It was up to Rajiv, then. One thirteen-year-old boy, unarmed, against three Ye-tai mercenaries. Who were. .
He peeked around the corner again.
Definitely armed. Each of them with a sword.
But Rajiv didn't give their weapons more than a glance. He'd already peeked around that corner before, twice, and studied them well enough. This time he was examining the body of the second Bihari miner, whom the mercenaries had cast into a corner of the cellar after cutting his throat also.
Not the body, actually. Rajiv was studying the miner's tools, which the Ye-tai had tossed on top of his corpse.
A pick and a shovel. A short-handled spade, really. Both of the tools were rather small, not so much because most of the Biharis were small but simply because there wasn't much room in the tunnels they dug.
That was good, Rajiv decided. Small tools-at least for someone his size-would make better weapons than large ones would have.
Until he met the Mongoose, Rajiv would never have considered the possibility that tools might make weapons. He'd been raised a Rajput prince, after all. But the Mongoose had hammered that out of him, like many other things. He'd even insisted on teaching Rajiv to fight with big kitchen ladles.
Rajiv's mother had been mightily amused. Rajiv himself had been mortified-until, by the fourth time the Mongoose knocked him down, he'd stopped sneering at ladles.
He decided he'd start with the pick. It was a clumsier thing than the spade, and he'd probably lose it in the first encounter anyway.
There was no point in dawdling. Rajiv gave a last quick glance at the three oil lamps perched on a ledge. No way to knock them off, he decided. Not spaced out the way there were.
Besides, he didn't think fighting in the dark would be to his advantage anyway. That would be a clumsy business, and if there was one thing the Mongoose had driven home to him, it was that "clumsy" and "too damn much sweat" always went together.
"Fight like a miser," he whispered to himself. Then, came out of his crouch and sprang into the cellar.
He said nothing; issued no war cry; gave no speech. The Mongoose had slapped that out of him also. Just went for the pick, with destruction in his heart.
* * *
Still many cellars away, Valentinian and Anastasius heard the fight start.
Nothing from Rajiv. Just the sound of several angry and startled men, their shouts echoing through the labyrinth.
* * *
Rajiv went to meet the first Ye-tai. That surprised him, as he'd thought it would.
When you're outmatched, get in quick. They won't expect that, the fucks.
The Ye-tai's sword came up. Rajiv raised the pick as if to match blows. The mercenary grinned savagely, seeing him do so. He outweighed Rajiv by at least fifty pounds.
At the last instant, Rajiv reversed his grip, ducked under the sword, and drove the handle of the pick into the man's groin.
Go for the shithead's dick and balls. Turn him into a squealing bitch.
The Ye-tai didn't squeal. As hard as Rajiv had driven in the end of the shaft, he didn't do anything except stare ahead, his mouth agape. He'd dropped his sword and was clutching his groin, half-stooped.
His eyes were wide as saucers, too, which was handy.
Rajiv rose from his crouch, reversed his grip again, and drove one of the pick's narrow blades into an eye. The blunt iron sank three inches into the Ye-tai's skull.
As he'd expected, he'd lost the pick. But it had all happened fast enough that he had time to dive for the spade, grab it, and come up rolling in a far corner.
He wasn't thinking at all, really, just acting. Hours and hours and hours of the Mongoose's training, that was.
You don't have time to think in a fight. If you have to think, you're a dead man.
The slumping corpse of the first Ye-tai got in the way of the second. Rajiv had planned for that, when he chose the corner to roll into.
The third came at him, again with his sword high.
That's just stupid, some part of Rajiv's mind recorded. Dimly, there was another, walled-off part that remembered he had once thought that way of using a sword very warriorlike. Dramatic-looking. Heroic.
But that was before hours and hours and hours of the Mongoose. A lifetime ago, it seemed now-and even a thirteen-year life is a fair span of time.
Rajiv evaded the sword strike. No flair to it, just-got out of the way.
Not much. Just enough. Miserly in everything.
A short, quick, hard jab of the spade into the side of the Ye-tai's knee was enough to throw off his backhand stroke. Rajiv evaded that one easily. He didn't try to parry the blow. The wood and iron of his spade would be no match for a steel sword.
Another quick hard jab to the same knee was enough to bring the Ye-tai down.
As he did so, Rajiv swiveled, causing the crumpling Ye-tai to impede the other.
Fuck 'em up, when you're fighting a crowd. Make 'em fall over each other.
The third Ye-tai didn't fall. But he stumbled into the kneeling body of his comrade hard enough that he had to steady himself with one hand. His other hand, holding the sword, swung out wide in an instinctive reach for balance.
Rajiv drove the edge of the spade into the wrist of the sword arm. The hand popped open. The sword fell. Blood oozed from the laceration on the wrist. It was a bad laceration, even if Rajiv hadn't managed to sever anything critical.
Go for the extremities. Always go for extremities. Hands, feet, toes, fingers. They're your closest target and the hardest for the asshole to defend.
The Ye-tai gaped at him, more in surprise than anything else.
But Rajiv ignored him, for the moment.
Don't linger, you idiot. Cut a man just enough, then cut another. Then come back and cut the first one again, if you need to. Like your mother cuts onions. Practical. Fuck all that other crap.
The second Ye-tai was squealing, in a hissing sort of way. Rajiv knew that knee injuries were excruciating. The Mongoose had told him so-and then, twice, banged up his knee in training sessions to prove it.
The Ye-tai's head was unguarded, with both his hands clutching the ruined knee. So Rajiv drove the spade at his temple.
He made his first mistake, then. The target was so tempting-so glorious, as it were-that he threw everything into the blow. He'd take off that head!
The extra time it took to position his whole body for that mighty blow was enough for the Ye-tai to bring up his hand to protect the head.
Stupid! Rajiv snarled silently at himself.
It probably didn't make any difference, of course. If the edge of the spade wasn't as sharp as a true weapon, it wasn't all that dull; and if iron wasn't steel, it was still much harder than human flesh. The strike cut off one of the man's fingers and maimed the whole hand-and still delivered a powerful blow to the skull. Moaning, the Ye-tai collapsed to the floor, half-unconscious.
Still, Rajiv was glad the Mongoose hadn't seen.
"Stupid," he heard a voice mutter.
Startled, he glanced aside. The Mongoose was there, in the entrance to the chamber. He had his sword in his hand, but it was down alongside his leg. Behind him, Rajiv could see the huge figure of Anastasius looming.
The Mongoose leaned against the stone entrance, tapping the tip of the sword against his boot. Then, nodded his head toward the last Ye-tai against the far wall.
"Finish him, boy. And don't fuck up again."
Rajiv looked at the Ye-tai. The man was paying him no attention at all. He was staring at the Mongoose, obviously frightened out of his wits.
The spade had served well enough, but there was now a sword available. The one the second Ye-tai had dropped after Rajiv smashed his knee.