Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

  Degan, for his part, avoided Wolf’s steel, but was forced to take two quick steps back, then a third, and finally launch himself into a lunge just to interrupt Wolf’s advance.

  Blades met, bodies twisted, balance shifted, and both swordsmen sprang apart.

  They were well and truly in the square now.

  Wolf chuckled. “You still favor the Virocchi school, I see. I’d have thought you past that by now.”

  I began to push myself to my feet, using Ivory’s sword as a third leg.

  “Old habits,” said Degan. He shifted the angle of his blade. “Besides, I seem to recall Piero Virocchi doing well enough when the two of you crossed steel.”

  Wolf took a step, widening his stance, then another, closing it again. “Pah. Exhibition bouts mean nothing.”

  “Losing is still losing.”

  “And dead is still dead.” Wolf flicked the tip of his sword in dismissal. “That little Ibrian rabbit has been rotting in his grave for a hundred and a half years. His prancings failed him in the end.”

  “But not against you.”

  I watched as Wolf circled Degan, as Degan slipped his back foot forward while he turned to keep the Azaari in sight. The fan was still in Degan’s left hand, though he now held it back and slightly canted at his side.

  “As I said: If there’s no blood, there’s no meaning.”

  “That sounds like an excuse,” said Degan, extending his sword. “I’d have thought you were past that by now.”

  Wolf opened his mouth as if to respond, then became a blur. His shamshir leapt out, sweeping Degan’s blade aside as the Azaari pressed forward. For his part, Degan took a small step back, dropped the tip of his sword below Wolf’s, and lowered his body and extended his sword into the oncoming rush.

  It was a beautiful move: smart, concise, and deadly. And on anyone else, I expect it would have worked. But Wolf wasn’t anyone else.

  Degan’s tip had barely settled into its new line before Wolf’s own sword was moving back in the other direction, catching the rapier and edging it aside. Metal scraped on metal as Wolf slipped past Degan’s point and brought his own tip to bear, all while moving down the other man’s sword.

  Degan sidestepped and raised his guard, but even I could see it wasn’t going to be enough: Between Wolf’s leverage and the curve of his blade, Degan wasn’t going to be able to get out of the way in time. He was done.

  Which is why I expect Wolf and I were both equally surprised when Degan stepped forward, pressed his guard into the saber’s, and forced the sword—along with Wolf’s arm—up and away. The move ended with the two men in dagger range, their arms extended, their swords crossed, their eyes locked.

  For anyone else, there might have been a pause then: a fraction of an instant to register the surprise of an attack thwarted, the relief of a killing stroke foiled. But these were degans: Their guards had barely crashed together before Wolf was pulling his sword free and aiming a slice at the other man’s body. As for Degan, he’d already begun pivoting in anticipation of the blow as he swung his sword guard at Wolf’s head.

  Still, he wasn’t quite fast enough: At the last instant, Degan was forced to sweep Ivory’s fan forward and down, to keep Wolf’s at bay. The crack of steel striking laminated stays echoed off the surrounding buildings. Sadly, there was no answering crack of Degan’s sword striking Wolf’s jaw. The Azaari had ducked as he threw the cut.

  The sound seemed to startle both men, and both took a hasty step back. Clearly, this hadn’t been part of the chess match they were playing.

  Degan looked down at the fan and swore. The final third of it was dangling at an odd angle.

  Wolf regarded at the length of wood in Degan’s hand. He tilted his head like his namesake. “Ivory’s?”

  Degan didn’t answer. He merely resumed his guard.

  Wolf grinned. “Of course. The laws. I should have known. The sly old bastard.”

  The two degans began circling one another again.

  I was standing by then, albeit not steadily. The world had developed on a slight lean to the left, but as there didn’t seem to be much I could do about it, I didn’t complain.

  I looked down at my right hand. My wrist was already swelling from the sword blow, and I was having trouble closing my fingers. I tried my rapier anyhow. Digits trembled and nerves screamed, but I was able to force my hand into the guard and pull the weapon free. Not that it stayed there long: I’d barely cleared the scabbard before my grip slipped. It it wasn’t for the swept steel cage of the guard, my rapier sword would have clattered to the street.

