Coby glanced toward Josef. "I think she's gone mad."
I snatched the sceptre from Josef and handed it to Coby. "You're the strongest of us, Coby. We'll distract him. You need to stab him with this, it needs to pierce his skin to cut him off from his magic."
Coby turned the sceptre over in her hands. "It has no edge."
I let out a growl of frustration. "Then stab him really hard."
The Iron Legion laughed. It was done, his unnatural ageing reversed. He looked no older than I, maybe even a few years younger. There was no hair on his head or body, but here was the man I remembered from my youth. Strong, straight backed, regal, powerful. The Rand and Djinn had granted him his wish, and I could already tell he was more powerful than ever.
"Josef…" I said.
My friend shook his head and I realised then he was younger than I. Barely in his twentieth year, shaped by the hardships of half a decade of pain and fear. For the first time in our lives, I realised I wasn't looking up to Josef. He was small and skinny, a broken young man. Our lives had changed so much since the fall of Orran. Once we had spent every moment of every day together, as inseparable as water from the sea. Yet we had grown apart, circumstance and betrayal forcing us down different paths. But he was still my friend. I put a hand on his shoulder, the same way Hardt had done with me a hundred times, and smiled.
"We can do this," I said. "Chosen two and all that. All the tutors always said we were so much stronger together than apart."
Josef nodded, though I could feel the fear in him. A terror that spoke of deep conditioning. The Iron Legion had held Josef for over a year, and whatever he had done had left scars that would mark Josef for the rest of his life.
"Ssserakis?"
I have dreamt of this moment ever since he pulled me from my home. My wings will be useless to you in such a confined space, but I have had another thought.
My shadow turned oily, viscous. It pooled beneath me and then raced up my legs and chest, gathering at my left arm before travelling down to the stone that capped the stump there. Shadowy bones grew through the cap, winding and twisting together as they formed into the shape of a clawed hand. I raised it to my face and stared at the thing. It was skeletal, no flesh to speak of, and dark as the night. I could both feel it and not. No pain or sensation there, but it was a part of me and mine to control. I had two arms again, one mine and one Ssserakis'. I drew on the Sources in my stomach and brought lightning rippling along the clawed digits.
No fire. Remember, it is still a part of me.
Coby watched me, an odd look on her face that I think was disgust. Josef drew in a deep breath and wiped his eyes. I realised they were waiting for me to make the first move. It was probably best to strike before the Iron Legion realised I was free.
Chapter 36
There is a joyful poetry to a fight. To throw yourself so completely into the tempo of it. It is not easy, nor calm yet there is an exaltation to it that cannot be denied. To lose yourself in the rhythm of combat is the truest form of the fight. Ishtar tried to teach me that. She tried to explain that the mind may win a battle, but a fight is won by the countless hours of training rarely seen by anyone watching. Muscles remember how to move, the body knows how to flow, and tactics are a thing better left fluid. I never understood it before, and perhaps that is why she had always beaten me. But in that laboratory, matching myself against the Iron Legion I threw away all inhibition. It was a losing fight, one we had so little hope of winning, but I set my will upon the path to that little glimmer of hope and I ran toward it with everything I could.
I crossed the distance between us in a handful of loping strides, a thin double-edged Sourceblade forming in my right hand, lightning rippling along it. The Iron Legion noticed me at the last moment and a wall of rock shot up between us. I threw myself into a pirouette, spinning around the edge of the wall and into a two-handed strike that would have cut the man in two. Of course, the Iron Legion was not so easily beaten. Decades of training in both magic and battle, a lifetime lived at speed and then a new infusion of youth. He blocked me with hands coated in a thin layer of rock, and lightning sparked off every blow I aimed at him, scoring his skin in a dozen different places. He was an Arcmancer too, but he could not absorb magic like me, he did not have an Arcstorm inside. But his Biomancy seemed as strong as Josef's and every wound I dealt him healed within moments.
The wall of stone exploded towards us and in the centre of the flying rock was Coby, a vicious snarl on her face, still a dark mimicry of Silva's. I saw a moment of panic in the Iron Legion's eyes, his face so much younger than before. Then a shockwave of kinetic energy erupted from the Iron Legion and sent Coby crashing backwards with the remnants of the rock wall. I weathered the wave of force with a shadowy hand digging into the stone floor, steadying me.
Up close, the fight savage and quick, any sort of shield would be useless, but if the Iron Legion managed to erect a bubble around him, we might never get through. I had to keep him distracted, give him no time to form a proper defence, and hope Coby could get in close enough to put an end to it.
I clawed up a handful of stone and launched it at the Iron Legion, following it in with a new Sourceblade in hand. The rocks I threw at him struck his hands and stuck there, reinforcing his armour and shoring up the holes my blade had struck loose. I aimed high, bringing my Sourceblade down in a one-handed slash towards his head and letting the blade vanish in a puff of kinetic energy at the last moment. A new Sourceblade, no longer than a dagger, formed in my shadowy hand and I plunged it into the Iron Legion's side. He screamed in pain and I caught a rocky fist to the face that shook loose a tooth and sent me sprawling. The Sourceblade I left in his side exploded as I let it go, widening the wound.
It should have killed him, would have killed anyone else, but the Iron Legion staggered back onto one knee and clutched at the gaping wound in his side. Strain showed on his face, sweat pouring down his skin, and his eyes furious with the pain. Coby leapt at him, sceptre in hand. Too slow. Even with him injured she was too slow. The Iron Legion raised one hand and released a gout of flame into Coby's face. The Aspect staggered away, screaming amidst a searing blaze. I struggled back to my feet and a kinetic waved knocked me right back down again. Already I could see the wound in the Iron Legion's side closing, flesh knitting itself back together at an impossible rate.
Before I could recover, I found a boulder hurtling my way. No chance to raise a shield and even my shadow was too slow to stop it. Then Josef was there, throwing himself in front of me and taking the blow meant for me. The rock crashed against his back and I heard bones snap. I rolled away as the boulder crashed down upon my shadowy hand. There was no pain and my shadow slithered free before reforming. I ran to Josef to find him trembling, in so much pain he could not even scream. His back was broken, but the spasms running through him did not seem natural.
Josef's eyes darted to mine and I saw something there. Determination. Pride. "This…" He coughed and blood spattered his lips. "Is what… I can do." I realised then that he was healing. Broken bones snapping back into place, mending. Torn flesh renewing itself. His innate Biomancy was healing him through wounds that should have killed him.
You have never been good at being the shield, Eskara. Let others carry that burden. Be the weapon.