The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades (13 page)

I
T TOOK STALWART THREE STEPS TO REACH HIS foe—and those three steps seemed to last the rest of eternity, as if all time elementals had fled away in terror and the world would never change again.

On the first step he realized that he was heading into his first-ever real fight with real edges and real points, so he might get killed or maimed very soon. Speed counted for far more than strength, and even Sir Chefney had agreed he was fast, so he would not normally be worried by Thrusk’s size. But this was not
normally
at all. His hands were not back to their full strength, and he could not even trust his feet, which were just as important. His neck had not recovered from Thrusk’s little dragging games on the horse. He would be slower and weaker than usual; Foster was drawing at his back; both men were wearing armor.
This was going to be very tricky indeed
! As he completed the step he remembered the latrines at Firnesse and promised himself that he would kill Thrusk if he had to run up the brute’s sword to do it.

On the second step he was assessing the grip and weight of the weapon he bore. He had never seen it or touched it before and yet it was comfortingly familiar, thanks to Snake’s fore-sight.

On that wonderful first morning, just after they had changed mounts at the first posting inn and Snake finished outlining the plan, he had said, “You didn’t look at that sword I gave you.”

In Ironhall, drawing a real sword—as opposed to a practice weapon—while on horseback was cause for some of the most ghastly punishments that could be inflicted on a senior, such as teaching courtly dancing to the soprano class. But Stalwart wasn’t a candidate anymore and an order was an order, so he drew. The blade was long and slender, a thrusting sword almost like a rapier with a single edge added. He didn’t like it much; it was heavier and less wieldy than a pure rapier and not sturdy enough for really serious slashing.

Beside, the edge was dull and the point rounded!

He howled in outrage.

Snake laughed. “No insult intended! That’s as close a match as we could find to the sword you’ll be using on this outing. Want you to get used to it and shaped up on it, too. You have very little time. We’ll give you all the fencing we can—me and Chefney and another couple of hotshots to give you some real workouts. If you’re going to need a sword, brother, you’re going to need it
fast
. No time for tryouts or practice.”

That made sense. Mollified, he waved the weapon a few times and managed to slide it back in the scabbard at full canter. “I prefer a rapier.”

“I know. Just thought something a little more versatile might be useful on this outing. This isn’t going to be any courtly duel, brother. This’ll be mixing it up, roughhousing.” Snake reined in to a trot to give the horses a break. “And you can’t have the real one. It’s inside a lute.”

“It’s
where
?”

“Inside a lute—an archlute, actually, because we needed the length and the extra weight won’t show as much. Lovely thing, cost more than you’ll earn in a ten-year stint with the Guard. We had our man disassemble it and hollow out the neck to take the blade. The hilt’s inside the soundbox. Then he put it all back together and the varnish is still drying. When in need, smash and draw. Just hope it doesn’t bind…”

It hadn’t, and on his third step Stalwart was assessing his opponent. Thrusk was encased in a helmet and a simple cuirass of breastplate and backplate. There might be gaps where those met, but only a desperate man would gamble on finding them. Below the waist he wore no steel, only breeches well padded with linen, which might not stop a sword stroke completely but would probably save him from serious hurt. Heavy leather riding boots covered his legs to above the knee. There were very few places where Thrusk could be effectively damaged.

He knew how to handle a sword, too, advancing right foot and right shoulder to meet the attack, holding a hand-and-a-half broadsword one-handed, and raising it to a guard position that in Ironhall’s own distinctive terminology would be approximately Butterfly. He had it a little too high for his opponent’s height, though.

Hoping to make him raise it even farther, Stalwart lunged at Steeple and was parried to Stickleback. Hmm! Man Mountain was quick in spite of his bulk, and his power was hair-raising. There was no resisting his pressure when the blades engaged. Stalwart parried Thrusk’s riposte with the neck of the archlute and tried Osprey, which was a tricky compound riposte involving a double feint and a lunge under the opponent’s guard. Surprisingly, it did not end with his sword in Thrusk’s armpit as it should have done, but he felt his point catch Thrusk’s upper arm. Whether it just cut the cloth or nicked the skin he could not tell—and it barely mattered, because Thrusk’s recovery put his left foot in the fire. No matter how much a man might trust his boots, that situation would make him lose his focus.

