The Brightest Shadow, page 86
When Melal struck again, Kolanin deflected his sword easily. Now that he had focused himself on this defense, he could speak at the same time. "Do you remember your father, Melal? He didn't want his boy to become a Hero, he just wanted him to stay alive. To grow up and make something of himself."
"Shut up! I'm the Hero!" Melal attacked even more wildly and Kolanin refused to give ground, turning aside all of his strikes while he continued to speak.
"Perhaps, but not the first. You remember them. I know you do. Why do you try so hard to forget, Hero? Why are you so desperate to follow this Legend? I may not know the man you are today, but I knew you once. The man I knew would have been troubled by this."
Melal let out a scream of pure rage and attacked again, blade sweeping overhead. Kolanin stepped in, catching his wrists before he could bring the blade down, leaving them eye to eye. Though Melal gasped and tried to pull away without releasing his sword, he could only struggle in place.
"I'm not asking you to surrender, Hero. And no matter what you do, I won't fight you. All I want is to talk."
"I..." Melal's eyes dimmed and the strength flowed out of his body. When Kolanin carefully let go of his wrists, he slumped with his sword at his side. "Maybe you're right. It just gets so hard to think..."
Kolanin breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you. Now, let's sit down an-"
Melal stabbed him in the chest.
The blade went through his heart and white heat flooded his body. A few final wisps of sein flowed through him, then evaporated.
"I have tricks of my own, Deathspawn scum!" Melal shoved the blade further through him so they were face to face. His eyes glowed pure white, the darkening from a moment ago gone. A ruse from the beginning, or a final moment of hope gone? As the pain spread through his body, Kolanin realized that it didn't matter anymore.
Kolanin didn't look down at the blade that had gone through his heart, just stared at the eyes of the boy who held the sword. Despite everything he shouted and how brightly his eyes burned, Melal looked confused. There had been potential there. Set on another path, he might have grown into a different person. Yet now, as Kolanin slid backward off his sword, he saw only rising hatred.
"I'm sorry, Melal. I failed you." If his words escaped his lips at all, they were no more than a whisper.
The world tilted as he slumped to the ground and fell onto his side. He saw Melal stay just briefly, then turn away. As he walked, his steps grew increasingly confident.
He had nothing left. Kolanin rolled onto his back and welcomed the warmth as his blood flowed from him. Though he could have tried to stop the bleeding, it was too late for that. Not only for his body, but for his soul. If he went on from here, there would only be battle after battle.
As the pain began to fade into the numbness, Kolanin felt only weariness. He closed his eyes.
~ ~ ~
For the first several seconds as Tani clung to the edge of the roof, she was certain that she would either fall below or that Subenor would impale her with another throwing spear. But there was no time to fear that, she exerted all of her strength to swing her other hand to the edge and then pull herself up onto the roof.
Miraculously, she made it. Something below must have drawn Subenor's attention for a time, because he was only now lifting another throwing spear toward her. Tani wanted to stay on her hands and knees to catch her breath, but knew that doing so would be fatal. Instead she stumbled into a run across the roof.
At random she stamped her foot down, reversing direction and lunging in the opposite direction. Soon after another spear smashed into the roof, sending tiles shattering in all directions. Tani didn't want to try the same trick again, so she threw herself to the nearest attached roof she could reach. In the air she winced, afraid a spear would take her, but her dive had been unexpected enough. She rolled onto the next roof and ducked behind the stone wall that separated one part of the roof from another.
When she looked up, she saw Subenor leaping toward her. Though the Soaring Feet made her well-suited to this environment of many different roofs, he might be even better suited to it. Tani was reasonably confident in her ability to jump between them, but she would soon exhaust herself and she suspected Subenor would not.
He smashed down onto the roof where she had stood before retreating, his sandals shattering the tiles beneath him. Tani had intended to throw a knife at him in midair while she knew his path for certain, but he was simply too fast.
Besides, as he advanced on her with his spear whistling around him, she realized that he would probably have deflected her knife without difficulty. She only had five throwing knives left, so she needed to use them when they would count.
For now, it was the best she could do to hold one in her left hand as an additional layer of defense while she desperately turned aside the thrusts of his spear with her sickle knife. Though he could no longer overwhelm her immediately, even when she used both knives combined she was hard-pressed just to defend against him. She couldn't risk looking behind her, but she knew that the roof would end soon.
Tani gritted her teeth and forced herself to think. Trying to strike him with her sickle knife was useless, she'd never get inside his spear's range. Throwing knives would be useless if he had enough forewarning to deflect them. Her only hope was a single powerful strike to a lethal area... which would be exactly what he would expect and guard against. Abandoning that idea, Tani put together a different plan to aim for a disabling injury. Maybe she could find a route to victory from there.
Before she reached the end of the roof, Tani gathered her sein in her legs and leapt to the side to land on another roof. As she'd feared, Subenor leapt after her, only a heartbeat behind. But in the air, she drew a second knife in her left hand and concentrated all the sein she needed in both of them.
The instant she landed, while Subenor was still in the air, Tani threw both knives at him, as late as she dared.
