R. Salvatore - The Dame

The Highwayman gasped at the explosion of pain and stumbled to his left, stunned by the sheer weight of the blow.

Jameston had seen more than enough. He had long ago taken a measure of the Highwayman as the finest young warrior he had ever seen, but he already knew that Bransen was ill-prepared to battle this fierce warrior. In a single fluid movement, Jameston’s right hand snapped up and grasped an arrow, pulling it from the quiver, drawing it down over his right shoulder, and setting it expertly to the bow. Still moving in the same beautiful line, the scout drew back and lifted the bow, string coming against the side of his nose. He didn’t have much space between Bransen and the strange warrior, but he didn’t need much.

A form, a leaping and spinning, black-clothed warrior, flew in from the side and behind, just above Jameston. His bowstring lost all tension, the top of his bow snapping forward suddenly and awkwardly, arrow falling to the ground.

The scout cried out in surprise but kept his wits enough to grab his bow in both hands like a stave and swing to his left where the assailant had gone.

Had gone and was now coming back ferociously. Jameston turned that way. Smaller than the other opponent, a woman warrior came at him with clenched fists. She opened her left as she thrust it forward. Instinct alone prompted Jameston to pull his bow in close defensively. The small knife she had used to cut his bowstring stabbed into the bow and stuck fast.

At the last moment Jameston leveled his bow like a spear to fend the charging warrior. She did stop but slapped at the bow left and right, grabbing at the wood.

Jameston retracted and stabbed ahead repeatedly, trying to keep her at bay. He began rotating the staff’s end in small, fast circles; when he had her attention there he cleverly charged and thrust forward. He thought he had her, would have scored a solid hit, but a second stave entered the fray, chopping hard from the side, turning down Jameston’s bow-staff.

“What?” he cried, noting another black-clothed warrior to his left. He let go of his bow with his right hand and lifted it to block. Too late, for the warrior ran the staff up the angled wood above his lifting hand.

Jameston managed to turn so that he only took a glancing blow across his jaw, but when he looked back he saw the woman flying through the air at him, spinning a forward somersault. She straightened as she came over, her legs snapping forward, her black silk slippers poking from under the wide cut of her silken pants.

That’s going to hurt, Jameston thought, as one foot crunched against his cheek and nose; the other slammed him hard in the collarbone. He went flying backward, arms and legs akimbo, and landed on his back, his breath blasted away. Before he could begin to even think about rising, the other warrior was above him, the tip of a staff in tight against the bottom of his chin, ready to drive through his throat.

Jameston lifted his hands in surrender.

The Highwayman tried to block out Jameston’s troubles. He couldn’t afford even to glance at his friend’s precarious position while battling a man of such talent and speed. He was still reminding himself of that when the Behrenese warrior faked high and swept low with his legs, sending Bransen tumbling to the ground.

Even as he fell Bransen sought the malachite, lessening his weight. He landed lightly on his back, turned his legs under him and tightened his stomach, hoisting his shoulders with such force that he propelled himself right back to his feet with a suddenness that took his opponent by surprise.

The Highwayman went for the win, thinking to wound this warrior fast and spring away to help his fallen friend. He thrust out, a certain hit on the warrior’s hip, but he shortened the strike, both because he had no desire to kill this man and because he was anxious, too anxious, to get to Jameston. And because the Highwayman simply wasn’t used to fighting someone this quick and trained in the Jhesta Tu manner.

So when he expected his blade to penetrate flesh, he found instead a nun’chu’ku spinning an underhand block, pushing the angle of the cut wide. Worse, the exotic weapon wrapped up and around and the warrior grabbed both ends, locking the sword in place. The Highwayman reacted in time to prevent the sudden twist from snapping his blade in half by turning with the angle change, but the movement had him and his opponent in an awkward alignment, slightly askew of each other and both leaning away.

The warrior from Behr fell even lower, dropping his back, left leg into a deep crouch. Then he began kicking with his right leg, hitting the Highwayman in the shin and side of his knee, and then again in rapid succession.

The Highwayman fell into a similar crouch and responded with his own kicks, but his opponent had the advantage, the momentum, and the initiative. Feet circled and kicked forward and back, slapping and bruising as the two held tight to their entangled weapons.

For a few heartbeats, the Highwayman took two blows for every one he delivered. He gradually moved to more even footing and even managed a solid hit against the back of his opponent’s outstretched thigh, his toes jabbing hard into the man’s hamstring.

But that leg came up higher suddenly and clipped Bransen’s chin, nearly sending him tumbling away. He moved in closer, and kicks became jabbing knees. Again the Highwayman took the worst of it. He knew the style of fighting well from his readings, but he had never engaged in it, had never even sparred with this technique, and he was up against a master.

A knee came in hard against the side of his thigh, bruising him sorely. He shifted away from the assault. The warrior from Behr promptly straightened his leg in a snap kick that left Bransen’s left arm numb.

He wanted to retreat and regroup, but he couldn’t pull his sword free, and he surely couldn’t surrender it.

So the Highwayman went the other way, crouch-walking even closer to his opponent. He let go of his sword with his left hand, punching at the warrior, who easily shifted back enough so that, even if the punch landed, it could do no real harm.

But the Highwayman wasn’t trying to punch the warrior. Instead, he grabbed the man by the front of his silken shirt and with a yell, threw himself forward so that they were tight together.

The warrior from Behr laughed-exactly the response Bransen had hoped to elicit, for it told him that the warrior had believed his move to be a desperate attempt to drive the trapped sword in for the kill. The warrior then snapped his head backward and forward viciously, his forehead crunching against the Highwayman’s nose.

Bransen accepted the powerful hit, for he was already deep into the graphite of his brooch, bringing forth its powers. As the warrior from Behr snapped his head back again for another butt, the mighty jolt of lightning power kept him moving backward, had him flying backward, arms and legs flailing. He hit the ground and jerked about wildly.

The Highwayman stood and with a flip of his wrist sent the nun’chu’ku into the air where he caught it with his free hand. He hid well his grimace of pain as he straightened, for his knee, thigh, and hip were beyond bruised.

“Drop the weapons!” the woman shouted.

Bransen glanced to the side, where the man holding the stave on Jameston retracted it just an inch and popped it down hard against the underside of Jameston’s chin, drawing a pitiful gurgle from the prostrate man.

In front of the Highwayman, the fallen warrior finally managed to stand-or tried to, at least, but his legs wobbled uncontrollably and he staggered back down to one knee. He cried out through chattering teeth in the tongue of the southern kingdom. Bransen understood enough of the words to recognize that he was calling for his friends to back away from Jameston.