“Fantastically entertaining as it is to watch two grown men try to kill each other, we’ve got a schedule to keep. What do you think you’re doing?”
This last bit was a shout as Eli suddenly dropped to his knees and reached down into the arena.
“Helping,” Eli said, grabbing the shoddy sword on the wall below him. “He’ll lose unless he can get a blade that will actually be able to finish Sted, and no one benefits if Josef loses.”
“Put that down!” Sparrow shouted, jerking Eli’s leash. But the rope unraveled in his hands, slipping off Eli’s neck with a snicker.
Eli looked over his shoulder and gave Sparrow a wide grin. “Don’t ever forget who you’re dealing with, bird boy. Next time, you should listen to Miranda.”
“Tesset!” Sparrow shouted. “Grab him!”
“No point,” Tesset said. “He’ll just get out again. Besides, if he was going to run, he wouldn’t have slipped the rope here where he’s cornered.”
“Excellent observation,” Eli said, nodding sagely as he sat down on the arena’s edge.
Sparrow had no answer. He just stood there, sputtering, as Eli placed the warped sword in his lap. Nico leaned in to watch as Eli began knocking on the blade with his fist.
“You’d better wake up,” he shouted. “You’re missing everything!”
For a moment nothing happened. The sword, its uneven surface a mottled mix of gray and black, just lay there. Eli kept knocking, harder now, and shouted again. “You’re missing the chance of a lifetime!”
The sword rattled in his hand, and then, very slowly, a tiny voice said, “What?”
“At last,” Eli said. “I was beginning to worry you’d sleep right through it.”
“Right through what?” the sword said, sounding more alarmed.
“The fight of your life,” Eli said. “Look down in that arena. You’re going to be in the hands of the greatest swordsman in the world, the Master of the Heart of War itself!”
The sword’s anxiety began to wane. “The what?”
Eli rolled his eyes. “The greatest awakened blade ever created. Do you have any idea what an honor you’ve been selected for?”
He waited for an answer, but the sword remained silent. A second later, Nico realized it had fallen back asleep.
“Damn small spirits,” Eli grumbled, whacking the blade against the arena wall. “Come on, wake up.”
“What?” the sword said again.
Eli shook his head and tried a different approach.
“Are you ready?” he said, his voice brimming with excitement.
“Ready for what?”
“To fight,” Eli said. “You’re a sword. It’s your purpose.”
“I’m a sword?” The sword rolled back and forth in his hand. “Since when?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Eli said, grabbing the sword by the hilt. “Now, I want you to go out there and give it your all.”
“Powers!” The sword rocked itself toward the arena. “Do you see what’s happening down there? Look at all those broken swords!”
“Failures,” Eli said. “Listen, everything depends on this. Don’t fail me. And don’t go back to sleep. You stay together, no matter what it takes, do you hear me?”
“I’m not going down there!” the sword shouted.
“Forget those other swords,” Eli shouted back. “They were weak. You’re different. You’re going to win!”
“I don’t want to win!” The sword was vibrating madly in Eli’s hand. “Get me out of here! I never asked to be a sword!”
“You have to fight,” Nico said. “That man is a demonseed.”
Eli and the sword both turned to stare at her. Nico shrank back, unsure if she’d overstepped her boundaries, but Josef was dying down there. She had to go on.
The sword wobbled uncertainly. “He doesn’t look like a demonseed to me.”
“He’s a special kind of seed,” she said, taking the sword from Eli, careful to keep her coat draped over her hands. “One made to hide from spirits and eat them when they’re not looking. That’s why the League can’t find him, and that’s why you have to stop it.”
“Me?” the sword said. “No, no, no. I don’t want to be eaten.”
“You’ll have a strong ally,” Nico said, pointing at Josef. “The greatest swordsman in the world. But he needs a sword. You have to stand up to that demon. You have to fight!”
The sword didn’t answer. It sat there, trembling in her hand. Then, all at once, the trembling stopped. “Do it,” the sword said, its tiny voice suddenly calm and collected.
Nico stood, shouting Josef’s name as she rose. Across the arena, Josef looked up from his struggle against Sted’s hold. The moment he did, Nico threw the sword at him. It flew through the air in an unnaturally straight arc, screaming vengeance and death to the demon as it went. Josef caught the blade one-handed and dragged it across Sted’s human arm.
The sword cut like a razor, going straight and deep into Sted’s elbow. Sted screamed and lost his hold on Josef’s shoulder just long enough for the swordsman to spin away. Nico cheered, and beside her, Eli gawked, amazed.
“How did you know that would do it?”
Nico looked at him. “All spirits hate demons,” she said quietly. “Normally, the fear keeps all but the strongest of them from fighting. But Sted isn’t a wizard. He can’t open his spirit, and so the fear isn’t broadcast. Without the crippling fear, even small spirits are free to be heroes.”
Eli pursed his lips. “That’s actually quite brilliant.”
“Thank you,” Nico said, surprised, but all the good feelings from the compliment faded when she looked back at Josef, who was bracing for Sted’s next charge. “It won’t be enough, though. Even awake and trying its best, that sword can’t become something it’s not. It’s still pot metal, and Sted is still a demon.”
“Then we’ll just have to overwhelm him,” Eli said, reaching down to grab two more swords from the arena wall. “I’ll wake them up; you get them going.”
Nico grinned wide. “Right.”
They worked quickly. Some swords didn’t want to fight, and Nico set them aside. Others, though, were ready from the moment Nico told them Sted was a demonseed. These she tossed to Josef. He caught each one, sticking it point down in the sand beside him. The first sword they’d thrown him was already whittled down to a sliver, but it was still fighting, slashing Sted like a blade five times its sharpness.
Sted ignored the swords at first, attacking Josef with single-minded purpose. But as the blades began to build up, and the blade in Josef’s hands refused to break like all the others, his focus began to shift.
“What?” he shouted, swiping at Josef’s head. “You think it matters that your swords aren’t snapping like rotten wood anymore?” He thrust his arm into the air, proudly displaying the gash that Josef had made earlier, which was now little more than a red line on his skin. “You can’t beat what you can’t kill, Liechten! Not without real power. Give up! You don’t have a hope without the Heart.”
But Josef just smiled, dodging his swipe neatly while catching the next sword Nico threw with one hand. He swung his swords, one fresh, one eaten to nothing but still holding on, and announced in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “The day I need the Heart to beat an amateur like you is the day I give up swordsmanship.”
Furious, Sted launched into a mad charge, and that was when Josef struck. He jumped out of the way and spun, bringing his swords down on the back of Sted’s neck so hard the larger man lurched forward, landing in the sand with a grunt. As soon as he was down, Josef was on top of him, ramming sword after sword into his back. Sted bellowed in pain, but Josef only moved faster. He filled Sted up like a pincushion, using every sword Nico and Eli had woken for him. Nico could hear the blades all the way at the edge of the arena. They screamed at the demon, pressing down with all their might, turning to widen the wounds even as they pinned Sted to the sand.
Plunging the last sword down into Sted’s spine, Josef stepped back. He was panting, sweat and blood running down his sides, but his face was triumphant. Sted thrashed on the ground like a speared bull in front of him, the sand turning black as his blood ran down the swords. The blades hissed as he devoured them, but this
