Light thinks it's faster than anything else, but it's wrong: no matter how fast light travels, darkness is already there waiting for it. ©Terry Pratchett
***
So, my situation can be described as a complete and hopeless mess... into which I am sinking deeper and deeper.
"Defodio! Defodio! Defodio maxima!!!" — with the speed of a mole on speed, I was indeed sinking deeper and deeper into the ground. Fortunately, a household spell I had learned in herbology class at Hogwarts for digging garden beds worked perfectly as a pocket excavator.
The excess soil was levitated upwards and turned into thick stone slabs, reliably protecting me from the consequences of the surprise I had left for the "bombard" enthusiasts. Fortunately, the leader of these idiots was so careless that he kindly revealed their entire "ingenious" plan by shouting it out to his comrades.
So by the time the countdown began, I was already deep enough that they couldn't reach me.
***— ...Three! Bombarda!" Richard was the first to cast the spell into the sphere, inspiring his accomplices with his personal example. Simultaneously with his spell, a discordant chorus of voices rang out across the clearing, interrupted by the roar of explosions at the target site.
"Bombarda! Bombarda... Bombarda maxima! Bombarda!!!" — the enthusiastic bandits shouted excitedly, casting the explosive spell. A multitude of flashes swept across the dark sphere, finally destroying it completely and leaving a large crater of upturned earth on the ground.
"Stupefy! Stupefy!" Red beams of stunning light flew into the still-smoking ruins of the sphere, but meeting no resistance, they flew away toward the trees. Two beams met in the air, ricocheting in different directions. One beam hit the bandit, who was not expecting such an outcome, while the other remained as shreds of earth a few steps away from Roten himself.
"Stop, you bastards! Everyone, stop!" Richard yelled furiously. "You, and you, check what's left of that moron!" He pointed at a couple of his henchmen.
They reluctantly approached the crater, cautiously peering inside.
Although it was clear that nothing living could have survived, they overdid it. Richard himself had clearly overestimated the artefact of the unknown mage. Most likely, it simply couldn't withstand the pressure and exploded, and its unfortunate owner had already turned into a bloody stain at the bottom of the crater. It was a pity, because they could have gotten a good ransom for some aristocrat, and the artefact itself would have interested the former graduate, allowing him to climb another step on the ladder of personal power.
However, it was not to be. It was time to return to the original plans; they had already been delayed here for far too long. Good planning, speed, punctuality. These were the three principles Richard adhered to in his operations, having learned them from a film about train robbers he had once accidentally seen. So long ago, in a previous life...
"Nothing, boss!" Richard was brought back from his memories by the puzzled voice of his assistant. "No bodies, no belongings. Just a pile of boulders..."
Richard understood everything instantly; slow thinking had never been one of the former orphan's faults. And the pile of suspicious stones at the site of so many spells caused the criminal authority's intuition to scream at the top of its lungs, prompting him to quickly create a protective spell. However, even that did not save him. It simply wasn't fast enough.
"Everyone, run...!
"BA-A-A-AM!!!" — A terrifying explosion from the centre of the crater literally tore the two mages closest to it to pieces, spraying the rest with a fountain of blood. Pieces of rock scattered by the monstrous force of the blast pierced the bodies of the gangsters who had not had time to defend themselves, passing through them and flying out the other side in shreds.
In a matter of seconds, barely half of the thirteen mages remained alive, and almost everyone who stood closer than a couple of dozen yards to the epicentre of the explosion was dead or incapacitated by serious wounds. Although a few survived, most of them either had protective amulets or had wisely not removed their defences.
Richard cursed under his breath, using his wand to stop the blood flowing from his pierced shoulder. "Find him, he's somewhere under the ground..."
"A-a-a-a!!!" He was interrupted by the wild cry of another henchman. Twisting frantically, he scratched at the stone spike that had pierced him through.
"Boss, help..." Right before Rotten's eyes, his loyal henchman Ambal began to sink into the ground, which was rapidly turning into soft quicksand, ignoring the wizard's futile attempts to stay on the surface.
At that moment, the clearing seemed to be enveloped in fog, visibility dropped sharply to a minimum, and it was simply impossible to see anything more than a metre away, no matter how hard Richard tried.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
"Avada Kedavra!
"Reducto!
"Finita! Finita maxima!!!
"Bombarda maxima!!!
Desperate cries rang out across the clearing in a terrifying cacophony. Flashes of spells flashed everywhere, and explosions and the terrible rales of bandits desperately clinging to life could be heard. In a matter of seconds, the wizards lost their former organisation and became loners, driven only by one instinct — survival.
"No, William!" Richard cried out, almost for the first time, calling out the name of his loyal comrade, whose upper body had been pulled out of the earthen prison. His lower limbs had been ground to dust by an unknown spell, and he was living his last moments, looking loyally into Richard's eyes, but he couldn't utter a word before the life left his eyes.
