Jess Lebow - The Darksteel Eye

Flesh tore, and light flooded in. Glissa was free.

Getting to her feet, the giant elf pulled the remaining bits of the thresher’s corpse from her head and looked down on a vedalken.

“Pontifex.”

The four-armed lord glared back at her. “You have taken from me my god. You have taken from me my kingdom.” He lifted a bloody sword in each hand. “Now I am going to take your life.”

The vedalken lunged at the elf, cutting two long gashes in her thigh before she could react. The wounds would have been much worse had Glissa not been so big, but they were still painful, and the elf gave ground.

Lifting off into the air on his hoverer, the vedalken brandished a pair of matched short swords. Pontifex shot forward, swooping around the giant elf, charging right at her head.

Glissa ducked, shuffling forward and putting her hand to the ground to keep from falling. The hoverer just missed her, tussling her hair as it shot past. Catching her balance, Glissa stood up and turned, keeping the vedalken where she could see him.

Pontifex stopped dead and with a thought twisted the hoverer in mid-air. Its nose pointed at Glissa, he rode at her again. This time Glissa sidestepped to her right, swatting at the vedalken as if he were a buzzing fly. Pontifex anticipated her move and swung the hoverer to his left, bringing the sharp edge of his blade across her shoulder.

The elf hissed at the wound and jerked away from the attack, bringing her other hand up in defense. Pontifex’s mind urged his vehicle away, but he was too close. The elf’s hand swung by him, swirling the air around his hoverer.

Pontifex bounced through the windstream, then the hoverer flipped over and spun, tossing the rider from his mount. The vedalken dropped to the ground.

Glissa lifted her foot in the air, prepared to step on her foe. “I’m going to squash you like a bug.” She lowered her foot, casting a great shadow.

Pontifex got to his knees. One of his left arms had been wounded in the fall, and he held it tight against his body. “I have nothing left to live for,” he said. He shouted a one-syllable spell, extending his two good arms out at the big elf.

A whirlwind of swirling blue energies enwrapped Glissa, whipping her hair about her head and draining from her the magics that had enlarged her to giant size. The elf shrank. The world around her grew larger, and the powers that had made her bigger and stronger were sucked away.

When she reached normal size, the whipping wind released her. The swirling storm glided over the ground, pushing the mossy covering this way and that, headed straight for the wounded vedalken.

Once again the storm enclosed its victim. Pontifex disappeared from view, surrounded entirely in the swirling energy. Then, just as quickly as it had started, the wind died, and the storm stopped, dropping away to reveal the vedalken beneath. Pontifex was fully healed, and he began to grow. His arms stretched and his legs lifted him high in the air. His head, already big for a vedalken, became larger than a troll’s.

The blue-skinned vedalken grew to titanic proportions, towering over the elf.

Glissa put her foot down. “Can we talk about this?”

Pontifex took a giant step forward, and Glissa had to jump to one side to avoid being squashed.

The elf darted away. Spotting a cluster of four or five small mycosynth monoliths, she made for the cover they provided. When she reached the growths, she fell in behind them, putting her back up against a monolith, trying to catch her breath. At least they were sharp, so Pontifex would have to think twice about trying to step on her.

“You cannot hide forever,” shouted the giant vedalken.

“Don’t count on it,” said Glissa under her breath.

Pontifex began pacing around the cluster. “Come out and face me.”

Glissa slid behind a different monolith, staying hidden and quiet.

The vedalken got down on his hands and knees, and peered into the middle of the mycosynth. Pontifex’s huge eye glared down on Glissa. Though she tried to scoot down, hiding between two of the metal formations, she couldn’t escape his gaze.

Reaching in with his enlarged finger, Pontifex poked around inside the cluster. He sneered, keeping his eye on her as he dug around for his prize, but the formation was too tightly packed, and he was too big. The sharp edges of the mycosynth cut his skin, and frustrated his attempts to get Glissa.

Finally Pontifex stood up. “Fine. We shall do this the hard way.” Waving his arms in the air, a wisp of blue mana flared from each of his four hands. The vedalken disappeared from sight.

Glissa stood up. She peered around the edge of the monolith. No Pontifex. Craning her neck, she looked the other way. No Pontifex.

Grabbing a handful of the mossy ground cover, she tapped into the flowing mana here in the interior and forced some into her hands. The sticky substance bent to her will, elongating and weaving itself into a long thin fiber. Folding over one end to make a thicker handle, Glissa gave her makeshift whip a quick flick. The end shot out and snapped with a loud pop. She nodded. It would do. She took a deep breath and burst into the open, guessing at where Pontifex must be.

Coming out from behind the cluster of monoliths, the elf lifted her whip for a quick, surprise strike-only there was no Pontifex. Spinning around, she scanned the area-still no Pontifex.

“Looking for me?” came a voice.

Glissa’s head darted. She looked up, down, side to side, but she couldn’t see anything. Dropping into a crouch, the elf spun a slow circle, trying to be prepared for anything.

Behind her, she heard the mossy ground shuffle, and she turned-too late. Something hard hit the back of her head, and the world spun. Glissa dropped her whip and fell.

* * * * *

Pontifex stood over the incapacitated elf. She rolled around on the ground, holding the back of her head, finally turning over on her back and looking up at him.

“That wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be.”

Glissa’s eyes were nearly crossed from the pain. He’d hit her hard. It was a wonder the blow hadn’t killed her outright.

But he was glad it hadn’t. He wanted this to last a while. He wanted to torture her as much as she had tortured him.

Dropping to his knees, he straddled the elf’s chest, pulling her arms down and pinning them under his legs. Then he grabbed her chin in one of his hands and examined her face, holding his matched short swords near her throat with two others.

“What is it that Memnarch sees in you?” Pontifex roughly shoved her head from side to side. “What is it you have that I do not?”

Glissa remained silent, her eyes mostly closed, her lips curled in a grimace of pain.

Pontifex shook his head. “How is it that such an insignificant creature could take my place at his side? Look at you. Your body has yet to evolve past having only two arms. What use is a creature such as this?”

Glissa’s eyes were beginning to clear. Though she was hardly lucid, it was evident that the pain in her head was beginning to subside.

“It’s no matter, really. Once I’ve killed you, Memnarch will have no choice but to take me back. He’ll see that I was the only choice and understand the folly of his thinking.” The vedalken nodded, decidedly convinced of his own words. “The only question now is how swiftly will your death come.”

The glowing blue blade of a vedalken halberd slipped up under his chin. “It will not come at all,” said a voice.

A cold chill ran down his spine, and Pontifex lifted his chin as far as it would go, touching the top of his head to his back. Another vedalken came into view.

“Marek,” he said, relief replacing the fear. “You startled me.” He reached up and put his fingers on the halberd blade, pushing it away.