He thought to take her alive then, perhaps for a fate like that promised Farne. Would his liegemen help to net her while she fought their lord?
“So this one does not run on all fours. What does such a devil know of skill with steel?”
“M’lord, watch yourself. These creatures deal in foul witchery—” That was the leader of the hunters. “They can make a man see what is not—”
Thra kept silent. If they believed her were they would indeed be wary of ensorcelment and in their wariness might lay some small chance for her. Not, she knew grimly, that she would be fortunate to live through this encounter, but it was far better to die on steel.
“Watch you well!” ordered the lord. “Since this one would use a blade so shall I. Mayhap I can thus prove that such are not to be so dreaded as foolish tales would have us believe.” He lunged at her with the confidence of one who has yet to meet his match.
Blade rang against blade. Thra saw a shift in those cold eyes. Had he truly thought to bring her down with that simple thrust? Was it ignorant self-confidence past belief, or knowledge that he had won many times before?
Her worn blade shivered with that contact and she feared meeting a second such blow would shatter that too-often honed length. That other sword from the armorie, how far away now did it lie? She thought of Grimclaw—could the cat drag it to her? The cat had claimed the weapon from the cupboard yet her own hand had burned when she reached for it. Could one depend upon anything dark with witchery?
Thra fought defensively and kept the tree ever at her back. The point of that other weapon seemed to flicker in her very eyes and there was a sharp pain along her cheek. Where was Farne? She was sure he had been there at the beginning of this duel yet it would seem that the men had not sighted him—No time for that now—this battle was her own.
She fixed the picture of the sword in her mind. If Grimclaw read her thoughts now would he answer her? Then there was a flash of thought which did not seem aimed at her but did come like a third dancing blade to join the battle. Sword—to take the sword—to choose—
It was not her desire, something more powerful even than fear had awakened in her. There was denial, and anger, and yes, a touch of terror. The ancient enemy—the sword—No, rend, tear, take payment for the wrong thus. Fang right, claw right—those were best—always best!
There was no animal cry but out of the bushes sprang a form which fastened upon one of the watching men. For only a second Thra spared a glance towards that struggle, heard sounds from others in the brush. Payment for that glance came with a blow upon her shoulder, which drove the mail painfully inward, bruising, though it did not cut the rings.
“Thus and thus—” He who fought sent the point again flickering into her face. She countered his stroke and her sword snapped, leaving but a jagged fragment in her hand. He laughed then and moved in for the kill.
“Thus!” he cried for the third time and that was a sentence of death, or so she hoped. Instead his blade cut painfully across her fingers so she dropped her hold on her broken weapon.
“What I promise I do. Do you take this one—” He turned his head a fraction to give that order.
Thra’s knife came up toward her own throat. She was ready to press the point home when pain shot through her head and she would have fallen had not the tree supported her.
No pain of body—no—a deeper, stronger pain, such as her kind had never been meant to bear. She heard a voice cry aloud in torment and despair against a fate which could not be denied—but the voice was not hers.
Nor did Thra appear to suffer alone. The lord who had bested her staggered, his sword fell from his hand as he put both to his head. His mouth twisted in a wordless scream.
From where the brush had been beaten down by Farne’s charge someone rose. He flung up his head, sending his hair back from his face, a face which wavered and changed even as they stared at him. Man not beast now, he leaped forward and in his hand was the other sword clear of its sheath, its blade giving off a reddish glow as if it were a shaft of Hell fire.
There were cries. Men ran but Thra did not try to move and her knife was still ready in her hand.
The lord half twisted to face the swordsman. He visibly drew a deep breath and stooped to seize again his own weapon as if he had already regained full control of body and mind. Of his followers only one flaccid body remained on the ground.
“Well met, ill met, kinsman!” Farne smiled slowly. He stood waiting attack even as she had earlier done.
There was a wild rage in the other’s eyes. Thra thought that for this lord of the hounds the whole world had suddenly narrowed to confrontation with this single man-beast.
The glow in Farne’s blade spread. His fingers, locked about the hilt, reddened, the flush wreathed about his wrist, reached up his arm. In Thra a fire seemed to burn. She caught her breath and choked down a cry of agony. If this was the cost of using the weapon to her who only stood aside, what must it be to Farne himself? For she was certain that what she felt was a reflection of that he had to bear now.
Instead he cried aloud on the edge of human rage yet still with an animal note. If the young lord thought that he faced easy meat he was made speedily aware of his mistake, for the fire blade kept play in a way which Thra, with all her knowledge of weapons, marveled to see.
Only for seconds she watched and then she remembered the others. What of the men who had gone with the hounds, the rest? No matter how skillful Farne might be he could not hope to stand against four or more of them. Dropping her sheared sword she leaped for the body in the brush.
Red ruin above a torn throat, she looked no higher. But she had her hands on a spear haft. Above the clash of weapons behind her she heard a stifled moan.
There was a second man in the bushes. He half-lay, face stark, a mangled arm across his breast, looking at her wild-eyed as she came to him, his good hand awkwardly fumbling with a short hunting sword. She took that from him easily, wrenching it free, for her own arming.
While he spat meaningless words at her she staggered back, still afire, straight into the path of another running to the fight.
“Die, devil!”
She was still not at ready and he was about to cut her down when he shrieked aloud and threw up his hands, the wounded man echoing his cry. This pain in her head—she could hardly see. However on hands and knees Thra scrambled away as a heavy body crashed down. To make certain of his helplessness she brought the heavy pommel of the sword on the nape of his neck as his helm loosened and rolled away.
For a moment she simply crouched, sobbing for breath, hardly daring to believe she yet lived. The pain was now no longer a torment; rather a steady fire which strengthened her in a way she could not understand.
Out of a tangle of tall grass came Grimclaw. As he passed the legs of the man before her a paw aimed a quick blow claws out. Thra used the spear to aid her to her feet where those other two still fought with skill and desperation. Thrusting the hunting sword close to hand in the ground she stood with the spear at ready, to hold the lists. Grimclaw stationed himself beside her.
Mastery of steel—Thra knew that she watched two evenly matched fighting men of top skill. And they could almost have been brothers from one birthing. That strange cast of Farne’s features had faded away. He was smiling slightly, yellow eyes alight—only the color of those differing from his enemy.
The blaze from his blade now formed a nebulous glow about his whole body through which the sword moved like a darting tongue. Were they so evenly matched that they might fight forever without giving way? Thra could detect no sign of fatigue, no lighting of the clang of weapons.
She had no more that thought then when the flame-wreathed blade appeared to turn of itself in Farne’s hand. The weapon might command the man not the man the weapon. There was a hard clang of sound and the lord’s sword spun out of his grip to strike against the trunk of the tree where Thra had sheltered. He stood bare handed, with no change of expression, as if he now waited stocially that thrust at throat or breast which would put an end to him.