As Ciras turned to the right, the giant ran into the darkness and Dragright kicked the antique sword into the air. He caught it deftly. He dropped into a fighting stance, with his left hand wide, his right jabbing with the sword, and his body open. He stood the way an unskilled brawler might, a casual cut away from death. In fact, tired, dirty, and snot-stained, he looked more dead than alive anyway.
Ciras did not attack. He took a step away from the dying archer, then bowed toward his opponent. He held it for a respectful time, then straightened up again.
Dragright frowned. “You’re a strange xidantzu. You slaughter two, then do me honor?”
“Not you. The warrior whose skull you crushed, whose sword you bear.”
“Heh.” The man half smiled, then convulsed again. He spun the sword up and around, easily, as if he had been trained to it all his life. “He was one of the best, you know. Out here. Better than you could have ever hoped.”
“Of this, I have no doubt.” Ciras waved him forward with his left hand. “But you are not he.”
The bandit attacked and the twin effects of the corpse dust and the sword made themselves readily apparent. Ciras had tracked the man and named him because he dragged his right foot a bit. In his attack, he moved more fluidly and with more precision. He flowed down into Dragon, whipping the sword down and around, then up in a cut meant to slash Ciras’ right flank.
Ciras slipped to the left, then pivoted back on his right foot and backhanded a slash aimed at the bandit’s spine. Steel rang on steel as Dragright spun back faster than possible and parried the slash high. Snapping his wrist around, he attacked back.
Pain scored a fiery line through Ciras’ armpit. He leaped away, feeling blood already dripping. He’d never seen an attack like that, and he knew the Dragon form well. Moreover, he felt a tingle in the air, much akin to what he’d felt when the magic storms played in Ixyll.
Magic! It wasn’t possible, but the bandit had accessed magic.
Ciras’ realization prompted him to take another step back. His right foot landed on the archer’s severed forearm. His ankle twisted and he went down. He landed on his right elbow, striking it against a stone. His sword twisted from numbed fingers and clanged against the ground.
Dragright strode boldly to him, kicked the archer’s arm away, then raised the sword in both hands, as if it were a dagger. Firelight played over the expression of glee on his face and, for the barest of moments, Ciras could see hints of softness there, as if the ghostly likeness of the dead warrior overlaid his features.
The man laughed. “It feels so good to fight again.”
He raised the sword higher, his back arched, his mouth open in a fearsome snarl. Then his body shook and a crossbow bolt burst out through his breastbone. The force of the shot sent him flying toward the tomb. He bounced once, hard, and rolled, coming to rest on his chest near the hole.
With delicate little arms setting another bolt in place, Nesrearck skittered forward and crouched.
Ciras smiled and scooped up his sword. He stood, gingerly testing his ankle, then bowed to the gyanrigot. Beyond it Borosan entered the firelit basin, skirting Slopeheel’s body. “Where’s the fourth one?”
“He ran.”
“How badly are you hurt?”
The swordsman shrugged his right arm out of his robe and checked. “He got flesh, nothing else. If he’d cut the artery, I’d have been dead inside a minute. As it is, I’ll live.”
“So will I, serrdin.”
Ciras spun as the corpse flopped itself onto its back. It grabbed a handful of corpse dust and stuffed it into the gaping hole in its chest. The body jerked and the spine bowed violently enough that the bandit bounced upright. It set itself, then waved him forward with its left hand.
This is impossible! Fear coursed through Ciras. Dragright had been faster and more skilled than he. He had used magic and cut him. He couldn’t stand against such a creature, especially when it clearly couldn’t be killed. To remain and battle against the unbeatable foe was suicide.
Panic seized him, and he almost turned to run. He knew what would happen if he did. The thing would catch him like a hawk stooping on a rabbit. It would cut him down. He’d die with his face in the dirt, his spine slashed open to prove that he’d died a coward.
Though he might not be a master or Mystic, Ciras was no coward. Shifting his sword to his right hand, he wrapped the sleeve of his robe through his sash so it would not flop around. He wiped blood from his hand, then took up the sword again.
He waited. It had used the Dragon form, and the best forms to counter it were Tiger and Wolf. But it will expect that. That meant it might shift to Eagle or Mantis, perhaps even Dog. The various permutations of the battle ran through his mind. As fast as Ciras could adapt his tactics, the creature would be faster, and the outcome as dire as if Ciras had run.
Ciras squared around and reversed his grip on his sword. He brought it back so it ran up along his forearm with the tip appearing at his right shoulder. Instead of using the blade to shield his body, he used his body to hide the blade.
“Borosan, get out of here. Take Nesrearck with you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Ciras began to move back slowly, easily. “Dragright is dead, but his body is linked to this place. You know the stories of corpse dust. Imagine how powerful it would be if the corpse had lain here since the Cataclysm.”
“Oh, oh, I see.” The inventor began to trek back up the hill. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to kill it.” He set himself and nodded to the corpse. “If I don’t, remember to mark this place as very deadly on your map.”
The corpse laughed. “I’ll hunt him down, too.”
“No, you won’t.” Ciras pointed toward the hole in the tomb entrance. “Leave here, and someone else will despoil your comrades. You can’t allow them to be dishonored.”
“No, I can’t.” The thing launched itself at him. The Dragon form shifted into Tiger, but Ciras kept his sword where it was. He cut to his left, working back against its right. The slash meant to decapitate him whistled just past his face. The blow opened the creature to a counterattack, but even as Ciras feinted with his right shoulder, the sword cut back to parry a low slash.
Again, Ciras danced away, working always to the right. The creature might no longer be Dragright, but whatever had caused him to drag his leg still affected it. Ciras moved with calculation, slowing to draw it into attacks, then cutting to the right. The creature darted around to head him off and trap him, but he just ran in the other direction.
The corpse, backlit by the fire, hunched its shoulders. “So this is what the Empire has come to? Unskilled cowards who run rather than fight?”
Ciras nodded. “The Empire you died to save is dead. The Nine Principalities have risen in their place. You and yours are all but forgotten.
“In fact,” Ciras added as he began to spin to the right, exposing his back to the creature, “you’re beneath contempt. Nesrearck, shoot it again!”
The creature had already begun a forehand slash at his spine, but glanced off up the hillside. Its blade rose with the distraction, and Ciras’ spin brought him down onto his left knee. As he spun, he shifted the sword around into a double-hand grip, directed by his left hand. As the corpse’s slash whipped past an inch above his skull, Ciras’ sword bit into the back of its right knee and continued out through the front.
The corpse continued its spin and began to fall. Shifting his blade to his right hand, Ciras rose and cut down. As the corpse hit the ground, his sword clove its skull in two.
It thrashed on the ground, then reached out and clawed the stone. It slowly began dragging itself back toward the white stain of corpse dust. Ciras could imagine it trying to pack its shattered head and come at him again.