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barriers around his duplicates, even stabbing or nuking wouldn’t expose the fakes.
    Mazik fired light blasts at all three Shadowfists. As their daggers struck Mazik’s barriers, his bolts connected, and were turned aside by barriers of their own.
    “Well, fuck. You’re a clever one, aren’t you?”
    The illusions disappeared, leaving only the real Vigg’Somala to his left. “Yup.” Then there were three again.
    “Fair enough.” Then Mazik did what he normally did. He ran.
     
     
    The problem , thought Mazik as he legged it toward the nearest wall, is that illusions are cheap .
    Mazik knew that illusion magick was hard to learn, but once you figured it out, the mana cost was low compared to evocation or barriers. Probably the most mana-intensive element was the daggers he was summoning for the copies. Even the barriers around the duplicates were probably cheap—enough to turn aside a weak blast, but they would shatter under a decent assault.
    And that’s the problem . In every exchange, Mazik was having to raise barriers all around him and take three attacks, while his opponent remained largely unscathed. He could blast the copies away, but he would waste a ton of mana doing it, and in a duel he would never get a chance to regain it. At this rate, it would take Mazik a while to be defeated, but defeated he would be. Unless he changed tactics.
    I have three options. I can try to overwhelm all three at once, which is probably a bad idea. I could do something to make the real one reveal himself. Or I could use my other senses.
    Mazik looked at the three Shadowfists trailing him. He knew that while illusion magick did a good job of fooling sight, keen, and to a lesser degree hearing, it was weak to touch 12 and completely useless with smell and taste. Mazik wasn’t excited about sniffing or licking his opponent, nor did he feel like grappling with three Shadowfists at once, so he went with option number two.
    Though there could be more than three. Mazik’s eyes flashed blue, and he let a cloud of mana leak out behind him. When he looked, all he saw were the glowing shapes of the three Shadowfists, and the ripples they left in his cloud.
    He’s not invisible. Good. Mazik spun to face his adversary. As the Shadowfists attacked, Mazik let more mana leak out of his body, coating the area in case the real Vigg’Somala was hiding behind his clones. He wasn’t.
    “Wait, can you even use invisibility? What kind of assassin can’t do that?” asked Mazik as he pushed back the clones.
    The Shadowfists said nothing. They lunged again, and Mazik turned them aside. The other two disappeared, and Vigg’Somala appeared to his right.
    “Just wait,” he said, and separated again.
    “Don’t wanna,” said Mazik, and he aimed at the ground. Sand billowed around him, and as Mazik grabbed his robes and used them to cover his nose and mouth, he waited to see which Shadowfist would flinch.
    Straight! The illusions attacked, their daggers glancing off his barriers, but Mazik barreled into the real Vigg’Somala and bore him to the ground. Then, his hand firmly around the man’s neck, Mazik raised his fist and struck.
    The crowd hissed as Mazik pummeled Vigg’Somala’s face like a worker driving a railway spike. Blue mana washed over the bigger man, and his nose was jammed flat against his face—and then Mazik was picked up and hurled away.
    Mazik cried out as something sharp raked across his sides. He looked up to find the illusions still present, both coming after him. Mazik cursed at himself for assuming they would always disappear and blasted the nearest illusion apart.
    There was another flash of light, and three more Shadowfists. Mazik watched as they encircled him. “Don’t you have another trick?”
    The Shadowfists didn’t answer. They just attacked.
    Mazik reached into his robes and drew three knives. He threw them, two and then one. None of the Shadowfists flinched. Mazik shrugged and whipped off his robes,