They brought her a whip, a long snaky length of vileness. They gave Chica her favorite whip, old Fang, and she flicked it out. It was long and hard and supple, and it could strike in the pain ways and in the death ways. And Chica was its mistress.
The balass boxes were brought. Bronze bound, triply-locked, they were placed on the table before Nyleen. At once, Chica threw back the lid of one and took out her Claw. She held the thing aloft, a marvel of cunning linkages and bright steel and lacings and razor-sharp talons.
It glittered, held aloft in the torchlights. “Hai!” she cried, exulting. “Now you face death!”
From the second box Delia took out the Claw. It was a good, serviceable model, and when she tested it with a tentative thumb, reasonably sharp. There was no doubt that, if she had to use a Claw, she would prefer to partner it with a rapier. But a Whip would serve. Would have to serve, seeing that was the forte of this Chica. She held the Claw for a moment, and Chica laughed contemptuously.
“Help her strap it on. I will give her every chance. But it is clear she has no idea of a Jikvar, no idea at all.”
Leading her cronies, Nyleen gloated. The Claw was strapped on Delia’s left arm and hand. She flexed her muscles, rotating her arm, pulling back and jerking forward. The Claw fitted her surprisingly well. She looked at Chica the Fangs. That need not be her real name. She had gone through Lancival. Once, she had been a Sister of the Rose. That was the sadness in this, for Delia; that and the thought that sorcery had been used to debase this girl and deflect her from her vows.
Nyleen leaned forward. She was breathing more rapidly.
“Alyss. You do understand? You are to die. The manner of your death will be more unpleasant if you do not stand up to it. We here are all Sisters of the Whip. We know. The Claw has its uses, as you will discover.” At this the women laughed, sensing the mood of their mistress. Nyleen went on: “But it is the Whip that must be used to chastise all men, everyone who stands against us. Why you set free the kov my husband, if you did, is of small consequence. What matters is your death here. Try to use the Claw. Use the Whip. Die like a woman!”
Then she sat back and with her cronies settled down to enjoy the spectacle of a half-naked girl being cut to pieces by an expert.
And, of course, Chica the Fangs was an expert.
In the desperateness of this situation, Delia had time to reflect on the comicality of her instinctive reaction. To herself, fervently, she said: “When I get out of this I promise Dee Sheon most devoutly to practice more regularly!”
Then Chica’s Whip flicked and the fight was on.
As any bully-fighter might do, Chica sought at first to torment Delia. The Whip snapped and hissed. Twice she struck Delia in the pain ways, and Delia gasped with the shock. Once, in Lancival, seasons ago, she had heard a girl describe Delia as the Flower of the Sisters of the Rose. And, like any silly empty-headed girl, she had hugged the description to herself, mightily proud. Later she had seen the folly of that, and had been displeased. Now, had her sisters been able to see her, they would have seen the Flower with petals drastically wilting.
When Chica’s whip flicked like a surging ripple of black destruction in the next passage, she got the Claw in the way, twisted, and yanked. But Chica was not to be caught like that. She disengaged and struck back, and Delia only just had time to skip sideways.
“The shishi learns!” crowed Chica. “This is becoming more enjoyable!”
Delia circled. The Whips abruptly leaped, and struck, and twined, and parted. Both girls leaped back.
The thing to do, Delia reasoned as she circled warily, was to get rid of the Whips. They fouled the issue. If these women followed the strict procedures, if the Whips were wrenched away and discarded, rapiers would be thrown into the ring. Chica would be as good as, if not better than, Nadia. That was probably the cause of the cadade’s open desire to excel with the rapier and dagger. Probably.
On the next sudden onslaught, Delia swirled away from the tip, snapped her own Whip and slogged the lash into Chica’s side. It was not as clean a blow as she had hoped for; it slapped against the corselet and made Chica jump.
“You bitch!”
Delia said nothing but reeled the Whip in, coiling, ready for the next attack.
When Chica, incensed, struck again, Delia jumped forward. She let the thicker section of her antagonist’s Whip coil about her body. Its major force spent, it merely stung. She cracked her own lash up, high, sliced it down in a rippling line of destruction. The tip blazed across Chica’s face.
