The bigger fool

Evandar POV
It was early in the morning of the third day since his sister's capture. In the east, the sun was only just beginning to show, veiling the day in the period just between night and day. His breath was visible due to the morning cold, while his feet silently slid across the dew-covered grass.

Slightly behind and on either side of him, Celiste and Fagosh followed his lead across the empty grounds. Directly ahead of them, there was a stone wall with guards patrolling it at every twenty metres, although they had recently crossed paths and were looking away from the area that their group was sprinting across.

A bit too soon, the guards began to show the early signs of preparing to turn around and walk back the way they had come. An action that would make the three of them completely visible and blow not only their entire mission, but also possibly the only chance of getting Loivissa out alive and unscathed.

Evandar raised his speed at the cost of not moving completely silent, but it would be better to only have them guess at a miniscule noise, instead of them seeing his group and raising the alarm. Behind him, he heard Celiste and Fagosh follow his example, and soon they were tucked securely against the wall, completely safe from being seen because of the outwards railing on the wall.

"We made it", Celiste breathed out in a barely audible voice.

"Only just", Evandar replied in a similar voice.

"You think he is going to come through with his promise?", she asked still slightly sceptical of the plan, despite her being in the midst of it, "I mean, I know his history, but to attempt such a thing is foolhardy for even the best of riders. What if he fails to occupy it for long enough?"

"He must", Evandar answered steadfast.

"He will", Fagosh piped in.

"Say that he does, are we even sure that Loivissa is in the specified cell and not in another part of the fort?", Celiste continued.

"The reconnaissance earlier showed that she was", Evandar replied, before his tone softened, "it is okay to back out if you are not feeling okay with this. I mean, we are kind of going rogue with this, so it would probably be in your best interest to do so".

This entire mission had not been sanctioned by the council of the riders. In fact, they did not even know that their group had separated from their specified route back to Ilirea from Vroengard and would not discover it until this had either ended in success or complete and utter failure.

"No, I am behind you on this", Celiste said, her voice firm, "Loivissa is as much my friend as she is your sister. I could never let her suffer through this for the while it takes for someone to get through the bureaucracy of the council, while knowing that I had even a chance of ending it prematurely".

"Thank you", Evandar said gratefully, "I know that I ask a lot of you, both of you".

"Sometimes not doing everything the right way is the only way to do something right", Fagosh said and laid a comforting hand on Evandar's shoulder, "I would have been here even had I not known any of you".

Evandar nodded in acceptance of their assurances, before he returned to the matter at hand, "now secure the charges on the wall, so that we are ready when the signal comes".

Fagosh did as told by drawing a bottomless pyramidal shaped metal contraption from behind his back, loading a satchel into it with a fuse sticking out of it that went through a tiny hole at the top of the hollow metallic pyramid, before he placed it bottom first on the wall in front of them and secured it with four hooks attached at its corners.

The contraption was an invention of Mercury's, which he had equipped them with, when they had begun outlining their rescue plan, and afterwards taught them how to use. It was supposed to function in conjunction with satchels of his explosive salt, a compound that Evandar still had a hard time accepting the mere existence of, let alone its supposed power.

The amount used would apparently vary in accordance with different factors like wall thickness, density, materials used and whether you suspected wards of reinforcing the wall. Luckily, Mercury had done those assumptions for them and simply given them an amount to be used on the different sections they were supposed to breach.

If Evandar had not at least respected Mercury's ability to cross any hindrance like they were nothing, he did now. It was not just that he had a lot of amazing equipment though, nor the fact that he himself had designed and created most of them, it was rather the fact that Evandar had learned that whenever Mercury saw a problem, he was able to quickly analyse it, break it down into manageable sizes and then solve each and every one of those in a simple way, which, when ultimately combined with the others, would make the solution seem extremely complex to someone who had not viewed the process behind it.

Take for example this entire endeavour. When they had first seen the obstacles needed to cross in order for it to succeed, the entire thing had seemed more like either a suicide mission, or, at best, one with a very high chance of Loivissa ending up dead, while they were either maimed, captured or killed. Not that that had deterred anyone.

The combined obstacles were; needing to cross the walls, needing to enter Loivissa's cell, getting Loivissa out of the fort and out of danger, making sure that no guards realized what was happening and decided to use her as a hostage and making sure that the shade absolutely not found out what was happening.

