I Know Not (The Story of Fox Crow) (22 page)

      The pressure of the words built up inside him until it burst forth, red cheeked and popped veins, “DO NOT MOCK ME!”

      For the record: That was clear enough, “Dueling has been outlawed since the war.”

      I watched as he directed music only he could hear with his sword and paper batons, “Dispensation. From his Grand Lordship”

      I glanced over my shoulder, a risk I took because I could not afford to be disobeyed this time, “Go get her.”

      Gelia had no doubt to whom I spoke, or to whom I referred. But before I could see her go, my ears picked up boots being set on marble with distinct purpose. I spun back to my opponent, who had struck a stance that is highly effective if you happen to have a shield and are fighting with a dozen other men, and will get you killed if you are fighting alone. He screamed, “I will have you, scullion!” and half lunged as his sword made a high arc toward my head.

      The beast wanted out, needed out. It rattled the bars of its cage, but I kept it captured in my chest. Killing this guy should be easy, but the death of the Lieutenant would greatly complicate things. Not killing him would take a bit of my skill and completely ignoring every one of my instincts.

      I slid the Phantom Angel from its sheath and batted his blow aside, then followed up with a boot to the fork in his legs. The most difficult part of it was getting out of his way as he dutifully collapsed on his face, sliding forward to a stop against one pristine white wall. I don’t care how drunk the man slinging the steel is, steel is still steel. To that end, I needed this to be over so I bounced toward him, lashing out with one, booted foot to the side of the head. He lurched upward unexpectedly, and his sword stuttered uncertainly in the air. The wild but weak strike sliced a piece of leather from the side of my boot and forced me to retreat.

      Have you ever wondered why a cat toys with its food before it kills? It’s because even mice have teeth, and nobody likes to be bitten. He gave a few tentative swipes as he stood, and I batted them aside with ease. An unexpected lunge came less than a fingerlength from my nose, and without even thinking about it I struck back in earnest. I swatted his blade upward, out of my way enough to slip the blackened tip of the Angel under his guard and stick his leg. Most importantly, I avoid his wild counter swing as slapped one hand over the wound, rivulets of blood oozing between his fingers.

      “I don’t suppose that license to duel is only to first blood?” Sometimes I don’t know what my mouth is thinking. The slight jab lit off his temper again, and he redoubled his efforts. He cried out something incoherent that echoed against walls and ceiling. I looked around desperately, I swear for the first time in my life, for anyone wearing a uniform to come intervene. No luck. Instead, showing how sheltered a life they led, servants were appearing at doorways and staircases.

      I skillfully retreated and parried, watching as Palmer’s swings devolved into a tired, predictable pattern. I waited until he was staggering, wheezing, and then the Angel flew forth again, drawing a long red line along his right bicep. He screamed, one hand holding onto the wound while the other was ever so slowly losing its grip on his weapon.

      I took a deep breath, desperately trying to ignore the chorus of opportunities singing for me to kill him. Instead I concentrated on keeping my voice calm, reasonable, “It’s over, Palmer. Put down your sword and we can get you to the healer.”

      But everything I said caused his smoking pride to burst from coals to fire. He raised the sword to a sloppy guard, “You louse ridden dog, I shall end you on this blade!”

      The Beast roared. The Angel came out of nowhere, ringing against his sword and sending it fluttering loudly down the entryway. Everyone watched it fly in shock. Only once silence returned did I say, “I apologize, were you not ready to kill me?”

      Palmer’s mouth made a perfect ‘O’, his eyes wide and skin pale - though that could be from the blood that now painted every step he took and fell from his elbow in a trickle. I shouldered the belts of weapons again and backed away one step, then two. The Lieutenant’s face fell, then he bowed his head, shaking with some alcohol fueled grief for reasons beyond my knowing or caring. Then almost fell, staggered forward, staggered again on the bad leg, instincts that had been telling me to kill him for minutes now screamed like a chorus of burning cats. That’s when he lunged, dagger in hand.

      I dropped it all; Angel, belts, attitude, mercy. They hit the floor faster than drops of rain in the wind as I took his wrists in my hands and brought the blade out of line with my tender flesh. We wrestled for half a second until the dagger was trapped between our faces, ineffective for the moment. Of course he was bleeding badly, so all I needed was hold him until his limbs weakened and I could yank the damn thing away from him and-

      Palmer came close, the smell of the unaged corn whiskey on his breath watering my eyes as he hissed, “I know what you are, killer. I have seen your mark.”

      “My mark? What are you sloshing on about, fool?” The words were dismissive, loud, brave. Inside, rats made of ice awakened and cavorted as they chewed at pieces of my stomach.

      “Wrestling, assassin. Wrestling you to the ground, I saw it.” His strength was fading, his grip unsure. I could hear the tromping of a dozen booted feet as men descended upon the sounds of battle. Gelia had long since raced up the stairs. Though every sign was that I was winning, every word that left Palmer’s lips said I was going to lose. “It watches you, slave. It sees you. “

      And everyone saw as he gave a titanic lunge. I cried out in dismay as his blade slewed left, right, then back across my face, gouging my chin along the left side. I kneed him in the guts, expelling air from his lungs and causing him to crumple on his feet. Finally the dagger came free into my hands. It flashed for a second in the early morning light before twirling in a wide circle up and under Palmer’s ribs and into his vitals with all the mercy of a hungry viper. The force of the blow straightened him and pulled him into a deadly embrace with me. I felt the meat part grudgingly, fibers cut deep and set free from bone.

