Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 1 - The Fort at River's Bend

Sure enough, Ambrose renewed his stance and his two- handed grip, his knees bent, right foot slightly ahead of the left, his "blade" pointed at my sternum. He froze, his eyes locked in total concentration before he grunted and whipped into a blur of action, his weapon sweeping up and then around above my head and down again in a backhanded slash designed to cut the legs from me. I knew the arc of his sweep, I knew the point at which it would change course and be converted to a stabbing, jabbing lunge before being whipped upward again into an overhand, vertically dropping chop.

Without removing my eyes from his I dropped my "point," sweeping my blade strongly, backhanded, to block his downward slash. Then, before he could reverse into his stab, I grasped my stick in both hands, leaving a space the width of my chest between them, and pushed into his stab, sweeping my hands high and forcing his thrust upward, to graze my face and shoot above my head while I reversed the grip of my right hand, dropped my arms and shoulder and rammed the thick end of my weapon solidly against his ribs, knocking him sprawling for the second time. This time, however, before he stopped rolling, I was above him on one knee, the end of my stick pressed against his neck.

He made no effort to move, content to lie there panting until his breathing had returned to normal, by which time the silence had stretched long. "Shit," he said, eventually, and made to sit up. I heaved myself backwards onto my feet and helped him up, then stood watching him as he dusted himself off and rubbed ruefully at his buttocks.

"Now you know."

"Aye." He looked at me askance. "Practice swords, just like the old Roman ones, but new, and better. When did the idea occur to you, and what occasioned it?"

"Come with me and I'll show you."

I led the way back up the steep hillside towards the west gate of the fort, a distance of little more than thirty paces, and from there we went directly to my quarters. Shelagh and Ludmilla were leaving as we arrived, having delivered, according to Ludmilla, a box of new-made papyrus sent to me from my supplier in Camulod. I politely invited them to stay, but was secretly pleased when they declined. I moved, immediately on their departure, to open a large packing crate that lay against the rear wall, and from it I pulled the smaller case that held Excalibur. I opened the case, withdrew the sword itself and passed it, hilt first, to Ambrose.

"Here. Now I need your help, so swing it a few times. Get used to the weight and the feel of it again, because I'm going to want you to use it in a moment, to demonstrate a point."

As he began to swing the massive weapon, making the light flicker along its long, gleaming blade, I turned again to the larger crate, this time pulling out a long spatha-style sword. It had a boss between the hilt and the blade, in the style of the Roman gladium short-sword; there was no hint of a cross-guard of any kind. Beneath a light coating of reddish-brown discoloration too fine to be called rust, it looked like a fine weapon, very slightly curved, the tip of its blade broadened, flared and slightly elongated, keen- edged and almost leaf-like. Ambrose stopped what he was doing, holding Excalibur's blade vertically as he stared at me and the sword I now held. I reversed my grip and extended the new sword to him and held my other hand out at the same time for Excalibur. We exchanged weapons and he immediately brought the blade of the new sword up close to his eyes, scanning it minutely, pressing the ball of his thumb against the edge of the blade.

"I've never seen this before. Where did it come from?"

"From the Armoury in Camulod. It's a Varrus sword, one of the original prototypes he made with Equus when he was redesigning the old spatha. Before I was born, and years before they discovered the secret of the stirrups,

Caius Britannicus wanted a new weapon, much stronger than the spatha, a cross between a spear and an axe, to be used by a man on horseback against men on foot. A chopping weapon, but he insisted it had to function like a sword."

"This is fine," Ambrose said softly, hefting the thing in his hand and moving his arm slowly through a gliding pass. "A fine weapon."

"I made a discovery about it, later—or, more accurately, about one of its fellows—and now I want you to help me discover if what I suspect is true. If it is, and I do believe it is, then there is something else we must do, you and I, in secrecy."

Ambrose was gazing at me in amusement, a half-smile upon his lips, and now he shook his head. "I do not even wish to ask. I know you'll tell me when the time arrives. In the meantime, how may I help you discover this truth?"

"Take this and give me that." We exchanged swords again, and now I began waving my long, curved blade through the air. I ended up holding it out to my right, inclined slightly upward from the horizontal, clenching the hilt firmly in both fists. Ambrose merely watched, awaiting his instructions.

"This is one of Varrus's best blades, Ambrose. He smelted the metal himself, and tempered it. It's quite superb. But of course, the one you are holding is quite probably the greatest blade ever made by any man, anywhere. Now, I want you to swing your blade as hard as you can and try to knock this one from my grasp. Don't be tempted to use the flat of the blade. It is essential that you use the edge. I have no tricks in mind, I promise you. But strike away from me, because there's no cross-hilt on this sword and Excalibur could take off my arm more cleanly than you could imagine. I will not move, nor will I try to deflect your blade in any way. I am simply going to stand here and hold out this sword, and I'll try to hold onto it when your blow falls. You understand?"

He nodded, stepped back and fell into his fighter's crouch again, concentrating on what he was about to do. When he unfolded again into swooping, powerful motion it was beautiful to behold, and I caught my breath as Excalibur's shining blade painted great, hissing swaths of brightness and glittering colours in the drabness of my quarters. Then Ambrose transferred all of his weight and momentum onto the ball of his left foot and brought that deadly scythe sweeping around to clash against the blade I held extended to my right. I had been awaiting the concussion and was set for it, my muscles braced against the shock that I knew would hammer them, but the thing was dashed from my grip as though I had no hold on it at all. The force of the wrenching impact sent me whirling away backwards and I fell to my knees against one wall as the sword I had held clanged hard against another and clattered to the floor.

Ambrose stood, astonished, as though paralyzed, his face blank with surprise, his eyes shifting between the blade in his hand and the sight of me, sprawling against the wall off to his side. As I moved to regain my footing, bracing myself against the wall with my outstretched left hand and shaking my right arm to banish the numbness, he finally rallied and moved towards me, lowering his sword's point to the floor.

"Merlyn, are you hurt? What was that? What happened here?"

I cradled my tingling right arm in my left, holding myself above the elbow, which felt numbed and dead. "I'm well enough, Brother, an A unsurprised. What happened here is exactly what I had surmised might happen." I nodded towards the long sword lying on the floor against the other wall. "Look at that."

He glanced downward, and I heard the hiss of his indrawn breath. The long Varrus sword lay bent and broken, its finely wrought blade twisted and misshapen. Before he could say anything, I spoke again.

"Check your blade. Is it damaged?"

He whipped Excalibur up, close to his face, and examined the blade closely, but I knew he would find no blemish. "No," he said, eventually. "It's not even dented."