I pulled two more bands and spun them into the sky. With no warning, the sky flung down a deluge, and I focused it on Memweck. He collapsed under the water’s power and tried to crawl behind his statue. Pil fired the hexed bow, and the arrow shattered the statue, two stone benches, and a palm tree. It landed in a pond, launching ornamental fish in all directions.
I pulled another white band, and another, and five more. A bolt of lightning struck directly on top of Memweck’s form, followed by six more lightning bolts in ten seconds. The furious storm had spent most of its water, so the cascade soon stopped pounding Memweck.
Memweck stood up. His trousers had been burned off, and I saw that he would have been welcome at his orgy, but I did not see a single burn or mark on him.
It didn’t really surprise me. If anyone could resist natural phenomena like water and lightning, it would be a god, or a demigod. I pulled the last of ten yellow bands I had thrown since the bridge, and an appalling roar sounded from behind me.
Two great brown bears loped off the bridge and charged Memweck. He cocked his head at them.
Memweck peered at the bears as if I’d broken some rule. “Wait . . .”
The two bears smashed into the demigod at almost the same time, and all three creatures tumbled forty feet across the grass. I hung back with my sword drawn. I couldn’t add a thing to the fury of that attack.
One bear rolled away from the tussle and clambered back to its feet, shaking its head. The other was crushing Memweck’s head in its jaws. Lying on his back, Memweck punched the bear over and over on both sides. The bear let go and roared. Memweck scrambled to his knees, and when the bear leaped at him, he punched it in the forehead. The bear collapsed and didn’t move.
Pil fired again, striking Memweck in the throat, but the arrow ricocheted off, nearly impaled Smif, and hurtled over the bridge out of sight.
“My lord!” Smif shouted from a hundred feet away as he threw a sword at Memweck. While the other bear ran at him, Memweck grabbed the sword out of the air, swung, and sliced off the bear’s head.
“Nicely done, Murderer!” Memweck called out as he threw the sword back to Smif. “I thought this would be boring!”
Pil fired again. Memweck snatched the arrow out of the air. He bounded to a small stone bench and hurled it over a hundred feet. It smashed Pil straight across the chest and her crossed arms. She bounced twice, rolled three times, and came to rest, not moving.
Memweck laughed and walked toward me in no hurry. He had almost reached another statue when I spotted Halla crouched down behind it where he couldn’t see her. She was holding the Bloom thing hammer close to her chest. I didn’t know how she had gotten there. Maybe she had run out to that hiding place while the lightning bolts fell.
Halla popped out and swung a horrific blow at Memweck’s belly. The demigod cried out in pain and bent over. I sprinted toward Halla to help her. She followed with a massive overhead smash to Memweck’s skull, but his hand shot up with unbelievable speed and grabbed the weapon’s handle to stop the blow. Halla struggled, but Memweck pulled the hammer out of her hands. Then he shoved the tall, marble statue. It toppled over onto Halla, and she didn’t move.
Memweck lifted the hammer. “Oh, this is pretty.” He held it by the head with one hand and the end of the handle with the other. Then he smiled at me like a happy dog, flexed, and broke the handle in half.
I had almost reached Memweck, moving at a dead run. He laughed. “You don’t plan to hit me with that sword, do you?” He aimed a punch at my right shoulder. I dropped my shoulder enough so that the blow just grazed me, but it knocked my sword out of my hand and left my arm tingling. Memweck bent to pick up my sword, and he threw it toward the building, at least three hundred feet away.
As Memweck turned back to me, I used my numb hand to draw the knife Pil had enchanted for me. I twisted and drove it into Memweck’s right eye with all my strength. It bounced off. The last two inches of the knife blade were bent.
I ran like hell. I didn’t expect it would help anything, but I figured nothing would help at that point.
“Where do you think you’re going, sorcerer boy? Although I admit that this is a lot of fun.”
I reached the spot where the bench had crashed into Pil, and I grabbed the hexed bow. Then I scrambled around searching for an arrow, but I couldn’t find a single damn one.
Memweck grabbed me by the left shoulder, turned me to face him, and squeezed. I heard bones and tendons split, and I felt grateful that my shoulder was numb.
“I know I shouldn’t play with you, but it will make a better story to tell my father.” Memweck yelled, “Are you writing all this down, Smif?”
“Yes, my lord. It will make a blasting great song.”
Memweck kicked my left thigh. It snapped in two with a bang, bending in the middle to almost ninety degrees. I fell to my right knee and threw back my head. My mouth was open, and I realized I was screaming.
I was face-to-face with the demigod’s belly button. It was stupid, since I was about to die, but I wondered what a divine being was doing with a belly button. Then I saw a dab of blood in it. The hexed bow was still in my right hand. I jammed the end of the bow into
