Chapter 29

The two big cats roared as they tore into each other with tooth and claw. Mandalee didn’t need to watch – she could feel every scratch and bite, and would know if her friend’s injuries required healing. If Nalani was feeling what Shyleen was doing to Pryshia, however, she was doing a remarkably good job of hiding it.

Mandalee launched herself at Nalani with equal ferocity, targeting the usual weak spots in the human body: neck, throat, wrists, belly. She even attempted a dive and roll to try and hamstring her, but Nalani dodged and danced out of the way every time. Mandalee was using her super-speed, but somehow Nalani always had plenty of time. By contrast, Nalani’s knives scored hits with unerring accuracy. None of the cuts were deep so far, but the White Assassin wasn’t sure how much of that was down to her own skill and how much was down to Nalani toying with her.

Shyleen was having similar problems. In the wild, a regular leopard was no match for a lioness, and while neither animal was exactly what they appeared to be, the result was proving to be the same. Sparing some healing for her friend, Mandalee tried a new tack. Her immediate problem, she decided, was the knives that were cutting her, not the hands that wielded them. Going for the wrists wasn’t working, but if she couldn’t disarm Nalani, then maybe she could destroy her weapons. After all, Mandalee’s knives were made from dragon claws. There was nothing they couldn’t cut through, so ordinary weapons would be useless against them. She just needed to get the timing right.

With a renewed, frenzied assault, Mandalee’s daggers flashed with lightning speed, but then she feigned an attack. That meant she was ready when Nalani took the bait and overcommitted. The White Assassin’s daggers flew up to block the strike, expecting her enemy’s knives to shatter on contact. Sparks flew when the two pairs of weapons struck, ringing loudly, but Nalani’s knives withstood the impact.

Mandalee couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The only way Nalani’s knives could still be intact was if they, too, were made from dragon claws.

Nalani confirmed it, gloating as she pressed her attack, leaving Mandalee defending desperately. “They’re great, aren’t they, these dragon claws? Cut through anything…except each other. Do you get it, yet? I’m stronger than you, I’m faster than you, I fight better than you and my knives are at least a match for yours. You can’t win this. I’m just going to wear you down until you can’t fight anymore and then I’m going to kill you while Pryshia makes mincemeat of your mangy moggy.”

Continuing to ignore her taunts, saving her energy for the furious exchange of blows with Nalani and healing Shyleen as necessary, Mandalee analysed her situation critically. She had always prided herself on maintaining a clear head in a fight. No matter how her emotions were ablaze, she never crossed the line into an unthinking battle frenzy. That was how warriors got themselves killed. Nalani was right. She and Pryshia seemed designed to be the perfect weapons to beat Shyleen and herself, but Mandalee had an advantage: she had nothing to prove. Not these days. She just wanted to survive. Mandalee wasn’t going to let pride goad her into continuing to fight a losing battle. Running away wasn’t an option – she and Shyleen weren’t fast enough – but Mandalee had friends who, thanks to the Guardianship, she could contact at any time, and there was no time like the present.

The White Guardian wasn’t as experienced at this as the other two, so as a precaution, she invoked her cleric magic to form a thick fog around them, plunging them into a deep, unnatural darkness. She suspected it would only take Nalani a second or two to counter the effect, but to the Guardians of Time and Magic, a second or two could be all the time in the world.

*****

Opening her Guardian senses to the Timeless zone that was Catriona’s Meadow, she called out to her two friends, crying out for help, urgently. She didn’t trust her portals enough to go there physically and she didn’t have the co-ordinates to get back if something went wrong, but she knew that communication via Catriona’s Meadow took literally no time at all.

Mandalee heard the voices of her two friends almost simultaneously asking what the emergency was. When she explained, Catriona was astonished. She’d seen her fight many times, so she knew how swift and deadly she was. The idea that anyone could be too quick for her to fight was almost beyond imagining.

For Dreya’s part, her mind was already flicking through her catalogue of powers, selecting and preparing what she thought might work. In her time, she had fought powerful enemies, hordes of enemies and enemies many times her size. Speed was a new kind of challenge altogether.

“Where are you, Mandalee?” Dreya asked.

“Somewhere on Eastcliff, Southern Alloria. South of Durmchapel, North of Kelna.” Unfortunately, she couldn’t be more specific, which ruled out direct portals, but after a quick discussion, they worked out a plan.

“Hold on, Mandalee, we’re coming,” Cat encouraged her friend. “Then this Nalani won’t stand a chance.”