It was Mercury who had proposed to simply use a magic trick to accomplish the last two obstacles. Evandar had not known what he meant by that at first, but Fagosh apparently had, as he quickly explained to the rest that Mercury wanted to divide their forces into two, where one would be gathering all the attention upon themselves, while the other snuck behind the entranced enemies' backs and accomplished what they were really here for.

After that, the only problem had been crossing the walls, which had been dealt with by Mercury's little toy, although their entire plan had been much more detailed than that rough summary. All in all, they would play the shade for a fool, before it finally came time to deal with him permanently.

Mercury, Kilgharrah and Adûn were supposed to be the ones that provided the distraction necessary for this to work, while also keeping the shade occupied for as long as it took to get Loivissa out. Mercury had argued that if it was only the three of them, without any support or aid from the other riders or their dragons, the probability of the shade seeing through their ruse was far lesser, as he might make the assumption that they had come directly to confront him without thinking things through and contacting anyone to aid them. Having anyone else there would just be like a smack in the shade's face saying that there was the possibility of more being involved than he knew of.

Come on Mercury, what is taking you so long, Evandar mused while he waited, if we wait much longer, then the sun will properly rise and ruin our advantage.

Similar thoughts were visible on his compatriots' faces, although none spoke of them. Soon however, a magically empowered voice, which could only belong to Mercury, rocked through the previously silent morning air with as much force as the largest dragon roar Evandar had ever heard, "SHADE! FACE ME!"

Yep, that was sure to catch the thing's attention, Evandar mused, while he whispered to Fagosh, "twenty seconds to detonation. Remember the four for the fuse".

Fagosh nodded at this, although it came out more like he was also nodding in tact with the count in his head, before the time came when he lit the fuse with a small bit of magic. Not four seconds later, an explosion, the force of which could be felt even by Evandar's group from behind the wall in the opposite side of the fort, rocked the entire fort and, by the sound of it, most likely tore down a substantial part of it too.

The larger explosion served to overshadow the smaller and more important one that had torn a man-sized hole into the wall where the metal contraption had hung. The contraption itself had only been blasted back a few metres, while being relatively unscathed by the explosion that had broken through a three metre thick stone wall.

Evandar did not however have time to muse over exactly how much reinforcing wards had been placed upon the pyramid, as he and Celiste quickly surged through the hole and turned around to shoot two crossbow bolts into the now exposed guardsmen atop the wall, who only just managed to register what was happening, before their lives were snuffed out.

Good, now the chance of their plan being discovered by the guards present at their breach had been dealt with, which in conjunction with Mercury's much more obvious explosion and challenge would draw the rest of them away from where Evandar's route would be. Still, one could never be too careful, both Evandar and Celiste apparently mused, as they both immediately reloaded their crossbows, instead of drawing their swords, as Mercury had had a point in that the crossbows were capable of dealing with enemies swiftly and silently from afar, before they managed to alert someone else of what was going on.

The next explosion would not be before exactly three minutes from the first. During this time, Evandar's group needed to relocate to their next breach and prepare, before they could move unto the final one into Loivissa's cell, although the last one would have to be without any cover, as the shade would have most likely already engaged Mercury at that point.

The rest of their plan involved escorting Loivissa to safety, while Mercury, Adûn and Kilgharrah kept the shade occupied, before they would all surround the shade and finally begin their actual attempt at taking it down.

All Mercury have to do is to keep it occupied until then, Evandar mused while sprinting across the inner grounds, then we can finally end its existence.

Mercury POV
Evandar had been a fool to think that Mercury would agree to play decoy until they could surround the shade with their combined might and take it down!

These were the thoughts going through Mercury's head at this very moment. Mercury had initially been surprised at how easily he had been able to manipulate Evandar into doing exactly what he wanted. Eragon had clearly not seen it necessary to brief his son about him yet, as he had no doubt never considered that they would work together for quite some time and therefore thought that he had plenty of time.

All it had really taken for Mercury to get three riders and their dragons to do what he wanted them to do was to simply appeal to Evandar's protective sense over his little sister. A protectiveness that might have been a bit exaggerated in Mercury's opinion, but it certainly explained quite a lot about why Loivissa had been as she was when he had first met her, and a weakness in Evandar's mind that had been displayed far too obviously when Mercury had awakened. After he had convinced Evandar, the rest would follow his lead, although Mercury expected that Fagosh might have suspected his ulterior motives, but had evidently not seen the problem in them. Not that there really were any either.

