John Ringo: There Will Be Dragons

Dionys stabbed downward but Herzer was already on his feet with a back roll he would forever afterwards find impossible. He had dropped his shield and as the blade swept down he parried it despairingly only to have his sword lopped off just above the guard. He backpedaled and picked up one of the spare pilums but Dionys leapt the distance between them and slashed downwards just as he was raising it. The power blade swept around, cleaving through the pilum and taking off most of Herzer’s left hand with it.

Herzer stumbled backwards clutching at his wrist and snarling. “You’re going down, Dionys,” he said. But he could feel the black cloud sucking his strength away as he said it and his vision was going gray.

“What are you going to do, bleed on me?” Dionys asked, just as a white maelstrom landed on his back.

Azure had been watching the battle with interest. He didn’t really feel he had a side in it, but his humans were certainly having fun and tearing big strips of fur off their opponents. But something about the black figure struck a cord and when the air brought the scent of him to the cat, he recognized someone with whom there was a score to settle.

The power field apparently didn’t recognize that claws could kill and it had no effect upon the enraged feline. The sixty-kilo cat landed on the back of Dionys’ armor and scrabbled at it, hissing and spitting.

Dionys spun around but the cat had hooked his top claws into the armor’s chinks and was raking for all he was worth. And no matter how McCanoc writhed he could not dislodge the house lion.

Azure, however, did not like the black cloud one bit. It was making him think of going and lying in the sun to sleep it off. Finally, the cat gave up. The armor was proof against his claws and the cloud, ill-tuned as it was to the biology of a feline, was making inroads on his strength. Finally, with a yowl of disappointment, the cat disengaged.

Dionys took a swipe at the white figure as it ran off but missed and turned back to Herzer, just as the boy launched himself through the air. He had watched Azure’s attack and recognized that the power field did not recognize a body within its reach. Despite the pain of his hand and the weakness caused by the cloud he threw himself on Dionys’ shield arm, clasping McCanoc around the waist with his legs and trying to work a dagger into the chink between his cuirass and gorget.

Dionys let out a bellow of anger, shook himself again, stabbing with his sword and trying to rid himself of Herzer. But when he felt the dig of the dagger on the cloth under the armor he threw himself on the ground, slamming Herzer on his back and driving all the air from his lungs.

Herzer found himself on the ground, totally spent. The cloud had seeped the strength from his body and the impact of Dionys on him was the last straw. He felt ribs crack under his opponent’s weight and his dagger flew out of nerveless fingers. As Dionys scrambled to his feet he tried to stand up, roll, anything, but all he could do was lie on the ground and await his fate.

“That’s it,” Dionys muttered, stumbling to his feet and lifting his sword. “I’m tired of you, Herzer.” He raised the sword again, point downward and prepared to thrust just as a saber slashed out from the side and struck his armor in a shower of sparks.

Dionys spun in place and cut back, fast and hard, only to have Bast avoid the blow with a laugh. “You’ll have to do better than that,” she said, dancing backwards. “Nobody roughs up my pretty-boy and gets away with it.”

“Will you people just give up ?” Dionys shouted and leapt forward but wherever he slashed the elf was never there, dancing in with a merry chuckle and raking her sword along his armor. “Faster, Dionys McCanoc, faster,” she said. “You need to learn the dance.”

And, indeed, it was a dance she led him as McCanoc furiously chased her around the encampment. Occasionally someone else would attempt to intervene but none of their weapons could pierce the power shield around his armor and Bast laughingly waved them off as blow after blow fell upon his plate. But though she could pierce the power field, she could make not a dent in the armor and after a while there was nothing but the grunting of the giant plate-armored figure and the laughter of the elf. The militia had at first fallen back but now moved forward, watching the swordplay and commenting on it. They were careful, however, to stay far outside the range of the black cloud around McCanoc that seemed to have no effect on the elf.

Herzer found himself lifted to a sitting position by Rachel who frowned at his hand. “This is a right mess,” she said, waving at some stretcher bearers.

Herzer shook his head as they approached. “I want to see,” he said.

“Okay,” she sighed, wrapping his mangled hand in a bandage. “We’ll wait. But I think we’re all doomed. Bast can’t get through his armor and all he needs is one lucky blow. Oh, hell.”

“Bast,” Edmund said, stepping to the edge of the duel. “Feel like tagging out?”

Herzer didn’t know where he’d come from; it was as if he’d just appeared. The boy wasn’t sure what the old warrior was going to do against the nannite cloud and the much larger McCanoc, but having him there was comforting.

“Not… yet,” she replied. The elf, for all her stamina, was slowing down and McCanoc seemed to have unlimited reserves of energy.

“I’m going to kill you,” Dionys said, panting. “Then all the rest of you. Rape Daneh again, rape that bitch daughter, rape your still warm corpse.”

“I don’t think so,” Bast gasped but as she said it her foot turned on a stone. She tried to turn the slip into a cartwheel but Dionys darted forward, his sword licking out, and caught her on the upper thigh. As the bright blue blood spilled out on the ground he raised the sword up, point downward, for a killing thrust.

“My turn,” Edmund said, stepping forward to interpose his shield as Bast scrambled backwards. Some of the militia grabbed her and drew her back into their midst, shielding her from McCanoc’s view.

“Now you, old man?” Dionys said, stepping back and laughing. “Don’t you people give up? My orcs will be up here before long and your damned ‘Blood Lord’ pussies aren’t going to be able to stop them with me in their midst.”

“I see you kenned some armor,” Talbot replied calmly, hefting his hammer.

“Kenned hell, Fukyama could see a good deal when it was presented to him,” McCanoc replied, lifting his visor for a moment. He was far enough back that the cloud barely reached Talbot but he appeared puzzled that it didn’t seem to have any effect. The cloud seemed to be hovering just a short distance from the baron’s armor as if it was afraid to touch it. He looked at it questioningly for a moment and then dropped his visor, dropping into a guard position.

“You can’t defeat me, either, ‘Baron’ Edmund,” he said, stepping forward carefully and jabbing at Edmund with his sword. The hypersharp weapon struck Edmund’s shield but the baron turned the blow aside, letting the point slither off the metal surface.

“No weapon is proof against my armor,” McCanoc continued, circling his smaller opponent. “My blade will go right through your armor and my cloud will kill you even if my blade doesn’t. Nice, isn’t it? It’s a medical protocol that Chansa gifted me with. Your wife will like it, I think. Perhaps I’ll feed her to it, after our child is born. You are going to die, here, Edmund Talbot.”

“I think not,” the baron replied, sighing. “Taunting, taunting, taunting. I halfway expect you to say ‘neener neener.’ So far your cloud doesn’t appear to be working.” He turned aside another blow lightly and stepped to the side, holding his hammer at the ready. “And, you know, Dionys, you really aren’t very good at taunting.”