“Next, a thousand.”
Sirene remained the picture of calm as she snatched up ten more arrows and gracefully sent them on their way. Their cluster brought to mind a swarm of birds, and they dove into the sandstorm as though hunting for prey. There came the harsh clatter of metal against metal, and the intensity of the silver snowfall redoubled.
“Next, two thousand.”
Sirene picked out another ten arrows and repeated the process. They wove in and out of two sections of the sandstorm as though sewing them together, relying on the currents alone for propulsion as they sought out and shot down their prey time and time again. Each impact knocked another blade from the storm, and soon enough, the desert was a graveyard of glittering metal.
“Wow, Sirene...” I exhaled. “You’re amazing.”
“Master Mianne made me do this sort of thing as training. In fact, my targets then were smaller than the blades I’m focused on now, so I thought, well...”
“You’ve done this as training? Really?”
“Yes. I mean, I wouldn’t have managed this much otherwise. Results come from practice—rarely does one achieve something of this nature on the first attempt. To be honest, when I’m put on the spot, my nerves keep me from performing even half as well as I do during training.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“That’s why my master says training should always be a hundred times as intense as actual combat.”
“A...hundred times?”
“Yes, or else it would ‘serve no purpose.’”
I thought about my own past experiences, and the goblin I’d encountered with Lynne quickly came to mind. It was a towering creature, roughly ten times as tall as the average person. The colossal Goblin Emperor was said to be ten times larger than that, but not even an opponent that huge would satisfy Sirene’s criteria. I tried to picture something a hundred times the size of a goblin, and a shiver promptly ran down my spine.
“Of course,” Sirene said, “that seems a tad excessive to me. I tend to settle for about tenfold.”
“Right... I’d, uh, say that’s a good idea.”
“What I’m doing now just so happens to fall within the bounds of what I’ve practiced.” She kept her gaze fixed on her arrows as they tore through Zadu’s blades, then nocked another ten on her bowstring. “Next, four thousand.”
Once again, the arrows cut across the blue sky above us. They circled the sandstorm several times as though they had minds of their own, then swooped down all at once, catching the winds and spinning even faster than their predecessors. More blades were ejected from the sandy tempest, blanketing the desert in yet more “snow.” As things stood, it would only be a matter of time before Sirene’s arrows felled every one of the black-bandaged man’s Silver Crosses.
Zadu clicked his tongue. “I can’t say I appreciate this. It was a real pain stirring up those storms, y’know.”
“Weren’t you going to get in her way?” I asked.
“Believe me, I’m trying. The wind isn’t moving on its own; my mana’s been conducting it from the start. I’ve been mixing up the currents to throw her off...but from the look of things, I shouldn’t even bother.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm-hmm. I made the storm completely unreadable. Only someone who’s wrong in the head can make sense of that kind of madness. Guess this was a bad matchup from the start. How was I meant to anticipate this...?” Despite his words, the man seemed to revel in watching his sandstorm begin to fade.
“By the way, Sirene...” I said. “Why do you keep saying numbers? Is it part of your technique?”
“It’s, um...just a habit I picked up during training.” As her eyes tracked every one of the blades and arrows, she took a deep breath and once again drew her bow. “Next...ten thousand.”
A fresh barrage of arrows shot straight into the weakening sandstorm. They began a slow, circular ascent, quashing the blades in their path, before reaching the peak of the raging winds and darting straight up and out. They hung in the air for a moment, their task seemingly accomplished, then caught another current and plunged back into the storm. Their movements looked sharper than ever as they continued to deplete Zadu’s arsenal.
“Whoa...”
For a while, I could only stand and watch as Sirene’s arrows triumphed over the strange man’s cross-shaped weapons. The last blade fell, and the sandstorm petered out with it.
Sirene scanned the desert as if making sure her work was complete, then lowered her bow and exhaled. “There,” she said. “It’s done.”
I responded with a nod. “Yeah. You really came through for us.”
“Hmm... Suppose she did, didn’t she?”
Somehow, Zadu had ended up at our side. The three of us stared out over the quiet desert, taking in the calm. The blades showed no more signs of movement, and the sight of them glancing and shimmering in the sun was almost mesmerizing.
“Guess I should close up shop for today...” the bandaged man said at last.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yup. As I said, my aim was to seize your blade. But if your little sidekicks are this much of a pain, I’d rather not waste my time.”
“Hear that, Sirene?”
“Yes,” she crowed, satisfied with a job well done.
I returned my attention to Zadu. “Are you gonna retrieve all your blades?”
“Too much trouble. They’re only mithril—I can make more anytime I want. You’re free to take ’em, if you care enough to pick ’em up.”
“That wasn’t why I asked. I was just thinking it might be dangerous to leave so many sharp objects lying around.”
“Yeah? Well, can’t say that bothers me.” Wearing an annoyed expression, the man took one of his ornamental daggers from the ground. “If nothing else, I guess this served as a nice little bit of reconnaissance. Would rather have taken the sword, though. Or your life.”
“You speak as though you’re gonna come back...”
“Three cheers for the genius. Don’t get me wrong—were it up to me, we’d never cross paths again. But a job’s a job, right?”
“Why do all this in the first place? Surely a man of your talents can aspire to more than being a bandit.”
“Hmm? Are you talkin’ to me?”
“Who else?”
“You...really are a weird one, huh? Not used to people givin’ me lectures all calm-like.” The man seemed to stare at me through the black bandages covering his face, then grinned. “Maybe you really do have a few screws loose. This job was meant to be a simple one, but with how much trouble you and your little followers cause me, I might have to up my fee. And on top of that...”
“Yeah?”
Countless blades erupted from the sand around Zadu and circled his body in a sea of jagged silver. A flash of crimson obscured the man from view, then faded to reveal him wearing a broad grin and brandishing a strange, reddish-black blade.
[Parry]
Zadu’s blade struck my own and shattered mere moments before it could reach my heart.
“On top of that,” he continued, “the sword’s owner is a lot more troublesome than the last time we met. Makes a guy wonder what happened, right?” The man glanced down at the broken fragments of his blade, still grinning from ear to ear, then turned his back to me. “See you around, my strange friend.”
He flashed us another of his eerie smiles, then vanished in the blink of an eye.