“Keep that up and you’ll tear your innards out,” Meteia warned.
“If you wish...then very well!”
Ceryneia gritted his teeth and pulled harder. They pressed together so hard they shattered, leaving blood and shredded viscera free to spill from his mouth.
“I am my Lord’s sword and shield! I will not disgrace myself again!”
He drove Ipetam into the ground, grasped the hilt with both hands, and levered himself toward it. Fragarach did not move an inch, but although the effort was clearly agonizing, he did not release his grip.
Meteia frowned, perplexed. At last, she realized what he was doing. Her eyes widened.
Blood sprayed from his side as he dragged himself free from Fragarach. He landed on his feet, a ragged wound extending from the center of his chest to his left shoulder. His arm dangled uselessly, barely still attached. The shoulder joint looked damaged beyond repair. To be willing to mutilate himself so, even to escape Fragarach’s clutches, he could not have been of sound mind.
“You must have lost your mind,” Meteia said. “But if you hope that will scare me, think again.”
In a flash, she swung up with a twist of her wrist. Fragarach lashed out like a whip, sending Ceryneia’s injured arm spinning from his body. Ipetam’s blessing was certainly empowering him, but his own body was a weak link. He was not a full zlosta without his manastone.
“Although even at your best, you would never have stood a chance.” Meteia drove Fragarach into the ground and placed her hands on the pommel, smiling coldly. “Ipetam, the Fellblade so bloodthirsty it drinks its own wielders dry. Oh, I know it well. I faced it myself a thousand years ago. I know its range is short...and I know you couldn’t have picked a worse opponent.”
She raised a hand and swung it down, driving Fragarach fully into the earth. With her right knee and right hand on the ground, she pronounced his death sentence:
“I watched its last master bleed out before my very eyes.”
“Curse you! Curse you!”
Ceryneia raised Ipetam and lunged at her, spitting bile. To the very end, he did not give in, even as the realization sank in that he could not win. He pressed forward, quashing his despair like a true warrior.
His blade swept up from below. Meteia sprang sideways to avoid it. He read the movement and twisted after her, but Meteia slipped backward, still one step ahead. A few strands of white hair scattered on the wind as Ipetam’s lethal edge swept before her face. Again, the primozlosta swung furiously. His chest heaved, but each strike remained as potent as the last—and yet Meteia evaded them nonetheless, always keeping her distance.
Ceryneia slid to a halt as realization dawned. Where earlier he had burned with zeal, it now felt like a bucket of cold water had been upended on his head. His lips turned blue, and he began to tremble. Only now had he realized how thoroughly he was outclassed. The gulf between them was not one he could bridge.
“My turn, I think,” Meteia said.
Ceryneia heard her voice and leaped back. Not a moment later, countless blades sprang up in the space he had been occupying.
“A thousand years ago! Always a thousand years ago! Must the past still haunt me?! Must it still stand in my way?!”
He bore down on Meteia, darting between the blades sprouting from the ground. He suppressed his fear of dying to gamble his life in his master’s name. The cause he fought for gave him strength—but then, that was true of Meteia too.
“You’ll get no mercy from me.”
She glanced at his arm. It was already beginning to regenerate. The Demiurgos had endowed each of the primozlosta with supernatural fortitude; she would need to carve him into pieces so small he would not be able to come back. She narrowed her eyes as he approached through the storm of violence, confidently standing her ground like a predator waiting for her prey.
“And now you’re too close to get away.”
Ceryneia grinned as he entered striking range. Ipetam’s scarlet blade thrust forward eagerly. Meteia only closed her eyes, making no move to defend herself...but just as the Fellblade came within a hair’s breadth of her forehead, it spun away in a shower of sparks.
Ceryneia paled, arm still outstretched. As he stood, stunned, Meteia opened her eyes again and unleashed a vicious front kick, sending him flying.
“Argh!”
With his right arm extended and his left yet to heal, he had no way to defend himself from the blow. Grimacing at the organ-rupturing impact, he positioned himself to break his fall—and just before he came down, countless swords erupted from the ground, skewering him through.
“Ngh...”
He lay spread-eagle, staring up at the sky. His mouth hung open as it finally dawned that Meteia had lured him into a trap. Ipetam spun in the air above him. As he watched, it surrendered to gravity and slowly descended. With his arms held fast, he was helpless to keep the scarlet blade from piercing his chest.
“Not yet... Not...yet! I will not die here!”
He eased his torso upright through sheer force of will. Slicing his legs to ribbons, shredding his belly, peeling the skin from his own back, he forced himself from the bed of nails. His lips curved into a rictus grin as he pulled Ipetam from the red ruin of his body.
Meteia’s eyes softened with pity. “Let me put you out of your misery.”
Enormous blades sprang from the ground around him, penning him in. One by one, they clicked together, coiling around him like a serpent constricting its prey. The whirring metal formed a dome over his head. With nowhere left to run, he gradually vanished within the vortex of steel.
Meteia thrust out a hand and clenched her fist. The blades abruptly contracted. In the blink of an eye, the dome shrank to the size of a glass bead and vanished.
“He got away,” she murmured as she opened her hand again. She had not sensed his death in the spinning blades. “But he won’t last long. Ipetam will claim its due.”
Ceryneia’s regeneration had ceased to function. His wounds would not heal. He would continue to bleed until he finally expired, and he would feel death creeping closer all the while. A fitting end for the last of the primozlosta, perhaps...or so Meteia thought as she mounted up and set off after Liz.
＊＊＊＊＊
A gale raged upon the battlefield. Every swing of the colossal man’s greataxe produced a violent squall that tore the nearby monsters limb from limb. None could approach him. The tempest struck fear into every heart.
All but one, that was. A beautiful woman stood in the heart of the storm, unconcerned by winds fierce enough to flay her to the bone. With a calm smile and nimble footwork, she wove elegantly between the strikes. It was as if she was in a world of her own, far from the clamor of battle: a young girl dancing through a field of flowers rather than a warrior fighting for her life.
“You’re a feisty one. Easy on the eyes too.” Null, the chieftain of the yaldabaoth, licked his lips. “You’re too good for a zlosta. How about I make you my wife instead?”
The woman took the dubious compliment in stride. “You would not be the first gentleman to make me that offer.”
“Hah! I’m sure I’m not.” He stared down at her with undisguised lust. “Well, how about it? Be my bride and I’ll let that pretty head stay on your shoulders.”
“I’m afraid I must disappoint you.” The woman—Claudia, dubbed the Vernesse by her people—brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled. “I have no interest in marriage at present. And even if I did, you’re hardly my type.”