Two. Blood dripped down her arm, sheathing it in red, wet and sticky on her fingers. With a frown, the dhakim got down from her crate and drew her sword. It had the iridescent gleam of unmetal, the short, flat style that was standard in the Legion. Maya swallowed hard as the two plaguespawn separated, letting the woman approach, then padded forward at her side.

“Always wanted to kill a centarch,” she said. “But they can be hard to come by. They say that the ability to touch deiat is in the soul and not the flesh, but I’ve always wondered if you couldn’t find it if you diced things fine enough.” Her engorged eye stared at Maya, unblinking. “I guess we’ll find out.”

She attacked, and immaterial haken clashed with unmetal, deiat thrashing and sparking against the Elder blade. Maya held her block for a moment, blood dripping from her elbow, but it was clear the dhakim was stronger. She danced away instead, evading the next cut, aiming a riposte at the woman’s face that was easily countered. The plaguespawn kept pace with the duel as Maya gave ground, slowly circling the pile of crates. The dhakim’s mental control of the thing was better than Maya had given her credit for, and the creatures acted as extensions of her will, darting in to nip and slash at Maya when she was distracted and jumping away before she could cut them down.

Fuck. The fact that she wasn’t going to win this fight hit Maya like a revelation. Fuck fuck fuck. She had to think of something else—not because she needed to do well to impress the Council, to help Jaedia, even to save the children, but because if she didn’t, she was going to fucking die here, her guts spilled by an unmetal blade.

The dhakim came at her with a fast series of brutally strong blows, and when she went to parry, Maya was hammered to her knees. One of the plaguespawn darted in, jaws closing on the meat of her calf, and a scream tore its way out of her throat. Her opponent raised her blade, smiling in triumph—

And a bolt of blue-white energy tore across the room, hitting the plaguespawn and detonating in a burst of pulverized flesh and bone. The whole back half of the creature was blown away. The second monster spun with a gurgling growl, but another bolt caught it and blasted its head and shoulders completely apart.

“Maya!” Beq stood in the tunnel entrance, hair covered in dirt, blaster pistol held in a solid two-handed grip. She fired again, but the dhakim ducked, and the blast hit the far wall in a spray of dirt.

“Interfering plaguepit—” the dhakim growled. She sprinted toward Beq, dodging another blaster bolt. Beq scrambled back, far too slowly.

No. Maya, still on her knees, raised her haken and sighted along it. She called up every bit of power she had left and let it flow through the haken as a lance of white-hot fire.