"Come out, you scum!!! Come out and fight fairly, you **** *******!!!" Richard yelled, baring his teeth and rolling his eyes wildly, activating all the artefacts he had on him and spinning around like a madman. Everywhere he looked, there was only fog, which could not be dispelled even with enhanced lumos. Richard had only felt something like this once before, in the presence of Dementors, and now he regretted more than ever that spells of higher magic were beyond the power of a wizard of average strength.
"Honestly?" Richard froze at the voice coming from above, his stomach clenching. At top speed, he raised his wand, weaving the formula for a deadly curse.
"Avada...
***
"Kedavra," I finished the spell calmly, sending a green beam of deadly curse down at the figure of the leader of the masked men. "Honest? With you? Nice joke."
After circling the battlefield a couple of times, I finished off the mage who was unsuccessfully trying to cope with the effects of the bone-crushing curse and stunned another one so I could search his memory for anything useful.
Finally, a couple of variations of the detection spell, and I stopped maintaining the area spells with considerable relief.
Carefully descending and putting away my broom, I breathed a little easier. The bound werewolves were no longer a threat to me.
In general, it was surprising that I had gotten rid of so many mages so effectively and relatively quickly. No, it was clear that among them were only mediocre and weak ones, unburdened by strong moral principles, but thirteen mages in a few minutes was still impressive. True, I was really exhausted.
First, I had to dig a tunnel in a hurry, then quickly try to create an artefact with enough power from the stones I had transfigured to distract the mages and help me apparate. After that, I made an unsuccessful attempt to escape, which ended with a simple tactic — casting an area spell called "darkness of despair," which reduced visibility for everyone except the caster and caused hallucinations and terrifying visions, so the thugs started shooting indiscriminately, hoping to fight back, but only hitting their own.
Taking advantage of the confusion, he moved upstairs and literally shot the spell's clueless opponents with spells, coupled with creative use of transfiguration, which was almost the easiest part. This ease was even a little frightening. Either my grandfather had drummed some sense into me, or these guys really were nothing...
I tossed a small artefact into my hand. The thing was relatively small, shaped like an apple, but terribly nasty, with symbols covering its entire surface that interfered with apparition. The final touch was to finish the epic quest to find a bride for Krauch. Since the pendant had led me here, it was most likely among the crowd of bound werewolves. Well, it seemed that Krauch was in luck. Werewolf children were almost always born healthy and free from the curse. All it took was...
"Mordred, my foot!
The pendant I pulled out ignored all the "packed" werewolves and pointed somewhere into the thicket. What's with my luck today, all wasted on this brawl and beating up babies? Maybe they didn't catch all of them, maybe someone hid?
"Wake up, you sick man, open your eyes... Rennervate, legilimens," — somehow bringing him back to consciousness, I began to quickly scan the memory of the only surviving "poacher."
***The portly brunet with a kind face and a luxurious moustache was called Damien Bandrel, nicknamed the Black Scorpion. However, upon arriving in old England, he changed his impressive name to the unremarkable "Jimmy." He was originally from America and was born in 1932. The son of not very wealthy parents, but possessing a bright charisma, he engaged in petty fraud from an early age, then moved on to serious theft and potion counterfeiting.
He managed to get incredibly rich by selling a batch of "black scorpion" potions to one of the departments of the American Ministry of Magic, which earned him his nickname. He then fled the country, as the American authorities had put a bounty of two and a half thousand dragons on his head. He travelled a lot... well, that's not interesting... mistresses, debauchery... He's been in England for almost ten years, he's run out of money... He joined Richard's gang relatively recently and... Drum roll, he planned to cheat Richard out of his fee after the deal to sell the werewolves was completed! He's a funny old man, though.
Although, it's hard to call him an old man. A pile of Galleons, metamorphmagic abilities, and good spell medicine work wonders.
But what's interesting is that the assumption about the girl turned out to be partly correct. Two people ran away — a guy and a girl. And three more mages went after them.
"Damn it," I cursed, reading the criminal's memory, not forgetting to knock him unconscious and tie him up again. "I knew there was something fishy going on. Why can't everything be made simple, huh?
After a few minutes of brief deliberation, I decided to go after the prisoners instead of waiting in the clearing. It was unclear whether the mages who had gone into the forest had heard the echoes of the chaos that had taken place a few minutes earlier. The forest was magical, and in some places, space itself rippled, not just sounds... But in a magical environment, you didn't need true vision to sense the traces of a recent battle. So an ambush wouldn't work. He had to take advantage of the element of surprise.
