Wenyanga saw the leg trip a heartbeat before the warmage swept his hammer at their ankles. They leapt back into the room, deftly avoiding the splayed out arm of an unconscious seer. Whichever one was laying here now, their arm was bent the wrong way. Thula knelt in the corner of the room still, furiously grinding something in a granite mortar. Even in the heat of battle, Wenyanga caught the scent of shark oil.

"He's not going to like that," they said.

Thula poured half a vial of shark oil into the mortar, then dumped the whole thing in. "Call a priest."

Breathless, Wenyanga smiled. The warmage charged through the curtain, but they had already stepped out of his path before the silk even fluttered. He spun on his heel, swinging the paper hammer behind him at head height. It whooshed past Wenyanga's nose and cracked the wall. He was a Refined mage, and judging by the weight of his paper hammer, he was only half a step away from Perfect. That hammer should have taken a chunk out of the brick wall.

"How many swings is that? Ten? Congratulations, a personal best for you!"

The warmage aimed a kick at their knee. Wenyanga stepped back as his heel shattered the tile, sending shards of ceramic leaping into the air. They caught a piece half the size of their palm in midair and flung it between the warmage's eyes. His helm saved his stoneiris, but he stumbled for a moment, dazed, before a glint of murder polished his gaze.

When his grip tightened on his hammer, the thick muscles on his forearms flexed like twisted chords. Sweat glistened on his thick neck. "Fight or flee," he said. "Don't dance between the two."

"Now why would I fight you when you're doing such a good job of tiring your--"

Wenyanga shot forward and grabbed his wrist a moment he tried to turn around. Their hands barely wrapped around his wrist, but Wenyanga dug fingers into the nerve there and unleashed a pulse of spirit into it. All ten rings glowed white-hot. The hammer dropped lightly to the floor, and when they kicked it away, it floated through the air like a kite.

"Here's the thing," they said matching the warmage's murderous gaze with a blank one. "It's fun and games when your attention's on me. When we're being intimate, you don't look at my beloved." Eleven corners, and the weight in the air was so heavy the scales on the warmage's thick vest flattened. Wenyanga found a smile. "What, I'm not enough for you?"

The warmage laughed, a deep-chested chuckle that seemed to make him grow around the edges, until he seemed less human and more a concept of violence. Dream and Poison aura. His soul soured in Wenyanga's spiritual sense, turning the air thick with the stench of rot and the sweat of nightmares. It was like a veil being lifted off an old corpse. Now, when his spirit pushed against Wenyanga's suppression, it did so with the rock solid pressure of a Perfect.

He'd been holding back.

"Your chief's not the only Perfect warmage in town then," Wenyanga said, licking the sour taste of carrion from their teeth. "That's not a bad veil."

He flexed again, and this time, the eleventh corner of Wenyanga's soul sealed itself under the weight of his power. They had to close their stoneiris or risk drowning in disorientating aura, but that also locked away their prescience. Whatever happened next, they were playing it by ear. Not even an enraged Sanele could muster that kind of power.

"Another Perfect warmage, huh," Wenyanga said, panting. A drop of sweat slid down their cheek and melted into the corner of their grin. "Sanele's dirty little secret."

He only grunted, and with how compact the power running through his body felt, Wenyanga was sure words would choke him. Casual as you like, he pressed his free hand against the wall, where his hammer had cracked it only a moment ago, and gave a gentle shove. The clay wall blew apart under his palm, and the light from the balcony beyond poured in, bathing half his helmed face in hazy light. Malice wasn't just a glint in his eye anymore, it was a deep polish gleaming with scorching, Perfect fire.

He'd been pushing Wenyanga when masked as a Refined, but now, well. When all else fails, it doesn't.

"I'll admit it right now, then," they said. "I'm not easily impressed..."

The warmage waited, expectant.

Wenyanga's eyebrows rose. "No, no, that's it. I'm not easily impressed."

With another grunt, the warmage inverted their grip and broke it, clasping then so that he was holding Wenyanga and not the other way around. It was blindingly quick and the force of it would leave their hand tender for days, but it was nothing Tello hadn't practised a thousand times with them.

"So," Wenyanga said, bracing themselves against what was surely coming. "As a Perfect, I guess that means you can--"

"Absolutely."

The warmage clenched his free hand -- his heart hand -- into a fist. Poison and Dream aura swirled around it, visible even in Wenyanga's natural sight as a hazy mist of green orbited by yellow drops of pure spiritual poison. Nasty stuff.

