Unclean

Ysval laughed. Well done, but it won't save you. I could kill the lot of you all by myself if necessary. He shook his fist and enormous hailstones hammered from the air, ringing on the armor of the foes in front of him.

Bareris sang a charm and urged his reluctant mount closer to Ysval. Then the horse thrashed and toppled. Bareris kicked his feet from the stirrups, flung himself out of the saddle, and though he landed hard, just managed to keep the animals weight from smashing down on top of his leg.

He scrambled to his feet and found himself facing Tammith across the steed's still-shuddering carcass.

Tammith felt as if she'd been split into two creatures. One had struggled with all her strength to turn away from Bareris, and if she couldn't flee the battle altogether at least kill other people instead. But the other, demonic and perverse, lusted to destroy him precisely because she'd loved him her whole life long, and that Tammith proved the stronger. Reveling in her newly acquired strength, she leaped from the rooftop where she'd been lurking, hoping to drop on a horseman as he rode by, rushed Bareris's mount, and bit a chunk of flesh from the underside of its neck, all before he even realized she was there. The charger fell, and she hoped he'd wind up stuck underneath it. If so, he'd be helpless. Easy prey.

But he threw himself clear, rose, and his eyes widened at the sight of her. She spat out the wad of gory horseflesh in her mouth, and that made his dear, handsome features twist. To her, with her divided psyche, his horror and grief were simultaneously excruciating and the fu

"Are you still going to rescue me?" she asked, gri

"Yes," he said. "If it can be done, I'll do it. Just give me the chance. Don't make me hurt you."

"You're right," she said, "we mustn't fight. No matter what happens or what I've become, we mustn't hurt one another." She turned away from him, then instantly spun back around and leaped over the body of the horse.

Though she'd believed her deception persuasive, he was ready to receive her attack. Even so, her outstretched hands nearly grabbed him, but with a quickness that suggested he was employing his charm of speed, he sidestepped and slashed open her belly in almost the same place where he'd wounded her before.

It hurt. Her guts started to slide through the rent, and doubling over, she clutched at herself to hold them in. She swayed and fell onto her side.

This time, her pretense was evidently more convincing, for with a seasoned warrior's caution, Bareris then looked about, checking for any foes that might have crept up on him while he was busy with her. He believed her incapacitated, and why shouldn't he? The same sort of injury had neutralized her before.

But as Xingax had promised, she grew stronger every day, and as a result, she healed more rapidly. As soon as Bareris turned his head, she flowed to her feet and pounced at him.

Darts of golden light streaked down from overhead to stab into her body and make her falter. A deep male voice bellowed, "Behind you!" Bareris pivoted, and as she lunged, he extended his sword. She stopped just short of the point, sprang back, and started shifting back and forth, trying to confuse him and create an opening. Her predatory instincts instructed her in the proper way to feint and glide.

She wasn't fooling Bareris. He was too ca

She fell. He stopped, turned, and hesitated. When he cut at her spine, she understood that he'd been trying to calculate how best to incapacitate her without destroying her. The slight pause gave her time to explode into a flock of bats.

With her consciousness divided among her various bodies, her humanity, or what remained of it, diffused along with it, and her need to kill Bareris became as pure as it was profound. She nearly succumbed to the urge to attack.

Nearly, but not quite, because though conscience and mercy were gone, memory remained, and she recalled that he knew a song to repel her in this guise. The bats flew several yards beyond his reach, swirled around one another, and coalesced into her womanly form once more. Her gashed leg throbbed as it took her weight but didn't give way. It was mostly healed already.

She hobbled toward him, trying to make it appear that her damaged limb was weaker than it was. He swung his sword into a low guard, and she noticed he wasn't singing. Just as he was too averse to fighting her to attempt a killing blow, so too was he neglecting to exploit his magic to best advantage.

In effect, that meant he'd already surrendered, for half measures couldn't save him. He was forcing her to murder him, to carry the resulting anguish through all the years of her endless undead existence, and his weakness and selfishness enraged her. She rushed him, his sword whirled up to threaten her, and she sprang at him anyway. The blade sheared into her side, but not enough to balk her. She slammed into him and carried him to the ground beneath her.

He gasped at the grip of her hands, cold and poisonous as any specter's touch. She could have leeched the life from him through that contact, but it wouldn't be as satisfying as draining his blood. Grappling, seeking to immobilize him, she opened her mouth to bite.

Bareris bellowed up into her face, and the thunderous sound seared her like a blast of fire. The world went black, and the sudden pain made her fumble her grip on her prey. Bareris shoved her and heaved himself out from underneath her.

Her sight began to restore itself after a moment, but the world remained a blurry, murky place. Still, she could make out Bareris scrambling to his feet, and her ruined face hanging in tatters from her skull, she jumped up to attack him once again.

He started chanting, and she laughed to hear it. Good, she thought, you understand now. I'm not your beloved anymore.

I'm unclean, foul, and a slave to creatures fouler still. Please, please, destroy me if you can.

Meanwhile, she strove to strike, seize, and bite him as relentlessly as ever. Her throat burned with thirst.

His magic shrouded him in a misty vagueness that made it even more difficult for her half-blind eyes to pick him out. Still, she thought she'd judged where he was and sprang to grab hold of him.

He twisted away, avoiding her touch and leaving her floundering off balance for just an instant, time enough for his sword to leap at her neck. He bellowed a war cry as it sheared into her flesh and the bone underneath.

The world seemed to jump, and then she was on the ground, her right profile pressed against the dirt. She tried to rise but couldn't move. A long shape sprawled in front of her, and after a moment she recognized her own decapitated body.

The realization stu

Looming over her like a giant, weeping, Bareris stepped between her and her body. He raised his sword over his head.

Mirror had a sense that he was supposed to engage Ysval if possible. Had someone so instructed him? He couldn't recall, but it seemed right. He strode toward the ink-black creature and the legio