The serpent woman tilted the urn, her voice more strident, her words more commanding. Water poured down onto my feet and legs, thick and odorous. She continued to pour the liquid as she moved up my body, until I was completely covered in the goopy substance.
She reached my head, bent, and forced my mouth open, her sharp talons cutting into my skin as the tongues of her snakes darted across my face, tiny whips that cut and tasted. As she tilted the urn, Amaya screamed, No!
I didn't think, I just reacted. I grabbed Amaya's hilt, bought her sharply upward, and sliced through the hand that held me so brutally. The snake-headed Rakshasa screamed, the sound shattering the growing spell of power. The heartbeat in the stone hesitated, and the other Rakshasa roared. It was a sound filled with fury and death.
I threw myself sideways, scuttling the Rakshasa on my left and barely avoiding the urn as it crashed inches from my head. The moisture that ran through the shards of the ruined vessel was thick, gluey, and black. Blood, but not human, not animal. It smelled altogether different and alien.
I threw a punch into the face of the Rakshasa I'd scuttled, crushing her bulbous nose and sending blood and bits of flesh flying, then scrambled to my feet and ran for the nearest fissure. It was six against one and that wasn't great odds in anyone's language. If I could restrict available space—restrict the space they had to come at me—I might have more of a chance.
Air stirred, and the sensation of danger swamped me. I swung around and lashed out with the heel of my foot, sending the nearest Rakshasa flying backward. Another dove at me. I sliced down with Amaya, severing flesh and bone with equal ease. I continued to swing Amaya, using her as a shield as I ran backward, and prayed like hell there was nothing between me and that fissure.
My back hit stone, and pain snatched my breath. Blood began to pour from the wounds on my back and dots danced before my eyes. I hissed, but somehow remained upright and swinging.
The Rakshasa came at me as one, a hideous mass of flesh that cut and tore. I blocked blows, ducked teeth and claws, and attacked as best I could, until the nearby walls were coated and it was hard to know what blood was mine and what belonged to the Rakshasa. But there was no stopping them, no matter how much flesh I hacked from their bodies, because they didn't die. They just regenerated.
This wasn't going to end prettily. Not for me, anyway.
And that meant I had to try something else. Anything else.
The fissure was several feet away to my left. It was big and dark, and air stirred sluggishly around it, hinting at a possible escape route. Or, at the very least, another chamber.
Anywhere had to be better than here.
I kicked the nearest Rakshasa in the gut, sending her sprawling into her companions, then swung Amaya viciously from left to right, hamstringing several others. Their attack briefly faltered. I spun and ran into the fissure. The walls closed in around me, slick and uneven. The air still stirred, but it was putrid and dense, and my lungs felt like they were on fire.
As my shoulders began to brush the sharp edges of the walls, I slowed, my heart racing and my breath a harsh rasp. Little sound came from behind me—certainly no sound of pursuit. And yet every sense I had pulsed with the closeness of danger. Whether it was coming from the Rakshasa behind me or something unseen up ahead, I had no idea.
I struggled on, slipping sideways through the rock as the space grew tighter. It was blacker than ink in this foul-smelling place, the light of the stalactites having long since faded. Amaya wasn't emitting any flame, either, but I could hear her static running through my mind, a chant that vacillated between the need to kill and the urge for caution.