“Lorenor,” William’s words betrayed his surprise. He had faced dozens of opponents in the Citadel and would be hard pressed to remember even a tenth of them. But there was no way that he'd ever forget his fight with the undead warrior. It was the first time that William had found himself completely outclassed by an opponent and it had left an impression that was very likely the reason William had sought to strengthen himself in match after match. William grinned. Lorenor was a better than he could have hoped for in these dark, rusted tunnels.
He shifted weight, assuming a guarded combat stance and looked Lorenor over with a discerning eye. He had changed a great deal since the last time he’d been face-to-face with the mutant and it quickly became apparent that Lorenor had changed just as much. But just as the years had strengthened William and transformed him into a powerful combatant, time seemed to have changed Lorenor’s form even more. Gone was the aura of dark strength that William had come to associate with him memory of Lorenor. Instead, he faced a holy creature who was still in the early stages of gathering his strength.
“Interesting,” he growled.
When they’d first faced each other, William had done so with nothing but his claws and his rage. He looked down at the sundered warscythe in his hand. The wire trap in the room above had cleaved the counter-weight off the end of the weapon and William didn’t need his destructive enlightenment to tell that the weapon was little more than a heavy, unwieldy hacking instrument at the moment. Even a blunt hunk of wood was a deadly instrument in his hands the match of even a magnificent blade, but there was something poetic in having his weapon taken away from him when made to stand in front of his old foe.
William turned a savage grin in Lorenor’s direction and tossed the blade down the dark pit in the center of the room. Lorenor had done something similar in their first encounter, only he’d simply dropped his sword at his feet. William had tried to take advantage of that by taking the blade for himself. As much as he wanted to mirror that encounter, his warscythe’s enchantment was far too dangerous to leave for a complete reversal of fate.
“I’m ready now, dead man,” William said and then charged at his foe.
