Chapter Thirty-Six

 

Blood ran down Pandora's arm. She risked a glance to Brazio. His earlier excitement had been tempered by the reveal of the black diamond. Pandora cursed the shadows that it'd gone to Irina. What bad luck.

"I commend you for pushing me to have to use it. I wanted the first time in a real scrap to be when I fight Duro. He thinks Daraja took the black diamond. She gave it to me when she failed to attune, even with the addition of Eclipse. I've convinced her that Duro is the traitor in our midst, which kept the truth from his ears. He'll learn the truth when my blade has pierced his heart."

Pandora backed away as Irina approached. No one was invulnerable, but this made an already difficult fight almost impossible. She lacked the emerald that Brazio had used in his duel and Irina's sapphire nullified many of the strategies she might employ.

The next set of attacks came with careless abandon. Irina took unreasonable chances knowing she had her black diamond to rely on. Pandora dared not risk counterattacks, knowing that they might easily be thwarted. They danced across the rocks. Pandora retreated, giving ground when even the barest hint of disadvantage was revealed.

Irina forced her around the cavern, dodging the stalactites and stalagmites, leaping from rocky crenellation to angled wall. The first phase of the fight had been on the flat circle at the center while the second had moved to the edges where the unusual features created additional obstacles. The thrill of the chase was evident on Irina's lips as she pushed their fight to the limits.

Only when Pandora was sure she had a clean shot did she risk a counterattack, hoping to catch her by surprise, but each time her blade bounced harmlessly off Irina's steelskin. As they moved through a maze of pillars, Pandora made a head-hunting swipe only to have Irina duck and the blade sing towards the rocky structure. At best her weapon would bounce off the stone, interrupting her flow, while at the worst, the impact would trap the weapon and leave her defenseless.

But the weapon sliced through the stone as if it were papier-mâché.

Pandora used the follow-through to Pull the crumbling pillar onto Irina, providing the chance to escape. Backing away as Irina climbed out of the rocks with a sheen of steelskin, Pandora examined the cutting edge to find no chips or dulling. The blade's name of Reaver came back to her.

Irina attacked with unrepentant anger. The length of the fight was frustrating her, and she struck like a berserker with no regard for her own safety. Pandora fled back into the pillars and when Irina tried to corner her, she sliced through a section, releasing more crumbling rocks upon her opponent.

"Stop and face me, you coward!"

Pandora saw no immediate opportunity to kill Irina, so she tried to delay the result as long as possible so she might yet find a way. There were no boulders to somehow trick her beneath, or ponds to drown her in. The way they'd killed the original owner of the black diamond by putting a gun in their mouth and pulling the trigger wouldn't work while Irina was wielding a blade of her own.

As Irina pursued her, Pandora reached out to a piece of the pillar and Pulled it. The rock sailed into Irina's back, catching her by surprise and knocking her down. She'd switched to steelskin a moment too late.

When Irina tried to regain her feet, Pandora sent another rock towards her, but this time her former instructor was ready, dodging out of the way. Before she could get her bearings, Pandora pushed a smaller stone to tumble across the ground, slamming into Irina's legs.

"Why won't you fight me?"

Pandora sliced through a nearby pillar, and as the upper half toppled over, she Pushed it after Irina, forcing her to counter it with her own Push. The rock spun away from the opposing pressures. Keeping Irina off-balance, Pandora kept sending new stones, either Pulling or Pushing them. The one area where she was stronger than the instructor was her sapphire, and unlike her, she'd been practicing relentlessly with the stone.

Irina blocked most of the flying rocks, but every eighth or ninth got through, forcing her to put up her steelskin. Pandora kept the projectiles coming in a steady stream of solid earth. Irina did her best to deflect with her sapphire, but she was wearing her down. Frustrated, her former instructor screamed with the rage of a trapped lion and tried leaping after Pandora. A rock the size of a bowling ball slammed into Irina's shoulder, knocking her down.

As Irina struggled to rise, Pandora poured more rocks over her. She was running out of projectiles, so she swung Reaver through more stalactites, creating new chunks of stone. Every time Irina managed to reach her knees, another rock slammed into her. The effort of keeping her steelskin up to protect from the impacts was making her too weak to defend with her sapphire. Few could run their stones simultaneously and at near full strength like Duro.

Pandora sliced through another pillar. And another. The piles of stones around Irina looked like the beginnings of a burial cairn with the former instructor sticking half out the mound.

Then she was covered.

Pandora kept them coming even as her own exhaustion began to set in from the fight and the unrelenting use of her sapphire. When the pile was as high as her waist, Pandora stopped to listen.

Muffled cursing slipped through the gaps. Irina Stevya was trapped. The rocks rattled as she tried to Push them off, but there were far too many.

Pandora positioned herself over the pile, looking for places to slip the blade through. She jabbed downward, normally a recipe for a damaged sword, but Reaver had been made for such endeavors. It took her a half dozen tries, but she found a narrow space. As the blade hit Irina, steelskin repelled the attack. Pandora lifted and jabbed down the blade again. And again. And again.

Eventually she felt the rigidity of Irina's chest begin to cave in, the steelskin becoming less protective. Not wanting her to have a remote possibility of survival, Pandora kept pumping her arms up and down, sending the blade against Irina. A war cry rose on her lips as she worked, until she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

Until there was no more resistance.

Pandora jabbed downward a half dozen more times, feeling like she was puncturing a watermelon. When she yanked the blade out, the end was covered in blood. There were no more muttered curses rising from beneath the rocks.

She collapsed on the pile, using the blade to keep herself upright. Brazio gave her a respectful nod and to her surprise, moved towards her in a stride that spoke not of exhaustion, but hidden reserves, or worse yet, subterfuge. As he grew closer, she wondered if his visible fatigue had been an act and now he was coming to kill her.

But then he reached the rocks, gently set himself beside her, and handed over a water bottle. She promptly chugged half and dumped the other half over her sweaty, hot face.

"You fight good."