Cantella circled faster, stepping closer now, leaving only four paces between them.
Aymeric shoved the scroll back inside his undershirt, not taking his gaze from his opponent for a moment. It was impossible to miss how lightly the stout man was able to hold the sword; he had the strength of a bull in those broad shoulders and would not tire quickly. Aymeric was already weakened by his still-unhealed wound. His only advantage, if he had one, would be speed of foot. He wasn’t about to make the first blow. They circled each other again, each gauging the other.
Cantella took another step closer, only three paces between them, almost within reach of a thrust. “I tire of this dance, boy. Are we men or whores dancing all pretty? Come, let us get this over with, for I am already late for my lunch.”
Aymeric didn’t waste energy on words. He kept circling, maintaining the distance between them.
“Talk is for the pillow, not battle,” his Master at Arms had said, an adage that had happily beaten into Aymeric with the flat of his blade in the practice yard.
He didn’t intend to take an easy beating here.
But Cantella didn’t have the patience to make another circuit of the room. He stepped forward, raising his sword, two-handed, high above his head, and lunged with sudden fury into the attack. Aymeric barely managed to get his guard up and block the savage blow, the force behind it shuddering through his arms. He felt the hilt twist, trying to escape his grasp, and clung onto it.
Battle was joined.
◆◆◆
The clash of blades echoed and rang, loud in the confines of the great library. It took no more than four blows for Aymeric to know Cantella was the better swordsman. It quickly became less of a battle and more of a desperate struggle for survival as the Inquisitor’s Man pressed hard at Aymeric’s defences, testing them with his brutality. Cantella’s muscles corded, sweat glistening on his skin as he launched another attack that saw his blade scythe through the air where Aymeric’s head had been a heartbeat before. And again. And again. In less than two minutes of battle joined, the only thing keeping Aymeric alive was his footwork; his ability to keep moving just far enough to lean and sway away from Cantella’s savage strength, and when he had no choice, taking the full impact on his inherited blade. Each blow hammered through him, taking their toll.
Cantella smiled widely, enjoying himself. “You move well, and you’re quick, but a swordsman needs strength. You would be better served as a dancer. It’s disappointing. I had hoped you’d put up more of a fight.”
He stepped into another attack, his blade flashing faster than before, a combination of three sharp blows forcing Aymeric onto the back foot as he tried desperately to keep Cantella at bay. He couldn’t last. Not like this. He needed something to change, trying to recall what he’d seen of the layout of the place as he’d entered the library. There had to be something he could use to his advantage. Dying here, at this man’s hand, would be the bitterest failure.
Aymeric blocked and parried four more cuts, each one beating him into a retreat that continued all the way across the floor of the library. He was being driven toward a corner. If he allowed himself to get trapped he’d be cut down in seconds.
He was tiring.
It would be so easy to just cast aside his sword and let the inevitable end come with a single brutal cut, but he wasn’t ready to die yet.
Aymeric dredged some last strength from his bones and took the fight back to Cantella, raining down a series of high two-handed overhead blows that, for a fleeting moment, caught the Inquisitor’s man off guard, but there was no way Aymeric could keep the onslaught up.
Cantella’s defence held.
And then the balance shifted again, and Aymeric was driven back by a single savage swing that would have cleaved him in two if the metal had bitten.
He took the only option open to him, dropping his guard for a heartbeat as he moved to one side, retreating towards the stairway that led up to the balcony; Cantella’s wide-swinging attack would be hampered on the steps. It wasn’t much, but it was the only thing he could think of. Every muscle burned. His breathing came in ragged gasps. Facing him, Cantella suffered no such weakness. The man was a mountain. Mountains did not fall to men like him.
Aymeric took a deep cut to his left biceps, but was able to turn, with his back to the stairs, and hold his position.
Hot blood ran down his arm.
A second cut opened a line across the back of his hand.
He was slowing.
“This is almost over, boy,” Cantella goaded, aiming a blow at Aymeric’s head that he barely managed to turn aside, his wounded hand screaming through his nerves. “If you have a prayer to say, best say it now.”
Aymeric backed away, he heels coming up against the first step, and continued up the steps, trying to buy time to catch his breath, but he was tiring fast now. Every blow sapped more of his precious strength. There was an inevitability about it. He stared into the face of death and it wore that malicious grin that had haunted him ever since he’d first seen it.
He stopped on the upper landing.
He had nowhere to go except along the balcony itself.
Cantella came on remorselessly.
◆◆◆
Aymeric could barely lift his sword.
He retreated along the gallery, pulling down books and tapestries with his blooded hand, doing everything he could to throw obstacles into Cantella’s path that did nothing to stop the Inquisitor’s man’s relentless attack.
There was no escape; he didn’t have the energy left in him to leap over the balcony, and the fall, onto stone floor, would likely break his back. So the choice was death on one side or death on another. Did it really matter which he chose?
The wound in his flank had opened again; he felt warmth flow inside his shirt. Blood dripped heavily from the deep cut in his left arm.
Cantella saw all of this, and came on, pressing another attack that pushed Aymeric all the way down the balcony until there was nowhere left to go. He backed up hard against the tall stack of shelves.
“All mocking aside, boy, you had the makings of a decent swordsman,” Cantella said. “Shame that you will not live to fulfil that potential.”
Aymeric had one last ploy to risk before he met his maker, the same risky trick he had last pulled the night the Chapterhouse was raided. He feigned weakness, dropping to one knee while allowing his grip to loosen around the hilt of his grandfather’s blade, hoping that Cantella would come in for the kill, opening himself up to disembowelling killing thrust.
Cantella wasn’t fooled.
He stepped backward rather than forward, and swept Aymeric’s blade aside. The blade clattered out of his hand, spinning away over the side of the balcony to fall to the stones so far below. Cantella brought his sword back in a cut rather than a thrust, the steel biting deep in Aymeric’s side, driving the rings of the mail shirt into his flesh.
Aymeric fell, toppled by weakness and the weight of his mail.
It was done.
Cantella leaned over him and pulled the Chinon scroll from inside his clothing.
The Inquisitor’s man took the scroll from its pouch and ripped it into pieces that he scattered over the balcony.
“You should have taken the offer, lad,” Cantella said, and plunged his sword into Aymeric’s belly, cutting though mail and flesh equally easily.
Aymeric Moro de Bologna heard the tip of the weapon thud as it emerged through his back, hitting the wood of the floor, and felt the cold steel inside him, then warmth of life leave him as Domic Cantella pulled out the blade.
He tried to rise, but only managed to roll over, looking down into the library as Cantella walked through the fabled hall of learning, and out the door.
Aymeric’s lifeblood dripped away down off the balcony.
He watched it go, falling to mingle with the scraps of the Chinon pardon, life and hope scattered on the cold floor in the red rain.
I will not die here… he though
t, pitifully. I refuse to…
The stories of Samira and Aymeric
CONTINUE IN
BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS
Thank you for reading DAGGER OF THE MARTYRS. If you enjoyed this, please think about visiting the review site of your choice and leaving a few kind words. Books like ours live and die based on word of mouth.
Steven Savile has written for Doctor Who, Torchwood, Primeval, Stargate, Warhammer, and other popular game and comic worlds. His novels have been published in eight languages to date and have sold over half a million copies worldwide, including the international bestseller SILVER and the fantasies GLASS TOWN and COLDFALL WOOD. He has won multiple awards for both original and tie-in fiction.
William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than thirty novels published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries. He has books available from a variety of publishers including Dark Regions Press, Crossroad Press and Severed Press, and his work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines. He lives in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company. When he's not writing he drinks beer, plays guitar, and dreams of fortune and glory.
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