Sword Fight

by Nathan Van Coops

  There were several other men in the arena she didn’t know, a dozen competitors in all. How many she would face before the end remained to be seen.

  Waves crashed against the rocks, and gulls circled the island lured by the presence of the food vendors in the stands. Valerie focused on her breathing, letting the salt air calm her nerves. The orchestra had begun building the intensity of the moment with the stringed instruments and drums.

  Despite the danger, there was a thrill working through Valerie. She had made it to this final step. Her goal was in sight. Only eleven other souls stood between her and justice.

  She called the image of her brother to mind. Not his last moments but the countless hours they had spent growing up. The teasing, the laughter, his bold smile. Today she would fight for him. She adjusted the grip on her sword and let the seconds tick by to the sound of the drums.

  She scanned the arena.

  The castle keep in the north marked the highest point of the original structure still standing, though several other towers had once stretched above it. Before the earthquake, the island had boasted over two miles of coastline. Now the island was broken into several smaller islands and inundated with tidal pools and rivers. Some of the islands were still linked by the original wall or connected by a series of patchwork, wooden bridges constructed by salvagers and treasure seekers who still dove the submerged rooms in hopes of discovering the castle’s lost wealth.

  Valerie studied the landscape in search of the best line of attack. She had a choice. Find a location and stand her ground, letting other warriors come to her, or go on the offensive and possibly catch her competitors in terrain that would work against them. She decided she’d rather be the hunter than the hunted.

  The moment came for the trumpets, and they blasted from overhead, followed by the rest of the horn section. Another cheer erupted from the stands.

  Valerie broke into a run.

  A section of outer wall remained standing to her right. She scrambled to the top and moved east along the battlements, the direction in which she had seen several competitors disappear. She kept her sword in a front guard as she moved.

  Fire Bird was every bit as long as the swords she had been practicing with at Damon’s but noticeably lighter. The blue-gray steel glinted in the morning sun. She made a few cuts in the air to get the balance of it. It felt like a natural extension of her arms.

  She reached the ruin of a guard tower at the end of the wall and paused, attempting to listen over the sound of the frenetic music overhead.

  Somewhere to the west, metal rang against metal. The crowd shouted in approval as two warriors clashed. Spectators above used binoculars to make out the action. Valerie could see nothing of the fight from her current vantage point, so she pressed on, her senses vigilant for any sign of her quarry. She passed through the remains of the guard tower, stepping over fallen beams that had rotted and decayed. She had just reached the exit to the far wall when a pebble skittered across the flagstones. It was the only warning before a man in a skull-shaped mask rushed her. He swung a wicked-looking, double-edged sword that he used to cut at her from above.

  Valerie met the blow with the forte of her own blade while dancing to the side as he charged through. Her heart raced as the man spun on her and slashed again, this blow shoulder high and aimed at her neck. Valerie ducked and dodged the blow, then instinctively moved to the attack, lunging forward and stabbing the man’s shoulder. Fire Bird found its mark in the mail-covered arm joint.

  Her attacker shouted in rage, then came at her again, hacking violently and using his superior height and weight to every advantage in an attempt to batter her to the ground.

  Valerie took a breath and flowed into Sighing Dove, her movements smooth and natural. The man’s rushed attacks and wide cuts left frequent openings in his defenses. Valerie slashed and jabbed at each opportunity, cutting first at the exposed rear of his knee, then following through with a thrust just above his left hip. The man lost his footing and crashed to the stones. He tried to rise, his metal-fingered glove scraping the stones, but he collapsed again.

  The knight pushed up the visor of his helmet, revealing a prominent nose and bushy eyebrows. He winced and cursed. “I don’t get it. You were supposed to be the easiest target in the arena.”

  “Is that what they told you?” Valerie asked.

  The man swore as he probed the wound at his hip, and his fingers came away bloody. He fumbled for his white flag, then waved it over his head.

  The crowds on the nearest bridges cheered.

  Valerie backed away, then descended the cracked steps that led to a lower courtyard.

