Knowing Rhone is a menace at a distance, I try to close and overwhelm him with my mass and speed. He keeps space between us, boosting backward and upward with his gravBoots. He reloads his pistol and fires down at me as he goes. I hide behind my aegis. The rounds affect my shield in a strange way. It’s overheating too fast.
How many kinds of ammo does he have?
I don’t know what’s happening with Atlas and Cassius. My situation is turning desperate. I can’t hide behind my aegis much longer. It’s glowing red, melting the scarabSkin into the flesh of my left forearm. No time to go back for a Praetorian rifle. With a roar of pain, I lunge out from my aegis’s cover and hurl my razor at Rhone like a javelin.
It takes him in the right shoulder and he spins in the air. His shield spits sparks and he careens into the side of a nightRaptor. He spills down its fuselage to crash onto its wing. I leap up to join him only to find him already recovered. He lost his pistol in the collision but his armor is an equalizer, and he extracts my razor from his shoulder to grip in his right fist. He stomps his boot and another knife pops up into his left hand.
Barking like a dog, he charges me.
He’s a gorydamn terror.
Unarmed, I search for a weapon. I spot his pistol on the deck below and bail off the wing before he closes. I grab his pistol on the run, drop, turn, and fire just as he bears down on me. The shots finish his pulseShield and I roll under the sweep of my own razor as he swings it at my head. I spin around as I come out behind him and kick his legs. It’s the legs you go for on an armored opponent because with their balance compromised, the weight of their armor becomes a liability. My shinbone almost breaks, but he teeters off-balance and begins to fall. Still he manages to whip the razor back at me and tear the pistol from my hand.
It is not his first time handling a razor. Not in the least.
Stripped of the pistol, I back off from him. He cracks the whip at my eyes and underhand throws the boot knife. I track it and catch it and hurl it back at his face. He blocks it by raising his armored arm, and I sprint at him.
He’s terrifying at any range, but up close I can overpower him. I hit him before he can bring the razor around on me and tackle him to the ground. I manage to pry free the razor as we roll. It bounces away. He’s out of blades but ends up on top. He drives his right hand toward my neck. I raise my left forearm just in time to intercept the knife that emerges from his armor. Gorydamn. Another one? Unlike the first pistol rounds, the knife has a diamond edge. It goes through the scarabSkin like paper and emerges through my forearm, nearly taking my left eye too.
I block a second stab with the same arm. This time the knife goes through the forearm into the side of my face. It goes into my mouth and cuts through a few teeth. Its tip just tickles the roof of my mouth. He’s so close to killing me, but he’s just not strong enough to pound the blade home. I push the blade back out of my mouth and I twist my arm and push down. I trap the blade against his chest and roll him till I’m on top. Keeping my gored arm tight to his chest, I use my left knee to pin his right arm. I reach blindly with my right hand for my discarded razor. I grab the blade instead of the hilt and lose the top third of my pinky and ring finger for the effort.
Rhone’s resistance suddenly slackens. His hips push up against me with a boost from his gravBoots. I’m rocked off-balance. My momentum takes me over his head, freeing the knife from my impaled forearm. Fortunately, that momentum also pushes me toward my razor. Sprawling forward, I grasp the hilt with my mutilated hand and swing backward in a daisy-cutter stroke. Resistance jerks my arm. I scramble up to see Rhone standing behind me with a long black needle clutched in his steel fist. He tries to take a step. He cannot. My razor cut through both of his calves just above his gravBoots.
Grunting, he spills sideways and lands with a thump on the deck. I stumble toward him. He squirms like a crab on its back. Even now he’s dangerous. He hurls the black needle at me. I slap it away with my razor. Gods know what it was coated with. I stomp on his chest.
“If I was born Gold, I’d eat you alive,” he says with a chuckle. “No Blood. Of Silenius. No—”
I spike my razor through the crown of his dragon helmet and into his head three times. Knowing even Rhone ti Flavinius can’t survive a trio of holes through his brain, I spit blood and broken teeth down on his body. Then I leave him to his death spasms and fetch his pistol from the bloodied deck. I load a new magazine from his thigh cache.
Numb and seeing double, I stumble toward Atlas and Cassius. With Rhone’s opening shots on my legs, it’s hard to walk. The wound in my face oozes blood. My left arm is badly punctured and a few ligaments severed. Each breath is frothy with blood. I couldn’t keep up with the dance that lies ahead.
Atlas and Cassius are locked in a deadly game. Cassius’s right hand is gone. He’s fighting with his left. Three deep slashes score his chest plate. His armor bleeds electricity. Atlas’s face is a crimson stain, half his scalp is hanging off the side of his head, his left leg drags behind him, and three long gashes flay his chest. Cassius’s bright razor and Atlas’s hasta blur like butterfly wings. I’m too far away. I raise the pistol but can’t find an opening that doesn’t put Cassius in the line of fire. I stumble closer. My left eye must be damaged. It can’t focus.
Cassius is winning, though something is wrong with his armor. Acid or something has eaten through the back. His armor is quitting. The helmet stuttering up and down. He cuts it off completely and delivers a horizontal sweep that should take Atlas in half at the waist. Atlas handsprings over the blow, using Cassius’s own shoulder for leverage.
He stabs down as he passes overhead, and pierces Cassius’s armor just inside his left shoulder. The blade sinks two handbreadths deep and sticks as Cassius twists. Atlas abandons the weapon and dodges two of Cassius’s return thrusts, darts back in, takes his blade, retreats, and sweeps at Cassius’s armored head. It’s a feint to draw Cassius’s guard. Atlas pivots and drives his hasta underhand toward Cassius’s heart.
Even wounded, Cassius keeps his defensive discipline. He redirects Atlas’s blade into the deck, stomps on the tip with his boot, and backhands his razor toward Atlas’s head with his left hand. At the last moment, he converts his razor into a whip.
The whip snakes around Atlas’s neck with a snap.
Beautiful.
Atlas goes still. His hasta is stuck in the deck. Cassius holds him on a leash. The two fighters pant for breath. It’s only then I see the blisters on Atlas’s skin. He was boiling inside the shield when Cassius first opened fire on him. Cassius doesn’t dare take his eyes off Atlas.
I turn, scan the hangar. It is quiet. The jamField is still up.
The light is green. I wish Pytha could see. We’ve won. We’ve won. I stumble toward Cassius, searching the deck for my prize.
“Drop your blade and get on your knees,” Cassius orders. Atlas does not obey. “Lys?” Cassius calls when he hears me limping toward them. My legs give out and start to cramp. I fall to a knee. “You prime?”
“Prime,” I say.
“Flavinius?”
“Dead. Kill Atlas.”
I see my prize. Atlas’s pack: it’s halfway between Cassius and me.