Migo sat up, sopping wet and covered in mud.
“Emperor,” Ris said. “Your adversary awaits you.” She held the sword to him.
He took it, his movements oddly twitchy. “What did you give me?” he growled at her.
“Just something to wake you up momentarily. You’ll want to hurry and kill him before the effects wear off.” She pointed at Kaiteran.
“Ashjagar,” Kaiteran said. “You cannot hope to defeat me in that form.”
Migo’s glare could have murdered a waheshi on the spot. “Not hope,” Migo rasped. “Certainty.” He stretched his neck until it popped, then shook out his arm before holding his sword in a two-handed grip.
Katsi held her breath. One knick from Kaiteran’s sword would kill anyone. Would it have the same effect on Migo?
Migo stepped forward, testing Kaiteran’s reactions as he took a few simple swings. Kaiteran kept his distance. If what Ris said was true, then all Kaiteran had to do was hold off until the effects of Migo’s potion wore off.
Migo seemed to realize what was happening, so he tried a more aggressive approach, silver sword flashing brilliantly. Kaiteran deflected every blow, eyes focused. Weapons moved so fast that Katsi couldn’t comprehend how either of them were still unscathed. Migo didn’t seem to mind that he was barefooted on slippery rocks and mud. His actions were surprisingly as deft as ever, considering he’d been unconscious on the ground just a moment ago.
But she couldn’t just watch as they battled. She went to tap into her magic, but Ris put out a hand, touching her arm. “This is a duel of legends, Katsi,” Ris said. “It would not be right to interrupt.”
Katsi scowled. That did not seem like the right course of action. What fault would there be in helping to end the life of yet another monstrous tyrant? But she restrained herself. Perhaps her interference could potentially be as harmful as it would be helpful.
Migo made a bold move, sliding forward on the wet rocks with a forward leap. He deflected a jab from Kaiteran, but then managed to get one of his hands clamped over Kaiteran’s own. The two of them remained frozen in that position, muscles straining for control.
“You’ve enhanced yourself,” Migo said through gritted teeth.
“No more than you have,” Kaiteran replied as the points of their blades slowly drew closer to each other.
They grunted, Migo growling as he tilted his head to the side to avoid Kaiteran’s blade cutting into his ear. With a quick jerk, both their grips ripped free. Migo ducked, thrusting his free hand into Kaiteran’s gut. When he came up, Kaiteran bashed Migo in the nose with his elbow, but Migo completely ignored it, stepping forward again instead. He hammered his sword in quick succession with two-handed swings, holding nothing back.
Kaiteran shouted and the ground trembled as he tried to summon his magic, but Katsi tried her best to hold it in place.
One of Migo’s swings struck hard enough that Kaiteran’s sword rebounded, and Migo’s sword pummeled down close enough to sever Kaiteran’s ear.
Migo roared with that voice that was only half human and hammered down again, this time cutting off Kaiteran’s hand, secula dropping to the ground. Migo kicked him into the mud and thrust his sword down so hard that it buried into Kaiteran’s chest all the way to the hilt.
Migo fell to his knees, groaning with a deep sigh. Katsi ran to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
“I thought we were dead, Katsi,” he said weakly.
“Me too,” she said, squeezing him tighter.
“I hate to ruin the celebration, but it’s not over,” Ris said from behind them. “There are still waheshi in the city.”
Migo groaned more as Katsi helped him to his feet.
“I think that potion is wearing out now,” Migo said. His footsteps were heavy as they walked toward the city.
Sands. Katsi kept repeating the word in her head. People were still dying. She hadn’t killed all the waheshi, and she couldn’t very well send a storm of lightning through the city. That would destroy indiscriminately. “I’ll take you, Migo,” she said, summoning rocks to her shoulders.
Migo held his sword down in front of Katsi as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and leaned heavily against her back. Scales took off into the air ahead of them, and Ris was somehow already gone as Katsi gradually rose into the air. Migo was heavy, but at least they were alive.
Now to save the rest of the city…
Chapter forty-two
Liberation
Hatan spun his glaive from one side to the other as he rode Bahdin down a street that was being ravaged by waheshi. He worried about Bahdin at first, but her quick movements had allowed her to dodge a few close swipes from the waheshi’s claws. Hatan’s glaive was long enough that striking the waheshi from Bahdin’s back was proving highly effective. He’d already maimed several of the beasts, but he wanted to reach the wall. If there were any soldiers left alive, he only hoped he could help regroup them to form an offensive.
That immense red light that had nearly blinded him was hopefully a good thing. His ears were still ringing from the sound it had made as it shook everything around him.
The reinforcements that were coming behind him would have to be enough. In fact, one shaman went bouncing over the rooftops to his left. It was Manahae, somehow launching himself from one rooftop to the next, outpacing Bahdin’s sprint.
Another waheshi faced him from the opposite end of the street. He dropped his glaive and held it forward like a lance. The beast jumped up, high enough to dive straight for Hatan. He aimed his glaive for the beast’s head, holding his glaive tightly in both hands. The force split the monster’s head straight down the middle, though its body still collided with him, knocking him from Bahdin’s saddle.
He landed awkwardly on his shoulder, a sharp pain jolting through his back. He rolled over and got to his feet with a groan. “I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered to himself, knowing thirty four wasn’t really that old. His body just seemed to disagree sometimes.
But he was already close to the wall. Bahdin stopped at the end of the street as Hatan dodged around the waheshi corpse and jogged ahead, which was not easy, considering he was dressed in full armor.
Bahdin was crouched down, growling at something up ahead when Hatan reached her. A waheshi was sniffing around the bodies of several corpses that littered the ground beside the walls, perhaps checking for survivors. A wave of guilt trickled through Hatan’s stomach. He should have been here.
Hatan yelled at it, drawing attention away.
The waheshi turned toward him without hesitation, claws scraping against the cobbled stone street. Hatan ran to meet it. Bahdin didn’t engage, but prowled at the back. She would jump in if he gave her a signal, but he was hoping to avoid her having direct contact with them.
As they reached each other, the waheshi paused, rising up on its two hind legs, using careful swipes at Hatan. Perhaps this one had learned from fighting other soldiers that they were armed with silver weapons and should be treated with more caution. It was crazy to think that they could be adaptive like that.
He didn’t dare swing low for fear of it countering with a high attack at the same time, so he kept his glaive up. One swing got between two of the waheshi’s claws and tore down the back of its paw. It jumped at him then, and he batted away its other claw with the butt of his glaive, though one of its hind legs twitched out, scratching across Hatan’s thigh, only mildly protected by his padded armor.