Instead of simply trying to stall the shade, Mercury intended to finish it off before the others could get there. Loivissa would still be saved and the shade would still be dead in the end, so there really was not too much of a difference in the end results.

Besides, Mercury had made a vow to hunt that thing down. Even though it would technically have been fulfilled with their original plan, Mercury found that he simply did not want that. He had wanted to personally kill that shade ever since it had attacked his home, killed his pets and had had the nerve to leave him for dead without even bothering to make sure that the job had been finished.

When the shade had taken Loivissa, Mercury had initially had to divide his attention between ensuring her survival and exacting his revenge. A division he had been surprised at at first, but had not had the time to study it more extensively yet.

No matter, now was not the time to dwell on these thoughts, as the time for the second distraction and challenge was about to come up.

Mercury breathed deeply, before he activated the magic that would enhance his voice, and shouted for the shade to hear, "YOU COWARD! I HAVE DESTROYED EVEN YOUR KIN, THE SPIRITS, NOT JUST FREED THEM FROM THEIR IMPRISONMENT IN HUMAN FLESH, BUT ACTUALLY DESTROYED THEIR VERY ESSENCE, AND YET YOU DARE TO REFUSE MY CHALLENGE! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT YOU WERE A COWARD THE MOMENT YOU SENT YOUR MEN INSIDE MY HOME WHILE WAITING FOR IT TO BE SECURE TO GO IN YOURSELF!"

That ought to prick at the shade's pride. If there was one thing such creatures valued above all, it was their pride. Now he only had to wait another thirteen seconds before he had to launch the next barrel full of explosive salt.

The energy required to do so was burrowed from Kilgharrah, despite Mercury having ample reserves locked away in his dwarven ring, and he had not even needed to use any of it to set up wards around himself, as his armour as always had had them imbedded in its fabric, so that he was ready for whatever might happen and made sure to not forget about any of them if he ever needed to reset them around himself.

The reason for the burrowing was that, despite Mercury's reserves, he only had so much energy stored up for this, and for a dragon the size of Kilgharrah, lifting and throwing a 200 kg barrel 50 metres was equivalent to Mercury lifting and throwing a pebble, so it made more sense to not waste undue energy on something so trivial. In fact, the only reason Mercury had not simply had Kilgharrah throw the damn barrel, instead of him using magic to throw it, was that he needed precision that any normal throw simply could not grant the accuracy needed in order to hit the appropriate targets.

For example, his first shot had been directed at the opposite side of the fort than Evandar would be breaching in order to draw attention to that place. His next shot would then be at the site where Evandar's team had breached the wall, as that would cover up any indication of anyone getting through earlier. Besides, it would have been suspicious if he chose to blow up a target away from that area again, as that might lead someone to conclude that there was something he did not want anyone to see there.

…3, 2, 1, now!, Mercury counted, before he lit and launched the barrel. His aim was true, thank magic for the opportunity to specify exactly where you wanted your projectile to hit, and if Evandar's team had done as agreed, they should be out of the area and ready to breach their second barrier before Loivissa's cell.

It only took a few seconds longer before Mercury's summons were answered when the blasted shade ran right out the front gate, killing his two gatekeepers in the process, and only stopped a few metres ahead of Mercury. His hair was maroon, his eyes blood-red, his teeth shark-like and on his body, he wore black robes. At his side, there was a sword blade the length of a two-hander, but the width of a rapier. It had a silver-looking blade, a golden crossguard, a blackened handle and the pommel had a round golden edge with a ruby inside..

"You dare call me a coward and challenge me", the shade sneered at Mercury, who stood stock still with Kilgharrah sitting to his right and Adûn showing teeth to his left, "however I must admit, little human, that you have impressed me with your resilience. I thought you dead after our encounter at your library, then only to find you prancing around Vroengard with the daughter of my primary target. I broke your bones there, and yet you still managed to find your way here to issue this challenge. Tell me for I am curious, why do you insist on continuing to confront me? Every encounter we have ever had has ended with your defeat…or have you come here to try and save your dearest little friend? Because if you have, then I must say that you are going about it entirely the wrong way".

