Raoul pulled his sword. A rune-covered steel that shone like sun on the water, he wielded it with the ease of a master. A lunge. A slash across Brude’s upper chest that bled so freely it began to look like he’d slipped on a red T-shirt for the occasion. But as I watched, the tattooed armor folded over the cut and the bleeding stopped.
“Your metal cannot harm me here,” Brude said triumphantly.
Oh, that’s reassuring.
Raoul snapped, “Play with someone else’s head, Brude. Mine is bent on your destruction.” He jumped forward again, smashing his blade against Brude’s staff. Something should have broken. Maybe it was Raoul’s pride. He backed away.
“Are you done playing already? Good enough.” Brude’s eyes jumped to mine. “I believe it would be better to finish this quickly, after all. It has been so long.” He nodded in decision and slowly lifted the staff, walking around Raoul as he also turned. Waiting for him to make a mistake. He leaped forward, moving so quickly I barely caught the shift in his shoulders that signaled his intentions.
I bounced away from Raoul, allowing him the room he needed to adjust. He veered sideways, cracking his sword against Brude’s staff as it passed within a millimeter of his head.
Raoul’s heel to the king’s ribs should’ve scored the best shot he’d made so far. Brude grunted, but only with effort. The armor had slid forward to intercept Raoul’s blow. I’d fought supernaturally shielded opponents before, so I knew Raoul felt like he’d just connected with the radiator of a Mack truck.
He reversed the sword in his hand, holding it so the blade emerged from the back of his fist like you might hold a dagger in a knife fight. Rushing toward Brude, he battered the king with multiple kicks to the torso and a blow to the temple with the hilt of the sword.
Brude didn’t bother to block the blows. The armor did all that so well his head barely jerked, though Raoul had hit him hard enough to snap his neck. He responded with a combination of slashing attacks that forced Raoul to pull back or lose some choice parts.
Oh goody. How about I just stand here like a helpless Victorian Miss whilst the menfolk battle for my honor? Or I could—I looked around. Nope. No heroic rescue wrote itself on my brain as I scanned the scene. Well, this sucks. I moved completely off the path, avoiding the sweating, heaving fighters on my way to a light-gray boulder. I leaned against it, brushing my hands against the rough crags of the stone. Down by my hips I discovered a stash of small rocks in a recess where either the wind or a bored hand had chipped them off and left them for later. I picked one up. Tossed it up and down in my hand.
And lofted it at Brude.
It hit him. Of course it didn’t hurt. His inked-on shell came to his rescue. But I threw another anyway. It became the only way I could find to amuse myself between rounds.
Round One: Raoul busting his ass to no avail.
Medium-sized piece o’ granite to the small of the king’s back. Bang—two points!
Round Two: Brude nearly taking off Raoul’s head.
Two small pebbles to the Domytr’s left thigh. Hey, they hit at the same time. I am the Queen of Rock Pelting!
Round Three: Raoul throwing such an intricate combination of moves I didn’t recognize what discipline he’d pulled them from, which meant he was now fighting out of the School of Desperation.
Flat stone, perfect for skipping, bounced right off the ear. It’s no fun when he doesn’t even flinch. How are we ever going to get past that goddamned armor?
Round Four: I zinged another one. At the same time Raoul landed a punch that should’ve shattered Brude’s jaw. But the crack I heard was his hand breaking. To give him credit he didn’t cry out. Didn’t even delay his next move. Just switched back to his sword, which clanged against Brude’s staff at the same time that he threw a front kick into the king’s diaphragm.
“Raoul, this is pointless,” I said. “Back off, dude. Maybe I can talk some sense into this guy.”
Raoul’s response was a kick that caught Brude in the ribs. Unfortunately he didn’t pull his leg back fast enough. Brude grasped his calf with both hands and twisted. I heard Raoul’s knee pop just before he screamed.
Brude tossed Raoul aside like a bag of laundry, sending him flying at least ten feet into the heather. Then he came for me.
Because he expected it, I scurried out of his reach. Ran to Raoul’s side. Nope. Forget pulling him to his feet, much less making for less-populated spots. “Are we done for?” I asked.
Raoul shook his head. Not an answer. Just an attempt to clear the woozies. “He’s pulling strength from somewhere beyond himself. Look at him.”
I had been, but only casually. I opened my third eye as wide as I could manage. Brude’s lips curled upward as he strode toward me, his arms swinging confidently at his sides. He moved like a true warrior, comfortable in his skin, capable of instant lethality from any position. But his eyesËn. ar added a disturbing dimension. They said he’d be happy to stab, hack, or impale given any lame excuse and the weaponry to pull it off. Beautiful, whispered the part of my brain that recognized how closely that trait must link him to evil here, where the prettier you were, the higher up the nasty ladder you got to climb.
As I watched his tattoos detach from one another, become just another set of funky body squiggles, I caught another movement. Like a longer length of hair flowing off his shoulders, down his back. A nearly invisible cape that fluttered behind him as he walked. It wasn’t like one you’d see on, say, Superman. Where a couple of guys on the ground might look up and say, “Yo! Mr. Hero! Your sheet’s stuck between your legs!” right before he plummeted to the earth and put a big hole in some poor woman’s kitchen island. This item seemed muscular. Almost like a pterodactyl wing, it wrapped around him as he approached us. A shield, or maybe a supernatural steroid pump, it was definitely the item that gave him that extra edge. And I had no idea how to cut it from him.
I leaned into Raoul’s ear, whispered the secret to Brude’s advantage just as he reached me. He grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. “You will be mine.”
“I don’t see how I can do that,” I told him, working hard to force calm into my voice. Could I really get stuck here? No. Don’t even allow the possibility. You’re not staying. Because if you do, you’ll probably die. Plus Vayl would be so pissed. I thought of him standing guard over that damned Scidairan when I needed him here. Now!
“You will do as I say,” Brude said, his hand tightening painfully on my skin. And that’s when I knew what I had to do.
“You like getting your way, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Well, you know what?” I stepped up to him, put my free arm around his waist, and shoved my body against his. “So do I.” I nuzzled my mouth against his neck. As he moaned I felt the cape slide out from between us. And wrap around me. I was in. With one chance to get this right.
I pictured Vayl. Pretended it was his body pressing against mine. His skin under my canines. And bit. So hard that my teeth nearly met each other inside the bloody tissue of his carotid. Though I tried not to swallow, I felt Brude’s blood spurt down my throat.
It’s okay, this isn’t real, I told myself.
It’s not a dream, insisted the librarian in my head, who was already shelving this experience into the vast, unending Horror area of my biography section.
But the blood . . . it’s not like I’m really stomaching the stuff that powers him.