Crowlord (The Sword Saint Series Book 2) by Michael Wallace

Author:Michael Wallace [Wallace, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Balsalom Publishing
Published: 2020-03-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

It was all Katalinka could do to resist the initial, furious attack by the rival sohn. Lujza was quicker than seemed possible, wielding such a large, heavy two-handed sword, and her blows fell with the fury of a mountain hailstorm. The slender redheaded woman pushed Katalinka backward, got her spun around, and drove her onto the fine red sand where Lujza and Sarika had been sparring when the two bladedancers arrived.

Sarika made to join her fellow firewalker in a combined assault, but Abelard had already rushed into the attack, and the two of them were quickly locked into a deadly embrace of their own.

To Katalinka’s surprise, the sand of the training pitch was hot. Not merely baking-in-the-sun hot, but as if they’d spread it over a bed of coals. Heat radiated through the thin, slipper-like shoes Katalinka was wearing and burned the bottom of her feet. Meanwhile, Lujza came onto it barefoot, and seemed untroubled. In fact, the heat seemed to strengthen her.

Realizing this, Katalinka leaped from the sand and forced her opponent to follow her up the basalt steps to the edge of the shrine. She got to the top, whirled to deflect an attack, and soon found her back against the shrine’s polished obsidian surface. She let Lujza press the attack, let her think she’d pinned the bladedancer in place, unable to escape.

And then Katalinka made her move.

Of the three bladedancer sohns, Katalinka had always been the most agile in the arena. Her sister Narina was clever, skilled. Give her an opening, reveal a weakness, and she’d pounce. Abelard had stamina that would eventually wear down his opponents if they didn’t put him away in a hurry. But Katalinka had an unequaled ability to jump between the standing stones, to slide beneath the opened legs of an opponent, and to twist away from blades that seemed like they would strike her head only to whistle harmlessly past her ear.

She placed the sole of her left foot against the stone wall and launched into a leap. It somersaulted her over her enemy’s head. She slashed downward as she passed, met only steel with her blades, and landed at Lujza’s back, still swinging. Her opponent was already whirling about with her sword sweeping in front of her, point down, to block additional thrusts from the demon and dragon blades.

A lethal double-stab had been Katalinka’s plan when she made the leap. The skillful parry of her flying attack changed her strategy. Instead, she feinted with the blades and swept out her left leg. Lujza leaped backward, but not in time.

Katalinka’s leg sweep caught the young woman’s heel. That in turn forced an awkward landing on the woman’s back foot, and when the bladedancer rained down more blows, the off-balance firewalker tripped and fell. Katalinka was on her in an instant.

Lujza, lying on her back, somehow got her sword up and expertly parried Katalinka’s blows. But a twist of the wrist, a jump over the top of the woman, and a downward thrust with the dragon got past the defense.

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