Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #17 August 2015 | Page 47

spot, and Righty tried to resist moving. As he lunged
she dropped and rolled and came up to a knee to thrust
her sword through Blacky’s bowels. Standing, she
ripped the sword upwards, and Blacky’s intestines
rippled and spilled out of the gaping rent she made of
his stomach.
Wrinkling her nose against the stench, she
turned just in time to block Righty’s powerful attack.
His expression was unchanged, but he fought with
more fury than previously. She hopped backwards
from one particularly stinging assault and tripped over
a root. As she fell the man’s sword wooshed through
the space she’d been standing in. She rolled as Righty
altered his stance and thrust downwards. His sword
was buried in the soft ground as she rolled the other
way suddenly, using her body against the flat of his
sword to yank it from his hands. He jumped backwards just in time to avoid a thrust from her.
She stood and used her toe to flip his sword in

the air as he pulled a long dirk. She dropped her sword
to her off hand and caught then launched his sword in
one smooth movement.
He attempted to knock it away with the dirk,
that met the sword with a clang, but he only managed
to deflect it from a killing blow, it still sliced through
his side. Andarta hadn’t stood still, she strode forward,
and as the man winced from the sword wound, she
launched another attack. He managed to block her first
two strikes with the dirk, although white faced with
pain, but the third struck him in the heart. As he crumpled to the floor, Andarta wiped the stinging sweat
from her eyes.
***
“I said there’d be blood,” the man in red said
to the Ferryman.
ly.

47

“What happened next?” the boy asked excited-