CHAPTER 18

topaz

Day 98 of 108, The Dark Season

Zahir Nevareht needed a shower. It was the only thing on his mind these past few hours, and he knew his mood wouldn't improve until he returned home and stood under a nice flow of steaming water. But he'd be a fool to think that would happen anytime soon.

"Nevareht! Behind—"

Zahir spun and lit up his hand in dark green flames. The lunging monster was a flash of bleached skin and scarlet eyes. Instinctively, he moved; a swift strike of his burning fist was enough to break through its flesh. The monster’s scream split his ears, and one more swipe of his flames had its head sizzling off its body. The deformity spasmed and wriggled as it thudded to the ground by Zahir's feet, and the head crumpled to ash.

"Dammit, Nevareht," Captain Nurul snapped. "What part of 'be alert' don't you understand? It's like I'm doing everyone's damn job tonight." She marched past him and into the next room, her body quickly vanishing behind a cloud of black, shiny mist. With a flash of his eyes, Zahir set fire to the remainder of the dead monster and followed Nurul.

The others fell into step behind him, their blast weapons humming quietly in the darkness, waiting to be fired. "Nurul's had a bad week, so don't take it personally," someone whispered to him. Zahir had been hurriedly shoved into this search team and was yet to be introduced to half the soldiers in it. Nurul, he knew by unfortunate circumstance, and the two other female soldiers he'd known from his previous town. But the male drae in this team had apparently deemed it unnecessary to get to know him, so their names and faces remained a blur.

Whatever, though. The sooner he left this shithole town, the better. There was a reason Nurwadi was left off most maps.

"We're all having a bad week," Zahir retorted, speaking through a mouth and nose mask, something he'd never had to wear before.

The mist in this town was really bad.

"The next building's another den," said Nurul, only a voice in the glittering dark. "I suggest we split up so that half of us tackle the criminals and the others search outside."

Why wasn't there some type of spell or glass that allowed one to see through the mist? He could see nothing but his own blast weapon in front of him, the rainbow fur on the animal somehow brighter here. The living weapon breathed heavily as he aimed it with caution, awaiting anything that hid beyond the mist.

In fact, that was the only sound after the captain's suggestion. All eight of their blast weapons breathed hungrily in the silence that followed, and Zahir guessed nobody was fond of the idea of splitting up.

A gruff voice eventually spoke up. "We're not here to bust every den we encounter. If we did, we'd be here for weeks, and our search would be in vain."

Getting to the point, Zahir quickly said, "Four of us can't take on a faerie."

It was what everyone had been thinking the moment the captain had suggested it. But their leader only huffed out a breath, one that sounded significantly fierier than the explosive weapons they carried. "It's one damn faerie," said Nurul. "Behead it and then it's done. One person can do that."

"Nevareht is right. It's not that easy," Dian argued, her delicate, high voice cutting through the dark. "You've never done it before, but some of us have. I have."

"Let's argue this when we're not sitting in a monster nest completely blind," said Nurul, her footsteps fading.

But Zahir spoke anyway. "We've been at this all day and night. This search is going nowhere, and we've already lost a soldier to a dark magician—"

"So now you're afraid of witches? Most of those dumbasses get themselves killed trying to summon this and that, they're incompetent."

"Tell that to Shihab. He's dead now," said Zahir. "We're soldiers, not police. We don't die confronting pieces of shit magicians sitting in their own piss. Shihab was killed by a broken wand, for Agni's sake."

"It wasn't the wand that killed him," Nurul snapped. "It was because none of us were working as a bloody team when we burst in, and no one stopped him when he blasted that shrine."

The other male who'd spoken seemed none too pleased by these words. "How can we work as a team when no one's listening to each other. All we've done today is bust dens and catch dark magicians, against most of our wishes—"

"So, this is an attack on me, is it?" Nurul laughed, and the sound was sinister. "It's like I'm babysitting a bunch of—"

The slightest shift in the mist meant Zahir caught sight of several red eyes before it was too late. He squeezed his blast weapon, its high-pitched hum drowning out Nurul's last words before magic released.

A shot of multi-colours flashed forward, and the monsters watching through a hole in the ceiling exploded. Nurul ducked as black guts and gore splattered the near wall and rained down on her and Zahir. His weapon panted heavily, its maw glowing with rainbow colours after its blast. "What was that you said about being alert?" he breathed.

Nurul wiped the black blood from her eyes and merely glowered. "Thanks. And in case you haven't noticed, that was a sign to shut the fuck up and get on with what we were tasked." She positioned her weapon before looking up at the blasted hole in the ceiling. Mist poured in and out from it, and she'd been right to call this place a nest. He hadn't been in this town long, but if the last few days were any indication, then the farthest ends of West Slope were nothing more than nests of dark magic and witch dens. With the amount of glittering mist that poured in from that hole, the next building was undoubtedly a den.

"We can't keep busting dens," Zahir said evenly. "Either we head outside and look there, or we call it a night."

Dian backed him up again, her weapon panting. "I agree."

"Come on, Captain," someone else pleaded. "This is getting ridiculous—"

Nurul's bright yellow flames engulfed the floor, lighting up the sight of everyone gathered in the room and the broken doorway. The mist sparkled so brightly, its darkness became thin, and Zahir saw exactly how wretched she and the rest of them looked; her skin-tight uniform, normally a pattern of light brown and black, was completely slick and covered in monster blood, the darkness hiding whatever colour had been beneath. Bits of monster flesh and slime glittered in the light of her fire. The brown of her hair was hidden by black blood; her face mask similarly drenched. Her flaming eyes were the only thing of colour and light on her, and she looked like a demon.

They all did.

Zahir wiped away goo from his ear.

"Fine," Nurul grumbled. "Asuad, open a portal."

"Yes, Captain."

No one said anything as the portal was quickly drawn and filled, and then the grumbling of silvery clouds in the broken doorway was added to the breathing and huffing of their blast weapons. Even the fur of their weapons was no longer rainbow, but slick and sticky with goo and monster blood, their gaping maws the only bright thing now.

As they vanished one by one through the portal, Nurul stepped up to him, the smell of monster rot heavy in the air. "Come find me after Assessment," she said to him alone.

Ahead, Dian was next to enter the portal, the colour of her red wings barely visible through goo. The fact was that they were abandoning their mission, no matter how futile it seemed. The order had been to search until the faerie was found, but they hadn't found it. Yet Zahir couldn't ignore the feeling of relief that they were leaving. He'd been a soldier for a while, he'd seen things. He'd done more. He'd almost been part of the Maharani's Royal Guard. He'd trained to be one of the best, but in all that time he'd never faced a faerie.

The stories he'd heard had been no bedside tales; the horrors a single one of those beings created were of dark realms, legendary terrors. Eight fighters were in this search team, but as the hours dripped by, Zahir kept wondering if eight were enough.

He was glad that tonight they wouldn't find out.