from what Josef could see, unless he was hiding something under the ratty black cape that covered his chest, shoulders, and arms.
Sted met Josef’s gaze, baring his teeth like a dog. “What is this?” he said. “Are you a cripple now? Stand and fight, if you can.”
“I am standing,” Josef said flatly. “But even if I couldn’t, I could still beat you. After all”—the swordsman smirked—“I’ve done it before, with worse injuries than these. By the way, how’s your arm?”
Sted’s eyes flashed with anger. “You’ll see soon enough,” he growled. He turned to the man beside him, the only one of the group of bruisers who didn’t look like he smashed rocks with his face for a living. “This one’s mine. Get the girl.”
Behind him, Josef felt Nico cower.
“Nico,” he said, his voice low. “Run.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head furiously.
“Do it.” Josef’s voice strained as he lifted his weight off the Heart.
“No,” Nico said again.
Josef glared over his shoulder. “Don’t be an idiot. I saw what happened up by the mountain. I’ve seen your arm. If you fight to win here like you are, you could lose everything we’ve worked for. Run, I’ll find you. I promise.”
Nico stared at him, clutching the arm she hid beneath her coat, her dark eyes wide. Then, without another word, she turned and ran.
She tore around the cabin, sprinting wildly through the trees. Josef watched her until she vanished over the closest rise, and then he turned back to Sted. As he did so, he noticed that the man Sted had spoken to, the one who didn’t look like a bandit, was already gone.
Coldly, slowly, Josef put it out of his mind. He’d done what he could for Nico. If he was going to survive to keep his promise, he’d need all his concentration for the fight ahead.
Sted waved his arm, and the bandits fell back, taking cover in the ring of trees around the cabin. Josef stayed put, conserving his energy. His sword felt heavy as lead in his hands, a sure sign he was at his limit, even with the Heart’s help. His only hope was to beat Sted in one blow. His eyes flicked to Sted’s covered shoulders. Unless all League men could reform their bodies like the Lord of Storms, that cape was probably there to hide Sted’s missing arm. That is, if Sted was even a League man anymore. Without a coat or a sword, Josef wasn’t sure. But he could feel the Heart warning him through the warm metal not to be cocky. League or not, whole or not, Sted was no one to take lightly. He gripped his sword tighter. He’d done this before. One good blow, that was all he needed.
The clearing fell silent as Sted, still seemingly unarmed, took his position. Warily, Josef matched him, keeping the Heart close. Overhead, the treetops danced in the wind. Leather creaked as the bandits eased their weapons into their sheaths, but Sted did not move. Josef’s hands grew sweaty against the Heart’s hilt. He turned them slowly, keeping his blade even with Sted’s chest and his eyes on Sted’s feet. The blow would come from Sted’s right hand, whipping out from under the cape. He could see it already. All he needed was a hint to when it was coming and this fight would be over. The ground crunched as Sted’s heavy boots dug into the dirt. Josef sucked in a breath. This was it.
He stepped forward, bracing the Heart for the blow just as Sted’s feet vanished. Josef stumbled, eyes darting frantically. There was no way Sted was that fast, but the man was no longer in front of him. Even as his brain was finishing the thought, the Heart tugged hard in his hands. Josef spun on instinct, raising his sword just in time as the enormous man lunged out of the cabin’s shadow.
The Heart met Sted’s attack in a horrible squeal of metal, and Josef’s knees buckled under the onslaught. His instincts were screaming at him to dodge back, get a better position, but Josef couldn’t move. He just stood there, staring, trying to make sense of what his eyes saw.
Sted towered over him, taller than ever. His cape was gone and he was bearing down on the Heart with his arm, his left arm, the arm that should not be there. He had no sword, no weapon. He’d stopped the Heart’s blade with his hand. No, Josef couldn’t even call it a hand. It was a claw. An enormous black claw clutching the Heart’s cutting edge with five talons curved in a mockery of fingers. Even as Josef realized what he was looking at, the Heart began to buck in his hands.