The girl screamed and spun away. Her own Whip began to uncoil from Delia’s body. She clamped it with her left hand, dragged it savagely back. She rippled her own Whip, and struck again. Again Chica screamed.
That damned helmet! It blocked the major force. But those two blows had opened up two vivid weals across the girl’s face. Chica’s lash snagged in Delia’s left-hand Claw. She dragged again and the razor-sharp steel sliced through the Whip. A length as long as a girl’s leg fell away.
Instantly, Delia leaped. She slashed with fury with her Claw. The blow hissed past Chica who stumbled back, shaken, off-balance. She staggered. And then she had recovered and come screaming back, her Claw gouging for Delia’s naked side.
With a routine block and twist, Delia checked the onslaught and instinctively slashed back. The return missed only just, only just — and both girls stood back, panting.
“What, Chica?” called Nyleen. “Do you toy with her still?”
Chica bit down on her lip. She looked frighteningly savage.
“She will rue these blows, my lady!”
“Then, Chica, my dear, pray let us see. We are waiting.”
The next passage was not quite the same as that preceding. The Whips became entangled. Chica, relying so much on her lash, took a moment too long to attempt to untangle the lines, and Delia stepped in. The Claw razored down.
Only a woman in the Jikvar of Chica’s skill could have twisted herself away from a stroke of that expertise.
The Fangs slid the blow. Just. One steel talon ripped across the shoulder, slashing through the metal-studded leather of the latchings. Around the watching women ran the gasp of excitement — of pleasure. Who among them was dismayed that Chica was meeting her match?
A man had once said to Delia that the sight of women fighting did not so much disgust or offend him as sadden him. To which she had replied, tartly, that if a woman has to do a certain thing in life, then a woman will do it.
Delia did not proceed to demolish Chica. For one thing, the Fangs was too good for the slightest chance to be taken. But Delia did, having seen that first latching go, cunningly contrive to slash the other shoulder. At that, the return blow whispered past her face and only a last minute wrench away and recovered lunge saved her from losing half her features.
The Fangs took three steps back. The black length of the Whip rippled to stillness along the floor. Her silvered corselet sagged away, held by the waist belt and rib-straps.
“Very well,” said Delia, flicking her Whip and making Chica jump. “I will give you a few moments to make yourself comfortable.”
Sucking in the sight, Nyleen felt her insides deliquesce. This was better sport than she had ever imagined!
Furious, still not accepting that she had met a superior in the Jikvar and the Grakvar, Chica ripped away her breastplate. She wore under the padding a thin supple-leather vest. She was not a big-built girl, being of the wiry and agile variety. But she was a woman. For that, alone, Delia was cautious...
Waiting quietly for Chica to get set, Delia reflected that just about the only truly authenticated example of a man using a Claw came from the Life of Velda the Tempestuous, whose old room Delia now lodged in at Lancival. The man — apparently his name had been Nath or Naghan the Flute — had hungered after an initiate of the SoR. He had broken into one of the provincial colleges to an assignment with her. Everything had gone wrong, and in the ensuing fracas he had slain a sister. He had s
natched up and donned a Claw. Then he ran into Velda.
If Delia did to Chica what Velda the Tempestuous had done to this Naghan or Nath the Flute, they’d have to carry the Fangs out in baskets. Or, rather, to make less mess, in buckets.
Chica slished her Claw through the air. She snapped her Whip.
“I am ready, dom.”
Delia, using the Disciplines to relax herself in this pause in the fight, deliberately slowing down some rhythms so that others might be speeded up, smiled.
“You call me dom, Chica the Fangs. Strange address, surely, from a Jikai Vuvushi to a mere slave girl?”
The Fangs rippled her Whip. “Yes, you are a slave girl now. But you have, I think, been through Lancival.”
“As have you.”
“I am done with them! They betrayed me. Now, I am a Sister of the Whip!”
“That is your misfortune.”
Nyleen shrilled from her chair: “What are you two standing lollygagging about for! Get on with it! Chica — cut her up. Bratch!”
Delia made a small elegant gesture with the Claw. “That, Chica the Lost, is your mistress.”
