Questing Sucks! Book II (72 page)

Sehn pointed over Duncan’s shoulder. “Not even with that giant magical dragon that I summoned?”

“What giant magical dragon?” Duncan asked, looking over his shoulder. “I don’t see any—”

“
La’saala
Vi
Nara MAHR
!”

“—durrf!” Duncan finished as yet another fist bashed him over the head and pounded him into the stage floor, then vanished away as a puff of smoke.

Something about the look on Duncan’s face as he made his way back to his feet told Sehn that, this time, he might’ve gone just a little bit too far. Perhaps it was due to the blood that leaked out of his eyes and trickled over his bandages. Or maybe it was the way his body trembled from head to toe. Perhaps it was even the way that the bandage began to peel off on parts of his face, now exposing lips that were a dark shade of green with patches of red: lips that were set in an enraged scowl. Either way, if the Archmage had a breaking point, he was now well past it.

He locked eyes with Sehn and began inching his way closer. From the way he now gripped his staff, he seemed to be giving up on his girly pink bitch beams and instead planned to fight at closer range.

“You know a few new tricks,” he said. Though he spoke at well below a shout, his words did not fail to convey his rage. “Nothing you’ve learned will save you. Nothing will make a difference.”

“Yeah it will!” Estelle yelled at him, sticking out her tongue.

Sehn nodded in agreement. “The butterfly is correct. It is time for you to pay for your indiscretions against your God-King, Sehn.”

Unwilling to wait for Duncan to come to him, Sehn went straight for Duncan. With his blade still aflame and his weapon raised, he charged forward and prepared to clash head-on once more.

Precise, constant, and steady control of his magic: that was what enabled Sehn’s fiery blade to remain intact as he lashed out at Duncan, bringing it down on top of him. Like before, Duncan raised his staff to block, though unlike before, he was not put off balance. After Sehn’s blade became interlocked with his staff, Sehn tried to overpower him, pressing down hard in the hopes of breaking through his guard. But Duncan shoved back with a surprising strength, and Sehn found himself stumbling away from the Archmage.

“You want a fight, elf? Then you shall have one.” Duncan’s fingers trembled on his staff, and he exposed yellow, rotten teeth as his lips pulled back. “You’ve earned a sizable portion of my hatred.
And things that I hate suffer
!” he shrieked.

Duncan crossed the distance to Sehn in three large strides, and with his teeth still bared, he raised his staff, lifted himself up on his toes, and then swung it down as if to thwack Sehn over the head. Having seen what that staff had done to Orellia, Sehn had the sense it’d be best not to get hit with it. He sidestepped out of its reach, then dashed backwards so that he ended up off to Duncan’s right.

“Foolish Archmage! How dare you speak all evilly and shit? Are you so ignorant as to not know who I am? I am
Sehn
. I am the embodiment of evil. Now die, you pathetic force of good!”

“I already have!”

Duncan leapt into the air and then brought his staff down on Sehn, who jumped off to the side, came into a roll, and sprang back up to his feet. Then he charged at the Archmage, and with an upwards swing, he attempted to slice the Archmage open from his groin to his throat. For a rotten dead thing, the Archmage was as nimble as he was strong, and he jumped high into the air, flipped over once, and then landed directly behind Sehn.

“Anger? Hate?
Evil
?
You don’t know the meaning of these words.”

Duncan spun in a half-circle, and Sehn, still facing away from him, was able to see his movements from the shadow he cast on the floor. He dropped to his knees, ducking beneath the Archmage’s staff, and then he hurriedly returned to his feet, reorienting himself so that he again faced the Archmage. Backing away to gain some distance, he drew a slow breath then assumed a more defensive position with his front knee bent and his back leg straight. As if accepting his challenge, the Archmage came to him this time, and he readied himself.

Why is this so important to me?
Sehn wondered, the question hitting him by surprise.

It was an odd question to think up at a time like this, but it was nevertheless a question that refused to leave his head. In truth, this fight was optional as far as he was concerned…wasn’t it? Magia was not his homeland, Issius was not his Holy Magus, and though the task of saving this land—err,
conquering
this land had been placed solely in his hands, he had no true responsibility to follow through with it. And yet, despite this, he took this personally—all of it.

Part of it, he knew, was seething anger over the way the Archmage had made him appear weak: had challenged his honor. And part of it was also the way he had threatened Nero and Rina, both of whom he had gotten back and were now somewhere safe awaiting his return to them.

