“How's it coming?” Bjorgrund asked, pacing back-and-forth.

“It's coming,” Alex growled. “But you have to let me focus. This is not easy.”

Within him, two powerful energies warred. Hannah’s power struggled against the interdiction as it remained coiled around it like a snake. The holy command was constricting her energy.

Over and over, Alex tried to free her power, using the Mark to learn from his previous attempts. Both successes and failures were helping him find weaker sections of the interdiction.

Bit by bit, the Traveller’s power was being freed, so far he couldn’t move anything heavier than a pen, but very quickly and with each attempt, the mass of what he could teleport was increasing. He’d be able to teleport out of the sanctum soon, but until then, he could only worry about what the First Apostle was doing, and if he and the Stalker had found Theresa, Brutus and Grimloch there.

Alex prayed that they hadn't.

----------------------------------------

Steel clashed with steel.

Boots scraped across white stone.

Jaws snapped.

Antlers raked bone plate armour.

Six beings fought for their lives within Uldar’s throne room.

Grimloch lunged, springing at the Stalker, his maul raised and his jaws wide open displaying hundreds of knife-like teeth. The spiked hammer dropped with a whoosh, crunching stone, missing its target and striking the floor.

In a blur, the fae moved, snarling at the sharkman.

The smaller warrior tried darting around to the hulking beast man’s side, but Grimloch spun after him, sweeping the hammer sideways.

“Oh—” the fae ducked low.

A shadow fell over him.

He looked up, finding Grimloch’s enormous jaws closing in.

He flitted back with a yelp; the jaws snapping shut where he’d just been. “By the fae lords, you’re quicker than you look!”

Grimloch did not answer, intent on stalking the fae—his armoured form salivated as his maul swung down again.

White stone exploded, raining chips.

“Away with you!” The Stalker extended a finger, swinging it at the sharkman.

Grimloch’s arm rose to block.

The scream of metal shearing was followed by red spraying from his forearm as the fae’s power bit into his magical armour, slicing a deep line through it.The sharkman growled.

“Oi, isn't this a little unfair?” the fae asked, putting his hands on his hips. “You're a big’un, and you should be slow and lumbering. Instead, you're quick, strong, and tougher than rock.” He suddenly grinned. “Maybe I should've been hunting you this whole time!”

“Quiet, lunch,” Grimloch said, lunging at him.

The Stalker extended both index fingers, swinging them at Grimloch, but the sharkman had learned. With shocking speed, he dodged away, escaping the fae’s invisible, cutting magic.

Deep gouges appeared on the white floor shere he had been.

The air split.

Grimloch dashed around the small creature, circling him like a shark’s dorsal fin around a meal, all the while swinging his maul and snapping at his opponent, but missing the scurrying fae.

The two predators kept their eyes fixed on each other, at a stalemate.

There was no stalemate between Theresa and Gabrian, however. Their battle was not going the way the huntress wanted. Theresa fought better than she ever had before; she moved like liquid, her swords extensions of her arms, and her footwork both swift and grounded. ONE ARM

The Twinblade hissed through the air, singing a song of death as she weaved a steel cage around her opponent. Push cuts opened red lines on his arm. Draw cuts split his skin along his torso and thighs.

Red pooled on white stone from blood leaking from his wounds.

Yet, she was still being bested.

If Theresa’s skills were those of a well-honed machine, then Gabrian’s were those of a cornered animal: berserk, ferocious. With one breath, he cursed at her in a tirade of vile words, the next, he would utter short prayers to Uldar and close the wounds she’d dealt him.

Though he was left with only one arm, he moved like shadow, striking Theresa as quickly as light against shadow, using all he’d learned over hundreds of years. His blade blocked hers repeatedly—her arms shook as metal clashed on metal—while his return blows hit with the force of a falling tree.

Each time she parried a strike, the Twinblade would come close to flying from her hands.

And—whenever she started gaining ground—he would cast a spell, forcing her to duck waves of fire, dodge tongues of lightning, or parry beams of deadly light that she would deflect back to him.

The beams kept missing as he dodged every spell she sent back at him. He would close on her, speaking another quick incantation, moving faster, his blows hitting harder.

