And she made no move to evade, until the very last second, when she pulled her cloak around her.
The blade met nothing. It simply kept going, and going, even as Tarrin's feet slid to a stop just before her. It sank into the impenetrable blackness of her cloak, swallowed up by it, and it met nothing to slow it down. He thrust through her so hard that his paw also dipped into that inky blackness, and when it did he felt an agonizing, biting cold slash through his paw and arm, like the touch of a Wraith. Crying out, he recoiled from that icy cold, letting go of the sword in his haste to free himself from that painful touch. He pulled his paw back, seeing that the fur had frost on it, and his fingers were numb and nerveless.
The sword was simply gone.
It had went inside the cloak! The cloak wasn't natural, it was some kind of magical artifact!
She gave him the slightest of knowing smiles as he staggered back away from her. She reached within her cloak, and with deliberate slowness, drew out his sword, holding it by the middle of the blade. It was nearly as tall as she was, but she held it with a surety and confidence that told him that she was much stronger than she appeared. She glanced at the blade casually, then tossed it aside like it was so much dross.
Feeling was returning to his paw. He flexed it a few times as he took a few more steps back from her, trying to figure out what to do next. But she only gave him a slight look, a shift in the set of her eyes, and that was all he needed to react to whatever was about to happen. He spun aside and sprinted away from her, diving over a large rock, then turning and rushing towards the nearest rock spire. This was insanity! What was he supposed to do against something like that? She couldn't be injured by weapons, and he'd destroy himself with Sorcery long before he got anywhere near her!
He reached the spire, hiding behind it for cover, trying to recover his breath and his racing mind, as his heart pounded in his chest. Think, he had to think! He couldn't use Sorcery, and he couldn't fight her hand to paw. That didn't leave him many options. He could use some Druidic magic, but he'd never tried to use it in a fight before, at least not consciously. And Sarraya had never taught him any Druidic spells that would be useful in a fight.
"You shame us," the woman called out. "Must I force it of you?"
And with that, the rock spire against which he was leaning began to shudder and vibrate. For a fleeting moment, he could feel the magic from her, feel it through the weave, a rippling and pulsating energy that vibrated through it like the plucking of a lute's string. The sound of cracking rock reached him, and he looked up in time to see several large chunks of the spire beginning to fall down to the desert floor. He scampered aside as a big one hit very close to him. He raced away from the spire as it shuddered and groaned, then ear-splitting sound of ripping stone raked over his ears. He turned back in time to see the entire rock spire shudder, then begin to topple to one side. It struck the desert floor in a massive cloud of dust, with so much energy that the rock and ground beneath his feet heaved violently from the blow, nearly knocking him down in its convulsions. The sound of the impact nearly deafened him, sent a huge cloud of dust roaring over him.
Merciful Goddess! he thought frantically. What power! And without High Sorcery!
She was just too powerful! There was no way to fight her, no way to hide from her, no way to run from her!
He had no choice. He couldn't fight someone like this. He needed High Sorcery.
Paws limning over in Magelight, Tarrin reached out to the Weave, felt it connect to him, and then try to drown him in a tidal wave of its power. More than ever before, he felt a modicum of control over the power, as if his abilities had reached a point where he could control High Sorcery to a limited degree. He found that he could push against that power, resist it at least enough to be able to use the power within before it built up past the point where he could contain it. It flooded into him, joined with him, and that power caused him to become more attuned and connected to the Weave. He could feel her magic now, feel it flow and eddy within the strands. With a primal scream, he harnessed that power within him, used it against the Weave, caused the strands to expel flows of the Spheres. Those flows coalesced around his paws as he wove them into a spell, and then he released its power. The weave manifested as a powerful blast of wind, shattering the dust cloud and then sending it back the other way. The force of the wind was enough to pick up small stones, sending a cloud of debris flying back at the Sha'Kar with enough force to injure, maybe even kill if they hit right.
But the cloud parted, then passed by on both sides of the Sha'Kar woman harmlessly. She gave him a penetrating look, a look that unnerved him despite the distance between them, and then she gave him a chilling smile. "Now," she said, and then she raised delicate hands limned over with the ghostly radiance of Magelight.
She could use High Sorcery too!
She was a Weavespinner!
The sight of that caused his human mind to retreat, to literally drag the Cat out into the forefront. He needed all his power, he needed the rage of fury to give him the power to control his own magic. He needed everything he could possibly find, because he was facing an opponent who had the power to beat him at his own game.
With a building roar, Tarrin's body exploded completely into Magelight as he relaxed the constraints he had placed on himself, and it responded by trying to burn him to ashes. Rational thought was scoured away, leaving behind only the instinctive impulses of the Cat, a mind that did not need to think in order to function. Power that would kill a linked Circle roared into him, through him, saturated his being with its power. It sent a shockwave of pain through him, pain that his Cat nature could block, ignore, shrug off, as the animal within ignored the dangers to the body in order to protect itself from an enemy.
So fast that most Sorcerers would not be able to follow it, with a speed borne of familiarity, Tarrin wove together that chaotic weave of Fire, Air, Water, and Divine flows, with only token flows of the other Spheres to grant his weave the power of High Sorcery, and then unleashed it on the dark figure. A blinding, incandescent bolt of pure magical power, a bar of light containing heat beyond anything natural, ripped through the air as it hurtled directly at the Sha'Kar's body. But the Sha'Kar slapped the bolt aside with a hand casually, and it deflected in its path and struck the ground a few hundred spans behind her. That touch caused the rock to vaporize, and then to explode, sending a shockwave of flying debris, dust, and loud noise roaring across the small forest of rocky pillars.
The Sha'Kar responded with a whip-like tongue of fire that emanated from her hand, and then she lashed it at him over the distance between them. It moved with a speed that defied rational thought, but to Tarrin's heightened senses, it moved with a ponderous slowness that he could easily track. He wove together a weave of Fire and released it, forming it around his paw, and he caught that tendril of fire as it tried to strike him. He felt the nature of the weave, then charged it with a huge surge of Air. The Fire mixed with the Air, and he sent it back towards the Sha'Kar like throwing a burning pot of pitch. The tendril detonated along its length in rapid succession, but it winked out as the Sha'Kar countered with flows of Water into the tendril to counter the explosive mix of flows.
He didn't hesitate. His Cat mind was already working on the next gambit, weaving together a weave of High Sorcery that was primarily composed of Earth. It was the magical effect he'd seen Jegojah use before, and he released it by stomping on the ground. It created a seismic shockwave that raced in the Sha'Kar's direction at shocking speed, causing a line of dust and flying shards of rock to follow in its wake as it shattered the rock through which it travelled. But the Sha'Kar rose up into the air, allowing the shockwave to travel under her harmlessly. He felt her weaving spells now, using High Sorcery, a weave of Water, Air, and Divine mainly, and then she released it. A pale beam of cold blue erupted from her hand. He didn't have the time or the presence to study the weave and create a counter for it, so he simply dove aside as it hit the ground where he'd been standing. He looked back, and saw that the ground had been covered by a thick layer of ice.