“She is what she is. Like me, she hates men. So—”
“So you hate everyone? Indeed, you are Lost”
“Fight, you bitch, and have done!”
In the moment before the Whips rose and leaped Delia said: “I think, my girl, it is you who are done.”
“Bratch!” The shriek from Nyleen made her cronies start.
Chica the Fangs put out everything of which she was capable. Perhaps, Delia had just time to consider before surrendering herself to the demands of the Whip and the Claw, just perhaps Chica had grown soft in whipping poor defenseless slaves instead of facing opposition.
Leaping streaks of darkness, the hiss and crack of cunningly applied lashes, the quick intake of breath, the sliding scrape of feet upon the floor... The glitter of the Claws blinded. The Whips coiled and struck, withdrew, rippled, slashed again...
Chica put the lopped tip into Delia’s ribs, and she gasped with the dizzying pain. On the next passage she sliced the supple-leather vest from Chica, spilling it away in two clean halves. Without waiting, she roared in, the whip slicing and the Claw slashing. Chica just saved herself. And, in stumbling away and avoiding that savage attack, she entangled her lash with Delia’s. The two Whips writhed together.
Both girls reacted instinctively. Both hauled back with all their strength. Chica was brought staggeringly forward, off balance, gasping, as Delia reeled her in. At the last moment the Fangs released her grip on her Whip and flopped away.
Delia threw the entangled mass onto the floor.
She stared at Nyleen.
“Well, Nyleen?”
Nyleen chewed her lip.
Now it should be rapiers...
Chica screamed at the kovneva.
“Kovneva! My lady! Daggers!”
Nyleen nodded. She felt sweet and moist and satisfaction coursed through her. She would like Sissy to be here to minister to her. But the fool girl was missing... She’d be in for a flogging, of course. But, now, Nyleen gloated and would not miss a single moment of this fascinating passage at arms.
Two Jikai Vuvushis threw two daggers into the center.
They stuck, quiveringly, light splintering from hilt and blade.
Chica leaped, ripped the nearest dagger free, brandished it. “Now, sister, you will understand!”
Delia took the other dagger. It was a Vallian dagger. It was long and slender and sharp. Its quillons were marvels of curious ornamentation. It was not, most certainly was not, a left-hand dagger. The major problem with Vallian daggers was to find steel of the quality required. So long, so thin the blade, inferior metal would snap. These looked to be weapons of quality. Delia felt the hilt in her hand, and she held the dagger in her own way.
Delia was accounted a mistress of the bow, having been taught by Seg Segutorio. She was a mistress of the rapier, having learned much from her husband. She was a mistress of the churgur’s art, the use of the battle sword and shield, having been taught by Balass the Hawk. She was a mistress of the Whip and the Claw, having been through Lancival. But of the Vallian dagger — ah! Of that superbly cunning instrument of death there was no one in the whole wide world of Kregen, it was said, who could teach Delia a single tiny thing.
The Fangs used her own Claw to rip away the two parts of her supple-leather vest. She ripped them and tossed them down. She fronted Delia.
Catlike, she half-crouched, and began to circle. Delia circled with her. Like two primordial felines out of the mists of time, the women circled each other, seeking an opening, panting only lightly, their legs long and supple moving them with infinite grace.
Now there would be no long-range work. Now they would meet, body to body, arms and legs thrusting, seeking to rip and claw. Their skin glowed in the torchlights, sleek and rounded, the hollowed shadows tinged in violet and carmine. Chica tossed her head back, and weaved left and surged right, and Delia let her go past and used her Claw to rip a bloody chunk out of that glowing skin.
Chica screamed.
She threw herself at Delia, dagger and Claw lifted.
With expertise that spurted from her inmost depths, Delia feinted, blocked, caught the Claw and let her dagger slide on. The stroke was cunning, perfectly delivered, superb. It would penetrate between Chica’s ribs, slice on unerringly, burst into her heart.
Infallibly...
Why? Why did Delia turn the dagger slightly, turn the direction of the thrust? Why did she let the blade score along Chica’s ribs instead of rupturing her heart? Why?
