Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

hand came up impossibly quickly, slapping the blade to one side. For an endless moment they stood together, Edge wide open and knowing it, and then Random's sword slammed into Edge's chest and punched out his back. Edge let out a small bark of pain, Wood spraying from his grimacing mouth, and then he sank to his knees as the strength went out of him. Random pulled his sword free, and Edge collapsed onto his face, as though only the sword had been holding him up. Random decapitated him anyway, just in case. Edge was an Investigator, after all.
    Ruby boosted the moment she realized her opponent was an Investigator. Barr might be the oldest of the three, but he was still far more dangerous than most men could ever be. So she dared him into a corps a corps, faces close together over crossed blades, and then she spat in his left eye. And in that split second
    while he was distracted, she pulled a knife from her belt and stuck it between his ribs. She felt blood gush out over her hand before he pushed himself back and away from her. She launched a furious attack, with all her boosted strength and speed behind it, and he backed away, step-by-step. Blood poured down his side with every movement, but still he wouldn't give in to the dreadful wound in his side, parrying her every blow, his face calm and unmoved. In the end Ruby had to use all her strength to beat aside his blade and all her speed to bring the edge of her sword flashing back across his exposed throat.
    Blood spurted, splashing her face. She stepped back, wiping it off her forehead so it wouldn't run down into her eyes. She smiled as she saw her cut had sliced half through his neck, and then the smile faded as she realized Barr was still standing. He was an Investigator, and he was damned if he'd go down into the dark without taking his enemy with him. He threw himself at her, his sword swinging around in an unstoppable arc. Ruby dropped to one knee and ducked under it. Her head jerked slightly as Barr's blade cut off a chunk of her hair. She thrust her sword deep into Barr's belly. He grunted once and backed away, pulling himself off the transfixing blade. Ruby let go of her sword and surged up off her knee. She grabbed Barr's head between both her hands, forced him over backward, and slammed the back of his head down onto the jagged tip of a metal stalactite. It slammed through his head and the point burst up out of his right eye. Barr convulsed and then was finally still, the breath going out of him in a long frustrated sigh. Ruby retrieved her sword, breathing hard, and then looked Barr over carefully from a safe distance, just in case. He had been an Investigator, after all. Satisfied that he really was dead at last, Ruby leaned over and kissed him on the bloody lips, then straightened up and looked around to see how Random was doing.

    The battle was pretty much over. The rebels had had the advantages of position and surprise, and a familiarity with the killing ground. For all their experience and their fury, the Faithful and the Wolfe mercenaries never stood a chance. Most were dead. The few survivors had formed a defiant group around the one surviving Investigator, Shoal. Ruby moved to stand beside Random facing her.
    Neither of them mentioned Storm. Shoal looked from one to the other, her sword dripping blood, and then she grinned quickly, turned, and darted up an unguarded path and out of the cavern. The others scrambled after her, and the Rejects let them go. Someone had to tell the Wolfes of the great rebel victory.
    The battle was over. The Rejects moved among the wounded, dispassionately finishing off the enemy and doing what they could for their own kind. They had no place for prisoners in the underground, and the long journey to the Sisters of Mercy would kill them anyway. Random and Ruby put away their swords and went to look for Alexander Storm, a swordsman long past his best last seen facing off against Investigator Shoal. They moved among the bodies, occasionally turning them over to study the blood-flecked faces, but he wasn't there. They eventually found him hiding in a concealed hollow, well away from the main action. He wasn't hurt. He looked up at them, and in his face there was only anger and resentment.
    "I ran," he said defiantly. "So would any sane man, faced with an Investigator.
    I'm not inhumanly fast and strong, like you. I was no match for her, and we both knew it. So I turned and ran, and she let me go. She had more important