Chapter 1: Part 5 - The Nth Degree
Vasha knew she should feel guilty. The minute Jean had revealed the rough location of his team over the communications device, the Marauders had set off. They judged that if they’d found one piece of the key, every other team would have, too – and the only way to complete it would be to steal pieces off the others.
By the look on Marissa Valpari’s face – both calculating and irritated – Vasha had guessed right. The Valpari family had a piece of the key, though perhaps they hadn’t known what it was.
Well, maybe she felt just a little guilty. She had no compunctions about stealing from Marissa, the haughty witch; they’d disliked one another from the moment they’d met, or perhaps Marissa had disliked Vasha, for her threadbare clothes and her common manners. The feeling had soon become mutual. Stealing from Jean, though? Hiding behind Gull, Vasha could almost pretend she couldn’t see his face – almost. Every glimpse of him showed an expression of betrayal.
Roan’s claw was still outstretched, pointing at Marissa; it wasn’t difficult to tell which of the family were in charge. “I’m waiting.”
Marissa tutted. “Do you really think we’re going to make it easy for you? Besides, what makes you think the Marauders will be the ones walking away with the key?”
Roan growled, and suddenly the air smelt of singed vegetation and hot stone. That wasn’t anything to do with the charr, though, Vasha knew. She’d tried to tell the Marauders just how powerful an elementalist the girl, Auri, was. She didn’t think they’d taken her seriously.
Haki was the first to jump out of the way, as fire began to rain from the sky. It blasted through the trees above, hurtling towards the ground in a deadly shower. Roan lunged at Marissa, his mace out, but Vasha didn’t get a chance to see more than that. She rolled sideways, burning stone pummelling the ground into scorched patches behind her, and came back to her feet – to find herself face to face with a golem.
The golem stared at her – at least Vasha thought it was staring – and coloured lights flashed on its torso. It whirred once, then said, “GREET-INGS HU-MAN. YOU HAVE EN-COUNT-ERED THE MIGHT OF THE IN-SERT NAME HERE. RE-LIN-QUISH ALL VAL-U-ABLES AT YOUR EARL-I-EST CON-VEN-I-ENCE.”
“Stupid golem.” A voice shrieked from the shadows behind the golem, and Vasha yanked a pistol from its holster as an asura burst out of the shrubbery. “How many times do I have to program you? It’s the Nth Degree. Team Nth Deg-ree.”
The golem whirred once again, but was otherwise silent.
Vasha levelled her pistol at the asura, before it could draw its own greatsword. “Whatever your name is, you might want to leave the area.” Already, behind her, she could hear the clash of weapons, the crackle of flames. Someone yelped in pain, and Frostpaw barked twice.
“Hah!” For the first time, the asura actually looked at her. “I was about to say the same to you. Give up your key now, and the Nth Degree will let you live.”
In that moment, Vasha realised one very important thing: there was nothing in Yinn’s rules to say you couldn’t kill the competition. In fact, she wasn’t sure there were any rules at all.
She didn’t get chance to muse on that further, because the ground started to shake. The asura gave her a smug grin, then leapt onto the golem’s back and turned it towards the fight. Vasha didn’t even have time to shout a warning before three more golems came thundering out of the trees.
After that, it was chaos. The Marauders had already engaged the Valpari family, and it was as Marissa had said – the nobles weren’t going down easily. Haki had been pushed back to the mouth of a small cave by Oska, his twin daggers flashing. Auri had retreated, but Jean was firing blasts of water at Gull, and surrounding her with walls of steaming earth. And their leaders…
Vasha almost wanted to just stand and watch. Roan was impressive, but Marissa was a blur of motion, clones blinking in and out of existence on all sides, harrying the guardian with their needle-like blades. Roan deflected them off his shield, but for the first time since she’d met him, Vasha could see he was hard-pressed.
And into the fray went the golems, without ceremony. The four of them plunged right in, scattering the other combatants, arms flailing and magic bouncing around them. Vasha saw Jean roll out of the way of their stamping feet, and Haki scramble sideways to avoid a swinging fist. For several seconds, no-one seemed to know quite what to do.
Vasha cupped her hands to her mouth, shouting in Roan’s direction. “They have another key. Get them!”
Roan’s head swung towards her for just a moment, his one eye blinking – and then he threw himself at the nearest golem, his mace crashing into its side in a shower of sparks.
Vasha launched herself down the hill, pistols firing. She made for the closest golem, firing a ball of sticky glue at its feet as she passed. The golem tried to follow Roan, then lurched sideways, caught in the glue; Vasha circled round its other side, unleashing a blowtorch flame against its flank.
As the golem ripped itself free, Vasha moved on, firing steadily. She darted past Marissa, now engaged in a struggle against one of the golems, then rolled over a patch of churning ground – and came face-to-face with Jean.
He was muddy and dishevelled, his robes torn on one side, but for a moment, Vasha forgot the fight was even happening. All sound fell away, replaced by a ringing in her ears. Jean’s eyes were wide, and his lips moved, but she couldn’t hear anything coming from them–
The ground bounced once, and a golem thrust itself between them. Vasha leapt backwards, firing a static shot in her wake. The golem flailed wildly in her direction, completely missing her, then in Jean’s, but the afterimage of the shot was so bright across her vision that Vasha couldn’t see what had happened to him. Feeling equal parts anxious and defiant, she retreated.
And almost backed right into another golem.
It was trapped, up to one mechanical knee in the earth where an elementalist had turned it to the consistency of quicksand. The asura perched on the golem’s shoulder was screaming in frustration, repeatedly hitting it on the head, but to no avail. It was going to take another golem to pull it out, and they were all engaged in their own battles. Vasha began to back away from it, wondering if there was anywhere she could retreat to, or whether any of the other Marauders needed her help – until she saw the key.
Keys, in fact. Two of them, tied together with wire and hanging from the asura’s belt. Vasha suspected they’d been in a pocket or pouch, but in all the action, they’d fallen free. Apparently, the Nth Degree had already taken out one other team; they must not be as inept as they looked.
Vasha scanned the battlefield, but the rest of the Marauders were some distance away, tackling either golems or the Valparis. She’d have to do this alone.
The golem was twice her height, and bucking wildly, but Vasha had a few gadgets of her own. She picked up one foot, sharply tapping her heel against the other, and shot into the air.
The rocket boots weren’t of her own design, and whilst Vasha had made a few adjustments to them, they still always took her off guard. She almost overshot the golem entirely, then when she jerkily slowed, had to throw her hands up to stop herself getting a face full of metal. The asura’s shrieks filled her ears as she grabbed the golem’s shoulder with one hand, swinging herself round behind it. The asura seemed to be so enraged that he’d lost all sense of strategy; he started clubbing her round the head with his sceptre, which was irritating, but didn’t do much damage. He also seemed to have forgotten he was carrying the keys.
With one foot on the golem and the other still hovering in the air, Vasha lunged for the keys. She missed the first time, instead managing to grab hold of the asura’s sceptre and wrench it away. As he scrabbled after it, she went in again, this time catching the dangling keys and pulling.
The power to her boots ran out at the same moment. Vasha pitched backwards, losing her grip, arms cartwheeling as she fell. She hit the ground on her back, barely managing to stop her head bouncing off a rock – but the keys were still clutched in her hand.
The asura hadn’t even noticed. He was briefly triumphant at having dislodged her, until Auri appeared on his other side, fire blooming from her hands. Vasha scrambled backwards, right into the undergrowth. Every bone ached, and she’d be bruised from top to toe, but it had been worth it.
She found the Marauders on the other side of the battlefield. They’d regrouped, and were holding off a golem and Marissa. The former was already smoking, and looked to be on the verge of collapsing into a heap. The latter was giving them far more trouble. Marissa glowed with an inner light, fury in her eyes and a sword in her hands. She could have been a goddess in mortal shape – the Marauders, Vasha realised, had seriously underestimated the Valparis, and they knew it.
Vasha hurried round the edge of the battlefield, pushing against her weary muscles, stumbling through mud and briars. She reached the Marauders just as Marissa raised her sword, clones popping into existence all around her. Vasha scrambled over a last lump in the ground and grabbed Roan’s arm before he could launch an attack, almost getting bashed in the head with his shield for her trouble. “I’ve got two keys,” she yelled, backing away. “Let’s go.”
Roan didn’t hesitate. It didn’t matter whose keys she’d obtained – two more to add to their collection was a significant win. Roan’s tactical mind would know perfectly well that it was time to take their prize and cut this fight short.
He shouted to the norn, who disengaged at once. Marissa advanced on them, only for the smoking golem to lunge at her, forcing her to retreat in the other direction. Suddenly freed, the Marauders broke away. By the time Vasha stumbled into a weary run, she could hear all three of them behind her.
Three keys, and the Valpari family left at the mercy of the Nth Degree. Maybe the two teams would wipe each other out, or maybe one side would be victorious. There was a chance that Jean’s part in this game was already over, when it had hardly begun. Vasha supposed she should feel guilty about that, too, but she didn’t. If the Valparis had to retire, and she never saw Jean again? Maybe it was heartless of her, but Vasha wouldn’t shed any tears over that.
Vasha didn’t slow until the sounds of the fight had faded entirely into the distance. Even before she’d stopped, she was fishing the first piece of the key out of her pocket, and holding the three up before her. One looked like it didn’t yet fit, but the other two slotted together perfectly.
Only now did Vasha see the engraving, running across the surface of the key; the piece from the drake had held so little of it that she hadn’t realised it wasn’t just scratched. With the key starting to take shape, though, the markings looked suspiciously like a map, and she didn’t need Gull to tell her where this one led.
She turned to the others, barely seeing their panting faces, their grubby clothes, and held up the pieces of the key. “Kryta,” she said triumphantly, turning the engraving towards them. “We’re going to Kryta.”
