Robin pulled the daggers from her belt, and Ian lifted his sword at her side.
This was not going to be an easy fight.
The beast-man swung. His fist reached past Ian’s sword, slamming against Ian’s side and sending him flying across the room.
Gareth laughed. The sound rippled with energy, as though the lightning that coursed through him was bouncing up his throat.
But Gareth’s grating laugh was not loud enough to cover the sound of Ian’s body hitting the stone wall of the room with a sickening thud. He tumbled down onto a large chest that sat against the wall.
The soldier stepped toward him, moving slowly and deliberately.
Ian groaned in pain. Robin sprang into action. She raced at the massive beast-man and jumped up, throwing herself onto his back.
He reared backward at the surprise of her weight.
Good. She had his attention, giving Ian a moment to recover.
Robin squeezed her arms around the creature’s throat, but if she was cutting off his breath, he showed no sign of distress.
The beast-man reached up and pressed his large fingers around her arms. She managed to retain her grip for several moments despite his bruising squeeze. Then he backed into the wall behind him, smashing her against it.
The impact stole the breath from her lungs, and she lost control of her muscles as she struggled to breathe. She slid down the wall as the guard stepped away. He turned around to face her.
Robin looked up at him looming over her. She willed her body to roll out of the way of his incoming fist, but her muscles still refused to listen to her.
“Here!” Ian shouted.
Through the tall creature’s legs, Robin saw Ian standing against the opposite wall, his hand on the chest for support. He moved forward, stumbling slightly.
When he stepped on some of the beads on the ground, he stumbled. Lightning flashed up from the disturbed beads, bouncing off Ian’s legs.
Ian gasped.
Gareth laughed again, aware enough of what was happening around him to take delight in Ian’s pain.
The beast-man turned at the sound of Gareth’s laughter, looking toward his king.
Robin finally inhaled, her breath returning with a rush. She rolled to the side, positioning herself to dash toward Ian and pull him out of the lightning’s orbit.
But Ian had already caught his own stumble, and the face that he turned to Robin was not grimacing in pain. When he caught her eye, a small smile was on his lips. He raised his eyebrows.
Robin glanced at the floor beneath his feet, then looked back up at his brilliant face. She smiled back.
The beast-man had turned from Gareth and was moving toward Ian.
Robin crouched low, approaching him slowly with her dagger in hand.
Ian also crouched low, skirting the concentration of glass beads on the floor around Gareth and moving slowly toward Robin.
Watching them both close in on him, the beast-man stopped, waiting for one of them to make the first move.
Robin moved at the same slow pace as Ian. Wordlessly working together, they slowly created a cage around the beast-man, but they remained far enough apart from each other that he could not attack them both in one hit.
Looking back and forth between them, the beast-man took a step backward, toward Gareth.
Robin nodded, looking quickly at Ian out of the corner of her eye. He nodded back at her.
They continued their slow push forward until the beast-man decided to make a move. He swung his fist at Ian.
