Nivea winced slightly as his hand wrung hers.
The thing emerged-a woman, thin, lean, tall, and young. She wore a body-suit of black silk marked across the stomach with a jagged red line. She carried no visible weapons. Her hair was short and spiked, the same color as the suit, and her face, throat, and hands were pale.
The crowd burst into laughter. In their awful silence, they had expected something more ferocious and imposing-an angry bear, a squad of lancers, a necromantic legion-but a single, unarmed, unarmored woman? They jeered her. Who was she to challenge the undefeated duo of Ixidor and Nivea? Who had even heard of this woman, this Phage, before?
Ixidor grinned eagerly. "This may well prove easier than we thought."
Nivea was grim. "Can't we quit now? Can't we be done and walk away paupers?"
He drew her to his side and kissed her. "Come, my love. One last fight and we are done."
The starting bell tolled and laughter died to silence.
Ixidor and Nivea assumed their ready stances. Ixidor drew the disks from his jacket pocket and held them poised before him. Nivea withdrew into her mind and pulled upon the lines of magic she had secured to her warriors. She started her spell, and brave beings slid through the ether toward her.
For her part, the adversary, Phage, stood still, one foot slightly ahead of the other.
"Bring them in. Let's get to this!" Ixidor said.
Nivea shuddered. Her hands flung wide, and she took a step backward. White energy leaped from arms and spine, forming a nexus before her.
Ixidor lifted his first disk and hurled it at the focal point of energy. The disk struck. The nexus broke open, its corners peeling back. Through the extradimensional space charged a contingent of Order warriors. They emerged at a run, their war cries sounding muffled within the breach but welling to full force. Pikes glinted in the charge, arrowing toward the black-silk breast of Phage.
Still she stood, no weapons drawn, no spells forming. She seemed not even to see the charging warriors. Her eyes were as black as a shark's.
Ten warriors emerged, and into their backs Ixidor sent more disks. Each struck, flashed, and sent a scintillating barrier of armor around the fighter. Ixidor hissed to himself, "It'll be a massacre."
Phage seemed unprepared to meet them. Her hands remained at her sides.
The crowd roared their delight.
The first warrior charged in, pike ramming into Phage's belly. The blade sliced into the silk suit, transfixed her spine, and jutted out her back. Phage did not stagger or scream but only stood as the shaft followed the head right through her body. The warrior continued the charge, his hands ramming through the wound as well and ripping out her back. He kept running beyond her as two more pikes tore into her body.
Still, Phage stood unmoving.
"She sees through the illusion," Ixidor hissed to Nivea.
"How?"
"I don't know. Call off the charge!"
"It's too late!"
Phage's arms, once so still, swept suddenly outward. The charging warriors dissolved into thin air. Phage's hands came down, one to either side, and struck where nothing was. Her fists rose, gripping air and wrenching. Pikes appeared in her grasp. She hurled them-one, two-in rapid succession directly toward Ixidor and Nivea. Even as the shafts flew, trembling with the force of the throw, Phage grasped empty air again. This time, men appeared-the two pikemen whose spears she had taken. Her touch had stripped away their cloaking illusion, and she hurled them before her to the sand.
That was all Ixidor and Nivea had time to see. They fell to their faces, the two pikes whirring by just overhead. Side by side the heavy spears embedded in the wall behind them, their shafts quivering.
"Get up! Here come two more!" Ixidor shouted. He grabbed Nivea's arm, shoved her to her feet, and scrambled after.
A pair of pikes sliced through the air. Their erstwhile wielders spilled on the ground beside the first pikemen, who writhed as if with broken bones. One blade skimmed Nivea's arm, scribing a long red line. The other would have taken Ixidor's head if he hadn't ducked.
The clamor of the crowd was nearly deafening.
Phage dispassionately ripped two more weapons from the air and sent them tearing toward the running pair. She hurled pikemen onto the writhing pile. Only then did Ixidor see that the men did not suffer broken limbs but missing ones. Each had lost an arm. They rolled, gripping their gory shoulders in their remaining hands.
The tableau had distracted Ixidor. He glanced up too late.
A pike angled in to split his head. He hadn't time to dive away. Steel flashed and struck. Ixidor winced. The pike toppled, and its haft smacked against his arm. The weapon dropped to the sand.
Nivea stood smiling. She held another pike. Its blade was notched where it had deflected its mate. "I made a good grab."
"A very good grab." Ixidor snatched up the fallen pike. "Now we've got something to fight with."
"Side by side." The partners advanced, pikes leveled.
Phage did not spare them a glance. Instead, she finished off the remaining warriors, each relinquishing his pike, then his illusory cloak, then his arm. Phage worked with the deadly agility of a black widow. She hurled spear after spear, the blades shrieking as they split the air. The crowd shrieked as well.
Ixidor set his teeth. His pike leaped outward and batted the first spear down into the sand. Nivea's weapon simultaneously downed the next. They struck together for the third and fourth, creating an impenetrable wall of steel. Pikes clanged away from them.
The ovation shook the pit to its core.
"More illusions?" Nivea asked.
"What's the point? She can see through them," answered Ixidor. "More warriors?"
"We've already lost ten friends in this fight. I'll not toss more on the mound."
"You don't need to. We can defeat her, you and I. Together, no one can stand against us," Ixidor said.
Nivea muttered, "What if we must kill her?"
"We'll never have to fight again," Ixidor replied, "and she deserves it. Just look at our friends."
Nivea nodded grimly. The partners advanced.
Phage had stepped away from the mound of dying pikemen but made no move to engage her opponents. She stood, hands at her sides, shark eyes staring beyond them.
"I'll strike first," Ixidor said.
"No, together."
"You've already saved my life," Ixidor insisted. "Let me repay my debt."
Without waiting for her response, he lunged, swinging the pike as if it were a long axe. The head surged down toward Phage with speed enough to split her from skull to navel.
The crowd's cheers dropped to a communal gasp.
With both hands on the haft, Ixidor muscled the blade down toward Phage's brow.
Phage caught the blow in one slender hand. Her grip was implacable. She yanked, as she had done to the other pikemen just before ripping away their arms.
Unlike the pikemen, Ixidor released his hold.
Phage pulled the weapon away, quickly reversed it, and hurled it at Ixidor.
Futilely, he flung himself backward.
Once again, Nivea saved him, her pike intercepting Phage's in midair.
Ixidor crashed to his back on the sand.
The strike cost Nivea everything. While her weapon tangled with the other pike, her back was toward Phage. The silk-garbed woman stepped up behind her and wrapped her in a strange embrace-a killing embrace. From arms, hands, hips, and legs, rot spread onto Nivea's body. It was not mere gangrene but a living virulence that voraciously ate flesh. Gray skin and muscle sloughed from bone, which in turn went to ash.
Nivea flashed one final, desperate look to Ixidor. "Remember me!"
"Nivea!"
Her face rotted away. Her eyes dissolved to nothing. In mere moments, the rot had swept through her hair and down to her toes.
She was gone, utterly gone.
Ixidor meant to fight. He flipped over to rise, to charge, to kill, but his legs wouldn't move. It wasn't cowardice that made him weak. He wished nothing more than to kill or die. It was horror.