Got to be careful, he thought, watching the smooth, quick movements of his opponent's two blades. The point of that long rapier seemed almost alive, questing around in front of his face. Be very careful, he reminded himself.
Sweat must be leaking into that little cut. The stinging was getting even worse. And the last thing Leif needed right now was a distraction.
There! Was that an opening? Leif tried to seize the initiative with another attack. The assassin's rapier parried Leif's blow, while simultaneously his dagger streaked for Leif's stomach.
Again, Leif was forced to backpedal before the guy sliced him a fresh belly button. That hadn't been an opening, it had been an invitation, suckering Leif in.
Leif was suddenly reminded of his disastrous duel with the hard-faced Frenchman.
Oh God, it's happening again. I've really stepped in it this time, Leif thought, watching his opponent's sword advance, then pull back while the dagger came forward. And it's pretty damned deep.
He saw another possible opening, but shook his head. Another trap. The assassin's style seemed based on the idea of preempting any attack with an even more aggressive move. Leif wasn't eager to fool with that hair- trigger again-at least not by himself.
"Ah-guards?" he called, trying to keep the desperate tone out of his voice. "Guards? Is there a guard around? I could really use one right now."
No answer-unless you counted the fact that the assassin was pressing Leif much harder. Apparently, the passive testing-offering openings-was over. Now the man's two blades were attempting to get through Leif's defenses-his shorter sword and the fabric wrapped around his left forearm.
It was like a nightmare! Leif couldn't even engage his opponent's blade. Whenever he tried to put his saber against that damned rapier, the assassin's blade somehow eluded him, always coming back in line to attack.
The point bored in again, and Leif tried a circular parry, hoping to deflect the rapier while bringing his own point into position to attack.
It was as if the intruder were reading his mind. Their blades never touched, the rapier's point moving in a counter-circle to keep Leif in danger.
The nick Leif had taken felt as if someone were dabbing it with acid. Could the point of his opponent's sword be smeared with poison? No, it was just good, honest sweat, pouring down his chest-and unintentionally rubbing salt in his wound. That was the least of Leif's problems. Sooner or later one of the attacker's weapons would penetrate Leif's defense. And that meant that shortly, Leif himself would be penetrated by either forty or twelve inches of cold steel. Each time he managed to evade an attack, his adversary was moving in, the point of the rapier coming closer, and closer, and closer.
Every instinct was screaming at him to run, but there was no way he could turn his back on this killer, even in veeyar. He tried a desperate improvisation, unwrapping some of the tapestry around his left arm and flapping it in the assassin's face.
Maybe I can put a little distance between us, Leif thought just as he collided with an old wooden chair.
Every once in a while a thronelike chair or heavy trestle table was stationed along the corridors, maybe for variety in the scenery. It was just Leif's bad luck to blunder into one of them now.
The assassin leaped forward to finish the fight.
A blast of thunder nearly deafened Leif. But he wasn't so out of it not to notice his attacker suddenly flying back, tumbling like a marionette with all its strings cut.
Leif glanced over his shoulder to see Sergei Chernev- sky. The Russian boy was in his usual Hussar's uniform, but instead of his sword, he held a huge, old-fashioned revolver. That was the source of the roar that had nearly taken out Leif's eardrum. "What-" he began.
"I took the guard duty tonight," Sergei explained. "I get to see enough diplomatic balls. Maybe I find something more interesting, instead." He gestured toward the flattened assassin. "Like this."
Saber back at the ready, Leif approached the man in the black cloak. The rapier lay a foot from one hand, the dagger even farther away. His former adversary didn't look as though he'd be getting up anytime very soon.
Leif kicked the weapons out of reach, then cautiously prodded the prostrate form. The cloak shifted, revealing a neat hole in the intruder's chest. Leif didn't want to see where the bullet came out. Probably not a pretty sight.
The excess of adrenalin still humming through Leif's veins had him turning on Sergei. "What did you go and kill him for?" Leif shouted. "Now we'll never find out who sent him!"
"I thought I was saving your life," the Russian boy replied simply.
"Oh," Leif said. Undoubtedly true. Still-"Couldn't you have wounded him?"
Sergei gave him a look. "Or maybe knocked both weapons from his hands with a pair of shots?" He gestured with the heavy horse pistol. "What I have here is more like a cannon than a real gun, my friend. I count myself lucky I hit him instead of you."
The clumping of heavy boots echoed up the stairway. At least the guards on the other floors had heard Sergei's shot, even if they hadn't noticed Leif's life-and-death fight.
Leif was still suffering from the aftereffects of his battle. His hand was trembling so badly that it took three tries before he could sheathe his saber.
He shook his head. Clashing blades were all very fine in competitions with rules or in holo or in literature. But this hadn't even been steel to steel dueling-just a silent, murderous attempt to turn Leif into mincemeat. Tonight he'd almost been exiled from Latvinia-in about the hardest way he could imagine.
Leif clenched his hands, trying to still them. He'd joked about what seemed to happen to him whenever he touched a sword in Latvinia. But it really began to seem as though the sim was as hostile to him as it had been to Roberta Hendry.
He pushed that thought aside as he turned to Sergei. "Do you think we can keep this quiet for the time being?" he said as royal guardsmen appeared from the stairway. "It's not just that we'd be breaking up the party downstairs-some people might get ideas if they heard about an assassin being stopped this close to the royal apartments."
Sergei ran an eye over the arriving military men. "No problem," he assured Leif. "Most of these, I think, are nonrole-playing characters. Everybody who wants to be anybody was going to the ball tonight."
He touched the insignia at this throat, "In any event, I outrank them. Let's see what can be done."
Leif figured that any statements that had to be made could be taken care of the next day. Sergei accompanied him up to his room, but even so he cautiously peered into shadows and checked out dark doorways all along the route. Once he was safely locked in, Leif synched out. Then he sat up on his computer-link couch, stretched, and headed immediately for a shower. He no longer had the nick under his clavicle, but his clothes were drenched with cold sweat.
Even though he could barely keep his eyes open, he knew that dried sweat would itch like crazy all night if he didn't deal with it. Leif went to bed, tossing and turning from an unending stream of nightmares.
In the worst of them, he faced the murderous assassin again. But this time the ever-moving blade of the killer's rapier didn't just move as if it were alive. It was alive, turning into a poisonous cobra which leaped and bit him right under the collarbone….
Leif found himself half out of bed after that one, his head on the floor, both hands clutching at his chest. His heart was pounding as if he'd run up the stairs to the top of the Washington Monument.
"Don't know which is worse," he mumbled, stumbling for the bathroom. "Slaney's goofball veeyar creation, or the sims my own subconscious is sticking me with."