by RW Krpoun
“The last of our age block,” he nodded. “Going out to fight Dusmen. This is a great day.”
“Our day.”
Walking out into the open sunlight was like the walk into the pit, only it was grass and not sand beneath our feet, grass cropped short by the oxen.
The camp stirred even before we cleared the trees; they were more alert than they had appeared. The Ukar were hurrying to the west side of the camp, catching up weapons and helms as they moved, but even as they reached the edge of the foot-worn bare ground of the campsite they were halted in their tracks by a command.
Two armored figures came from behind them, shouldering through the Ukar to get a clear view. Both were clad in bright mesh mail with plate armor, normally called cuisse, on their thighs, and knee-high boots covered with steel rings. They carried rectangular shields without any curve, and odd swords with broad blades which did not narrow, but instead came to a sharpened convex curve instead of a point. Both wore great helms topped with a metal crest shaped like a flame.
They watched, motionless, as Burk and I advanced halfway to the camp, angling so we were thirty feet apart when we stopped. We each pointed to a Dusmen and thumped out chests, a single clenched right fist against the left pectoral.
The vassals had joined the gathering on the west side of the camp, thin Men in oddly-cut robes of colorful cloth trimmed with fur and hung with strings of beads, and now a couple were speaking agitatedly until Burk’s opponent turned his head slightly and spoke briefly, whereupon they kept quiet.
We stood looking at each other across the trampled grass for a long minute, Burk in his Red Guard stance, me standing easy with my thumbs hooked in my belt, and the two Dusman motionless. I wasn’t worried, or excited, or anything, really, because this was my place and I knew it well: the place to stand and give battle. This was the pit, and only one leaves the pit alive, that is the rule.
Then the Dusmen moved; they were far enough away that they could have been speaking to each other, keeping their voices low, but I neither knew nor cared if they had been. Each headed for its opposite number, and mine reached up and unfastened its helm, casting it aside as it approached. The Dusman’s face was Man-like, but the skin was pale, bloodless, with a hint of gray around the eyes, the sharp bone of the skull drawing the skin tight, and eyes that were just blood-filled orbs. Its hair was reddish and pulled back into a queue, and it had no more expression than the helm it had tossed aside.
As it closed I drew Fallsblade and spun the weapon through the basic manual of arms; both Burk and I had limbered up before stepping out of concealment.
“Grog, of the Ebon Blade, a barracks of the old school,” I advised the Dusman as it closed. “One of Master Horne’s finest. He wouldn’t be impressed by you, and neither am I.”
I stood at low guard, Fallsblade’s pommel close to my belt buckle and its point inches from the dirt. The Dusman strode up with its sword held loosely in its right hand and its shield at its side. I wasn’t watching those bloody orbs, though: my eyes were on its belly, and while the armor masked any tell-take tensing of muscles, I saw the beginning of a pivot of the right leg and moved even as the Dusman brought up its shield to a full block and thrust overhand to put the curved end of its wide sword into my eyes.
The sword’s edge glanced off the curved left edge of my kettle hat as I stepped to my right and spun Fallsblade up into a full-armed chop that took off the upper left-hand corner of the un-rimmed shield six inches from the corner. Continuing to my right I hit the shield twice more as the Dusman came around; wearing all that armor it was slower than I was, and the fact I was deliberately attacking its shield appeared to have caught it off-guard.
It swung hard from middle-outside, and despite my side-step it knocked a crease into the side of my breastplate, raising a nasty bruise beneath the impact as Fallsblade split its battered shield from the top nearly to its arm. Twisting my sword, I levered it free with an effort that might have warped my lost dopplehander, and stepped back.
The Dusman shook the ruined shield from its arm and drew a long-bladed dirk from its belt as it followed, as expressionless as ever. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Burk and his Dusman going at it like blacksmiths; the only details I caught were that there was blood on both the wide sword blade and Burk’s spiked ball at the end of its chain, red on the former, gray liquid on the latter.
Then I was moving into a hard thrust from the middle inside, and the Dusman parried with his dirk as he swung overhand, looking to split my kettle hat and skull.
