NOVEL NEXT Chapter 46: Swallow!
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"I SAID GO! RUN AND DON'T LOOK BACK!" Lazlo yelled, before letting out a fierce war cry and charging at the nearest Nilfgaardian soldier.
Surprisingly, he was able to catch the man off guard, his desperate, final lunge piercing through a chink in the man's armor, right at the vulnerable spot at his neck.
This time, Ciri decided to listen. She turned and ran, as her brave protector, Sir Lazlo, fought like a cornered, caged animal. As soon as Harry felt that Ciri had gotten far enough away, that she was out of sight, he moved in to help the man. He wasted no time.
"Sectumsempra," Harry whispered, the familiar, vicious incantation rolling off his tongue. The curse was, in essence, an invisible, slashing sword that would cut into a target multiple times.
Harry, however, had modified it years ago for group use. Now, it sent more of a wide, invisible wave of slashes in a given direction, and when it found a target, it would only slash them once.
So, it had less concentrated power than the original spell, but against unarmored, or even lightly armored, opponents, a single, deep sword slash hardly mattered. You were either going to be dead, or dying.
And dead or dying the five men who it hit most certainly were, as they all screamed in agony and fell to the ground, clutching at deep, bleeding gashes, their armor having offered them little to no protection against the magical assault.
This seemed to greatly alarm the last four remaining men, as well as their commander a tall, intimidating man who was in heavy, ornate plate armor, with black, bird-like wings adorning his helmet.
"Finish the man and go for the girl!" the commander ordered his remaining soldiers, his voice a menacing, muffled boom from behind his helm. "I will deal with this… sorcerer."
"Hm. Not likely," Harry retorted, a sneer twisting his lips as he recognized the man from Ciri's nightmares, from her stories. Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach.
"You see, I happen to know that you caused someone I care for very deeply to have terrible nightmares for years and years. That's a lot of suffering, a lot of pain, that I now need to pay you back for."
"We shall see," the man said, as his boys went back to attacking the now grievously injured Sir Lazlo.
Harry, with a flick of his wrist, summoned a long, sturdy branch from a nearby tree and, with another silent, instantaneous act of transfiguration, turned it into a sharp, gleaming longsword. Harry began to circle the man slowly.
Yes, he could have, quite easily, murdered the man with a dozen different spells from a distance. But sometimes, you just needed to get up close and personal, in a visceral, brutal way that magic simply could not replicate.
That, and Harry had A LOT of built-up anger and frustration from the last twenty-four hours that he was just itching to vent.
The man, Cahir, took a step forward and swung his massive broadsword in a powerful, horizontal slash.
Ciri had once told him, during their training sessions, that he should never try to block a direct sword strike from a larger, stronger opponent.
That he was built more for speed and agility than for brute strength. Remembering this, Harry swung his own transfigured sword diagonally across his body, not to block, but to deflect, hitting the man's sword upwards and giving Harry a precious, split-second opening to dodge under the powerful swing.
Harry was no witcher, but he did consider himself pretty fast, and this man was wearing heavy, cumbersome plate armor.
Despite this, the man recovered from his missed swing with surprising speed. Harry, however, decided to immediately go on the offensive.
He feinted to the right, then, as the man moved to block, he suddenly lowered his blade, changing the attack from a downward slash to a swift, horizontal one, catching the man off guard.
Sadly, the transfigured blade simply scraped loudly against the man's thick, high-quality plate armor, sending sparks flying but doing no real damage.
"You fought honorably, sorcerer," the man said, his deep, muffled voice echoing from within his helmet. "You chose not to use magic, even when knowing it put you at a a clear disadvantage. But even you must see that this is the end for you now."
Harry nodded, taking a deep, steadying breath. "You're right," he admitted, his voice calm. "It seems I am… out of practice with a blade this heavy. It's much too cumbersome for my style." He then stabbed the longsword into the soft, loamy ground and, with another flick of his wrist, picked up a much smaller, seemingly insignificant stick from the forest floor.
A stick which, in the span of a single heartbeat, transformed into a beautiful, wickedly sharp, perfectly balanced dagger.
"I need more speed," Harry said, testing the weight of the new blade. "That's the problem."
"Speed is no matter," the man said, his voice filled with the arrogance of a seasoned warrior. "Skill is what truly matters."
Harry nodded again, a small, dangerous smile playing on his lips. "I think," he said, "that we can both agree on that." And then, he charged, a blur of motion, straight at the heavily armored man.
Cahir quickly lifted his massive broadsword and swiped at him again, a powerful, cleaving blow.
But Harry, anticipating the move, dropped low to his knees, sliding on the damp earth under the incoming blade and past the man's armored legs.
In one fluid, continuous motion, Harry spun around and, with a vicious slash, sliced right through the unprotected back of the man's knee caps, severing tendons and ligaments.
The man yelled, a raw, agonized sound, dropped his heavy sword with a loud clang, and fell hard to his knees, his legs no longer able to support his weight.
Harry stood up and walked casually back around the kneeling, incapacitated man. The man was now on his hands and knees, breathing heavily, trying to push himself up.
"I still didn't use any offensive magic," Harry asked, his voice conversational, almost rhetorical, as he pulled his transfigured longsword from the ground where he'd left it and walked closer to the man, who was now struggling, and failing, to get back to his feet. "Does that mean I was still being honorable?"
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