Kluge backed farther away from the prince in the hot, sunny confines of the square, his winged troops standing anxiously all around him. Smiling, he touched the tip of the dreggan to the front of his left shoulder where it lay bare next to the leather vest and cut a small incision into it. Blood ran slowly down his arm and onto the dirt. The challenge had been made.
Tristan took a step forward, and pulled his dreggan from its scabbard, the blade repeating the same deadly song. Slowly he lifted the scabbard and baldric over his head and dropped them to one side in the dirt. He raised the shiny, curved blade to the sky and looked at it for what he knew would be the last time.
Despite being the instrument of my father’s death, you have always been true to me, he thought, looking at the blade as it twinkled in the sunlight. I ask only that you be true to me one more time, and help me slay the thing that stands before us. After that, may the Afterlife do with me as it will.
He lowered the sword to his side, and he and Kluge began to circle each other in the little square.
Kluge wasted no time, screaming as charged, cutting a wide, angled swath through the air, designed to take Tristan’s head from his shoulders. Rather than block the blow with his sword the prince rolled to one side and, coming back up along Kluge’s left arm, tried to slash a circle low to the ground to take off the warrior’s feet. But Kluge was too fast and jumped into the air, allowing the prince’s blade to cut harmlessly beneath him. The two combatants faced each other again, only several feet apart, their breathing coming more heavily now as they continued to take stock of each other.
Again Kluge came, this time his dreggan whistling through the air from straight overhead. The blade came down with such force that despite the fact that the prince blocked it with his sword, the blow literally took him off his feet, slamming him down viciously on his back in the dirt. Seizing the opportunity, Kluge quickly slashed the sword straight down again, but Tristan rolled to the side and out of the way. For a moment, he stumbled as he tried to get up. The mistake cost him a precious second, and Kluge’s sword came around again, the tip catching the prince in the upper right shoulder as it whistled violently through the air. The wound was short but deep, and blood began to pour out of it and down the length of the prince’s arm, making his grip on the dreggan more elusive.
He is just too strong, Tristan realized, the heat growing in the confining square, the sweat running maddeningly down into his eyes. I have never felt such power.
He lunged then at the monster before him, and the two of them crossed swords, their faces only inches apart. Tristan was straining with everything he had; but Kluge simply smiled, took one hand from the hilt of his sword, gripped the prince’s face, and threw him backward into the dirt.
This time Tristan was quicker, and thrust his dreggan straight ahead and upward, aiming for Kluge’s groin. Although Kluge was fast enough to dodge most of the blow, the dreggan went straight through his inner thigh and out the other side, blood spurting. Screaming more from rage than from pain, Kluge backed away, Tristan’s dreggan sliding from the wound, and began hacking maddeningly at the prince as he lay there in the dirt.
Get up! Tristan told himself. Get up or you will die in the dirt before this creature!
As the heavy blows rained down on him one after the other there was simply no chance to retaliate, and the best Tristan could do was to try to stand again. Finally, in between the insane, swinging strikes, he somehow once again found the earth beneath his feet and stood there, dazed and dizzy, blood flowing openly from his shoulder.
Kluge then unexpectedly backed away from the prince and reached for the returning wheel at his side. In a flash it was in the air and heading for Tristan’s throat. At the last moment Tristan twisted wildly to the side, but the wheel grazed the side of his right cheek, putting him badly off balance.
The point of Kluge’s dreggan came directly at the prince, only to suddenly stop a short distance from his throat. Stunned, the prince almost didn’t realize the danger as Kluge depressed the button on the hilt of his dreggan. Just as the last foot of sharpened steel launched itself forward, Tristan wheeled to one side, the tip of the dreggan slashing through the space where his face had just been.
I cannot defeat this man, he realized, his arms so heavy that he could hardly raise the sword in his own defense, much less mount an attack against the screaming, half-insane monster that wanted to take his life. For some reason his oxygen-deprived mind flew back to the day upon the dais, when he had used his dirks to kill several of the Minion attackers. At least I killed the one who murdered Frederick, he remembered. Frederick, my friend…
And then some long-forgotten memory of the past began to tug at his mind. Something about that day in the royal courtyard when he and Frederick had been fencing in front of the Royal Guard. The same day they had killed the screaming harpy. The same day his mother had given him the medallion he wore around his neck. What is it? he asked himself, trying desperately to dodge Kluge’s blows and raise his leaden arms to strike back. What is it my blood is trying to tell me?
And then he remembered. Frederick’s technique… the one he finally used to defeat me… The way he caught me off guard…
The last of his strength was almost gone. It is the only thing I have left, he realized. May the Afterlife grant me the strength for this last act.
Tristan backed away from Kluge as fast as he could, mournfully lowering his sword. As expected, the commander of the Minions of Day and Night rushed forward, but that tiny instant of time without being continuously attacked was what the prince was looking for. As Kluge dashed in and raised his sword, Tristan purposely left his dreggan pointed to the dirt as if accepting his impending death. Then, suddenly looking up and over Kluge’s shoulder, he dropped his jaw with a total look of surprise.
As Tristan had hoped, Kluge quickly turned to look over his shoulder, briefly turning his attention away from the prince to look for what was coming after him from behind. Exposing his neck.
With a great effort, Tristan swung his sword in a perfect, curving arc, cutting across the monster’s throat.
For a moment Kluge simply stood there, looking at him in amazement as if frozen in time. Then the ghastly line of red began to surface across his throat, and the blood stared to pour from it and down the front of his chest.
With a last measure of strength he didn’t know he had, Tristan raised his dreggan again and cut across the monster’s lower legs, slicing through them at the knees. Kluge collapsed to the ground on his back, one hand still holding his sword, the other reaching to his throat to try to stem the loss of blood.
Breathless, barely able to hold his dreggan, Tristan stumbled over to look down into the face that he hated so much. He had intended to strike fully across Kluge’s throat and behead him, but his swing had fallen short and instead cut shallowly across the windpipe and jugular vein, leaving the monster alive. Tristan looked down into the dark eyes of the murderer of his family, watching emotionlessly as the blood ran from the cut throat and into the thirsty dirt of the courtyard.
And then the commander of the Minions of Day and Night spoke. “Our struggle is not over, Chosen One,” he said, his voice gurgling. He coughed up blood. “Even in death it shall go on for me. There are still things you do not know, and even if you should somehow return to your homeland you will be a wanted man, hunted day and night because of me, your forever-damaged sister a mere shadow of her former self. No, Galland, your victory over me here today is far from complete.” Somehow, even now, Kluge managed a wicked grin of defiance. “Our battle goes on, even from my grave.”