Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [74]
I punched him in the jaw with my free fist.
Now it was Bryce who staggered back, blood at the corner of his mouth. He spat to clear it, not truly hurt but incensed beyond thought. He snarled savagely and attacked. His blade arced down. I met it with my own. He disengaged, leaped to his left, slashed across his body at my belly. I blocked the blow an inch from my unprotected flesh, then riposted and the tip of my sword whiffed close enough to his chin to fan him with a breeze.
My brother hurled himself forward instead of back and I had no time to meet his hacking steel with my own. My left hand caught the wrist of his sword arm, stayed it. I tried to punch him again with the hilt of my blade but he snared my wrist as well and we stood chest to chest, straining. He growled at me like a beast, his face contorted, every muscle in his body strung tense as wire. But I was a little taller than he, a little heavier. He could not move me.
I butted him in the face with my forehead, felt and heard the cartilage crunch in his nose. He cried out in pain, blood spraying from his face. His legs quivered and threatened to drop from under him. Releasing his sword arm, I slapped him, open palmed, ringing his ears. And while his head snapped to the side I pushed him away from me, spun off my left heel and lashed a kick to his chest that knocked him on his backside in the sand.
Behind me I could hear Vohanna hurling curses now. I ignored them, waited for Bryce to rise. He got up slowly, shaking his head, but there was no fear in him. It seemed to me that the color of his eyes had changed, that they had lost some of their crimson luster, but his face was set and he lifted his sword and stalked toward me. I met him.
We did not circle to look for openings now. There were no fancy fencing moves, no feints. Toe to toe we came together, and our blades slammed, locked, broke away, linked again in a wild clanging frenzy of scraping metal. He cut me once on the arm. I cut his cheek. And still we fought face to face, on sand that was clotted with blood from both of us now.
Faintly to my ears came the sound of Vohanna screaming at Bryce to kill me. And then the screaming stopped. In that lull of sound, as if it were a signal, Bryce and I stepped apart. Our chests heaved; our bodies were raked with sweat. I could smell the stench of it, could taste the salt of blood on my tongue.
Bryce was looking toward Vohanna. I followed his gaze to see that she had risen from her throne. Her face was pale under the rose petal blush that marked her natural color. Around her, the hybrid guards milled in agitation. Bryce reacted instinctively. He took a step toward her but her hand lifted to halt him. She pointed. At me. Her voice hissed like scorpions on a griddle.
“They’re here. You lied to me, Ruenn Maclang. You said your friend the Green Llurn had fled, but it seems you sent him for help. The fleet of Nyshphal is here. Soon the battle will be joined to decide the fate of this world.”
Vohanna lowered her hand, and even as a fierce exultation tingled every hair of my body at word of the fleet’s arrival, the witch gestured peremptorily to her guards.
“No time now for pleasure” she said. “Kill Ruenn Maclang. All of you.”
Jubilation died as my mouth went dry, as the guards turned with one mind and marched upon me. Overhead, I heard the whir of wings as the flying hybrids released from their rafter perches and began to circle.
“No!” Bryce shouted. “He’s mine!”
Vohanna’s only response was an order: “Obey!”
Bryce glanced from Vohanna to me. His face was a rictus, his hand locked in bloodless rigor upon his saber’s hilt. Over his shoulder I saw Vohanna spread her arms, hands turned up, and in her palms appeared twin milkstones of heart-of-night black. They