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Oblivious of the pandemonium in the tu
As the demon stalked forward on its ill-jointed legs, Burel recovered his footing, and planting himself squarely he swung his two-handed sword in a mighty, sweeping blow. With a loud chank!-like steel crashing on stone- it slammed into the jagged blade to be stopped cold.
Again Burel swung and again the demon blocked the blow. And again and again.
Then with shocking power, the demon lashed out with its black blade to send Burel's sword flying from his hands. And ere the man could move, the creature smashed him hindwards with a backhanded blow, knocking him into the crimson wall, and Burel fell sprawling and senseless to the stone.
In the tu
Yet Aiko, as quick as she was, abandoned her camels and dodged this way and that, and ducked down to scramble under and past the panicked pack animal ahead.
Springing forward, her swords now in hand, she scrambled over the slain creature blocking the exit.
Above Burel, the demon laughed and raised its sword to deliver the final blow, the one that would at last set the summoned fiend free from the Wizard's binding command. Yet the creature waited and waited, waited until Burel opened his eyes, the man yet dazed but looking up at the apparition. Then, down flashed the obsidian blade… only to meet Ryodoan steel.
Aiko had come at last.
Arin managed to drive her bellowing camel backwards under the portcullis and into the sanctuary. Abandoning the fleeing beast and calling to the gathered priestesses for help, she dashed into the uproar of the narrow tu
Now Egil and Arin and two of the women ran again into the tu
Shang! Aiko could not stop the powerful demon's downward blow, could only deflect it instead, the obsidian blade shocking into her steel with numbing force and sliding along her sword to Chank! into crimson stone next to Burel's head. Even as the black edge shattered red rock, with a backhanded sweep Aiko lashed her second sword up and at the creature's neck. But, lo! the demon smashed her cut out and away with an upward bash of its angular arm, her blade sliding along the bony chitin like steel sliding along armor.
Yet Aiko lashed her right-hand weapon up in a slashing cut, only to find the demon's black blade blocking the way.
Aiko sprang leftward, along the demon's flank, but stu
In a blur of steel, Aiko attacked, yet the creature fended the blows of both of her blades with its single dark sword. Again Aiko sprang back, her breath now coming in harsh gasps.
Momentarily they paused, and as if considering which of these humans to slay first, the creature glanced at Burel, the man yet stu
"Bakamono!" it hissed in Aiko's native tongue, and then the eight-foot-tall angular monster wrenched its great, jagged, ebon sword up and stalked toward her on its backward-bending, cloven-hoofed legs.
Delon's bellowing camels had been set free of the tu
Shing-shang, ding-clang, chang-shang… The steel of Aiko's blades skirled and rang against the demon's sword, as she attacked and retreated, parried and riposted, blocked and counterstruck, but the demon's power and quickness drove her back and back, and it was all she could do to fend the creature off. Never had she faced such a foe, for it was strong beyond measure and blurringly fast, its blows stu
Shing…! The sword from Aiko's left hand flew spi
Shkk … ! The ebon blade sliced down and across through leather and bronze, and Aiko's scarlet blood welled from the diagonal cut high athwart her chest.
Ching-chang-shing-shang… Now she fended with but one blade, the demon's ebony sword and her own steel but a blur as she fought fiercely against a monster she could not defeat.
Cling…! Now her sole remaining sword tumbled through the air, spi
Desperately, Aiko lunged for the dagger in her boot, but the demon smashed her back with its fist, and she crashed down to the red rock. Now the monster bent over and with its long, bony, grasping fingers clutched her bronze-plated jacket and snatched her up from the scarlet stone, preparing to behead her. But Aiko's leather armor ripped open along the diagonal cut, and she fell back, the crimson tiger between her breasts exposed.
The demon jerked back, its eyes wide at the arcane sigil revealed, and from nowhere, somewhere, everywhere there exploded an enraged chuff-RRUH!-as if coughed from the throat of a wild savage beast, and in that moment, with a strength she alone did not possess, Aiko twisted the creature's own jagged ebon sword in its grasp and slammed the blade up and into the monster's gut, the demon still gripping the hilt.
Phoom! Furious flames burst forth from the demon's torso, and the creature shrilled in agony and reared up and back and ineffectually tried to draw the flaring black blade from its bony carapace, but in that moment from behind-Shkkk!-Burel's two-handed sword sheared off the demon's head, and the burning, decapitated monster toppled over sideways, dead even as it struck the ground.