Sayed tilted his head as he examined the glass case before him. Inside the case, in the tall southwestern tower, was a golden gauntlet, bejeweled with gems of many different colors. He was no expert in types of stone, but the entire thing seemed really expensive. While he liked that it was a gauntlet, he knew it would be useless in battle.


    He had already found the lever and flipped it down to deactivate the tower. When he had turned off the device, the entire thing had shaken for a few minutes, but now the tower was silent. Sayed touched the glass with one finger as he again considered his problem.


    He could easily steal the gauntlet, and no one would miss it. However, the important question was why he would steal it. God certainly did not like thieves, but at the same time, for a thing so long abandoned, was it truly stealing? He wouldn''t use it in battle, but it would be a fantastic souvenir of his trip to Diamond Peak. Sayed closed his eyes and furrowed his brows as he twisted his mouth. Finally, he drew one of his khopeshes from his back and cracked the glass open with the sword''s handle.


    Crack. Ksh.


    The glass shattered around his hand and fell into the display. Sayed reached in and took out the gauntlet, admiring it in the dim light stones that lined the room. He sheathed his khopesh. He smiled as the gemstones glittered in the dim light and carried them out with him as he went back outside into the cold.


    "A prize worthy of the last fight."


    His gate still burned hot in his chest, making it unnecessary to cover against the cold. He had not let it close because of the cold seemed to wrap around the island. However, when he stepped outside, he noticed the cold wasn''t as oppressive as before. Above him, sunlight shone down through the dissipating clouds, and the shadows of the storm were gone.


    "Strange," Sayed mumbled. "I thought the aetherstorm fueled the devices, but they appear to have made it instead. When we return to the keep, there will be much to answer for."


    Many people had assumed, to their folly, that Sayed was slow-witted when they met him. However, he knew better than most what was happening around him. If the storm truly powered the towers, the storm would not lighten but worsen when the towers stopped leeching the energy. That much was obvious to Sayed. Whether Runa knew was an entirely different prospect.


    Sayed looked down at the gauntlet as he walked back toward the mountain when the shadow crossed his path. It was a long shadow, longer than it had any right to be, and at first, he thought it was from the tower, but it came from the wrong direction. Sayed looked up and spotted a solitary man standing directly in his path at the entrance to the town.


    "Hello, stranger!" Sayed held up one hand before noticing he still held the gauntlet in the other and slipped it behind his back. "I did not think there were any other people on this island. Are you friends with Runa?"


    The figure was dressed in all black and had a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his face. He wore a long coat and held a sheathed curved sword in one hand. Sayed kept an eye on that blade while waiting for the stranger to respond.


    "You weren''t what I was expecting." A line of mist escaped from under his hat as he appraised Sayed. "Aren''t you cold out here?"


    "I could ask the same of you." Sayed grinned, putting his hands on his hips as he flexed his muscles. "My friends were dressed very warmly, but that long coat does not look warm enough for the snow."


    "True," the man said. "But we bounty hunters have an image to maintain."


    "I see. Have you come for the head of the great ''Sword Saint'' Sayed?"


    "Hm." The man shook his head. "I thought I recognized you, but that isn''t why I''m out here. I''m with the island''s owner, and he sent us to gather up some trespassers. Now, I''m in a bit of a bind. I have to bring you in either way, but I didn''t expect to find someone out here like you."


    "Hah," Sayed said. "I am the least of your concerns, I think. If your master sent others to go after my friends, they''ll soon find other outlaws to fight."


    "Oh, do tell," the man said.


    "They will find ''Tin Man'' Ortega to the north, Baptiste ''the Reanimator'' to the southeast, and ''Thorn Queen'' Leah in the keep itself. I pity any of your allies who meet one of my friends."


    "That is quite the roster." The man whistled, putting a hand on the hilt of his sword. "I''ll have to beat you quick and hurry back if that''s the case. The money alone from those bounties would pay for a good bit of living."


    "What makes you think you can handle so many?" Sayed asked, pulling his khopesh from his back. "We are all strong."


    "Everyone I fight is strong," the man said. "I''m Matthew ''Witchfinder General'' Hopkins. I''m sure you heard the name."


    "I have not." Sayed shook his head.


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    He spread his legs into a wide stance and held his khopesh over his head.


    "No lie?" Hopkins asked as he brought his sheathed sword up next to his head. "That''s more of a surprise than anything else. I was sure almost every outlaw out there knew who I was."


    "I did spend some time locked away recently." Sayed shrugged, taking a deep breath and gathering power inside his chest. "Perhaps that is when you became famous."


    "Well, doesn''t that beat all?" Hopkin shook his head. "I guess I''ll just have to show you."


    Sayed tensed as he prepared himself. Already, his blade began to glow with the heat of his blessing. He couldn''t stop that in this cold, so it wouldn''t be a completely fair fight. He hoped Hopkins had a blessing of his own. That way, the fight could be a fair one.


    "Shadow Slash."


    In a movement faster than Sayed''s eyes could follow, Hopkins drew his curved blade and resheathed it. Sayed tensed, expecting a flying blade similar to Bragg''s attack from Nowhere. No blade cut through the air, though. It wasn''t until Sayed''s eyes trailed to the ground that he saw the attack.


