War God for Hire- Gladiator by David Burke (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

scream out. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Instead, he summoned his strength and kicked out with enough force to move his body along the ground. His leg caught hers on the side just above the knee and swept her feet out from under her.

The move disrupted whatever she was doing with the whip because the pain began to fade, and he no longer felt like his heart was going to explode. But rather than landing on her head, she went with the force of his kick and somersaulted back onto her feet. Faster than should have been possible, she shifted her momentum, and he found a spinning heel kick hitting his head. The helmet protected him, but he was still rattled.

Kyle still couldn’t figure out how she was so strong, but at least he had been able to yank the whip away. Between flipping her and then her kick sending him stumbling away, he had bought enough space for a momentary reprieve. A quick jerk told him the whip was too strong to break so he quickly rotated his hands and undid the loops.

Before he could free the end for the armor on his left hand, she was upon him. She rushed and leapt into the air, landing both feet against his chest. Her movements were precise and so fast he could barely follow her, let alone block in time.

As he stumbled back under her onslaught she asked, “Why do you look like him?”

Ignoring her wasn’t getting him anywhere so he snapped back at her, “You have no idea who I am.”

One hand came and punched him in the solar plexus while the other hand caught the whip and yanked him off balance again. “I know you are trying to imitate Krig, my lord, my husband, my god.”

Kyle gasped for breath as he said, “Not imitating anyone.”

A roundhouse kick to his knee drove his leg into the ground and as he fell forward, she moved into him and a rigid hand strike caught his throat. He saw it at the last instant and tensed up just enough to keep her from crushing his windpipe like she had with Kierra.

Happy for small victories, he listened as she taunted, “You will suffer for imitating him. I don’t know who put you up to this or how you are duplicating his aura, but you will pay.”

Her tirade bought him enough time to free his armor from the whip, but he was starting to grow nervous. More than a minute into this fight and he had only managed to kick her legs once and even then, she had recovered instantly. ”You don’t know what you are talking about.”

“I know that you will die. I will gladly pay your slave price personally. No one dishonors the war god as you are,” she said furiously.

There was clearly no reasoning with her. So, Kyle charged at her. It was only a feint though. He simply wanted to get his maul again. He hit the ground in a roll and came up with the weapon. When he came up, he reached out with Earth Essence. The action seemed so much easier than before.

This time when her whip lashed out at him, it bounced off of the earth armor as it bubbled up to form around him. That only seemed to infuriate her more though, for she cried out, “You prove yourself false. What sort of war god, or war elemental for that matter, would use Earth Essence?”

Kyle wanted to argue with her but calculated that any claims he made would only aggravate her more. Instead, he just would have to take her down. She was so powerful, though, he couldn’t risk going easy on her. Resigned to having to hit her hard, Kyle felt the War Essence flow into him. It made time seem to slow down around him.

It was a phenomenon that he was familiar with. Sometimes in the moment, his perception seemed to change. Time wasn’t really slower; he was simply more aware of what was going on around him. The more War Essence that he grasped onto, the more powerful he felt.

Kyle assumed that Lash could sense him using War Essence and his guess proved correct when she became even more infuriated. “Don’t touch his power,” she shrieked loud enough for the crowd to hear. Then she was charging at him. She had retracted the whip down the flexible staff she used against Kierra.

This time though, Kyle could sense her movement. He felt the way that War Essence flowed through her. She was attuned to it and it had to be what was making her so strong. He was able to move fast enough to dodge her blow as she lashed out with the staff and swung his maul around. He had to choke up on it, as she’d moved in too close for a full swing.

Kyle had timed it just right though. Her forward motion stopped her from dodging the blow and the maul connected center mass on her, right into the partial silver breastplate that she wore. Kyle expected to feel metal crumple, bones crack, and to then see her body go flying. The strike felt so right, and he could feel his War Essence flowing into it, empowering the blow.

He was shocked when instead a silvery flash occurred, and some type of mystical shield formed around her. It was a bubble that protected her and, more than that, rebounded the force of his blow right back at him. The metal head of the maul was split in half and the shaft splintered apart in his hands as the force capable of bringing down a quarry wall reverberated back through the weapon.

Instead of watching his opponent fly, he felt his body flung backwards until he slammed into the wall of the arena, cracking the very stone. Both his hands were broken. He could feel the cracks in the bones of his arms and his head was swimming with darkness, threatening to take him.