R. Salvatore - The Dame

But a sudden and sharp cry from outside the closed door froze Tademist in his tracks. “What are you about?” Maddie yelled, followed by a thump and a scream. Not just any scream. Delaval and Genoffrey knew such a keen quite well, the dying shriek, the final wail of a man or woman as death descends.

Tademist knew it, too, and drew his weapons as he rushed to the door. From over his shoulder Genoffrey pulled out Spinebreaker, his legendary claymore, and Delaval slid his fine blade from its scabbard and let the belt fall to the floor.

The door burst open before Tademist got to it. In rushed Maddie Macabee, though not of her own accord. She was already dead, her chest gashed open. She flew forward, tumbling before the dodging Tademist, who did well enough to ignore the shock enough to prepare for the man following Maddie into the room.

Behrenese, judging by the color of his skin, the man held a fine, slightly curved sword in both hands. He entered in a fast and steady walk, perfectly balanced all the way to Tademist, where he launched a sudden thrust, then retracted his blade with amazing precision and speed, launching it into a downward diagonal swipe that would have taken Tademist from shoulder to hip had he not been focused solely on defense.

Tademist twisted away from the thrust and backed out of the downward cut then responded fast with a sudden thrust of his own sword, a stab of his dagger as he retracted the sword, and a second thrust. He advanced as he attacked, thinking to drive the man back, for other Behrenese appeared at the doorway.

But the man was suddenly not in front of him. Luck alone saved Tademist as he happened to turn the correct way in trying to find his too-quick opponent and happened to have his sword at the proper level to barely deflect another thrust of his opponent’s fine blade.

A man went by the combatants to Tademist’s right as he squared back up with his opponent. A woman entered next, as sounds of fighting erupted in the hallway, the castle guard rushing to their leader’s aid.

Tademist faded right as the woman, a fine sword in her hand as well, moved to pass him on the left. He wanted to intercept, but his opponent kept him dancing, kept him dodging.

As the woman passed, she smiled at him, and such an awful grin it was! Tademist felt his knees go weak, as if she had just withered him to his core. In that smile he knew-somehow-that he and his beloved King Delaval were surely doomed.

Genoffrey was used to missing with his first swing. The claymore wasn’t wieldy, after all, and Genoffrey never took pains to disguise his first attack. The blade came lumbering down from on high and the warrior before him easily and gracefully leaped back and to the side.

Genoffrey hid his grin, purposely seeming to overbalance as Spinebreaker thumped against the thick carpet. He even appeared to stumble.

The warrior rushed forward to the side of him, pivoted fast, and came in with a straightforward thrust, but just as he started the turn, so too turned Genoffrey, dropping his foot back as he lifted and re-angled his blade, putting it right in line to pierce the charging warrior.

He thought he had a win, and the necessary quick one so that he could go to the side of his beloved Delaval. But the warrior leaped up high, front somersaulted above the level claymore, and landed in a run past Genoffrey. The soldier tried to turn to keep up and felt the burn in his side, felt the warmth of his blood spilling from a long and deep gash.

To his credit Genoffrey grimaced through the pain, completed the swinging turn, and would have scored a hit on the retreating man had not that man, almost as if he had long anticipated this reaction, dived into another roll, this time along the floor.

This Behrenese warrior was two plays ahead.

Well, come on then and be done with it,” Delaval said to the dark-skinned, slight woman, although he had no way of knowing if she even understood him. She just smiled and circled, her curved and decorated sword down low before her, its tip nearly cutting the threads of the carpet.

“I need not ask who sent you,” said Delaval. “Long have we known that the traitorous Ethelbert favored the beasts of Behr.”

“You leaders of Honce slaughter your people with impunity,” she answered, surprising Delaval with her command of the language. “And yet, we of Behr are the ‘beasts’? Tell me, you who would rule the world, how do you measure such a title?”

She came forward suddenly, her sword flashing left, right, and center with three separate thrusts that seemed almost as one to the Laird of Delaval. To his credit, he managed to pick off the first and back out of the reach of the second and third.

She wasn’t done, though, quick-stepping forward and turning a complete circuit-something few warriors would ever dare try-bringing her sword in fast at Delaval’s side, then doubling the complexity of her form by changing its angle mid-swing.

Somehow, and he knew luck to be a part of it, Delaval managed to block.

“How much is he paying you?” he asked, trying hard to keep the nerves out of his voice. In just those two routines, the man feared he was outmatched. “I will double it!”

“Shallow principles,” the woman chided. “We are beasts.”

“You intervene where you do not belong!” Delaval growled at her. “You risk a war with all of Honce!”

“Idiot Delaval,” she said, and she came again, in a vicious flurry of swings and thrusts that left Delaval dizzy, that left Delaval retreating.

That left Delaval bleeding.

“You do not command all of Honce,” the woman finished.

Tademist did not hear Laird Delaval’s gasp as Affwin Wi’s blade punctured his belly. The young warrior heard nothing but the near constant ring of metal as he and his shaven-headed opponent exchanged vicious and furious flurries. Sword hit sword, dirk hit sword, and so fast was the man from Behr that even as Tademist intercepted his thrust with the dirk and perfectly executed a responding thrust with his sword, he found it fully parried.

If that weren’t impressive enough, the man from Behr then immediately launched another thrust routine, left, right, right again, and then right a third time.

Tademist blocked the first three, but his anticipation had him sliding his blade across to block a thrust angled left that never came. He felt the stab in his shoulder, felt his dirk arm go weak, and heard the weapon hit the floor.

Genoffrey did hear Delaval’s gasp, a sound he had heard only once before, in a far-off and long-ago battle in the Belt-and-Buckle mountains. He reacted with a sudden and brutal straightforward rush, stabbing his sword then slashing it, then reversing it with a powerful backhand. He didn’t get close to hitting his opponent, but he wasn’t actually trying for a kill there. He drove the man back, back, and then he turned and charged across the way, behind Tademist and toward Delaval.

He registered that Tademist was in trouble, but there was nothing he could do at that time, for before him the woman was into another wild exchange with Delaval, their blades ringing and screeching with hits and slides, and Genoffrey’s fine eye told him that his friend was too slow here, that the woman was outmatching him, strike for strike. He watched her setting Delaval up with every stride he took, and indeed, he felt as if he was running in deep mud, as if everything before him was just out of his reach. She brought Delaval’s sword to the right, then a bit farther to the right, and then again, with three short, quick stabs, then she flipped her blade across to the left, actually tossing it to her waiting left hand.

“No!” Genoffrey cried in dismay as Delaval futilely tried to re-angle his own sword. To the laird’s credit, he did manage a central thrust, but the woman stepped away from it, farther to his left, and turned as she went, rotating her hips and shoulders, lengthening her thrust and putting great force behind it.