Into the Void

fur in one hand, the amber rod in the other. Quickly she rubbed them together, muttering phrases of power under her breath, then she thrust a finger out toward the approaching hulk.

Blue-white lightning leaped from her fingertip, smashed into the creature's bulging chest, and burst out through its back, leaving a blackened, smoking hole. The creature screeched, flailing its arms in paroxysms of agony. It stumbled back, but it didn't fall. The gaze from its four eyes, blood red with hatred, was fixed on Rianna.

Teldin backed farther away. His foot caught on something, almost sending him sprawling. He looked down. It was Estriss's Juna knife. Quickly he scooped it up. Even that little exertion dimmed his vision again, but through pure willpower he fought back the darkness.

The umber hulk was advancing again-slower now, but still advancing. Rianna took a measured step back, her hands weaving another spell. Another lightning bolt tore into the creature, this time striking it in the center of its misshapen head. The skull burst asunder. The headless body remained standing for an endless moment, then crashed to the deck.

Behind Teldin, a man screamed in terminal agony. Teldin spun around.

Julia had broken free of the bravo who'd held her. He lay on his back behind her, the hilt of a dagger protruding from his throat. Another sellsword writhed on the deck, bright blood seeping from a horrible wound in his stomach, while a third lay motionless beside him. The final bravo-the one who'd screamed-was slowly crumpling to the deck. Julia's sword was buried to the quillions in his chest. As Teldin watched, Julia pulled the blade free and stepped back. The small woman's face was grim, and her eyes were hard. Her jerkin was soaked with blood-hers and others'. Her left arm was gashed across the biceps and hung uselessly at her side, and there was another deep wound in her right shoulder. She must be in agony, Teldin realized, but her control is colossal. Her bloody blade was steady in her hand as she stepped over her last victim's body and advanced toward Rianna. She shot Teldin a quick, tight-lipped smile, then turned her flint-cold eyes on Rianna. 'Get away from him, you whore from hell,' she grated.

Rianna stepped back from the murder in Julia's eyes, then she smiled-a feral, killing smile. She hissed a phrase through clenched teeth. Three tiny projectiles, like burning embers, burst from the fingertips of her left hand.

'No!' Teldin cried, but it was much too late. The missiles screamed through the air, striking Julia full in the chest. The impact flung the small woman backward, to land crumpled and boneless like a rag doll.

'Why?' Teldin wheeled on Rianna. 'Why, damn you?' he demanded again. 'You've discharged your duty-' he spat the word '-and you're free of your bargain. Why?'

Rianna turned her fierce smile on him. 'The cloak,' she told him, 'why else? You're right, I'm free of my bargain. That means I can take the prize for myself.'

'Why do you want it?' he asked, really wanting to know her answer. 'They'll all be after you!'

She laughed, a harsh sound. 'You handled it wrong,' she told him flatly. 'I don't intend to make the same mistakes. No quest to find your mythical 'creators.' Just auction it off to the highest bidder. I'm sure the bids will be very high.' Her smile faded. 'Now hand it over.'

Teldin looked into her sea-green eyes. There was no trace in them of the person that he thought he'd loved. There would be no mercy from Rianna Wyvernsbane.

He looked deeper. There was no mercy, but there was a trace of fear. Maybe he could play on that. 'Take it,' he told her softly, 'if you think you can.'

That made her pause, then her smile returned. 'I think the neogi was right,' she said slowly. 'I don't believe you can control the cloak at all. It's just reflex, random reflex.'

She's trying to convince herself, he realized. The bluff might just work. 'If you really believe that,' he said evenly, 'then take it.'

Rianna was silent for a moment, indecision mirrored in her eyes, then her expression hardened. The bluff had failed. 'I will,' she said. Smoothly, she drew her second sword-Teldin's sword-from her scabbard. The polished blade was steady, its point on a level with his throat, as she stepped forward.

