Wichtig launched a blistering attack, wove a web of steel, and Lebendig smashed through it and left him bleeding from a long gash on his right thigh. Somewhere behind him Opferlamm screamed something about convincing the woman of something, but Wichtig was too busy to listen.
At least the damned toe doesn’t itch any more.
He retreated before the Swordswoman’s advance, batting aside her feints and attacks. Even exhausted she was good. Damned good.
But she wasn’t the best. She wasn’t the Greatest Swordsman in the World.
Wichtig turned a parry into a blistering riposte and opened a wound along her side, beneath her ribs. Not deep enough to kill, but he knew how much that hurt.
“See,” he said, “your armour is slowing you down.”
When she attacked again, he sent one of her swords spinning away to land in the muck.
“Practice much with one hand?” he asked with a wink. “I have,” he lied.
Wichtig attacked, stabbing and slashing and driving Lebendig back toward the caved-in fireplace. He saw openings and ignored them. He could have killed her a dozen times over but settled for leaving shallow slashes, parting her chain hauberk like it was parchment. Each time he saw his opportunity to end the fight, he hesitated.
What the hells are you doing. She’s too good to toy with. End her.
Still he hesitated.
Stehlen. The damned Kleptic loved this woman.
She’s back in the Afterdeath and at this woman’s hand. To hells with her. Kill this bitch.
Lebendig’s sword licked past his guard and left him bleeding from his chest. It felt like she slashed clean through one of his nipples.
“Wish you were wearing armour now?” she asked, panting.
Again he backed her up with a series of feints and attacks not intended to kill.
If I send her to the Afterdeath, Stehlen will be there waiting. She’ll know I killed her lover. Somehow he didn’t think the Kleptic would thank him. Every time someone killed someone Stehlen wanted to kill, she acted as if she’d been robbed. And no one steals from Stehlen. Gods, how many times had she said that to him?
If I kill Lebendig, Stehlen will find me and kill me. No way something as minor as death would stop her.
“I don’t—”
Lebendig’s attack interrupted him and Wichtig found himself retreating before her rage. She screamed at him but it was all nonsense. Something about how Stehlen loved him more than she loved Lebendig, but that was ridiculous. The Kleptic might want his flawless body, but she was too smart to actually like him.
Over the crash of thunder and the screams of Lebendig, Wichtig heard the unmistakable sounds of battle as if some war was being waged outside this ramshackle farmhouse.
What the hells? The Geborene Wahnists must be coming for them. Or maybe it was that damned dragon.
“Kill anything coming through the door,” Wichtig yelled at Opferlamm. To his surprise the lass nodded and turned her back on the duel to watch the entrance. The kid had potential. Maybe not as the Greatest Swordsman in the World, but as something. Somehow she reminded him of his son, Fluch. Not the albtraum version, but the boy he left behind all those years ago. I’ll bring her under my wing, teach her to be great. It was weird to have a woman in his life—aside from Stehlen—he liked and didn’t want to rut. This must be what maturity and wisdom are like.
First he had to deal with this big bitch.
With a snarl, Wichtig again forced Lebendig back. No matter how good she was, he was better. He knew he was better. He knew it more than she knew anything, more than she was capable of believing anything. He cut her and slashed her, shredding her hauberk and leaving long wounds leaking blood. And still she tried to kill him, unrelenting in her fury.
“Give up,” he said, and she tried to put her sword in his guts. “You can’t win. I am the Greatest, and you know it.” He bent his Gefahrgeist power against her and she ignored him.
She doesn’t care. Lebendig would kill him or die trying.
The door slammed open and Opferlamm screamed, backpedalling.
Stehlen and some woman dragged Bedeckt into the farmhouse and dumped him on the dirt floor. The old bastard leaked blood from a thousand wounds. His right ear hung dangling against his neck from a ragged strip of flesh. His left arm hung broken and useless, flopping about like a dying fish.
As if he wasn’t ugly enough already.
He’d also lost one of his boots. Again.
Stehlen.
She was here. She was alive.
How?
Lebendig stabbed him, ripping fire through his left shoulder, and he remembered he was still fighting an extremely talented Swordswoman.
If Stehlen could escape the Afterdeath once to come after Bedeckt, why not a second time?
She must be here for vengeance upon Lebendig.
Wichtig was trapped. If he killed the Swordswoman, Stehlen would gut him for sure. If he didn’t, Lebendig would kill him. He was better, but not so much better he could hold her off indefinitely. One lucky strike and—
Opferlamm hurled herself at Stehlen.
Are you mad, girl? Run.
***