The Iron Ring by Auston Habershaw Read Free Book Online Page B

measures were necessary. He took his second antispell sphere and chucked it against the wall of the car. He heard one of the Defender’s snicker about him missing, but the laughter soon died on the man’s lips when, suddenly, the whole dining car began to shrink. The antispell had undone the astral manipulations that gave the car its unusual size, and the result was a mass of tables, chairs, and carpeting being compressed toward the center of the room at high speed. As the Defenders stumbled to escape the crush of material, Tyvian nimbly slipped out the destroyed door he had just come through.
    Now, back in the car he’d just left, he saw the barricade he had set against the cargo car entrance beginning to buckle. Knowing it was Alafarr and knowing that this time the Mage Defender would be ready for a projectile antispell, Tyvian shattered a window with the butt of his stolen rapier and climbed out.
    Outside, the bitter winter air howled down the smooth sides of the spirit engine. Rapier tucked into his belt, Tyvian hauled himself onto the roof of the car and, back bent against the wind, made his way forward. If the Defenders had been waiting for him in the dining car, then they probably found his room, along with all of his possessions. As much as it pained him to abandon such fine quality items, he couldn’t go back for them now. All that remained was to find a suitable way to escape the spirit engine without Alafarr tracking him. To his left there was a snow-­blanketed forest, and to his right white-­clad open pastures. Leaping off now would either leave him in the open or leave him broken in two upon the bole of some pine tree. There had to be a better way to escape and still leave Alafarr behind.
    It hit him all at once. “The deathcaster!” He’d double back, grab the deathcaster, cut the cars behind him free, and leave Alafarr and her thugs trapped on an inert series of train cars in the middle of the Galaspin countryside. He was in the midst of congratulating himself when he heard his name shouted over the howl of the engine spirits.
    Tyvian looked up to see the Defender whose rapier he had stolen. His green cloak flapped and jerked in the cold wind like it was being ravaged by a wild animal, and in his hand was the rapier of his friend—­the one killed by the angry gnoll. The big man’s face was screwed up into an immovable mask of anger, his dark eyes boring into Tyvian’s chest.
    â€œHello, there.” Tyvian drew the man’s own sword and saluted. “I don’t suppose I could bribe you?”
    The Defender answered with an athletic lunge that aimed to put a blade through Tyvian’s throat. The fellow’s speed was good and his form admirable, but his movements were rather obvious—­Tyvian parried the attack effortlessly. “Really now—­you used that same attack on the gnoll and it didn’t work then either.”
    The Defender grunted in reply and pressed his attack with four more thrusts, each of which Tyvian deflected with ease. While his opponent possessed competence with a blade, he clearly relied more on size and power than on skill. Against most opponents this would probably be enough, but Tyvian Reldamar was not most opponents. Every attack the man launched was preceded by a controlled roar, as though yelling would somehow guide his blade. The result, Tyvian concluded, was one of the more boring duels he’d ever had, the fact that he was fighting on the icy roof of a speeding spirit engine notwithstanding.
    Tyvian parried a tenth attack; he had been pushed back almost to the end of the car. “You know,” he called over the wind, “you really ought to watch yourself up here—­it’s very slippery!”
    Frustrated and enraged, the Defender performed a flèche. This was an aggressive, lunging attack, but launched from the back foot rather than the forward, with a result halfway between leap and