“Oh my God, was that cool or what?” The voice belonged to a young guy, coming this way by the sound of it.
“You have got to be the king of first dates!” Sweet-sounding girl. Cruising for a make-out spot?
Yale’s eyes glowed as he nodded at me and licked his lips with the tip of that grisly pink tongue.
“There they are,” he whispered to me. “The boy has been Marked by his ex-girlfriend. I was going to share him with Wu, but given the circumstances, why don’t I treat you to dessert?”
Yale pulled aside a flap on the right leg of his sleek leather pants that hid a long, slender sword. I used his momentary distraction to draw Grief. Taking a deep breath, I yelled, “Get lost, kids! There’s a maniac with a sword over here!” Girly scream and sounds of running feet. Apparently they’d seen some horror flicks recently and knew better than to come exploring. Good for them.
Yale, having seen his share of battles, didn’t stay surprised long. Still, I had time to nail him with every bit of ammunition Grief held. Bullets. Bolts. They backed him up, gave me room to kick in the only blade left on me worth using. Vayl’s.
I twisted the blue jewel at the hilt, launching the carved sheath at the reaver. It hit him in the throat.
Clearly he’d been parrying and riposting since long before my Granny’s gran was a baby.
God, he could wield that blade. Was it actually coming faster or was I just getting worse?
I grabbed the chain around my neck and yanked. “Ow!” Chains always break easily in movies. This one may have caused minor whiplash. But that was fine and dandy, because suddenly I understood about the Spirit Eye.
As I parried a slash that saved a good part of my forearm I noted the heat in Cirilai. Even for those few minutes I had felt disturbingly incomplete without it. Its increased warmth assured me Vayl was on his way. I just needed to survive.
But maybe I could do more.
Yale’s shield showed plainly against the backdrop of the shoreline, no longer a single color now, but deep velvety black with lighter areas of purple and blue where I’d hit him and, theoretically at least, weakened his resistance. It didn’t waver the way the first two reavers’ had, however. Not encouraging when sliding a weapon in those breaks was the only way I’d found to kill them.
He fought purely as a swordsman, and it took all my concentration to keep him from slicing and dicing me like a sack of Idaho russets. But I wasn’t beneath throwing in a kick or a punch when I could manage them. It felt like connecting with an old freezer, but the shield lightened in those spots too.
I kept moving, trying not to let him back me into the water where I’d be trapped. But with all my attention on that swift, sharp sword of his, I had none left for footing. I stepped into one of the craters left by Lung’s explosive spikes and went down, the breath bursting from my lungs so utterly I lay there gasping like an asthmatic.
Yale grinned, the tip of his tongue wagging free as he swung his sword in a long arc, meaning to split me wide open. I rolled clear, the blade slicing the point where my throat had been seconds earlier. Just as quickly I spun back, using the trick he’d pulled on me at Sustenance to catch him behind the knee. Already somewhat off balance, he fell easily.
Just now it saw ratty Jaz and stunned Yale lying on the ground mere yards from a gazebo containing a badly mutilated corpse. Yale moved better than Jaz, which did not bode well for her future health. Especially since his shield, while wearing the purples, blues, and even yellows of a bad bruise, still seemed wholly intact. However, a ridge in the middle of his forehead was rimmed in bright, glowing red like a big, circular target.
Snapping back to myself, I bear crawled over to Yale, grabbed him by the shoulders, and head-butted him so hard that for a second my regular vision completely winked out. It returned just as Yale staggered to his feet and retrieved his sword. Spurt of fear as I realized I didn’t know where my weapons had gone. In fact, the last thirty seconds were kinda hazy. I put my hand to my forehead and felt the bump.
That delay had allowed Yale to formulate his next plan of attack. He came at me, swinging his sword in a circle as if to take my head off. But his pace, slow and unsteady, gave me the time to duck and scramble away.
I lost my balance and fell from trying to move too fast with a battered brain. But it worked out for the best. When I crawled across something hard and sharp I realized I’d found Vayl’s sword. What luck! Maybe my knee wouldn’t feel the same later on. But it’s really all about perspective.
I meant to jump to my feet and wade into the battle, but the dizzies returned, so it became more of a wide- footed waddle. How I was going to defend my life, much less defeat the reaver, I wasn’t sure. He walked toward me, his expression changing from caution to confidence with each step. He swung once, twice, three times, and each time I barely saved my neck. The fourth time a large, glittering arm intervened. Yale’s sword went
“I am sorry it took me so long to get back down the hill,” he said. “I believe your transmitter has fallen off, and Cirilai did not warn me of your danger until just now.”
