Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

  I dove in, moving with the flow of people whenever possible, swimming against their current when necessary. Flies buzzed and musicians played, one no less annoying than the other to my aching head, while butchers and herb sellers wielded their blades to trim down their wares. Dust and blood and exotic oils fought one another in the air, rolling over and past me, vanishing among the sea of scarves and sandals and curious looks I left in my wake.

  I kept to myself, ducking and dodging, drawing the kaffiyeh across my face as I held the shit-smeared long sword close. A couple of private guards gave me a dark eye as I passed, but for the most part everyone was too busy with their own business to notice the small, filth-speckled Imperial weaving his way through the morass.

  Ahead, I could see a break in the crowd. A fountain, by the look of it, with a street beyond. If I could get on the other side of that before Wolf managed to . . .

  “Thief!” cried a voice I knew. He was behind me. “Stop! Thief!”

  Years of practice kept me from altering my gait or drawing attention to myself as I glanced over my shoulder. Wolf was perhaps thirty paces behind me and closing. Shit. I knew he had a longer stride, but I hadn’t expected the bastard to close the gap so fast.

  It was the right thing to shout, especially in a market: Nothing got a faster reaction, or elicited more aid, than a call to stop a Palmer or a Purse Cutter. Thieves were the common enemy of both sellers and buyers, and that meant a call of warning just as often turned into a call to arms.

  I studied the crowd. Most eyes were still turned toward the degan, but a few had already begun to scan the street—especially the guards’.

  “Thief!” Wolf shouted again. Maybe twenty-five feet away now, with people starting to actively get out of his way.

  One of the market guards was looking at me now, considering. I glanced away, my eyes busy. He didn’t seem convinced, but I didn’t much care. I wasn’t playing to throw him off; I was searching for a convenient—

  There. Thin, dirty, with quick eyes and a slightly bent stance, clearly ready to run. Her pale green dress hid her intentions well, but there was no mistaking the flex of her knee beneath the fabric, let alone the fresh sheen of sweat on her upper lip.

  Thief. A Palmer, by the look of it, given the gap in the neat row of copper spice pots on the table before her. No one had noticed yet, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t, especially with the cry being raised. She was scanning the crowd as well, but not for suspects: She was looking for a way out. Measuring the lines of traffic, the gaps between the stalls, the density of the the crowd.

  Our gazes met, locked. Instantly, I knew she could tell. Never having met, we still knew each other across the dusty space.

  Her eyes narrowed. I smiled. Then I pointed at her and screamed, “There! Thief! It’s her. She took the spices!”

  The guard who thought I hadn’t noticed him moving up on me spun about. Others followed suit. Someone took up the cry.

  The local thief favored me with a baleful glare and took off running. I turned in the opposite direction and did the same.

  “No!” I heard Wolf bellow above the sudden din. “No, not her. It’s him. The one with the—”

  But I was already around the next stall and making for the narrow street that opened up behind it.

  Shadows took me in. Garbage deepened underfoot, and rats and I did our best to avoid one another. Behind me, I heard the crash of wood and brass, the shouting of an angry merchant as his stall was bulled through.

  I prayed to the Angels that it was a Djanese guardsman on my tail, and not Wolf. As usual, the Angels ignored me.

  “Imperial!” The degan’s shout echoed off the walls, making him sound even closer than I feared he was. He didn’t sound happy.

  I risked a look back, saw a grayish silhouette set against the light at the end of the street. I’d maybe doubled my lead, but Wolf already looked to be closing it.

  I put my head down and ignored every sensation but the burn of my legs and the slap of my feet against the ground.

  I wasn’t going to make it. Not now. The street was too narrow, the options too limited. There were no roofs to take to, no switchbacks to try, no more crowds to blend in to.

  Running wasn’t going to work.

