thick haze.

She tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword. The leather covering it bit into her palm and gave her something to focus on; something to push the arm’s influence back with. She wasn’t about to let herself lose control here, in the middle of a tournament, while Maeve’s life was still very much on the line.

“Is something wrong?” Olive asked, her words curt and measured. “I was under the impression you were assassins. Surely you’re used to death in the line of duty. Or have you decided to surrender?”

“What are you?” one of the assassins hissed. “The report said nothing about you possessing such hatred.”

“Don’t recall agreeing to an interrogation,” Olive said. “But I’d make your mind up and decide to fight or surrender. Even if I don’t kill you — I get the feeling the crowd will.”

The assassins glared at Olive from beneath their hoods. They were silent for a second. Even though neither of them said a word, she was pretty sure they’d had a telepathic conversation of some sort.

“Keep to what works,” Elias said from beside Olive, completely unperturbed by the corpse at their feet. “Don’t overextend because we have an advantage.”

“Right,” Olive said. “Thanks for the reminder. I haven’t forgotten. Don’t worry.”

One of the assassins exploded into motion while the other one dropped into a shadow at his feet. Despite the threat she’d made a moment ago, a pang of panic shot through Olive. The Falling Blades used deadly poison on their blades. A single cut would be enough to take any of them out of the fight.

I hate that damn shadow ability. Are they still going for Maeve? Or are they going to try to take me out first?

The assassin charging forward angled straight at Olive. They drew a dagger from within their robes as they ran, brandishing it alongside their thin sword. The urge to meet his charge was strong — but that would have left Maeve’s side unprotected.

If Olive had to guess at their strategy…

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“Deal with this one,” Olive barked, spinning to the side.

She didn’t wait to see if Elias would follow her command. If her guess was correct, she didn’t have time to wait.

Olive spun her sword around in her grip.

The shadows behind Maeve bubbled as a figure exploded from beneath them. Light flashed off their dark weapons as they leapt up to drive their blades into Maeve’s unprotected back — and Olive’s drove her sword down straight into the top of their head with all the power of her cursed wooden arm.

A loud thunk rang out as her blade drove clean through the assassin’s skull. It exploded from their chin in a spray of bone fragments, brain matter, and blood that sprayed across the ground in a sickening painting.

Olive ripped her sword free and kicked the dead assassin out of the way, sending their corpse tumbling to the side before falling still in a heap. She spun back to Elias and the other assassin only to find that the fight was already all but over.

Elias had disarmed the final member of the Kererus Coalition’s team and held his blade an inch away from their throat. Olive hadn’t even heard the fight, but she wasn’t sure if that was because of the roar of the crowd or her own blood pounding in her ears.

A violent jerk nearly ripped her right arm out of its socket. A red haze washed across Olive’s vision and her wooden arm drove forward, burying the blade within its grip right into the final assassin’s ear in a such a fast strike that not even Olive was prepared for it.

The grip of the curse receded back into Olive’s arm as the assassin slumped to their knees before her before pitching back and landing on the ground with a heavy, final thud. Olive’s sword still ran through his head, from one ear to the other.

“Godspit,” Kraven said, faltering for a moment, but it was too late for him to say anything more. The crowd screamed in approval. They’d wanted blood, and they’d gotten it in spades. He’d already encouraged them. There was no taking it back now. All he could do was cough into his fist and throw his hands up. “The winner of our first round is the Menagerie, with three… executions.”

The roar of the crowd made the stadium rumble, but Olive didn’t listen to any of it. She planted her boot on the final assassin’s chest and yanked her sword free of his skull, sending innards splattering across the ground.

She stared at the bloodied blade silently.

“That was… intense,” Elias said carefully.

“It wasn’t intentional,” Olive said. “The third one, at least. My arm moved on its own.”

Maeve put a hand on Olive’s shoulder, then sent a pointed glance to Elias.

“Maeve appreciates you fighting like that when her own life was at stake. Those fuckers were going for a kill,” Elias said. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”

And that was the part that unsettled Olive the most. She’d just murdered three people. Sure, they’d been trying to do the same to Maeve, but this had still been a tournament. One meant for demonstrating their abilities, not slaughter.

Three lives had been snuffed out at the edge of her blade.

This wasn’t her first time killing people, of course. She’d killed a number of Iron Hounds and hordes of monsters. There were no shortage of bodies that laid in her wake. But Kraven had put it well.

Calling this a fight would have been a stretch. It had been an execution. The Falling Blades had once been an immense threat. But today, they had each fallen with a single blow.

And she didn’t feel a thing about it.

There was no regret. No horror at the acts that she’d done. There was only the blood dripping from her sword.

Is it me? Or the curse changing me?

“Olive?” Elias repeated.

“I’m fine,” Olive said, raising her gaze to meet his. “I did what had to be done. I don’t take any pleasure in it. I don’t regret it either. They came looking for death and found it. That’s all there is to the story.”

Elias hesitated for a moment. Then he gave her a curt nod. “Good. That’s how it should be. Let’s just hope our next set of opponents are a little more honorable, eh? I think you might be building a bit of a reputation for yourself. I’d say we want to avoid that… but it might be too late.”

When Olive looked up into the crowds to hear their roaring approval, she got the feeling that Elias was right. She wasn’t going to be living this one down anytime soon. There was something quite twisted about people cheering on the death of adventurers who should have been their defenders from the supposed hordes of bloodthirsty monsters.

Then again, the hordes of monsters are just more normal people and the bastards I killed were murderous assassins. Kind of hard to draw too many parallels from that. I hope Melissa gets to hear about what happened. The Kererus Coalition definitely won’t be happy about it. I can’t think of a more humiliating defeat than getting all three of your people killed in the first round of the tournament.

The three of them turned on their heels and strode away from the arena to the cheers of the crowd, leaving the corpses of the assassins on the blood-splattered ground for healers to deal with.

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