The gasp that leaves Glaive’s lips is a sound of both pain and shock as streaks of energy from my hammer ripple along her arm and chest.
I sense every shift of air, calculating that it will take Griffin another few heartbeats to recover her balance since her blade didn’t meet the resistance she was expecting.
It’s Glass I need to worry about in these next few seconds.
I swivel back to her as she launches herself at me across Erik’s body.
Oh, she’s fast.Much faster than the other two women, her body flying across the air even without her wings.
The compassion she revealed to me earlier was not weakness.
She leaps with incredible strength, her sword effortlessly drawn, and I picture the clean cut she intends to make through my neck.
She must intend to end this quickly.
I don’t need to adjust the trajectory of my hammer, allowing it to follow through so that it carves the air across my head and then forward.
With a shove, I allow it to fly forward and the handle to slide through my fingers.
The hammer’s large head smacks into Glass’s stomach, right against her lowest ribs, before I close my grip around the handle once more, ensuring I don’t lose control of it.
The impact of the hammer’s golden head against her armor makes aclangso loud that without my power, I’m certain my ears would bleed. As it is, energy splashes across her body, and she flies backward. Her sword’s momentum brings its tip swinging wildly close to my face, but I lean back, evading the steel.
It comes so close, I can almost taste the metal her sword is made from.
It’s clean and pure, and my instincts are suddenly firing.
Every piece of metal these women are wearing and the swords they’re wielding are susceptible to my hammer.
My power may be more extensive than that of other Blacksmiths, but I am like other Blacksmiths at heart: I was born to beat metal into submission.
Glass corrects her balance midair, landing lithely, but the force of my hit sends her sliding farther away from me than I’m sure she would like.
Griffin has now recovered and is coming at me again, this time with a wild swing, as if she intends to slash at me wherever she can make contact. The savage arc of the blade indicates she’s given up on a clean kill.
I rapidly adjust my hammer’s trajectory, jabbing it at her sword, aiming for a full hit of the hammer’s head against the side of the blade.
At the instant of contact, I send a command through my hammer and into her blade.
Submit to my will.
Energy shoots through the sword from my hammer, a stream of golden power.
The blast knocks Griffin backward, causing her to gain air as her body crashes across the clearing.
Her sword is ripped from her hand, spinning wildly away from her.
She crashes into the snow, her landing digging a turret in the white powder.
Her sword lands several paces away from her, neatly dropping to the ground, its tip driving deep into the snow, where it remains upright.
I don’t wait for her groan of pain to reach me.
I swing backward, this time blocking Glaive’s downward cut from behind me—another slashing cut, this one an underhanded strike at my exposed back.
Her blade meets my hammer’s head.
I send another command through the metal.
