Marsheila Rockwell - The Shard Axe

“With any luck,” Aggar parroted the words back to her sarcastically. “Says the woman not being used as a training dummy by a gigantic walking boulder.”

“If you’ve got a better idea …?”

Aggar gave her a sour look.

“That’s what I thought. Besides, are you honestly going to tell me that one of those rings of yours doesn’t have some spell to harden your skin? That used to be a favorite trick of yours during sparring sessions back at the safehouse.”

“Of course I have one that does that, but it’s meant for use against opponents who are roughly my same size—not ones that are ten times bigger. What good is it going to do against that?” he asked as the elemental, who’d moved closer while they argued, slammed a massive fist down on the cavern floor mere feet from where they stood, shaking the ground and leaving a crater big enough to swallow both of them whole.

“It’s better than nothing,” Sabira answered as they scrambled backward yet again. “Now, are we going to do this or not? We’re running out of chasm, here.”

“Well, if I’d known I was going to die today, I would have at least worn a shirt,” the dwarf muttered, mostly to himself. Then to Sabira he said, more loudly, “Let’s do it.”

He didn’t wait for her to reply. Instead, he touched one of his rings and said, “Stone.” Then he hefted his greataxe and ran nimbly back toward the elemental. When he was almost in range of the creature’s fists, he stopped, waving the weapon over his head and yelling.

“Over here, you gutless brute! You want to smash something? Smash this! ”

Aggar darted forward and sliced at one of the elemental’s legs, his enruned greataxe leaving a bloodless gash where an ankle would normally be. Then he jumped back again before the cumbersome creature could bring its fists to bear. The earth elemental let out another thunderous roar like the echoes of a subterranean cataract and slammed a massive forearm down, nearly catching Aggar across the back. As the dwarf tumbled away and leaped to his feet again, Sabira dashed around the elemental, giving it a wide berth as Aggar continued to taunt the dim-witted monstrosity.

When she was behind the elemental, she waved her own weapon high, her signal to Aggar to begin implementing his part of the plan.

“Khoot! Khoot!” he yelled, giving Sabira’s old Karrnathi battle cry to show he’d seen the motion. “Come on, you mass of mud! Impress me!”

As the elemental swung at him again, Aggar ducked and twisted out of the way, just enough to let the blow clip him on the shoulder. Even so, it sent him flying, almost to the edge of the precipice overlooking the river of magma.

The elemental closed in, intent on finishing its prey, and Sabira seized her chance. She darted in between its legs as it went after Aggar, waiting until its airborne foot had nearly descended and driving her shard axe in the ground in front of the foot that would be moving next. She hunched over, grasped the haft firmly with both hands, and braced herself for the impact.

The elemental’s other foot hit the ground and it raised the one she was planted in front of. But even with the urgrosh enhancing her stability, she just wasn’t big or heavy enough to stop it. Instead, the creature’s foot caught her mid-thigh and sent her and her shard axe arcing through the air to land several feet ahead of its advance.

Right in the path of that same foot, now plummeting toward her at an alarming rate.

Sabira rolled out of the way just in time, narrowly avoiding having her legs smashed by a toe nearly as large as she was.

She lay there for a moment, still stunned by the force of her landing. As she watched, the elemental’s foot slammed down again, this time on a thick stalagmite. The sharp formation was not crushed beneath the creature’s weight; it was too massive. Instead, it pierced the thing’s foot like a needle. And when the elemental went to take another step, its foot stuck on the stalagmite for just an instant before the thrusting formation broke off under the power of the creature’s stride.

The elemental slammed a fist down again, trying to squash Aggar, who was still hurling insults the creature could only dimly comprehend, like some persistent, buzzing gnat. She could see the dwarf leap to the side, but he was out of room. The elemental would be on him in just another step or two.

Well, if it worked for the stalagmite …

Sabira jumped up and ran for the elemental, dodging the deep hollows it left in its wake. She reached the creature just as it was about to take the final step that would bring Aggar into range of both fists, with nowhere for the dwarf to run.

She stationed herself in front of the thing’s earthbound foot and plunged the Siberys shard-tip of her urgrosh through it with all her might. She felt it lodge into something hard and firm. Bedrock.

As the elemental went to raise its foot, it caught on Sabira’s shard axe, just as it had on the stalagmite. But where the stalagmite had barely fazed the creature, the urgrosh, planted deep in unyielding stone, was not so easily dislodged.

With its weight already moving forward on that side, and no leg to support it, the elemental hitched and began to fall. Its heavy arms hit the edge of the chasm, and the ground crumbled beneath them. Aggar scrambled away in time, but Sabira, still pinned to the elemental’s foot with her shard axe, had no place to go.

She struggled to retract the urgrosh from the underlying stone, working it furiously back and forth, fearful for a moment that she might somehow break either the dragonshard tip or the leather-wrapped haft, but better either of those things than her. The shard axe came loose from the bedrock, but would not come free from the creature itself. Sabira had only moments to choose: give up the weapon or go to her death still vainly clinging to it.

Then Aggar was there, adding his strength to hers, and together they worked the tip free and jumped clear as the last of the elemental’s footing disappeared from under it, and it pitched headlong into the eager magma below, roaring wordlessly. Moments later, a resounding splash echoed through the cavern, and the ground rumbled in reply.

Aggar regained his feet first and went to the edge of the chasm, peering over to make sure their foe was really gone, swallowed whole by the river of molten rock below.

He watched for a moment, frowning, then turned back to her.

“We’d better find what we’re looking for quickly. I think the magma’s starting to rise. I had the engineers in Maintenance working on something to stop it, just in case Goldglove’s fantasies proved real, but we’ll have to get to their main station on that level to activate it, and well before the magma gets there, or it won’t work.”

Sabira nodded and started to rise, but her ankle had been twisted beneath her during her fall, and it was slow going. Aggar moved back to help her, holding out his hand.

“Careful, I think I broke a rib. It’s a good thing my spell didn’t wear off until after that jump—”

His words were cut short by a gasp of mingled surprise and pain as the tip of a pulsing black blade burst from his stomach in a foul parody of birth, with what looked like a stunted third arm emerging instead of a child.

As Aggar fell forward, sliding off the short sword and barely missing her, Sabira saw the blade’s owner—a cloaked and hooded figure that had literally appeared out of nowhere.

“A good thing, indeed,” the figure said, drawing back his blade for another blow.

And that’s when Sabira saw the ring.

Gold, set with a large black stone with a glowing blue heart. A Khyber shard.

A nightshard .

Sabira had seen the twin of that ring once before.