I turn away from Nazak's body. He may be dead—the others are not. I hurry up the steps toward the melee, a deafening storm of flashing red, violet and dark silver. Whoever this guardian is, he is equal in power to Vanerak. More than an equal, for Vanerak has four allies left to him and the guardian is fighting them to a standstill alone.

  Each step I take, my head thrums and pain darts in my side—the metal is torn there, is cutting into my skin. But worse than the damage to my body is the damage to the runes. Many are scratched, and some of the feeling of inexorable, burning power my armor carries has faded. A few of Life-Ripper's thorns are bent as well.

  I aim it as I close in, pointing the twin-tines toward Vanerak. The guardian, perhaps because he spots me through the whirling of blades, increases the pace of his desperate slashing. His blade slams into the helmet of the last remaining second degree. A crack is audible over the clang of metal and the runeknight's head is twisted ninety degrees; temple slams against shoulder. He falls.

  Helzar takes his place. She stabs. Her barbed spear scratches the guardian's breastplate. Vanerak hits him with the hammer-side of his pollaxe. A clang shivers through the air—it sounds strangely hollow.

  The blow staggers the guardian. I curse and force myself to move faster. Halax strikes a quick blow with sword and hits the guardian's neck cleanly. Sparks fly. The guardian seems not to care, slashes at his eyes to force him away, blocks Vanerak's next attack, cuts into the shaft of Helzar's spear. It's knocked down and she's left open.

  Halax quickly moves to guard her, but the guardian, silver-flame armor rippling, is faster. He whips the point of his sword up and jabs Helzar hard in the chest. A visible ring of power expands from the blow and she is sent flying several feet back. She rolls down, slides, tries to find a grip.

  She is heading right toward me and I will not give her the honor of a duel.

  I bite down my yell of joyous rage, stab Life-Ripper's single-point at her in silence. Her armor, weakened by several deep gashes, provides only slight resistance and the true metal pierces deep into her right lung through her breastplate.

  She gasps and gurgles, tries to slash at me with her spear. I stomp hard on her gauntlet with the weight of a river of molten stone. Something snaps. She hisses, grabs at me with her free hand.

  But she can do nothing. She is completely at my mercy, just as Pellas was at hers. Helzar showed no mercy then; I will show none now.

  Down I stab into her gutplate, down again, and again, and again, and again. Blood sprays from the holes in her armor. I scream—in anger, despair or joy I do not know. Twenty times I stab, forty. I turn her armor into redly bubbling scraps.

  I stop. Her breath is rattling in her lungs. Less than fifty yards away, Vanerak are Halax continuing to fight the guardian. If they see me, they cannot afford to pay me any attention.

  “Still alive?” I sneer at Helzar.

  She does not or cannot answer.

  “I don't enjoy torture,” I say. “I will give you a quick death—though not a painless one.”

  I spin Life-Ripper around and drive its thorny spines up into her belly, up further, tearing everything as I go, right into her lungs and to her heart. She tries to scream through her burned throat, emits a high-pitched hiss. I twist and the sound stops.

  Gore erupts as I wrench Life-Ripper from the gaping wound-canyon of her belly. It sprays onto my boots. The stench is of copper and rot.

  A foul end for a foul torturer.

  A cracking sound and a sudden quake pulls my attention away. I look back to the melee and see that an overhead strike from Vanerak has broken the black stone floor at the top of the steps.

  Maybe he hoped to knock the guardian off balance. At that he did not succeed—maybe he just missed—the guardian's red-violet blade sweeps for him. Halax deflects it. As he does so, Vanerak stabs with the spike of his pollaxe.

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  I watch in horror as it pierces deep into the guardian's belly. It is, without mistake, a mortal wound. The guardian pulls away, slashing to guard another flurry of Halax's blindingly fast strikes. Vanerak follows, stabs again, this time into its thigh.

  It does not lose its footing. It is not even unbalanced by the blow. Blood ought to be spraying from the cut artery, or at least dripping, but there is nothing. No blood is running from the belly-wound either.

  Vanerak lifts his pollaxe for another hammer-side swing. The guardian slips sideways then back. Halax follows, but, perhaps due to exhaustion, he has miscalculated. He has put himself between Vanerak and the guardian and for a moment the duel is one against one, and the guardian outmatches him. Violet blurs overwhelm his silver ones. A strike hits the top right of his damaged breastplate. It cuts cleanly and deeply and blood sprays. He tumbles down the steps, splashing blood on them.

