Steinbach’s speed was astonishing, considering his age, size, and the armor he wore. Elaina could barely get her blade up to guard against his first attack, the clash of which sent vibrations up her arm. She hadn’t had enough time to ignite her sword, and it was already beginning to show. He didn’t bother going for a killing blow with the first few strikes, opting instead to beat the living hell out of her weapon. The effect it had on her arms and her ability to keep her guard up was probably exactly as the man had intended. Each block went a little wider and left her a little more open until he suddenly shouldered into her chest, knocking her off balance before the gauntlet of his off-hand collided heavily with her face.

The world spun, and Elaina hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. Her face throbbed, and spots invaded her vision. It had only been a few seconds, and the mercenary captain had already taken the wind out of her and knocked her down. She scrambled away from him as best as she could, trying to reorient herself. She could hear shouting somewhere in the distance but couldn’t tell if it was from her side or his.

“That all you got, Red?” Steinbach barked, “Eh? This how you want to go out? Would have been better just to turn yourself over.”

“And yet I’m still alive,” Elaina taunted breathlessly, “Where’s your son again?”

As soon as she got one of her feet under her, he leaped into the air and brought his blade down, narrowly missing as she pushed off the ground in such a rushed and haphazard way that she fell again. The bridge’s stone, where she had been just a moment ago, had a shallow gouge carved out of it from his sword. The blade was magic. If she kept offering the paltry defense that she was, he would destroy her sword and cleave her in half.

Rolling away from him as best she could, she got up into a low crouch, running her palm along the flat of her blade, *“Radanta*\-!”

Steinbach pivoted and hurled his sword at her with such speed that it forced her to abandon her spell and raise her blade to intercept the attack before it buried itself in her skull. Without all of his weight and muscle behind the blade, it wasn’t as difficult to deflect to one side. She took advantage of the opening and hurled herself at him instead, driving her sword forward for an impaling gut wound.

Elaina felt a brief hum of magic from the gauntlet of his open hand, and in the blink of an eye, the sword he’d just thrown snapped back into his grasp as he shunted the thrust to one side. His head slammed savagely into her face, lighting her vision up once more with an explosion of color and spots. She managed to keep her footing, but only briefly before she felt the edge of his magical blade dig down into her breastplate and cut a thin line out of her right breast.

“Agh!” Her hand went up to the wound as she continued reeling away from him, though all she could feel was the cleanly carved metal of her armor, “In the tit? Really?”

There was no acknowledgment of her words beyond the dog-like snarl of his as he pressed his advantage on her. At least Elaina had allowed him to believe it was an advantage. The only hope she had of turning the tide of the battle was to halt the man’s momentum, present an opening she knew he would take, and provide a counter. He did as she expected, committing a great deal of his physical power to a strike that would have cleaved her from cunt to clavicle. The swordmage rolled away, catching sight of his back long enough to strike. Her aim was true, but the blade scraped along the surface of his sparsely armored back and was pushed away, a distinct feeling of magic coming off of him as it did.

His armor was magic too or at least empowered by it somehow. Great. She had been foolish not to come into the fight without her weapon already enhanced or any additional defense magic. She wasn’t sure why she assumed she would have the time or that the captain of the mercenary company would not have done the same with how badly he wanted her dead. Live and learn, she told herself. At least she hoped she would live long enough to learn from it.

Even though she’d failed to wound him, the force had been enough to throw him off balance. It gave her a brief window of opportunity to work some magic. She pressed the palm of her hand to the flat of the blade once more, only to see Steinbach whirl around and hurl a knife he’d concealed somewhere on his person at her.

Again she was forced to abandon the spell and smack the weapon to one side like a pitch in a game of rounders. He extended the hand he’d thrown it with to one side, and the knife leaped back into his grasp, “If you think I’m going to give you any time to work a spell, you’ve got another thing coming, Red.”

He hurled the knife with his off-hand once more, forcing a deflection from her as he advanced with his sword at the ready in the other hand. Again, the smaller blade returned to his off-hand only to be hurled at the swordmage. None of it was intended to strike a fatal blow, though any mistake on her part could indeed result in one. Instead, it was to occupy her time while he got back in range.

As aggressive as he was, he was fighting more conservatively now, saving his strength when she attempted to cast a spell. That’s when he would strike. The knife he was hurling at her didn’t even have time to hit the ground before he’d retrieve it and loose it upon her. There was no chance she could get the words out for a spell. Not unless she was doing something else that would prevent him from using such an opening at the same time.

The spellbook that Blackbarn had given her had talked about weapons being used as the Motus of a spell and elemental infusions. It was time to put both of those ideas to work as she began to form the Imago of something new in her mind, something that would be quick but buy her the time she needed to lay down more powerful spellwork. Of course, it would all have to be part of an actual attack, calling the spell into existence using the stroke of the blade itself.

Steinbach was in range again, forcing her back onto the defense with an overhead strike delivered with all the force of a crashing wave. That was what she would use, she decided. It was the most readily translatable motion to an element she could think of when pressed like this.

