“You ought to take that show on the road,” Luke said, “now:”
“Draw it!” Jurt said.
“I don’t like the idea of fighting in a church,” Luke told him. “You want to step outside?”
“Very funny,” Jurt replied. “I know you’ve got an army out there. No thanks. I’ll even take a certain pleasure in bloodying a Unicorn shrine.”
“You ought to talk to Dalt,” Luke said. “He gets his kicks in weird ways, too. Can I get you a horse-or a chicken? Maybe some white mice and aluminum foil?”
Jurt lunged. Luke stepped backward and drew his father’s blade. It hissed and crackled and smoked as he parried lightly and drove it forward. There was a sudden fear on Jurt’s face as he threw himself backward, batting at it, stumbling. As he fell, Luke kicked him in the stomach and Jurt’s blade went flying.
“That’s Werewindle!” Jurt gasped. “How did you come by the sword of Brand?”
“Brand was my father,” Luke said.
A momentary look of respect passed over Jurt’s face.
“I didn’t know…” he muttered, and then he vanished.
I waited. I extended magical feelers all over the place. But there was just Luke, myself and the lady, who had halted some distance from us, watching, as if afraid to come any nearer on her way out.
Then Luke collapsed. Jurt was standing behind him, having just stuck him on the back of the neck with his elbow. He reached then for Luke’s wrist, as if to seize it and wrench the blade from his hand.
“It must be mine!” he said as I reached through the ring and struck him with a bolt of pure energy which I thought would rupture most of his organs and leave him a bleeding mass of jelly. Only for an instant had I considered using anything less than lethal force. I could see that sooner or later one of us was going to kill the other, and I’d decided to get it over with before he got lucky.
But he was already lucky. His bath in the Fount must have toughened him even more than I’d thought. He spun around three times, as if he’d been clipped by a truck, and was slammed up against the wall. He sagged. He slipped to the floor. Blood came out of his mouth. He looked as if he were about to pass out. Then his eyes focused and his hands extended.
A force similar to the one I’d just thrown at him struck at me. I was surprised by his ability to regroup and retaliate at that level with that speed. Not so surprised that I wasn’t able to parry it, though. I took a step forward then and tried to set him afire with a beautiful spell the ring suggested. Rising, he was able to shield against it within moments of his clothes’ beginning to smolder. I kept coming, and he created a vacuum around me. I pierced it and kept breathing. Then I a battering ram spell which the ring showed me, even more forceful than the first working with which I’d hit him.
He vanished before it hit, and a crack ran up three feet of the stone wall which had been behind him. I sent sense-tendrils all over and spotted him seconds later, crouched on a cornice high overhead. He launched himself at me just as I looked up.
I didn’t know whether it would break my hand or not, but I felt it would be worth it, even so, as I levitated. I contrived to pass him at about the midway point, and I hit him with a left, which I hoped broke his neck as well as his jaw. Unfortunately it also broke my levitation spell, and I tumbled to the floor along with him.
I heard the lady cry out as we fell, and she came rushing toward us. We lay stunned for several heartbeats. Then he rolled over onto his stomach, reached, hunched and fell, reached again.
His hand fell upon the haft of Werewindle. He must have felt my gaze as his fingers tightened about it, for he glanced at me and smiled. I heard Luke mutter a curse and stir. I threw a deep freeze spell at Jurt, but he trumped out before the cold front hit.