His face turned grim. “I let go, lives end. People like me have many names. Volhv, kudesnik, which means ‘magician,’ charodei, which means ‘enchanter,’ but the most common term in history was mudrets. A wise man. People say that wisdom is bought with experience, which is just a polite way of saying that you’ll fuck up a lot, people will get hurt, and your guilt will gnaw on you in your dreams. Well, I’ve earned my wisdom, every drop of it. Let’s talk of something else. Let’s talk of how when we get to your office, you will offer me a cup of tea. You drink tea, right?”
I nodded. Maybe I would offer him a cup of tea. Why not?
“What kind of tea?”
“Earl Grey, if I can get it.”
“You put sugar in it?”
“No.”
He stopped, a shocked expression on his face. “No sugar?”
“No.”
“You have to have sugar. And lemon.”
The night breeze swirled about me and I caught a weak hint of jasmine, followed by the exact same layered scent I’d smelled in Gloria’s office. I notched an arrow and spun, scanning the ruins.
“What is it?”
“We’re about to get jumped.”
“By whom?”
“Venomous people with snake fangs in their heads.”
The ruins lay deserted, no movement. A least half a mile separated us from the street and another mile or two of the bridge remained.
Roman pulled the bird staff out of its leather holder. “Where are they coming from?”
“I don’t know.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
Behind us, something clanked against the wood. I whirled. A woman climbed over the edge and rolled onto the bridge coming to a crouch, holding a tactical combat blade. A man pulled himself up behind her.
No physical strain. No fighting, no running…Well, I was screwed.
A dry pop, like glass cracking, punched my eardrums. A cloud of black smoke exploded on the other side of the bridge, cutting us off.
“Teleportation, huh. Okay. I got this,” Roman muttered and dug in the pouches on his belt.
The woman hissed at me, baring fangs.
Okay. Enough of that.
I fired. The bowstring twanged and the arrow sprouted from the woman’s left eye.
The man charged at me.
Arrow, sight, draw, fire, all in the space of a second.
The second shaft sliced through the man’s throat, ripping a satisfying scream. He faltered, stumbled, and pitched over the side.
The black smoke coalesced into a bald man. He wore a strange pleated robe of brick-red fabric and an odd-looking apron. He held a short staff in his hand. Several small clay spheres hung from the staff, suspended by a string like a bunch of grapes. Another wizard. Great.
Roman yanked a pouch off his belt and hurled reddish powder into the air. The tiny dust granules hung, unmoving, shook, turning black, and sprouted wings. A swarm of black flies streamed toward the man.
More people scrambled onto the bridge.
Arrow—fire. Arrow—fire.
Two fell but they kept coming.
Fire, fire, fire.
The man howled a single word. Magic slapped me, nearly ripping the bow from my fingers. The flies rained down in a cloud of ash.
The man waved his staff around, tore a small pot off of it, and hurled it at the ground. The bridge shivered and white scorpions skittered over the boards, heading for us.
I sent another man flying off the bridge with my arrow in his chest. Two more crawled up to take his place. Were they cloning these guys under the bridge?
“It’s like that, then? Okay.” Roman barked out something vicious and drew a line with his staff, and spat. The scorpions reached the line and melted into boiling goo.
The man let loose a string of unfamiliar syllables and pulled out a strange-looking knife. The moonlight gleamed off the roughly hewn blade and the man sliced himself across his chest. Blood poured. He ripped the entire bunch of spheres off his staff and smashed them on the ground.
Dark wavy lines formed upon the bridge boards and coalesced into snakes. Hundreds of snakes.
Not again.
“I can command snakes, too,” Roman yelled. “This won’t help you.”
“We’ll see!” the man yelled back.
The snakes slithered to us.
“Imenem Chernoboga!” Roman thrust his staff into the boards and planted his legs, gripping the staff directly in front of him with both hands. The bridge quaked. The staff opened its beak and screeched. Wind spun around Roman, stirring his robe. The snakes halted, unsure.
The other wizard shook his staff. The snakes attempted their best to slither forward, but hit an invisible wall of Roman’s magic.
The black volhv clenched his teeth. The muscles of his face shook from the strain. Sweat broke out at his hairline.