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"You’ve stalled me long enough, witch," the spirit possessing Hauke said. "But now, this ends!"

Ashlynn’s heart sank as she watched a glowing sword covered in strange, hooked runes appeared in Hauke’s outstretched hand.

The blade was easily as long as Heila was tall, and it glowed with a shifting pattern of multiple hues that matched Hauke’s iridescent horn.

Snowflakes and ice crystals seemed to dance in the air around it like moths around a candle flame, and the temperature of the air within the icy tomb grew so cold that it was painful to breathe in.

"Wait!" Ashlynn shouted, placing a hand on the spine of her sword and holding it up over her head.

"Please. Hauke is my friend, and I don’t want to hurt him.

But if you use that sword," she said, her emerald eyes narrowing as she studied the intricately arranged magic within the blade.

"If you use that sword, I don’t think I can avoid harming him. "

"If you don’t want to hurt him, then stand aside," Ansgar snapped. "Surrender your witch to us, along with the blade she carries, and we can stop this madness once and for all."

"I won’t surrender her to you," Ashlynn said firmly. "But we can surrender the blade if that’s what it takes. No matter how powerful a tool is, it’s only a tool. It isn’t worth losing a life over."

"Surrendering the blade is insufficient," Ines frosty foice said, her feminine voice sounding in deeply incongruous coming from Hauke’s handsome face.

"An example must be made so that others will not follow in her path.

She must suffer before she dies as a warning to everyone who follows after that our horns are not to be defiled. "

"Then at least let me tell him goodbye," Ashlynn said as she lowered the darksteel falchion into a defensive position intended to ward off blows from above. She had been holding her ground against the imposing ancestor when he fought with ice covered fists, but now that he’d added the advantages of reach and leverage that came from a powerful blade, she’d lost what little confidence she had that she could defeat the ancestral spirits without harming the young lord they possessed.

"He’s heard your words," Ines said coldly. "And witnessed your insistence on this path. Whatever else you have to say is meaningless. Your words are nothing more than whispers in the wind. Whether he mourns you or not depends on your actions, not your words."

"So you haven’t destroyed him," Ashlynn said with a slow grin. "If all you’ve done is suppress him, then there’s still hope."

"Enough!" Ansgar roared, charging forward with the point of the slender icy blade leveled at Ashlynn as though it were a lance. The rush was explosive and faster than anything she’d seen from the ancient spirit since the fight began, though whether that was because the gleaming runic blade in his hands gave him extra strength or because he’d been holding back, she couldn’t say.

Ashlynn’s falchion swept up in a blindingly fast arc that should have possessed more than enough strength to beat the thrust aside. Should have. The instant she began to move, one of the runes on the blade glowed a brilliant ice blue before Ines’s voice spilled from Hauke’s lips.

"Field of ice," the ghostly woman said, summoning a patch of ice beneath Ashlynn’s feet that was as smooth as glass and as slick as oil.

-CLANG- -Riiiip!-

Ashlynn’s feet slid on the ice, and the collision of her blade against the sword of ice only threw her further off balance.

She pushed her reflexes to the limits, twisting in the air to move herself out of the way of Ansgar’s relentless thrust,t but the tip of the blade still tore through her fur-lined cloak and the sleeve beneath it, opening a long gash on her left shoulder.

Bitter cold flooded the wound, stabbing deep into Ashlynn’s arms like thousands of needles as the wound froze, sending shivers down her arm that she felt all the way to the tips of her fingers despite the warmth of the gloves she wore.

Stabbing her blade into the frozen ground for stability, Ashlynn pushed herself away from the slick patch of ice before letting loose with a spell of her own.

The oppressive sealing magic that weighed down on her like hundreds of pounds of snow had weakened as Ansgar directed his attention to the battle, giving her just enough freedom to make use of her limited energy.

"By forest’s heart and winter’s bane,

Let roots reach deep where I remain!"

The spell was simple and secured her footing against further attacks, but it came with a heavy price.

No tree could easily uproot itself, and now, neither could she.

Her feet moved ponderously, just enough above the ground to let her shift her position but not enough to do more than shift her upper body out of the way if she needed to dodge another thrust.

"Foolish. You’re too young by decades to face us, witch," Ansgar said, his deep voice sounding strange coming from Hauke’s youthful lips and even stranger for the scornful derision that dripped from every word, making a mockery of Hauke’s gentle, respectful demeanor.

"Your strength may be impressive, but skill comes with years, not months. "

He punctuated his point with a simple, direct thrust aimed at her throat that would end the fight instantly if Ashlynn failed to deflect it.

Her blade moved swiftly, spinning in her hands to parry the lethal thrust, but the moment before their blades met, the tip of Ansgar’s runic blade dropped low, circling under Ashlynn’s hilt and continuing its thrust straight for her throat!

Desperately twisting sideways, Ashlynn gained just enough room to escape the deadly point, letting the blade glide past her cheek as she struggled to bring her falchion back in line to defend against the lethal runic blade.

Even that near-miss cost her. Frost formed instantly on her skin where the blade passed, numbing her flesh and covering her cheek in frost from just beneath her emerald eye all the way to the point of her chin.

"Maybe you know more," Ashlynn acknowledged, striking back with her falchion in a wild arc aimed at the Frost Walker’s knees that forced Ansgar to take several steps back to evade.

"But I don’t need forever. Just long enough," she said with a confident, almost mocking grin on her face.