“Until then,” Dreya put in, “consider this: you’ve admitted yourself that Nalani is perfectly designed to fight you. She obviously knows how you fight, and she’s able to counter you, so don’t fight that way.”

“You want me to completely change my fighting style on the spot?” she wondered, incredulously.

“Mandalee, what you’re doing isn’t working, so what good is it?”

With that, they cut off communications.

Dreya made a good point, Mandalee conceded, and she had a couple of ideas about that.

*****

Mandalee returned to the Timestream the instant she left it, her magical fog hiding her from Nalani’s view. Usually, Mandalee would use that strategy to quickly attack from a different angle to catch her enemy off guard, but Nalani was too fast and anticipated too well for that. The solution, therefore, was to use the fog as a bluff and stay exactly where she was. The idea paid dividends. Even as she dispelled the mist, Nalani was already committed to whirling around to counter Mandalee’s next strike. By staying put, Mandalee forced her to spin around full circle. It only took her a fraction of a second, but it was all the time Mandalee needed. She had sheathed her knives in favour of a conjured flame hammer. It was something she would use on a group or a large target like Kullos or a demon that didn’t necessarily have the same weak points as a human. She would never use such a crude and unwieldy weapon one-on-one. She preferred the precision cuts of a knife or a sword. Against Nalani, however, she couldn’t land those precise cuts, so why not try some brute force instead?

As Nalani whirled around, her face collided with the hammer, burning her and knocking her away. She staggered backwards, slightly off-balance for the first time. Taking advantage of the opening, the White Guardian sent flames from her fingertips, but they missed Nalani and a tree burst into flames. She acted as though she were annoyed at this result, to disguise the fact that it had been deliberate intent. Her friends needed a marker to pinpoint her location on Eastcliff, and she could think of nothing better than a nice big smoke signal. Cat would be able to prevent any forest fire raging out of control when she arrived.

Pressing her advantage, Mandalee attacked wildly with her flame hammer. Nalani dodged and weaved too much for her to get in a clean strike, but even glancing blows were better than anything she’d achieved so far.

Mandalee sent some healing Shyleen’s way. It was interesting that it seemed to take a growl from Pryshia for the lioness to get any healing from Nalani. She didn’t know why that would be so. If Nalani was indeed a Cleric of Nature as she claimed, she should be feeling everything Pryshia did. However, she stored that query away for the moment in favour of focusing on the task at hand: staying alive.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mandalee saw Windell recover. Obviously not considering him a threat, Nalani had not disarmed him and with true warrior’s spirit, he threw his spear at Nalani. The young woman almost failed to notice, but another growl from Pryshia alerted her, and he only scored a graze on her left arm.

Nalani invoked levitation magic to make the spear fly back at him, but Mandalee could counter that, easily. Still, the diversion had worked in Nalani’s favour. She was back on-balance and in control.

Drawing his sword and charging at Nalani, Windell tried to enter the fight properly, but he was no match for her. With a few, deft strokes of her daggers, he was once again bleeding from multiple shallow cuts. In the battle against Kullos’ forces, Windell had proven himself a fine and able warrior, one of the finest of what Michael called his ‘fan club’. Nalani, however, was in a different league. In less than a minute, he once again passed out from pain and blood loss, his wounds severe, but not life-threatening. Mandalee didn’t know why Nalani had chosen not to kill him but decided not to ask, lest it tempt her to change her mind.

Whatever momentum Mandalee had gained from her change of tactics had evaporated. Nalani had a glint in her eye and a smile on her lips. Mandalee couldn’t understand how she was maintaining this blistering pace for so long. The White Assassin herself had never used her super-speed for such a sustained period, and she couldn’t use it for much longer. Nalani’s knives began to strike both more cleanly and more frequently, as did Pryshia’s claws on Shyleen’s increasingly torn and bloody hide. Mandalee was desperate to heal her, but she simply had nothing left. Blood was streaming out of both of their bodies, and Mandalee could no longer do anything about it. She’d kept fighting as long as she could, but it was the end. She collapsed to the ground, helpless before Nalani’s hatred and vengeance.

‘I’m so sorry, Shyleen,’ she told her friend. ‘I’ve got nothing left to give you.’

With a supreme effort, Shyleen managed to force Pryshia back, just for a moment, using the opening to run to Mandalee’s side just as her speed left her and the flame hammer extinguished.

‘You have no reason to be sorry, Mandalee,’ she insisted, placing her body between her fallen friend and their attackers. If they were to meet their end here, then they would meet it together. ‘You have given me far more than I ever could have wished for. I love you, Mandalee. The finest friend anyone could have.’