He knocked aside the first that streaked for his face easily, the shaft of his spear already spinning around to deflect the next. But at that moment her sein forced it down, sending it curving at his thigh instead of his face. She saw his eyes widen and knew that he hadn't expected her tactic.
Yet his spear changed direction and deflected the second knife as well. Subenor landed hard on the roof and grinned at her.
Though Tani kept her sickle knife raised to defend herself, she found herself despairing. The gap between them was simply too large, and Subenor had no obvious weaknesses she could exploit. There was nothing she could do.
"Good." Subenor spun his spear to his shoulder and his grin widened. "Despair is a good start, but I want to see more. You still think this is going to end well for you, don't you? Well, I'm telling you now, it won't."
She had nothing to say to that. Perhaps if she jumped again she could delay him further, but it didn't seem that she...
A weight of concentrated sein appeared behind Subenor and she glimpsed a moment of pure shock as he began to move. He twisted aside, desperately blocking the sword that had thrust for his back before leaping away. For the first time, his jump was imperfect and he dropped onto his side when he hit the roof.
Behind him, Veron lowered her sword. "Dammit. Speedy bastard."
"Veron! What happened below?"
"Not really the time for it, kid." Veron hefted her sword up to one shoulder and turned to face Subenor, who flipped back to his feet. He seemed more amused than anything and began advancing toward them. Veron waved Tani back. "Let me handle this."
Tani gladly stepped back and took a moment to restore her natural flow within her, but she couldn't bring herself to actually retreat. Not with Subenor rushing across the roof toward them.
He and Veron clashed in a blur of weapons. It took Tani several exchanges to adjust to their raw speed, but it wasn't completely beyond her once she understood their movements. And she didn't like what she saw.
It was impossible to say which of them was faster, which meant that Veron couldn't penetrate Subenor's range. His spear had too long of a reach, especially when he used it fully extended instead of closing in as he did with her. And though Veron struck quickly, Subenor could spin the point or handle ends of his spear too easily to deflect anything she threw his way.
Though he hadn't landed any blows on Veron, Tani didn't think he was really trying, just forcing her to keep up her aggressive movements and wear herself down. And if Subenor was willing to bet on his stamina, Tani didn't want to take that bet.
She raised a knife in front of her face and breathed sein into it as she watched the fight, hoping that Veron was pressing him hard enough that he wouldn't notice. Though she wanted to wait for the perfect moment, she knew that it wouldn't come. When Subenor tried a lunging thrust that Veron barely dodged, she threw her knife.
It shot out as fast as she could hurl it, no curve at all. Subenor barely jerked his staff up in time to deflect it, and Veron stabbed at his side the next second.
Somehow he managed to redirect the handle of his spear to slam down at her. Veron just managed to deflect it with her sword... but she didn't retreat.
A moment later Veron pushed through his defenses and punched Subenor in the face. He tumbled back, sliding down the roof, and Veron rushed after him to land a finishing blow.
Yet as he slid, Subenor stabbed his spear ahead of him, digging between two tiles and using it to launch himself into the air. It looked like a desperate move at first, yet he sailed toward another roof, regained control of his weapon, and landed ready for them on the roof opposite.
"Not bad," Veron said as she glanced back at Tani. "But be careful."
Judging from her voice, she wasn't just being curt, she struggled to speak. Yet she didn't stop to catch her breath, instead leaping across the gap to attack Subenor again. Tani didn't trust herself to jump that large of a gap, so instead she retrieved her knives from where they had fallen. One had slid off the side, but she had tracked two that remained on the roof.
Trusting Veron to hold him off, Tani ran to grab her knives, then climbed to a higher roof to get closer to them. Veron had her back to a wall now, Subenor grinning and thrusting over and over again, not caring that his spear slammed directly into the stone behind her. Fragments of stone fell and his spear showed no sign of wearing down. How could he keep his sein flowing so intensely for this long?
Tani decided speed was more important than strength and threw as fast as she could, three knives in quick succession. Subenor had to leap away from them to evade the attack, which was smart because Veron attacked at the same time. If he had tried to block, she likely would have landed a hit.
Subenor glared up at Tani, then suddenly he was leaping in her direction. She had no warning, no time to even raise her sickle knife. Tani only barely pulled her head away from the spear tip thrusting at her. It left her off balance and she had no idea how she would dodge the next thrust.
At that moment Veron leapt to their level, slashing at Subenor from the side and forcing him to retreat again. Tani noticed that she was moving carefully now, conserving her strength while letting Subenor rush around to defend against both her sword and Tani's knives.
Maybe this could work. Tani hurried to pick up her knives, which had embedded themselves in the roof tiles. She tried not to smile, reminding herself that he would just get better at deflecting her throwing knives each time. Unless she landed a hit, he would outlast her.
As Tani skirted the fight, she prepared the sein in her next knives carefully. Since she had made her second knife curve before, she planned for the first two to curve toward him. Though she doubted they would hit him, it would force him to defend himself and back up. Her third knife would have all the speed she could manage and be thrown directly where she anticipated he would dodge.
Since it looked like Veron was hard-pressed again, Tani threw the first instant she had an opportunity.
