Mitchell Smith - Moonrise

Brock seemed to take a moment to settle himself, to put pain in its place. Then, gazing annoyed over his shield rim, he came again.

Baj tried to flex his knife wrist, couldn't feel it as Brock struck at him – leading with the short-sword now, his wounded foot a little refused.

Baj tried to ward that fast stroke with the left-hand dagger again – parried it, lost the knife humming away from an agonized wrist – and leaped to thrust the rapier over Brock's shield. The shield came up to block and Baj whipped his blade away to feint at the injured foot now exposed. The shield came down, and Baj thrust high and over again and caught the soldier shallow in the throat – then side-stepped fast to his right from an instant savage rush and quick spearing thrusts of the short-sword, certain soon to catch him in the belly.

It seemed he'd managed only a slight injury, no more than an inch or two of slender steel into a massive throat, fur-tufted, corded with muscle.

Tiring… tiring, considering what next he must do, Baj misstepped on tundra turf but recovered, still circling away from that determined short-sword, snap-thrusting with more than human speed, quick as the tongue of some southern snake.

Breathing hard, Baj sidled to the right, circling, legs uncertain with fatigue – and knew that weariness, and having lost the left-hand dagger, were going to get him killed. Now he fled half-turned to his left, bringing the rapier's length across in limber parries of those murderous ringing strokes coming low inside.

He bitterly regretted having been so shy with that single thrust to the throat – an instant more of off-balance risk would have sent the steel another inch deeper. But he'd been afraid of Brock's blade.

Baj stumbled, circling… circling to the right, exhausted as if this had been a fight for hours. Brock still came after – the muzzle-face, gray eyes intent over the shield's rim – but perhaps came more slowly, without such driving ferocity.

Baj thought it might be the wounded foot; the soldier left wet red now with every step. The tundra's snow-dusted grass was dappled with bright blood along the circling way they'd fought. Some of that, Baj supposed, was from his face where the shield had struck him.

There was blood, also, at the soldier's mouth, a thread of it down one side into his whiskers as he came, moving more slowly He was making a sound. Baj, forever side-stepping to his right, away from that short-sword, heard it very clearly… a sort of soft snarling, but with liquid in it.

Brock suddenly stopped and stood still… Grateful, Baj stopped also, ceased the circling-away that was making him sick, with his cracked cheekbone hurting so badly. He stood taking deep breaths.

The soldier made that soft liquid sound again. Some blood came spilling from his mouth, as if he'd drunk blood, taken too big a swallow of it – and Baj realized George Brock couldn't breathe, had been strangling on his blood for some time. That inch or two of steel…

They looked into each other's eyes.

Then Brock coughed out a great spray of red – turned half-away… and whirling suddenly back, hurled his shield sliding off his left arm and scaling sideways so its edge slammed into Baj's shoulder as he tried to dodge, and knocked him down. Then the massive soldier, mouthing crimson foam, came staggering with his short-sword in his hand.

Baj rolled up and caught Brock on the rapier's point as he came. The thrust hesitated at the belly's massive muscle, then slid in. Up on one knee, gripping the hilt hard, Baj lunged to the right, turning full out and away so the rapier's blade – a foot of its length still buried – was left almost behind him, the slim steel deeply curved in desperate guard as the short-sword's edge swung in.

It was a clear sound at the shock, a bell's clanging note. The rapier, hammered, leaped free – and springing straight, numbed Baj's arm, but didn't break. Something, the short-sword's edge, glanced to just touch the right side of his head, above his ear, with a quick kissing sound.

Baj scrambled back… and saw George Brock-Robin slowly kneel, slowly go to all fours so the short-sword's bright blade was pressed into snowy grass, his massive head thrown back as he tried to breathe.

Baj then wanted… wished to do anything else. But instead, weary, trembling, he climbed to his feet – steadied, placed his sword's point – then drove the blade down through George's ribs… searched for the great heart, and found it.

"Damn you, Baj." Richard was kneeling before him, grimacing, watching as a near-human Guards physician stitched along the right cheekbone, as he'd already sewn the wound over Baj's right ear. "- I told you to watch his shield!"

" I didn't know they threw them…"

"They do every fucking thing with them!"

"The cheekbone is cracked, but very slightly." The physician, whose eyes had been contributed by an animal Baj didn't recognize, had gentle hands. "Cracked, but not busted – you know the WT word busted?"

"Yes, doctor, I do."

"Well, it isn't. Leave it alone, don't hurt it again, and it will heal quickly." He recommenced his sewing, tugging at Baj's cheek, hooking the small, curved needle in and out. "Good scars," he said.

"Poor Baj." Patience was sitting watching. They all were watching, gathered in their canvas-walled patch of tundra, duplicated exactly, camp to camp. "Our prince will not be so handsome, now."

"And he shouldn't be. He's a fool." Nancy was wincing as Baj winced, while the needle went in and out.

"Hold still," the doctor said. "Tender Sunriser skin…"

Nancy was recovered after a long while of silence. Richard had found her lying in the tundra, halfway back to camp. She'd been lying with her face in her arms – Errol whining beside her, worried. When Richard turned her over, her eyes were tight shut.

"He's dead," she'd said, having heard only the clash and ring of steel, and no notice from hundreds of silent soldiers.

"No… no." Richard had cradled her in his arms. "No, not dead!"

"Dying," Nancy'd said, and wouldn't open her eyes when Errol came scurrying, having retrieved Baj's left-hand dagger.

They hadn't allowed Baj to come to her, since he ran blood – right cheek split open, scalp sliced above his right ear.

Patience had knelt by Nancy in sedge grass. She and Richard both reassuring her.

When Nancy did open her eyes, she'd said, "You don't know how much I hate him."

"Yes, sweetheart," Patience had bent to kiss her. "We know how much you hate him."

"… Other one just missed the top of the ear," the physician leaning to bite off his suture's excess at Baj's cheek.

"Too bad," Nancy said, watching. "George Brock should have taken that ear, and the other one too."

Baj, having vomited dinner at sunset, lay alone behind the bales in his blanket pallet – Nancy gone with Patience to rouse Sergeant Givens for soothing vodka – his head hurting as if it rested in hot coals. The left shoulder, where Brock's thrown shield had struck him, was mottled dark blue, and very sore.

Patience had asked the Guard doctor for some herb or far-southern poppy paste, and the physician had stared at her in astonishment. "He's not a child."

"Not a Person, either," Patience had said, but the doctor had snorted, gathered his gear, and gone. Still, Baj found the cold a fair comfort, its sunset-wind stroking, chilling the wounds to dullness, though he still felt the stitches pulling.

He recalled the duel – but as if it had been only the beginning of pain, and of no other importance. He supposed George Brock-Robin might have killed him, fighting as his nature would have ordered. A terrible leaping rush, fangs bared – a smashing shield and slicing blade – with no practiced ranker's restraint, none of the Guard's trained battle discipline… He would have hacked Baj down like a storm.