  High above, a team of safety personnel began lowering a stretcher. Valerie noted that another stretcher was already on its way upward at the far side of the arena.

  Two down. Ten remaining.

  Valerie scanned the courtyard on alert for more attacks. If the rumor had circulated that she was the least skilled fighter, she could expect more contenders would be hunting her as an easy target.

  But not if she found them first.

  She stayed moving, passing through an arched portico to another courtyard that looked like it once housed stables. A stone watering trough and several hitching posts with iron rings remained. The wall at one end of the courtyard had collapsed, and seawater was sloshing over the rubble.

  “Rim rat!” a man shouted. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t have come here?”

  Valerie turned to find Mervyn Doyle entering the courtyard from an angled hallway that had once had a roof but now was entirely open to the daylight. The old stones were overgrown with moss and lichen. Jasper’s crony grinned a leering smile and raised his sword.

  Valerie squared up to face him.

  But then, as soon as he had entered the courtyard, a second man appeared in the angled hallway, striding deliberately toward Mervyn. It was the Red Reaper. Mervyn turned in surprise as the Reaper continued toward him.

  “Hey, I’ve got her handled,” Mervyn said. But the Red Reaper raised his sword and swung at him. Mervyn was barely able to get his own blade up in time to avoid being split in half. Mervyn backpedaled, anger visible on his face. “We’re supposed to be on the same side,” he hissed through gritted teeth. But the Reaper remained silent. Valerie watched with fascination as Mervyn was driven past her position with blow after blow of the Reaper’s red-hilted sword until he was sent staggering into the foamy waves of the bay.

  The thud in the middle of Valerie’s back took her off her feet.

  She landed on her hands and knees, her body still registering the pain from the blow. She rolled over in a panic, noting the thrown axe that had struck her lying on the ground near her feet and, more importantly, the figure of the female Celtic warrior rushing toward her with fire in her eyes.

  Tara Sloane leapt into the air with a scream. The Celt landed overtop Valerie’s prone form, and her sword came down like a hammer.

  35

  Reaper

  Jasper Sterling listened to the trumpet blast with a smile on his face.

  He flexed his sword arm, the joint stabilizers in his armor making the weapon feel as light as air. The armor had been costly, and it hadn’t been easy getting the custom-made, hardened alloy plates to pass the tournament judges’ specifications. He was forced to dumb down their capabilities and the advantages they would bring him. The officials had worried the augmented power system would give unfair power to his sword blows. A few generous donations to their private accounts had eased their concerns.

  The truth was that the armor itself was a weapon.

  His fists were hammers. His feet were battering rams.

  There were no chinks anywhere to be found. He was a walking fortress.

  Still, one had to take precautions.

  He circumvented the center of the island, careful to avoid the areas where he had seen Yuna Gozan and Gunnar Ragnarsson disappear. He would let The Reaper and Night Frost deal with them.

  He would h
unt easier prey.

  Valerie Terravecchia was at the top of his list. He relished the idea of her blood on his sword, but he would need to get to her out of sight of the crowd if he wanted to make a true end of her. The king was watching. It wouldn’t do to appear he had a vendetta. Her death would need to look unavoidable—if she even lived long enough to face him.

  A figure darted across the path ahead, moving toward the ruins of the old church. Freyja Eiríksdóttir.

  Jasper smiled and flexed the fingers of his armored glove before tightening them into a fist.

  It was time to have some fun.

  One of the many fallacies Valerie had faced in her years of training was that a sword fight should be elegant. As a child, she had mistakenly believed that armed combat between knights was a protracted, noble affair full of dexterous movements and skillful demonstrations of athleticism.

  In reality, it proved to be a brutal experience: sudden, violent, and brief.

  Tara Sloane’s sword struck Valerie in the head, slamming her to the ground.

  Her helmet protected her from the cutting edge of the blade but not the force of the blow itself.

  Her ears rang.

  Through the shock and ache of the impact, her mind raced to inform her of the next danger. It focused her attention on Tara’s sword that was raising again, this time for a downward thrust.