Stalwart left him and spun around with a wild slash that wasn’t in the Ironhall repertoire at all—except that instinct was always permitted and in this case the windmill stroke parried a lunge from Foster, who hadn’t expected it and obviously didn’t know one end of a sword from another. Before he could even go to guard, Stalwart feinted at his eyes with the remains of the archlute and slipped the sword in underneath it to cut his throat.

He turned again with a backward spring away from Thrusk’s downward cut, staggering as his feet refused his orders. No one else in the room had even moved a step yet, but this affair had better be settled quickly. He threw the archlute ruin like a javelin. Thrusk let it bounce harmlessly off his armor and lunged, sending Stalwart back yet again. There was very little room here, and if he let himself be cornered he would be a fond memory. He feinted, was parried, and lunged again, very nearly losing an ear. He was fencing like a cripple! Thrusk showed his teeth in a grin. Parry, riposte, parry…Lily, Violet…
clang—clang—clang
—The man’s strength and reach were incredible. Eggbeater. One misjudgment and this flimsy thrusting sword would be cut in half.
Clang—clang
—

He would have to gamble the farm on one roll of the dice.

In desperation he discarded Chefney’s advice and reached for Sir Quinn’s Fancy Stuff. There was one compound attack called Beartrap that would work best—if it worked at all—for a short man against a very tall opponent. Stalwart lunged, parried, feinted, and ducked under Thrusk’s riposte to cut at his right leg, slicing through his boot just above the knee as if he were carving meat. (
Thank you, Snake, for giving me a sword with an edge
!) The hamstring parted; Thrusk cried out and toppled. Even better—as he sprawled forward and Stalwart straightened, for an instant Thrusk had his head back to expose a glimpse of naked throat under his beard. Stalwart rammed his sword in past the collarbone, down among lungs and gullet and major blood vessels. The weapon was almost wrenched out of his hand as Thrust completed his fall, face-first into the floor, but that just meant that the blade was able to do more damage in there.

It was done! It was over! He was bubbling so hard with excitement that he could barely keep from dancing. That was what a real fight was like? And the battle was a long way from over yet. Sir Hawkney had told him that after the Night of Dogs he hadn’t been able to sit down for two days.

He kicked Thrusk’s helmet. “Die, you dreg!” he shouted. “You hear me, brute? You’re dying. I killed you. I wish I could do it again.”

S
ORRY ONLY THAT HE COULD NOT GLOAT longer over the death throes, he turned to survey the glazed eyes and open mouths of the five spectators. Obviously they had never seen a Blade in action before. One boy and two dead or dying men, and it had taken less than a minute. Skuldigger still wore his sword.

“I told you to throw down your weapons!” Unfortunately Stalwart’s voice came out as a shrill squeak.

That didn’t matter. Screaming in terror, the four traitors turned and rushed for the doorway with the woman in the lead. Emerald, bless her, stuck out a foot and tripped her. Skuldigger fell on her and the other two men jammed in the doorway. No time to laugh. No way to take hostages, either, because it might be days before Snake rode in.

“Let them go!” he shouted and headed for the fireplace.

Foster was unconscious, bleeding to death very messily—an incredible river of blood. Stalwart could feel sorry for him, because he had probably been tricked into being enslaved, and after that he would have had no choice.

He was not sorry for Thrusk, who had been just as bad before Skuldigger bespelled him. Incredibly, the giant had managed to sit up. He was hardly bleeding at all, just blowing red froth out from under his beard, gurgling and coughing blood. Stalwart went around him and took up the branding iron, resisting a powerful temptation to let Thrusk have a taste of it. He poked it into the roof instead.

