Return of the Runebound Professor

Demons bore down on Aylin from every direction. He didn’t even dare to flinch. It was impossible to tell just how literal Spider had meant his command of not moving. Every single breath he took felt like it was drawn on borrowed time.

Aylin’s heart leapt into his throat as he heard a rooftop behind him crack. A demon sailed through the air above them, aiming to land directly on top of their heads. Despite his best efforts, his eyes flicked up.

He couldn’t bring himself to stare straight ahead as he died. At the very least, he’d see his killer and bring the knowledge of their face with him into the afterlife. He wasn’t sure if it was the terrified adrenaline pumping through his veins or if it was just someone he hadn’t run into before, but Aylin didn’t recognize the large, gray demon hurtling down toward them.

“I’m sorry,” Aylin whispered, hoping Violet could hear him over the cacophony.

Then the demon vanished. An instant later, there was a loud crash. Aylin’s eyes flicked to the far side of the square, where the gray demon’s body slammed into the ground with enough force to crack the ground beneath him.

Spider lifted a hand toward the demons running toward them and then clenched his fist. For an instant, nothing happened. Then, almost in unison, the demons’ eyes widened. Their runs faltered as their hands shot up to their throats, eyes bulging, hands clawing at nothing.

The demons behind Aylin didn’t know what he did. They couldn’t hear the muted, choked wheezing. They couldn’t see the bulging eyes full of horror and disbelief.

“Cowards,” Robon snarled, spinning the axe at his side and striding toward Spider. “I told you to kill them!”

He lunged, and the demons that could still move all attacked. Aylin’s skull pounded and his ears throbbed. For the second time, the streets spoke in sounds he didn’t recognize. He had heard the sigh of death before. He had seen the crunch of bone and the scuffle of a brawl.

But nothing like this. More than twenty demons bore down on them from every direction. Bows twanged from afar. Arrows whistled and feet pounded against stone. Every instinct in his body screamed for him to run.

He didn’t. Even if he’d wanted to, there was nowhere to run. The street whispered death, but death did not come.

For the first time, the street lied to Aylin. The arrows dropped from the air of their own volition and tumbled to the ground harmlessly. Demons were ripped from the sky and slammed to the ground as a blur danced from one to the other, and Aylin realized he must have been going insane.

Nothing else would have explained the muted giggles that danced in back of his head. Nothing else would have made the form that slipped from the shadows, tripping demons and yanking weapons from their hands, make sense.

More of Golon’s men pressed forward. They never made it. The square itself seemed to have come alive at Spider’s behest.

Aylin watched in growing disbelief as he watched grown demons — some of whom had terrorized him for years — start to fear. The confidence in their eyes faded as the crack of their limbs rang into the air, their weapons shattered, and the howling gales pummeled them.

Some still pressed onward. Robon bared his teeth as he pressed through the sudden howling wind, raising his weapon to bring it down on Spider. He trudged forward until the two were face to face.

They stared at each other for a brief instant. With a roar, Robon brought the axe down. Spider still didn’t move. Robon’s hand vanished.

His axe rang as it bounced off the ground beside Spider. Robon’s hand splattered down beside it with a wet thunk. Spider tilted his head to the side, then curled his fingers inward. Robon’s eyes bulged.

“What is this?” Violet whispered.

Every single one of Golon’s demons laid on the ground around them. Not one had managed to step within ten feet of them, much less five. Not so much as a single droplet of blood had made it onto the stone at their feet.

Demons clawed at their throats and scrambled back from Spider as if he were the manifestation of death itself. They all remained on the ground, not so much as daring to rise to their feet.

Aylin’s ears twitched. His eyes went wide as his skin chilled. The sounds of the street hadn’t dimmed. More than thirty demons had begun the fight, and more than thirty demons still remained.

Spider released his hands. A dozen demons drew in desperate breaths and stared up at Spider with wide, terrified eyes.

Not a single one of them had died. Spider had broken them utterly and thoroughly, but even the demon that had been pelted into the ground had somehow survived the blow.

Aylin nearly took a step back before he managed to catch himself. Spider hadn’t said he could move yet.

“Who are you?” Robon demanded through gritted teeth as he clutched the stump of his missing arm. “What are you?”

“I am Spider.” The stranger raised his voice as he continued, “Where is your leader? He should be out here with his soldiers, not cowering while you bleed for him. I see no streetlord here. Only a Wastelicker.”

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The word sounded so odd coming from Spider’s mouth that a terrified laugh nearly slipped past Aylin’s shock. Almost.

A murmur of discontent passed through the demons that were still in enough shape to actually speak. Just because Spider hadn’t killed anyone didn’t mean he’d left them all in good shape. More than a few were definitely unconscious.

The entry flap of the large tent at the back of the square moved. Even despite Spider’s evident strength, Aylin’s heart skipped a beat as a towering demon stepped out from within it. Golon rose up, standing over twice Spider’s height even in the distance.

Four, muscled arms emerged from his red-skinned chest and horns jutted out of his head every few inches, curling up like a crown. Each hand carried a jagged, deadly blade nearly as tall as Aylin.

The Rank 3 Demon’s body was positively rippling with danger. Every single ounce of him was a weapon. A killing machine that had brought this area of the streets under his control. Aylin had never seen the monster in action, but he knew beyond a doubt that Golon had earned his title of streetlord through blood.