Again, Chica screamed, and fell back, and Delia was on her like a leem.
The Claw flamed before Chica’s eyes. The talons, each razor-sharp, each capable of dragging flesh from bone, of gouging out an eye, hovered over the Fangs’ face.
Among the watchful women were many who understood the techniques of fighting. They might not practice; they could judge. They saw. They saw the diversion of the blade. Now they saw Chica’s horrible disfigurement, her death in agony.
Chica glared up, froth on her lips, her eyes wide and yet blank, drugged with the awful knowledge of impending destruction.
“A fight, dom,” she said. “A fight.”
“And you have lost, Chica the Lost, as I said. I will not kill you. I have other plans for you.”
With that, Delia turned the Claw and used a blunt and heavy edge and knocked Chica the Fangs backwards. The girl sprawled limply across the floor. The Claw flopped with a clank of steel. And the dagger flew from her hand, skidded across the floor to smash into the kovneva’s feet.
Standing up, Delia let Claw and dagger dangle. She stared at Nyleen, and her face expressed contempt. Splendid, she looked, Delia, Empress of Vallia who was just Delia. Only a light sweat glinted on her body. She breathed deeply. Superb, superb, and consummately deadly...
Nyleen was staring past her, at the door, and the kovneva’s eyes opened wide. An expression of great joy filled her icy face. She smiled. Then she giggled, as at a supreme joke.
“Slave! You fight well. You have skill. Chica was good, in my service, very good with Whip and Claw. But now, I think, now you will face a greater! Now you will be tested to the utmost!”
Delia did not turn. Hell and damnation! She’d fought and fought well and won. If they shafted her, well, she’d try to deflect the arrows in the way her husband had shown her. But that was difficult, by Vox! When the door bashed open and this newcomer entered, she had felt the flicker of a hope she had resolutely refused to acknowledge. An obvious hope, a pent-up desire that would burst out like flame. He had done it before. She’d been naked, chained up, staked out as a sacrifice, menaced by steel and talons and fangs. And he’d come storming in like the maniac he was, and rescued her.
But not this time.
She’d won, and she could feel the tiredness creeping up on her, a fatigue she pushed aside and ignored which yet insisted on trembling her le
gs and jerking her muscles. And now the bastards were bringing on another champion.
From what Nyleen said, from the expression on her face and the satisfied oohs and aahs from her cronies, this newcomer was going to be very good indeed.
If she was better than Chica — and she would be, she would be! — she’d be the very devil to handle.
Oh — why hadn’t she practiced more!
“Drag Chica away!” commanded Nyleen. “Give the slave her Whip. Now we shall see some real Whip and Claw.”
She called along the length of the refectory, a glowing, commanding woman, joying in her power and enjoying her own joy. “Come in, my dear. Lahal and Lahal. You are more than welcome. Now you can show us how it should be done. As you can see, the onker Chica could not manage it.”
From the swiveling movement of the watching women’s heads, Delia realized they were watching the newcomer walking from the door toward her unturning back. She did not hear her. That, alone, boded ill. If only she’d put in more practice sessions... Chica had not been easy. And the dismal truth of the coming encounter was made crystal clear as Nyleen crowed her own pleasurable anticipations.
“Here is a slave shishi for you to — well, my dear, I hardly dare call it fight — for you to cut up. Step forth, my dear. For you are supreme, far far better than Chica with Whip and Claw.”
“Cut her! Cut her!” screamed the waiting women.
When a Claw struck and cut it could rip your face off...
Delia turned around.
She saw the woman walking down between the tables. She saw. The newcomer, this redoubtable champion, lifted her head and spoke.
“You wish me to fight this silly little slave girl and cut her up for you?” said Jilian Sweet-Tooth.
Chapter twenty
All for Vallia...?
Jilian swirled off her enveloping black riding cloak. Dust stained the hem. She wore black fighting leathers, trim, taut, still shining although scuffed. At her waist the belted rapier and dagger swung to hand. Terchicks snugged across her shoulders. Her Whip coiled up her right arm. Somewhere in her baggage would be her bronze-bound balass box. She did not look at Delia.
Delia of Vallia Page 19