"I am here for my revenge", Mercury snarled, "and nothing shall stop me from getting it!"

"A more reasonable set of ideals then", the shade said with something akin to acknowledgement in his voice, "I suppose a duel will be appropriate then".

As he said this, he drew his sword with only one hand and held it comfortably, not even bothering to use the other hand for the menial task. Mercury in the meantime sprung his left arm-blade, while occupying his right hand with the small crossbow that he had brought.

His plan of battle was simple, use the left hand to block incoming strikes and lash out, while his right hand would fire bolts at the shade to ascertain his reactions and reflexes, although the bolts were only the human-class ones, so even if the shade had not bothered to ward his body, they still would not be able to pierce the wards around its heart, which Mercury was sure would need the use of either his dragon-rider-class arm-blades or the ADR-class bolt, and since he wanted to actually succeed at this, the first option was not an altogether promising one.

Beside him, Mercury could feel Adûn and Kilgharrah taking off to fly in the sky until he signalled that he needed their aid with something, and in the miniscule moment of distraction this caused in the shade, Mercury launched his first attack, a crossbow bolt swiftly followed up by a futile slash with his blade that would no doubt send him flying several metres to the right because of the shade's immense strength.

The attack went as expected; the shade sidestepped the bolt with ease, before he blocked Mercury's strike and sent him flying to the right. The shade seemed surprised by Mercury's sudden assault, no doubt not expecting anyone to go at him directly because of his superior strength, speed, skills and tolerance for pain.

Mercury's battle-plan on the other hand incorporated nothing but attacks on the shade, as he figured that the best way to outbalance a so severely superior foe was for that foe to constantly be on the defensive, and therefore not able to utilize his advantages.

Another bolt was sent flying and was split in two by the shade's sword, not that Mercury expected any of the bolts that he sent to do anything but be an distraction at best, and a way to discern the shade's movement patterns at the very least.

Unlike his fight against Loivissa, Mercury had not spent the majority of two weeks carefully studying this creature's movements and thoughts, so he would need to draw the fight out for long enough for him to have a crash course in them, then analyse them and come up with a way to force the shade into a checkmate. This was just foreplay.

The shade sneered at his petty attempts, before he crossed the distance between them and lashed out with his sword that was blocked by Mercury's blade. The advantages to the arm-blades' positions were that they could block with the entire force of his forearms, instead of relying so heavily on his wrists. Unfortunately though, the entire strength of Mercury's forearm was not nearly enough to go up against a shade's strength, so Mercury was quickly forced to retreat two steps back and then jump another two steps, before standing his ground.

There was a snicker at his retreat from the shade, before he leisurely followed Mercury. After three steps, his feet gave way to a pit with spikes on the bottom, while three crossbow bolts were fired from the forest surrounding their fight scene.

Oh yeah, Mercury might have spent the night setting up traps all across the battlefield with the other riders in a carefully laid out grit, which Mercury had memorized.

Best not to waste this opportunity to ascertain his reactions to surprises followed by attacks, Mercury mused as he launched to perform another attack at the staggered shade with crossbow bolts in his left arm and his right foot caught on a spike.

It would take a while before Mercury would be able to formulate his endgame plan.

Evandar POV
Evandar's team had breached their second obstacle the exact moment the second explosion had occurred and were currently charging their way through the mostly empty courtyard. The few that had yet to scurry off were quickly shot down by either Celiste or Evandar, or, if they got close, cut down by Fagosh.

Time was of the essence now, as Evandar had no delusions that the shade had to be fighting Mercury now, especially after the kind of statement he had made immediately before. Personally, Evandar might have gone with something a little less insulting when about to face a foe numerous times stronger, faster and better at swordplay than you, but it was sure to get the job done.

Soon however, they rounded the last corner and disposed of the single guard still there, before they went forward towards the wall with Loivissa's cell on the opposite side. A single tiny window with iron bars was the only amount of freedom Loivissa had been allowed in there, but not for much longer.

"Sister, are you there?", Evandar said teeming with nerves that she might have been moved.

It took the longest time, although probably not more than a few moments, before the answer came, "I am in here Evan".

Evandar breathed in relief, before he quickly continued, "stand back. We are about to blow a hole through the wall".

