I took a step forward and ensured that Kumi was safely behind me.
“I’m not going to let you do this,” I said to Cadrin.
“Oh, really?” Cadrin smiled smugly. “If you’re so powerful, why haven’t you struck me down with all of your power, oh, mighty one? You really think you can stop me?”
“I’m damn sure I can. Only reason you’re not ash in the wind is Labu.” I strengthened my battered Frozen Armor and took another step forward. “He’s a man of torn loyalty. Which is miles above you. So prove your worth, Cadrin. Fight me yourself.”
“Tempting, but I’ve got a better plan.”
Cadrin grabbed Labu by the arm and shoved him forward. Labu frowned but didn’t resist. He unstrapped the spear from his back and held it out in a fighting stance.
“Why do you think I keep this one around?” Cadrin asked. “He’s going to do the gritty work like the filthy Wild he is. I think he might even enjoy it; he really seems to have taken against you.”
Cadrin turned and leaped into the boat he had been trying to haul in. He planted his hands on the seahorse icon, and the boat raced into the sea.
The certainty Labu had shown the last time we’d fought was gone. It seemed that he wasn’t so comfortable away from his home turf and without his trusted friends to observe him. I’d already beaten him once, so he knew I outmatched him. Maybe that was something I could use against him.
“I knew you were an asshole,” I said, “but I thought you were at least an honorable asshole. Now, it turns out that you’ll betray anything if you think it’ll give you a chance to win.”
“You shut your mouth,” Labu snapped. “You don’t know anything about honor. You’ve just come to our lands to gloat about the might and power of the Radiant Dragon. You wish only to meddle in other people’s affairs for your guildmaster. One more outside force trying to tell us how to live. And yet you still act as if you’re some merciful overlord.”
“So, you’re a protector, are you?” I asked. “Some shining beacon standing between his people and… what, the empire, the guilds, passing strangers you don’t like the look of?”
“I stand between the clan and destruction. The destruction that comes when we’re too weak to defend ourselves.”
“I’m not the one trying to destroy your clan. Cadrin will do anything to get his way. He’ll tear apart your city, your father, and everything you claim to protect, just so that he can make himself and his guild more powerful. And you just bought him more time to do it.”
“My father has lived his day,” Labu said between gritted teeth. “Weak, passive, willing to let the world trample over us. We will grow stronger without him.”
“You can’t mean that!” Kumi protested. Her voice wavered with horror. “Not about our own father.”
Labu stared at her as emotion tore at his face. Kumi was right; he didn’t believe it, but he had convinced himself to act as if he did. Now that he’d set down that road, he was too proud to turn back.
“We must become strong again,” he said. “If that means letting stagnant water be washed away by fresh springs, then so be it.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. The others hadn’t emerged from the courtyard yet, but that didn’t mean I had time to fuck around.
“Enough of this bullshit,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
I made as if to step around Labu.
“I don’t think so.” He raised his spear.
“I don’t want to kill you. Move.”
“Stand on your honor, then, lo Pashat,” he challenged. “You’ll not find me an easy fight.”
I rushed at him, and our weapons met with a clang. The fire of the Sundered Heart and the ice coating Labu’s spear hissed as they met. A burst of steam flashed as I pulled back, feinted left, and struck to his right. Labu parried and counter-attacked. I was forced to frantically block a series of rapid blows. More clangs and hisses filled the air.
“I’ll slice you to pieces and feed you to the fishes,” Labu said.
He moved in the same smooth, flowing style I’d seen before. It was like Kumi’s healing dance but deadlier and more aggressive. I could see the pattern of his attacks, but every time I moved to break it, he flowed around, changed direction, and came at me from another angle.
I slammed into him, and the solid shoulder of my Frozen Armor knocked the breath from his lungs. He staggered back, and I went on the offensive.
I sprayed him with thorns from my palm and cut at him with my sword. He raised his spear one-handed to parry my attack as his other hand summoned an Ice Spear. He lunged with both, and I jumped back, unable to block two attacks at once. Labu threw his shard of ice, and it hit my leg. His projectile managed to penetrate my armor, but it was left with only enough force to graze my skin.
Before I could attack again, he summoned and flung another Ice Spear, then another. Each one left gouges in my protective ice.
I shot back another burst of Stinging Palm thorns. He cut most of them down with his barbed spear, but those that struck left bleeding wounds across Labu’s arms and chest. The injuries were small and not serious enough to slow him down.
Labu yelled and charged. This attack was less flowing than previous ones, but it carried far more fury. His hatred and his pride took over as he hacked and stabbed at me with his barbed spear. The attacks went left and right, high and low, and I never had a moment to recover or catch my breath. Pieces of my ice armor went flying before a barb caught in my side. As Labu pulled the spear back,