  Hopeless.

  I looked back at the square.

  The initial flourish had died down. Now, rathering than rushing forward to kill one another, each of the degans had taken a couple of paces back. They were still fighting—there was no question about that—but the two men men were being more thoughtful about it. I had no idea how long it had been since they’d faced one another, but it was clear that there was a lot of reevaluating going on out there.

  Just as it was also clear that this lull wouldn’t last

  I switched my rapier to my left hand, gathered up Ivory’s long sword as best I could with my right, adjusted Degan’s blade across my back, and began to make my way toward the square.

  Like hell I was going to leave this to chance.

  I entered the square charting a careful course, eyeing the two degans all the while. I wasn’t fool enough to think they didn’t notice my arrival, but neither man so much as glanced in my direction. They, and I, knew who posed the real threat here.

  It was hard to tell who was faring better at this point. Both men had been pressed hard by the other at least once, and each had managed set the other back on his heels. As skill with a blade went, I was in no position to judge, so far above me were they. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have an opinion; and right now my opinion, I hated to say, favored Wolf. Not because his ability or technique or brutality looked to be vastly superior to Degan’s—on that, I doubt I could have found a finger’s worth of daylight between them. No, it was something much more basic that had me worried.

  It was Wolf’s sword.

  Or, to be more precise, it was Degan’s sword that had me concerned. Good steel though it might be, it wasn’t a degan’s blade by any measure. Between Wolf’s cut-heavy style and the superiority of his Black Isle steel, I was already beginning to see a growing collection notches along the edge of Degan’s sword. Sword blades were strongest along the edge and designed to take punishment there, but not to the extent I was seeing—and certainly not this fast.

  I flexed the fingers of my right hand around Ivory’s sheath, just to see how they were doing. Not good. The numbness was starting to fade, but it was being replaced by a throbbing ache that extended from my knuckles up through my hand and past my wrist. Even if I were to switch my rapier back to my sword hand, I doubted I could do much more than wave it about, and only then as long as no one connected with it. One good beat or parry and it would be out of my hand and on the ground in an instant.

  No, if I wanted to help Degan, I was going to either have to come up with something that didn’t involve a weapon, or wait for the exact right moment to strike.

  I glanced over at the Dog Gate for the third time in twice as many steps. It was wide open again thanks to Degan’s hasty exit, and the hounds had begun to skulk around the arch again. With the sun coming up and a fight sounding on the padishah’s doorstep, I figured it was only a matter of time before the gate vomited forth a stream of men decked out in opal jackets and ostrich-plumed turbans. I had no idea whether they’d decide to overwhelm us with numbers or feather us with arrows, but either way, I didn’t want to be here when the time for the decision finally came.

  I turned my attention back to the fight.

  The fight had taken the degans to the far side of the square. Steel rang on steel, the noise bouncing off the buildings until it sounded as if a regiment of ghosts was doing battle in the
piazza.

  Both men were showing signs of wear now. Degan, despite what looked like a bloody patch on his left leg, had resorted to a more upright stance, blade held near shoulder level, sword arm loosely extended, his left arm held at his side. Whenever Wolf threw a cut, Degan either moved his tip around the other man’s blade or let the force of the blow carry his own blade around as he stepped in for the counter. It was smooth and efficient and had a decidedly calculating air to it.

  But as ruthlessly cold as the tactic seemed, Degan’s steel never managed to do more than threaten Wolf. The Azaari was a shifting, swaying reed, sliding forward and back on bent knees over a wide stance. Lean back to parry, lean forward to cut, with gathering and crossing steps to change the distance and line. There was a tear in his burnoose. Metal scales glinted beneath it in the growing light, telling me Wolf had come armored. I doubted Degan had a similar advantage.

  Well, that did it, then. Offhanded or not, I couldn’t hold off any longer. Between his Black Isle steel and the metal jack he looked to be wearing, Wolf had too many cards in his favor. I needed to disrupt the game.

