Chapter 76 – Maza and Darza
Everything seemed to happen at once. The big crustie pushed forward, claws raised high and chirping more like a bird than a shelled horror. I pulled the wrinkled scroll of frighten monster and evoked the incantation. The wide, watery eyes of the crustie bulged wider, and it scrabbled against the flooring, screeching. Two bookshelves toppled, blowing dust and loose pages into the air. It bowled over both of the lamias—literally spearing one through her chest with one of those spindly legs. The witch and the warrior managed to just get out of the way before the abyssal creature tore down the doorframe in its effort to quit the library. It wouldn’t last, and the scroll dulled in my hand. I dropped it on the floor and fanned out my deck.
At the same time, Annalisa bounded up, using an obsidian portal like a springboard, leaping on the other lamia with a steel-studded punch that cracked the back of her fishy skull.
“Cheap tricks!” spat Maza. She flexed her fingers, visible strain on her face, before abandoning them with a roar. And pointing at me. “Darza!”
“What I tell yeh? Inconvenient,” said the shark, pushing toward me with his swords raised high.
Living shadows spread across the floor and wall from the enraged Maza toward Annalisa, not unlike those Mother Mayaz used to bind us to the floor. Without thinking, I evoked the two of knaves and sent the card spinning toward the spell. It embedded into the floorboards, pinning the shadow spell in place—dark countering dark. I stared at it. I can’t believe that worked, either.
Annalisa vaulted toward Maza, and that’s when Darza blocked my line of sight and brought his swords down.
I jumped back. The five of knaves was still exhausted, so I had to rely on my own nimbleness to escape the probing strikes with the swords. I dipped low, stepping back, and then leapt to the right to avoid the follow-up thrust. I felt my back hit the banister, and spinning away from Darza’s overhead followup saw the ornate railing turned to sizzling kindling. All that had happened in the span of a breath. The shark was deceptively fast, for his size.
This was total bullshit. Annalisa was supposed to handle the sword guys, I was supposed to handle the mages! Not only that, but Darza had already shown that he was more than a match for Annalisa and I together. I’d grown, since then. We both had. But Annalisa was currently fighting her way past two armed sharks to get at the shadow mage, so it’s not like I’d have been hopping to switch places with her.
While Darza dislodged his swords, I darted in and drove the blade toward his throat. To my surprise, he actually shied away from the dagger, letting go of the cutlass in his off-hand rather than let the short blade touch him. He retained his acid-enchanted sword in the other and swept it in a broad arc to keep me from pressing the advantage. The wave of acid launched off its edge. I’d been ready for that, and spun my deck like a wheel again, scattering the attack without it melting my deck, thanks to the two of towers and the #2 polish. That stuff really was amazing!
The devouring acid splashed against the bookshelves, what remained of the railing, and even against Darza’s coat as he lifted the collar to shield himself.
Maza hissed at him from behind her guards. “The books! Careful, you idiot!” she yelled as she launched a hook of shadow that took Annalisa off her feet. I pulled the three of dragons from the wheel before Annalisa even hit the ground, but only had time for a quick jolt of focus before Darza pressed in again. It didn’t go to waste. Annalisa actually opened a portal underneath herself, and turned her falling momentum into a flying punch when she dropped out of the other end of the tunnel above one of the Mayazian sharks.
Darza glanced back, growling. “Stop bringing me places you’re trying to preserve, yeh damn fool witch!”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather fight her than me?” I gasped between ragged breaths. “I’d be happy to give ya’ll space.”
Darza roared at me, serrated teeth and halitosis both too close for comfort as he pressed in. I arranged my cards into a dome and deflected attacks, opening a small hole in the array to thrust forward with the knife. Once again, the Mayazian bruiser treated it with a health respect—more than the last one I’d tried to jab him with. I knew his coat had a layer of steel rings concealed within.
“Shut your fuckin’ teeth, whelp!”
Rude. The only thing uglier than his face were his manners. Even worse was that the Mayazian wasn’t even winded. The green gleam started to creep up Darza’s blade again and he raised it overhead. I called the three of knaves and stepped back. The blade swept down, cleaving my shadow from shoulder to hip and carving an acid-edged trail through the floor. Bright green bubbling goo ate my shadow clone from the cut outward, to the tip of its head and the end of its toes.
I slashed at Darza’s wrist as he tried to wrench his sword out of the floor. He tried to let go of the hilt when he saw what I was going for, but the tip of the blade nicked the edge of his hand. When I pulled back, the knife pulled toward, almost jerking out of my hand. I wrestled it back, with both hands wrapped around the grip. To my surprise, the eye on the hilt had opened, and the slit-pupil eye was fixed on the shark’s hand. Darza stumbled away, looking between the cut and the knife, for the first time in either of our fights together not one-hundred percent confident of his victory.
