Michael Stackpole - Chartomancy

Which meant it was time to do something else.

Without even bothering to draw my swords, I broke from cover and sprinted down the road. A heartbeat later-or a half-dozen, given how their hearts were pounding-my troopers followed me. They came as quiet as death and when I pointed south, they poured into the woods and hit the vhangxi in the flank.

Further east, from the darkness, someone shouted a command, and more of the hulking beasts came running.

I had no time to consider what I had heard. The enemy who had gone north now emerged from the woods to attack south-only to find me in their way. My first draw-cut opened a vhangxi from hip to shoulder. His guts gushed out in a wet rush, and he collapsed atop the steaming heap. Drawing my second sword, I bisected a skull before spinning away from slashing claws which, with one circular cut, I amputated at the wrist.

A quick thrust finished that one, then crosscut slashes beheaded the next. Dropping to a knee, I allowed a leaper to pass above me. His claws raked through air while my right blade raked through his stomach. He landed hard, bounced and rolled, entangling himself in his entrails.

Coming up, I stepped back. Claws passed within an inch of my face, but concerned me no more than the touch of a spring breeze. The missed blow twisted the creature, exposing his back to me. I whipped the sword in my left hand up and snapped it flat against his body. The tip bent, spending its energy against a vertebra just below the juncture of neck and shoulders. Without breaking the skin or even loosening a single scale, the blade shattered that bone, severing his spinal cord.

The vhangxi collapsed, only able to open and close his mouth as he struggled for breath that would not come.

From the south came the sounds of battle. Vhangxi grunted as they struck or were struck, and only the abrupt cessation of the sound differentiated between circumstances. Men screamed, all of them differently. From the quality of those screams, I could tell who would live or die. My mind tallied the sounds and I knew we were giving better than we got, but that this ambush was the last we’d be doing for a long while.

Then a man rode up the road. At least he looked like a man, and wore a man’s armor. He reined back as he saw me standing amidst the slaughter. I read no fear on his face and this I welcomed.

The vhangxi, having no discernible facial expressions, had been unsatisfactory foes.

The armored rider looked at me and spoke. He addressed me in a dialect I’d not heard in a long time. Moraven had never heard it. By the time he had come to be in Phoyn Jatan’s care, such formal and precise language, as well as the special dialect in which it was delivered, had long since passed from vogue. Those who had used it the most had died, and it had died with them.

I stood there, my swords dripping, then bowed my head. Though my mouth had difficulty with the words, I answered him in kind and stepped back down the road to a clear spot. With the tip of my right blade I scribed a circle. Its diameter was the road’s width. When I reached the point where I had started it, I spun on my heel, presenting him my back. Then I marched to the opposite side, resheathed my blades, and turned to face him.

He’d removed his helmet, then doffed his breastplate and gauntlets. He did not bother to remove the armored skirts or mail and greaves on his legs-the rules of the formal duel he offered precluded slashing legs. His robe and overshirt bore the crest of a bear’s paw, which would have marked him as a simple citizen of Erumvirine.

A blind man could have seen he was neither. Sharpened ears poked up through his black hair. His flesh had a blue tint to it, which made him very dark in the night. His amber eyes, however, glowed like those of a cat. I assumed he could see as well as one in the darkness, and likely had reflexes to match. Though he did not seem hurried in anything he did, he was ready to strike.

He bowed in my direction, holding it for a respectful time, but hardly as long as I was due. I returned the bow and held it for as long as befitted a peasant new-come to the sword. Though he covered his reaction well, his eyes tightened enough to tell me I’d drawn first blood.

Sounds of fighting in the woods tapered off. More important, I still caught tingles of jaedun. The strongest came from Ranai, and some came from Deshiel. The weakest came from Grieka-but mastering the wasp-flail had ever been difficult. I even caught a hint of Luric Dosh and the havoc he wrought with a spear, scribing his own circle with the blood of vhangxi.

My foe drew his sword and struck the first Crane guard. With his forward leg lifted and that foot planted against his right knee, his left arm drawn up and his sword high but back, it looked dramatic, but was seldom practical in actual combat. While it countered the Tiger and Wolf forms well, he’d not paid attention. I might wear the black tiger hunting, but I’d killed his troops as an Eagle. He should have adopted a Snake form to face me, but my slight had stung him and he wished to show he understood some of the more complex forms.

I understood them as well, so I stood there and waited. I did admire how he maintained his balance. His arms did not tremble or otherwise betray fatigue. He didn’t sway at all. He waited, knowing he had chosen a form that invited an attack. Given my arrogance, he clearly expected one and, had I had any way to measure his skill, I might have obliged him. With him being an unknown quantity, the only invitation I would accept was the one to join him in the circle.

I don’t know how long we waited, but my people slew the last of the vhangxi in the interim. A storyteller would have measured the duration in days. Some of my companions, and all of his, measured it in lifetimes. All sounds of battle ceased and my companions-half the number they had been earlier-stopped well outside the circle. Some watched and others-those wiser-drew their own circles for protection and peered through the lenses of amulets meant to ward off magic.

My foe, still without exhibiting any fatigue, slowly extended his left leg and lowered himself into a crouch on the right. His sword remained high, but came down to point toward me. His left arm curled down, forearm parallel to his waist as he finally adopted Cobra third position-though those watching likely identified the form as Scorpion.

I drew my right leg up, touching my foot to my left knee. My sword I held high in my left hand, higher than he had. My right arm mirrored his left. I allowed myself a smirk and curled my ring and little fingers in-hardly the perfect Crane form he had displayed. I mocked him and he knew it; and I did it while daring to invite an attack.

He did nothing to conceal his consternation. If he waited as I had, he was just aping me. If he attacked, he would be less patient, more impetuous, less mature. Less worthy. Then again, if he killed me, none of that would matter.

He attacked.

As he came in, I read how he expected the exchange to go. He would lunge at my throat, and my sword would come down in a parry. I would bat his blade aside, but he would flip his wrist and use the momentum I imparted to slash me from nipple to hip on the right.

He came in, extending his blade, lunging. His right leg pushed off, his left bent. His blade’s point, without a quiver to it, flew at my throat. His eyes watched the target and also watched my blade, waiting for it to fall, waiting for the first contact. At that vibration, he would flip his wrist and open me. His slash would also hit my right arm, slashing tendon and muscle, perhaps even breaking bone. I would be sorely wounded and the duel’s outcome would be decided.

But in his planning and anticipation, he had not found the path to victory. He did not really thrust at my throat, he thrust toward it, knowing his blade would never find it. He had planned for my counter, and when it did not come-though he struck with the swiftness of a Cobra-he had no true target.