As Fallsblade met the dirk’s parry I stepped left and forward, a hard move to execute, as I rotated the hilt and turned a thrust into a sliding cut. It is a tricky move, but a dozen or so matches after I had reached High Rate I was slated to face a High Rate who fought with twin dirks, so Master Horne had had me practicing the move for a week. Less than a month later both the dirk-fighter and I had walked into the pit, but only I walked out.
Fallsblade slid down the dirk’s edge; the Dusman shifted his wrist to bring up the cross guard, but the guard was brass, and when Fallsblade hit it sheared through the thick yellow bar and then through the thumb braced against it. I had just hoped to weaken the crossguard, but once again Fallsblade surprised me.
Even as Fallsblade was reaching the digit, the Dusman’s thick blade caught me on the side of my helm; he was quick to have adjusted to my move, especially given how heavy his blade must be. The impact didn’t hurt much, but the thick edge with its chisel-edge grind screeched for an inch or so, and then caught, shearing through the dome and into the broad rim.
As the impact warped the hat and the chin strap started to twist against my jaw I ducked and lurched back, yanking at the strap. The sundered kettle hat was yanked from my head before the chin strap could dislocate my jaw,
I got Fallsblade up into a high outside right guard as the Dusman shook the ruined kettle hat from his blade and came for me, discarding his dirk as he did so. If the Dusman was bothered by the loss of his thumb, his face didn’t show it: it was in the same thin-lipped look of concentration it had been at the start of the fight.
It spun its thick blade through a series of cuts that forced me back a dozen feet and opened cuts on my left arm and thigh. I was willing to give ground and try to keep the blade off me while I tried to get a better feel for my foe; discarding its helm was an invitation to split its skull, but I didn’t trust that sort of an invitation.
It might be passionless and fiercely skilled, but the Dusman was still flesh and bone: as its strokes started to flag I went on the offensive again, driving it back as I tried to get a stroke through its guard. The width of the blade made it very effective at parrying, and in a distant part of my brain I marveled at the Dusman’s strength: his weapon had to weigh twice as much as Fallsblade.
A Dusman’s blood was dirty gray and thicker than mine, I noted as I got a swing into its side. I drove him back a couple steps, and then stopped, switching to the point and going for his left side. That almost cost me my life, because the Dusman parried with its left arm and counter-thrust at my head, the chisel-ground edge catching my chin and plowing back to the hinge of my jaw. Blood streamed down my neck and soaked into the neckcloth that protected my hide from being rubbed raw by the steel collar of my breastplate.
Bulling forward as I drew Fallsblade’s hilt back until the upper cross guard was just below my right armpit, I blocked the Dusman’s blade with my left lower bicep (gaining a cut in the process) as I grabbed my blade with my left hand just ahead of midway down the blade. My thick fighting glove protected my left palm as I rotated the hilt out and up, and then drove down as my choked (left) grip on the blade slotted the point neatly into a mesh-opening on the Dusman’s upper left chest.
This entire counter took no more than a heartbeat, and for another I was inside the Dusman’s reach, ignoring a brutal clout from its injured left arm as I drove Fallsblade’s point down. The Dusman hit me on the left side of the head with his pommel, knocking m
e back, and I immediately released my choke on the blade and swung two-handed, noting the blood spilling from the new rent in the Dusman’s armor.
It parried with its left arm, but my stroke split its forearm; the edge of its sword screeched across the curve of my breastplate’s belly, grooving the steel. Only my footwork had stopped it from opening me up like a goose ready for roasting, but fights are won on small things.
We parted for a second, both gasping for breath as blood flowed and our bodies warned of injuries and infirmities. A flicker behind the Dusman was the sort of flash that Provine Sael had made in the Brocks so many weeks ago, meaning that there was fighting in the camp itself, but that wasn’t my concern here; my world was reduced to the sole purpose of killing this Dusman.
Moving in with a feinting thrust towards its face, I shifted left, trying to stay on its bad side; we circled nearly completely around, the Dusman trying to get a solid hack into my lower belly or thighs, while I tried for its eyes. By the time the circle was complete I had split the bridge of its nose horizontally and given it a cut that had its lower lip hanging by a thread, while it had dented my already-battered breastplate and covered my torso with bruises. Its ripped face showed no more expression than a snake’s, and it had yet to make a sound.
