Beaugrat drew his huge sword and leveled it at Slanya. He held the weapon with both hands and swung it with surprising deftness and agility. If he but hit her once, Slanya would be out of the fight.
Best not let him hit me then, she thought wryly.
Circling him, Slanya was aware of the escalating magical battle between Tyrangal and the genasi wizard. The woman’s aquamarine skin glowed, and the spellscar on her head seemed to flow with silver. She had manifested some sort of magical shield around herself-a clear bubble of power that absorbed and deflected Tyrangal’s fiery blasts. Inside, the genasi appeared to be unharmed.
Tyrangal’s attacks increased in power, but each one merely rolled off the protective bubble and scorched the walls and floor around her. The splash damage from their combat could easily fry everyone in the room.
Beaugrat stepped forward and brought his large sword down on Slanya-a quick strike, but one she easily dodged.
Breathe. Counterattack. Her staff glanced off his neck guard, but she followed it by stepping lightly to her left and cracking her staff against his hands. Perhaps she could loosen his grip on his weapon.
Her strike landed hard, and it was like hitting a stone wall. No give at all. Her staff vibrated in her grip, and she barely held on.
Beaugrat hardly seemed to notice.
As she sidestepped another swing, Slanya calculated her next strike. Her quickness meant that she could make several attacks to each of his. His head was the only part of him that was exposed. He was vulnerable there. She whipped her staff around and struck the big man in the side of head, just over his left ear.
Her staff was a blur, and Beaugrat had no time to dodge. The weapon shook in her hands as the blunt end thudded home. Slanya was gratified to see dark blood welling through Beaugrat’s blond hair.
“Nice hit,” he snarled, but his expression was of a wounded animal, cornered and more vicious than before. “Now it’s your turn.”
Abruptly, Beaugrat sheathed his sword. He pressed his wrists together with his palms facing Slanya.
What was he doing?
Blue fire flickered to life from the spellscar on his shoulder, rippling like ignited oil down to his elbow and encasing his whole arm.
A wave of nausea pulsed through Slanya. But as she focused on Beaugrat’s spellscar, she felt something awaken inside her. Energy sparking from one point to another, prickling against her skin. Her own spellscar activated, illuminating her skin. And as the wild magic permeated her and fragmented her, she suddenly she understood how Beaugrat created the blue fire.
She understood, and she reached out to affect it. As her spellscar web attuned to Beaugrat’s power, Slanya’s reality split and split again until she could barely keep her mind integrated. But she found the essence of Beaugrat’s ability. Slanya felt the wild magic flowing through Beaugrat’s scar, and she willed it to stop. In an instant, the web of filaments that made up her spellscar closed down his power.
The blue fire on Beaugrat’s arm guttered and dwindled away then died. He stared at his hands in disbelief. “How did you …?”
Slanya didn’t really know. When her spellscar flared to life, she simply understood how Beaugrat’s own spellscar worked-and how to stop it from working.
The big man stumbled, weakened and in shock. He fell to his knees, his plate armor ringing against the tile floor.
Slanya wasted no time. The fragments of her reality made physical combat difficult and quick movements nauseating. Her staff came down hard on his head, and Beaugrat collapsed to the floor in a heap of metal and flesh.
Slanya glanced around. Tyrangal and the genasi guard fought vigorously, each unable to do serious harm to the other. Tyrangal was clearly the more powerful wizard, but the genasi’s shield made her invulnerable to attacks. On the opposite side of the room, Kaylinn and two others from the monastery had reached Duvan. They were examining him, and as much as she wanted to go to Duvan, her skills were needed elsewhere for the moment.
Can I do it again? Slanya wondered. Turning, she reached out with her ability and touched the genasi wizard fighting to a near stalemate with Tyrangal. Yes. In moments, Slanya understood the source and nature of the guard’s protective shield. She saw how the shield ability worked.
Different shards of reality vied for the attention of Slanya’s mind. She could not hold everything together, and part of her knew that if she didn’t stop using her spellscar ability shortly, her mind would unhinge completely from the physical world around her.
She wanted to try one more thing first. Whether it was worth the risk to herself, she never considered. Watching as though from farther and farther away, Slanya tried to reverse the process. She used her spellscar ability and tried to amplify the guard’s shield.
And she saw the shield double in diameter, then triple. Before her fragmenting eyes, Slanya watched as the shield grew so large that it soon encompassed Tyrangal as well. The genasi’s eyes went wide in astonishment.
Astonishment turned to fear as the full power of Tyrangal’s spells descended upon her. Cast from inside the bubble, Tyrangal’s flames incinerated the genasi guard.
The guard’s aquamarine skin blackened, charred, and blistered. In seconds, the genasi was reduced to soot hovering in the space where a fully alive being had been. The shield vanished, and the genasi’s remains drifted in the air like dust.
Turning slowly, Slanya’s mind sparkling like a constellation of independent stars, she became aware that Kaylinn was yelling something from where she stood over Duvan’s limp body. As Slanya’s spellscar waned in successive pulses, she tried to focus, tried to reintegrate herself. It seemed to take forever, but eventually she heard what Kaylinn was yelling.
“He’s dead!” Kaylinn said. “Duvan is dead.”
Stunned and enraged, Slanya screamed, “No!” But she could barely hear herself.
Beaugrat lay slumped at Slanya’s feet, completely helpless. Anger rose up in her. Duvan was dead, and it was this man’s fault. Duvan did not deserve to be dead. Duvan had saved her life several times. He was her friend.
As if watching herself from far away, from different vantage points simultaneously, Slanya reached down and took hold of Beaugrat’s bruised head. She crooked his jaw into the fold of her right elbow and made sure her grip would not slip.
Anger welled up inside her. She clenched her jaw and with all her strength, jerked Beaugrat’s head in a rapid, wrenching twist. The snap of his spine made a satisfying crunch, and she knew he was dead.
Part of her knew she shouldn’t want revenge. She had been taught that revenge accomplished nothing. Part of her knew she’d done this before, a long time ago as a little girl. But that time it had accomplished something. That time, revenge had changed her life.
That wasn’t revenge, she realized. That was escape. Survival.
Here, too, killing Beaugrat was survival. The man had proven that he would keep coming back. His continued existence was a danger to Duvan. Well, not anymore.
Slanya stood, her reality fragmented. Queasy, her awareness floating out of her body, she collapsed next to her dead victim.
Duvan stood on a featureless plane-a flat gray landscape stretching as far as he could see. The sky overhead was a lighter shade of gray. Ahead, there were no trees or rocks or hills or vegetation of any kind. He could no longer taste the intense iron tang of blood in the back of his throat, and the thick smell of blood had disappeared.
There were no other people on this vast plane, none close enough to see at least. However, he could hear something. Whispers and hissing bass voices were the only sound, an undercurrent of indistinguishable vocal droning that seemed to come from all around. Those whispers permeated his spirit, seeming to snap at his soul like dogs.