  I’d just started to move toward them when Degan advanced into one of Wolf’s assaults and began to press the Azaari. What had been a fit of exchanges suddenly became one long, lopsided rush.

  Degan, it seemed, had decided to push Wolf, and was now raining blows down on the other degan. Thrusts, cuts, reverse strikes, counterblows—the attacks flowed out of Degan like a river, crashing against Wolf’s defenses and sending him reeling back step by relentless step. The Azaari, whose eyes had been narrow and cool before this, were now wide; his defense was verging on frantic.

  I quickened my pace, sensing opportunity was at hand. And I was right. The only problem was, it wasn’t the opportunity I’d been hoping for.

  I was still half a dozen paces away when Degan brought his sword down in a hammer blow, striking Wolf’s blade so hard that the heavy rapier should have not only forced the shamshir aside, but continued down into Wolf’s shoulder and chest. And it would have, too, save for the sudden, unmistakable snap of steel breaking against steel. Daylight shone, metal flashed, and I caught the briefest glimpse of the first two-thirds of Degan’s sword as it sailed through the air and landed in the muck.

  I froze, momentarily stunned. Wolf had no such problem. Without missing a beat, he reached out, grabbed Degan’s extended sword arm, and yanked, lashing out with his sword guard at the same time. Degan staggered, took an awkward blow to the head, and was thrown to his knees.

  In any other place, in any other circumstances, that would have been the end of it right there. But we were in the square off the Dog Gate, which meant that they weren’t fighting on paving stones so much as a carpet of shit and muck. Muck that, when Degan landed, carried him a good three feet further along the ground than either of them had expected. This meant that while Wolf was prepared to slash his blade into the spot where he’d expected Degan to stop, he wasn’t ready to see his former sword brother turn his slide into a roll and come up on his knees, facing him, broken sword held at the ready.

  Wolf blinked. Degan winked. Then the shamshir was moving again.

  The sound of Wolf’s steel striking Degan’s guard snapped me out of my stupor. I took a reflexive step forward, then stopped. No, I’d never make it in time. If I was going to save Degan, I’d have to get Wolf away from him, have to somehow make myself a more viable target than Degan and the fan . . .

  No, not viable. Valuable.

  I held up Ivory’s sword.

  “Hey, asshole!” I yelled. “Hey!”

  To my relief, Wolf looked up.

  I sheathed my rapier as I began to retreat back the way I’d come. “You need this, right?” I said, waving the sword over my head.. “Can’t get anyone to do anything without it, right?”

  Wolf’s eyes narrowed. He took a step back from Degan. Degan, wisely, maintained his guard, though he cast a wary eye at me as well.

  “Now, I don’t know about you,” I said as I paced backward, “but I’d feel like a right proper ass if I came all the way to Djan and ended up letting some Kin walk off with the sword I came looking for. I mean, that’d be pretty fucking embarrassing, especially for a degan, right?”

  “You don’t want to do this, Gray Prince,” said Wolf. “You know what will happen when I find you. Put it down.”

  “You say ‘when.’ I say ‘if.’ I’ve spent my whole life on the dodge: If I know how to do one thing, it’s fade.”

  “You won’t be able to hide. Not from me.”

  “Who said anything about hiding?” I said as I glanced over my shoulder. Halfway there. “I used to smuggle artifacts, remember? I know people. People who know how to get things places. People who can call in special favors.” I waved the sword again. “People who might be able to, say, get this to the monks at the Monastery of the Black Isle.”

  Wolf’s eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Wouldn’t what?” I said, refusing to glance at the hint of movement I’d thought I saw in the Dog Gate—movement too large to be from a hound. “Hand it over to the monks? Why not? Way I hear it, they’re the only ones who know how to melt one of these swords down. Might even be able to pray away the magic, for all I know. Figure it’s worth a try, either way.”

  Wolf took a step toward me, and therefore away from Degan. I smiled.

