Chapter 18

I wasn’t the most perceptive person, but I could see why the man was buying time. Even now his movements were already smoother, smoke no longer seeping from the cracks in his armor. Even so, this was the most talking I’d gotten from another person since I was dragged into this place, and felt an odd desire to prolong it, even if I knew a fight would ensue after. “What’s your name?” I asked him, my tone conciliatory.

The man just laughed in return, the sound hard-bitten and edged in sarcasm. “Ask the Scribe. You’ll know my name if you slay me. I do not care to ask yours; the Scribe will tell me soon enough.”

He slid the haft of his hammer downward, left hand coming across to grip the haft and turn the momentum of its’ descent into an enormous downward strike. I knew better than to try and meet the strike head-on, so instead I side-stepped and struck with my Crystalflame gauntlet, throwing a punch into the flat side of the hammerhead. The ferocious downward momentum deflected the strike just enough that the impact skidded off the stone and sent the man twisting, off-balance. I followed up with a trio of firebolts from my left hand, one after another slamming into his left pauldron, interposed by a quick twist of his chest. He pulled the hammer up, and swung it back toward me, taking quick, shuffling steps to close the distance.

I hopped backward and threw another firebolt at his face to try and distract him; his response was to loosen his grip on the haft, hands sliding down to the very bottom, extending his range enough that it clipped my left elbow and sent me spinning across the room. I grunted as I hit the wall, stumbling away from it in blind agony. My left arm hung limply at my side, and I could feel the way the bones had broken under the strike. My shoulder felt like it had been nearly dislocated by the impact, and my head swam from the lightning bolts of pain that shot up from my left arm. I heaved in a shuddering breath, and turned to face him again, his approach slow but inevitable. As he gained speed, he came at me like a freight train, and thrust the hammerhead out before him like a battering ram. This time I waited until the instant before impact, and pulled up a shield of flames angled before me, stepping aside even as it struck, so the hammer’s head embedded itself in the stones beside me. My right hand, still aching from the earlier strike, twitched as I lifted the charged gauntlet, and I drove it hard into the gap in the plates covering his left shoulder.

The sound that emerged from under his helmet barely sounded human, a howl of pain and rage that echoed in the confines of the room. I jumped back as he threw a punch at me, and then ripped the hammer out of the wall, sending bits of stone clattering to the floor around him. He continued to close distance with me, but I danced out of his reach, unencumbered by the heavy armor that slowed and shielded him. The twisted metal of his armor embedded in his shoulder creaked with the movement, the wound beneath an ugly blackened burn. It hadn’t slowed his strikes by very much, but the wound clearly pained him, and turned near-misses into complete misses, his blows coming faster and harder, but less accurately. I found myself struggling to keep ahead of him, launching distracting firebolts at him that he hardly seemed to notice; his armor glowed red as embers in several spots, and judging by his bellows of pain, it was definitely hurting him. But it wasn’t hurting him enough. I tried to keep inside of his range, minimizing the immense power of the hammerhead by blocking the haft. It bruised my ribs where it struck, but I knew that was cheap at the price; if he got a full swing against me, I was dead. I slammed fistfuls of firebolts onto his chest and gorget, trying to weaken the metal with heat, trying to make myself an opening.

I held still for a moment, luring him into a direct attack, pretending to conjure a spell. He swept the hammerhead downward and I side-stepped it again, using the flame shield to deflect it. This time he was more prepared, and kept the angle steep, driving it into the stone rather than taking him entirely off-balance; it wasn’t a lot, but it was enough. I stepped in close, and rammed my flaming gauntlet into the side of his cuirass, where leather straps joined the front and back. There wasn’t much of a gap, but it was certainly enough to draw another howl of rage. I drove a punch into the gap the armor had made, twisted aside by the first strike, armor starting to split like a seam as the straps burned away, buckles weakened by flame unable to hold themselves shut. I lined up for another hard punch, aiming to get just below his armpit, where the armor opened up.