Elaina adjusted her stance to make it easier for him to read her; she wanted him to know it was coming even as she deflected another of his attacks to one side. She brought the blade around, firmly holding the idea of the spell in her mind, speaking to the intent of the spell mid-swing, “*Ishkastalk!*”

The three components of the spell came together better than she had hoped as her sword became suddenly sheathed in pure, clean water, giving the appearance of running the blade through a much larger body of unseen water. When the spell met with the captain’s horizontal defense, the water around the blade was released with disproportionate force and volume. Steinbach was overtaken by the small deluge that erupted from the swordmage’s weapon, being swept back several paces and thrown entirely off balance. Instead of pressing the attack, Elaina took the chance to place her palm down on the flat of the dripping blade.

“*Redanta lan!*” Elaina cried, the blade taking the magic readily and igniting into brilliant blue light. The last remnants of water from what she was calling the Aquastrike sizzled off the blade’s surface. Elaina felt ready to advance, rushing at Steinbach as he recovered from the impromptu bath she had just given him.

This time when he defended her strike, he felt it in much the same way that she had before. His weapon being magic was the only thing that kept her from sundering it right there. Her weapon was lighter now, so her follow-up attacks for the captain came faster than he expected, allowing her to carve lines and small chunks of his armor away every time she landed a hit. He was on the back foot now, but he wasn’t panicking in the slightest. This worried Elaina enough to push down any rising sense of triumph that might force her to make a mistake.

Elaina was correct in doing so. Even as she cut a clean crimson wound from Steinbach’s waist, he didn’t buckle or shrink from the pain. It was like it hadn’t registered as he returned her strike with one across the small of her back. He’d willingly traded blows, betting on the idea that he’d be able to take the pain in stride much better than her. The swordmage’s back arched in agony at the white-hot streak of pain that shot across her back. He used the momentary reaction to bring his weapon back around at neck level. She managed to tumble forward a split second before the captain had managed to make her a whole head shorter, rolling up into a low crouch as she drove the sword back into his thigh.

The armor there wasn’t enough to protect him, even as enhanced as it was, parting and buckling under the strike of the Radiant Blade. Her sword penetrated almost clean through to the other side, but she was unwilling to give up the needed distance to do so, knowing that it would leave her vulnerable. The brief lessons she’d had with Kitch, fresh in her mind, gave her the caution she needed to move away from the sweep of the sword that inevitably came.

Elaina pulled her blade free as she shot back to her feet, whirling around in time to parry the next few strikes from Steinbach. His steps were a little shorter due to the wound in his thigh, but he’d not lost much of his speed. It was everything Elaina could do to keep up, even with the magical enhancement to her sword. His key advantage now was his versatility with magical tricks and the added protection his armor gave him. Several of her strikes would have carved deep into the meat and bone of the man by now were it not for the armor offering the right amount of resistance to each blow. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the same luxury, being forced to intercept more strikes to protect herself and use much more of her stamina.

Behind her, she could hear his men clamoring for the killing blow, cheering on their captain, who showed no signs of slowing down. On the opposite side of the bridge, much of the same was being done for her as well, though more to the tune of encouraging her to hang in there. It gave her the impression that Steinbach was making a much stronger showing in the fight than she was. If she could think of a way to enhance her armor, she would do so without hesitation, but the ideas and theory of it were unknown to her. Was it a large spell that blanketed the whole thing, or did each piece have to be enhanced separately? Unfortunately, she wasn’t in a position to experiment, so once again, she would have to narrow everything down to the simplest and most basic form if she had any hope of making use of it.

Elaina thrust her blade out, knowing the captain would avoid it rather than deflect it. He wanted to keep his sword available for a counterstrike. She formed the image of the spell in her mind, borrowing a little from something she had seen in the past: the effects of the shield bracelet Anisha had used during the battle in Hallowell. She focused her intent on the bracer of her sword arm even as Steinbach pivoted for a deadly retort. Elaina brandished the bracer in the path of the strike, something that would normally have cost her an arm, “*Ruaig!*”

A brief bright burst of pale blue magic erupted from the bracer in the vague shape of a tall, heavy shield. Steinbach’s sword not only bounced off it in a near-comical fashion, but he was also completely relieved of the weapon that flew back over his head several yards before coming to rest on the stone roadway of the bridge. His whole body staggered back a step from the force of the magical burst, providing Elaina with just the moment she needed.

With a brief flourish to gather momentum, she brought her sword horizontally across his torso with both hands, carving a deep enough line in the breastplate that it found some purchase in his flesh. Then, throwing her off-hand forward to help build momentum, she stepped into the next strike, which came diagonally from the opposite direction, forming a slightly oblique X shape in the breastplate. As the blade passed out of the plate, it caught one of the straps, severing it easily before peeling one of the pauldrons off the man’s body. The hunk of metal sailed through the air amid an uproar of shouting from both sides of the bridge, clattering heavily to the stone in much the same fashion as his sword had.

