Chapter 182. A Radical Step. Part 3. Retreat.
At that same moment, deep in the forest at the site of the ruined building, the battle continued. To any observer, it was obvious that the assassins were losing, and even the arrival of three reinforcements had done nothing to change that. No one was more furious about it than Laur. The majority of the dead were his own people, not counting the four wizards Charles had sent with them.
"You green-haired bastard. The moment I'm finished here, your head is next," he hissed through clenched teeth, dodging a red beam from his opponent's wand, then, in the same motion, stamped his heel on the ground, triggering a powerful burst of wind that erupted from the earth, sending the advancing serpents hurtling backward. They crumbled into rubble, conjured by the other pale-faced nuisance who had managed to thoroughly annoy him in the space of five short minutes.
Laur was first and foremost an assassin, built to kill his target with one blow, or two at the most. He was not meant to fight a prolonged open battle, especially without his right arm, which had never been restored, and certainly not against a wizard who was easily the equal of any division commander.
The longer he thought about it, the more his hatred of Charles grew. For now, he swallowed it and focused on the fight, though if he still had both arms, he would not have to work this hard. Over years of combat, he had developed his own style, with a dagger in his left hand and a wand in his right. Now he was forced to constantly swap between them, burning precious milliseconds that could easily cost him his life. His overall combat effectiveness had dropped nearly twenty percent because of it.
Better finish this quickly. He glanced toward his remaining subordinates, his expression darkening further. A fourth was down. I can't manage all of this on my own.
"Since when do you have time to look around?! Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort's furious red eyes snapped to Laur.
A green beam erupted from his wand and closed the distance between them in a heartbeat, nearly reaching Laur's throat before he twisted aside, his trained body coiling out of its path with fluid precision. He answered with a dark wave that swept toward the Dark Lord.
Voldemort did not bother to dodge. He conjured an enormous, gleaming shield, and Laur's attack left no mark on it. In the same instant, he slashed his wand sharply, sending chunks of debris from the ruined building hurtling at Laur and forcing him to retreat step by step.
"Slippery rats. Just die!" The shield that had guarded him inverted, transforming into a volley of stone spikes.
Laur was occupied with the debris, but he never lost sight of the next attack taking shape. He gave a cold snort, let darkness swallow his body, and in the next moment slipped into the shadow of a nearby tree. A second later, the spikes buried themselves in the same spot and began to slowly crumble away.
Voldemort himself was paler than usual after the failed kill, his black robes badly creased and slashed across one shoulder. Blood still trickled from the wound on his left arm, running down his palm and dripping from his fingers. Even so, his eyes radiated nothing but hatred.
Ordinarily, only one thing could truly enrage the Dark Lord: someone daring to comment on his less-than-pure heritage. But right now, he seemed almost indifferent to the wound that made him grind his teeth.
What had pushed him beyond himself was something else entirely. Someone had dared to attack him, a descendant of the greatest Dark Wizard who had ever lived, Salazar Slytherin himself, and had dared to wound him in front of his servants, to humiliate him before them all, and had survived afterward.
That was something his arrogance simply could not stomach.
"You think you can hide in the shadows? Think again!" In years of traveling, he had studied an enormous catalog of dark spells and their countermeasures, and shadow magic fell squarely within that domain.
He made a sharp circular motion with his wand, pointing it at his own shadow. From it, one after another, jet-black serpents began to emerge, racing toward every shadow in the vicinity. Others plunged back into the darkness instead.
The shadow-serpents reached their targets quickly and began seeping into them. Ten seconds later, Laur was flung out from under the shadow of a building, serpents erupting behind him.
"Oh, just die already!" With rage twisting his face, Laur leveled his wand, unleashing a torrent of flame that swallowed the shadow creatures. Then he drove it straight at Voldemort.
On the other side of the battle, Bellatrix had surrendered to her madness and was actively suppressing her opponent while also keeping track of the remaining enemies. The bloodthirsty smile never left her face as Unforgivable spell after Unforgivable spell flew from her wand. Her opponent had been reduced to pure defense, with no opening for a counterattack.
In this moment she was not easily described as sane. She was less a witch than a force of nature, and all her opponent could do was hold on.
Then her adversary was hurled aside and struck a tree headfirst, losing consciousness. In the brief moment that followed, something like clarity returned to Bellatrix.
