The shete hit hard, but once a blow was parried or missed its weight pinned the wielder's arm for an instant, and there was enough time for an agile man to get inside with shorter weapons. The Western longsword in Ritva's hand moved like light on sparkling water; it could drive at him like a spear, and cut anywhere along either side as quick as the flick of a beetle's wings.
Now he would fight to kill, for survival's sake.
"Lacho Calad!" she shrieked, and attacked. "Drego Morn!"
"Akela!" he shouted back, grinning.
Ting! The sword skidded off the blade of the bowie, and she jerked her torso back just enough that the tip of the knife scored the green leather over her mail-vest. Tack, and the return cut at the side of his leg was caught by the tough rawhide-bound ashwood shaft of the tomahawk; he tried to twist the sword out of her hand by turning the notched blade of the hand-ax against it. She leapt backwards, launching a frantic stop-thrust as her foot came down on a root…
In the end it came down to who slipped first. He skipped aside from a rush as she came in foot and hand behind the point of her sword, and the narrow head of the tomahawk came down on her left shoulder. It didn't cut through the light mail, or break the bone beneath-not quite. She gave a hiss as cold fire washed through that side of her body and the buckler slipped out of her fingers. Pivot, lunge -
Wet leaves skidded out from beneath one of the Scout's moccasins. He still fell backwards, but the point drove into his shoulder until it scored bone; she could feel the ugly jarring sensation up the blade and through the hilt. The fine steel bent and then came free again as she recovered. He threw the tomahawk, and won a few seconds when the top punched her ribs and she grunted with the impact. Then she lunged again, and the point sank four inches into his thigh.
That was enough. She recovered and retreated, right foot shuffling back to left and left moving back in turn, her mouth open as she brought her breathing back under control. Suddenly she was stiff and her legs wobbled, and she leaned forward a little to take the air in; her sight dimmed for an instant as the diamond clarity of life or death passed. Her enemy had a hand clamped to the leg wound, but blood welled around it, and the shoulder was bleeding too, and that arm was useless for now.
I'm not getting near him, he's too dangerous, she thought; her own left arm was still weak, and the shoulder was starting to really hurt where the ax had smashed flesh against bone. I'll wait until he bleeds out some more and weakens, then finish him.
The man saw it in her eyes, and nodded respect. Ritva raised her sword in salute.
"You fought well," she said, and in English. "Speak no ill of me to the Guardians; I'll make it quick."
He grinned, showing his strong yellow teeth; the face beneath the braids was turning a little gray.
"You let me live, I tell you about your sister," he said. "I give my word-honor of a Scout-I will not fight you or your people again. I go to place deep in woods, heal up."
Painfully, he brought three fingers to his brow in some sort of ritual gesture. She looked into the pain-glazed eyes and nodded.
"You're the one who's been dogging our tracks?" she said.
"You're good tracker, but I'm better!" he said, proudly boastful even then. "A Scout of thirty badges! I track you for the Prophet's men, with a priest."
"A priest?" she said.
"War-priest out of Corwin. High Seeker, they say." He spat aside. "Warlock, evil. We split up this morning when you two do-capture one, make her talk, he says. We know you all stop, make camp, hunt for food."
"Are the Cutters behind us?"
"Many days. Lost their horses, had to find more, not too many and not too good, pushed 'em too hard. Not used to nursing bad horses. We leave sign for them to follow. Go to your sister. Go now."
Ritva gave one crisp nod, toed the bowie knife over to where the man lay-he could cut bandages with that, enough to staunch the bleeding so he could get to wherever his gear was stowed-and ran.
Closer, she slowed, ghosting from tree to tree. If Mary was still up the tree watching, she'd…
Then she heard the scream. It came from the right place, and she slowed still further. Her left arm was still weak, too weak to use her bow.
Move swiftly, but don't dart; it draws the eye.
The rain had tapered off to a falling mist, but that cut visibility, too. A snort from a horse as it caught her familiar scent; their dappled Arabs were tied up to a line strung between two trees, but there was a third there-a strong nondescript brown beast, looking worn down as if by long hard riding. She ghosted closer…
Mary screamed again; she was up against the hundred-foot pine she'd been using as a blind, and a man in a robe the color of dried blood was holding her by the throat. Holding her off the ground, and squeezing, and her face was a mass of blood. The Dunedain longsword lay on the ground nearby, and a shete; they were both red, the sticky liquid turning thin and dripping away as rain washed the steel.
"Look… at… me," the man-the priest-in the robe said. "I-see-you."
His other arm ended short of a hand, and it had a rawhide tourniquet bound around it; even then Ritva found a fractional instant to be astonished. An injury like that would leave a man flat on his back with shock for days, at a minimum! And the hand was lying not far off.
"Look… at… me," he said again. "Tell… me…"
The words sounded dark. Not just deep or gravelly; as if they had more weight than words could bear, as if they were suffused somehow, like a man's face when he strained at a heavy load, like a weight that dimpled the surface of the world as a heavy footstep would a sheet of taut canvas. Suddenly the cold wet sapped at Ritva's strength with a feeling of dreary hopelessness. A wrongness that only flight could cure, enough space between her and this thing that she wouldn't have to think about it anymore. She couldn't walk towards that.
Instead she ran to him. "Try looking at me! " she screamed, gathering her will.
The sword flashed down as he turned and released her sister; he batted at the gray-silver streak with his injured arm, but the blade raked across his chest. The wound wasn't instantly deadly, but she could see the skin split and blood well out… and then stop.
And he smiled. He smiled at her.
"I-see-you," he said.
Lord of Blades, be with me! she thought desperately; and the fear blew out of her. Maiden of the sword, aid me!
She set both hands on the hilt of her longsword as he came towards her.
He's like the guy Rudi fought. He doesn't feel pain, her mind thought dispassionately. Or shock. And so he won't faint or go wobbly. Maybe he won't die right away if I stick him through the heart. No point in thrusting. And if he can get that hand on me, I'm dead. Damn slippery wet ground! But he's got to reach for me first.
He did, moving in a jerky series of motions, as if he were being operated by a puppeteer, and not a very skilled one. But the grab nearly caught her arm; he was fast.
Ritva whirled away, and she cut. The tip of his thumb caught against the point of her sword. The man looked down at it, flexing the rest of the hand, then bringing it to his mouth to bite off the mangled bit and swallow it. Then he grinned at her as red ran down his lips, mixing with the rainwater.
"Clever," he said. "You-are-too-clerver. All-of-you."
"Thiach uanui a naneth lin le hamma," she spat, and began a lunge. "You're ugly and your momma dresses you funny."
It was a feint, and the man betrayed himself with a snatch at her sword wrist, ignoring the glittering menace of the point. She cut backhanded…
It became like a fight in a nightmare; cut and back, cut and back, against a figure that would not fall, no matter what she did, that stumbled after her even when she landed a drawing slash on the belly. Once three fingers closed on her left wrist, and the shocking strength in them made the bones creak. She leapt up and drove both her feet against the man's chest and heard bone snap as she tore free and rolled away in three full back summersaults. He was there, raising a foot to stamp the life out of her; she cut at his leg, kicked again and again to pull herself free.