Mercury POV
Adûn, blow fire diagonally at C-13, Mercury commanded, Kilgharrah, make a tail swipe from your current position and twenty metres out, then move to point Q-10.

The battle was going well. Mercury had now decoded the shade's patterns and was able to control its movements at will, albeit with quite a lot of aid from two dragons, the pre-set traps and his own movements.

It was not the kind of control one had over an inanimate object, but forcing the shade to be where he wanted it to be, when he wanted it to be there and with the board all set up when he got there was now at least possible.

The shade on the other hand had been furious at the sudden involvement of the dragons in their duel, not that Mercury could understand why, as he had fought far from fairly before. It moved to outrun Kilgharrah's tail swipe, but was forced towards the forest on the left side of the battlefield because of Adûn's fire.

Mercury's immediate attack thereafter forced him to further retreat towards the treeline, before he could recompose himself and counterattack, but this was futile as Mercury had already withdrawn in favour of letting Kilgharrah's front paw smack the shade in his exposed rear with enough force to make him tumble, a considerable achievement because of the shade's immense strength.

Adûn, move to point Q-34 and halt there facing south-south-east, Mercury issued another instruction, before musing to himself, bishop goes to Q-34. Now move rook back to C-10 and have enemy queen encircle knight around borderline Q, before he then sent the instruction to Kilgharrah to move to C-10 and face west.

As expected, the shade used this opportunity to increase his attack on Mercury, which eventually forced him into having his back to the treeline. The shade had a look of triumph on his face, as it encircled Mercury against the treeline and cut off his only means of escape.

Now, fire continual flames in your directions, Mercury ordered both Adûn and Kilgharrah, which they swiftly did.

Two torrents of fire licked their way just behind and beside the shade, thereby seemingly further cutting off any retreat for Mercury. Mercury then activated a manually activated trap that sent four sharpened logs directly forward from the treeline and into the narrow space that Mercury and the shade occupied.

Mercury, knowing beforehand exactly from which angles the logs would fly by, took a single step to the side and missed getting impaled on a log by mere centimetres, whereas the shade, who was beyond furious at this point, opted to try to cleave each of the logs as they neared him with his two-hand sword.

Mercury had to give the sword some credit in that it actually managed to survive the ordeal without breaking, but that had never been the point of it all, as Mercury had loaded his ADR-class bolt into his crossbow beforehand and was now about to finish it all.

"With this…", Mercury mumbled to himself, as he drew the loaded crossbow, while the last log passed by him, and aimed it directly at where the shade's heart would be after he had cleaved the last log, "…I call checkmate".

The bolt was let loose and because it flew directly behind the log, the shade would not even notice it before it was too late. Mercury watched in almost slow-motion, as the log was slowly cleaved in two, before it finally split and the bolt was made visible to the shade, who would be able to do nothing to stop it now.

…and just like that, in a move so unexpected by his opponent that he had no counter for it, the shade moved faster than Mercury had ever seen it move and caught the bolt in mid-air with his bare hand, before he with a wicked grin snapped it in two and discarded it on the ground.

The surprise only just managed to stagger Mercury for a brief moment, but a moment was all it took.

Loivissa POV
"…you did what!", Loivissa screamed as she tore out through the rubble and towards the exit with the rest following swiftly behind her.

When Evandar, Celiste and that other urgal, whose name Loivissa just could not remember, had first freed her from her cell, she had been beyond relieved to finally be rid of this nightmare. Not that she had expected to be in there particularly long.

After having a warm sensation around her wrist, where her bracelet from Mercury was located, and a message had been revealed to her on said bracelet, she had known that help was coming swiftly…and been a little bit peeved at having had something like that placed on her without her consent. Not that she would complain about it now.

So when she was so abruptly busted out from her cell after fearing that someone was collapsing the entire fort down upon her, she had fully expected Mercury to be there. She had only discovered that he was not after she had given her brother the biggest hug she could ever remember giving him, and had then questioned them about it.

They had then explained to her that they were following a joint plan, in which Mercury would play decoy against the shade until she was safe, after which they would surround it and kill it. It had been Mercury's idea to solve the problem, they had said when they had first mistaken her expression.

