Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(11)
He sidestepped my spear blade easily. Dancing back a few feet, he tucked his toe under something and kicked it up into his hands. A spear, just like mine, from the long wooden haft to the curved and sharpened blade at the end. We’d sparred once, but that had been light and easy, with no real effort put in on my part. He might be good.
But I was better.
CHAPTER 5
Talan’s spear cut through the air at a speed that shocked me. I swept my weapon up and caught his blade on mine—barely in time to keep it from slicing into my calf. The steel on steel screeched as we pulled back and reassessed one another. Talan didn’t hesitate for more than a few seconds in his attack, and once he started in on me, he didn’t slow. This wasn’t like the fight before when I’d been in the Deep. No, he’d been holding back then but had made it look like he was doing all he could.
He truly was an asshole.
We circled the central funnel of water, trading blows back and forth, and each move left me another half second behind until I was barely fending him off. In desperation, I turned my spear around and drove the wooden haft into his middle, stealing the breath from him and driving him back a few feet. I should have pressed my advantage but I couldn’t. I needed to breathe and pull myself together. Sweat poured down my face and trickled along my spine and arms, and I tried again to reach for my element in the hopes the blow would have broken Talan’s concentration.
No such luck, my elements slid through me like water through fingers. I couldn’t hold either Spirit or Earth even with him winded.
Talan stood, one hand on his belly. His eyes were not full of anger at all as I’d thought they would be. If anything, I would have said he was laughing at me. “Are you ready to concede?” He spat off to one side.
I glared at him. “Let me go. I won’t stop trying to free myself, no matter how much stronger you are than me. You will never be able to let your guard down.”
“Nope, can’t do that. But it’s nice to know you are seeing you can’t win.” He winked and I glared at him wishing I could pummel him with rocks.
Without another word, he came at me again, forcing me to back up even while I tried to push him away. We used our spears as staffs, the hafts slamming into one another, shuddering under each blow. It was a true test of strength as we pitted our body weights and muscle against each other. Twice he caught my fingers with the staff with a hard, quick rap, making them numb, but I held on through the sharp pain. If I let go of the spear, I would be done.
I would not be done until he let me go.
We slammed our spears together, and he reached across and twisted his arms to one side which brought me in close, my arms locked between the two hafts.
“Do you yield?”
His face was right in mine and I answered by swinging my head down, catching his nose with the top of my skull. There was a satisfying crunch of cartilage that made me smile as I reached for my element again.
Nothing, his concentration hadn’t slipped an inch.
He stumbled back and my arms were released from the spears.
Talan grunted and blinked as the blood ran down his nose. I kicked out with my right foot, intending to hit him in the chest and send him flying backward. I had to press my advantage now because I realized the only way to get him to release his hold on me was to knock him out.
When I was in midair, he caught my foot and twisted it hard, spinning me to the side so I faced down as I fell belly first onto the stone floor. He jerked my leg upward and turned my ankle farther so my foot nearly touched the back of my head as he pressed a foot on my lower back. I tried to look over my shoulder, but he put so much pressure on me, I could barely move. Shit, I could barely breathe past the crushing pressure. I scrabbled at the rock with my hands, reaching once more for my connection to the earth and again getting nothing back.
“I’ll ask again, do you yield, Larkspur of the Rim?”
That burning anger in me had not abated. “Fuck you, asshole!”
“Oh, that’s not nice.” He laughed the words. “Your choice then.”
He bore down on my leg and spine, nearly bending me in half, my joints and bones creaking. I screamed, the pain in my lower back was like a thousand blunt-ended spears jammed in me all at once. I gritted my teeth against the pain, refused to give in.
“Peta!”
“No. She is not in this fight; this is between you and me. You need to know you are not stronger than me,” Talan said.
What he didn’t understand was that Peta was me, that she was part of my strength and heart. Besides, he had no say over my familiar. She was mine, not his. Possessiveness like I’d never known swept over me as I called her again. “Peta!”
There was a blur of white and gray and then the pressure on my leg was gone. I rolled to my back and Talan stood over me. Peta was flat out on the floor, her eyes closed and her body still. She’d stopped him, but at what cost? Had he killed her?
Fear lanced me as no weapon ever could have.
“She’s going to be pissed when she wakes up.” Talan shook his head. “I didn’t want that.”
Relief was slow as his words sank in. He’d knocked her out, not killed her.
I pushed to my feet but my leg and back screamed they would not bear my weight, and I stood hunched like an old woman who’d been packing baskets of rocks all her life to and from the fields. I took a limping step toward him. He held up his hand.