Thrusk reached feebly for his fallen sword.

Stalwart kicked it out of reach. “I told you,” he said. “You’re dying! Outsmarted by a kid. I’m glad.” The antique thatch flared up. “Can’t stay to watch, but take all the time you want.”

Emerald was staring at Stalwart as if he’d sprouted antlers. “You really are a Blade! That was what I was detecting—all those years of training!”

“If you say so. Come on.” He pointed at Foster’s sword. “Bring that.”

He ran to the door and hurled the iron onto the roof of the next shack. The sea breeze was still blowing, and all the village thatch was old and dry. A good blaze or two would distract the pursuit. People were shouting in the distance, but no one had come in sight yet. The moon was…
there
…and just short of the full, so that was east. When they brought him in through the gate the sun had just set on his left so the river must be over…
there
. “This way!”

He stretched out his left hand behind him. “Hang on and don’t trip me with that sword, but keep it. You may need it.” It was dark in the alleyways and the footing was made treacherous by garbage, firewood, wheelbarrows, chicken coops—all sorts of clutter. He went as fast as he dared, feeling out the clearance with his sword and judging direction by the moon-light on the clouds.

“Wart, there are monsters out there!”

“There are worse monsters in here.”

He ducked under windows and turned away from candlelight spilling from doorways. He collided with a hurdle across his path and wakened a litter of piglets on the other side of it to terrified squealing. He kept heading west.

“There are two Sisters and a child, Wart! We can’t leave them.”

Oh, death and flames
! “We must leave them! They’ll be safer here for a few more days than they will be out in the woods with us.” His job was to rescue Emerald and lead Snake to the traitors’ lair, in that order.

The shouting in the background was increasing, and sometimes when he looked back he could see two red pillars of sparks. Glowing fragments were floating away in the breeze, threatening half the village. With any luck Skuldigger and his cronies would concentrate their own efforts on putting out the fire and rely on the chimeras to catch the fugitives for them. With a lot more luck they would be wrong.

The unbroken wall on his right must be the palisade. “The gate’s that way,” he whispered, “but they’ll be watching it. We need a place to climb over.”

“Why not just push it down? It’s rotten.”

He tried a shoulder against it. “I’m not stalwart enough.” The individual posts might be no thicker than a man’s arm, but they were still sturdy hunks of timber.

“Keep trying. There are places where it’s mush.”

Emerald had seen it in daylight and probably seen more of it than he had. Together they crept along the perimeter of the village, hunting for a weak point, often having to detour around heaps of garbage. Unfortunately none of the obstacles was high enough to let them climb over the wall. As he began to worry that they were drawing too close to the gate and its inevitable guards, he almost collided with a pole angled across his path. Fumbling and peering, he made out that there were four of them, and they were bracing up a section of the palisade that was anxious to fall inward.

He handed his sword to Emerald and set to work. The props came loose easily enough. Then the wall sagged farther, but its cross-rails still held it together. He was certain his time was running out fast. He took up one of the props and tried to find a place he could insert it to use as a pry bar.

“Wart!”

“What?”

“There’s something out there!” Emerald’s voice was shrill.

“Good.”
Got it!
—he forced the lever between two posts. “Need all the help we can get.”

“Wart! I am telling you! There is a chimera outside that fence. And at least one more not far away.”

“Help me!” He heaved with all his strength.

Emerald, having her hands full of swords, put her shoulder to the pole. Timber groaned, and then a single post cracked off and toppled, bringing two lengths of cross-rail with it. Not enough. He was about to put his lever back and try again when a wailing animal howl froze him solid. It went on and on until his scalp prickled. The lungs on that thing! Whatever was creating that racket was not close, but it must be big—
very
big.

Something grunted just outside the narrow gap he had made. He dropped the pole and grabbed his sword back. Another post creaked, snapped, and fell. No need to break out now. The thing outside was breaking in.