I grinned. “You know me so well.”
“And if you won’t back down, then we’re all going in there with you.” Neville grabbed his rapier, examined the narrow blade, and set his eyes on me. “The Poison rune needs repairing.”
“Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to fix it up.” I’d used the other squire’s weapon on Tachion where I witnessed firsthand the power of its rune effect. Unfortunately, I had returned the item to Neville without repairing the rune. “I doubt we’ll be activating our runes today. This will probably be a friendly match between crew members. I suspect we’ll be unarmed.”
“You squires scared you’re gonna get hurt?” Olav’s voice filtered in from the battle room. “I know you’re hiding out there. Come on in, so we can kick your asses already. I have beer to drink.”
“They’re saying their prayers,” Leith yelled. “Asking the gods for forgiveness before we send them into the underworld.”
The two knights burst into laughter, and the sound echoed into the passageway. Neville exhaled loudly, and the twins shared anxious glances.
I wondered whether we should all leave now rather than risk serious injury. I didn’t desire a long wait for the regeneration chamber with an array of crippling wounds, nor did I want my friends to get beaten up on my behalf.
But these knights thought I was a traitor. I didn’t want to add coward to their list of grievances against me. So I pushed past the squires and marched into the battle room.
On the deck was a circle, ten meters in diameter, glowing a neon green. The unbroken line of lights indicated the legal area for a sparring match. Projectors were bolted to the corners of the room, and I’d used the devices a few times to summon intangible practice enemies.
The enemies today wouldn’t be practice holos, but two Space Knights.
My breath caught in my throat when I saw Olav and Leith. The berserker had traded his customary twin hatchets for a two-handed battle-axe, and he was swinging the weapon to and fro, displaying the powerful musculature in his arms and shoulders. Leith squatted in the center of the square-shaped room while he spun twin dirks between his fingers. Each blade burst with crimson light as the slayer triggered the magical sigils.
The knights weren’t equipped with the power armor I’d seen them wear on Tachion, but sleek light suits. The armored plates gleamed silver, and the connecting joints shone a royal blue. They were expensive pieces of equipment, and I wondered what else lay within the mysterious histories of the Stalwart’s knights. I had chided Elle for looking into it, so I forced myself not to even consider the situation.
Besides, knowing about the pasts of these two men wouldn’t help me in a sparring match. They fixed their eyes on me as though I was some kind of prey animal on which they were about to feast. I wished I was wearing my old Novice leg armor and boots, not these new ones I’d just bought from Elle. The new boots didn’t have the Speed rune so I wouldn’t be able to activate my sequence for a burst of quickness. The new leg armor was inscribed with an advanced Agility rune, but it wasn’t enough to perform my customary maneuvers.
They would have to do.
“Your friends desert you, did they?” Leith said as he juggled his dirks. The lights in the overhead caught the blade and flared.
“We’re here,” Neville said as he stepped into the battle room. Richard and Nathan followed hesitantly, and they both held their shields up as though the knights might attack them at a moment’s notice.
“We’ve fought knights before,” I hissed at the twins. “You don’t need to be so afraid of these two.”
“Yes, you do,” Olav said with a maniacal grin.
“Fear is the beginning of wisdom.” Leith flicked his dagger toward us, and the glowing blade shot through the gap between the twins before burying into a bulkhead with a thunk. “Or so I’m told,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve actually never been afraid before.”
I could almost feel the trepidation emanating from the twins. Neville seemed confident, and I was struck by how much he’d changed since I’d first met him.
“Shall we get started?” Leith asked after turning to Olav. “This shouldn’t take very long.”
“You’ve set this up to teach me a lesson, right?” I asked. “I made a mistake. I honestly thought Duke Barnes was--”
“Did you come here to spar, or to blabber?” Olav barked as he spun the massive axe in his hands. “Because I have a keg of beer waiting for me in the galley.”
“How about we make this interesting, Olav?” Leith winked at the berserker.
“What do you have in mind, friend?”
“We can fight these whelps unarmed.”