The damned thing handled that sword like a blade half its size, and it read feints faster than any other foe I had faced, but I was a High Rate of the Ebon Blades, and the Dusman had to die, regardless of the cost. When the Dusman made another thrust at my face, I dropped to my knees and swung from an outside guard with everything I had left; it was a highly risky move, but my blade hit just below the Dusman’s left cuisse, or thigh plate, sheared through the ring mail and leather, then cut through flesh, bone, and the ring mail and leather on the other side, severing the Dusman’s left leg.
Chapter Twelve
As the Dusman fell, it jammed the stump into the ground to slow the blood and lashed out with its sword, game to the bitter end; for the first time since I laid eyes on the armored beast I felt a touch of respect: it knew how to die. I caught the swing on Fallsblade as I rolled back and to my feet, every wound and bruise shouting its own name, and then sidestepped and thrust, putting Fallsblade’s point through the Dusman’s left ear.
Staggering back from the spasming corpse, I saw Burk’s star come down in an overhand swing that split the weapon’s oak handle and snapped at least two links of the chain as the spiked steel ball caved in the Dusman’s great helm and the skull within. Burk staggered two steps from the effort of the blow, his shield hacked to near-uselessness, and blood leaking through rents in his scale shirt.
Trying to master my breathing, I turned and started towards the camp, knowing there was no time to lose; Burk tossed aside the remnants of his star and drew his short sword as he followed.
To say I was hurting was an understatement; I had been hurt worse, of course, the three brutes at the Emperor’s tomb, for example, but seldom had I ever been so beaten down in single combat, and never since I made High Rate. I had nearly lost my left arm when I was a Middle Rate, but that had been a long time ago.
There was fighting going on the camp, but a bull Ukar separating from the action to trot towards me and Burk held my focus. I was getting light-headed from blood-loss, so I slowed a touch so that Burk could catch up, and to give me precious extra seconds to pull in air to feed my burning muscles.
The Ukar was big, but not quite as big as the one I had killed in the Fist, with three clusters of skulls hung from its battle harness and a helm layered with small bones strung on gold wire. Its shield had one of Hatcher’s axes stuck into it, and the sight of that graceful weapon made my heart lurch a bit, but I rode it down and focused on the job at hand, which was to kill this beast, and perhaps others.
As it drew close I stopped, Fallsblade in a low inside guard, Burk circling to my left. As the trophies showed, this bull was no novice; it knew that the only way to beat multiple opponents was to takes them singly. It focused on me, probably because I was not moving, coming in fast and strong, its crude cleaver-sword high and outside.
Ukar think with the edge, probably because they are born with natural weaponry that is swung, but that is no excuse. Master Horne frequently noted that I am stupid, but he also said that even the stupid can learn, given enough time. That is wisdom.
As the Ukar closed I brought up Fallsblade, rotating my wrists so the edges went from vertical to horizonal, thrusting the point into the Ukar’s shield in the upper left quarter, leaning my weight and height into the thrust, driving the shield into the bull’s chest and fouling its clumsy cross-body swing.
It immediately threw its weight into the shield as it shoved to the side, trapping Fallsblade and forcing it down, which was a good move had I stabbed his shield by accident or poor choice, but it hadn’t been either; I let go and backpedaled as I pulled the axe from my belt, leaving the Ukar with four pounds of steel dragging down its shield and its attention drawn too far in my direction. The bull realized its mistake even as I let go, and thrust its arm to the side to shed the burden as it turned, but Fallsblade’s weight made discarding the shield awkward, and before it completed its effort Burk’s short sword caught it on the right elbow, severing tendons, ligaments, and muscle.
The Ukar’s blade dropped from fingers twitching and grabbing, all control lost, and then we were both on the beast, cutting it down.
Burk headed into the camp while I paused to discard my axe and plant a foot on the shield in order to free Fallsblade. The effort made the world swim a little, and I dug a bandage from my pouch with my left hand and jammed it against the cut on my jaw, wax paper wrapper and all, as I moved. I was losing too much blood, but there was no time for niceties; this fight was not yet won.