  “Not that I’d go personally, mind,” I added. “You’d know to lie in wait for me. But how much coal goes into that place, I wonder? How many bushels of grain? How many pilgrims? It’d be Eriff’s work to sneak a blade in.”

  The Azaari looked back at Degan, still kneeling in the muck, broken sword before him.

  Degan nodded. “I’ll draw it out long enough for him to get away, Steel,” he said. “Even like this, you know I can.”

  “Best choose,” I said, nodding at the Dog Gate. A small swarm of figures were gathering there now. “We’re not going to be alone much longer, and I thought I saw a couple of bows being strung.”

  Wolf swore—a deep, lyrical Azaari curse that, had I been able to understand it, probably would have seared my ears off. Then, with one last look at Degan, he swept Ivory’s fan up from the ground and started running toward me.

  “There’s my boy,” I muttered as I turned and ducked down the street. “Let’s see how well you can play the hunter when your quarry isn’t running the path you laid out.” Behind us, I heard Degan begin to call out, but his voice was covered over by the sudden sound of a horn. The padishah’s men, it seemed, had decided it was time to sally forth from the grounds. I only hoped that by the time they got there, all they’d find were sullen hounds and foot-smeared shit.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  As it turned out, Wolf fit his moniker far better than I would have liked. Not that I wanted to lose him right away. If I did that, it was possible he’d double-back so he could finish things with Degan—Degan who, I reminded myself, had no sword. No, I needed Wolf on my scent, if only until it felt safe to lose him. The problem was, it was quickly becoming apparent that I might not be able to shake him, whether I wanted to or not.

  I ducked and wove as I went, slipping down alleys, taking sudden turns, using the height of the crowd around me to mask my passage. But I also made sure to leave signs he would catch: a tipped poultry cage here, an angry crockery seller there, a muddy footprint whenever chance permitted. Let him think he was following so that he didn’t know he was being led.

  It was an old street urchin trick: Get the mark used to looking for the bigger signs so he’d miss the smaller ones when it came time to fade. I’d done it plenty in the past, and while it tended to work better with a gang, or at least in a city where you knew the layout, it was still a solid dodge. The only problem was, I was beginning to suspect that Wolf knew it at least as well as I did, if not better.

  I reached the next cross-street and heard a crash behind me as someone crushed a reed cage underfoot. People yelled, others screamed. Something fell to the
ground and shattered.

  Wolf was still behind me, and from the sound of it, he still had his sword out.

  I turned down a narrow street, bounced off a man dressed in some sort of shimmering cloak, recovered, and ran up a set of stone steps. The man began yelling behind me as I ducked through an arched gate and found myself on a street that looked familiar but I knew wasn’t.

  I hesitated. It was nearly time to leave Wolf chewing my dust: but which way? The last thing I wanted was a path that ended in a blank wall.

  I looked up, saw a shadow skimming a roof, watched as it made the short hop across an alley and vanish along the top of a building. If only . . .

  Back in Ildrecca, there’d have been no heitations about which wall to hop, which roof to dance, which shop to run into so I could leave out the back. I’d know what painters were working where, whose scaffolding I could use, which plasterers would look the other way for a payment later. But here? Here I couldn’t even tell if I’d stumbled down the same street by accident sometimes. In Ildrecca, I could choose to become invisible; in el-Qaddice, I was lucky if I wasn’t conspicuous.

  Wolf’s voice came to me on the other side of the gate and down the stairs. He was yelling a question at the man who was busy yelling after me. Time to go.

  I chose to go right.

  I was feeling it now: the heat, the blow from the long sword, the day and the night without sleep. Fear was keeping me moving, but that didn’t erase all my ills. My head, which had begun to feel clear in the square, was pounding again. My legs burned. A stitch like a knife wound pulled at my side. As for my mouth . . . well, I couldn’t have managed to spit if you promised me the imperial throne just then. The mere idea of water seemed unattainable even as I dodged around a line at one of the public spigots set in a wall.

  I followed the curve of the street as it emptied out into a wider lane, which in turn filled with people and pavilions and stalls, all covered over with a patchwork of canvas awnings. The morning street market was in full swing.