The Warslayer(78)

Believe.

And hit the Warmother with the other end of the sword.

Chain her again.

And kill Ivradan to do it.

He could have died anyway, right? Any time this past five years. Any time today, in fact.

She could be a hero. . . .

No!

The sword twisted in her hands, desperate now to fulfill its purpose. She could feel sharp pieces of metal working their way loose in the hilt, cutting her hands until they bled. She gripped it tighter, ignoring the pain. She'd been an Olympic-class gymnast. Pain was an old friend.

There has to be another way!

The mantis looked fragile. Cut its head off, and maybe it would go away, at least for a while. If she could get back to Belegir—tell him what she knew—get his advice—

Then the monster darted forward—much faster than it had moved until now—and plucked the sword, blade first, from her hands, flaying her palms raw as it tore the hilt from her grip. Even over the sound of the rising storm, Glory could hear the faint pinging as the Warmother crumpled the blade in its mandibles. The hilt, with its cargo of magic, went spinning off out of reach across the stone. It burned like a beacon. Easy to spot. Impossible to reach.

As she stood, dumbfounded at this sudden disaster, the Warmother lashed at her with one barbed foreleg, and Glory flung herself out of the way, automatically catching herself on her hands. But they were slick now with her own blood, and instead of going into a forward rollout, she slipped and fell heavily onto her right shoulder, knocking herself breathless.

She'd lost.

I guess I wasn't the right sort of hero after all, she thought bitterly. I'm sorry.

Nothing happened. She raised her head. The Warmother was waiting, still chewing on the blade as if it were a stalk of grass. Waiting for her to get up, so it could chase her some more.

Slowly, Glory got to her feet, but she didn't run. There was no point. She was damned if she was going to exert herself just to amuse that thing. She straightened up and stood waiting, wiping her bloody palms down over her bedraggled velvet panniers. Nice to know they were finally good for something. Fresh blood welled up almost immediately from a thousand tiny cuts.

::I don't need this form to destroy you:: the Warmother sneered. It began to melt away, dwindling until it had taken the form of a naked woman, impossibly old. Her mottled skin hung in folds on her emaciated body and only a few wisps of white hair clung to her waxy scalp. Her face was fallen in, her cheeks were slack and hollow over toothless gums. She drooled. Only her eyes were alive, black pits of malignant fire.

::This is what you fear most.::

Age. Death. Incapacity.

"Everybody dies," Glory said flatly. And everybody got too old to be what they wanted to be. It was the prevailing fear of an actor, but Glory had already faced it as a gymnast. And in comparison to what had just happened, it seemed like such a petty thing to be afraid of.

You've won. And it's not enough for you. You still want to play around. The resignation of a moment before vanished, replaced by cold fury and a desire to at least piss the Warmother off before she died. Think, stupid! What would Vixen do? She's lost her sword before. Lots of times.

And the sword wasn't Vixen's only weapon. . . .

Moving as slowly as she dared, Glory let her hands drop to her sides as the hag walked slowly toward her. She groped along the side of her boot for one of the row of stakes—Genuine English Rowan (not)—sheathed there. I guess I'm not through fighting after all. While her sword had been some kind of magic wizard metal, these stakes weren't even wood. They were cast plastic. They wouldn't do any better than the sword had, but at least she'd go down fighting. Her fingers closed painfully over one of the stakes and eased it gently from its sheath.

The Warmother reached for her, a gloating smile on its hideous crone's face.

::But you will die NOW, Vixen the Slayer.::

Its flesh was colder than snow where it touched her, even through her costume, and Glory felt her heartbeat slow as she was gathered into the hag's embrace. She gritted her teeth, and raised her arms to embrace the Warmother in return, filling herself up with all her anger, all her hatred of petty bullies and pointless cruelty.

"Up yours, Granny," Glory whispered in helpless defiance, gripping the stake.

And thrust inward as hard as she could.

She felt a crunch. The stake had gone in. But it wasn't supposed to do that, was it? It was supposed to just bounce off, the way the sword had.

There was a yelp of astonished pain right in her ear, and something hot and thick and nasty spurted over the back of Glory's hand. It burned caustically where it touched her open wounds, and she hissed with the bright pain of it. The cold reptilian embrace slackened, and Glory recoiled, jerking free and staring at the thick black blood on her hand, wondering if she were poisoned.