Golon’s angular jaw flexed as he took in the state of his men. His pitch black eyes settled on Spider and he strode across the square in his direction. “Trampling over Rank 2s is no feat to be proud of, wretch. Only a fool glories over his power when compared to the weak.”

Aylin almost released a snort of laughter. Even though the words were completely true, they couldn’t have possibly been more hypocritical.

“I take it you would be Golon?” Spider asked, not bothering to address anything the other demon had just said.

“You remember my name, then.” Golon’s lips curled back into a sneer. “Then you will remember the name of your killer as you pass on into the next life. It is unfortunate. Everyone here will have already forgotten—”

A loud crack split the air.

Golen swayed in place, his mouth still halfway open as his eyes drifted down to where an enormous bolt of lightning had just slammed into his chest with enough force to crush both muscle and bone. Arcs of electricity raced across his blackened skin and into the ground, joined by a river of blood trickling across his charred body.

The demon’s lips trembled. He took a step, pitched forward, and crashed to the ground with a wet splatter. His swords clattered from his hands and laid at his sides as blood pooled around him.

Aylin’s ears rang, and it wasn’t from the loud noise.

It should have been impossible.

It was impossible — and yet, his ears and eyes did not lie to him. Yog’s ruined corpse. The wind. Demons collapsing without so much as a chance to fight back, the forms in the shadows. And now Golon, dead in the same way as Yog.

Not to semi-external magic, but to true magic.

Spider walked up to Golon and squatted at the dead streetlord’s side. “I came to ask if you minded if I took over your operation. You don’t, do you?”

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Golon didn’t respond. Spider nodded and rose back to his feet. He adjusted the lapel of his jacket and turned to the dozens of demons still sprawled across the ground.

“If your legs aren’t broken, get up.”

A little over three quarters of them scrambled to their feet with such speed that it would have made a member of the guard proud.

Violet and Aylin exchanged a look. Aylin wasn’t even sure what the look was meant to be, other than to make sure someone else was actually present to confirm his eyes and ears weren’t lying to him.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Spider said, his gaze sweeping across the gathered crowd. “But I believe this would make me the streetlord, yes?”

Nobody said a word.

“That was not a rhetorical question.”

“It does, sir,” Aylin stammered.

The wrapping covering Spider’s face shifted, giving Aylin the sense that he was smiling.

“In that case, if you’ve got issues with my election, I’d like to welcome any challenges right now. All at once would be preferrable. My patience is thin.”

Silence wrapped the square as the demons froze, not even daring to draw in a breath and potentially garner any further interest from Spider. The obscured demon waited for a few seconds before nodding.

“It sounds like nobody has any issues,” Spider said. “I believe that means you obey my orders now, correct?”

“We will do as you order,” Robon ground out, his voice shrouded in fear. The blood flowing from his arm had stemmed, but the pain in his posture was still evident.

Aylin doubted the demon was put out about Golon’s death as much as he feared for his own future. A streetlord’s second had to be a warrior capable of fending off pointless challenges. There wasn’t much use for a crippled second.

“Then I look forward to working together. As I suspect you are all intelligent enough to surmise, I am a busy man. I don’t have time to waste with petty squabbles or fools. Are you all certain you don’t want to challenge me?”

The only person here that would even dare breath in your direction is already a burnt splatter at your feet.

Spider nodded to himself when it became abundantly clear that absolutely nobody was stupid enough to speak up. “Good, good. A few things to get you all started. First, I want everyone here to find every single person living in the area that I control — how far is that, by the way?”

When nobody answered him, Spider’s eyes flicked to Aylin.

“Up from the alleys behind us until Snakemouth tavern,” Aylin stammered. “After that is the area under streetlord Rocci’s control.”

“Everyone in my area, then,” Spider said. “I want you to gather them and bring them here. Distribute food to all of them in exchange for information.”

“Information about what, streetlord Spider?” Robon asked, finally finding his words again.

“Everything relating to the other streetlords in the city, especially the ones near us — but I’ll take anything that seems valuable as well. I want knowledge, not goods. Stop taking food from them as well. It’s worthless to me. We’ll have enough.”

If anyone else had given that order, they probably would have been challenged on the spot. Giving away food was the same thing as giving away life.

But it hadn’t been someone else. It had been Spider and, with Golon’s body still at his feet, everyone dared to do nothing but nod.

“We will do as you command. Not a word will pass from this square of your powers,” Robon promised.

He was clearly doing his best to keep his spot as second in command. Aylin had no idea if the demon’s efforts would last long, but nobody in their right mind would speak up while Spider was still present.

“On the contrary. Let everyone know,” Spider said. “I want every single streetlord in the city to know.”

A nervous air built in the square.

“Know what, streetlord Spider?” Robon asked hesitantly, as if scared to hear the answer.

“To know I’m coming for them, of course. Let them know that they can either bend the knee or I’ll kill them and their entire guild.”

Plains. He’s going to try to bring every single streetlord together? Why?

Spider’s eyes traced through the air and landed on Aylin. He stiffened at the sudden attention as every single demon turned to look in his direction. His stomach sank.

“One more thing,” Spider said. “I’ve got too much work to stand around here constantly wasting time. So, while I’m gone…”

Please, no.

“You’ll be taking orders from Aylin over here.”

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