Something about this battle is wrong. The thought made her stop dead in the middle of the fighting. One of the enemies launched several ice shards at her exposed back, but an orange barrier appeared out of nowhere and blocked them: the bracelet on her wrist flared briefly, and her smile softened, just slightly, becoming something warmer for just a moment. Damn. What am I thinking about? Focus. Something about this battle is wrong! She shook her head sharply to clear it. This was not the time to be thinking about him. She began scanning the battlefield, searching for the source of that feeling, deflecting the occasional spell still coming her way.
The longer she thought about it, the more she noticed. But the most troubling detail was this: after the last three arrivals, the enemy numbers had stopped growing entirely. Meanwhile, Death Eaters were arriving roughly every fifteen to twenty seconds, as though someone was deliberately funneling them all into a single point.
She shared this observation with Yaxley, one of Voldemort's senior advisors, whose standing rivaled Abraxas Malfoy's.
She had joined him in the fight: he was no longer young, and his opponent was outpacing him. Even his extensive experience was only carrying him so far.
Yaxley considered what she had said, then watched the enemy more carefully. He noticed the same absence of reinforcements, and beyond that, caught something else: the occasional dark, hostile glances that the enemy fighters were throwing at two specific wizards on their own side, as though some kind of rift had opened within the group.
"Very well. I'll inform the Master at once." He exhaled with quiet resignation, already dreading the reception. This, more than anything, was why none of the Dark Lord's servants had been rushing to his aid: no one wanted to be the bearer of bad news.
"Then I'll play with your opponent." Bellatrix's black eyes narrowed with anticipation. Her new adversary was a genuinely formidable wizard, and the last one hadn't come close to matching him.
"Be careful. Don't get too close." Yaxley cast a grim look at the assassin, who had also taken a brief pause to catch his breath and survey the battlefield.
"I know." She pointed her wand sharply. "Avada Kedavra!" The green beam shot toward the enemy, who responded with a contemptuous snort, driving the base of his staff into the ground. A stone wall rose before him and blocked the Killing Curse.
But before he could even lift the staff, the wall exploded. A powerful shockwave threw him backward, but he landed on his feet, recovering quickly.
"Perra..." he hissed in an unfamiliar language through his teeth, feeling a deep, throbbing pain in his right shoulder where a sizable stone fragment had embedded itself. "Te mato!" He slammed the artifact into the ground. Dozens of spikes erupted from the earth and shot toward the grinning witch at tremendous speed. She dissolved into black smoke and evaded them with ease, but the spikes followed.
Recognizing the futility of retreat, she stopped sharply, conjured a shield in front of herself, and turned to face him. Her wand sent another green beam at the wounded wizard. His eye twitched, but he was not ready to simply die: this time he dodged rather than repeat his previous mistake.
The moment he moved, however, he saw, to his shock, that the green beam had turned red mid-flight and reversed course entirely, now heading straight for him. He had no time to dodge cleanly or raise a proper barrier: he gripped his staff tightly and conjured a small sphere at its tip to at least partially intercept the spell.
And as the beam was about to strike the staff, he caught something from the corner of his eye: above Bella, as though time itself had slowed, fiery spears were appearing one by one.
She had not underestimated her opponent for a single moment: every move had been thought through, and the madwoman's act had been nothing more than misdirection.
The fiery spears launched themselves at him.
"Perra! Perra! Perra!" He barely deflected the first spell, dislocating his shoulder in the process and flying back a meter. He immediately conjured another stone wall, nearly four times the thickness of the first: he had fought fire wizards before and knew roughly how strong such spells could be. A wall like this, he was certain, should have held against something twice as powerful. But a second later he stood frozen in disbelief as three spears protruded from his chest, having passed through the barrier as though it were butter. He vomited blood. "H-how...?" he whispered, unable to comprehend how a fire spell had punched through nearly half a meter of solid stone.
Bellatrix herself was startled. She had planned to finish him in the next three exchanges, not now. The raw power of that spell genuinely amazed her: she had extracted it from Regulus during the holidays and had not even fully mastered it yet.
I absolutely have to find out who taught him that. Her eyes burned with the thought. She had long been searching for someone who could help her grow stronger: the weekly practice sessions with the Dark Lord simply were not enough.
The thought receded almost immediately when she felt a burning sensation on her left forearm and heard Voldemort's cold, hissing voice inside her head.
"It's a trap. Everyone Apparate out immediately."
And in the next instant, to the astonishment of the surviving assassins, the Death Eaters began vanishing one by one into black smoke. The remaining members of Laur's group felt a momentary wave of relief, but the three wizards of the Steel sub-group who had been sent with them felt a sudden, sharp panic. They simply did not have enough time.
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