What I wasn’t expecting was his follow-up. He let go of the hammer entirely, and twisted toward me, throwing the full weight of his armor into a punch. It just barely hit my chest, but the impact was enough to throw me back into the wall once again, drawing a scream from me as my left side struck first. While it hadn’t been a lot of time yet, my natural regeneration had been enough to get the bones starting to knit together, and I had only just regained some use of the limb before I was struck. Without the enormous hammer, he was much quicker, his berserker-like rage driving him into a vicious pursuit, chasing after me with relentless punches and kicks. I needed room to move so I could begin to counterattack, but he kept after me. I brought him back toward his hammer where it lay embedded in the floor, the haft sticking almost straight up. I grabbed onto the counterweight pommel and jumped past it. Having to negotiate the obstacle proved just enough trouble that I was able to gain a handful of steps before I turned back to face him, bringing my hands agonizingly together as I conjured a fireball, the roiling mass of energies even more unstable than usual. I unleashed the blast toward him as he charged, and he didn’t even try to avoid it, simply taking the blow full on his breastplate. The explosion launched him backward into the hilt of the hammer, his foot snagging on the head, and he fell to the floor in an immense clangorous heap.

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This time I ran toward him, wrapping both of my fists in flames. My right punch was far surer and stronger than my left, but both strikes took their toll, hammering his helmet as he tried to stand. He faltered, kneeling, and fell back onto his right hand. I lined up an immense straight-down punch toward his helm, channeling the little remaining power of the gauntlet into it. He was forced to block with both hands, grabbing the gauntlet. It burst in his grip, freeing my hand and showering his face and hands with embers. My real strike came next: while he was busy defending himself from the punches, I lined up for a snap-kick to his knee, hitting it on the inside of the joint with all the force I could muster, my foot aching as if I had kicked a concrete wall. While it wasn’t as much as I’d like, it was enough, and I yanked my leg out from under him as he began to tumble backward.

When his body weight collapsed down onto the folding joint, the sound of crunching metal was far quieter than the crack of bone. I pounced on top of him, intending to pin him down and rain punches on his helm, but I was unprepared for his counterattack. He grabbed my right wrist as I wound up for the punch, and yanked me inward, coming up to meet me with a fierce headbutt. I reeled from the hit, my suddenly fuzzy eyesight taking in the smear of red across the front of his helm, and the wide, angry eyes staring at me from beneath it. His next punch sent me flying off of him. I couldn’t believe the difference in strength between us; my attacks felt like light slaps compared to the power of his. He pulled himself to his feet carefully, his right arm hanging limp next to him. He took a couple of faltering steps toward me, and then paused as I pulled myself standing.

The rage had left his eyes, his movements slow and pained. He stood still for a handful of seconds, an opening I failed to exploit, my vision swimming from the concussion. “My name is Marcus,” he said to me, the admission shocking. “You’ve earned that much.” He took a couple of slow, heavy steps toward me, and I retreated in turn.

I stared at him in confusion, trying to puzzle out what I could of the man behind the armor. My magic flickered in my hands, my concentration utterly broken by the confusing turn of events, any ability to recover dulled by the pounding ache in my skull.

“I can’t kill you, right now, but I’m afraid I can’t let you stay, either.” Already I was regaining the focus to summon attacks, sparks flickering across my palms as I tried to muster up more magic. “Farewell, David.” My eyes widened as he spoke my name, and the question died on my lips.

He lifted his right foot, and slammed it down onto the floor. I looked down as the cracks approached me, realizing that his previous downward strikes had formed a web of cracks around me, the worst impacts at the cardinal points of a square that entirely encapsulated me. I opened my mouth to speak, even as the floor gave out from beneath me, the freight train roaring of an avalanche of stone. I tried to roll aside as the stones struck, but I landed on top of them with enough force to crack ribs, and punch through to the floor below. The next impact felt like it shattered my hip, and more stones fell down after me, the edges of the upper floor caving in and bringing the levels between falling down with it. Desperately, I rolled myself toward the only semblance of safety nearby, and threw myself out through the hole I’d made in the wall to let the flames in, earlier. I desperately summoned constructs, half-formed hooks and a rope as hard and brittle as ice, a parachute that did little to slow my descent. When I struck the ground below, I was surrounded by flames, everything around me blazing. Weakened as I was, I couldn’t even keep the flames at bay. I knew they wouldn’t hurt me, and that was enough for now.

My vision swam, and consciousness faded once again.