Skill

Tezzeret's grin grew wider still, lips curling like a beast bearing its fangs. Mockingly, he shook his head. "Brilliant, Beleren, absolutely brilliant. It's a shame you're going to make me-"

He never did get to tell Jace what he was making him do, for at that moment the younger mage hit the artificer square in the face- not with a spell, not with a hidden weapon, but with a clod of heavy muck he'd scooped from beneath the water as he stood.

Grunting, struggling to wipe the sludge from his face and spitting it from between his teeth, Tezzeret staggered. He sensed the attack coming, heard Jace's splashing footsteps, and blinked his vision clear just in time to parry the deadly thr*st. Etherium grated on etherium, mechanical hand on razor-edged manablade. Each glared at the other as metal screeched and bright sparks flashed, showering to the earth around them.

***

Kallist would have been proud.

Channeling the last of his magics into keeping his exhaustion at bay, manablade clutched in a competent if not expert knife-fighter's grip, Jace pummeled the artificer with a sequence of lightning-swift strikes. Tezzeret retreated before him, parrying frantically with his mechanical hand, lacking even the split second he needed to cast his spells or draw upon a more effective weapon.

The blade darted in and out, a striking viper of etherium and enchantment. A slash at the face, a stab at the chest, cross-step to keep pace with Tezzeret's retreat; slash again, feint with the left fist, kick to the gut, another step; a twist and sudden spin, a backhand strike against the artificer's temple, an underhand stab at the ribs, cross-step. For these few moments, Jace drew on everything Kallist had taught him, everything he could recall from several months of being Kallist, and allowed all his anger and all his guilt to flow through him. For those moments, he was a mage no longer, but a dervish of deadly edges and pummeling limbs, forcing Tezzeret ever farther back until the trees thinned and they found themselves slowed by the deepening swamp.

***

Agents of Artifice, Chapter 32