Before flying off in the direction the pendant was stubbornly pulling me, I freed the captured werewolves, who were lying a little further away in neat piles of cocoons tangled in ropes. They were mostly girls, young men, and a couple of old men. Now I understood how they had been captured without any resistance, tied up like blind kittens. Wolves like kittens, ha!
"Come on, get up quickly," I urged the werewolves, who were looking around the battlefield in confusion. "I saved you. Leave the fat one alone. I'll deal with the rest and come back. Do whatever you want."
With these words, ignoring the surprised cries of the crowd, I rushed off into the sunset. Into the forest, to be precise. I didn't have time to explain anything, and to be honest, I didn't want to. They'll figure it out themselves, they're not kids. There was no need to worry about the order not to touch the prisoner. Even if they decided to take revenge, I didn't care, just consider it bad luck for the Black Scorpion. Well, if not, his connections among the unreliable contingent would come in handy.
I had to focus on my goal.
***I was flying at a fairly high speed above the trees, under a disillusionment spell, occasionally checking my pendant so as not to lose my direction. Every couple of seconds, I had to use detection spells so as not to miss the people I was looking for at such a speed. However, I found the fugitives thanks to their loud cries of pain and despair.As I got closer, I saw a figure in a spiked bone mask with a leather whip in his hand and an erect penis beating a naked girl tied to a tree who was desperately resisting. Next to her lay a young boy, also bound and immobilised by a spell, positioned so that the whole process was clearly visible.
I must have arrived just in time, because, apparently sated with foreplay, the mage had already begun to move on to the dirtiest part... But he didn't get far, thanks to Merlin and me.
The whip that was still in his hands suddenly jerked, then quickly wrapped around the failed rapist's neck and, dragging him along the ground, tied itself to a branch of a nearby tree. Less than a second later, the naked mage was already twitching in vain attempts to free himself. But it was all in vain.
After checking that no one was around, he climbed down in front of the rescued girl. The pretty girl, about twenty years old, with sun-bleached blonde hair, was enviably beautiful. It was understandable why the loser had tried to take her. Her young body was almost perfectly proportioned, bronzed skin, now reddened, covered with bruises and bleeding abrasions, a beautiful but tear-stained face... Actually, that's all I managed to see in the couple of seconds before I cast a spell to dispel the ropes and transform the girl into a long robe.
"Silencio," I cast a spell of silence so she wouldn't start screaming and interrupt me. "It's okay, don't worry, I freed your kin, I won't hurt you, but I need to know where the other two are. There were three of them, right? If that's right, nod," I said almost in a rush; wasting time now would be a stupid mistake.
She looked warily at my hood and nodded slowly. Perhaps I should have removed the interference spell, but for now, it was better not to draw attention to myself.
"Right... I take it the other two left so they wouldn't interfere?
Another nod. Thoughts slowly churned in my head, smoothly forming into one big diversion plan to catch the other two bastards off guard.
"Okay, look, you want to help me deal with them and get back to the others, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. Then you'll need to..." My monologue was interrupted by the girl's wide eyes and pointing finger as she suddenly looked behind me. I reacted faster than I thought. I turned around and cast a shield spell to cover both the fugitive and myself. However, there was no one behind me, so I just blinked stupidly and turned around. Only to see the girl jumping towards the rapist's stick.
"No, we're definitely not going to be friends," I said, stunning the deceiver.
She froze, lying on the ground with the magic wand in her hands and her eyes flashing furiously. "Listen, you can take the wand. I'm not going to hurt you. However, you must do as I say, or else..."
"Boom!" With a dull sound like a heavy bell, I was carried away with my shield to a tree in front of the astonished she-wolf. Two figures in the same ugly masks slowly emerged from the forest.
One mage was clearly taller than the other and looked broader, but there was nothing else to distinguish them. However, from Scorpion's memory, I knew that the larger one was Bald. The smaller one was Sparrow. The swindler didn't have much information about them. like the rest of Richard's gang, these two mages had already been in the group when he joined, and while Bald at least drank with everyone else from time to time, bragging about his mercenary past, Sparrow was basically a strange guy who always wore a sparrow carnival mask.
Some said that his face, like Bald's head, had been disfigured by dragon flames. However, I wasn't particularly interested in that. The most important thing the swindler knew was that the bandits were quite powerful magicians and received an increased share of the spoils.
"It seems our dear comrade was a fan of everything unusual," the Bald One whistled in surprise, tucking his hands behind the collar of his belt like a boss. "To be honest, I'm not surprised that his hobby had a detrimental effect on his health. But like this... And who are you? Don't get me wrong, I would have strangled Krysenysh myself, but he seemed to be useful, bringing gold to our employer. So today you're out of luck. By the way, cool mask, care to share the spell with us?
