Steven Brust - Dragon

"Doing one, or preparing to do it?"

"Oh, he's preparing to do it. He's— what's the word? Poised. Yes, that's the word. He's poised to do a spell."

We hadn't stopped walking forward, and by this time we were ten feet behind the sorcerers, who were just behind Fornia and his honor guard. Ori was facing away from me.

I walked up and stuck my knife squarely into his back.

He screamed, and everyone turned around and looked at me as Ori spasmed and dropped to his knees. I couldn't see the expression on Ori's face, but I wasn't terribly interested in it, either. Fornia, however, stared at me wide-eyed.

"I hope," I said, "I haven't interfered with your plans."

"Kill him," said Fornia. "Kill all three of them."

And likely they would have, too; except that, at that moment, Morrolan broke through the final line of Eastern cavalry, and, amid the cries of people and horses, they charged Fornia's honor guard.

Fornia was thrust back toward me, which might have made it an excellent chance to kill him but I couldn't because I had to get out of the way of the large, very plain, unadorned Morganti greatsword he was swinging at my head. I did so, falling to the ground and rolling. I continued to roll away, not knowing exactly where Fornia and the Morganti blade were, and making the calm, rational decision that I needed to get away from them both, and besides, it was all I could do in the midst of my panic.

"Boss! Boss! You can stand up now!"

It's always embarrassing to panic in front of Loiosh. I stood up, and for just an instant, no one was around me and nothing horrible was happening in my immediate vicinity.

Then I spotted Fornia, about twenty feet away. He held both hands on the hilt of the sword, holding it at about waist height. Napper, his back to me, stood facing Fornia. Neither of them moved. It took me a second to realize that I could see a few inches of the point of the Morganti greatsword sticking out of Napper's back.

Napper dropped his sword, which fell, point first, very slowly, then stuck in the ground and swayed back and forth, also slowly. Nothing else moved in the entire world; Fornia and Napper were like twin sculptures, and would hold that pose until the world dissolved into the dreamstuff of the Gods, as my people say it will someday. But even then, the essence of Napper would never come back, and the shadowy remembrances of him in the minds of people like me, his comrades, would be all that would ever again exist of him.

And still they both stood, mutually transfixed.

Then Fornia looked at me, Napper unceremoniously fell to the ground, and the world started up again.

My moment of panic was over, replaced by a kind of hollowness that isn't all that bad a way to feel in such circumstances; at least it didn't keep me from observing, anticipating, and acting. I threw a couple of knives at Fornia just to let him know to keep his distance and began working my way toward Morrolan. At this point, the light infantry finally reached us. They flowed past me—I guess they figured that, being an Easterner, I had to be one of their cavalrymen—and Fornia was momentarily lost from sight.

I tried to spot Morrolan, but, ironically, now that he was within a knife-throw I couldn't see him. I kept looking.

Thinking back on it, this was what I had always imagined a battle to be like: constantly dodging, moving, trying to look in every direction at once, and never really sure of what I ought to be doing. The actual battles I had been in had certainly had elements of confusion, but at least I always knew what I had to do, and I could always concentrate on one direction. I guess the difference was that there were no actual lines here: Everyone was mixed up with everyone else, the entire thing being broken up into an endless, chaotic series of one-on-one or two-on-one fights. I could just imagine how often those who were actually participating had to stop and check caps or sashes to make sure they weren't about to strike down someone on their own side. Probably a few people got hit because they took too long to be sure, and almost certainly a few people got hit because the guy in front of them didn't take long enough.

At length I spotted Morrolan, just a glimpse of him through a temporary part in the sea of struggling humanity, and I moved toward him. If, by the way, you're wondering what became of Daymar, I still don't know. Maybe he was around the entire time, mixing it up with the enemy in his own way and doing what damage he could, but I suspect he took to his heels right around the time Fornia was destroying Napper. Can't say as I blame him much.

I skipped around a few fights, shuffled, dodged, and tried to spot Morrolan again. On the way, I passed by Napper's lifeless and souless body, and had another, very brief, moment of panic until Loiosh said, "He's not here, Boss. Not in sight, at least." I kept going.

I wrapped Spellbreaker around my left wrist again and grabbed Napper's sword from where it stuck out of the ground, even though it was too heavy for me, and moved toward where I'd seen Morrolan, hoping that I could trust Loiosh's perceptions and that Fornia wasn't about to appear swinging at the back of my head.

But no, Fornia wasn't coming after me just now, he was coming after Morrolan. And Morrolan seemed pretty pleased about it. They faced each other in a spot that sensible people had stayed away from, circling each other, and both apparently delighted by the encounter. Just beyond Morrolan I saw Aliera and a couple of other officers I didn't recognize, and they also seemed quite happy with this state of affairs.

In fact, everyone was happy about it except me, and I wouldn't have minded either except that I knew what Fornia was up to. The fact that I'd killed Ori had certainly messed with part of his plan, but he was going merrily on with the rest of it, I suppose trusting himself to find a way out when it was over. Or maybe not caring if he found a way out; he was, after all, a Dragon.

"No way around it, Loiosh."

"Boss—"

"I know. But I hate letting people get away with things. It offends me when they think they've put one over on me. It's a pride thing."

"You've been hanging around Dragons too long."

"Lieutenant Loiosh— First Jhereg Assassins — Charge."

"Whatever."

It was less of a charge than a stroll, but I carried it out, hardly planned and barely thought about, as neatly as any assassination I'd ever done, and under the circumstances that is no small thing. I did my calculations during the half dozen paces that separated us: I still didn't want to kill him, and didn't want to get close enough to that weapon to be so much as scratched by bad luck should he spasm; but I couldn't let him fight Morrolan with that weapon. I held Napper's big, heavy sword with both hands and toyed with it a bit. I wished I'd had more time to get a feel for the thing.

I came up directly behind Fornia. Morrolan spotted me, although I was awfully close before he did; he probably doesn't know how I did that, or maybe he just thinks he was concentrating too hard on Fornia. But the look on Morrolan's face warned Fornia, who took a step backward and started to turn, and when he was part of the way around I stepped in and swung Napper's sword down in a long overhead arc such as no Eastern fencer would ever execute and I put everything I had into it, knowing that if I missed I was dead and worse, but that it would likely take all my strength.

I struck him just above the wrists, and his scream was instantaneous and a joy to my ears. The force of the blow left my own weapon embedded in the ground, but I was done with it anyway. Before I could think about what I was doing—because, I assure you, thinking would have done me no good at all—I picked up the Morganti greatsword by the pommel, and ignoring the hands still wrapped tightly around it, I tossed it in Morrolan's general direction, being careful not to throw it actually at him, because I knew he might take that wrong.