The Lost Ruins, Chapter 13

Nic did not waste a moment. He immediately charged at Sonya, who similarly leapt towards him. Elena drew her bow and nocked an arrow, but the vampir moved, keeping Nic between them so that she could not fire without hitting her friend. Nic reached for his sword as he charged, but Elena noticed to her surprise that he did not draw his dracheneisen blade. Instead, his fingers closed on the hilt of his other sword, the one that she had never seen him draw. He pulled the blade free and swung it at Sonya. From Elena’s position, the blade seemed to be coated with some kind of nearly transparent material. Sonya moved her knives in a pattern that almost completely diverted Nic’s strike, but he twisted his wrist at the last second, sending his sword into her side. Sonya shrieked in agony, leaping away from him.   Elena darted sideways, trying to line up a shot while Sonya was away from Nic, but the vampir noticed the attempt and immediately charged Nic again, preventing the shot. As she did, she yelled, “Revenant Venom! How dare you?” She bellowed in agony a second time as Nic got in another blow. “You’re not the only one with such tricks, Hexe.” She kicked out at Nic, sending him sprawling.   Nic skidded across the floor, coming to a halt a few feet away from Elena. She cried out his name, taking a step forward to help him, but he sprang back to his feet and charged back at Sonya. Mentally, Elena kicked herself for squandering her opportunity to fire at Sonya before Nic stood back up. She moved across the chamber, trying to open up a shot, but Sonya kept moving as well, keeping Nic between them. Elena cursed the other woman.   Sonya’s fighting style was elegant, and obviously practiced. She moved both of her blades in hypnotic patterns that seemed to be able to block Nic’s attacks and deal out her own at the same time. Elena had never seen someone use knives to fend off a sword so effectively. Nic was good, however, managing to avoid any serious wounds as they dueled, and soon Sonya’s face was twisted into a mask of concentration. She seemed to be favoring her right shoulder slightly, and Elena remembered that she had shot Sonya out of the Waldemar Estate with an arrow to that shoulder. Seeing that the vampir could be wounded lent her a measure of confidence.   “Go for the right!” Elena cried. Nic adjusted his blows almost immediately, driving for Sonya’s wounded shoulder. The vampir twisted aside, catching his sword with her knives, forcing him back. He aimed a strike at her head, but she ducked under it. She leapt up after Nic’s sword was out of the way, landing on one of the pedestals. From her elevated vantage point, she kicked out, and Nic was just too slow to get out of the way. Her foot collided with his face with an audible crack. Nic’s head jerked backwards, and he fell to the floor in a spray of blood. His sword clattered out of his hands.   Even though she wanted desperately to make sure that Nic was okay, Elena did not waste her opportunity this time. She fired the arrow that she had been aiming for the last few minutes directly at Sonya. The vampir leapt sideways with an inhuman level of grace, landing on another of the pedestals. She hopped towards Elena, but the explorer was already firing again. Once more, Sonya avoided the attack by hopping to another pedestal. A third shot failed in the exact same way. Now Sonya was dangerously close, and Elena risked everything by firing two arrows at the same time, hoping to catch Sonya with the second one when she dodged.   This time, Sonya surprised Elena by dropping off of the pedestal, tucking into a roll as she hit the ground. Both of Elena’s arrows soared away into the chamber, neither coming anywhere close to the vampir. Sonya’s roll carried her to within striking distance of those lethal knives, and Elena frantically jumped away. She was too slow. A searing pain lanced through her as one of the knives sliced deep into her side. She fell to the ground, holding herself up with the same hand that was holding her bow. She pressed her other hand against her side, feeling the warm rush of blood there.   Sonya came to a halt, recovering from her rapid strike with a spin that sent flecks of Elena’s blood flying off of the knife. She grinned at the fallen woman, then raised the bloody knife to her lips and licked the blade. Sonya’s eyes closed for an instant, pleasure obvious in her expression.   “Such sweet blood! How do you get yourself to taste so good?” She opened her eyes again and took a step towards Elena. Her eyes fell on Elena’s wound, and she licked her lips hungrily.   Fighting down a wave of revulsion, Elena struggled to her knees and reached for another arrow but froze when she felt the last one in her quiver.   How? I had so many of them! Where did they…?   Then she remembered. She had expended most of her arrows to get herself through the floating corridor before Nic. She felt like the world’s foremost idiot for letting something so frivolous doom her now.   Sonya charged again, and Elena jumped sideways, nearly slipping in her own blood. She landed a distressingly small distance away, but then saw Nic’s sword lying not far from where she was. She did not waste a second, dropping her bow and scrambling for the sword. She got it in her hand and stood, spinning to face Sonya. She raised the blade as the vampir came to a halt, an amused expression on her face.   “Do you even know how to use that thing?” Sonya’s voice practically dripped condescension.   Elena hesitated. In truth, she didn’t. She had handled some dueling rapiers back in Avalon, but Nic’s broadsword was as different from those as Sonya herself was from Elena. And even if it had been one of the rapiers that Elena had used before, it was obvious that Sonya was much more skilled with her knives than Elena was with a blade. Elena’s lack of skill was why she had picked up archery in the first place. She had gotten good with her climbing axes, but this was not even close to the same thing.   Suddenly, Nic rose to his feet like one of the Graal Knights of legend. Blood streamed out of his nose, but it did not seem to hinder him at all as he drew the mighty dracheneisen sword from his back, its blade shining with what Elena imagined to be holy light. Sonya noticed the glow and turned, but this time Nic was faster. The blade swung down, cleaving into Sonya’s form. She screamed and slid sideways, somehow managing to turn a fatal strike into a dangerous one. She struck again, and Nic was forced to give ground. The two of them renewed their duel, fighting so fiercely that they had no chance to exchange words.   Elena cast around for ideas. She needed to help Nic somehow, but she had no idea how to do it. She couldn’t use the sword, and she only had one arrow left. One arrow would not be enough to finish off Sonya, especially if she continued to dodge as well as she had. Elena needed something else to work with. But what else was there? The Syrneth artifacts that they had found did nothing. The only other thing anywhere near them was…   Elena’s eyes fell on the narrow opening to the passageway she and Nic had used to get into the artifact chamber. Suddenly, she had an idea.   Abandoning Nic’s sword, Elena raced for the opening. She ignored the pain in her side and ducked under it, rolling to increase her speed. As she entered the other hall, she heard Sonya let out a wicked laugh behind her.   “Your friend has abandoned you!” she cackled. Elena hoped that Nic would trust his Rüken enough to know that it wasn’t true.   In the darkness of the other chamber, Elena pulled out the Syrneth crystal and used the light to find a pile of the brownish sludge. She crossed to the pile and pulled out one of the small empty jars she had in her satchel. She occasionally used these to carry samples, or water when she was going on long trips. She quickly gathered up as much of the sludge into the jars as she could, ignoring the burning and itching of her hands as she did. Once she had filled three jars with the stuff, she took the last arrow out of her quiver and coated the tip in the brown muck. She dropped the jars back into her satchel and ran back to the opening to the artifact chamber. She rolled back into the room, quickly locating both Nic and Sonya.   Elena raced back across the chamber, pulling one of the jars out of her satchel and removing the stopper. She darted in close to the duel, taking advantage of Sonya’s distraction to get close. Once she was near, she flung the open jar at the vampir. Sonya saw the jar coming and jumped out of the way, but a fair bit of the brown sludge splattered onto her black clothing anyway. She glanced down at the new stains, a quizzical expression on her face.   “And what is this supposed to accomplish?”   Nic, however, shot Elena a knowing look. He began to fight Sonya again, and Elena saw how he had adjusted his strikes to allow her more opportunities to fling the sludge at Sonya. Elena retrieved the second jar and opened it. This time, she did not throw the jar itself at Sonya, instead taking handfuls of the flammable material and flinging that at her. After the fifth handful hit her or close to her, Sonya’s expression had changed to one of mild worry. It was clear that she did not know what was happening, but she could tell that something was.   Elena had just run out of her second jar’s worth of sludge when Nic struck out at Sonya. She was forced to turn to intercept his sword, leaving her back towards Elena. The explorer did not hesitate. She pulled the last jar of sludge out of her bag and flung it at the back of Sonya’s head. Desperation guided Elena’s aim, and the jar smashed against Sonya’s skull, dropping the brown sludge all over her. Sonya hesitated for an instant before attacking Nic again, heedless of the brown stuff running over her body like a river. Elena was about to reach for her last arrow when she realized that she had left her bow behind when she had ducked out into the hall.   Where is it? she thought frantically. She looked around, and found her bow lying not far away. She dove towards it in a rush, crouching atop it. She pulled flint and steel out of her bag and quickly lit the tip of her last arrow. To her relief, the head burst into flames eagerly and continued to burn.   In one smooth motion, Elena picked up her bow and brought the arrow to full draw. The flames singed the fingers of her left hand, but she ignored the pain as she sighted on the duel. She was going to call out to Nic, but he must have heard the flint and steel, for he allowed Sonya to slam him aside. He dropped to the floor, and Sonya loomed over him, victorious.   “Go to hell,” Elena called, and loosed the arrow.   Sonya turned at the sound of Elena’s shout and saw the flaming arrow flying at her. Her eyes had a chance to widen before the arrow buried itself in her chest. The fire took perhaps half a second to catch, but when it did, the brown sludge caused Sonya to erupt into flames like a torch.   Screams filled the chamber, echoing around the rock-metal walls as the flames burned higher. For an instant, the fire had a human-like shape, arms flung out to the sides. Flames trailed from a pair of dropped knives. The blaze completely outshone the faint crystal light in the chamber. Then the fire collapsed in on itself, dropping to the floor in an unrecognizable mass.   The screams stopped, but the flames burned on.