Clown Wyrm - 26. Chapter 26 - Norjia

Norjia leaned against the wall of the cavern and doused her hand-lamp. She took a single deep inhale, closed her eyes, and slowly released the breath. She felt her heart rate steady and slow. She listened to the running footfalls of the approaching guards, and she remained motionless for the brief instant until they arrived. There was more than one of them.

The first guardsman rushed past her, as did the second, but Norjia swung the Planet Smasher low through the air toward the third man’s thigh, and he let out a wail of agony as the blade bit into and then slid cleanly from the muscle of his leg. He went tumbling head over heels into the darkness, and Norjia stepped out into the light of the oncoming guards’ lamps. The first two did not return, despite the cries of their companion, but there were three more of them for Norjia to handle. Her cane-sword was like a rapier, and the decorative ceremonial armor that the guards of the dragon’s den wore provided little resistance as Norjia stabbed one of them through the right breast, piercing his lung. She ducked as he fell, and she rose with the Planet Smasher sweeping up like an erupting volcano. The blade collided with one of the other men’s swords, and his weapon broke in two. Norjia spun and thrust the experimental sword’s point into the guard’s side between his ribs. She spun back around the opposite way, yanking the blade from his torso in an arc, clanging it against the third guard’s arm gauntlet.

He raged at her, “You are under arrest, by order of…”

In a flash, Norjia rotated her hands, twisting the position on the blade, and she slit the man’s wrist to the bone. He screamed, as the guard with Norjia’s cane-sword in his chest was trying to rise. A single lunging step brought her to him, and the warrior woman’s powerful fingers were wrapped around the stone sphere that served as her walking stick’s handle. She wrenched it sideways like the most horrific joystick, and he let out a noise like a mouse. Norjia ripped her rapier from his torso, accented by a hiss of air from the man’s punctured lung. The guard with the stab wound in his side tried to grab Norjia, but her wrecking-ball fist, still clutching the Planet Smasher’s handle, collided with his face. He fell backward into the man with the slashed wrist, who was attempting to wield his sword with his secondary hand. Norjia rushed him, armed with both blades, and she easily deflected his weak strike. She stabbed the Planet Smasher deep into his guts, before cutting the throat of the man with the wicked gash in his thigh.

Norjia left the four dying guards and raced down after the first two, who had not turned back, despite the screams of their companions behind them. She knew her wife was tough, but she would be protecting the two clowns, who Norjia was well aware were not fighters. She needed to get to them, and then around a corner in the darkness, they were before her.

The Mechanic was handling one of the guards, but the other was going after the armored clowns. Norjia was on both the men in an instant. She barreled into one at full speed going downhill, and he crashed into his companion. Mercury and Periwinkle also each fell backward against the cavern wall, and the Mechanic leaped between them and the guards.

Norjia pushed herself to her hands and knees, and she pounced. She grabbed the wrist of the nearer guard, kicked one leg over the back of his neck, and forced his arm backward in completely the wrong way. It snapped and he roared in pain. Norjia snatched his opposite arm and yanked it across his body, flipping him onto his back, and she dropped her knees onto his spine. She grabbed his head from behind and snapped his neck.

The final guard was standing, but he had backed away from Norjia and the Mechanic. A sword was in one hand, and with his eyes steady on Norjia, he knelt to place his hand-lamp in his other onto the floor of the cave. He drew a hunting knife from his belt. His eyes were locked on the warrior woman, who picked up her rapier and the Planet Smasher.

“I know your fighting style,” he stated. “I’ve killed knights of your order. You’re no match for me.” He took a step closer.

“And you’re a royal sergeant,” Norjia replied. “I’ve never killed a royal sergeant before.” She smirked at him, and the two warriors charged.

The Planet Smasher collided with the sergeant’s sword, and Norjia sidestepped as he slashed at her with his knife. Her rapier whipped through the air, but its tip clanged against the man’s shoulder plate. The two warriors rounded on each other and crashed their swords together again.

“You’re not as strong as me,” Norjia grunted through her gritted teeth. She could feel her enemy’s arms shaking as they held their blades against one another. “You’re weak, and I see that your armor is a little sturdier than your buddies’ were.”

