darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,28

first, I would. I’d been very careful to keep my edges at angles to each other and the blades well apart to maximize the advantage that extra sword gave me. Now I attacked in the same way, driving in a low line thrust on the left, while simultaneously whip-snapping my right sword at Siri’s face in a cross chop. I could have gone for a more cautious approach, using one sword to attack and keeping the other ready to defend, but while playing it conservatively might keep Siri from scoring on me, it would never land a point on her.

She caught my left-hand sword with a parry and as neat a bind as I’d ever seen her manage, jerking it and me forward and out of line, while simultaneously ducking under the edge of my right. Damn, but I’d forgotten how very fast she was. Still, I’d hedged my attack by snapping my upper blade rather than committing to a full cut. Now, I was able to twist my wrist and bring it down toward the top of her head in a drawing slice as she dragged me to her left.

But she wasn’t there. In the instant after she’d pulled my left sword down and out of line, she disengaged, moving forward and left. Spinning past me, she flicked a backhanded cut at my right shoulder blade. But I turned with her, parrying her easily enough, then riposting with my free sword. She blocked it with the end of her hilt, catching my edge an inch below her pinky.

And so it went, for a good dozen passes. She had gotten much better, while I was only just recovering to what I had once been, and I couldn’t touch her. But my extra sword meant that she wasn’t having any more luck at scoring on me.

I was growing increasingly frustrated at my continued failure to even come close to a point against a one-handed opponent. I decided to force the issue, going in hard with a doubled thrust and a long lunge at maximum speed and power. That was mistake one. Mistake two was getting into the habit of ignoring her missing hand.

She parried my left-hand sword with her right, and blocked my left with a beautiful back fan kick that caught the side of my blade and knocked it out of line. At that point my arms were spread wide, with my points forward and on either side of Siri. That’s when she snapped her stump arm across my throat as if she were making a neat, short, cut.

Wait, what? I thought.

My confusion turned to grudging admiration when a smoky hand holding an equally smoky sword suddenly formed on the end of her stump, hiding the raw scars underneath. A moment later, a faint slithering burn kissed the front of my throat. What should have felt like a brief puff of warmth somehow grew an edge, tracing a bloody line across my skin.

I put up my swords and stepped back. “Killing point, since I assume that if you’d wanted to do more than edge kiss me there, you could have.”

Siri grinned and nodded, panting when she spoke. “I’ve been working at it for weeks now, and I can make the smoke as hard as steel for a few tenths of a second.”

“Which is all it takes,” I replied, somewhat acidly.

“Yep. Of course, it makes me feel like I’ve got maggots crawling through my brain every time, and I’m going to need to sit down now and catch my breath. It burns nima like a runaway soul tap.”

“Is it worth it?” I asked. That kind of magic drain could kill you—and very nearly had done for me once.

Siri laughed. “Oh yes! The look on your face alone justified the cost. When you realized that you’d been suckered . . . a thing of beauty.” But then she swayed on her feet, and went to one knee. “Still worth it, but ugh. The brain maggots are soooo much worse than the exhaustion. Stop giving me that look, Aral.”

“What look?” She raised her eyebrows, and I blushed and bowed my head. “And another point for Siri.”

She always finds a way to win, sent Triss, no matter what it costs. That’s what makes her great.

“I have to do this,” said Siri. “To get a handle on what I’ve become. If I don’t learn to master the buried god within, he will master me. Maybe not so directly as the way he tried back at