Lee actually winced when two blurred strokes felled the last two of the column. Now the swordsman faced the officer across a length of stone bridge carpeted by the armoured corpses of his command.
The officer stood motionless for a time as he scanned the wreckage of his men and women, and then his head rose to study the agent of this destruction. He reached up and unbuttoned his helm and threw it aside, drew his sword, and carefully, gingerly, stepped between the fallen to close with the Dal Hon.
The swordsman awaited him, blade out before him, not even the slightest movement of his chest beneath a simple blood-spattered jerkin betraying any shortage of breath.
And Lee could not breathe either. All she could think was how this could not be and how never, ever, would she have believed such a thing.
The two met perhaps a quarter of the way up the arch of the bridge. They touched blades and immediately the officer drew his back, slashing. The swordsman slid the blow and countered, and the officer’s head sailed through the air to fall with a splash into the Malaz river channel.
The swordsman cleaned his blade on the officer’s surcoat, sheathed it, and resumed his patient watch.
‘Hood’s mercy,’ another of her lads murmured.
‘I believe so,’ Lee said. ‘Let’s—’
Further marching boots rang in the night and a second column of Napan heavy infantry emerged through the wind-tossed dust and leaf litter.
Lee almost groaned in empathetic pain. Gods, no …
* * *
Dassem felt his shoulders fall ever so slightly as the second column of Napan soldiers came marching up the way. He did not know what he expected to come of pursuing his purpose here, but he hadn’t anticipated sadness. It was all such a waste. A damned useless waste of life and potential.
Downstream, just visible, pulsed the glow of a fire where one of the other bridges burned. Whether it was stone or wood did not matter; just so long as they kept the fire going long enough to funnel all the Napans to him.
And these appeared to be the last, for tonight. At orders from their female officer they formed up, facing him just back from the base of the bridge. Then the officer came forward, sword sheathed, and picked her way through her fallen fellows to study him.
For a Napan, sharing their blue coloration, she appeared rather sickly pale, even ashen now. ‘You did this?’ she breathed in disbelief.
He pointed back the way they’d come. ‘Turn round. Leave. No more need fall.’
She was shaking her head, studying the bodies. ‘We too have our duty.’
He regarded the woman with new understanding. ‘I see. Your name?’
‘Clementh.’
‘Dassem.’
‘We must try…’
‘Yes,’ he said, when her words tailed off. ‘I understand.’
She retreated to her command, and spoke to them for a time. Then, drawing, she came on, leading the attack. And Dassem winced inside: She would make this as hard as she could, wouldn’t she?
They met, and he slashed her among the first. Her soldiers dragged her back while the front rank raised shields. Then they came on again, two by two. The narrow stone span forced them together, inhibiting them. Dassem retreated one pace to clear space for himself and met them two-handed, clashing swords aside and thrusting at legs, arms, and exposed necks. He found he had to retreat yet another step as the fallen piled over one another on the narrow bridge.
More fell and Dassem had to force back his regret for what he had to do. It was pitiful that these good men and women should have to lay themselves down. He longed, then, for the old days of champions.
A shout pulled them back a step, shields raised, watching him warily from beneath the lips of their inlaid iron and bronze helmets. Clementh pushed her way forward, a bloodied arm hanging limp.
Even more ashen now from loss of blood, she eyed him, panting with the effort of holding herself erect. Dassem remained at the ready, blood-splashed and aching, but ready. She turned to her command, ordered, ‘Withdraw.’
They began backing away, stepping carefully over the fallen. A few stooped to pick up or drag wounded. Clementh struggled to sheathe her sword. ‘Tarel will have my head for this,’ she said.
‘But your men and women will live,’ Dassem finished for her.
She nodded, taking a deep breath. ‘We will see to the fallen.’
He nodded as well. ‘I will not interfere.’
‘I thank you for that.’
Now he shook his head. ‘No. I thank you. I did not enjoy this.’
She eyed him for a time, her gaze weighing. ‘Good.’
* * *
Cartheron slammed open the door to Smiley’s to find the common room empty. ‘Lady Sureth!’ he called, panicked for some reason.
‘Yes?’ she called, pushing open the kitchen door.
He swallowed his sudden dread. Ah. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Upstairs.’
Shrift appeared on the stairs, peering down into the room, looking very surprised. ‘Crust…’ she said, almost stammering. ‘What’re … what’re you doing here?’
‘Where’s Grinner?’
She gestured upstairs. ‘With Hawl. She’s sick or something. We’re worried about her.’
He started up. ‘I’ll take a look.’
Shrift allowed him to pass with a help yourself gesture. She followed him up.
He opened the door to her room and stood frozen for a heartbeat, unable to comprehend what confronted him. Hawl lay on the bed, her chest a wet mess of blood; on the floor just at his feet lay Grinner, face down, stabbed in the back.
As he drew breath to shout a hand closed over his mouth from behind and searing pain lanced his back as a length of razor iron was pushed through his torso. He fell, stunned in agony. Only distantly did he register a boot on his back and the blade’s being yanked free.
A woman’s voice, Shrift, breathed close into his ear: ‘Should’ve paid better, Crust.’ Then footsteps thumped away down the stairs.
Distantly, from below, he heard Sureth ask, ‘How is she?’
Some mumbled answer sounded, then a table crashed and feet stamped. Someone was cursing and he realized it was him. Low, he told himself, she struck low.
He started dragging his body towards the stairs.
* * *
They each fought with two knives. Their favourites, of course; preferred weight and lengths. Dancer lost count of the thin slashes he received on arms, sides and thighs as they ran, fought, twisted, jumped, swept and rolled. Conscious thought and planning were gone; all that remained was pure instinct and muscle reflex as attacks and blocks, feints and reverses flew past one another too fast for the mind to separate or even register.
His shirt hung in tatters, slashed from his arms, chest and back. The lad’s own face, neck and chest were a smear of blood, and when they grappled, tiring now, their arms slipped and slid on the sweat and blood sheathing them as they each fought for advantage.
Even so, the lad Cowl’s wide eyes blazed with a seemingly insane fury just a hand’s breadth from Dancer’s own, utterly untouched by the normal fear of mortality, and from this Dancer knew he was locked in potentially the most perilous duel of his life.
For no one was more dangerous than those who did not care if they lived or died.
So they fought on, crashing through doors, slamming into tables, slashing, neither quite able to land a stopping, definitive blow. A kick from Cowl sent him flying backwards into the road and the lad launched himself upon him and Dancer caught blade for blade. The lad head-butted him and though he’d turned his head aside stars still flashed in his vision and agony flamed from his thigh – he staggered off, clutching his leg.
Cowl followed, but slowly now, shifting his grips on his knives, rubbing a bloody forearm across his face but leaving even more of a smeared layer. His hair was a slick sweaty mess and he panted, favouring his own right leg as he tracked Dancer’s movements.