"Less talk, Bon, we need to hurry," said Sparrow in a somewhat impersonal voice, pointing his wand at me. At that moment, I was quickly casting a healing spell on myself. The blow knocked me hard against the tree, my ears were still ringing a little, and I was having trouble breathing. If the spell that sent me flying had been just a little more powerful, the shield would not have been able to withstand it, and there would have been one less Black today. However...
"Let's do this," I suggested, getting to my feet with some difficulty. "A counteroffer. It just so happens that I need these two alive. But I don't need you. As a gesture of goodwill, I am willing to let you go and find new jobs, since your former employer, along with the rest of the rabble, has left this sinful world and will no longer be able to delight you with his gold. So what do you say?Ambert tried with all her might to move the stick clenched in her hand, but all her attempts were in vain. The spell of paralysis held its victim firmly in invisible bonds.
"Why did I bother with this piece of wood?!" she asked herself angrily for the umpteenth time, unable to find an answer. Then, perhaps, her "savior" would not have found himself in such a predicament. He seemed to have had some kind of plan...
In her defence, it must be said that her "savior" did not look very chivalrous. A dark, obviously expensive robe, a deep hood hiding his face, under which darkness literally swirled, a deep, cold voice — none of this suggested salvation. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Then the horror and pain that overwhelmed her body and mind suggested the only option — to grab the unclaimed wand and try to apparate with her brother somewhere far away from here. Anywhere. And only now, having calmed down a little, did she realise that her attempt to escape was doomed to failure. Even considering that the last time she had apparated was at Hogwarts, and even then only in special circles, and that the then-student had not even attempted to master double apparition...
Two obviously powerful wizards could easily follow her through the channel left behind by the apparition, and everything would return to normal. And her fate, as Rat had told her, would be rather unenviable and short. Better to trust the magician who killed her rapist, who at least promised not to touch her and said he would return her to the others... What a fool! But there was nothing she could do, she had to try to move. While she was trying with all her might to break the paralysis spell, a deadly dangerous but mesmerising picture unfolded before her eyes.
Two silhouettes flashed here and there behind the trees in grey flashes of incomplete transgression. They would stop, sending multicoloured rays into the black figure in the centre of the small clearing, then break off again into their elusive, chaotic flight, which even she, with her reflexes, found difficult to follow. It seemed as if the air itself was roaring with the magic that permeated it, the spells striving to reach the lone figure... but they shattered into pieces, bounced back, or were simply absorbed by the darkness that seemed to be flowing from all sides of the enchanted forest into this clearing, rushing towards its master.
***— Diffindo tria!!!
"Expelliarmus, relashio!
"Firre, bombarda maxima, reducto...
"Avada Kedavra!!! Damn it!
With each reflected beam of not-so-weak spells, the attackers' resolve melted away. Their attacks did not cause any visible harm to the devilish stranger, while the Bald Man already had a deep scratch on his arm and was missing his right foot. Fortunately, it had simply evaporated, as if split in two, and no blood flowed from the wound. For now. It was becoming increasingly difficult to apparate and attack. Combat transgression required a lot of magical energy, but previously their tandem had been quite effective in this combination.
Although, deep down, the Frenchman understood that someday they would have to find bigger fish, but he couldn't even imagine that it would happen right now. Especially since this task simply shouldn't have been so risky. And now, if he was to believe that mage, and it would be foolish not to, the group was destroyed, and no one would pay for their work.
And the chance to get out of this mess with a random aristocrat... and that mage couldn't be anyone else, the enemy had used too much power at once, too strong magic, too close to the darkness. If it weren't for the obvious absurdity of such a scenario, Rene would have bet that it was one of the Blacks. Only these madmen had become so attuned to the darkness during battle, growing stronger with every passing moment...
"Bon! Bo-o-on!" Through the streams of apparitions and the incessant cacophony, Rene heard his partner's voice. "I can't hold out much longer, we have to do something..."
Yes, something had to be done, but what? He was already moving as fast as he could. The chaotic movement between the trees forced him to concentrate on transgression and dodging the black tentacles shooting in all directions. The spells simply stuck to the shields. Even the ultimate "avada" skilfully woven into them fell a few centimetres short of the body, destroyed by some kind of black clot. Rene had never heard of such a thing. They had to retreat. Parry. Together. Then again, and again, and again. To throw off the trail of the damn mage they had been so unlucky to run into. They just had to warn him somehow, without being noticed...
"We didn't make it," Bonelli thought doomfully as space rebelled and suddenly threw them both out of their state of partial transgression, and the black tentacles were suddenly too close.
Two butterflies impaled on pins. They flutter, but cannot fly," the girl thought distantly.
Ambert was very scared.
***
The entire story has already been written at:
patreon.com/posts/reborn-as-sirius-142654970