  I spied a crossroads ahead, the pale light creeping down into the space where the streets met like some lost and lonely thing. And so what? It was just another turn, and an obvious one at that. Maybe if it were darker, and the cross-street was an alley, and I had my night vision, I might be able to use it to lose Wolf; but like this, with the light shining down and him closing on me? He’d be able to see precisely what I did, know exactly where I’d gone. At best, I’d maybe gain a handful of paces on him after I made the turn, and that would be because I could likely cut it closer than him. Once he’d lumbered around the corner and regained his stride, he’d . . .

  Wait. That was it. The corner.

  I pushed myself for a final burst of speed, then swung wide as I made my turn, making sure to cross the patch of daylight as I did so. Then I was down the new street and away.

  For all of six paces before I skidded to a halt.

  The stopping almost undid me, not because of the footing, but because my legs suddenly wanted to do nothing more than collapse. My breath was coming in ragged gasps, and it took every speck of willpower I had left to not lean over and vomit up the bile that was roiling about in my stomach. Instead, I forced myself to turn and take two staggering steps back towards the crossroads.

  That was the easy part. The hard bit was not dropping Ivory’s sword as I unsheathed it .

  It came free without any resistance: a clean, oiled blade in a well-used scabbard, ready for the call to service. Double edged from tip to guard, it ran straight and true, with a gentle taper that made it look like a long, wicked tooth. I expected it looked even worse to the person on the business end.

  It was lighter than I’d have thought: stouter than my rapier, but not so much that it seemed as if I was holding something completely unfamiliar. The balance was good as well, even with one hand. The sword felt as if it wanted to be swung, to whistle and cut the air—a silver arc of death eager to be put to the test. A man who knew what he was doing could carve his way through a host with this sword; that, or perhaps make short work of an angry degan.

  Only I didn’t know what I was doing when it came to a long sword. Other than swinging it like a metal club, I was short on not only technique, but also on options. With one hand looking and feeling like an overstuffed sausage, and enough time for a single desperate move, I needed something that had a better than average chance of stopping a charging degan. Nothing fancy, nothing complicated, nothing requiring any kind finesse. I just needed to kill the bastard, preferably as quickly as possible.

  Which is why I decided to use Ivory’s long sword like a spear and set for the charge.

  I’d had the presence of mind to turn left when I took the corner, meaning that when Wolf followed me around, his sword would be on the opposite side of his body to me. That made parrying on his part hard, and a counterblow even harder. Add to that I’d be thrusting instead of cutting, and his time to react would be down to almost nothing.

  It was that “almost” part that had me worried.

  I took a half step back, putting my shoulders as close to the wall behind me as I dared, the long sword held across my body, its point directed the space where I expected Wolf to appear, ready to step and thrust at the first sign of the degan. My breath was coming in wheezing gasps, and I could hear my heart raging in my ears like a drum. I tried to slow both, to silence my body, for fear that I’d miss hearing him coming.

  I shouldn’t have worried. I caught the soft slap of slippers as he approached, heard the skid of leather on filth-covered stone as he slowed in preparation for the turn.

  I shifted my weight back and waited.

  He appeared in an instant. One moment, the street before me was empty; the next, Wolf was barreling around the turn
, his shamshir out, his teeth bared in exertion.

  I thrust hard then, my arms and my body pushing the long sword forward as I stepped into the attack, its point aimed at the spot where Wolf’s neck met his body.

  Wolf’s eyes went wide. His foot skidded on the street as he tried to stop. His right hand moved to bring his sword across his body for the parry. Too far. Too slow.

  I had him.

  Almost.

  Against anyone else, it would have worked. The sword would have gone forward, the point would have found his neck, the fight would have been over. But this was Wolf. And more importantly, it was Wolf with a fan in his left hand.

  As the long sword thrust forward and Wolf tried to turn his body out of the way, his nearer hand swept up, bringing Ivory’s widower’s fan along with it. The tapered steel tip that had been heading unerringly for his throat was suddenly caught by the closed laminated stays and pushed off course.

  It wasn’t a strong parry, and it wasn’t a perfect one; but it was enough to redirect the sword from Wolf’s neck to his shoulder. Still, the point bit hard enough for me to feel along the blade; struck hard enough for the tip to push cloth and metal aside as it slid through a gap or forced a weak spot in whatever Wolf was wearing and found the flesh beneath.