I shared a surprised look with the squires, and I wondered whether we might actually stand a chance now.
“Sounds like fun.” Olav gave me a wicked grin and laid his axe on a rack. “We won’t need to use our weapons. We’ll beat these squires barehanded.”
“We can’t use our weapons while you are unarmed,” I stated. Even though I thought we might win if the knights were without weapons, it didn’t seem like a fair fight. “You both will get hurt, and I don’t want to be responsible for hurting officers.”
“Will you shut the hell up and fight?” the berserker growled. “You whine more than a dog without his favorite bone.”
Leith cackled like a madman. “We’ll even let you activate the runes on your gear.”
Olav entwined his gauntleted fingers and pulled them back until they cracked. Then he did the same to his neck and arms.
“I’m ready.” Olav reached for a water drum, raised it to his lips, and then scowled immediately. “Shit. I’m out of beer.”
Leith nodded at Olav’s side, and the berserker glanced at a smaller drum attached to his belt.
“Good catch!” He grinned as he drained its contents in three long gulps. “Ah!”
Neither knight seemed the least bit concerned about fighting unarmed, so I guessed they were going to pulverize us. I half-expected my friends to back down. Instead, they shot me reassuring nods.
Leith glanced up at the overhead. “System, begin sparring simulation RE451.”
“RE451 commencing in 60 seconds,” an electronic voice announced.
Olav and Leith exchanged devious smiles, and I wondered exactly how much damage they could get away with.
I took measured breaths to calm myself as I removed the poleaxe from my magnetons and rested it against a bulkhead. The weapon was useless to me since I hadn’t repaired the Overlord’s Heart’s rune yet, but my longsword and lightning hammer could be used without it.
When I stepped into the ring with the squires, we each planted our right feet on the glowing outer edge in preparation for the match. There were no places for cover, only a ten-meter distance between the four of us and the knights.
“We can do this,” I reassured the squires. “We defeated those knights on Tachion.”
“Those guys weren’t Leith and Olav,” Nathan said, his voice quavering a little.
He was right, but I couldn’t let my doubts show.
“Visors on,” I said with forced confidence.
My visor slid over my face, and I activated my Runetech equipment. I drew my longsword from over my shoulder, and the weapon rippled waves of azure light as my palm rune connected with the sigils on the hilt.
“I’m going to throw a forcewave at them,” I whispered to the squires. “They may not expect it. Even if they do, you’re all going to harry them with your blades as soon as my forcewave releases. We only need to push them outside of the ring, and we win.”
The other three squires looked at me like I’d grown a dick on my head.
“I’m sure the knights won’t be predicting such an attack,” Neville said sarcastically. “Although I don’t have any other ideas, so I say we give it a try.”
I glanced at Olav, and he smiled at me like he was seconds away from getting a kill.
“Dr. Lenkov will need to put you knights on the top of the list for the regeneration chamber,�
�� Richard mocked. Unlike his twin brother, he didn’t seem to be scared of the two knights. I didn’t know whether he was incredibly brave or plain stupid.
“When we are done with you four, there won’t be anything left for Dr. Lenkov to put in the regeneration chamber,” Leith said.
Olav’s face tightened into a sneer. “Time to teach you all a lesson you’ll never forget.”
We were in trouble.
“Begin!” the system’s voice blared.
The knights charged toward us, and I swung my longsword in a wide arc that ended with a twist. My forcewave flung forward, but the berserker ducked and rolled beneath it. The edge of my forcefield clipped Leith’s shoulder, and the slayer spun away. His feet grazed the outer rim of the circle, but he stayed upright and remained inside the ring.
With shields ready and short swords poised for attack, Richard and Nathan bounded after Leith. Olav stood five meters away from Neville and me, and he hadn’t moved after getting to his feet.
“That’s a fancy sword,” Olav said to me as I slashed the weapon.