He caught her use of the past tense. “You bested all four of them?”

Norjia nodded at the corpse near their feet with its head twisted too far around, and she growled, “You’ll be number six.”

Their blades slid across each other, and as the two separated, Norjia jabbed her rapier at her opponent’s chest, but her strike was again deflected by his armor, and he let out a roar as he thrust himself forward and into Norjia. Their weapons were too large and cumbersome as they shoved against each other, but Norjia let out a cry, as his shorter knife blade caught her forearm. She twisted her rapier, hooking it against his knife, and Norjia forced his secondary weapon out of his hand and sliced across his knuckles in the process.

The two bleeding warriors staggered back from each other. Neither of their injuries was severe, but they both took a moment to size up the other.

“You’re no match for me,” the sergeant repeated. His eyes shifted to his knife, which was lying in the mud between them.

Norjia rushed him, unconcerned with the knife, and focused entirely on the man.

His attention instantly honed in on Norjia, and he gripped his sword with both hands as the Planet Smasher crashed into his defensive hold. His sword quavered against Norjia’s strength, but he was powerful, and he tried to headbutt her. The assault was glancing, and his forehead hit her in the cheek, which only elevated Norjia’s wrath.

She screamed like a banshee, turning left with a stab of her rapier and spinning right with a swing of the Planet Smasher, but the sergeant blocked both. He slashed at Norjia with a powerful two-handed blow, and she deflected it with her rapier, but his blade was already coming at her again, and she shielded herself with the Planet Smasher. The sergeant was fast. Another clash of steel rang out as he continued to advance against her, and Norjia could not help but to defensively step back.

The sergeant dove away from her and grabbed his knife, turning like a predator, and the two came together again.

They were warring gods.

Norjia raged with her swords flashing like bolts of lightning against the sergeant’s unstoppable blades. He moved like a dancer, even in his armor, dipping and swaying as he unleashed a mele that Norjia could barely withstand. The ringing from the collisions of their four blades was a deafening cacophony that shook the heart of the volcano, and all the while, the dragon’s unfathomably enormous body was above them.

The sergeant moved in a way Norjia was not expecting, and it caught her off-guard. He turned his back on her and dropped to one knee, while simultaneously reversing his grip on his hunting knife and stabbing backward. The edge of his blade slit along Norjia’s uninjured thigh, and she staggered back from him, but he spun with his sword outstretched, and its tip nicked the side of Norjia’s torso between two ribs. She hissed air through her teeth and scowled at her enemy.

He rose like a tsunami about to swallow an island, and a terrible laugh began to emanate from him. Norjia attacked, but the sergeant blocked her blow and stabbed her in the forearm with the tip of his hunting knife. She cried out and dropped her rapier, stepping away from him again, but he thrust forward with his sword. Norjia managed to deflect it, and even though her secondary arm was weakened, she gripped the Planet Smasher’s handle with both hands, swinging it at the sergeant’s head, but he ducked and thrust his shoulder into Norjia’s chest. She fell back and screamed as the sergeant dropped to his knees and sank his knife into the top of one of her feet. Norjia collapsed to the floor of the cave, but there was only anger in her, no fear. She glared up at the sergeant as he approached, and she pointed the Planet Smasher at his heart. He smacked it away with his sword, but she instantly had her weapon aimed at him again. His laughter echoed through the underground chamber, but a voice behind him interrupted his amusement.

“I’m going to kill R’Kathlug!”

The sergeant’s laughter died, and for the briefest second, he glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the short woman who had just shouted those absolutely ridiculous words, but his attention was suddenly focused back on Norjia. The Planet Smasher was in his chest. She had leaned forward and stabbed with all her remaining might, and the unearthly blade pierced the metal of the sergeant’s armor. Its tip pierced heart. His body rattled, and his weapons fell from his fingers. Blood bubbled from his mouth like the lava, which had once flowed forth from the volcano, and he crashed to the stone floor, dead.

“Thanks for the assist, Mercury,” Norjia groaned from where she lay beside the man’s corpse.