Wenyanga braced themself to defend a strike, but the warmage simply flung them out the hole in the wall. The balcony flew by as Wenyanga arced through the air, higher than the top spire of Sanele's manse. The wind rushed past them, stealing all other sound except for the snap of their robes. For a brief, weightless heartbeat, they had an overview of Salleh and Sanele's rooftop battle.

Quick as you like, the warmage was suddenly on the balcony, a distant figure with a fist glowing green and gold. When Wenyanga's arc reached its peak, he set his feet and struck out at them with a Soul Spear.

The Dream and Poison aura pierced through the air in a twisting beam that painted the nearby rooftops in green and gold. It popped and fizzled, a crack of jade lightning shooting upward. Wenyanga twisted in the air and pushed out their heart hand, concentrating their spirit into their palm. The Soul Spear exploded against their palm, and Wenyanga had to turn it aside before the Poison aura ate through their skin. The deflected beam cut a hole through a thatch roof, but not before its impact knocked Wenyanga aside.

They hurtled towards a nearby street. Deftly, the old mage twisted again to keep their legs under them as their soul spread through each limb again. In the distance, there was the sound of stone cracking. A flash of green and gold and there the warmage was, leaping through the air, descending on Wenyanga like a hawk after a sparrow.

More aura condensed around his fist before he launched a Soul Volley technique. Unlike the Spear's direct beam, a dozen rods of concentrated Poison aura cut through the air. Wenyanga deflected two before a third knocked their shoulder like a stone fist. Spinning off balance, they hit the street of packed earth hard. Something in their right arm snapped, and blinding pain pushed against the edge of their vision.

Wenyanga hissed as a hot, searing pain crawled through their shoulder and neck. In the deep stillness of their mind, a nightmare bubbled up. Knowing it was the Poison and Dream aura working in tandem did nothing to soften the blow of Tello's soft voice, begging them to make good on their promise to him.

They lay shivering on the hard-packed earth, and as a hot tear ran across the bridge of their nose, the warmage crashed down onto the street.

"Stop whimpering," he said. Green and gold sparked around his heart hand. "Take your death quietly."

**

Anele watched the mage crash down onto the street. She hunkered low in the shadows of the alley, but flinched at the snap of a broken bone. A heartbeat passed, maybe two, and a second mage dropped out of the sky, landing on the street with an impact that should have broken both legs. But the bones of a Perfect warmage were made of stronger stuff, and his soul fouled the street with the stench of a carcass under the sun. Poison aura.

No need to see what all that was about. Just the presence of these two made Anele sluggish as their souls flexed against each other, throwing all the aura around them in chaos. Anele's already weak soul trembled, desperate for the power that bled through the street, but she wasn't about to get between a Perfect warmage and a...

Anele cracked open her stoneiris and pierced her gaze through the first mage's soul. Their soul was... Crude. A Crude fighting a Perfect? Anele's gaze scanned over their broken arm. Well, dying to one at least. She'd seen stranger things. At least that made two less people around the Judge's soul.

She turned on her heel and ran. She'd have to take the long way around to the manse--

Anele's ribs crushed their chest in, and she doubled over with the oppressive weight that suddenly bared down on her body and soul. The pressure was so great it snapped her stoneiris shut, and if it wasn't for the soul clay absorbing the bulk of the hit, she would have died on the spot. Keeping herself upright was like trying to hold up the sky, but she managed to turn, just enough to see the Crude mage rise to their feet, white robes smeared with dust, right arm cradled in their heart hand.

They looked much older than the warmage, gray locks tangled around a dirt-smeared face. Their eyes burned with concentration under the polish of tears, and their rictus bared clenched teeth. The warmage walked slowly towards them. An executioner taking his time.

The Crude mage's smile shocked Anele almost as much as the unbearable weight on her shoulders. When the mage flexed their soul again, the sky came down like a hammer on Anele.

**

Wenyanga stood, cradling their broken arm as the warmage strode towards them. The Poison and Dream auras wreaked havoc on their emotion, pulling old nightmares out of their graves and pearling hot tears in eyes focused only on the looming enemy. He was Perfect, but not as Sanele was, who had grown up in the flimsy aura of the desert. Wherever this mage had trained, it had been somewhere that understood the true meaning of the soul arts. His body was refined with rare, potent aura, his gaze a river of dreams, his soul hot with the stench of death.

It was an impossible situation.

So Wenyanga smiled.

That made him halt in his step, but only a moment. He came forward again, casual as you like, ready to take his victory at his leisure.

Wenyanga turned their focus inward and took hold of twenty-five corners of their soul. When the warmage saw what was happening, he dashed forward, a Soul Spear already forming in his fist. Through burning tears and a cutting grin, they ripped the corners open.