R. Salvatore - The Dame

The Highwayman faked his next punch, half throwing a right before retracting with enough force to drive himself into a backward lean. From there he lifted his left leg up high, so high, straight over his head!

His leg came down hard, outstretched and atop the dislocated shoulder with tremendous force. For all his toughness, Merwal Yahna blanched and lurched to the side. Bransen waded in with another combination of heavy blows, positioning his opponent perfectly to drive his knee into Merwal Yahna’s gut.

The Highwayman sprang back then leaped up in a spin, his flying foot catching the doubling-over Merwal Yahna on the side of the head with such power that it sent him into a sidelong somersault. He landed hard and awkwardly, growling with agony, and grasped his torn shoulder in a mighty grip, groaning through gritted teeth. He was tense and curled, but he couldn’t hold it, and gradually, he melted back to the floor, his growl receding with his strength.

Bransen leaped over him in a crouch, left hand extended against Merwal Yahna’s face, lining up a surely fatal blow from his cocked, right arm.

And a blow did fall, a hard one, but it fell against Bransen before he could finish Merwal Yahna. Affwin Wi’s kick staggered him to the side, and he had to fall over into a roll and then come back to his feet, spinning to face this newest opponent.

“You murdered Jameston!” he accused.

“He attacked those sent to make certain he had left.”

“No!” Bransen retorted. “Never! Not unless he were forced to defend himself!”

Affwin Wi settled back easily and began to laugh. “Foolish young man,” she said.

“I came here as a fellow traveler in the way of Jhesta Tu!” Bransen shouted, and Affwin Wi laughed louder.

“I am not Jhesta Tu!” she shouted back, and the words hit Bransen much harder than her kick ever could have. “Hou-lei!”

Hou-lei? The title rolled around Bransen’s head for few moments until he connected it to his reading of the Book of Jhest. Hou-lei, the tradition that had inspired Jhesta Tu, an old mercenary warrior class, a tradition of divorcing fighting skill from moral judgment, of preparing for battle under the will of Whatever sheik or king paid most handsomely. A Hou-lei warrior was an instrument, a weapon, and nothing more.

Bransen stood there blinking in disbelief, but everything suddenly made sense. “You are paid assassins,” he said.

Affwin Wi shrugged as if that fact should have been apparent long before. She came forward suddenly and viciously, her arms waving alternating circles before her, her hands set in hooklike fashion, thumbs tucked, fingers tightly bent at the knuckles.

The Highwayman dropped his left leg back and fell lower, his own arms up before him.

As they closed, Affwin Wi kept spinning her arms, occasionally jabbing forward. Bransen blocked those first few stabs easily or turned aside from them, eventually coming to the same rhythm as Affwin Wi.

She picked up the pace. He stabbed with his hands. Back and forth they circled and slapped, hands stabbing like striking snakes, hands striking hands. They went faster, more furiously. Affwin Wi dodged one of the Highwayman’s punches and kicked her leg out right before her. Bransen’s shin came up to meet it. They hopped about, each keeping a leg in the air, waving, kicking, punching, slapping like a pair of cranes battling over a frog in a crowded pond.

Unused to this style of fighting, Bransen could not keep up. He was hit by more blows than he landed. Every strike the expert Affwin Wi delivered was in perfect balance, her weight behind the blow, her angle precise.

Bransen knew he couldn’t win this kind of fight. He suddenly threw himself to the side and into a roll, coming up with Merwal Yahna’s nun’chu’ku in his hands. He put the weapon into motion-it had looked so easy in Merwal Yahna’s hands-and nearly clipped himself in the head. Affwin Wi laughed at him and charged.

Bransen dropped the exotic weapon, reached into his brooch, and met her flying form with a lightning discharge that sent her flying back the way she came. She landed and stumbled, fell over and rolled, came back to her feet and stumbled again, her teeth chattering, her black hair jumping wildly.

The Highwayman focused on the image of Jameston, focused on his brooch, focused on the power of Abellican gemstones. He enacted a serpentine shield and became a living torch, using the malachite and his fury to hurl himself at the Hou-lei warrior.

She shrieked and tried to dodge, and Bransen knew he had her. He crashed into her, bringing both to the floor. Bransen closed his eyes, not wanting to watch the flames curl her flesh.

She laughed at him, punched him in the face, and wriggled away.

Bransen looked down to see that his flames were no more. He looked up at Affwin Wi to see her smiling smugly, her hand extended, a gemstone in her open palm. A sunstone. The stone of antimagic.

“I know your secret, Highwayman,” she said.

Bransen tried to yell his fury, but his words came out garbled, indecipherable, Storklike. His thoughts rushed back to the moment on the trail in the fight with the trolls, when a blow to the head had dislodged his gemstone and left him stumbling and helpless.

No, he decided. This was not akin to that. This was a gemstone countering his own. Damn it! He would be the stronger! He reached more deeply into the brooch and this time felt the connection through the static of the sunstone. Bransen leaped to his feet with a growl and charged. Another furious exchange brought him around to the side. Still, he couldn’t keep up with the speed of Affwin Wi, so he focused his blocks and counters to his right side.

Predictably, the Hou-lei warrior seized the opening and launched a left hook Bransen could not block.

He didn’t try to, taking the hit and using the force of the blow along with his own sudden retreat to open the ground between them enough to scramble to the side and grab his sword where he’d dropped it. But the incredibly fast Affwin Wi was there to stomp on the blade. Bransen had to let go of the hilt and throw his arm up to block. To his credit, he did deflect her short left jab, but her right hand swept in from behind and above, slashing down and across. The Highwayman fell back and tried to turn his head to make the hit a glancing one, and indeed, he was nearly out of Affwin Wi’s reach.

But she wasn’t trying to strike him. Her slender fingers caught the edge of Bransen’s magical brooch and wrenched it with her as he fell away, tearing the skin, tearing away the magic.

He was the Stork again, so suddenly, so helplessly, blood running freely from his torn forehead. He somehow got one leg under himself and stumbled halfway to standing, but Affwin Wi was there, dropping a series of heavy and strategic blows, more to taunt and hurt him than to finish him.

Bransen felt himself falling. Affwin Wi caught him by the shirt and hauled him to his feet. Before he could determine if he had the stability to stand, she punched him in the face. He fell away, Affwin Wi leaping a circle kick that snapped his head to the side violently.

All the world was spinning. Bransen hit the floor facedown and helpless. Affwin Wi could finish him with a stomp to the back of his neck. He tried to turn and nearly got to his side when her foot slammed him in the gut, doubling him up. Then she kicked him in the face, straightening him out again.

With a sudden burst of energy, Bransen pushed up to his hands and knees and scrabbled away, Affwin Wi laughing behind him. He thought of Jameston, dead Jameston, and of Cadayle, whom he would never see again. He thought of all the promises of his road and his life, of his brooch and his consistent strength, of the hopes and dreams he had dared entertain. Of his unborn child.