It went almost as she hoped, though Subenor contemptuously knocked her first two knives off the side of the roof. But he dodged back as she had expected and had no choice but to block the third knife with the haft of his spear. He grunted in irritation and had to dodge away as Veron lunged for him again.
This time her sword managed to nick his shoulder, drawing a shallow cut - an instant later Subenor took one hand off his spear and backhanded Veron in the face. She flew backward, tumbling over the roof and sliding nearly to the edge before she caught herself.
Fortunately, Subenor looked winded for the first time and took several heartbeats to recover, so Tani hurried to pick up the knife that remained on the roof. It seemed as though he had stopped the bleeding of his shoulder and was catching his breath. Veron still struggled to get up, but he only slowly brought his spear into position to attack.
With another knife retrieved, Tani had three remaining. She would need-
Tani touched the knife and pain shot up her arm. Horrible alien sein flooded into her body, flashes of angry Rhen faces, the smell of blood, lines of impaled bodies, a surge of contempt for the world. She struggled to reject the flood of sensations as the sein rushed through her. It was the most she could do not to lose herself in it, so she was bound in place, her sickle knife useless in her hand.
Subenor turned to her with a terrible grin and she realized that he had planned this. She didn't know how he had done it, but it wouldn't matter. All his slowness from before vanished and he leapt overhead, spear spinning into position to impale her.
Grasping at what little she had, Tani wrapped Jaer's mental technique around herself, insulating her from the flood of sensations. Then she reluctantly drew on the skill Celivia had taught her to resist Efeinas and pushed the knife away. Even that wasn't enough and the spear was just overhead now, so Tani could only reach for her raw defiance of the Hero.
All at once she broke free, standing upright and slashing her sickle knife directly upward.
The spear hit the roof beside her a moment later, sending roof tiles shattering and knocking her to the side. Yet as Tani fell, she saw the line of blood appear on Subenor's chest. His eyes widened and he failed to come after her.
Veron lunged at his back, but he dodged away. Tani was disappointed that it hadn't been a disabling blow.
Yet when Subenor landed again and straightened, she saw the gash across the center of his chest. It was bleeding more than she expected, for how little it seemed to affect him. Subenor winced and raised his hand over the wound. She expected him to use his sein to stop the bleeding, yet instead he did something she didn't understand.
As his sein twisted violently, Subenor wiped his hand through the bloody injury, then he smeared the blood all over the tip of his spear. When it was coated he raised the bloody weapon toward them without any unnecessary movements. He was no longer smiling.
Chapter 65
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"Of one thing we can be certain: our armies will not stop until they have claimed the world, and the humans will not stop until all of us are dead."
-
The bladed whip twisted like an animal and sliced at him again. Slaten managed to knock it aside, hard enough that he didn't think Celivia could raise it again. That put him inside her range, with just enough time to thrust toward her.
Unfortunately, Celivia didn't become weak at close range. She pushed down his thrust with one horn of her knife and then whipped her hand straight back up, nearly cutting his face with the other horn. Slaten had no choice but to pull away as he struggled to bring his sword back into position. He lingered with her whip at his back until it started to move toward him, then sidestepped away and retreated.
His plan had been to force her to use her whip skills until she exhausted herself, but he was beginning to wonder if that would work. Celivia felt much stronger than before, which made sense if her sein had been poisoned for her disguise. If not for the fact that he was so familiar with her fighting style, holding his own would have been impossible.
Between their sparring and their real fighting at the resistance, he could keep up. But he was running out of ideas for how to tip the balance, while Celivia had more options. While he considered, Celivia started walking to the side, lashing her whip in front of her. No smiles now.
Unfortunately, the more they fought, the less he wanted to kill her. He needed to strike to kill every single time, because dulling his edge would cause him to lose as it had the last time. There seemed to be no solution on either side.
Slaten pretended to reposition his hands on his sword, then while his hand was off, released a bolt of pure sein. It struck Celivia in the chest... and she only dropped back a step.
Her whip lashed out and scraped the wall behind where he had been standing, removing any hope that he had taken her off guard. Though he might have surprised her a little with the movement, she'd chosen to take the strike and counterattack. His skill with sky sein might have improved, but Celivia's defenses had improved at least as much.
Since she wouldn't expect him to use the same tactic twice in a row, Slaten lunged in with his sword, and then swung with only one hand so that he could release another bolt.
Not at her body, this time, but at the hand holding her whip.
The handle flew out of her hand as her fingers flinched. Slaten pulled back the feint with one hand, put both hands back on his blade as he closed the distance, and slashed downward.
She managed to block his slash with her knife, which he'd expected. But a second later, her tail whipped out from her cloak, lashing at his hands. Even though he'd known it was coming and warned himself, his instincts simply weren't prepared for his opponent to have another limb that could move like that. By pulling back he managed to avoid a cut to his hands, but she knocked his sword from out of his grasp.
Celivia lunged in, her knife heading for his throat... and Slaten released another bolt directly upward in front of his face, knocking her knife out of her grip. She fell back, wringing her hand. He had a moment's chance to reach for his sword - and risk getting stabbed by her tail - or he could try to hit her while she was off-guard.
