Rise of the Blade - Charles Moffat [14]
Still something wasn't right and every defensive instinct told him he was missing something. He looked back to the two blades. The elven blade had snapped and was glowing red hot. Mitch's sword was nowhere in sight.
He stood and scanned the room. In the darkness and only slightly illuminated by the faint blue light of the magic sword, a figure was crouching and looking about. Its thought patterns were fast, confused and filled with images of a woman.
Pierce stepped closer. "You there! Who are you?"
The figure turned to face him, his eyes shining in the darkness. He lifted the blade abruptly, taking a defensive posture. "I might ask you the same thing," replied a deep voice. His thoughts were still a jumbled mess of images.
Pierce did his best to ignore the confusing messages he was receiving, recalling Marque Draque once speculating that the human mind processed several million ideas in a single day. An elf, being more intelligent and having more memory due to a longer lifespan processed even more and the number of ideas a gnome had in a day went into the billions. This man before him was undoubtably into the billions and Pierce simply couldn't keep up.
"I'm Doctor Pierce, the headmaster. What are you doing in my Academy?"
The dim light showed the man sneer. "Well, I'm certainly not one of the statues," came the vague reply. He advanced on Pierce with unexpected ferocity, swinging the longsword in with startling speed.
The Doctor moved to deflect it with his mother's sword but his grip hadn't been ready and when the stranger twisted his blade upward it caught the hilt of Pierce's sword and he disarmed him easily.
Pierce dodged backwards, the next swing bouncing harmlessly off his breastplate as he drew both sabers and held them before him. Pushing away his thoughts, he concentrated on a simple goal: disarm his opponent.
Sparks flew as he struck out against the stranger and Tarrasqueslayer slid off the carbon black buckler covering the man's arm.
The Doctor's problem was that this was no beginner he was up against, and as their blades met, he found the stranger twisting out of his swordrange and avoiding Pierce's disarming tactics. Even when faced with two sabers instead of one, the stranger parried them both away with a simple swing and pressed his own attack.
Pierce deliberately stepped into the thrust and the blade slid harmlessly off his breastplate to the side. Over many years he had deliberately trained himself, like his father had in the boxing ring using his fists as shields, to use his armour to full advantage. Using both sabers he swung in twin arcs towards the stranger's neck.
And was kicked backwards onto the floor, his blades never reaching his foe. He raised Tarrasqueslayer to block a chop that would have sliced his leg off but the stranger's strength proved superior and the saber was knocked from his grasp. Even so, the magic blade still sliced his leg.
A candle flickered and a tiny creature composed of glowing blue flames leapt out of the fire onto Marque Draque's onyx scroll-top desk. It ran across the desk to the slumbering wizard, and pulled a cigar from the mage's pocket. The burning figure lit the cigar and then poked it gently into the drow's cheek.
"Ouch!" Draque yelped and stood quickly, rubbing his face where he had been burnt. He glared down at the fire faerie. "Whats wrong? Whats happening?"
The faerie sprouted wings of orange flame and flew towards the door, tugging on the handle. It looked to Draque anxiously.
The drow grabbed a large glowing emerald and followed the faerie towards the dome.
Instincts flew into action and Pierce rolled to the left, coming to his feet in time to