      Palmer did not scream, he did not cry. He simple stared at me, a horrible truth burning on his whispering lips, “You are damned. Doomed.”

      The blade came out, and flew in the light, sprinkling red rain against the walls as I danced around Palmer, lifting his arm to expose another artery and plunging the iron tongue in. He gargled on blood and bent over backwards. But then my knee was there, supporting him like a short table and offering his chest to my rage as the blade shot down over and over. I drew it back, hot and wet, from its business as his mouth worked silently.

      Then he said, “I saw it on your back.”

      The blade flashed forward one last time, entering one side of his throat and exiting the other, cutting off any more thoughts that sought to escape. There was no need to bend my sword tempered arms to pull the dagger out the front, spraying blood in a deadly fan even as I stood and spilled him onto the floor.

      I did it anyway.

      Battle-worn mental walls held me apart from the moment, kept me above it as he bled across the snowy white marble. Everyone had seen him attack me one last time, and die for his trouble. I was completely in the clear.

      No matter that I had been the one to yank the dagger in his weakened grip, that I had cut myself, that I had calculated his murder in full sight of twenty people in such a way to appear blameless. It was all crystal clear, now, clearer than any thought of had been in my head since I had awoken weeks ago: This is the kind of man I am.

      Horatio’s guards, suspiciously fully armored for war, burst into the vaulted entryway from three sides. No one wanted to talk as they came cautiously forward with weapons bared.

      “Keep still.” One of them growled.

      I stepped smartly on the crosspiece of the Angel, flipping it onto the top of my boot. A flick of my foot sent it spinning into the air where my hand snatched the hilt like an acrobat at the circus.

      “No.” I replied.

      It is a well known fact that guards do not like to be told “no”, in fact is one of those things they like to beat out of peasants using truncheons. It is NOT something that they use as an excuse to point naked weapons at the bodyguard of a visiting noble and advancing menacingly. “I am the bodyguard of Aelia Conaill, Grand Duchess of -”

      One took a tentative poke at me with a spear. The Phantom Angel lashed out, beheading the spear, cutting in half the spear of the man next to him, and ringing off the helmet of the next in line. I leapt back, over the body of the late Lieutenant and giving myself a few seconds to talk, to escape, to… in my mind’s eye I was seeing myself open up every one of these tin coated cans and spilling the blood trapped inside. I wanted to cheer at the images.

      I shook my head violently, feeling caught between conflicting urges, being acted on by forces written in stone barely hidden in the fog.
NO! Have to focus, have to stay calm
. I pointed the bloody tip of the Phantom Angel at the beribboned letter on the floor, only now being overtaken by the spreading pool of Palmer’s blood. “He had a dispensation to duel and attacked me.”

      The guard didn’t even bend over to pick it up, didn’t even look at it, “The Duke does not authorize dueling.”

      Palmer was not the trap. He had been the bait. Now there were many, so many.
So this is it
? I raised the Phantom Angel, but they kept coming.
One last try
, “You have to wait. The Duchess will be here in a moment-”

      One swatted at me with a sword, testing me. I expertly caught it on the hilt of the Angel and twisted viciously, bending the blade off true and snapping it at the base with a disturbingly musical tone. That guard retreated, but was replaced with two more, and they kept coming. They were not intimidated, they did not hesitate.

      I felt the drumbeats begin inside, the music of death that kept time with my racing heart. The Beast inside howled once and then went silent, cowed by The Dark Thing blew in from the Fog that curtained off my mind. Cold, exacting, it plotted a course between the heavy, slow soldiers that left four of them dead in the first three seconds. My chances were fifty/fifty to be alive to face the rest, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing, but the dance.

      My hand tightened upon my sword, then loosened as I took a deep breath. I raised the Phantom Angel in a parody of a salute. Following some unspoken command, four of them stepped forward as one. Still I retreated, back, back, showing them weakness so that they would overestimate their own strength. I lead them into the corner, let them crowd one another, let their arms tangle and their feet touch. Then I struck.

      The servants finally ran as blood fountained in red rivers and scarlet spatters. Steel pealed as the Phantom Angel slammed into vambracers, chest plates, helmets and paltroons, splitting them open and exposing the red goo inside. Three wounded men retreated before my onslaught, one dragging the man who could not make it on his own. More of Horatio’s men yet were coming into the room, but cautiously now, afraid now.

      Soon bows would be fetched, and I would die, but until then I would kill and be filled by their deaths. Their words meant nothing. Time meant nothing. Every one of them could see the darkness flying behind my eyes and feared my sword. That was all that mattered.

      Fear.

      Mayhem.

      Power.

      A crystal scream, pure and resonant, called out. It slammed into me, billowing the Void and casting the Dark Thing back into the fog, obscuring the Animal within. It caught in my mind and funneled into my chest where it built up power, echo after echo; shattering the fortresses of ice and hate within me. My soul emerged red and raw, bleeding and sending shocks through me. A stabbing pain thundered from between my shoulder blades, worse than any before. I fell to my knees, retching as the guards leapt back, expecting some kind of trick.

      Then one gathered his spirit and raised his axe.

      Aelia’s voice resonated like a church bell, “Do not touch him!”

      But the guard did not even pause to listen. He was intent on his prey. He raised the scarred and slightly rusty weapon above him as my head erupted in blinding misery. It started to fall as a cool rain washed the agony from behind my eyes. A silver sliver shot forward and rang against the axe, halting it midair a few fingerlengths from my upturned face.