The creature had six legs, four eyes, and a mouth full of teeth that appeared to have been borrowed from something considerably larger. Lyra thought it was hideous. Thomas thought it was fascinating. This was, in many ways, the foundation of their relationship.
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“Just look at the jaw structure,” Thomas was saying from somewhere behind her.
Lyra dodged a swinging claw. “I am rather busy at the moment, sweet cheeks.”
“No, you should see this. Never have I come across anything like it.”
The beast lunged with a shriek. Lyra slid under its vast belly, her knee skidding in the wet leaves, and drove an enchanted blade into the soft flesh between two plates of armor. Black blood ran over the moss, reeking of cabbage left to rot in a dead horse. She made a face.
“Offensive,” she said.
The creature howled.
“Good. Let it see something new.”
Thomas laughed. Gods, she still loved that sound after ten years. A claw struck the earth inches from her head.
“Lyra!”
“I’m fine.”
“You were nearly flattened.”
“Yes, Thomas, I was there to witness it.”
She sprang onto a fallen tree. The thing twisted after her but was too slow. Three steps along the trunk and she was on its back, both swords driven home between the ridges of its spine. The monster screamed.
“Ha!”
“Reckless,” Thomas observed from below.
“Magnificent.”
“One does not preclude the other.”
The beast bucked and Lyra’s teeth clacked.
“Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“I am having second thoughts about the word magnificent.”
“Did not expect any less.”
“Helpful.”
Thomas charged. Where Lyra darted and turned, he planted himself in the creature’s path. Tall, broad, immovable. In another man’s hands his greatsword would have been an absurdity; in his it was simply inevitable.
The creature came at him and Thomas let it. Lyra knew that wait. She held her grip. One beat. Two. The beast put its weight behind the move.
“Now,” he said.
Lyra ducked and his sword swept over her, burying itself in the creature’s foreleg. The limb came off in a spray of black blood. The beast lurched, throwing Lyra into the mud hard enough to steal her breath. Then Thomas’s hand was there.
“Having fun?”
“Immensely,” she told him from the muck.
He hauled her up. “You need to work on your technique.”
“And you on your face.”
“My face is fine.”
“Debatable.”
His mouth twitched in that infuriating, wonderful smile. Then his gaze travelled over her head, shoulders, hands and legs, checking that all the important parts were still attached.
“Hit your head?”
“No.”
“You hesitated.”
“Was admiring the clouds.”
“Lyra.”
“I am standing, am I not?”
“For now.”
She grinned until a roar behind them put an end to it. Thomas sighed.
“Unfortunately, so is that.”
They turned as one. The thing was making its way through the undergrowth on five legs, the ruined one putting down a black trail. Lyra put her swords up and Thomas rolled a shoulder.
“Left?”
“Obviously.”
“You always go left.”
“Because you are no good at it.”
“I am not.”
“You almost put yourself in a ravine last time I put you on the left.”
“The marking on that ravine was poor.”
“A ravine,” Lyra repeated.
“Yes.”
“You wanted a sign?”
“Would have been courteous.”
The beast charged and Lyra laughed. Gods, she loved him. They split, Thomas to the right and she to the left. She knew from the set of his feet whether he would block or strike; he knew from her shoulder when a blade was coming. She also knew how long his knee could hold under an opponent’s weight. Ten years had taught them when to move.
The thing in front of them lashed out at Thomas. He put his boots down and met it with his sword. The jaws clamped on the steel.
“LYRA!”
“I see it.”
“THEN QUIT SMILING.”
“Watching you makes me smile.”
With a sideways jerk of its head the monster put some distance between them and Thomas, who went sliding through the leaves.
“All right,” said Lyra. “I have lost my amusement.”
“How comforting.”
She was moving in three strides, over a rock and a fallen trunk, onto the shoulder of the beast. It was as if the creature were made for her to climb. One of its four eyes swiveled in her direction.
“Don’t give me that look. You brought this on yourself.”
She drove her sword through the eye, then leapt clear as the creature reared. Thomas wrenched his greatsword from its mouth. As she ran past, he raised his fist. She tapped it with hers.
“Together?”
“Always.”
