The whispers shifted to gasps as Saer thrust a hand forward, balled it into a fist, and pulled back towards himself with inhuman speed.He wrapped a metaphysical tether on Runeak’s brilliant, Hellsfire core, then wrenched the heat towards himself, intent on weakening her from the start.
Runeak’s expression didn’t change.A picture of calm ire, her shoulders tugged forward, but her will rose to match Saer’s.An invisible rope of precious heat stretched between the dueling pair, and she gripped onto it with equal strength while, at the same time, she unfurled the long chain from her left arm with practiced ease.
Saer redoubled his efforts to pull on her innate fire while Runeak’s jaw tensed.The demoness swung the sickled end of her weapon in wider and wider arcs.Then the wicked blade hurled through the air—directly at Saer’s chest.
The tug of war snapped.Saer’s concentration shattered as he ducked and rolled forward to avoid being skewered by Runeak’s weapon.
The audience cheered.
Runeak attacked a second time, aiming the weapon at Saer’s leg.He dove once more, scrambling further away.He couldn’t see her, but his heat sense told him that she closed the distance.
Great Hells, she wasfast.
Wrath swung the sickle a third time at his shoulder just as he pulled himself to a stand.Saer snarled and snapped his left hand up, catching the weapon’s handle.He jerked back, using his weight to rip the chain away.The tether loosened in his grasp.Runeak had let go.
She gave no chance to celebrate.
Wrath pivoted and thrust with movements as smooth as slicked oil.
A burst of agony erupted from Pride’s upper left abdomen.He roared, stumbled, and looked…
The handle of a dagger protruded from his stomach.
Burning Hellsfire ichor spilled around it, draining him.Runeak reached for yet another weapon at her hip as she closed the distance.She had drawn first blood.
The crowd shouted its appreciation.
Her blade felt cold in his hand when Saer grasped it.He pulled the knife free while dodging and shoving a burst of fiery energy into the steel.Scarlet fluid sizzled, smoked, and crisped as he cauterized the wound, biting down on his scream of pain.The humans gasped.
It took less than a second.Runeak advanced, swinging a long, elegant sword.The sickle Saer took shot up as he deflected Runeak’s downward strike.He flipped the blood stained long knife in his right hand.
The two faced one another, Runeak with a two-handed sword and Saer with a chained sickle in his left grasp, a knife in his right.
They circled.
“I wanted a fight, not a slaughter.”Runeak punctuated the bitter statement with a thrust of her blade.Saer parried.
“Human weapons aren’t my preference.”Saer countered another attack, then sliced forward with the knife he’d taken.It caught her arm, shaving mostly through armor but taking a bite of flesh with it.
For the first time since reuniting with his sister, a faint smile touched her face, visible more in her eyes than her mouth.“No one has drawn blood from me, in single combat, in years,” she purred.
Another strike.Another counter.The crowd grew restless.
Saer remained in his circling crouch, ignoring his throbbing abdomen.“You sound far too happy about it.”
The hint of a smile faded, swallowed by Runeak’s usual haunting stoicism.“Learn to embrace pain, Saer.”The sword flashed downward, and Saer thrust his weapons above to clang against the blade before it cut through his skull.
Saer’s snarling face spanned inches from Runeak’s, her obsidian eyes locked to his.“You don’t command me,” he growled.
“It will make you a better fighter.”Runeak shoved Saer away.He dropped the sickle, using the split seconds it fell to slam his palm into Runeak’s elbow while also slashing at her same wrist with his knife.Wrath grunted, dropping her sword as blood spilled fresh from her forearm.Their audience shouted and gasped.
Saer couldn’t help smirking when the Fifth backed up to recenter.“I seem to be doing fine,” he gloated.
Runeak growled and reached across her body to unsheathe her final weapon, a long-bladed knife matching one which Saer now wielded.She flipped the weapon to solidify her grip and lunged forward.
A flurry of slashes and slices punctuated by grunts and the clanging of metal rang out.Sharp cries and hisses of pain left one or the other as the blades laid wounds on their opponents’ skin, none deep.Back and forth, pivoting and dodging with inhuman grace—a dance without music.
Runeak twisted her arm and dug her knife’s blade under Saers’ hilt, wrenching the weapon from his grip.He dove for the knife, but the demoness stopped him with the point of her blade under his chin, forcing him to swallow through heaving breaths and back up as she pushed forward.A new well of blood dripped from Saer’s throat.His torso and arms were littered with various cuts.