  Myriad tiny stars danced across her vision as she struggled to survive the next second of her life. Tara’s sword came down fast, straight at her chest.

  She rolled.

  Awkwardly.

  Gracelessly.

  But fast.

  Tara’s sword plunged into the earth for only a fraction of a second, then was elevated again, swinging up over her head and back down again. Valerie scrambled to her knees and Fire Bird met the Celt’s sword this time, the two blades crashing into one another and buying her another fraction of a second to live.

  She was still dead if she couldn’t get to her feet.

  Sloane used Valerie’s sword as a pivot point and angled her blade down to strike Valerie’s shoulder. Her steel pauldron took the blow, and the movement left a brief opening. Valerie swung low and fast, trying to cut the Celt’s legs out from under her.

  Sloane was too fast, anticipating the blow and getting out of the way in time.

  Valerie got what she wanted, however. In the second it took her opponent to clear away from the strike, Valerie was able to stand.

  She brought her sword up to a front guard and flexed her back.

  She’d gotten lucky. The axe that had struck her hadn’t hit blade first. The blunt trauma of being hit with the axe head was bad enough, but it hadn’t cut through her armored jacket.

  “Ye should end your misery now,” Sloane said. “Wave that flag while ye’ve still got arms to swing it with.”

  “You’re fast. I’ll give you that,” Valerie said. “But if you’re here for easy pickings, I’ll disappoint you.”

  Sloane stooped and picked up her hand axe. “Looks like the boys be having their own fun.”

  Valerie risked a glance to the end of the courtyard. The Red Reaper had forced Mervyn Doyle out of the water and up a series of steps. Doyle was slashing wildly at the Reaper but seemed to be running out of ideas.

  Valerie returned her focus to the fight in front of her and concentrated on her defense.

  Tara Sloane was taller than she was but not by much. The real threat was her power. The Celt had muscles like iron and a no-holds-barred approach to fighting that meant anything was possible. Her red hair and blue war paint only enhanced the image of her wildness.

  Valerie stepped into Warriors Way. Since she wasn’t battling a height disadvantage, she could use the forms she had practiced for shorter fighters. Tara Sloane circled her, searching for an opening. Winter’s Bite was a longer sword, close to being a greatsword, giving Sloan a slight advantage in range, but it also looked heavy to use one-handed. So far, the element of surprise had been her best weapon. With that gone, it was a fair fight.

  Valerie concentrated on her footwork, each step precise, never letting Sloane catch her off-balance. They exchanged a few wary feints, their swords meeting in swift parries and counterattacks, but neither landing a blow. “Ye fight like a snail,” Sloane taunted, still circling. “Ye sure ye don’t want to go find a wee rock to hide beneath and let the real fighters have their day?” Sloane spun the hand axe in her palm, flipping and catching it by the handle again with a flourish.

  Valerie read what was coming next and refused to be distracted.

  Sloane hurled the axe.

  Valerie dodged and didn’t try to block the weapon. She instead kept her guard up to defend against the charging form of Sloane who followed up the axe throw with a screaming, two-handed sword attack.

  This time Valerie was ready. She deflected Winter’s Bite and rounded on Sloane with the same motion, the edge of her sword slicing cleanly across the Celt’s leather breastplate. Fire Bird’s razor-sharp edge succeeded in cutting through the boiled leather, and when Sloane arrested her momentum, she registered the hit. Her hand brushed across her abdomen and came away bloody. Instead of stopping, however, the wound only enraged her. She took another wild, two-handed swing at Valerie’s head, but Valerie once again deflected and counterattacked, this time angling her sword around Sloane’s blade and piercing her bicep.

  Sloane shrieked and reeled away, her sword tip dragging on the ground. She stumbled a few feet and turned. It appeared as though she was rallying herself for another charge.

  “Spare yourself,” Valerie said. “It’s over. Look at your arm.”

