John Ringo: There Will Be Dragons

“D’you think you can do better?” Dionys snapped, leaping forward and driving a blow against Talbot’s shield. This time, Talbot caught the blow full against it and the sword rang as it was stopped by the metal of the shield.

“Oh, yes,” Edmund replied. “What? You don’t think I’d have standard armor, do you? I’m a master-smith . Of course it’s power-armor you twit! As to taunting… Try this.” He thought for a moment then cleared his throat.

“Dionys, thou art a coward. Sooth doth thou send others before thee and refrain from the strife thyself. Thou strikest women yet shirk to strike a man, lest thy pustulent skin be cut by a blade fairer than thy own. Sooth, thou art a coward, McCanoc.”

“What?” Dionys shouted, slamming another blow into the shield. Edmund turned it aside as if it was of no importance and continued.

“Dionys, thou art a braggart. Braggart thou art for nought, for in every contest thou art defeated. Fighter of weaklings and braggarts like thyself, whensoever a true knight face thee, thou runs away. Yet, in sooth, from this cowardly retreat dost thou make brag. McCanoc, thou art a braggart.”

Herzer watched in amazement as the smith started to dance around his much larger opponent, taking blow after blow unfazed and practically singing his taunts as Dionys began slamming out blows in naked fury.

“Dionys, thou art smelly. Thy breath stinks of the rotten ejacula of horses, which, sooth, thou dost love as thy morning drink. Thy body reeks with the stench of fear, and the manure of asparagus-eating goats is better than the smell from thy mustache. McCanoc, thou art a stinker.”

At this Dionys let out a bellow like none before and began chasing Edmund around the defile. Others got out of their way, laughing now at Edmund’s taunts. Despite McCanoc’s size he could never seem to catch the smith.

“Dionys, thou art ugly. Thy orcs doth not run forward to the fight, but away from thy countenance. Sooth, in the history of the ill-favored, thy name is held in high esteem. Thy whore mother screamed at first sight of thee as the replicator burst open of its own accord in horror. The ill-fortuned persons that were forced to care for thee had to put a pork chop around thy neck to get the dog to play with thee. Further, sooth, when it did, it mistook thy ass for thy face and prefered it to lick. McCanoc, thou art ugly.

“Dionys, thou art stupid. Thrice hast thou attacked us and thrice have we thrown thee back, though we be but, forsooth, a fraction of thy number. Thou art unlettered and hath never read of the term ‘defeat in detail,’ for, assuredly, but those few letters would require all day and the use of both of your pustulent forefingers. But the veriest simpleton canst understand that thine tactics are those of a school-yard bully held back until his tutors at last release him as a man full grown yet unable to manage fingerpainting. The very fact that thou canst breathe must be by the arts of some homunculi or hob, smarter than thou, who doth sit upon thy shoulder and whisper in thy ear, ‘breathe in, breathe out’ else surely thou wouldst cease in this vital activity for lack of thought. Canst thou walk and chew bubble gum at the same time it is asked and I cry ‘Nay’ for I have found you, face down, the bubble gum before you upon the ground as proof.

“McCanoc, thou art stupid.”

“And tha t,” he finished taking another blow on the shield and stopping his dance, “is how a professional insults someone! Now, go away, or I’ll start in on Arabic you miserable mound of gelatinous pus!”

Herzer wished that he could see Dionys’ face; he figured he was just about to have a stroke. His voice was hoarse and it sounded almost as if he was crying.

“You’re going to pay for that Edmund Talbot!” McCanoc yelled, slamming his own shield into Edmund’s and then striking with his sword. Edmund turned both attacks with almost contemptuous ease and slapped the sword blade aside with his hammer. Herzer noticed that while McCanoc was winded, Edmund appeared as fresh as when the contest had started.

“And that is such a comeback,” Talbot sighed, hefting his hammer. “Do you know why it doesn’t bother me when people taunt me with the name Edmund?”

“No,” Dionys said, stepping forward until the black cloud enveloped the smith. “And I don’t care. I’m going to kill you.”

“It’s because it’s not my name,” Talbot replied, softly. “It’s the name of my brother, who died in Anarchia. He went there like a lot of young men used to go, to try to find some true competition in this world. And, like most, he fell victim to the anarchy that it is named after, killed in some pointless skirmish. I didn’t know that at the time, so I followed him in. It took me years to determine his fate. Years in which, in searching for my brother, I found what I thought was my destiny.”

His voice had gone cold and hard and even McCanoc had stopped, awed by some depth he couldn’t understand, hidden in the simple tones of the smith.

“My name, is Charles, ” Talbot snarled at last, and as he did he was enwrapped in a blue glow that drove back the cloud in flashes of silver light. “And you, Dionys, are about to find out why I am called THE HAMMER!”

The hammer slashed forward faster than the eye could follow, faster even than Bast’s lightning sword blows and Dionys was smashed backwards in a blast of sparks. His shield was shattered and he tossed it off with a cry, cradling his arm as the smith advanced.

“King of Anarchia you wished to be, right?” Talbot said, catching Dionys’ wild swing on his shield and shedding the power blade as if it were a zephyr of wind. “Wanted to destroy all of my good work, did you?” he continued, slamming the hammer into Dionys’ shoulder and casting him backwards in another blast of blue sparks. “Want to take over my town, do you?” he asked, hammering McCanoc’s sword arm as his opponent took another wild swing. The sword sailed harmlessly away as Talbot stepped forward relentlessly, pressing the much larger fighter up against the edge of the road cut. “Raped my wife, did you?” Edmund said, fury in his voice as Dionys ducked his head and charged. “Kill her just like bastards like you killed my brother ?”

Edmund stepped easily aside and laid the hammer across the back of McCanoc’s helmet with another shower of sparks that made the hammer ring like a bell. The black-armored figure was left stretched in the dust and Edmund raised the hammer over his head for a killing blow. “I don’t think so.”

“Edmund!” Sheida called from above. The battlefield was suddenly shadowed as a flight of wyverns, each with a lance-wielding rider on its back, landed on the hills. “Don’t!” She dismounted and scrambled to the ground, waving at him frantically as her lizard flew down ahead of her. “Damnit, even if we didn’t need him, you can’t kill him that way!”

Harry was on one of the wyverns as well and waved a sardonic salute at Edmund before the flight took off down the valley. The orcs had, indeed, been reforming for another assault but as the dragons swept down on them they scattered for the trees. The wyverns passed on and from down the valley came frantic neighing from the pack train as the beasts flew over.

Edmund flexed his hand on the hammer and looked up at the council member angrily. Finally, he nodded curtly, then raised the hammer over his head and brought it down on the small of Dionys’ back instead of his head.

“Fine,” he snarled. “I never said I’d let him walk again. Or use his dick.”

Sheida shook her head angrily and climbed down from the heights, running to McCanoc. As she approached she lifted a hand and concentrated for a moment until the black cloud settled and dissipated into dust. She then ran her hand down McCanoc’s back, looking inward and rocked back on her heels.