Page 160 of Master of Storms
Solveig drew up short.What the hell?
And then she recognized the sulky pout of his mouth.
“You,” she whispered, her blade straightening.
Tyndyr.
He looked at her as if he heard her. The grief on his face vanished, and he pushed to his feet slowly, as if he shook off his loss. “I’ll slake my rage on you, you filthydrekibitch.”
The world seemed to narrow.
The fight around them vanished, until all Solveig could hear was metal clashing on metal in the distance.
“Stay here,” she told Marduk. “This bastard’s mine.”
A pair ofZilittuwarriors rushed at Tyndyr. Flashes of steel blurred the air, their blades meeting some form of resistance, but it wasn’t until the tall blond warrior suddenly appeared behind one of thedrekithat she knew what was happening. He drove his sword through theZilittu’sback, and then threw the dyingdrekiinto his companion. They both went down, and the elf stepped forward and drove his blade through the other’s eye.
Thedrekidied with a scream.
Fast. Almost impossibly fast.
And using glamor to cover his tracks.
“Now it’s just you and me,” she told the elvish general.
Tyndyr shot her a contemptuous smile as he used his fingers to flickdrekiblood from his sword. “Consider it my pleasure to end your life, little wyrm.”
Solveig sneered at him. “You’re not the first male to try. And you won’t be the last. Maybe I’ll make a pretty crown with your finger bones.”
He whirled toward her, and she moved to meet the blow—except her sword swept right through him, plunging her off balance. The image in front of her suddenly dissolved like mist.
A boot slammed between her shoulder blades from behind.
Solveig crashed into the ground.
She rolled to the left, coming up with her sword in hand, just as Tyndyr stabbed his blade into the ground where she’d been only seconds earlier.
He swept past her in a blur that defied her vision and then spun, his cloak flaring out behind him. With a mocking bow, he tossed his sword from left to right hand and gave it a little flourish.
“You filthy wyrms have forgotten how to fight.”
Solveig scrambled to get to her feet, her nostrils flaring. He’d somehow… glamored her. What she’d thought was her opponent was mere illusion.
Which meant he was more dangerous than she’d imagined.
Right. Solveig straightened. She couldn’t rely on her vision. The eyes could be fooled. The ears could be fooled. But no magical creature had ever been able to fool the nose.
Tyndyr stalked her in a steady circle, and Solveig crossed one foot over the other, echoing him. A hint of scent told her he was not where he looked to be.
A sword came out of nowhere, and Solveig did her best to meet it. The edge of the blade rippled back into nothingness, and then he appeared out of nowhere. “You’re learning. Not fast enough though.”
Tyndyr smiled. And then suddenly there were six of him, all circling her.
One swung his sword in a loose-wristed circle. Another beckoned her forward with two fingers. And three of them laughed, even as the last one crouched low.
The complexity of his glamor made her swallow.
But she’d been training for this moment from birth.