  I jab at him but he is out of reach. I make to follow, but another crack whips my attention away. Vanerak has struck with the hammer-side again, yet this time he was not aiming at, or even near the guardian.

  He has struck the doors. The light of the chandeliers outlines a web of cracks in the dark stone. The guardian shouts like the gong of a bell and dashes toward him. Vanerak is readying to swing again, to batter down the barrier between us and the secrets beyond, secrets that the guardian cannot allow us to find. For a moment it looks as if the guardian will reach him before he swings, and catch him while he is open, but Vanerak is feinting. He stabs. His pollaxe's spike hits the guardian's sword at its hilt, and the blade flies from his grasp.

  Only a few dozen steps are between me and Vanerak. I try to charge—slip on Helzar's gore. I scramble up, charge again. Vanerak is attacking the guardian relentlessly with the hammer-side and axe-side of his weapon, using powerful, looping blows that would leave him hopelessly open to any armed foe, yet which the disarmed guardian cannot parry.

  The guardian's silver-flame armor gives him speed like flowing mercury. He dodges many of the blows. Those few that do impact, however, dent his armor badly. And each dent slows him. More and more blows begin to make contact.

  I am in range. I stab at Vanerak's boots—with unerring accuracy his axe-blade brushes my stab away. I lose my footing and fall on my face. He ignores me and continues to press the guardian, who is still retreating toward his fallen sword, which lies by the wall a good twenty yards to the left.

  I stand up. “Murderer!” I yell, hoping to distract Vanerak.

  He ignores me. I charge, aiming Life-Ripper's single-point at his back. He doesn't see me and I hit him solidly. The impact of my charge is stopped in an instant and the shock throws me down unceremoniously onto my rear. A spark flies—one single spark.

  Dawning horror sickens me. This is the armor of a Runethane, armor of true metal, maybe entirely true metal, and I could not get through it a single millimeter. The spark that flew was from the foilsuit wrapping, not the real armor beneath.

  The guardian has nearly reached his sword. I watch, dumbly, not daring to interfere, as Vanerak continues his looping blows. When the guardian reaches down, Vanerak will use that moment to remove his head. I crawl back. I can hardly bear to watch.

  But the guardian is no fool. The moment after he steps back over his blade he suddenly leaps forward. With great speed, Vanerak brings his pollaxe horizontally between them to ward off the grapple. The guardian grabs the haft and grips tight.

  This is my chance! I shake off my fear. I leap two, three long strides and stab Vanerak's mirror-mask with Life-Rippers thorned prongs. The curvature deflects it, yet the thorns still scratch. There is a glassy screech.

  Vanerak lifts his knee up to his chest and kicks out with all his might into the guardian's stomach. The guardian's grasp breaks and he falls back. Life-Ripper is already stabbing again, this time at Vanerak's thigh.

  And once more he blocks, unerringly. His axe-blade throws Life-Ripper's points away. I'm left open. He steps forward, stabbing. I tilt my body sideways to make the blow a glancing one, but it still pierces by half an inch. True metal cuts into my flesh, sticks between two ribs, nearly through them. I cry out in pain. I stab again, and he brushes Life-Ripper away once more as he pulls his pollaxe back.

  Yet my attack was not a complete failure. Vanerak's attention, for one moment, has been taken. The guardian slashes into the back of his head and down the back of his armor. Metal screeches and I sense runic power snapping.

  Vanerak yells, spins and smashes the guardian's shoulder with the hammer-side. The guardian falls to one knee, yet is now already recovering, rising up. Vanerak backs away, turns, dashes up the steps. He is fast—I have never seen him move this fast before—against no other opponent has he ever needed to.

  The guardian gives chase. He sees Vanerak's objective: the stone gate. Vanerak raises his pollaxe over his head as he reaches the final few steps, with hammer-side forward. He makes to strike.

  “No!” I yell, trying to warn the guardian, but he cannot take the risk that this blow is a true one at what he protects, rather than another feint. He stabs.

  Vanerak spins and redirects his blow at the guardian. Yet he did not quite account for the guardian's speed, or maybe his own movements have been slowed from the damage to the runes of his armor. The blade sinks half an inch into his breastplate. The guardian pushes forward, trying to wedge the blade in further, and drives him hard into the gates.

  Which crumble around the impact.

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