Gloria was too close to him now for any attempt at an evasive maneuver. That would only make it easier for him to be chilled. Instead, Jak yielded to her attack, and began to fall back as she landed upon him, relaxing his muscles so that he hit the ground without damaging his thin, wiry frame. The earth was soft, but at speed and with the accelerating and falling weight of the Gate queen, to fall awkwardly could injure him and leave him easy prey for a follow-up attack. As it was, Gloria descended on top of him with her long-bladed panga in one hand and her other clawed, ready to lash out. She expected, at the back of her crazed mind, to drive him into the earth, knocking the air from him and leaving him vulnerable to a slashing blow from the panga.
It didn’t quite work that way. Jak’s hands attached themselves to her wrists as she landed on him, fastening on with an iron tight grip, his elbows braced to keep those hands at bay. He fell back into the momentum of her fall, landing on his back and rolling as he did so, converting that momentum into a drive from his legs that flipped the woman over his head. He loosened his grip on her wrists as his legs began the drive up into her, so she was free to fly over his head and land a few yards away.
Before she had even hit the ground, Jak had already finished the backward roll, landing on his feet and pivoting so that he was facing her. Her face had been close to him for only a fraction of a second, but close enough for him to smell the decay on her skin, her rancid breath steaming into his nostrils. Her eyes had been bloodshot, with yellow around the iris, pinpoint pupils smaller than any he had seen on jolt, and the pus had been running from the sores on her face, disturbed from their crusted little pools by the motion of her attack.
Jak had been ready for her and ready for the recovery. Gloria hadn’t, in her fury, expected such a maneuver. She had been nowhere near ready, and landed with a bone-jarring jolt on her back, the panga flying from her hand. Jak was surprised. The Gloria he had known would have recovered herself at least partially in midair, and been able to minimize the bad effects of such a landing. It crossed Jak’s mind, in a fraction of a moment, that this couldn’t be the real Gloria. How had she acquired such a disease—whatever it was that scored her skin—so quickly? Why had she so swiftly turned against he who had been her lover? And why was she fighting so badly when she had been the finest warrior he had ever met? None of this made sense to him in any way.
But there was scant time for reflection. Already, he was aware that in pausing he had allowed her to recover, as she had rolled on her side to recover the panga and was scrambling to her feet.
He couldn’t make that mistake again. At any time it could prove fatal. From within his jacket, Jak withdrew one of his leaf-bladed throwing knives. He should finish this quickly if it was at all possible. He was acutely aware that it was the adrenaline that was keeping him at this pitch, and his body still hadn’t recovered properly from the jump. Too long in combat, and it could start to fail him at a crucial moment.
With one fluid motion, the knife came from within the hidden recesses of his combat jacket, was palmed and then flicked between his fingers. Then his arm was drawn back and released in one simple motion.
The knife sped toward its target. Jak was already reaching for the next knife, to be certain; but usually there was little doubt that the sharpened and lethal piece of metal would fulfill its function.
Not this time. With a speed equal to that of the albino youth, Gloria swept her panga through the air, seemingly in a random motion. There was a flash of light as the weak sun caught the blade, a spark as metal met metal, and the leaf-bladed knife was deflected harmlessly into the trees.