“Stop it. You’re not going to fail,” a soft voice said in my ear.
I stared at Gregory. “Are you reading minds now?”
He laughed. “I didn’t have to. Your expression made your thoughts quite clear.”
I took a deep breath. “I think the odds are pretty good that we aren’t going to be asking Aaron for that boon anytime soon. I’ve only had a couple of battle lessons, and I doubt if you’ve ever been in a knife fight in your life.”
“You also bear what is more or less a magic sword, and I have something very valuable at stake—our future happiness. Have faith, my sweet. I am confident we will prevail.”
“But I have to fight Death, Gregory. Death!”
“Who has no power here because he has been banished, and stripped of his abilities in Anwyn.”
“There is that, at least. You’re sure you’re OK with fighting a woman?” I asked, nodding at Holly, who was running a whetstone over her daggers.
He pulled me to him in a kiss that had me sweating under my armor. “Yes,” he said a minute later when he allowed me to catch my breath. “I’m quite sure.”
I slid a glance down at his chest. “No porraimos lightning?”
He just smiled and released me.
“This battle shall commence along these terms,” Aaron said, speaking in a voice that resonated with grandeur. He was so down-to-earth that it was easy to forget he actually ruled this realm. “The two champions shall fight until only one remains standing. The losers will unequivocally yield to the winner, with no objections to any ransom sought. Are the terms agreeable?”
“They are,” Ethan said. Two women were in the process of helping him into his arm harness. “Let the battle commence.”
“I say that!” Aaron said with a frown. He took a deep breath, eyed Gregory and me, and then said in a peeved tone, “Let the battle commence!”
Holly was on Gregory before he could so much as blink, the two of them rolling down the mound in a cloud of red dust, but I couldn’t do anything to help him because De Ath bowed to me and said, “I believe the technical term here is en garde.”
I lifted my sword in an answering salute, and tried frantically to remember everything that Master Hamo had showed me earlier in the afternoon.
The Nightingale sang as I swung the sword to parry, my armor feeling heavy and clunky despite fitting me perfectly before. I stumbled backward, just barely blocking the attacking thrusts that De Ath made with apparent ease. He wore armor on his chest, but no helm, which meant his faint smile that never seemed to waver was right there, mocking my belief that I could survive this experience.
“You’re not very good at this, are you?” he asked, swinging his sword in a move that would have decapitated me had I not managed to heft the Nightingale just in time.
“No, but I don’t have to be. I just have to give Gregory time to disable that annoying Holly,” I ground out through my teeth.
His smile grew broader, and the crowd gasped as he suddenly jumped forward, forcing me back several steps, the Nightingale singing furiously as, miraculously, it managed to parry a flurry of strikes that moved so fast they were a blur. The Nightingale kept up with it, although how, I had no idea. It had to be the magic inherent in the sword, because I certainly didn’t have the skill to do it myself. I tried to make one attack, but he easily spun away, sending me stumbling forward onto my knees. I was up on my feet before he could attack again, but unfortunately I fell backward onto my ass when I tripped over a large rock, the impact knocking the Nightingale out of my hand.
A cry of horror went up from Aaron’s people. De Ath strolled toward me as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Behind him, I heard Gregory snarl. He emerged from the cloud of red dust, one of his arms hanging limply, dripping blood into the ground as he staggered forward. Holly screamed and leaped onto his back, her dagger dark with blood as she tried to sever his jugular.
The crowd roared when I jumped to my feet and snatched up the Nightingale, but instead of attacking a surprised De Ath, I lunged at Holly, smashing the hilt down on her head just as her knife blade pierced Gregory’s throat. She clung on, although her knife tip dropped.
De Ath yelled something. Time seemed to slow down at that moment, seconds crawling by like minutes. I felt the rush of air behind me heralding the oncoming blow from a massive sword. At the same moment, Gregory turned his head in slow motion, his pupils dilating as they focused beyond me, his expression changing from one of mingled anger and pain to one of fear.
I knew, I just knew that we were both about to be killed. Holly’s hand was even then moving back to Gregory’s throat, but there wasn’t enough time for me to hit her again before De Ath’s blow would strike me. I wanted to tell Gregory just how deeply I loved him, but the words were stuck in my mouth. It was the end, and we both knew it.
Blue light flashed in front of my eyes, a brilliant white-blue that sizzled along my skin and exploded outward in a booming flash that seemed to consume the world and leave it silent and empty.
“Gwen?”
I opened one eye. My vision was blurry, but the voice was as familiar as my own. “Are we dead?”
“Not quite. Although we are in Anwyn.”
I opened the other eye and concentrated on focusing my vision until the vision of multiple Gregories merged into one. “You are the best Traveller ever,” I told him.
He smiled, kissed me gently, then touched a tender spot on my forehead. “You hit your head on your own sword.”
“It was worth it to see an enraged Traveller do what he does best.” I let him help me up to my feet. It looked like a bomb had been dropped around us; the ground was scorched black, while the several hundred warriors and attendants had been felled just as though they were trees in the middle of a nuclear explosion. I was relieved to see that they weren’t dead, since they were slowly moving and sitting up. Ethan was on his knees, shaking his head. Aaron staggered as I watched, said something about his beloved Piranha, and stumbled off toward the giant machine. Holly lay still in a sort of a crater. De Ath was sitting with his hands dangling between his knees, his face black and his hair smoking.
“Crikey,” he said in a rusty-sounding voice, then promptly fell over.
“We won,” I told Gregory, and flung myself on him. He flinched, and I suddenly remembered his arm. “Goddess! She cut you!”
“It’s nothing that won’t heal, although I believe she managed to dislocate my shoulder,” he said, a patient look on his face when I ripped off his sleeve to examine the damage. His arm was sliced in several spots, but the flow of blood was already beginning to thicken.
“My moms can probably fix the dislocation,” I said.
A look of embarrassment crossed his face. “Would you hold it against me if I said I would prefer to have a proper healer look at it? It’s not that I don’t like and respect your mothers, but they do have a tendency to . . . to . . .”
“Mess things up?” I bound up the worst of the slashes, then cuddled into his good side, kissing the edges of his lips. “I wouldn’t mind in the least. Gregory—”
“No thanks to the thief’s light show, the Piranha is unharmed,” Aaron announced, coming back to where we stood. He surveyed the people who were in various stages of recovering and getting back to their feet. “Although I regret that Constance left before she could be blasted. I would have paid good money to see that.”
“I take back any objection I had to the thief,” Doug said from behind us. Aaron went to help him onto his feet.
“I’m just glad my moms aren’t here—oh, hell, there they are. They must have heard the lightning explosion. They’re going to want to fix you, Gregory. I’ll go tell them to go back to Ethan’s camp until Aaron’s healer can see to you.”