Silver Blades: A Duel Nature

Part 3, Section 2 - Refined

And, oddly, my hand was no longer shaking.

I moved with the swiftness of thought, avoiding the monster's sluggish claws and teeth, darting in and out to sever ligaments and tendons when possible, and to cause pain or confusion when not. None of the wounds lasted long, but some slowed it down more than others. Stande moved as expertly across from me, and together we created an opening for Glassier to reclaim his steel. The young Faranado—I should have learned his name—did, for his part, a great job of not being eaten or accidentally stabbed.

For long moments, the only sounds in the garden were the incessant Dinian chants, Demis' groans of pain (a good sign!), and the calls and grunts of four swordsmen fighting for their lives against the oddly silent lycanthrope.

My skin tingled with the thrill of it. My blood rushed in my ears. Then, disaster struck.

The shorter acolyte, standing slightly behind and to the left of his superior, met the weresaur's vile red eyes directly, and his chanting died off. Immediately, the spell was broken, the radiant light beam gone without a trace. Father Bessik recoiled as if struck, and stumbled to his right.

It saved his life.

The Paolo-saur crashed right through the remaining Faranado swordsman as if he wasn't there; a stone hurled from a catapult that crashes through foliage or ramparts before striking its intended target at full range. It had its teeth around the quaking acolyte's throat before anyone could react.

"No!" Bessik cried, regaining his feet, and starting toward the carnage, a wild helplessness in his eyes.

"Father, no!" I warned. There was nothing he could do against the weresaur that wouldn't make him a corpse inside a moment. Even now, the beast was shaking the acolyte's body like a hound with a rat.

With a startled cry unlike anything we had heard it make thus far—it sounded almost human!—the monster recoiled and spat the healer's body to the ground. As it staggered back, I noticed an emblem burned into the scales on the side of its snout; the mark of One.

So! Silver of any kind can harm you, I thought with a flash of new hope.

Bessik, had seen the same thing, and raising his holy symbol high, thrust it in desperation at the monster's side. A meat-searing sizzle accompanied the sickening smell of burnt human flesh. Apparently though the weresaur still wore most of Paolo as an obscene sheath of flesh, his curse had made it all susceptible to silver's cleansing touch.

It backed away from its kill, avoiding the human deity's gleaming symbol. I didn't think it objected to the religious aspects of the metal object, but as the suns' rays caught the parallel-bars-and-heart emblem embossed in the silver surface, I reckoned a little help from anywhere wouldn't hurt.

"Take the boy away, father," I said, dashing to his side. "And if you don't mind, I'd like to borrow this for a bit." Before he could protest, I snatched the symbol away.

Taking advantage of the monster's surprise at its newfound weakness, I clenched my right hand into a fist and placed the holy symbol across the width of my knuckles, then wrapped the chain around my fingers to hold it tightly in place.

It watched me warily, red eyes darting between my face and the silver bound to my hand. It was obviously calculating, watching me with a look that said plainly, 'Would it be able to bite my arm off before the dreaded silver caused it any more pain?'

Ah, seething hatred tempered by a human-like intelligence; my favorite. Pertuli's right, I do know how to pick them.

Stande, Glassier and the Faranado, mostly oblivious to the monster's weakness, knew only that the beast was completely shrugging off their attacks and ceaseless attempts to distract it.