Another forcewave hurled out from the blade, but the berserker moved aside to dodge the attack with incredible speed. I didn’t need my prot-field to absorb enemy projectiles or deflect laser fire, so I activated the Shadow Self rune. When a doppelganger appeared in front of me, Olav charged into the creature comprised of my prot-field, and it dissipated into a spray of blue sparkles.
In a second, the berserker was on my left side, and his powerful fist struck me in the kidney. My armor would have protected me against almost any other opponent, but the full force of the blow penetrated my breastplate’s rear plating. I grunted as I gripped the longsword in both hands and twisted my hips to sweep my opponent.
Olav’s form shimmered for a moment, and then he was on my right. Before I could turn, he kicked my knee, and I felt the joint pop where my new armor crumpled.
I screamed, and my vision flashed white as I staggered from a blow to my side. Only my training kept me from releasing my sword and clutching my broken leg. I gritted my teeth and raised my blade to keep Olav from coming at me again, but Neville had jumped between us and was attacking the berserker. The needle-point rapiers in the squire’s hands couldn’t keep up with Olav’s speed, and my friend roared as the berserker cackled at the futility of the attacks.
“Did you steal those needles from your grandmother, Squire Holloway? Did she teach you how to fight also?” Olav shot as he weaved around Neville’s strikes as though he knew where they would be a second before they came. It didn’t even look like the berserker was exerting himself.
I tried to move and help Neville, but pain lanced up my leg. Any weight on the limb produced intense waves of agony. My helmet wasn’t equipped with organic monitoring, but I didn’t need it to know my knee was completely shattered.
Olav and Neville were too close together for me to throw a forcewave, and I didn’t want to risk sending the other squire out of the ring since it would leave me alone with the berserker. Then I’d have to weather his blows with a broken knee while trying to throw him outside the ring. I needed Neville’s help, and it looked like the knight would overcome him at any moment. His form shimmered and blurred, my eyes barely able to register his movements because they were so fast.
While Olav was distracted by Neville, I flipped open my belt pouch and removed a medkit. I shouldn’t have needed to use the enchanted patch during a fight between crew members, but this was no ordinary sparring session. As soon as the basic runes on the medkit activated, I returned my attention to dealing with the knights.
My prot-field wouldn’t help me against Olav’s fists, so I used the remaining energy to summon two more Shadow Self entities. I hoped the berserker would at least be distracted by the doppelgangers so Neville could score a hit, but our opponent simply tore through them like he’d done with the first one.
I shot a glance to the twins and saw Leith darting around them like this was a game of goblins and maidens. Neither squire could tag the slayer with their swords, and he cackled with glee at their misses.
“Alright,” Olav called out in a sing-song voice. “Time to end this!”
Neville thrust his glowing rapier, and Olav caught the blade in his gauntlets. The squire’s other weapon launched forward in an underhanded strike, but the berserker snatched it out of the air with his other hand. With both blades clenched in his fists, Olav grunted and the metal bent like cheap steel.
Neville’s eyes widened, and then our opponent drove a knee into my friend’s chin. The strike sent the squire pinwheeling through the air, and he slammed against the deck well outside the ring.
“Squire N. Holloway, eliminated,” the system called when it registered Neville’s prot-belt was no longer in the sparring circle.
The knight roared with laughter before turning toward me. “Now, let’s see if I can’t give you a few more injuries to take with you to the regeneration chamber.”
I heard another yell and saw Leith deliver a flying kick to Richard’s chest, sending him beyond the ring’s perimeter.
“Squire R. Culbert, eliminated.”
I tossed my longsword to the ground and removed the lightning hammer from my belt. I had seen madness lurking behind Olav’s eyes, so I wouldn’t hold back. I’d also seen him evade my forcewaves and Neville’s rapiers as though he could see into the future.
My hands tightened around my hammer in fury as I stared at my opponent. He’d broken my knee, and then he’d nearly killed Neville with his attack. The knights wanted to punish me for being a traitor, but Captain Cross had already squared things with me.
They didn’t need to respect me, but I wasn’t going to let them beat me or my friends within a fraction of our lives.
