Now the crowd dares to laugh as Peruxolo’s cape dangles to the ground, and his whole body swings about madly.
I grin and take a moment to look toward Aros. Iric is elbowing him and likely singing his praises for me.
I put my hand against the god’s waist and give him a spin. More laughter. It’s contagious. I’ve never been comfortable being the center of attention. But right here, exposing the god, hearing everyone’s reactions—it’s easy to get lost in the moment.
“Rasmira!” Soren shouts from the sidelines. “Hurry and end it!”
By the time I look back at Peruxolo, he’s already finished sawing at the rope with his ax. He falls in a heap on the ground when the rope snaps, and he finds his feet and blade once more.
Cursing my foolishness, I take up position at the road once more, never giving my back to Peruxolo.
“I’ve had it with you!” He charges, ax held in front, ready to skewer me. I block it, and in the same motion, I curve my ax back around toward his body.
The blade cuts through armor, skin, and bone. Peruxolo cries out and grips his side.
There it is again.
Blood.
He tries to cover it with his fingers, but red seeps through.
The crowd is practically shouting now. They’re growing closer, giving Peruxolo and me less room to move.
“My name is Rasmira Bendrauggo,” I say. “I want you to know that before I end you.”
“This will not be my end!” He flies at me, more calculated and careful this time.
Our axes connect, and Peruxolo sends a fist sailing at me.
I hear Burkin’s cry of outrage as my neck cranes to the right, cracking from the force of it.
“There are no rules out here,” Peruxolo seethes.
“I shouldn’t have expected you to fight fair.”
“I’m a god. This was never a fair fight.”
He detangles himself from me. He’s no longer running at me, but away from me. In great leaps, he starts scaling the air, as though climbing an invisible staircase. Higher and higher.
There must be more iron plates in the ground, growing in purity, letting the metal soles in his shoes carry him higher and higher. It’s an act for the crowd. He’s trying to redeem his reputation, make them see him as their powerful god.
It’s both fascinating and terrifying to watch, even though this trick is no mystery to me. If only I, too, had lodestone soles in my boots, I could climb just as he does. What would the spectators think then? That I’d suddenly gained godly abilities from being out in the wild? Or would they put it together as I have?
Peruxolo switches his ax to his left hand and reaches behind his back with his right. A gleaming silver dagger, like the one he used to pierce me before, appears in his hand, and he flings it.
I’m ready this time, prepared to flick the weapon away with my ax, but it’s not turning end over end in my direction.
Did the wound I dealt to his side throw off his aim?
The dagger sails over my head and lands in the branches of a tree only a few feet away. A cracking noise emits above my head, and I look up in time to see something spinning for me.
It connects with my ax faster than I can even follow. No, it sticks to it. More lodestones at work. It’s similar in size to the metal triangles Peruxolo projected from his arms, but this one is circular, with little metal teeth. Only this is another new metal. Something that is drawn to the lodestone just as powerfully as iron repels it.
My stomach sinks as I realize—if I’d been wearing armor made out of the lodestone, this sharp little disc would have punctured straight through and wounded me. A small loop of rope hangs off the disc. When Peruxolo threw his dagger, he must have severed the only thing holding the metal back from connecting with the nearest lodestone.
Despite Peruxolo floating in the air, despite most of the crowd waiting to watch me fail, I laugh.
“You prepared for someone figuring out your secret!” I shout up to him. “If anyone else made an ax out of lodestones, you needed to be ready. You positioned me here, closest to the tree, so this”—I point to the metal disc—“would stick to me.”
Peruxolo leaps from his height advantage. I flip the switch on my ax to unleash the spike, readying for him.
Our blades tangle at the tips as he hits the ground, rocks rolling away from his landing. He tips his chin to the side so he can better see me from under his hood. His knuckles whiten on his ax as he pushes toward me, forcing me back a step. Then another, and another.
I try to pull away to the side, but he twists our axes, tangling them together further, herding me toward the crowd. He’s going to back me up right into them.
My strength starts to waver, my muscles weakening, until I realize it’s not me.
Something is pulling on me from behind, aiding the god, and I think for a moment that maybe someone from the crowd has a hold of my ax.
I tighten my grip as the ax is nearly wrenched from my hands, and get pulled along with it. Peruxolo sneers at me as he halts in place, watching me fly backward.
My fingers gripping the ax crunch under the weight of something, and I think my middle finger might actually be broken. A beat later, my back slams against the ground with my ax pinned above my head.
When I finally adjust to the pain, I note that I haven’t actually reached the crowd. No, my ax pins my fingers against a tree trunk. The bark is broken in places, held to the tree by thick nails. And underneath, little slivers of that new metal. It’s drawn me here, and no matter how hard I pull, I cannot get my ax to part from it.
“You are beaten, Rasmira Bendrauggo,” Peruxolo says. “I send you into the next life to meet Rexasena’s wrath. Just as you have met mine.”
I’m not afraid. He can’t take another step forward without sticking to this tree just as my ax is.
Peruxolo drops his ax to the ground and reaches behind his back once more—for another silver dagger. I pull at my fingers, trying to free them from where the ax has them trapped, glancing over my shoulder at the god.
He pulls back his arm, taking careful aim.
I prop one foot against the bark of the tree and pull.
My head cracks against the rocky ground just as the dagger embeds into the bark where my body was just seconds before.
And though the world spins, I rise to my feet, launching myself at Peruxolo and his confused face.
I plow right into him, and the two of us go crashing to the ground. I land on top and get my thighs on either side of him to steady myself as I send a closed fist flying toward his head.
“My armor isn’t made of metal.”
I try to hit him a second time, but he catches it and bucks his hips, sending me flying off.
I land right next to his ax.
Peruxolo eyes it and then me. “No!” he shouts.
I fling it toward that tree. It would have landed no farther than five feet away if the natural forces at work hadn’t propelled it onward. It clanks into the bark right next to the ax Iric made me.
Confused grumbles now come from the onlookers as they wonder why Peruxolo would allow his own ax to be trapped by his power.
“Behold Peruxolo!” I shout for the whole crowd to hear. “He who uses nothing more than simple natural forces to keep you afraid and helpless. He is nothing without his lodestones.”
“You worthless bitch!” he yells.
We charge each other, colliding in a tangle of limbs and armor. I try to force him toward that tree, where he’ll be helpless, sucked against that sheet of metal with his lodestone armor, but there’s no denying that he’s stronger than I am.
I have lost any advantage I had, and now that our weapons are gone, now that the battle is down to fists and feet, Peruxolo has the upper hand.
He steps on my foot in his haste to force me back. The fingers in my right hand throb and swell from where I grip him. At least one of them is definitely broken. My head still spins.