The mys­tic grabs his bow, nocks an arrow, and holds the armed weapon in front of him as he moves. He takes off towards the stairs, leap­ing over the unconscious—or dead—Akkadian guard. Ayan trails him, and Kiddu pulls Gil along by the arm.

They leap up the nar­row steps of the wind­ing stair­case, two at a time. The beige brick walls seem to spin around them as they ascend. The satiny robes of the mys­tic and his sis­ter trail behind their bod­ies like flow­ing rivers in the air.

At last, they reach the top of the stairs, and face a rot­ted, hinged wooden door. Gil can see torch­light through the cracks.

As they back away, the mys­tic closes his eyes.

Gil watches in won­der: a yellow-white aura sur­rounds the mystic’s body, light­ing up the walls in a pale, sun-lit glow. The light seems to emanate from his fore­head, and flows around his body in swirling eddies. Then, like a vis­cous liq­uid cir­cling down a drain, the aura flows into the arrow nocked on his bow, trans­form­ing it into a sheath of solid white light.

Eyes still closed, Jaruna kicks down the door.

The arrow launches through the open door, trail­ing a bright white streak down a long hall—

Gil had averted his eyes too late. The arrow flashes on impact, and his vision goes all white and spot­ted, like he had just stared into the sun. He hears shout­ing and the clank­ing of armor in the hall­way ahead, with the twang! and thwip! of more arrows fly­ing from the mystic’s bow. A sol­dier screams and falls to the ground like a sack of din­ner plates.

Gil’s vision begins to clear just in time to see a hoplite heave his spear towards Jaruna.

But the mys­tic kicks the door just in time. The door bounces back on itself from its leather hinges, and the spear plunges into the wood in a shower of splin­ters.

Not a sec­ond later, Jaruna kicks the door back open and lets fly an arrow. It bites into a hoplite’s exposed neck.

His words seem to fall on deaf ears. One after another, the hoplites detach them­selves from the hastily-formed pha­lanx, slowly walk­ing back­wards, and then scat­ter­ing away down the hall behind them.

Now only three hoplites remain in for­ma­tion, crouch­ing shoulder-to-shoulder with their big shields held high.

Jaruna draws an arrow, aims care­fully, and shoots. It hits pearl­stone and clat­ters to the floor.

The three hoplites advance in per­fect lock­step. Jaruna lets fly another arrow, but it bounces off a pearlstone-plated greave.

Gil can’t see any open­ings in their armor or shields. The oily black­stone tips of their spears grow closer and closer.

The mys­tic takes a deep breath, nocks an arrow, and closes his eyes.

A vio­let light swirls around him, con­cen­trat­ing and engulf­ing his arrow. With closed eyes Jaruna aims his bow just above the sol­diers’ heads—

He vanishes—and then mate­ri­al­izes in another flash behind the hoplites, som­er­sault­ing from the spot where his arrow strikes the floor.

But the hoplites turn too slow. One falls over, gasp­ing, an arrow stick­ing from his side. The sec­ond hoplite hes­i­tates for a second—Gil catches his eye from the stair­way. Jaruna wastes no time in dis­patch­ing him.

The com­mand­ing hoplite stands, his back to Gil. Des­per­ately, he raises his spear to throw at the mys­tic, but col­lapses as an arrow bites into his under­arm.

He tears out the arrow, scream­ing with pain. Another arrow to his neck kills him quickly.

Seven sol­diers lie dead in the hall­way. Jaruna runs over to the bod­ies and snatches arrows off the floor.

He takes off down the hall­way. With sur­pris­ing grace, Ayan quickly steps over the corpses. Gil and Kiddu fol­low them as fast as they can.

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