  The degan screamed. He also kept moving, turning away from the blow so that I couldn’t drive it home or pin him down. Sweeping his sword around in a vicious arc so that I was forced to draw Ivory’s sword back in my own desperate parry, lest I lose my head.

  I caught the first blow, missed the second. Wolf, being Wolf, had thrown a combination, likely without thinking about it. Two-hundred-plus years of training meant that as soon his high-line strike encountered resistance, he’d immediately followed with a low-line attack. And hit me.

  Fucking degans.

  I was still trying to change momentum and redouble into his first attack when I felt the second blow hit and draw a line of fire across my leg, just above the knee. I gasped and staggered back, holding Ivory’s sword before me both to defend against another blow as well as discourage Wolf from following. The degan retreated as well, cursing all the while.

  I tried to put weight on my bloody leg. It complained and screamed and argued against the idea, but held nonetheless, although not steadily. No running away for me, then.

  As for Wolf, his left arm was now hanging limp at his side, a dark blossom of blood already forming at the shoulder. He raised his sword hand toward the wound, then stopped halfway and instead extended the blade toward me.

  “You bastard,” he said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. Spittle flew out with every breath, flecking his dark beard. “I was going to take the blade, maybe make you pay for running. But now?” His shamshir cut the air, making a whistle that sounded like the air crying out in pain. “Now I show you what the Azaar do to their enemies when they have the time and hatred to spare.”

  Of a sudden, drawing Wolf away so that Degan couldn’t follow didn’t seem like such a good idea.

  I thought about switching Ivory’s sword to my left hand so I could draw my rapier with my right. Even with tingling fingers, a sword I knew how to use had to be better than one I didn’t—except I knew I’d be dead before my hand reached the handle. Instead, I centered Ivory’s sword and tried to close off as many opportunities as possible.

  Wolf advanced on me.

  Anyone will tell you that it becomes harder to hit someone when he decides to do nothing but defend himself. Without having to worry about trying to strike the other person, the defensive fighter can concentrate solely on not getting hit. It’s not the most practical tactic in the long run—odds are good that an attack will get through eventually; plus, if you’re not attacking, you’re giving all the momentum of the fight to the other person—but for buying time, it’s a wonder.

  That is, unless you’re fighting a furious degan—then all bets are out the window.

  The blows from Wolf’s sword fell down like rain. Cuts, thrusts, back-edge slashes, expulsions—it was like trying to ward off a thunderstorm with a tattered cloak: You might manage to catch the early drops, but sooner or later you knew you’d end up soaked to the bone.

  The one thing that saved me was Ivory’s sword. Its balance, combined with the pure efficiency of its design, allowed me to defy Wolf’s attacks with a startling amount of power and speed. Having two hands—well, one and a half—on the handle gave me the strength to stop his hardest cuts, while the long cross guard and straight blade allowed me to push aside the more subtle thrust, if only barely.

  Still, I knew it was a losing proposition in the long run. My only hope was to hold out long enough for either a troop of the local watch to wander by, or for Degan to come stumbling across us by sheerest luck. Beyond that, it was down to me waiting for Wolf to make some sort of fatal mistake that allowed me to finish him off.

  Yeah, I wasn’t holding out for that one either.

  When it finally happened, I didn’t even see it coming. One moment I was sweeping his blade aside with Ivory’s sword like I’d done so many times before, the next Wolf had turned his wrist and used the shamshir’s curve to slide around my block and stab me in the shoulder.

  Now it was my turn to yell as my right hand dropped away from the long sword’s handle. I fought to maintain my grip with the left, but that failed too when Wolf rotated his steel free and then punched me in the face with the cross guard of his sword.

  I dropped to the street.

  I watched, disturbingly detached, as a filth-covered slipper kicked Ivory’s sword away. My left hand pawed distractedly after it, was kicked away in turn. I barely felt it.