Blood ran down the captain’s torso from under the breastplate, bathing the man in streaks of dark crimson. He growled savagely, using his fury to psych himself up and power through the pain, stalking his way toward her again. He spared a gesture with one hand to retrieve the sword, which sailed through the air like a loosed arrow into his gauntlet.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Elaina cautioned him, now that she had formed enough effective counters for him to arrest any momentum he had in the fight. “You don’t need to make the same mistake your son did, Karl. You can still walk away from this with---!”

Steinbach made a motion with his free hand like a punch, despite being roughly eight or nine feet away from her. A ring fitted around his gauntlet glowed brightly before a large translucent blast of force in the distinct shape of a charging ram’s head slammed into her. All the air in her chest was expelled in a single rough exhale as Elaina was thrown backward clean through the air before colliding with the roadway, bouncing off it once before finally slamming up against the parapet on the side of the bridge. The sounds of the crowd seemed to fall away as the swordmage struggled to catch her breath. Looking down at her breastplate, she could see that the whole of it had been crushed against her, keeping her chest from being able to draw breath.

Scrambling with one hand, she first tried to pull at the plate itself, only needing a little room to get some air, but it wouldn’t move.

“I’ve been doing this shit for decades, Red,” Steinbach bellowed as he sheathed his sword and drew a dagger in its place, stalking closer with every passing second. “You think a few magic tricks is enough to put me in the ground?”

Elaina frantically pulled at the straps of the breastplate with one hand, but the clasps had warped and bent under the force of the ram’s head, preventing her from undoing them. She had no choice but to bring her sword’s glowing blade up to start cutting herself out of her armor before she suffocated.

“It’s admirable to want to go out with a fight instead of rolling over and dying,” he added, “But this only ends one way for you: bloody.”

The swordmage pressed her back against the stone of the parapet in a desperate attempt to put even an inch more between herself and the man stalking her as prey. Finally, she was able to cut through enough of the straps to loosen the breastplate to draw in a crucially needed breath. With her chest heaving and her body finally beginning to register the rest of the pain it was in from being hurled across the bridge, Elaina began to push herself to her feet angrily.

Steinbach twirled the dagger in his hand briefly to adjust his grip to one more suited for stabbing, but as the movement caught her eyes, she realized it was a misdirect. His off-hand reached down to a holster concealed in the hodge-podge of armor plating on his hip and drew a small smooth-bore pistol, squeezing a shot off from the hip. The round punctured right through the upper left portion of her breastplate to penetrate her chest and exit her back before striking the stone behind her. Blood burst from the wound before her, but not nearly as much as it had behind her.

Elaina’s scream of agony nearly matched the volume of the pistol when it had fired, though it lasted much longer. She fell back onto her ass heavily, releasing her sword to place the hand of her good arm over the wound. Her other arm felt like it had gone completely dead with the wound’s location. As sweat and blood ran down her face, Elaina faintly realized that she’d suffered a minor head wound when thrown up against the side of the bridge. He was back to picking her apart, all because she’d assumed he’d exhausted his options in the fight.

Steinbach casually placed the small firearm back into its holster as he came within striking distance with his dagger.

“You piece of shit,” Elaina laughed even as she fought back tears, “You cheated.”

“I’m here to kill you, Red, not score points in a tournament. Doesn’t matter how it gets done.”

With one of his characteristic bursts of speed, he pounced on her, plunging the dagger down on her with all the strength he could muster. Elaina quickly got her good arm up, focusing her power into the bracer as she had done before, “*Ruaig!*”

Once more, the burst of magic erupted from the bracer. But unlike last time, Steinbach was unmoved by the magic. Instead, the dagger seemed to carve a clean line through the spell’s light, dividing it around him as he drove it down into the arm she had interposed between them when she’d cast the spell. The blade bit deep, puncturing her bicep like a hot knife through butter. It felt like the blade had been superheated before being driven into her, radiating throughout her whole body within seconds before a wave of sickening nausea and weakening fatigue followed behind it.

“Look familiar, Red?” Steinbach said through his teeth, “Reforged this blade from what was left of the sword you killed my son with.”

The captain twisted the blade in her flesh, wrenching it to one side and then the next, destroying the muscle in her arm. She cried out in pain, the arm she had thought useless shooting up to push at him desperately with no effect.

“Of course, I added a little something into the mix to give it that extra bite,” he began to slowly carve a ragged line down her arm. Darkness began to creep into her vision even as she felt like she would vomit, “Can you guess what it is? Hm?”

Elaina continued pushing against him even as he leaned in closer, speaking in a low, grave whisper only inches from her face. It was futile. Even without the strength melting out of her, the large man now had size and leverage at his disposal.

“Cold Iron,” Steinbach sneered, “so the same fae blood running through you that warped your body and gave you that magic you fumble around with can’t do shit to protect you.”

Elaina stared back into the man’s eyes in wide-eyed horror, seeing the depths of his hatred and murderous intent. Though he had presented it all very differently, he was every bit the self-absorbed depraved killer that his son had been.

“Like I told you,” Steinbach ripped the dagger from her arm to line up another strike, “I’ve been doing this shit for a long time.”