On the other hand, if you have enough unfair advantages, you don’t need experience. I could dodge Ji-yeong’s attacks, but none of my magic items could hurt her. My stun focus wouldn’t touch her reinforced body, and the dispel would be an annoyance at best. Glitterdust could blind her, but with her lifesight she didn’t need eyes to know where I was.
Well, if magic wasn’t going to work, I’d have to do this the regular way.
I still hadn’t made any attacks of my own. With no threats to make her careful, Ji-yeong was getting more aggressive, taking less trouble to guard herself. A shock went up my arm as one of her swords grazed me, my armour taking the blow. I stepped back around one of the pillars, my right hand going to the sheath at my belt, turning sideways so my body hid the movement. Ji-yeong followed, slightly off-balance from the angle.
This time as she stepped in so did I. Her arm hit my shoulder and I caught it; Ji-yeong was just starting to pull back as my right hand came up in a flash of steel. The knife cut deep, severing tendons, and her hand spasmed open, sword clattering to the stone as she broke away.
Ji-yeong caught her balance and we stared at each other. Blood welled from the ugly wound at her wrist, running down her now-useless fingers and dripping to the bricks. Without taking my eyes off her I stepped to the side and bent to pick up her discarded sword, then flicked the blood from my knife and returned it to its sheath.
As I did, I noticed the blood had stopped dripping from Ji-yeong’s fingers. Green light glowed about her wrist; the gash narrowed and closed, skin and vein and tendon reknitting. In only a few seconds her arm was whole again. She flexed her fingers experimentally, then shook off the blood and switched her remaining sword back to her right hand.
I hate fighting life mages.
“Nice trick,” Ji-yeong said flatly.
I lunged. Ji-yeong’s sword parried mine with a clang, slashing back at me as I leant away from the riposte. She was fighting at full strength now, and from her stance it was clear she’d finally started taking me seriously.
Our swords clashed again and again, footsteps stuttering on the stone. The sea breeze whirled around us, carrying away the smell of blood and sweat. Now that our weapons were matched, my longer reach let me slash Ji-yeong across the forearm and knee. Blood welled up, but the gashes in her skin healed almost as fast as I could inflict them. I moved in . . . and this time Ji-yeong came in to meet me, sword thrusting low. My precognition showed me a brief agonising vision of the sword ramming through my armour and into my stomach, and I threw myself desperately to one side, aborting my attack. The blow clipped me, spinning me off balance, and I hit the ground hard, rolling and coming back to my feet before Ji-yeong could follow up.
“You’re good,” Ji-yeong said. She wasn’t even out of breath. “You did beat Darren, didn’t you?”
This isn’t working. Ji-yeong could heal herself; I couldn’t. None of her attacks had gotten through my armour, yet I was more hurt than she was.
But even life magic has limits. If I could hurt Ji-yeong badly enough I could take her out of the fight, force her to shut her body down to heal. A sword or knife wasn’t going to cut it. I needed really excessive force.
Ji-yeong attacked again, slashing and stabbing. I gave ground, nicking her once or twice, but this time she didn’t even slow down. The fight had moved away from the pillars and Ji-yeong used her speed to put herself between them and me, forcing me towards the cliff. I let Ji-yeong drive me back towards the edge.
Five steps to the edge, four. My arms ached from the strikes, and sweat dripped into my eyes. Three steps, two steps, and I held my ground, aware of the sheer drop behind me. Ji-yeong didn’t let up, striking again and again, trying to push me back over the edge. Her blade slipped past my guard and I had to block with my forearm, the impact sending a shock up the bone.
My next parry was at an awkward angle, and with a ring of metal the sword spun from my hand. I jumped left as the sword clanged to the stone, only a foot or two from the edge. Ji-yeong moved to block my path to the sword as I circled around.
Now Ji-yeong was the one with her back to the drop. The classic move at this point would be to kick her off and send her falling to the stone below, but that was clearly exactly what she was expecting and she was holding herself low and braced, making herself a difficult target. Staying low, Ji-yeong edged towards where the sword lay, one inch at a time. Her foot came up against the blade with a click, but she didn’t take her eyes off me. I didn’t move. Ji-yeong crouched down, reaching for the sword with her left hand. Her fingers closed around the hilt.
I charged, left hand slipping into my pocket. Ji-yeong straightened in a flash, coming side-on to make herself a difficult target, but I didn’t slow down. If someone knows you’re coming and has time to brace themselves, then pushing or kicking them off a ledge is really hard.
Tackling them off, though . . . that’s easy. As long as you don’t mind coming along for the ride.
I slammed into Ji-yeong at full speed. Her sword flashed up and pain flared along my face, but I was heavier than her and my momentum carried us both over the edge. When you fall your first reaction is to grab something and Ji-yeong’s arms went reflexively for me, but her fingers were locked around her swords and the blades scraped off my armour. We fell apart, accelerating, and with my left hand I snapped the item I’d drawn from my pocket.
Life rings look like small hoops of metal and glass, woven in a twisted circle. As the ring broke the spell within it activated, expanding to engulf me in a bubble of air magic. The spell lightened my body, steadying my motion, and suddenly I wasn’t accelerating anymore, just sinking at a steady rate of ten feet per second. I started carrying life rings after an incident a couple of years ago involving a burning building; when you have to make a quick exit from somewhere high up, it’s useful to be able to fall like a feather.
Ji-yeong didn’t have a life ring. She fell like a rock.
A human body hitting a hard surface makes a very distinctive sound, a kind of snap-thud. The impact drives the breath from the lungs so there’s no shout or cry. I landed a few seconds later, touching down gently; the life ring’s magic lingered a moment longer, then dissolved into the air. One of Ji-yeong’s swords had bounced towards the wall. I picked it up, testing the edge to make sure it hadn’t been dulled or chipped, then walked over.
Ji-yeong had fallen forty feet onto flat stone: crippling if not fatal for a normal human. Life mages are tougher, but even so they’ve got their limits. Ji-yeong was lying flat, legs twisted in a way that suggested multiple broken bones, struggling to breathe. In my mage’s sight, trails of green energy twined frantically around her body and limbs: I couldn’t make out the details but I knew what they were doing. I leant over and placed the point of the sword under Ji-yeong’s chin.
Ji-yeong’s eyes came open, hazy with pain. “I know you can regenerate from that,” I told her. “Try anything and I’ll drive this sword through your jaw and into your brain. Clear?”
Ji-yeong had to try a few times before she managed to speak. “Okay,” she said in a raspy voice. She had to keep her head still to stop the point of the blade from breaking the skin.
I straightened up, moving the sword away. “Where’s Anne?”
“Windmill,” Ji-yeong said with difficulty. “Crystal.”
“That was where she was then. What about now?”
“Don’t know . . . Crystal . . . moving her. Sam’s shadows.”
“Through a gateway?”