With each strike, she felt she’d soon be cut in two.

He soon began opening cuts on her body.

A slash to the leg. A cut to the arm. A deeper wound along her side. She parried or rolled with his blows, lessening their force; she'd be long dead, if she didn’t.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

This couldn’t go on; all of the training she’d done over the past months had helped to close the gap between them, but not enough. Even with the holy man’s wounds and crumbling mind, he’d been enhanced with the Mark of the Chosen and been practising swordsmanship, life enforcement, divinity, and magic for far longer than she'd been alive.

Added training or not, she was having trouble. If he’d had two hands to fight with, she might be lying dead on the ground in a pool of blood.

She hated this man.

‘There has to be a gap in his defences,’ she thought. ‘I have to end this fight or he's going to kill me! There's got to be someway—’

Her thoughts were interrupted by a deep scream from across the room.

Brutus was there, making sport of the Stalker’s mount.

The moose was bigger—though not by much—but lacked the bulk, speed, might, and armour of her blood familiar.

The fae’s mount lowered its antlers and charged, trying to knock the cerberus from his feet. Its hooves ground against stone, picking up speed, butting Brutus full force; the hound skidded backwards, his claws scraping the floor.

The cerberus’ momentum slowed to a stop, and—no matter how hard the moose pushed—he did not move. Two of his heads latched onto the fae, crushing its antlers and the bells attached to them in his jaws.

A loud crack, and the antlers shattered.

Both moose and Stalker bellowed with pain.

Brutus grabbed his opponent in all three sets of his jaws, shaking the bulky creature like a ragdoll. Wet ripping sounds came from the beast’s body as the cerberus savaged the Stalker’s mount. With a twist of his necks, Brutus threw the moose, then unleashed three cones of sonic power into the creature's body, pulping meat.

The fae shrieked in pain, scurrying out of Grimloch’s reach, throwing up his hands. “Right, that tears it!” He reached toward his mount. “Join!” he shouted.

Suddenly, the moose melted away, becoming a boiling mound of flesh and bone, pouring from Brutus’ jaws. The mass shot through the air, pouring into the Stalker’s open mouth.

He swallowed, then belched.

He began to change.

His skin was rippling as though worms were crawling beneath it. His bones cracked. Icicles formed on his beard.

He began to grow.

His pudgy body stretched, turning leaner as his height climbed like a young tree. He became Theresa’s height, then grew taller than Alex, then Baelin, then Grimloch.

He kept growing, reaching a height greater than Bjorgrund’s.

The sharkman's doll-like eyes watched, measuring the fae as he kept growing, reaching nearly twice his height. His joints and bones creaked and groaned, his bulky muscles rippled as they adjusted to his new form. There came a sound like bone crunching from the top of his skull as a pair of antlers erupted from the sides of his head.

The short, squat creature from before was now gone, replaced by a towering monster.

It stood nearly twice Grimloch’s height with elk-like legs, and from its shoulders, dangled long, odd looking arms whose length were out of balance to the rest of its body. They ended with fingers capped by icicle-shaped claws. Frost coated the monstrosity’s beard, jingling bells were woven throughout it. Their ringing could never be called merry; sinister would have been a much better word. His clothing had grown with his body, the were rich and trimmed with furs, a contrast to the vicious, primal expression on his face.

Below his antlers gleamed the hungry eyes of a predator.

The fae snarled, looking down at Brutus. “I was trying to keep things as pleasant as possible, considering you’re a pup and all, but you woke up the beast in me, so now you’re all going to pay for it” His voice was ringed with the deep, rumbling, growl of a beast.

Grimloch shrugged. “Bigger lunch I guess.”

He charged the looming Stalker, clearing the distance in heartbeats. The fae swung his claws out, they’d blurred with the movement, slashing deep into the sharkman's breastplate like it was paper.

Grimloch kept coming, swinging his maul at the Stalker’s legs.

The fae’s hoof swept out, kicking the sharkman away, then he bounded at Brutus. With a bark, the cerberus unleashed cones of destructive sonic power, which slowed the fae—ripping his skin—but the Stalker kept coming.