She had stormed out immediately after that, not even bothering to check whether they were following or not. If she knew him as well as she thought she did, then he would not simply be playing decoy until reinforcements arrived and took care of the problem for him. No, he would try and exact his revenge personally. She still clearly remembered the vow he took on Vroengard.

She supposed that she should be somewhat touched that he had included her release into his plans, so that no matter what, she at least would be saved if his own plan for revenge failed.

"You imbeciles", Loivissa shouted across her shoulder, "you really believed that he would not try and take revenge on that thing after what it did to his home and with the oath that he swore on Vroengard?"

"What oath?", Evandar managed to reply, while they crossed the second of the walls that they had originally breached.

"I suppose that it makes sense for him not to tell you of it", Loivissa answered, "he promised that if the shade took me, he would hunt it down no matter how far and how fast it ran. Do you honestly expect him to fight defensively after a statement like that? No, he is going for the kill!"

"Barzûl!", Evandar cursed and increased his tempo further to match Loivissa's.

Loivissa jumped the rubble of the outer wall, before she had a clear view of what was happening on what clearly looked like a battlefield. Crossbow bolt littered all over it, massive craters here and there, spikes that seemingly came out of the earth, still raging fires in some parts of the field along with the residual afterglow of the spells that had been cast made the field very much resemble hell on earth.

With her elven vision, Loivissa could see that torrents of flame cut off any escape path for both the shade and Mercury, while the shade was busy cleaving some kind of sharpened logs that were somehow flying towards it.

Right as the last log swept past Mercury, she saw him draw a small crossbow, the same crossbow from his memories, and fire a special looking kind of bolt to trail behind the last of the logs, completely invisible.

For a moment, Loivissa actually believed that she was about to witness the next Shadeslayer's birth, but then the shade did the impossible and caught it in mid-air and snapped it in two. Loivissa only just managed to register the unrestricted surprise on Mercury's face, before the shade used the momentary distraction to surge forward and stab his slender-looking two-handed sword directly into Mercury's chest.

No, no, no, no, no, no. This cannot be happening, Loivissa thought, as she saw a small spurt of blood escape from Mercury's mouth.

Beside her, with the trained discipline and skill of a fully trained and experienced rider, her brother aimed his crossbow, took aim and fired his bolt towards the back of the shade.

The bolt flew fast and undetected by the shade, even when it passed through the wall of flame and was set alight with dancing flames running across its shaft. Her brother's aim was true however, and the bolt impaled itself directly into the shade's back, exactly where the heart was supposed to be.

Loivissa, who had never seen a shade die, nor had anyone else here for that matter, watched with rapt attention, as the shade let go of its sword, which was still stuck halfway through Mercury's chest, and stumbled a few steps back, before it in almost complete synchronization with Mercury fell on its back.

A falling feather could have made more noise than all of them were combined for just a moment, before reality sunk in and the realization that Evandar had just killed a shade, thus becoming a Shadeslayer, set in.

His friends congratulated him, and hugged him in Celiste's case, but Loivissa hardly paid attention to that as she sprinted across the scorched and ravaged field to get to Mercury, jumping over the corpse of the shade in the process.

When she got there, she could see that the sword had gone straight through his right side of the chest, but the movement of his eyes towards her sudden appearance alerted her that he was not entirely dead yet.

"- the-", cough, cough, "the shade?", he managed to cough out amidst bloody coughs.

"Dead", Loivissa answered as she lowered herself to a kneeling position in front of him and as gently and quickly as possible removed the sword from his chest and carelessly threw it aside, before her voice slightly broke as she said, "do not die! Please, do not die! Not now, when it is all over!", unfortunately, the drugs given to her by the shade's men prevented her from healing the wounds herself.

"Do not worry, I will not die", Mercury managed to choke out, despite it seeming to cause him discomfort, "it is almost noon, remember?"

Loivissa let out a small tear-infected chuckle at that, "no, I suppose I should only worry around morning".

"You should", Mercury managed to spit out, combined with a bit of blood, "now, tell me who and how someone managed to steal that kill from me".

"Evan shot it in its back and through the heart with a crossbow", Loivissa replied, "I jumped over its corpse to get here".

Loivissa just managed to witness Mercury's eyes widen in alarm, before she felt a sword pierce her abdomen from behind and force its way all the way through her body. It was the same sword that she had just discarded a moment earlier.