Water resistance

About to pounce once again, D turned his eyes to this subsidence. Madness
gripped the once calmly flowing water. As it coursed down the ditch from
the shore, the water gathered intense speed, and, slapping up against the
banks, it rose like a living creature. In great rolls, the water gushed into the
space between the two of them. First the ankles and then the boots of both
D and Nolt sank below the surface.

“How about it, dhampir? Can you move?” Nolt asked with a smile. It was
the smirk of a victor. “You know, I’ve thrown down with your kind before.
And this is what I did then. When a part of a dhampir gets wet, it kinda gets
all stiff, don’t it?”

D didn’t move. Perhaps he couldn’t move?

“Die, you bastard!” Nolt screamed as he charged forward. Getting a solid
grip on the bottom part of the staff, he brandished it like he was going to
bring it straight down and smash D’s head open. The water splashed from
his feet, and he kicked off the ground.

Black lightning raced up from below. Higher and faster than the staff, it
danced up over his head. The last thing Nolt saw was the thick water
stretching up from the ground like a tenacious predator clinging to D’s
black boots.

Split by D’s blade from forehead to chin, by the time Nolt had fallen back
to earth he wasn’t breathing anymore. A bloody mist reeled out from his
remains.

Without so much as a glance at Nolt as he collapsed in a heap, D walked
back behind the rocks where he’d first appeared. His horse was waiting
there. Coat billowing as he straddled his mount, the Hunter’s eyes were
eternally cold as he set them upstream, but they held a hint of sadness as
well.

“Run if you like,” D murmured. “But I’ll still catch you.”

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