Iwatched the two of them staring at each other and felt like someone had dumped a whole load of ice cubes into the pit of my stomach.
Oh, Sir,I thought.Oh please, please be careful! Please, don’t let him hurt you! Don’t—
My thoughts were interrupted when Gra’multh struck the first blow. How do I know he did? Because I could actuallyseeit—it looked like a flaming red spear shooting out of the older Korrigon’s forehead straight at Sir’s chest.
Sir managed to throw up a shield of glowing blue fire in time to deflect it and the red spear bounced off and flamed out of existence before it hit the floor.
“Ah-ha!” I heard one of the guards, who was standing behind me, out of range of the action, mutter. “Good deflection by the Overlord of the North!”
At first I couldn’t understand what was happening—I had never seen any of this before when I watched Sir use his Mental Abilities. But then I remembered what he’d said about the dueling bands he and Gra’multh wore—how they focused and amplified Mental Power and also made it visible to outsiders watching. That must be what was happening—I was actually able toseewhat Sir could do with his mind.
It would have been fascinating if it wasn’t so terrifying. I gasped and winced as the two males exchanged fiery spears and arrows and shielded against the attacks of the other. It seemed to me that they couldn’t launch an attack and defend against one at the same time, so it was a kind of game to see which one of them could get off an arrow or spear before the other one could get up his shield.
Despite my intense worry, Sir seemed to be holding his own. He even hit Gra’multh several times, his blue spears and arrows finding their way to the older male’s chest before Gra’multh could get his shield up.
But though Gra’multh staggered and gasped when he was hit, he showed no signs of slowing down. And meanwhile, Sir was getting hit pretty regularly too. I watched him anxiously every time it happened but the mental projectiles didn’t seem to do outward damage. There was no blood or gore—but maybe they were causing internal damage to the organs? I pushed that thought away, not even wanting to consider it.
The whole time the guards behind me were making comments about how Gra’multh was undefeated in duels and had the strongest Mental Ability in all of Korrigon Four, which didn’t make me feel any better. I wanted to turn around and yell at them to shut up, but I was afraid I might miss something if I looked away or distract Sir if I shouted. So I held my tongue—which was what Ishouldhave done in the first place—and just watched the duel with my hands clenched into fists and my heart pounding in my chest.
At last Sir seemed to get an advantage. Instead of trying to shield against one of Gra’multh’s arrows, he let it hit him. At the same time, he sent out a projectile but instead of a spear or an arrow, it was a flaming blue rope.
The rope wrapped around Gra’multh from his shoulders all the way down to his ankles like a snake determined to strangle its prey. No matter how much the older Korrigon struggled, he couldn’t seem to break free. And since he was trying his best not to get squashed—I knew because I could see little fingers of red flame prying ineffectually at the glowing blue rope—he couldn’t launch a counterattack of his own.
“Yield!” Sir spoke, panting with effort, but his voice was loud and clear. “Yield the duel, Gra’multh. Admit you’ve been beaten and I’ll release you.”
“Never!”Gra’multh’s voice was tight but angry. Suddenly the red flames prying at the rope that held him vanished I saw him turn his head and look directly at his pet.
I blinked. Had I imagined it, or had a little fiery red dart moved between Gra’multh’s forehead and his pet’s? If it was true, I was pretty sure I was the only one who saw it. Everyone else was concentrating on Sir and the effort it was taking him to hold the glowing blue rope in place.
Meanwhile Clarissa suddenly seemed to wake up. All this time, she had been standing there, watching the duel with an empty expression on her face. If anyone had asked me, I would have said there was something wrong with her—“the lights are on but nobody’s home,” as the expression goes. But now, at a look from her Master and that little red dart that seemed to hit her right between the eyes, she suddenly sprang into action.
With an unholy shriek that scared the crap out of everyone in the room, she rushed forward at Sir. As she ran, I saw a flash of silver in her hands as she lifted both of them above her head. Too late, I realized she had drawn the ornamental dagger I had seen on the gravity belt she wore around her waist.
Oh my God,I thought.Oh my God, she’s not going to—
But before I could properly grasp what was happening, Clarissa had leapt high in the air like a gymnast. As she came down, she buried the dagger in the left side of Sir’s chest—stabbing him right through the heart!
With a sense of slow-motion horror, I saw him stagger and fall to his knees. The blue rope of Mental Power he’d had wrapped around Gra’multh fizzled and then went out as Sir fell over, onto his back.
“Sir! I gasped. “Oh, no!Sir!”
Not knowing what I was going to do, I rushed forward. I saw Clarissa was bending over him, about to pull out the long silver knife and stab him again. Suddenly my pain and confusion turned to righteous wrath.
“No, you don’t, you bitch!” I shouted at her and bowled into her, knocking her away from Sir’s supine body.
Suddenly, we were in a scratching, biting, screaming fight like I hadn’t been in since that time in Elementary school when Amanda Sebring stole my favorite pencil and then wouldn’t give it back. I was grabbing handfuls of Clarissa’s long, silky hair and yanking for all I was worth and she was biting and snapping at my neck and shoulder, apparently trying to take a chunk out of me with her sharp white teeth.
“Watch them!” I heard one of the guards shout. “The stairs! The hundred stairs!”
Looking over my shoulder, I saw that he was right—somehow Clarissa and I had rolled right over to the edge of the steep golden steps the led up to the top of the pyramid. And if we weren’t damn, careful, we were going to go over.
Well,I’mnot going over!I thought, with renewed determination. I needed to find a better handhold—Clarissa was fighting with a kind of mindless fury that made me think something or someone else was controlling her. She was like a wild animal and if I didn’t end this fight soon, I was going to lose it and we were both going to fall over the edge.
Somehow, my hand happened to land on her gravity belt. I don’t know if someone guided me or if it was blind, dumb luck. But the minute I felt it under my fingertips, I knew what to do.
I stopped trying to keep her from biting me and just concentrated on the damn belt. Clenching my jaw, I fought past the pain and forced myself to ignore the sharp teeth digging into my shoulder. And then, just as her teeth drew blood, the golden belt came loose, and I pulled it off her. At the same moment, I kicked out with both legs, catching her in the midsection and sending her towards the edge of the steep, golden stairs.
Her teeth came loose from my arm—thank goodness or she would have taken me with her—and her long, skinny body seemed to crumple as the weight of Korrigon Four’s immense gravity squeezed and crumpled her like I might crumple an empty diet Coke can in my fist.