tried to writhe and wriggle and watched death rushing at him with upraised
sword. Mignureal saved him, leaping in from the side with a screech. Hanse,
flailing and groaning, trying to will himself onto his feet and yet despairing
utterly, saw the vicious black-bladed stroke that cut her nearly in two almost
precisely at the waist.
Now it was a god’s turn to show his teeth in feral smile worthy of the lowest
beast, and after spinning completely around from the exertion of destroying that
poor pale-clad body, he came bounding again, sword rising for the second death
blow in seconds, and the absolutely desperate Hanse reverted: he thrust his left
hand up his tunic sleeve, half-rolling as he did to free his arm all the way,
and hurled the long flat knife.
He watched its rush as he had never tracked a cast before, none of his thousands
and thousands of practice casts. The leaf of shining metal seemed to take
minutes, floating through eternity to reach the rushing oncoming god who, though
racing toward Hanse, took as long to near. Lightning sundered the sky and
thunder followed, but it was the voice of enraged, triumphant Vashanka, at the
charge.
“I CANNOT BE SLAIN BY WEAPONS OF YOUR PLANE, IDIOT, LITTLE THIEF, POOR DEMI
MORTAL, INCONSEQUENTIAL INSEC-“
And then his charge met the knife’s. The knife struck, beautifully and perfectly
point-first, just under the adam’s apple. Vashanka shrieked and the shriek
burbled. That impossible plane of infinity came alive with blinding and
coruscating light.
. . . down in Sanctuary those up at dawn saw the late-rising moon vanish as the