The Warslayer(41)

But the sword wasn't sharp. Why should it be, when it would never have to cut anything? And strong enough to put on a show was a far piece from being strong enough to do lethal damage with a dull piece of metal. She hurt the monster, bloodied it, did a certain amount of damage.

But not enough—and it didn't take the creature long to realize that she couldn't. It reached out, grabbing her blade in one enormous hand and squeezing until its own blood flowed between its fingers. Immobilizing the blade.

And then it hit her with its other hand.

She didn't lose consciousness. She felt a jarring shock—no pain, not then—and a sort of discontinuity, a sense of distraction as she rolled down the hillside and crashed to the bottom, lying stunned for a moment, unable to remember who she was and what she'd been doing a moment before. There was a ringing in her ears, and beyond it she could hear nothing.

When she tried to get to her feet she fell, and so she crawled, knowing she had to be somewhere other than where she was. A rush of heat roared through her body, centered in her face. Fresh sweat oozed suddenly from her skin, running into her eyes, and then the pain came, pounding hotly in time with her heartbeat, but she was already climbing back up the side of the hill.

The monster was leaning over Belegir. Her sword was lying on the ground behind it, the monster's bloody hand-print halfway up the blade.

She picked it up. She didn't think. She stepped back and took a stance, swinging the blade back over her shoulder. It wasn't a swordsman's stance, but something from the long ago summers of her life. And then she brought her bat forward, using the edge, not the flat, driving an imaginary ball past the wicket, driving the thin edge of metal into the vulnerable place where the skull met the spine in anything that walked upright, using all her anger, all her fear.

There was a crunch.

In the end, the sword in her hands was no more and no less than a long steel club. And that was enough.

The monster fell forward onto Belegir. Glory dropped the sword and grabbed the creature, dragging it off. The fur against her fingers was greasy and coarse, undeniably the creature's hairy skin, and revulsion filled her. Pain thrilled through her arm and back as though there were wires under her skin and someone was pulling on them. The monster's yellow eyes were wide and fixed, already starting to take on the glassy crystalline cast of death. She'd killed it, and with that certainty she was filled with a strange mixture of dread and glee.

She turned to Belegir and forgot those feelings utterly.

He was covered in blood. His face was bruised and torn, his robes ripped open down the front. There were deep claw-marks down his chest, and his throat was bruised. But he was breathing.

Glory moaned, deep in her throat. She knelt beside him. What should she do? What would Vixen do?

No. That wasn't any help. What would Sister Bernadette do?

Sister B would use her nursing skills to take care of the wounded, then use her detective skills to find out who'd attacked them, then explain everything to Vixen so the viewers would understand it.

"Belegir?" Glory whispered hopefully. To her vast relief, his eyelids fluttered. He tried to draw a deep breath and coughed, whimpering with pain.

"Where I come from, werewolves don't come out during the day," she said, forcing a bravado she was far from feeling. "Don't worry. It's dead. I killed it."

"One of Her creatures," Belegir whispered, and this time Glory didn't have the heart to disagree. That thing she'd killed had been evil—evil in the way that terrorists and serial killers were evil; a thing that took a personal delight in cruelty, in harm.

"I've got to get you back inside where it's safe, Bel. If that thing could of come in to the cave, I reckon it would've, so in there must be safe." Mustn't it? Please let the answer to that one be "yes." "How bad is it?"

"I can walk," the little Allimir whispered through his damaged throat.

Glory doubted it, but she knew she couldn't carry him, at least not far. She got to her feet, using her sword as a cane—everything was starting to hurt—and lifted Belegir to his feet.

The Allimir were useless in a fight, but that didn't mean they weren't brave. The guts it took for Belegir to get on his feet and stay on them without complaint made Glory feel small and ashamed. His face was grey with agony, and fresh blood welled from every wound, but he made no sound. He leaned heavily on her, and the two of them shuffled the few feet to the cave mouth.

Even that much exertion had Belegir gasping and choking for air. There was no way he could walk as far as the fountain.

"Is this safe? Belegir—is this safe?" Glory asked urgently.

"What?" he mumbled. She leaned him gently against the cool stone wall to take some of the strain off her own back and shoulders.