All of these things by themselves were enough of a reason to want to take him down. But wants were wants, and needs were needs, and ultimately, he was forced to wonder: was this truly worth the risk to his life? Or the risk to Cah’lia’s life? Or what about the children? Did his grudge against Duncan outweigh the importance of protecting them?

The answer was yes. The Great Sehn sacrifices all without thought!

But also…no. It wasn’t worth it, because if Nero died, or Rina, or Cah’lia, or his sister, he would lose some very important servants, and what good was a God-king without his most trusted underlings to scrape the lint out from between his toes?

His personal animosity towards the Archmage aside, this wasn’t his fight. And yet, even despite this, he was wholeheartedly committed to stopping this tyrant: to putting everything on the line if need be. Because when he put aside his emotions and his desire for revenge, he realized that what he was left with was the knowledge that if he did nothing and allowed Archmage Duncan to rule, he would cause tremendous suffering to so many thousands of people. Sehn would be condemning them all to their fate: to subjugation at the hands of a decaying creature that had lost all of its personhood.

And that just wasn’t okay—because only
Sehn
should be allowed to terrorize a nation!

“You are wrong about me,” Sehn said to him as he drew nearer. “It is
I
who know the meaning of hatred.”

“Keep deluding yourself.”

Duncan again jumped at Sehn, and this time he came perilously close to crushing Sehn’s skull with his staff; intentionally, Sehn stayed close to within his striking range and dodged only enough so that the staff clattered down against the stage less than an inch in front of the tip of his boot—which he brought up for a kick that landed squarely on the Archmage’s nose, causing his head to snap back with the impact of it and his entire bandaged nose to break off his face. Yet he showed no display of pain, nor did he bleed.

Even as the white-wrapped piece of decayed flesh and cartilage landed several feet away, it did not appear to deter him in the slightest. Now, a green, oozing slime fell out of a hole in his face just between and below his eyes.

“You should be thanking me,” Sehn said. “Now you no longer need to smell yourself. You’re welcome.”

“No matter, elf. I’ll make sure to repay you later after I’ve severed the heads of the two whores you care so much about.”

“Two…whores?”

Duncan sneered, then quickly nodded his head once in the direction of Shina then again in the direction of Cah’lia. Sehn, who had been only a moment from moving in to strike, stopped where he was, dropped his jaw, and then stared at the Archmage in complete shock.

“Just so that I understand you correctly, Archmage. Did you just call my little sister and Cah’lia a whore?”

“Yes.”

The anger…it burns
.

Sehn lost control of himself. His mouth opened on its own, and he released his anger in the form of a loud, violent growl. Then he dashed forward at the Archmage, his legs moving of their own accord, as were his hands on his blade.

“The only whore,” Sehn shouted, “is the one you call mother, you hideous, rancid, green-faced fucking shit goblin! The Great Sehn’s wrath has been awakened!”

Duncan’s tongue lolled out of his mouth a moment; it was pitch black in color and reeked just as badly as the rest of him. “You still don’t understand. But you will.” With a surprisingly deep, booming voice, he roared, “
I will cut your friends into little pieces and make you watch
!”

They clashed: Sehn’s blade, which he had stolen from David, against the Item that Duncan wielded. This time, Sehn’s strength won out, and he pushed Duncan backwards, then in a rage swung his blade twice with all his strength, each time in a circular arc, and each time aimed at Duncan’s chest. But the Archmage managed to maneuver his staff in time to block both, and then he delivered a strike of his own, attacking Sehn’s right side.

Sehn brought up his blade to deflect the blow, and he succeeded. There was a crack, and to both his horror and confusion, his blade finally gave in, shattering in two pieces and with enough force that even the base flew out of his hand, leaving him standing there without a weapon.

Furiously, Duncan pressed his newfound advantage, not even giving Sehn enough time to process what had happened. All at once, Sehn found himself forced into making a series of agile maneuvers to avoid letting Duncan crush him with that staff of his. He knew it was no ordinary piece of wood. It would be no different from having a steel metal bar crashing into the side of his face.

This is bad!

Unarmed, unable to fight back, and pursued without mercy, Sehn fought just to keep alive. Duncan came at him with an unending barrage of strikes. He swung his staff horizontally at Sehn’s forehead, which Sehn ducked under. Then he followed it up with a diagonally angled swing aimed for his kneecaps, which he evaded by jumping above. He attempted to gain some distance, but no matter in which direction he dashed, Duncan matched his movements perfectly.

