Page 55 of Zel
He dropped the corpse and turned, summoning his magical fury to pulse around him with visible aura, which caused pure dread to anyone who perceived it. Two bandits stood before him, one closer, gazing in horror at her now bent sword that had failed to skewer him. The second held two handaxes and trembled as he threw one, then the other.
Ulrich caught them both.
The woman dropped her sword, attempting to flee, but Ulrich flung the handaxes into her back, dropping her at the other bandit’s feet. Toppling over onto his backside, he stared wide-eyed at his own weapons buried in his companion.
She was dead, but Ulrich snatched the male up and sucked his soul out like the first.
Spotting a fourth bandit rigid with fear, Ulrich swept forward to descend upon her next, only for a dagger to lodge in the bandit’s throat. From around the curve of the tower appeared Zel. He tore his blade free, and the bandit gurgled up blood behind her mask, staining the dark fabric a deeper black, before she crumpled forward.
“Three for me,” Zel said, wiping his dagger on the bandit’s back. Then he noticed the bodies left by Ulrich. “Guess we’re even.”
A yelp brought their gazes to the wall, where a new bandit had been about to leap into the garden. He didn’t notice their staresat first, for his cry had been for the bodies strewn about. Then his eyes went from Zel to Ulrich, and he promptly jumped the other direction, back into the autumn weather of the wood.
“I believe I am about to pull ahead,” Ulrich said, and leapt up after the bandit as easily as he had flung himself from the tower window.
When he landed outside the wall, he spotted the bandit zigzagging into the trees, smart enough to not give Ulrich a direct path to follow, but that would hardly save him.
Ulrich spared a glance at the wall, intending to open the way for Zel, but he saw atop the wall that Zel had scaled it after him. If there were more bandits about, Zel could handle them. Ulrich’s job was to catch the one foolish enough to flee.
Once the bandits were dispatched with only cleanup remaining, Zel would inevitably speak his request again. How was Ulrich to respond? It had not been his plan to go on living and actually keep the bride he had lied about wanting, to stay immortal when he had thought it a curse for so long.
What surprised him was how tempted he was to turn that plan on its head. His immeasurable hours alone had made him long for the very end he'd toiled so hard to prevent, yet Zel's arrival had done the one thing Ulrich had thought impossible—brought life back into his monotonous existence, instilling a craving for that life to continue.
Ulrich caught the bandit and drained him like the others, positively bursting from the meal they had provided, but even multiple souls paled in comparison to how good it felt to touch Zel, to hold him, to even just be near him. It would be easy to say it was because of therapunzel, the magic, the balm of Zel easing Ulrich’s aches, but he enjoyed Zel’s company too much to believe it was only that.
Letting the final husk drop to the ground, Ulrich was honestly considering agreeing the next time Zel asked for him to stay, when he heard Zel’s scream echo through the wood.
Twelve
ZEL
Zel could convince Ulrich to stay, to be with him, to live with him forever, he could. There was no future he wanted more now that he’d had a taste of it.
With that thrill of resolve lighting a fire in his belly, Zel descended from the wall in search of more bandits, circling the tower in the opposite direction from where Ulrich had chased after the one that ran. Zel’s knack for stealth, even without his cloak to hide his hair, had made it easy to sneak up on the bandits in the garden. He hugged the exterior wall to do the same as he moved toward the faint sounds of whispering.
The sun was beginning to rise, slowly brightening the clearing and surrounding wood. Zel couldn’t yet see who owned thosewhispers, but he knew he was nearing them. It was no wonder Ulrich occasionally left a husk or two outside to rot if trespassers could be this foolishly brazen.
“This is our chance. The monster went the other way.”
“No. Enough of this. She’s not worth it!”
She?
“I’m going!”
“Louisa!”
A figure appeared, darting toward the wood, away from where Zel crept.
“Fine then!” the other huffed—and stepped around the wall right into Zel’s path. His eyes sprang wide, face covered with a mask like all the others. “It’s—”
Zel lunged forward, driving his dagger into the bandit’s heart. It was a quick, clean, near instant kill, and he immediately tore his dagger free.
The bandit dropped to the ground.
“Bertie!”
Louisa and… Bertie? Zel knew—
