The Unfallen struck back with a furious cry, swinging his sword in a brutal overhand strike. Ishkah raised two blades, cross-guard, but her swords simply shattered against the Unfallen’s. Mia shielded her eyes from the obsidian shards as the silkling hissed in frustration. Bladesinger swung her own sword, her strike glancing off Ishkah’s armor. As Mia climbed to her feet, Furian pummeled Ishkah with his shield, forcing her back toward the platform’s edge as another of her scimitars fractured on Bladesinger’s armor. Mia lunged, feinting high and striking low, the crowd bellowing as she opened up the silkling’s thigh. Green blood sprayed on the sand, obsidian splinters flying as Ishkah parried one of Mia’s blades into the dirt and stomped on it with her boot. She swung her scimitar and Mia rolled aside, the silkling’s forth sword splintering on the dirt.
Furian’s blade was still intact, Mia had one blade left, and Bladesinger’s was only slightly fractured. Ishkah had but two swords remaining, and three foes. She struck simultaneously, forcing the Falcons back, the air hissing where she struck. Furian was on the defensive, bashing away with his shield where he could. Bladesinger and Mia fought side by side, the woman catching one of Ishkah’s strikes on her shield and driving the sword into the ground, snapping it in half. Ishkah struck with her last blade, the broken haft of another, the blows whistling toward Bladesinger’s belly and throat. Furian blocked the high strike on his shield, Mia parried the low, breaking Ishkah’s final blade off at the hilt. With a furious war cry, Bladesinger charged, striking the silkling in the belly with her shield and knocking her backward off the platform. Ishkah made a desperate clicking noise, seizing the lip of a passing platform to halt her fall, and dragging herself up to safety.
The three Falcons stood together, gasping for breath. The silkling revolved around the central plinth on her own platform, featureless eyes locked on theirs. She still held the hilts of her broken swords, pale eyes fixed on the weapons of her enemies. Obsidian was fragile, but it wasn’t supposed to be this fragile. Though the Falcons’ weapons were chipped and scratched, Ishkah’s scimitars had proven to be delicate as autumn leaves. Almost as if …
As if …
A slow smile curled Mia’s lips.
“She looks upset.”
“… the viper managed it, then…”
“I wish you wouldn’t call her that.”
Mia risked a glance into the crowd, heart swelling in her chest, looking once more among the mob for blood-red hair, a pair of pretty blue eyes. She didn’t truly know the concoction she’d devised—one part calcite acid, two parts boric oxide—would prove as effective on the silkling’s weapons as it had. Didn’t know whether Ashlinn would be clever or quick enough to sneak down into the arena’s bowels and treat Ishkah’s scimitars with the solution before the match began. But looking at the shattered blades in the silkling’s hands, the relatively unscathed sword in her own, she knew somehow Ash had done it. The silkling was all but disarmed, and now, even with the venom and the frightening speed, the scales between them were somewhere close to even.
The crowd roared, urging the Falcons in for the kill.
Furian scowled at Mia. “The match proves easier than any supposed.”
“Fancy that,” Mia replied.
“Crow…,” Furian growled.
Mia looked at Furian sidelong, and winked.
“Enough talk,” Bladesinger spat. “Let’s just gut this ugly bitch.”
The Falcons raised their weapons, made ready to charge.
“Blades!” cried the editorii.
Mia heard a rumble, turned to a platform at the arena’s edge. Her heart sank as the sand shivered, and ten new obsidian blades rose up out of the dirt.
“Shit…,” she breathed.
“… i take it you and the viper didn’t know about those…”
“Shit, shit, shit.”
“… o, this is maaaarvelous…”
The crowd bellowed as Ishkah dashed toward the fresh swords, leaping from one shifting platform to the next. Mia took off after her, her comrades sprinting behind. The platforms wheeled and turned, a great mekwerk dance that was hard to judge, sweat burning Mia’s eyes.
She supposed Ashlinn should’ve suspected there’d be backup plans in case every competitor broke their weapon, but there was no time to whine about it now—those new scimitars hadn’t been weakened by her concoction. If Ishkah got her hands on them, the fight might end up being fair, and that couldn’t happen. But as she ran, Mia realized with a sinking heart that again, the silkling would reach the blades before her.
“Furian?” she gasped.
“No!” the Unfallen spat, leaping across a rumbling chasm.
Spitting dust from her mouth she shook her head, and despite the burning heat of the two suns above, reached out toward Ishkah’s shadow anyway. She felt it in her grasp, cool and tenebrous, slipping up like snakes to entwine itself with Ishkah’s feet. The silkling stumbled, fell to her knees, her helm tumbling off her head and into the mekwerks below. But with a sharp, tearing sensation, Mia found her grip ripped away, the darkness slithering through her fingers.
“Mother fucking damn you!” she spat, face twisted.
“Victory is earned!” Furian shouted in reply. “Not stolen!”
Ishkah reached the swords, casting her chipped blades into the abyss and drawing six new ones—longblades this time, not scimitars. Turning to face the trio as they tumbled and leaped across the platforms toward her, she cut an awesome sight, blades whistling through the air in an almost hypnotic pattern. Mia reached the platform first, tumbling and hurling a handful of sand into Ishkah’s face. She had only one sword, so as the silkling staggered back, pawing at her eyes, Mia dove toward the remaining blades to snatch a second, replace her first. She rolled aside as the silkling’s swords struck the sand, the crowd gasping as her boot collided with Mia’s ribs. The impact was thunderous, Mia feeling her ribs crack, burning fire in her chest. Spit spraying from her lips, Mia’s face twisted as Ishkah raised her blade and— Crack! came the sound as Bladesinger hurled her shield into the silkling’s face. Ishkah shrieked, staggering, the audience bellowing as they saw the shield’s edge had struck one of the silkling’s eyes, smashing it like an eggshell. Green fluid dribbled from the wound, Mia dragging herself to her feet with a pained gasp and snatching up a new pair of blades. Bladesinger leapt across the chasm and Ishkah screeeeeeched, the Dweymeri raising her cracked sword and meeting her charge.
Bladesinger’s blade shattered with the first blow, the enraged silkling scoring deep wounds on her shoulder, and shattering one of her swords on the side of Bladesinger’s helm. The woman fell to her knees, skull ringing. But as Ishkah raised her blades to strike the deathblow, Furian arrived, leaping across the gulf with a howl and crashing shield-first into his foe. The pair fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs, Furian’s shield skidding across the dirt.
The Unfallen sat atop the silkling, fingers hooked into her bleeding eyehole, pounding his knuckles on her face again and again.
“Fucking bitch!” Crack! “Do you know who I am?” Crack! “I am the Un—”