After spinning out of the way of an overhead strike, he attempted to move off to Duncan’s left. But Duncan, as though predicting he would do so, chased after him and managed to block his path. The same was true when attempting to dash around his other side. Eventually, Sehn tried to go behind him, waiting for the perfect moment, which came in the form of a clumsy slash aimed at his neck. Sehn hopped backwards, putting himself out of harm’s way, then bent his knees, sprang up into the air, over Duncan’s head, and then landed behind him, now facing in the opposite direction. But the moment he touched down, Duncan was
already
trying to decapitate him, and rather than flee, Sehn was forced to drop down onto his knees, once more able to see Duncan’s strike coming thanks to the movements of the Archmage’s shadow.

At the exact same moment that Sehn avoided yet another life-threatening attack—even as he was still dropping down to his knees—Patrick’s voice called out to him. “Sehn! Here!”

Sehn’s eyes widened at the sight of the sword spinning in the air towards him, its handle and its blade moving so fast as to appear a single blur. But Sehn had keen eyesight and good reflexes, and he concentrated, hoping to put both things to good use.

Blade. Grip. Blade. Grip. Blade…Grip!

Sehn reached out and snatched the weapon out of the air in the same instant that his knees touched down on the stage and Duncan began coming in for another attack. The sword was lighter than his last weapon but at least this, too, was well-made and sharp.

Igniting his blade with a familiar orange glow, Sehn whirled around and raised it just in time to block Duncan’s staff while still in a half crouch. It was a terrible position to be in and gave Duncan a much easier time overpowering him, and so he sprang up off it, managing to shove Duncan an inch or two back in the process, and then finally, he began a counterattack of his own.

Infuriated and filled with adrenaline, Sehn unleashed himself upon the Archmage, pummeling him ruthlessly with a variety of strikes that came from every direction. Yet the Archmage was still too formidable to let a single one connect, and with equal swiftness, he defended himself from them all. But there was one difference that Sehn noticed, and it was a big one: Duncan looked to be tiring. His movements were gradually becoming slower, and Sehn knew that, as long as he kept this up, eventually he would strike a winning blow.

And that was when his sword shattered. The Gods-cursed blade snapped into two equally sized pieces following a powerful vertical slash that would’ve knocked the staff out of Duncan’s hands and left
him
defenseless for a change.

The moment it shattered, Duncan’s eyes seemed to glow with a sadistic delight, and in that moment, Sehn knew he was in trouble—again. That was why, in a frantic hurry, Sehn changed tactics. He jumped into the air, brought both his knees into his chest, and then kicked out, slamming his feet into the Archmage’s stomach and causing him to stagger a good deal backwards.

There was a thump as Sehn landed on his side against the stage, and then another thump as Duncan landed on his back after finally falling over; but Sehn was already back on his feet by the time Duncan had tripped over and fallen onto his.

And now, with distance between them and just enough time needed to chant a few spells, Sehn extended his palm, filled his lung with air, and shouted at Duncan, “
Remmos
Vi
Ralos REHL
!”

There was a pop, and it was so much louder than what it’d been in the world of red sand that it caused Sehn to twitch. It was a deep crackle on par with the sound of cannon fire. At the same time, there was a flash from the palm of his hand. But even before both the flash and the pop, a barrier of red sand appeared near Duncan’s left shoulder blade, as the speed of what Sehn had launched at him was so great that it surpassed anything a human or elven eye could follow and exceeded the sound of its own firing.

When Sehn had first learned this spell, the effects of the anti-magic must have slowed it enough so that, at the very least, he could actually
see
the fiery, fist-sized chunk of rock. But even then, it had still moved fast enough that one could miss it entirely just by blinking. Now, however, uninhibited by the anti-magical bullshit, the flaming rock moved with such unbelievable speed that the flash from his palm, the deafening pop, and the appearance of the Archmage’s barrier were the only indications that Sehn had fired anything Duncan’s way at all.

“
Remmos vi Ralos REHL!
” Sehn chanted. What resulted was another pop and another appearance of the crimson barrier, this time in front of Duncan’s eyes. Becoming frustrated, Sehn attempted to blast him yet again—but he stopped, remembering one of the other spells Issius had taught him, the one he claimed could be the most important of all.

“
Just remember
,” Issius had explained. “
Its purpose is not to wound the flesh. Without it, all your other spells will fail you against a stronger, well-learned mage
.”