Page 37 of Hounded

My attention flicked to Moira as though I could feel her impatience at range. But, while I expected her to be zeroed in on me, she surveyed the arena with a pleasant expression. Nero, in contrast, was stern. I caught his scathing glare and quickly looked away.

When I faced Abigail again, she was staring down the length of my glaive and growing more frightened by the moment. Her throat bobbed through a swallow before she spoke.

“How am I supposed to…?” She pressed a hand to the scar forming across her belly, then nodded to my polearm. “That thing is huge.”

Stepping back, I slowly swept the blade end toward her. She leaped aside and raised her daggers in a pitiful defense.

She’d closed her eyes in a flinching wince and, when she peered out, I held the glaive outstretched, extending nearly seven feet with the added length of my arm. The tip rested level with Abigail’s chin, scant inches from touching her.

Her face went ashen white.

“You have to crowd me,” I explained, then motioned with my other hand. “Nothing dangerous from there to here.” My gesture spanned the distance from the base ofthe blade to my own chest. “Once you get past the pointy end, I’m hard-pressed to stop you.”

She gawked at my glaive again. Its steel blade was not about the length of a short sword and curved to a wicked tip.

“Right.” She looked and sounded unconvinced.

I pulled my glaive back and held it at an angle in front of me.

Seconds ticked by. Abigail didn’t advance, and I sensed Nero’s scornful gaze boring into me.

“You shouldn’t allow this distance between us,” I whispered to her. “It’s the surest way to lose an arm.” My smile was meant to soften the figurative blow, but she seemed so terrified she might have been frozen in place. Loosing one hand from the polearm’s shaft, I curled my fingers in a beckoning motion. “Crowd me.”

Abigail’s features hardened, and she set her stance. It must have taken every ounce of her determination to lunge.

She was fast, startlingly so, and she closed the gap to me in the time it took to blink. I barred my glaive at her shoulders, blocking the swing of one dagger, then tilting the shaft to parry the other.

Abigail snarled and bared her teeth, and my hound growled in response to the challenge.

Fight, he urged, and I thought backNo.

This was not a conflict I needed to win. This was a frightened young woman battling for survival. She needed instruction to grow her confidence, and I intended to give her better than anything I’d gotten.

She backpedaled.

Wrong direction.

I swiped at her knees, and she retreated farther.

Stop running!

I liked the space; I needed it to deliver sweeping, severing blows and javelin-like thrusts that could punch a hole through someone’s guts. But it was the worst position my opponent could be in.

Moira and Nero watched. Whitney watched. The other hounds scattered.

Abigail had given up attacking, gone on the run instead while I pursued with my glaive at the ready. The bad showing was made worse when she tripped in her rush to escape and landed on her back in the dirt. Her empty hands shielded her face, and her petite body curled into the fetal position.

There was no honor in this. No point in winning a fight that was more of an execution.

With a fleeting glance at Nero and Moira on the dais, I hissed through gritted teeth, “When I close, roll, grab the shaft, and pull yourself up.”

Abigail barely had time to babble out a disjointed, “Wh-what?” before I drove the blade end of my polearm toward her.

My reliance on her speed was rewarded as she lurched to one side, evading the weapon that plunged harmlessly into the ground. Sitting, she took hold of the slick metal shaft and used it to propel herself toward me. Her daggers rematerialized, and she swung one around to plunge into my open left side.

I winced, and she shrieked. Her cry was the loudest thing in the arena, causing everyone—combatants andobservers alike—to turn toward us.

Abigail staggered backward. The knife she held dissipated, but the one lodged in me stayed put. It grated against my ribs as I straightened.

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