Honorine's Run To Save The World - Chapter Five (Patreon)

My sword vibrates in my hand, faster and faster as Sabrina draws more magic into her hand. The spell she's about to cast is a powerful one, that much is obvious, so I don't have much time to think. Fortunately, I don't need to, either; I know exactly what my next move should be. I charge at her with a cry, raising my sword above my head. The strike is obvious, but that's the point.

Just as I expected, Sabrina throws out a spell. A fireball, to be precise. I swing down my sword and she starts to laugh, but the laughter immediately dies when the flames wrap around the blade, clinging to it like iron to a magnet. The change in her expression is fun to watch, but not quite as fun as the way she tries to dodge when I take a diagonal swing and send a stream of her own fire right back at her. She does her best, but on such short notice that's simply not enough, and when she fumbles the dodge the flames lick at her jacket, leaving a pitch-black mark on her shoulder.

"Tch..." As she clutches her shoulder, her expression changes again, and a smile forms on her face. "A silver blade, and the skill to use it."

The Sabrina I'd seen earlier returns, but she quickly puts her icy facade back on before I can properly appreciate her.

"It would be impressive, if you hadn't shown your hand so early." Now she makes her move, swinging upward, and our blades ring when they meet. Undeterred, she swings again, and I meet her again.

Clang, clang, clang, our swords clash up and down the alley. True, she's forcing me on the defensive and I have yet to get any strikes in beyond that thing with the fireball, but I'm not complaining. The opposite, in fact. My heart is beating fast and I can feel the blood rushing through my veins. Everything around me seems more intense, the few colors in the alleyway look more vivid.

I feel alive. For a good reason, too. Sabrina's good, but that's not all. She's different. Her style's like nothing I've ever seen, with elegant, sweeping strikes that nevertheless leave me little time to react. Her steps are measured and deliberate, too, with each step she takes forwards forcing me to take two backwards. Yet, under all this, she's clearly distracted; she's repeating the same set of swings, and she's not even aware of it.

Alas, as much as I'd love to look more into what's got her like this, it won't get Alessia any closer to Zephyr Coast. I decide to make my move.

"Rookie mistake, that."

"What?" Sabrina blinks, slowing down for a second on her upswing. I take advantage of the newfound opening, and make my move with a swing aimed at her legs. My blade connects, but just barely; she sees the move coming and quickly backpedals. I open my mouth to explain that no swordsman worth their salt lets themselves get so predictable, but a sudden pain in my face stops me. I raise my hand to my cheek, even though I already know what's happened. Sure enough, there's blood on my hand, but only a little—is that it?

No, it's not. There's two large cuts across my shirt in the shape of a cross, deep enough that even the leather reinforcements have been damaged. She got two hits in the span of that backpedal, and I didn't even notice? I'm liking this woman more and more by the minute. When I look back up at her, I see… Happiness? Relief? I can't pinpoint the exact emotion on her face in the split second before it disappears, but even when ice queen Sabrina comes back, it's pretty obvious she's trying to hide that she's just as thrilled as I am.

Alright, she's clearly enjoying this as much as I am, so it's time to give her one more treat. I channel my own magic into my sword, letting slip that I want to infuse the blade with water, and go in for a swing. There's absolutely no reason for her not to fall for the bluff, so she does and raises an electrical ward around her sword before parrying my attack. The ward is powerful; if I'd gone through with the water infusion like I'd pretended, it would at the very least have knocked me into next week.

Instead, I redirect the magic in my sword, wrapping it around Sabrina's and coaxing the electricity from her blade into mine. She pulls away just before I can finish literally stealing her thunder and leaps out of the way in anticipation of a lightning bolt that never comes. I take advantage of the opening afforded by that instinctive dodge, and channel just enough additional magic into my sword to activate its amethyst core and draw the lightning inwards.

To someone unfamiliar with the inner workings of the weapon, it looks like the spell has just vanished into thin air, and judging by the way Sabrina's gawking at me, that's exactly what she saw. Time to show her exactly where that spell vanished to.

"Honorine, there are footsteps rapidly approaching us." Alessia chimes in behind me, pulling at my sleeve to make sure I'm listening. "It seems there are about twenty individuals, and at the rate at which they are approaching, they will be here in-"

"Absolutely not!" Sabrina cries out behind us, and before I'm aware of what's going on, she's got both me and Alessia by the scruffs of our necks. It's the strangest attack I've seen yet, but I realize it's not supposed to be an attack once I've got my bearings; the men Alessia mentioned are here, and Sabrina's dragging us away from them. With us weighing her down, she's nowhere near fast enough to evade them, but I've got that problem under control.

I point my sword at the head of the crowd, and pump some magic into the amethyst core and the quillons. The lightning I'd stolen from Sabrina's sword earlier flies out of the tip, forced in that direction by the magical fields in the quillons, and towards the men. The shot isn't lethal (or precise for that matter, but that's irrelevant when your targets are all bunched together and wearing metal armor) but I can safely say it'll stun them just long enough that the last they'll ever see of us is Sabrina pulling us around a corner.

Sabrina, on the other hand, is not so easily satisfied. She drags us through the alleys for what feels like ten minutes (my timepiece is still broken, so I can't fully check), and only stops once we're within one that opens out onto the street. Once she's fully certain that nobody's following us, she turns to me and smiles. A genuine smile, like the one I'd seen when I threw her fireball right back at her.

"Very well, very well, I'll concede you certainly have the skill to back up your bluster, so I think I will allow the girl to stay with you for now. I do have one condition, however: You'd better not get caught before we've had a proper duel."

This woman was fighting me for all she was worth not even an hour ago, and now she's telling me not to get caught? It's hard not to laugh, even though I wholeheartedly agree. "Alright, I accept that condition, but I do have to ask, why the change of heart?"

"That duel was the best I've had in quite some time; it's certainly been ages since I've faced an opponent this enjoyable or full of surprises, and now that our paths have crossed..." She leans in, not so far so as to be too close for comfort, but definitely close enough that it's hard not to read at least a little flirtation into what she says next. "...I don't think I want them to uncross anytime soon."

...I hate to admit it, but the flirting is working. Much better than I'd anticipated too. Thankfully, Alessia chooses this moment to literally drag me out of that situation, grabbing me by the sleeve and pulling me away from Sabrina. "If we wish to make it to Zephyr Coast in time, we must continue our journey as soon as possible."

"Oh!" Sabrina's eyes light up at the mention of our destination. "If that's where you're headed, board a train at Juliette Dufour Station. Solais' platforms are closed for infrastructure upgrades, and Champirac Central has been under armed guard for the past two days, though I'm not too sure why that is."

"And the reason you are sharing this intelligence with us is...?" Alessia voices my doubts perfectly. "While your demand that we not be captured does affect these numbers somewhat, the odds that you are leading us into a trap are still uncomfortably high."

"Believe me, I gain nothing by letting you two fall into enemy hands, and even less if I am unable to face you in a proper one-on-one duel until one of us concedes defeat. That suggestion is your other reward for impressing me, and it's only that: A suggestion. Whether you take it or leave it is entirely up to you, miss..."

"Alessia."

Sabrina gestures to me. "...And?"

"Honorine."

"I see… An interesting name, for an interesting fighter. In any case, my time is running out, so I won't waste any more of yours." She turns around, starting to walk back the way she took us. "'Til next we meet."

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter