16.11
Dragon and demon-possessed practitioner were poised to strike at me. The dragon’s teeth were slightly parted, and liquid fire ran out the corners like drool from a dog’s mouth. It had been poised to breathe fire before I’d acted, and that hadn’t changed, even though the dragon had been cut in half.
Even if I’d wanted to move, I’d have had to dodge the spatters of fire that littered the battlefield. Where the area could be navigated, the fire stretched up to calf or knee height from pools no wider across than my feet, patterned with no rhyme or reason. Picking my way through would be hard enough, but getting any distance before getting cut off by a bad spread of fire- no.
No way I could move fast or far enough to get away before the dragon could spit its fire at my back.
The dragon’s fire was less concerning than the Barber, who was ready to use its demonic implement on me and Rose both.
I had one second to process the situation before the dragon shook its head, getting its senses. The spittle flew to either side, thankfully leaving me untouched, though it made the Barber raise an arm to shield his face. Dots of burning dragon’s spit speckled his jacket sleeve and arm.
An opening.
I lunged for him, my eyes dropping to track the spots where I could safely place my feet and legs, then rising up to look at him.
Eye contact.
Eye contact, insofar as he had eyes, anyway. I felt a kind of despair as it happened, because I knew that I couldn’t change course. I couldn’t do anything except face the situation head on, watching as the shears were moved, raised as a weapon.
All the same, I followed through. I rushed him, felt the shears draw together at the blade of the Hyena, and carried forward, charging into him. My shoulder bumped his hands, the crossed weapons pressed between us, neither successfully cutting flesh.
I’d hoped to drive him back, force him to stagger back into open fires, but he barely budged. Too strong. Bigger than me. Somehow more rooted in this reality.
With my free, damaged hand, I reached up, and, unable to reach his face, I scraped at his throat with the ragged, splintered portion. Superficial damage, but I could see the more demonic tissues reaching out as blood welled, covering the wound, leaving a scabrous patch of black. The remaining fingers and thumb of that hand bit into flesh, grabbing his windpipe.
My eyes stared at his, fully aware that the dragon was moving in my peripheral vision.
Turning on the two practitioners that were fighting a short distance away.
On the Barber and I.
Did you cut off the portion that was more bloodthirsty, in favor of the side that was more obedient? Because I don’t think he’s following orders. And you’re not in a position to give them.
As if answering my thought, the dragon growled, a deep, powerful sound that traveled along the ground to be felt in my feet and legs, low in the throat.
Sorry Rose, but if I can’t win this for us, I can at least take him with us as we lose.
I didn’t sense any protest.
My grip tightened, as if the body that was beneath the now-ruined veneer of criss-crossing branches was offering a touch more strength. Holding on as if our existence depended on it, when it was very likely to be the opposite.
“Fay-” the Barber started.
I tightened my grip a fraction more, strangling out the rest of the order.
His hands were occupied. Both held the shears. I spotted the pipes dangling from one of his wrists, attached by a fine chain, but couldn’t reach for them without sparing vital leverage.
Tantalizing. Almost bait.
The dragon’s turned its full focus to us. Snout aimed our way.
The Barber pulled back, very clearly trying to dislodge my hand, but didn’t pull free.
The whole of my being was concentrated on the one partial hand that gripped his throat. Two fingers on one side, one thumb on the other.
You can’t speak. If you let go of the shears to do the snapping thing, I’ll stab you. I’ll get you in the solar plexus, if not the heart. I’ll take your air, or the center of your being, and that’s a victory for our side. Let me keep going, and I’ll crush your windpipe. Even if you heal it, your words won’t belong to Johannes anymore.
Let the dragon get us, and you’ll lose every part of you.
There was no fear in his eyes, but he did struggle again, shifting his grip, gripping the handles of the shears to push, as if attempting to use raw strength to drive me down to my knees, where I wouldn’t be able to get his throat.
Too little, too slow. The dragon drew its neck pack, mouth parting slightly.
The Barber cut. Severing an inch of the Hyena’s broken blade. In that instant, several things happened. He found the chance to snap his fingers, and the Dragon paused, watching us.
I shifted my weapon, aimed for the softer parts of the Barber’s stomach, and was deflected. I managed to press myself in close, chest to chest, my left shoulder jammed against his right shoulder, leaving neither of us the leverage to swing or thrust.
With the close proximity, I could feel as something rippled over the Barber, beneath his clothes, very possibly beneath his skin. A hundred snakes, or great leeches, coursing out of a source deep within him.
Tapping into a strength that wasn’t his. It might have been something I could have used, that he was less Johannes now, but I wasn’t in a position to do anything except hold on to his throat and strive to keep his arms pinned closer to his body.
But as his strength grew, my ability to do that faltered. He pushed out and back, shears against my shoulder. He pushed down, in a grim parody of the king knighting someone, blade on the shoulder, and my knees buckled with the pressure.
I stabbed at his left arm with the Hyena, and the blade came away slick with blood and black ichor.
I stabbed again, over and over, and he healed as fast as I could hurt. My arm popped and cracked, stretching beyond all tolerances as he forced me down.
As I was bent down, I could see the stairwell, the others. Mags and Green Eyes.
Green Eyes looked scared, and I remembered that the dragon had burned her, and she hadn’t yet fully healed.
Mags was holding her piece of pipe, holding it out like a wand, but the Barber was holding me as a human shield.
All the same I maintained a grip on his throat. More tenuous than before.
“Thu,” he managed, rasping out the syllable. He said another. “Ban.”
Giant speak, I remembered. A language of single syllables. Just what he needed to communicate with the great beast.