Page 79 of Heartless Enemy

Glass shattered as a combined wind blast from the mass of white boots blew out every window on the street. Broken shards rained down, clinking against the stone road and the wooden floorboards inside the houses. Terrified screams rose from the building on my left.

Gritting my teeth, I raised a metal wall to block the bombardment of fireballs while wondering why the hell there were still people in these houses. The civilians on this street were supposed to have been evacuated last night.

Behind me, Shinji was sending torrents of fire barreling towards the rows of constables. They were forced to abandon their own fireballs and instead raise overlapping shields of water to block it.

White mist exploded over the street as the fire and water clashed, turning the attacks into hissing steam. I squinted, trying to see through the thick fog. Eve summoned wind and whirled it around us, sweeping away the mist.

I shot a massive sheet of metal towards the white boots. It crashed into shields of wind and fire.

With an annoyed scowl on my face, I called up more magic and hurled it at them.

I had to give it to them, they had planned this invasion well. Attacking from practically every side, they had forced me to split up my forces in order to make sure that we wouldn’t find ourselves trapped between them. It significantly decreased the otherwise overwhelming power we would have met them with.

The other problem was of course that I wasn’t trying to win. I was trying to keep as many of my people alive and out of custody as possible for when White got here with his army. That had meant that I had only been able to risk bringing out my experienced battle mages for this fight while leaving the medium- and low-level fighters out of it. Even with the added numbers I had gained from the other dark mage Houses, we were severely outnumbered against the entirety of Malgrave’s constable force.

I yanked up another wall as a hail of lightning bolts suddenly barreled towards us. They slammed into my metal with loudcracksthat reverberated through the air.

“They’re going to rush us!” Eve called from next to me while blocking the lightning on both sides with rapid shields of water.

Since Eve knew their tactics, we had been able to avoid falling into some of their traps. But with just the two of us and Shinji defending this street, it was getting difficult to block them even when we knew what they were going to do.

“Shinji,” I snapped.

“Got it,” he replied before I even had to specify what I wanted him to do.

Red flames roared down the street on his side while I shoved a thick sheet of metal between the buildings on mine. Another loud bang echoed through the cold fall air as it crashed into their shields.

Steam washed over the street once more as Shinji’s fire was met with water.

The moment the attacks faded out, the back rows of constables who hadn’t used their magic to block must have loosed their attacks.

A mass of wind blasts slammed into us from both sides. It created a surge, snatching us from the ground and tossing us into the buildings next to us.

I crashed into a yellow-painted door with enough force to break it. My breath exploded from my lungs at the impact.

Gasping in air, I struggled to get to my feet while frantically whipping my head around to find Eve. Relief pulsed through me when I found her trying to disentangle herself from the toppled chairs that she had crashed into a few strides away from me. But it was quickly replaced by worry when I noticed the blood dripping down her arm from a slash that must have been caused by the broken shards still attached to the window that she had no doubt been flung through.

Another wave of unease smacked into me when I realized that Shinji was nowhere to be found.

“They’re pushing for close combat,” Eve pressed out while shoving a chair to the side and straightening. “We need to get back out into the street.”

Red flames shot out from the building right next to ours. A brief flash of relief pulsed inside me as I darted towards the opening where the door had been. At least Shinji was still in fighting shape.

“Levi!” Eve screamed.

Wind slammed into me from the side, fromherside, sending me flying sideways right before a lightning bolt zapped through the door and the space where I had been standing only moments before. Dull pain pulsed through my hip as I crashed into a table. The force of it knocked the glass candleholder clean off the tabletop, sending it crashing down and shattering on the floor.

A whimper came from the other side of the sturdy wooden counter on my right.

My blood froze.

There was a civilian in here.

But I didn’t have any more time to think about that, because a horde of white boots poured across the threshold.

Rage surged up inside me. They wanted close combat? Fine, I would give them close combat.

Steel sang into the air as I drew the massive sword strapped down my spine.