‘I love you, too, Shyleen. Better than all the gods in the Pantheon. Thank you for everything.’

“Finished saying your goodbyes?” Nalani taunted as she stroked her braid. Pryshia just purred beside her. “That’s more than I got to do when you murdered my father!”

Mandalee shook her head, weakly. “I didn’t…” but she never got to finish her sentence.

In her head, Mandalee heard a sympathic shout, ‘STAY DOWN!’ which in her delirium of exhaustion, she thought was vaguely funny, considering she was quite incapable of doing anything else. A figure in Black robes floated down from the sky and threw out a concussive blast in all directions, knocking Nalani and Pryshia flying.

Dreya had seen the smoke rising as soon as she materialised just North of Imperial Kelna. It was hard to judge the distance, and it had taken her three portals to get here, each a stage closer. She’d finally reached her friend and knew she had not a moment to lose. Mandalee had told her how fast Nalani was, so rather than try for a direct hit, she had lashed out in all directions.

She knew Catriona had chosen to head South from Durmchapel and was coming as fast as she could, but she was worried it might not be fast enough.

As White Guardian, Mandalee could have halted any change in her condition by portalling to Catriona’s Meadow and embracing Timelessness, but that wouldn’t help Shyleen. Dreya knew better than to even suggest it.

Dreya’s skills did not extend to healing, but maybe there was a way for her to help. During their time in the past, Dreya had learned to give power to others. Trouble was, the magics of a Black wizard and a White cleric were not very compatible. Their frequencies clashed. When Cat had first shown up outside the Black Tower and challenged Dreya, the druidess had tried to trap her using plants laced with some of Mandalee’s magic. It had hurt like hell, but it didn’t do any real harm.

It was worth a try.

Dreya focused her magic into a low power beam and aimed it at her friend.

“Sorry, Mandalee,” she apologised, gently. “This is going to hurt.”

Mandalee screamed, but she was grateful, nonetheless. Dreya’s form of magic was alien to her system, but it was useable. It was not unlike eating food that was nutritionally good but tasted terrible. Not something she would choose to do regularly, but if it was a choice between that and starving, she would stomach whatever was offered.

Dreya was forced to cut the beam off early to deflect a knife that she sensed hurtling towards her back. Mandalee sympathically assured her she was OK. What Dreya had given her had been just enough to keep both Shyleen and herself from death’s door.

“Stay out of this, Black Witch!” Nalani snarled. “It’s got nothing to do with you!”

“It’s got everything to do with me,” Dreya countered. “She’s my friend.” Then, reconsidering, she revised her statement to, “They’re both my friends!”

“You might want to think about crossing me,” Nalani warned her. “Phryshia here’s no ordinary lioness – she’s a god. She’s my god!”

Mandalee shared a glance with Shyleen. There was no way she would ever refer to her friend that way. Yet more evidence that, for all Nalani claimed to be a Cleric of Nature, she seemed to have some rather odd ideas about what that meant.

For her part, Dreya just snorted. “Maybe you haven’t heard, but I beat Daelen’s dark clone, conquered a world full of dragons, and helped defeat the most powerful shadow warrior Champion there has ever been. You think I’m scared of a mere god? Bah!” she spat. “I’m bored already.”

Dreya pricked her finger on her dagger, tapping into blood magic. She wasn’t playing around here. She was taking this bitch down.

Lightning bolts flew from her hands, but Nalani and Pryshia had recovered enough by now to resume their super-speed, easily dodging the attack. Flames and fireballs, shock spheres and more lightning bolts whistled harmlessly past.

“Is speed all you’ve got?” Dreya taunted.

Nalani shrugged. “Seems to be enough so far.”

“And yet you’re nowhere near killing your target, and I can do this level of magic all day. How long can you run like that?”

“Long enough!”

“OK then,” Dreya shrugged, growing an extra-large fireball, the size of a watermelon, “let’s see you outrun this.”

She cast it out, and her enemies tried to dodge as before, but this time the fireball was guided and kept following. She hadn’t used magic like this for years, tending to favour power words and beam cannon blasts using higher planar energy. But those powers weren’t guided. It didn’t matter how powerful her magic was if it missed. Perhaps that was something she ought to address, the sorceress considered. Her twin magical obsessions were power and control, but maybe she had begun to grow the former at the expense of the latter. There had to be a way to incorporate guidance magic into her higher-level powers. She’d work on that later, but for right now she had to work with what she knew. Which was a lot.