Immortal Swordslinger 2

way I could defeat it. I needed to find an advantage.
I backed away from where the spirit and I had been fighting, until I was pressed up against the frozen wall. The spirit followed, circling me cautiously at first, then swimming back and forth once that became impossible. Its face was hard to read, a thing of flowing water and flashing moments of ice rather than skin and muscle, but a look of excitement crossed its frozen eyes. My opponent thought it had me on the defensive, trapped against the edge of the cave, when in reality, I was exactly where I wanted to be.
The hardness of the ice against my back was a reassuring patch of solidity amid the ever-changing waters. I ran my fingers across its surface and found individual stalactites protruding from crevices. I closed my hand around one of them and wiggled it until it was so loose that it was on the verge of falling out.
The spirit flashed out of the gloom and swam straight toward me with all its speed and strength. I stayed in place, as if pinned against the ice, and let myself appear vulnerable to draw the creature in. I raised a hand to defend myself, and the spirit battered it aside before delivering a punch to the gut that almost doubled me over. Its hands went to my neck, and its icy fingers tightened around my throat. My skin went numb from the cold, and I was unable to draw the water into my lungs.
The spirit’s hands tightened and squeezed around my windpipe until black spots danced across my vision. Frozen eyes sparkled out of watery flesh stretched across a skull of ice.
My fingers closed around the loose stalactite again, and I tugged it out of its niche. I raised it high and smashed it against the spirit’s head. The pointed chunk of ice didn’t penetrate my opponent’s skin, but it let go of my neck and drifted back, stunned.
I pushed off the wall with both feet and grabbed the spirit by the throat with my free hand. Its icy flesh almost burned when I touched it, but I held tight. Still holding my opponent by the throat, I circled around and slammed him against the icy wall. It squirmed, thrashed its tail, and grabbed hold of my wrist as it tried to break my grip.
I raised the stalactite in my hand again and smashed it into the spirit’s head once, twice, three times, over and over as its grip weakened. Each blow left a small wound on its head as well as the damage dealt by slamming it back against the wall behind it. After the seventh strike, the spirit’s skull cracked and then, shattered. Blood trailed through the water in lines like quicksilver. The creature went limp, and the watery realm faded from view.
I found myself sitting in the clearing again, wrapped in my cloak and staring at the stream.
“It’s about time you returned,” Vesma noted.
I looked up to see her sitting across from me, her spear across her knees and her cloak drawn up around her shoulders. Behind her, the first rays of morning sunlight were creeping over the horizon and through the trees. In the distance, a bird started to sing.
I rubbed my eyes, stood up, and shook out my legs, trying to dislodge the cramp that had settled in. My sojourn in the spirit realm had felt like only a few minutes, but hours must have passed out here in the mortal world.
“Have you been on watch all night?” I asked.
“Kegohr took the last one. Did you defeat the spirit?”
I winked at her. “What do you think?”
Vesma’s lips pulled into a wry grin. “If I wasn’t starting to care for you, I’d find you infuriating. Transported to the Seven Realms by a sword spirit, and you’re better at learning magic than almost anyone at the guild.”
“Almost anyone?”
“Well, I haven’t met all the guild members yet. There might be someone with more natural talent than you.” Vesma walked over to me and leaned down to kiss me.
“Ah, the folly of youth,” Nydarth whispered from the sword in my lap. “So young. So dumb. And so full of—”
“Shh,” I whispered to the sword. “I can’t hear myself think. How do you even know that reference? You spent way too long on Earth.”
“When will I meet Nydarth?” Vesma asked as she stepped away from me and eyed the sword suspiciously.
“When she gets strong enough to show herself,” I answered. “Spirits for the spirit god or something.”
“The spirits of your enemies are a delectable meal,” Nydarth confirmed.
Vesma placed her hands on her hips. “What did she say?”
“Never mind. How about you get some rest while you can? Once the day starts properly, we should get moving.”
She shook her head before she set her spear aside, laid down, and pulled the hood of her cloak up.
I focused back on our surroundings and kept watch while my friends enjoyed the last hour or so before dawn completely broke. I couldn’t shake the feeling of being constantly wet and needing to swallow water to breathe. Pressure pushed against my ears, as though I was still submerged in the spirit realm’s sea.
I needed time to get back to normal, so I stood up and paced the clearing. My fingers drummed against the hilt of my sword.
“Oh, yes,” Nydarth said, her voicing coming from the sword straight into my mind. “Keep that up. I like that.”
I hesitated for a moment, then set to drumming on the pommel again. Nydarth purred happily, like a cat stretching out across a soft, warm carpet.
“Well done, dear,” she said after a while.
“For getting you excited with my fingers?”
“No, silly,” she replied, her tone gently mocking. “For gaining more power and a fresh ability. That was quite a fight against the water spirit, but from what I feel inside you, it was well worth the struggle.”
“You saw the fight?”
“When I am in your hand, you are an open book