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The floor shook under my feet. Behind my opponent, the bulky big crustie tore out half the doorframe forcing its way back into the library wing, now enraged. Annalisa was holding her own, but her back was to the creature. She couldn’t hope to fight both it and the mage, and I couldn’t fight both Darza and my own damn knife. Growling, I tapped the four of knaves to Warn Annalisa. Before I could, an inky black voice like the depths of the salty sea slithered into my head and wrapped around my brain.
“Let me go.”
I looked down at the blade in horror. It had spoken to me through the four of knaves. Deviltongue. It was a blade possessed. Its eye rotated to me.
“You’ve already caught me! Now unhook me, seeker.”
I don’t know if it was intention or the shock of being fixed by that eye’s attention, but my fingers loosened and the knife shot from my grip. Darza had his sword out of the floor by then, and swung it at the knife. Sparks flew from the contact, and the knife spiraled off into the air beyond the broken banister.
Well, there that goes, I thought. But it stopped midair, reoriented the blade toward Darza, and drove in again.
Ah. Right. It had chased Annalisa.
“Darcent!” shouted Annalisa.
Oh, shit, Annalisa! The crustie had her on the back foot, claws snapping at her as it herded her into the corner. The demon dagger seemed to have distracted Darza for the moment.
I sent her a mental image as I pulled out the two of dragons and held it to my lips. Darza spotted it, and Mother Mayaz must have told him what cards to look out for, because his eyes went wide and he pulled his collar up again. But at the instant I blew, Annalisa opened a portal directly in front of me. The flames were weakened somewhat by the plane of frost, but the big crustie still shrieked and scrabbled to get away from the flames splashing against its shell and face. It backed off. I took another deep breath, already feeling the strain in my throat, and Annalisa swept the portal to the side to menace the witch, Maza as I continued to blow flames through the dimensional tear.
Books on either side crisped and burst into flame The dry, dusty tomes to to the flame like the finest tinder. This was maybe the only place in Dragonmaw that might be more flammable than Kindledown.
“Darza!” she shouted. “Why is the ice devilborn using fire magic?! She’ll destroy this whole library!”
“It ain’t her!” shouted Darza. He tried to take a step towards me but had to step back to deflect the demon knife again. This time, it careened into a bookshelf and stuck, wriggling to free itself. But it would be back. He roared in frustration. “Call yer squid-fucked knife back!”
“It’s no longer speaking to me!” she said.
“Fuckin’ perfect!” hissed Darza. If gazes could cut, his eyes would have a keener edge than his sword. For being part of the same gang, these two did not work well together. “You know how long we been sussing a way into this brine-damned place for Mother Mayaz? How long I been wearing this stupid badge and crawling these filthy tunnels?” he demanded. “Just to fucking find you here! That’s what I needed, today!”
“Funny, we just stumbled into it on our first delve,” I said.
“You fucking WHAT?!”
“The timing, right?”
The shark raged, working himself into a frenzy. I inhaled for another dragon breath, but coughed, lungs already burning. The card dropped to the floor and I fell to a knee. Dragons above, the pain from using this card! I needed to figure out how to strengthen my windpipe. Darza came forward, I wouldn’t dodge this time. Hells, I could barely breathe. The smoke from the shelf on fire already stung my eyes.
Before his sword came down, Anna’s fist plowed into the side of his face with a burst of snowflakes, and the rest of the devilborn followed. The Mayazian fighter shrieked in rage and pain as her spikes tore open his cheek. I could see both dark, red blood and sharp, white teeth through the ragged wound.
Annalisa pulled me at least up to one knee. At least I could count on my partner to have my back. But the fact was, we couldn’t beat these two and their monsters. And it tore me up. We were going to have to cede the elven library to Mother fucking Mayaz and her gang of abyssal bastards. It wasn’t right. They were Bethane cultists, and this place had a lost trove of Soul Seeker secrets and knowledge of untold value. It didn’t belong to them.
Maza was already using some sort of water magic to extinguish the flames, filling the rafters with billowing white smoke. The ghost dragon fresco twinkled through, casting their own image. Mother Mayaz wanted this place so badly she’d had her gang boring sea tunnels to the undercity to find a way in.
It might kill me to use the two of dragons again. Hell, I’m pretty certain it would. But I called the two of dragons back to my hand. It fought me. It resisted the call. The whole deck vibrated.
“Not now!” I muttered. I pushed my will harder. I needed this. Annalisa needed this. We couldn’t win this fight, but I refused to lose on my knees. I pushed myself up, legs shaking, and called the card again.
“Darcent!” Annalisa hissed. She coughed as well, waving smoke from her face. She was in bad shape, cut up and bleeding—and covered in mottled bruises. I think one of her horns had been chipped. “We have to go!”
“No!” I said. I put everything I had left into calling the two of dragons into my hand. Darza came forward, sword raised for a killing blow. The green edge crept along the length of the blade as he prepared to cleave us with an acid attack.
Finally, the conflict in my deck stilled, and a card flew into my grip.
Only, it wasn’t the two of dragons.
It was the Heiress.
Fuck it.
I sent my will into the card.