The net that had ensnared me flickered and vanished. I got nimbly to my feet.
Jazmyn looked up at me from the wreckage that surrounded her.
I didn’t grin, didn’t wink. All I said was, “Right. So, that would be a win for me, would it?”
Jazmyn got to her feet, pulled a decent-sized splinter out of her cheek, and glanced over at Ashrin. I didn’t look around at the other woman, but judging by the scowl on Jazmyn’s face I guessed that she was mocking her silently.
Then she looked back at me. “You cheeky motherfucker,” she said. Her tone was harsh. “That looked like a fucking lethal spell if I ever saw one.”
“And your net wasn’t? I bet it would have squeezed me to bits if I hadn’t done something about it. Besides, I wasn’t aiming for you; I was just trying to get rid of your damned net.”
She glared at me for a moment, and her mouth twitched, as though she was fighting off the hint of a smile.
I held out my hand and, to her credit, Jazmyn shook it.
“Problem now though,” she said, jerking me unexpectedly closer with a strength that belied her form, “is that you’ve lost the element of surprise with Ashrin…” One of her deep blue eyes winked at me. “We’d heard you could command two dragons at once, but it was a bit much to believe. I guess you might be more than just a dragonmancer with a cock; time will tell.”
Jazmyn walked out of the circle and Ashrin walked in. She licked her full lips and ran a hand through her pixie-short hair. Then she put up her hands in the stereotypical pugilist’s stance, fists clenched in front of her face.
“Tally-ho, Dragonmancer Noctis,” she said. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
This time it was my turn to rush in.
I struck out at Ashrin with a flurry of MMA punches and kicks—going high, going low, lashing out with knee strikes to the middle.
Ashrin blocked everything. Despite being built like a ballet dancer, she parried each of my strikes with her forearms or shins, twisting her body to absorb blows on her shoulders and her hips. For a woman her size, she should have been driven backward by my onslaught, but her face told me that she was having a whale of a time. She was not perturbed by my strength or speed in the least, because we both had dragon-enhanced physical attributes.
I threw a jab-jab-front kick combo and then lashed out with a roundhouse kick that should have pasted Ashrin’s determined half-smile onto the other side of her face. However, with an agility that would have done a circus performer proud, the lithe dragonmancer cartwheeled over my flying leg. My leg whipped under her, passing by so close that my booted toes actually ruffled her short hair.
I adjusted my stance, as her feet came back to earth, and grabbed her in a pretty unrefined bearhug. My idea was to put the squeeze on her and make her tap out, or choke her out if she wanted to be tough about it.
Unfortunately for me though, I never got the chance.
As my arms tightened around Ashrin’s taut, athletic body, the woman simply… melted away. Faded. Dissipated like mist.
That filled me with foreboding. For about three seconds.
Then, I was assailed by the feeling that my windpipe had been caught in the fist of something made from glass and barbed-wire. I choked. My eyes streamed. My skin felt like there was fire crawling over it. I dropped to my knees.
Bearer of Alzad the Toxin Dragon, I thought through the fug of pain. She’s poisoned me.
Dimly, I was aware of Rupert striding forward and saying to Ashrin, “With all respect, Dragonmancer, you stipulated n-n-no lethal magic!”
As I clawed at my throat, I saw Ashrin grinning down at me. She then looked up and pouted at the furious Rupert, who was trembling with indignation.
“Oh, that’s not lethal,” she said in her relaxed, dulcet tones. “Not so long as he takes this potion in the next, oh, twelve seconds.”
A vial of liquid hit me in the chest and dropped into the dust between my knees. I scrambled for it, picked it up with fingers that were feeling more and more like they were made of rubber, and bit the cork out of the neck of it. I tipped the contents of the vial into my mouth and swallowed with difficulty.
Immediately, the constriction on my chest eased, and I felt the feeling of crushing fingers around my windpipe lessen. I took in a shuddering breath and spat. Took another and another. Within about ten seconds, the effects of the noxious gas that Ashrin had somehow turned herself into had basically left me.
Not wanting to lose face or seem like a sore loser, I got to my feet and brushed myself off.
I locked eyes with Ashrin. She was something to look at, no doubt about it. Then again, so was a panther. And you wouldn’t want to take one of those lightly.
I held out my hand once again, and the other dragonmancer shook it. Her grip was like iron.
“General Shiloh warned me that you guys were the best,” I said.
“She was right,” Ashrin replied. “You want to know how you can tell that a dragonmancer is one of the truly elite?”
I nodded.
“They’re still walking and around and breathing,” Ashrin said. “And, also, they have one of these.”
She pulled the sleeve of her night-black shirt up from her wrist to reveal a brand, about the size of a postage stamp on the inside of her wrist. It was an intricate cloud