The Juna knife, the weapon that Estriss had dropped, was still in Teldin's hand. He snapped it up into an en garde position. The grip, with its alien network of ridges and furrows, felt strange in his hand, but it felt somehow comforting, too. My fate's in my own hands, he told himself, just the way I've always wanted. 'I'd like to see you try,' he said.

Rianna backed off a half-step, her eyes on the wickedly curved blade, then she chuckled. Her eyes half closed, and she started to mutter under her breath. She raised her left hand, and the fingers began to weave a complex pattern.

Another spell! If he let her complete it, he'd be dead-like Julia, like Estriss, like Dana…. With a scream of rage, he flung himself forward. In that instant, he remembered Aelfred's training, the big man's voice: 'Get that left hand back. You're just asking to have it cut off.' He flicked the blade out toward Rianna's empty left hand.

The long, curved knife bit home,, cleaving flesh and bone. Rianna shrieked, her spellcasting forgotten in the sudden pain.

Teldin recovered from the cut, poised himself on the balls of his feet for an instant, and aimed a vicious thrust at the woman's chest. With a normal short sword, it might well have connected, but the curved blade's balance was different, and the hilt simply wasn't designed for human hands. The thrust was fractionally too slow, giving Rianna just enough time to parry. The tip of the blade tore the cloth of her jerkin, ripped the soft skin of her side, instead of piercing her spine. She riposted, the point of her blade flashing toward Teldin's throat, and he barely managed to position the unfamiliar weapon in time to deflect the lightning-fast thrust.

Rianna backed away, obviously trying to give herself time to prepare another spell. Teldin moved forward, pressing her. Steel rang against something that wasn't steel as she parried another thrust.

'Forget it,' she spat, punctuating the phrase with another snake-quick thrust that Teldin barely managed to counter. 'You'll never best me. Drop your sword, and I'll let you live.'

'You're a liar,' he hissed. Another thrust, another parry.

'You're right,' she chuckled. Thrust, parry, riposte. She danced back out of range of his counter. 'Drop your sword, and I'll kill you painlessly. Otherwise, I'll make it last.'

Teldin followed her retreat. Keep pressing her, he told himself, keep pressing or you're dead. He took another step forward, and his foot slipped in Barrab's blood, not much, but enough to slow him for an instant.

Rianna reacted with the speed of thought. She lunged low, under his guard. He snapped his right arm down, the pommel of his strange weapon slamming into her blade, deflecting it a little but not enough.

The woman's blade ripped through his flesh and along his ribs on the right side. Instantly his entire body was aflame with pain. He gritted his teeth against it, fought to smother the cry that erupted from his throat. Rianna stepped back again, in plenty of time to avoid his slow riposte.

'I'll make it last,' she said again.

He cursed one of the blistering mercenary oaths he'd heard Aelfred use. With his left hand, he clutched at the ragged tear in his right side, feeling hot blood on his fingers. He gripped tight, trying to staunch the bleeding, almost making himself faint with the agony. His left forearm was pressed against something hard on his stomach. For the moment, he couldn't remember what it was. 'Damn you!' he screamed. 'You killed them all!' In the churning delirium of his suffering, he wasn't talking to Rianna. He didn't really know whom he was referring to. The cloak, perhaps… or maybe himself.

'Damn you to the Abyss!' He lurched forward.

Aelfred's lessons, the words of the soldiers he'd talked to, everything he'd ever learned about swordwork-all were gone from his mind. All that was left was rage and pain and the desire to kill. He swung the Juna knife in a hissing arc, directly at Rianna's head.

She hardly managed to raise her own weapon in time. The nonmetal weapon bit into her blade, notching the tempered steel. For several heartbeats, they were frozen in that position: her blade parallel with the floor, holding up his weapon, preventing it from cleaving down into her skull. Their bodies were close together. He could hear her labored breathing.

Rianna grunted with the effort of it, then her mangled left hand lashed out toward Teldin's face, her remaining fingers like claws reaching for his eyes. He ducked beneath the grasping hand and lurched backward. The movement sent bolts of agony radiating outward from his ripped side. Something sharp pricked the skin of his