  Fresh pain sloshed around inside my brain, carving new channels of agony with every motion. I fought it, pushed it, cajoled it—anything to get it to go off and wait its turn with the rest of the miseries vying for my attention. Things to do here, dammit; lives to save. Or, at least, death to greet with some dignity.

  The pain must have been paying attention, because it pulled back enough for me to realize someone was speaking through the buzz in my ears. I concentrated. Words formed.

  “. . . piece of Imperial shit,” said Wolf. I was looking up at him without remembering having lifted my head. How had that happened? It wasn’t until he shook me by the hair that I figured out he was using it to hold my head up off the ground.

  One less mystery in the world, then.

  “Good,” said Wolf. “I want you to be awake for this.” He shoved my head back down to the street—as if I cared at this point—and reached across my back. A moment later, I felt tugging, heard the muffled sigh of steel clearing leather as he drew Degan’s sword from the scabbard on my back. Then he stood and took a step back so I could see.

  He held Degan’s sword loosely in his hand. Casually.

  I surprised myself by speaking. “I suppose after using so many other degans’ swords,” I croaked, “holding one more doesn’t feel awkward anymore.”

  Wolf grimaced. “You’ve made work for me, Gray Prince. Now I’ll have to hunt Bronze down before he returns to the empire. Ah well.” He shrugged. “One more step on the road. No matter—it will reach its end soon enough.” He slipped a foot under me and rolled me onto my back, extended Degan’s sword so that the point hovered over my chest. “I thought it fitting to kill you with his blade, considering . . . everything.”

  “Why, so you can taunt him with my blood at the end?”

  Wolf’s face took on a horrified expression. “What? No. Bronze is my sword brother: why would I—?” But whatever he was going to say was interrupted by a puff of yellow powder appearing around his head.

  Wolf spun about and dropped into a crouch, Degan’s sword lashing out at shadows. The blade cut nothing but air, and the swordsman gasped and coughed inside the quickly settling cloud.

  A grayish figure separated itself from a patch of darkness farther down the street, a long, slender tube in her hands. Wolf wiped at his eyes, snarled, and took a step forward. Ariba
h, standing ten paces away, didn’t move.

  My guts lurched inside me, and not just from the blow to the head. No, I thought. Don’t just stand there. He’s a degan. Get the hell away!

  By his third step, Wolf was shaking his head as if trying to clear it; by the sixth, he was gasping for air. When he made his ninth, the degan was staggering. But still he came on. Aribah’s eyes grew wide, and she took a hasty step back of her own.

  Degans are hard to kill. Fuck.

  Wolf growled. He brought Degan’s rapier up, the blade looking more like mottled mist than steel in the faint light. For her part, Aribah drew forth a familiar dagger. Shadows dripped from the shorter weapon’s edge.

  I tried to push against the ground, tried to get my feet and hands underneath me. It worked, but not well. I was barely to my hands and knees when Wolf launched himself at the neyajin.

  And died almost instantly.

  I expect the poison had a lot to do with it, but still, when Aribah sidestepped his blow and ran her blade first across his throat, and then back through his shadow as he fell, it was nothing short of physical poetry. When Wolf hit the street, he didn’t move, didn’t gasp, didn’t shudder. He just lay there, dead.

  I was still staring at his body when Aribah knelt by my side.

  “He was a fool,” she said as she helped me into a sitting position up against the wall. Once it was clear I wasn’t going to fall over, she turned her attention to my leg. “You should never waste time speaking to your target. Once it’s time to kill them, kill them. Delay only makes you vulnerable.” She peeled down the top of my boot, lifted up the edge of my slops. I winced, surprised that the pain suddenly mattered. “Fool,” she muttered again.

  I sat staring as she bent over my leg. Her veil was hanging loose, still untucked from when she’d used the blow tube, showing her in shadowy profile. It suited her.

  “Aribah . . .”

  “You’re fortunate,” she said, talking over me. “It doesn’t look like he did any serious damage to the knee. The cut’s dirty, though. You’ll need to get it properly cleaned and sewn once we’re done here. In the meantime, I can use some of the dead one’s robes to—”