The bar bent on impact as though it’d been a willow wand instead of a half-inch of spring steel, picked up the rock-man and flung him a full ten feet backward. A crumpled, oozing line showed where the steel had caught him, as my weapon rebounded into straightness again. Jodi’s matching blow knocked over her opponent and the two behind him. Crystal-edged swords chopped blindly at us. I parried one so hard it shattered, raining stone fragments everywhere, but a second one, swung flat and hard, got through my guard.
I staggered sideways, my side on fire. “That hurt!” I snarled, and backhanded the Lisharithada who’d hit me hard enough to send him tumbling head over heels. They were trying to crowd in and find us, and I figured giving them that advantage would be bad. “Jodi—into the big cave!”
“Got you!”
We could maneuver better in there, even though there were more opponents. With our height, reach, and effective invisibility—not to mention our magnified strength—our weapons started to take an awful toll. Every swing I made put one of the enemy down—broken legs, shattered chests, crushed skull or arms—and Jodi matched me swing for swing. Worse for them, even when they hit us it didn’t smash our bones or cut our limbs off. The blows stung, sometimes really hurt, and I could feel bruises, but nothing at all like the damage they ought to be doing. Two of their guard-seradatho scuttled towards me, met the steel coming the other way and flew twisting through the air, shedding pieces as they went.
There was something utterly macabre and horrid about it all. These rock-men were desperately fighting something they couldn’t see, something even stronger and tougher than they were—that killed and maimed them, broke their weapons, moved like lightning, and smashed aside any defense. I felt a little sick as we continued to fight our way towards the far side of the room, where just one door stood between us and the ritual room Rokhaset had told us we would find. Even if we were fighting enemies of our people, this was their home, and we were the invaders, slaughtering them without warning, without even showing them the faces of their adversaries. It was as if Jodi and I were the monsters in some kind of underground legend—the rock-people’s equivalent of trolls or werewolves.
Still, sheer numbers count for an awful lot. For every one I took down, I could see another one running forward—sometimes two. And while one blow from their weapons wasn’t enough to take us down—or even five—in the end you can beat a man to death with a rolled-up newspaper if you hit him often enough.
Two more Lisharithada went down, then three of them jumped me and I staggered. A fourth, knocked reeling by Jodi, fell down and tripped me. The three on top were blind, but now they could feel someone under them. They were punching and kicking for all they were worth, their shrieks carrying terror and revulsion along with anger.
“Clint!” I heard Jodi scream, and a barrage of impacts erupted from her direction. Two of the ones on me suddenly departed involuntarily, and the third let go and backed off. I got painfully to my feet and smacked a seradatho into its handlers.
Jodi’s eyes held a desperation I’d never seen before. “We’re not going to make it, tei-yerinkeh.” She almost never used that word; it meant “sweetheart” or “dearest one,” but it was a private thing, a silly little private word we used only alone together.
I looked over my shoulder. We weren’t even halfway across the room, and in the dimming light—half the LEDs on our lights were broken now—it looked like even more Lisharithada were coming in to reinforce the others. She was probably right . . . The ring of Lisharithada that had drawn away for a moment was gathering itself for another lunge.
I shook my head. “Maybe, but damn-all if I’m givin’ up.” I hit the transducer switch. “YEEE-HA! C’mon, then, let’s see if y’all can take a Slade!”
And in the stunned moment as the Lisharithada heard our voices for the first time, another voice boomed out from across the great cavern: