R. Salvatore - The Bear

Affwin Wi grinned at him.

"Because it was not Laird Ethelbert," said Bransen. "Not with Cormack and Milkeila, and not with Jameston Sequin. It was you, the murderess of Behr. For a long time that made no sense to me." He tilted his head to regard her curiously. "Why?"

The woman just kept grinning.

"Because you feared the end of the war?" Bransen reasoned. "Because if the alliance had been forged, then both Bannagran and Gwydre would have stood taller than the laird who protected you? Is that why you tried to kill them?"

"And now I will kill you," Affwin Wi promised, and she charged forward, the Jhesta Tu sword leading the way with mighty slashes, weaving and cutting with practiced unpredictability.

The Highwayman cartwheeled to his right, coming up in a defensive posture, his sword back in tight near his shoulder, held vertically, his left hand out in front.

Affwin Wi dove into a roll as he disappeared to the side, came up to her feet, positioned perfectly to execute a swift turn, and closed immediately, cutting at Bransen's leading hand.

He dropped his hand easily under the swing and thrust his sword forward, but with a softened grip so that it caught Affwin Wi's swinging blade as a man might catch a thrown egg. As soon as the blades lay parallel before him, Bransen worked his wrist over, trying to hook his mother's sword and throw it from the woman's grasp.

But Affwin Wi rolled her wrist as well, opposite his, thus engaging the blades more swiftly than Bransen had anticipated, and so her own twist and slide nearly wrenched the sword from his hand!

That he held on was a credit to his strong grip, but Affwin Wi continued her riposte as if expecting that move all along, cutting short the follow-through of the sword throw and stabbing forward, twisting her delicately curving blade deftly to slip it past the cross hilt of Bransen's sword.

The Highwayman felt the sting and saw the blood, but again, his reaction was not far behind the move, and he avoided any major gashing. He reangled his blade and batted it across, rapping Affwin Wi's sword harmlessly.

On she came, cutting and thrusting in a wild and furious routine. The Highwayman fell into his crouch and worked his own blade with equal fervor, metal ringing against metal repeatedly, so quickly that it seemed like the chime of one long bell.

For a short while against the continuing barrage, Bransen tried to recognize the pattern to her movements, tried to sort it among the many routines he had learned in his perusal of the Book of Jhest. Turning his full attention away from the fight was his mistake, he realized when he missed one block and got nicked again on his forearm, then missed a second deflection as Affwin Wi thrust at him.

Bransen ducked desperately, angling to the side, but Affwin Wi's fine blade-his own mother's magnificent sword-sliced the outside of his left shoulder. He stumbled aside and she pursued, and again the swords collided with an impossibly frantic pace.

No longer was Bransen seeking recognition in his opponent's movements. No longer was he thinking of the Book of Jhest. No longer was he thinking at all! Now it was instinct and reaction, a back-and-forth stab and block and slice and parry that had the both of them moving about in hops and starts, forward, sidelong, and back.

Affwin Wi came across with a mighty cut, but the Highwayman's sword was there, vertically blocking.

But the Highwayman was barely holding it!

A look of confusion on her always confident face, Affwin Wi tried to reverse her cut as the blades connected, sending Bransen spinning end over end. Not to fly away, though, but to loop in place in the air, for the Highwayman had cleverly kept exerted just enough counterpressure on the hilt. He stepped his left foot out to the right before him, half turning, and caught the hilt of the spinning sword with a reverse grip in his left hand. Without hesitating, thinking he had won the day, he stabbed a backhand at the woman.

To his amazement, she was out of reach. Recognizing his vulnerability, the Highwayman did well to hide and dismiss his surprise that his clever move had scored him nothing. Not even aware of the action, he fell into the magic of the malachite and sprang up into the air, tumbling sidelong, tucking not at all, and still easily clearing not only Affwin Wi but also the reach of her overhead stab.

As he landed, shifting to face Affwin Wi directly, he found her in a similar spring and twist, now going above and beyond him, her downturned head a dozen feet from the ground.

"The brooch," Bransen heard himself whisper. He was not pleased to learn that Affwin Wi had so mastered the gemstones already!

He leaped again, so did she, and as they passed in midair, higher than a tall man's head, they brought their weapons crashing together, the force of the blow sending both of them spinning sidelong through their descent. But neither stayed on the ground for long, springing away, for now the fight had taken an extra dimension in its deadly dance.

They leaped and somersaulted, spun and lay out horizontally, floating past each other at various angles, striking out at each other each time to the ring of metal and with enough force to turn the combatants.

On one such pass, Bransen, flat out and facing downward after the twist from Affwin Wi's parry, tucked and flipped as he neared the ground. He plated his feet strongly and leaped backward as fast as he could manage, thinking to catch the woman before she could get fully into her subsequent launch.

But Affwin Wi hadn't jumped. As if she had, yet again, been one step ahead of Bransen, the woman landed and released the magic of the malachite in her brooch, grounding herself and coming about, perfectly positioned to catch him in his next flight.

The Highwayman noted it at the very last moment and released the malachite magic, dropping him short of the mark. He managed to lift his sword before him to block another mighty swing, but that, again, was exactly what Affwin Wi wanted. For she wasn't swinging at Bransen but at his blade.

The Jhesta Tu sword hummed as it came across, a thing of beauty, of delicate and powerful silverel metal, wrapped a thousand times over itself so that it only sharpened as it wore down. The Highwayman had no choice but to attempt a powerful block, and the rigid posture and powerful stance worked against him as Affwin Wi cut across with all her considerable strength. He heard the crash of metal; he saw a spark as the blades collided and instinctively blinked and recoiled. He opened his eyes to find himself holding a stub of a blade, two-thirds of its length spinning through the air to the side.

Affwin Wi presented her sword before him, claiming victory. Bransen heard laughter; he glanced sideways to see Merwal Yahna standing there, hands on hips.

Bransen retreated but quickly ran out of room as he came to the backside of the ridge, a sheer drop of twenty feet or more behind him.

"Yes, you can leap away," Affwin Wi said to him as she slowly approached. "But know that I will catch you and kill you!" As she finished, the woman came on with frightening speed, lifting the sword high for a strike that Bransen couldn't hope to dodge or block.

But neither did he retreat. He lifted his hand from his pouch, drawing forth the power of the gemstone as he went. Stronger and stronger, he coaxed that magic forth, charging the stone powerfully by the time his hand was up before him. And then he let it loose. The lodestone, magnetite, snapped from his grasp, propelled by its attraction to the target, the hilt of Affwin Wi's sword. As it struck, the sword went flying, spinning end over end, and three of Affwin Wi's fingers went flying as well. Shock on her fair face, the woman staggered backward. Merwal Yahna cried out but was too far away to help her.