The hammer sparked with arcane energy as I raised it above my head. I slammed the weapon onto the deck with two hands, and lightning streaked down from the overhead. A Lightning Sprite slipped through the summoned arcane gateway, and it turned its head to acknowledge me. I channeled my desire to take out the knights and transferred it to the sprite. The blue creature pinwheeled through the air as it descended upon Olav.
I saw Leith duck under Nathan’s sword swing, grab the squire by the breastplate, and toss him like he weighed nothing. The squire crashed into a bulkhead outside the sparring circle with a crunching sound.
“Squire N. Culbert, eliminated.”
I spun back to Olav and saw him leap into the air and grab my sprite. He gripped the creature’s wings and tore them apart with glee as if he was opening a holiday present. The sprite screeched as it rolled on the ground, but then Olav crushed its skull with a boot.
“Got any more of them?” Olav grinned at me as he charged.
My knee still hadn’t fully healed, so I was planted to the spot while the berserker closed the distance. My hammer came for him in a wide swing aimed for his unarmored head. Olav ducked a split second before my weapon would have crushed his skull, and then a massive blow slammed into my stomach. I was thrown backward, and the air exploded from my lungs.
My swimming vision identified Leith as he stepped outside the ring.
“Space Knight L. Manzo, eliminated,” the electronic voice said.
“He’s all yours, Olav,” the slayer said as he folded his arms and leaned back on a bulkhead.
I tried to stand, but the berserker heaved himself on top of me. He tore the hammer from my hand, and I grunted as the weapon’s connection to the rune on my palm was severed painfully.
The weight of the knight and his armor almost crushed me, and his gauntleted fists pounded into my helmet. My reinforced visor cracked like an eggshell and then shattered with another punch. Olav’s hands gripped the top of my helmet and then tore it from my head.
All it would take to hospitalize me was one unprotected punch, so I put all my remaining energy into shoving his knee. When the berserker lost his balance, I used the single moment of his freefall to perform a roll that put me on top of him. I pressed my thighs again
st his chest, and pain jolted up my injured leg. I screamed in agony while I slammed my armored forearms and elbows into Olav’s unprotected face.
Bone shattered and flesh pulped in three strikes. Then the berserker’s powerful legs wrapped around my waist, and he twisted my body so I was beneath him. His arm snaked across my neck in a rear choke hold. My vision peppered with black as his biceps restricted blood to my brain. I tilted my neck slightly and saw Leith grinning at me from outside the ring.
I fumbled to grip Olav’s right boot, and I planted my elbow into his shin and pulled up. I heard the berserker cry out as I yanked. His ankle would snap at any moment, but then my arms weakened, and I couldn’t apply any more pressure.
Then the black swallowed me up.
I didn’t know how long it was before I woke, but my head was light as I forced myself upright. Although I didn’t feel any pain, my whole body tingled with the aftereffects of runic magic.
“Stay down,” a female voice said. “You have spent three hours in the regeneration chamber. Long enough to heal your wounds.”
I blinked a few times, and then Dr. Lenkov materialized in front of me as my vision returned.
“Uhh . . . I feel terrible,” I said. Someone had removed my armor, and all I had on was a hospital gown.
The Stalwart’s medical officer thrust a glass into my hand. “Drink this. It will take the edge off the healing runes. The regeneration chamber can heal almost anything. There were others who needed the healing more, but I owed the knights a favor, so I put you squires in first. You are lucky Olav and Leith did not kill you.”
I touched my face as I recalled Olav striking me, but I didn’t feel even the slightest cut, bruise, or scar. It was a testament to the power of the Stalwart’s regeneration chamber. I knew healing runes were only effective if they were applied to the injury immediately, but even the best rune circles couldn’t heal so quickly. It was another reason the Stalwart was far more than her crew members let on.
“You gave Olav a few serious wounds,” Dr. Lenkov said with a hint of admiration. “I am surprised and a little impressed.”
“He’s not going to let me get away with that.” I was more concerned with the knight’s vengeance than how well I had fought against him.
Space Knight Book 2 Page 4
