Cory Herndon - The Fifth Dawn

Glissa once again focused on the spark. Malil was as much an artifact as the levelers. He didn’t know what he was getting into. Glissa’s inner eye saw the spark, saw magic dancing around it in her heart, and willed destruction at Memnarch’s charging lackey.

Nothing happened. Again.

Malil’s sword arm whistled through the air at Glissa’s skull, and she was able to raise her own weapon in time to deflect most of the blow, though the metal man drew first blood when his blade clipped Glissa’s shoulder on its way past her head. The powerful strike threw Glissa off-balance, but she recovered quickly and danced back, tossing her blade back and forth in her hands, taunting her foe. She hadn’t wanted to destroy this one quickly, anyway. And it would be good practice for fighting her true enemy.

Glissa waited for Malil to relax slightly then swung in with an uppercut that her enemy blocked easily. She slashed back with the not-quite-balanced ersatz scimitar. She could handle it well enough by instinct, but her specialty was the longsword.

Malil’s unreal speed caught her off guard. The elf girl couldn’t believe how fast Memnarch’s servant was on his feet and with the blade. Malil moved in again, but Glissa caught his sword-arm with her curved blade, spun her arm to envelop the blade, then snapped it back in a disarm move. With an ordinary foe, she might have won then and there, but her attempt only snapped off that end of the quicksliver sword. The rest was still attached to Malil.

“You are here for Memnarch,” Malil said as new quicksilver flowed into place in a heartbeat. “You are here for his reasons, and to suit his purposes. You are here for him. And so are you, goblin.”

“Yeah, wanted to ask someone about that….” Slobad began.

“I thought I was Daddy’s favorite,” Glissa said. “He doesn’t need the goblin.”

Malil and Glissa’s duel continued for several minutes with neither gaining a clear advantage. Glissa tried to press the metal man to the lip of the tunnel, hoping to knock Malil off balance long enough for a fatal strike. But Malil turned her attack at the last second and drove Glissa back. Malil matched her strike for strike, parry for parry, and didn’t even seem to be breaking a sweat. Not that he would, Glissa supposed.

“How long can you keep this up, elf girl?” Malil taunted as their blades locked and the pair grappled for advantage. “You will tire. I will not.”

“You might be surprised,” Glissa said. “I get a lot of exercise.” She let loose a yell and swung the leveler weapon with all her might at the metal man’s abdomen. The blade slid through Malil easily, like a knife through a quicksilverfish, and came out the other side with a slurping sound.

The slash hadn’t even left a mark on Malil. One second, he’d been solid, the next he’d been liquid, and it was as if she’d tried to slice the sea in half with an oar. The metal man’s chest swirled and solidified before her eyes, and her foe chuckled.

“Oh, I enjoy surprises,” Malil said. “Did you like that one?”

“Not so much,” Glissa replied, dodging Malil’s sudden lunge. How was she going to fight this creature?

That, Glissa thought, was the problem. She was relying too much on this single blade, but she had other weapons: imagination, creativity, her own limbs…and, if she could concentrate for a few seconds, magic. Unfortunately, Malil wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to concentrate if he could help it.

Okay then, the limbs. Glissa danced back out of Malil’s reach, blocking a strike only if she couldn’t dodge it. The metal man pressed what he thought was his advantage, and Glissa soon had to block as many thrusts and slashes as she dodged. She had to try something soon, she thought as the tip of Malil’s blade sliced neatly through her cheek. Glissa ignored the sting on the side of her face and made ready. The metal man was definitely close enough now.

Glissa caught Malil off guard as he followed through with an especially ferocious strike, and brought a knee up into his groin. The metal man doubled over and staggered back, stunned, then dropped to all fours, coughing. Guess you’re not all metal, Glissa mused. She followed up with a boot to Malil’s face that knocked him onto his back.

“Surprise,” Glissa said.

On a good day, at full strength, she would have followed through and taken Malil’s head. But she wasn’t sure the blade would work any better on the artificial man’s head than it did on his ribs, and she was emotionally and physically exhausted. It was time to make a break for it. If they could get into the interior, they might have a chance. She realized now, though, that facing Memnarch might be suicidal. She was having enough trouble with the Guardian’s henchman.

Glissa spared a quick glance at the spot she thought she’d left Slobad-the shape of the lacuna and lack of landmarks outside made it tricky to be sure she was looking at the right place-but the goblin was gone. With one eye on Malil, who was clutching his abdomen with one hand and struggling to get back to his feet, she scanned the inside of the lacuna, trying to find some trace of her goblin friend. Nothing.

“Lose something?” Malil asked.

“Where is he?”

“I told you. He was here for Memnarch. Memnarch has taken him.”

“No!” Glissa cried, and rushed the smug, grinning, mockery that had taken her last friend. The ferocity of her attack caught Malil by surprise, and he steadily gave up ground, backing slowly toward the end of the lacuna. Sparks flew as their blades clashed. Still Glissa pressed on, driven by fury. Malil reached the lip of the tunnel and teetered on the edge.

With a yell, Glissa swung the heavy scythe-arm like a hammer, causing Malil to jerk sideways to avoid the blade. The elf girl’s leveler scimitar came down on Malil’s wrist, and she felt the blade connect with flesh and bone. Yes, definitely not all metal.

The makeshift sword cut clean through her foe’s wrist. Malil’s sword-hand clanged against the floor, and the blade melted into a puddle of silver. Scarlet blood sprayed from the stump of Malil’s wrist, and the metal man gaped in shock. He obviously hadn’t expected this, yet he didn’t scream. Didn’t make a sound, in fact.

“Well, what do you know,” Glissa said with a smirk. “Like father, like son.”

Malil slowly clamped his remaining hand over the bleeding end of his right forearm, and squeezed. The flow of blood slowed to a trickle. The metal man winced.

Glissa couldn’t ask for a better opening than that. She took three steps toward her stunned enemy and drew the scimitar back for a clean cut through Malil’s neck. The metal man simply looked up from his stump, smiled, and twitched his intact hand in an imperceptible movement. The elf girl heard a sound like a knife scraping a whetstone, and a second sword-length blade popped into existence, this one extending directly from the stump of Malil’s wrist.

Unfortunately for Glissa, by the time the weapon had fully extended, the business end was sticking out of her lower back.

Since he’d met Glissa, Slobad had been in danger on countless occasions. The goblin had been shot at, stabbed, cut, singed; gained and lost more friends than he wanted to think about; endured leonin threats and shamanic torture; found himself imprisoned by crazy elves and put on trial for a crime he hadn’t even seen, let alone committed; and was once briefly buried under a stump by a giant beetle that had mistaken Slobad for baby food.

The goblin would have rather have gone through all of those experiences, one after another, all over again, than be where he was right now. He wriggled in the iron grip of three strong hands, each big enough to cover the goblin’s head. As if to confirm his assessment, a fourth hand clamped over his mouth, forcing him to take deep breaths through his pointed nose. Held fast, Slobad assessed his predicament as best he could.