    From Hopkin''s shadow, a line shot out across the ground toward Sayed. Sayed raised his blade as he saw the cut flying toward him, hoping to block the invisible attack. He never saw it coming, even as his blade vibrated in his hands.


    Shing.


    Sayed grunted as he pushed the attack away. He saw the shadow careen off into the distance until it struck against the shadow of a building. The building crumbled under the attack. It fell into two pieces as if a blade had sliced through it.


    "That is a strange ability," Sayed whispered as he turned back to Hopkins.


    "I have power over shadows." Hopkins shrugged as he raised his blade again. "That is my curse. You seem to have something of your own."


    "I am blessed with the heat of God." Sayed nodded, pointing his khopesh at the man''s heart as he again adopted a wide stance. "Let me show you my own skill."


    Sayed took a deep breath as the man''s hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. His muscles clenched tight, and the snow around him caved in. With a release of his breath, he let out the power built up inside of him and charged forward.


    "Demon''s Thrust!"


    "Shadow Slash."


    Shing. Ting.


    Sayed thrust his body forward along with his sword. He disappeared in a flash of movement, reappearing close to Hopkins. He caught Hopkin''s invisible blade when the shadow of his blade met Hopkins'' own. His blade rattled as he pushed against it, and with a second grunt, he pushed it to the side yet again.


    However, he did not stop.


    "Demon''s Claw!"


    Sayed did not have the benefit of his gauntlet, so when he slashed upward, his fingernails glowing brightly with the heat of his blessing. Hopkins sidestepped Sayed''s slashing fingers, and light streaked past the man''s hat as Sayed finished the arc of his slash. Sayed''s fingers burned with the intense heat of his curse, and he knew his nails would need time to repair themselves later, but it was his only option with his gauntlet gone.


    Thunk.


    Though the blade was still sheathed, Hopkins lashed out with it, knocking Sayed in the stomach with the hilt and throwing him back into the snow. Sayed hit the ground for a brief moment before rolling back up onto his feet. He placed one hand down on the ground and couldn''t suppress the laugh that escaped his lips.


    "A good hit." Sayed smiled as he pushed himself up from the ground, the snow on his body instantly turning to water and running off his chest as he took a stance again. "I thought for a moment that you just had one move."


    "I have many." Hopkins shrugged, holding his blade at his side as one hand hovered over the sword''s hilt. "But you don''t go around fishing with a gun."


    "I understand that statement fully. " Sayed nodded, his mind going to Abed''s sword on his back. "I am not one to waste strength on those weaker than me. A fair fight is the best fight, whenever possible."


    "You''re going to make me regret having to kill you, aren''t you?" Hopkins shook his head, and Sayed thought he saw a flash of his white teeth beneath his hat. "There are a lot of strong swordsmen out there, and I''m certainly not the strongest, but you''ll find that a lot of them are like us."


    Hopkins''s shadow grew around him as he stood there, becoming a dark pool that sunk around his ankles and blackened the snow to nothing but a dark void. Sayed recognized that he was using a technique related to his blessing and was probably accessing a higher form of it.


    "Endless Shadow," Hopkins whispered as his shadow finished pooling around him in a massive bubble of dark void.


    "You say you will need to kill me, but I think it will be the opposite," Sayed said as he drew in a deep breath and filled his gate with even more aether. "I think you will find that I am holding back."


    He forced his gate wider and wider as he focused on his breathing. He had yet to have an opportunity to use the second level of his curse, but he thought he might be able to try out a few things against this Hopkins. Heat rose off his body in clouds of steam as the vapor in the cold air instantly boiled near his skin. The air around Sayed shimmered, and he seemed to grow larger, taller, and wider in a few moments. Even his blade grew in length and width.


    "Desert Mirage."


    "Aren''t you full of surprises?" Hopkins laughed as his hand touched the hilt of his curved sword. "Let''s see how much that makes a difference. Void Barrage."


    In a flash, he drew his sword and sheathed it in the next instant. From his shadow, lines of darkness shot out, twelve in total, lashing outward through the air and no longer bound to the ground around him. Sayed saw the cuts coming but did not move. Instead, he opened his arms up to the attack and welcomed the attacks to hit his body.


    The twelve cuts slashed into Sayed''s form, but he felt no pain. Blood, steaming and hot, poured out into the snow all around him, staining it red, but Sayed felt nothing. His body fell to the ground, but Sayed was no longer there.


    Crunch.


    Hopkins walked over to Sayed''s body, looking down on it from above as blood melted the snow around him. Sayed had fallen forward and was now face-down in the snow. The heat of his curse was fading around the body; soon, even his blood would turn to ice.


    "I think you were too big for your britches," Hopkins said as he shook his head. "You got the second level of your curse and got too confident. A lot of people are like that. It makes it easier for me to cash in their corpse."


    He reached down to turn the body over, but his hand went through Sayed''s shoulder.


    "What in the abyss?" Hopkins said, and Sayed knew he saw the flaws in his illusion then.


    "Death Mirage."


    Kthk.


    Sayed stepped next to Hopkins, thrusting his sword into the man''s back with a smile. His blade sliced through the leather jacket easily, and Hopkins froze in place under the sudden assault. Sayed leaned close to whisper in his ear.


    "Fire is not my only blessing. Beware the power of my mirage."