  Sloane snarled at her. “Nothing’s over. It’s a scratch.” But as her arm continued to bleed, it went limp. Her sword fell to the dirt. Her other arm clenched at her gut, and she wavered. “Devil take ya.” She fumbled for her white flag but collapsed to the ground, dropping it in the dirt. Valerie rushed to her side and scooped up the white flag, signaling the safety team overhead, then using the handkerchief to tourniquet Sloane’s arm and slow the bleeding.

  “Don’t I look a right eejit,” Sloane muttered, watching Valerie tighten the knot around her arm. “I lose to the girl everyone said was the gombeen of the bunch. What does that say about me?”

  “You’re not the first person to complain of that today,” Valerie replied. “And you won’t be the last.”

  “Right on, then,” Sloane replied, gripping Valerie’s hand with her good arm. “Go give these feckers a show.” She laid back and rested her head on the ground. Valerie handed her Winter’s Bite, and the Celt clutched it to her chest with a nod.

  Valerie picked up Fire Bird and scanned the courtyard. There was no sign of the Reaper and Mervyn Doyle. Wherever they had disappeared, she would find them soon enough. The two victories she’d had so far gave her courage. She was warmed up and fueled with adrenaline. Wherever Damon and Jasper were, she was ready to settle the score.

  Jasper sneered down at the bloody girl crawling through the ruins of the old church. He pushed his flowing cape behind him and sheathed his sword.

  Freyja Eiríksdóttir had, at least, put up a fight.

  Her sword had struck him over a dozen times, but to no effect. His armor had performed perfectly. He hadn’t even needed to block the blows with Nocteflamme. He had used the weapon but mostly to strike the girl in the face with the pommel. Freyja was now bleeding from her nose and a cut over her eye.

  Jasper looked skyward, searching for the royal banners. He located the seat his father occupied near the king. Was he watching? He strode over to where his broken opponent was trying to reach her sword. He planted a boot on the blade, pinning it to the ground.

  “You’re a cheat and a coward,” Eiríksdóttir muttered.

  “I simply make my own rules,” Jasper replied.

  She spat on his armored leg, spattering it with blood.

  Jasper kicked her in the face.

  Eiríksdóttir was knocked onto her back, and her head lolled
as she lost consciousness.

  The crowd overhead grew eerily quiet. The orchestra music died down to a low, tremulous pulsing of strings and base drums. Someone booed.

  Jasper frowned. Where were the victorious trumpets? Isn’t this what they had come for? He was giving them a flawless performance so far. They ought to be cheering. He yanked Eiríksdóttir’s white flag from her waist and dropped it over her face, then stepped over her as he left the ruined church. In the distance, a stretcher was at work, hoisting someone skyward to the medics.

  The field was dwindling.

  He made his way uphill and climbed a stone staircase that led to the top of one of the castle’s interior walls. The battlements had fallen at one edge of the wall, leaving a pile of rubble down the other side. Jasper stood at the breach and observed the fighters in the area beyond. Nikki Patel, aka Night Frost, was putting the finishing touches on a duel with a knight in red-and-black armor. Night Frost wrestled the man’s sword from his grasp, followed the move with a vicious elbow to the face, then used his own blade to stab him through the leg. The knight fell to the ground screaming.

  Night Frost tossed the knight’s sword to the dirt, then looked up and noted Jasper’s presence. She walked over to the base of the wall he was standing on.

  “How many have you defeated?” Jasper asked.

  “Only this one,” Night Frost replied. “I’ve seen other stretchers. Running Crow took out Gunnar Ragnarsson early. And the girl still lives. The scoreboard says she eliminated the Celt and the Spaniard.”

  “Dumb luck. It will run out,” Jasper said. “Where’s Doyle?”

  “Out,” Night Frost replied. “The Reaper cut him down.”

  “What?” Jasper snarled. “That wasn’t the plan!”

  “He’s going off script, or it could be your father gave him different orders.”

  Jasper glanced up at the stands overhead. “My father has the same goal. He wouldn’t sell me out.”

  “Then we have a Reaper problem,” Night Frost replied.