As I reached the edge of the camp a man staggered towards me from my right, a tall man wearing robes, his left hand clutching the growing stain where the head of an arrow protruded from his chest and clothing. His eyes were wide, his face stamped with terror, and his steps were stiff and unsteady, his right arm thrust out to the side for balance. I wasn’t sure if he really saw me, or was lost in the horrors of the moment, but it didn’t matter either way. I lifted his head from his shoulders with an economic swing and pressed forward, the sodden bandage falling from my face.
Bodies in robes and the simple tunics and trousers of slaves littered the ground; Burk was stabbing a hamstrung Ukar to death, and Hatcher was darting around another bull, her bloody knives in hand. She was trying to keep the beast off of a bloodied Torl, who had fallen or been knocked into the side of a tent and was trying to escape the tangle of canvas and rope. I limped in their direction, noting that the Ukar had its left arm crippled by a nasty gash, and that the right half of its face was charred black, the eye on that side just a weeping hole. It was still in the fight despite its wounds, and Hatcher was completely on the defensive.
The Ukar saw me coming and took a stance, blade held raised. Hatcher said my name, but I paid her no mind; only one leaves the pit, that was the rule. I had Fallsblade at a middle guard, too tired to bother with any fancy movements; there was blood in my right boot and that leg was starting to feel a bit numb, and I knew I did not have long: the Dusman had done more than I realized. In a fight the blood-fire often makes it hard to tell how badly you are hurt.
The Ukar suddenly lunged, surprising me: had I been in its position I would have waited, but the Ukar are not much more than beasts. I flicked Fallsblade’s point up and forward, punching through the empty right eye socket and into the brain pan, the action not much more than reflex. Sixty times in the pit, sixty times I walked off the sand; the clumsy actions of an animal could not triumph over that.
I let go of Fallsblade’s hilt as the bull fell; the crowd liked to see a weapon embedded like that, and the only time to concern yourself with the crowd, Master Horne had always said, was after you had won the fight. Fallsblade standing proud and tall from the downed Ukar’s skull ought to make good telling around the al
e houses tonight, and the betting would be brisk at my next match. Master Horne would be pleased. There would be beefsteak for supper, seared on the outside and red and weeping on the inside, with spices and a pat of the seasoned green butter I loved, a big prime cut. Perhaps fried potatoes, peppered and drenched in butter on the side.
I became aware that a Nisker was jerking on my sheathed dirk, a pit-handler perhaps, although you didn’t see many of the small folk at the pits. I wondered why as I let her lead me to a chair, and sat; she climbed onto the chair’s arm and started bandaging my face, and it occurred to me that this was Hatcher, her name was Hatcher.
Since the match was over, I relaxed and let my eyes close.
Pain brought me back around, how much later I couldn’t be sure, but it felt like someone had packed my body with coals. Spitting a mouthful of black blood clots onto the ground, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, which brought a savage stab of pain, and peered blearily around.
“Well, you’re alive,” Hunter observed from where he was sitting on another chair a few feet away looking at a folio. “You looked like a walking corpse when you finished your fight with the Dusman.” The ‘slinger was unmarked, I noticed.
“How long?” I managed; the wound on my face was heavily bandaged, and I could hardly speak.
“Since the fight ended? Not long. You took a good clout on the head, by the way, so if things seem a bit distant, that’s the reason.”
“Blood?”
“Hmmmm? No, it’s not blood loss, your skull was cracked, the bone itself. Provine Sael already mended it. She mentioned you would have died in a matter of hours had it not been repaired. Something about blood vessels, but I wasn’t really listening. I’m to make sure to turn you on your side if you start vomiting.”
“Huh.” I tried to think, which wasn’t easy. “Everyone?”
“All alive,” he turned a page. “Torl’s luck remains sour: once again, Provine Sael ran out of the use of her Arts before she got to him. He’ll most likely have to heal naturally, although all he has is some cracked ribs. Provine Sael is unharmed, and Hatcher is no more than scuffed and a bit bruised. Burk is a bit more cut up than you were, but nothing that can’t be fixed.”