“Get away from them!” Theresa cried.

A sudden movement came from beside her.

She ducked, Gabrian’s holy sword slashed away a chunk of her hair.

“Your eyes should be on me as they should have been on Uldar, sinner,” he growled. “You have much to repent for!” Howling his wrath, he lunged.

Steel rang as she barely parried a crushing blow at the same instant the Stalker reached Brutus.

All teeth and snapping jaws, the hound pounced, meeting the Stalker’s swiping claws.

Bone armour cracked, flesh tore, blood spurted.

Brutus yelped in pain as Theresa grimaced.

“Leave him be!” she shouted again.

“No!” an ugly grin spread across his face as he reached for Brutus.

Grimloch charged from behind, sharp teeth bared.

At the last instant, the fae turned on one hoof, lowered his antlers, and butted the sharkman, gouging armour, finding flesh.

Brutus lay howling, gripped with pain from long, ragged slashes to his side.

“No!” Theresa cried.

The Stalker swung his head toward the ceiling, lifting the twitching sharkman, tossing him across the room at horrifying speed. Grimloch collided with the wall, landing with a dull thud, sliding down it. The fae’s finger slashed the air twice. Deep trenches appeared in the sharkman’s armour.

Red sprayed.

Grimloch went still.

Theresa screamed; there was no sign of life in his black, doll-like eyes.

“Come on, pup, your turn next!” the Stalker laughed. “Then I can go help my angry friend over there grind your master to dust! We’ll be hunting the rest of you next. No quarry bests me! By the time we’re done, our prey’ll wish we’d killed him back in the Empire!”

The huntress’ mind screamed with panic, desperately wishing she could get away from the First Apostle and get to Brutus.

Brutus growled and snapped at the Stalker, trying to keep him away. He unleashed his cones of destructive sound, but he was wounded now. Slower. The fae slipped around the sonic blasts, stalking closer.

But she couldn’t get to him, Gabrian wouldn’t let up. The more she bled and began to slow, the harder he fought. With growing intensity, fire, energy, all fuelled by rage.

They would all die.

First, the fae would kill Brutus.

Then, her lifeforce would crumble without him, and the Stalker and Gabrian would finish her off and be free to hunt everyone else.

‘That’s not how you want to die, gutted by some scum!” she screamed inside, parrying another heavy blow. She nearly dropped the Twinblade. ‘That’s not what you want for Brutus!’

But what could she do?

The First Apostle was too strong and too fast.

The Twinblade was powerful—two swords as one—but his sword could match it. His skills were still greater than hers. His strength, greater. He could heal his wounds in an instant.

Maybe if she and Brutus—connected as they were—could take him on together, then…

‘No, that still wouldn't be enough,’ she realised. ‘We'd have to truly fight as one, like how the Stalker joined the two pieces of himself together, making himself as powerful as he is now! It’s like he’s a living weapon: one warrio—’

Something dawned on her.

An answer to a mystery she hadn’t been able to unravel, to fully grasp, or wrap her mind around. Something that had left her incomplete from the time she’d gotten the second part of the Twinblade.

Theresa suddenly saw the world around her slow as the answer unfolded, as she began to understand.

She could see spittle flying from Gabrian's mouth, hanging in the air. She could see the Stalker bearing down on Brutus; the snarls on her dog’s faces, the grin on the fae’s.

Her attention was also drawn to The Twinblade.

The two swords in her hand.

Two swords, that were one weapon.

…but was that actually right?

‘Connected together…’ she thought. ‘Two swords as one…but is that it? No…not two as one…three as one.’

Twinblade Lu.

That was her great grandfather's name, his alias.

She’d always thought he was called that because of the weapon he carried, the weapon that had defined him.

But she'd been wrong.

He wasn’t called Twinblade Lu for the weapon he used…

…he was called that because that was who he was. That was the secret to the swords.

He was not just a man who wielded a weapon.

He was a weapon.

The Twinblade is made of three parts.

Sword.

Sword.

…and wielder.

All coming together as one weapon.

‘Three as one,’ she realised.

It felt like a key turning in a lock.

The Twinblade transformed.