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I slashed at him, cut him shallowly across the shoulder. He shrugged it off. Those shoulders were scaled thickly enough to turn his own flesh into viridescent armor.

There was little room for the beast to swing his hammer, but the head of it was crowned with a long, wicked spike that he thrust at me like a lance. I leaped back, and he stabbed at me again. Again I retreated, leaving blood in my boot prints as it ran down my leg under my jeans. The hip wound I’d taken was not deep, had not severed any muscles or arteries. But it bled and I was already weak from previous wounds and from days of nearly constant physical and mental strain.

The door to the outside loomed behind me. I’d wanted to hold my enemies in the corridor but I couldn’t stop this one. My breathing was an echoing rasp in the narrow area. I gave ground; the beast followed in short rushes, thrusting his war-hammer ahead of him.

I parried with my sword to keep him off, then half turned and leaped through the doorway onto the ledge. He charged after and I slashed hard at him as I twisted on the narrow walkway under the open sky. He blocked with the bone-reinforced haft of his hammer, then spun the heavy weapon and drove it across his waist at me. I leaped back and the iron head of the thing slammed into the pyramid’s wall, racking away cover stone to reveal the softer rock beneath. He’d almost had me.

The creature drew his hammer up, stalked after me as I backed down the ledge. The wind was cold on my clammy skin. I spared a quick glance behind me. Just a few feet away the flat stretch of walkway ended in steps that angled up the side of the pyramid. Beyond that was another flat stretch, and then more steps in a zigzag all the way to the top.

I’d looked away too long. The hybrid launched an attack. Somehow I dodged it, struck back with my sword quickly enough to carve a narrow groove over the inside of his forearm. There was no blood, but he roared in anger and smashed his hammer sideways at me in a tremendous blow. I ducked beneath it, slashed him viciously across the belly. There, too, he was scaled, and the armored hide turned the stroke, leaving no more than a deep scratch.

In the next instant the beast snapped the haft of his war-hammer up into my left shoulder. It was like getting hit with a sledge. My arm went numb. I staggered back. My boots caught on the first step behind me and I crashed down on my hip and side. Bright pain lanced through me as the hybrid raised the hammer and brought it shocking down.

Desperately, I kicked out, met the shaft of the descending hammer with the heel of my boot and deflected it just enough to make it miss me. His blow struck the stairs instead, with a clang that seemed to jar the whole pyramid. A piece of step cracked away and went spinning off into the sky.

I got my boots and hands under me and scrambled up the steps to another flat stretch of ledge. I rose there, turning to face the beast with my sword ready. For a moment we paused. Sweat ran and stung on my body. My heart slammed. There was no time for this. Already I could hear the roar coming up from the throats of Vohanna’s bird riders as the first arrows were exchanged with the advancing Nyshphalian fleet. I dared not spare a glance.

I backed two more steps along the ledge; the hybrid started toward me, his boots stamping on the stairs. He moved in quick bursts, the war-hammer counting time like a pendulum in front of him. He was too strong. His hide was like chainmail. I’d cut him and cut him but the wounds seemed only shaving nicks on his massive frame.

The pyramid stirred, began to drift toward the approaching fleet, and the sloping face of the stone brushed my shoulder as my legs found their balance. The beast halted on the steps to catch his own equilibrium. He gloated up at me, as if sensing the growth of my fear.

But for now he was below me.

I exploded forward from my position but did not make my lunge directly at him. Two quick steps I took—up the slanting wall of the pyramid. And just