The knights were using the sparse furniture for cover, moving and shooting, sending out bursts of magic, and trying to watch every impossible angle a Shadow Guard could choose to attack from. They had stacked the bodies deep, which was a testament to their courage, but it would not be enough.
He did not quite fit through the doorway, so he lowered one shoulder plate and smashed his way through onto the main floor. Toru walked into the melee. Now the Shadow Guard were aware that he was not their ally. Subsonic pistol bullets and thrown knives bounced harmlessly off of his armor.
Iron Guards were trained to think clearly as they fought, to ascertain an opponent’s abilities and then understand how they would best counter. A Traveler used his Power to get out of Toru’s way, but Toru anticipated where he would move. Most Travelers were not capable of going very far, so it was a simple process to guess where they would consider a safe place to go. The Traveler landed to the side just in time to catch a backhand that nearly tore his jaw off.
Toru clubbed one of the Shadow Guard who was distracted fighting the martial artist. The impact launched him through the wall in a spray of red. The Grimnoir used that distraction to disable another Shadow Guard with a swift blow to the throat. Another Fade went grey to avoid the arc of the tetsubo, reformed, and ran for his life. Toru kicked the disabled Shadow Guard into the fleeing one, knocking them both down, and then Willis finished them off with several rapid shots.
Momentarily surprised, the remaining Shadow Guard retreated, Traveling away or Fading through the floors and side walls. Toru picked up a dropped sword and hurled it through the boards where a Fade had just gone. He was rewarded with a scream of agony.
Toru turned toward the injured Grimnoir and let his voice radiate through the magical kanji. He could see that every one of them had been injured, some worse than others. “Flee, Grimnoir.”
“We’ve got men unaccounted for!” Genesse shouted back at him. In their brief conversation while training aboard the Traveler, the Reader had struck Toru as an argumentative, proud man. Those were useful qualities in a barbarian society, but they were hindrances now. “We can’t leave them—”
“You can and you will! Sullivan’s mission comes first. You must survive in order to complete the mission. These are Shadow Guard. The men you cannot see here are already dead. Get to the water. I will hold them.”
They knew he was right. Nobody wanted to debate with the walking tank, so the Grimnoir took up their guns and limped for the stairs.
Toru waited. He knew what was coming next.
His brother, Hayate, appeared first, landing smoothly amidst the spreading fire. His Shadow Guard came next, appearing through the walls or dropping through the ceiling, surrounding Toru with lifted blades that had never been intended for this sort of work.
“Toru…” The First Shadow Guard did not bother to bow. “I was not expecting such armament. This is an intriguing development.”
“Our father has seen fit to bless my endeavors by placing this armor in my path.” Toru’s voice passed through the magical kanji of the mempo. It could be magnified to terrible levels, but for now, he kept it as if they were having a polite conversation.
“I was frankly shocked to see you trying to save the lives of these Grimnoir. Sending them away is interesting… yet ultimately pointless, since my men will pick them off one by one as they attempt to escape… After them!” Hayate barked the command at the Shadow Guard surrounding Toru. “Kill them all!”
The other Shadow Guard disappeared, leaving Toru and his brother alone.
Lance let his mental control of the rat slip. He didn’t speak Japanese, but he’d still understood the Shadow Guard leader’s meaning clear enough. The ninjas were going after the remaining Grimnoir. Knowing he didn’t have much time or much blood left, Lance forced himself onward. One bare foot in front of the other. He had to keep one hand pressed against the wall so as not to fall over. It left a bright red trail along the peeling wallpaper behind him.
There wasn’t much he could do with his Power. There weren’t many useful animals around here, and most things were running from the spreading fire. He kept on scanning, using his Power to pick out living creatures from the surroundings. There were rodents in the walls, fish in the water below, birds in the sky, and he kept grabbing hold of one, taking a quick look through its eyes to keep track of the bad guys, his fellow knights, and any other hazards.
It was hard work switching between so many different brains, but it was all he could do. Lance reached the stairs, already knowing that there was a ninja waiting in ambush because a mouse had smelled him and sensed the vibrations. Lance pressed the muzzle of the Colt into the wood and let the ninja have it right through the wall.
The door was harder to shove open because of the dying ninja blocking it, but Lance squeezed through. The Imperium man was squirting blood out of his neck, but still trying to raise his sword, so Lance shot him again.
Keeping his mind in multiple places made it hard to be graceful even when he wasn’t bleeding to death. He nearly slipped and fell on the stairs. The blood from his chest had run down his jeans and into his socks, and now things were getting slippery. Smoke was coming out of everything and curling its way up the stairwell. He coughed and stained his beard with blood. The Healing spell Sullivan had carved on him felt like it was on fire. Without it, he knew he’d already be dead. Lance hoped it would be enough to get him out of this.
There was a terrible roar as a big chunk of the flaming building’s interior collapsed above.
He took a gull past the bank of windows below. They were blacked out, but enough were broken that he caught glimpses of black-clad men preparing to jump the escaping knights. Lance gathered up all of his mind back into his own body so he could concentrate. He’d need it.
Second floor. The bad guys were looking the other way, waiting for his friends. It was going to be hard to aim. One arm didn’t want to flex and the other was slippery with blood. Lance lifted the Colt and went to work anyway. He managed to drop a couple of them with bullets before a Traveler reacted and appeared behind him. Lance had been waiting for that, so he let himself drop as soon as he felt the change in the air.
The sword swept by overhead and embedded itself in the door jamb. Lance was at a funny angle, so the .45 only hit the Shadow Guard in the thigh. There was a mighty big artery there, though, and that Shadow Guard let out a terrible holler and dropped. He raised the Colt, but the Shadow Guard smacked it away. Lance crawled up him, grabbed one of the ninja’s knives off of his belt and stabbed him in the chest, once, twice, three times, and on the fourth wild swing, the ninja gathered up enough magic to Travel away.
Lance fell on his face. That ninja landed in a bloody heap fifteen feet away, spitting blood.
There was a Grimnoir knight nearby on the floor. A Chinaman. Chen had been his name. Nice fella. Lance had taken a liking to him. He’d found that Chen had a good sense of humor and was always going on about how funny his kids were. But now Chen was dead because some Imperium asshole had nearly sawed his head off, so Lance lurched over and took the sawed-off double-barreled shotgun from Chen’s hands.
The smoke parted. A ninja was coming his way. Lance pulled the trigger and filled the hall with buckshot. Fade! He managed to go grey just in time and came out of it unfazed. Lance pulled the second trigger. The Fade barely made it again. Lance broke open the shotgun and the shells auto-ejected as he knelt down to pick up some of the buckshot shells scattered around Chen’s body.