It was a signal that needed no interpretation. At once, Josef jumped back, wrenching his sword out of Sted’s black grip. He danced across the clearing, keeping the Heart close to his chest until he was out of Sted’s reach. Only then did he look down. There, on the blade’s cutting edge where Sted’s hand had touched it, were five shallow notches in the exact shape of Sted’s talons. The metal wasn’t dented or broken. It was simply gone.
Back by the cabin, Sted straightened up. “What do you think?” he said, spreading his arms wide. “Still feeling cocky?”
It took all of Josef’s determination not to look away. There was something incredibly wrong, something vastly inhuman about the black thing growing out of Sted’s left shoulder. It hung crooked from his frame, a foot longer than his still-human right arm and twice as large, bulging with muscles that twitched and spasmed. But most horrible of all was the spot where the black arm connected. Just below his shoulder, Sted’s pale skin and the black abomination met in a twist of red, raw flesh.
At once, everything came together. The fast movement, jumping through shadows, the arm… Slorn may have thought it was impossible for a nonwizard to become a demonseed, but Josef knew those signs well enough. He looked down at his injured sword. They needed a different strategy.
Straightening up, Josef flipped the Heart in his hands and plunged it point first into the ground. He could feel the metal clinging to his skin, warning him not to do this, but there was nothing else to be done. If Sted was a demon, then fighting him with the Heart would only make him stronger and the Heart weaker. There would be no winning that way, and so Josef let the Heart go. The moment his fingers left the wrapped hilt, he felt his wounds seize up. A tide of pain and dizziness swept over him, and he nearly fell. He planted his feet at the last moment, steadying himself in a fighter’s stance, and thrust his hand toward the bandits standing at the edge of the circle.
“Sword. Now.”
He heard the bandits shuffle, but he kept his eyes on Sted. The enormous man looked skeptical for a moment, then he nodded, and Josef heard the familiar sound of a blade sliding from a sheath followed by the thunk of metal on the dirt beside him. Without looking, he ducked down, hand sliding across the leaf litter until his fingers found the hilt, and brought his new sword up with a flourish.
Sted’s face broke into a cruel smile. “You’re going to fight me with that?”
Josef glanced at the sword in his hand. It was pathetically short, more like a long knife than a sword, and dull gray with tarnish.
“It’s a blade,” Josef said. “That’s all a swordsman needs.”
“Really?” Sted grinned wide. “Show me.”
The words had barely reached Josef’s ears before Sted was on top of him. Josef caught Sted’s open claws a second before they landed in his head, digging his feet into the dirt as his poor, dull sword fought to hold the parry inches from Josef’s face. Above him, Sted’s eyes began to glow like embers, and the dull metal of the sword started to hiss as Sted’s claws bit into it. Hiss, and then vanish.
Josef ducked and rolled, breaking the parry and dragging his sword to safety, but Sted didn’t let him go. He lashed out, claws digging through Josef’s shirt and into the flesh beneath. Josef gasped and rolled away, but it was mostly instinct. His head was getting fuzzy as he scrambled in the dirt, wiggling out of Sted’s grip just in time to catch the next swipe on what was left of his sword. But even as he raised his arm, he felt his muscles going slack. The damage from the Lord of Storms that the Heart had been holding back for him was building up again. His vision was dimming until he could barely see Sted break his parry with a sideways swipe. The sword tumbled from his fingers, breaking into pieces as it hit the ground, and Josef would have followed if Sted had not grabbed what was left of his shirt.
“What is this?” Sted’s voice roared in his ear. Josef felt his feet leave the ground as Sted lifted him by his collar. “What happened to your back? You’re so bloody you can barely stand. Is this how you face me? Is this the best you can offer?”
Josef tried to point out that Sted had been the one bellowing at his door, not the other way around, but all he managed was a choked gurgle. It was very hard to breathe with Sted holding him up by his neck.
