Queen of the Pirates (35 page)

A king had died here. A second might follow.

Valse d’Glaive
used a saber and a
main–gauche
. Long and slashing, heavy and blocking.

Ian Zhao was about of a size with the fighting robot she danced with regularly. It hadn’t been a fair fight, so she couldn’t rate him against it for ability, not with Arnulf poisoned and probably already dying.

Still, the man would have height and reach comparable. His stiletto was fifty centimeters of double–edged blade, more of a short sword than anything else. Cut on both the pass and the exit.

Jessica drifted right to left, letting these men get a really good view of her body as she inspected weapons.

Only one of you gets to touch
, she smiled to herself.

In the end, she took a short, heavier blade, almost a cleaver, from a smaller captain, himself almost a dwarf compared to the giants around them. It was thicker than her training
main–gauche
, and ground down to only a basic edge, a tool for dismantling chickens.

She looked over her shoulder as Ian Zhao rose and stepped forward.

Chickens, and kings.

Ξ

Jing Du seemed content in his spot again, overlooking the mob below with a warm smile.

Jessica had no intention of being his second victim today.

She held the blade in her right hand. Most of these people were right–handed, so it would seem normal to them. It even felt like her
main–gauche
, literally the
left–hand
, that she normally parried with, so being in her off–hand was natural.

While Ian Zhao stood prepared in a fighter’s crouch across the way, she stood upright and held the blade loosely at her side.

“Ian Zhao,” she drawled loudly enough to be heard by everyone, “you are a coward and an assassin. You are unfit to lead and should take up the nun’s robes and retire to a life of introspective prayer to whatever God might accept a worthless loser like you as a follower.”

A little bit thick, but these people weren’t exactly known for subtlety.

The room had grown warm. Or she had. She could feel sweat dripping down her neck and back, running between her small breasts.

Always watch the center of a man’s chest when knife–fighting
, her ground combat instructor had taught her on day one. Ian Zhao seemed to be looking in the right place, but she doubted that his eyes were focused on her sternum, from the way that they flickered back and forth.

“And you,
Aquitaine
,” he called back, anger slurring his words, “are an abomination in this Court. A woman pretending to be equal to a man. I will not have it.”

“Oh, no,
Corynthe
,” she said. “I am Civilization. You are a mongrel only fit for the servant’s entrance.”

That gibe hit home.

Jessica watched Ian come nearly out of his crouch with rage, before he sank back down and edged forward crabwise, blade leading.

She relaxed from sudden tension.

It wouldn’t be the sudden bull rush that had initiated the duel with Arnulf. But then, she hadn’t drunk anything that was going to dull her senses and her reflexes, and needed to be spurred into the bloodstream.

She settled down into the Fifth Form, blade flat against her thigh, standing almost upright, but with her toes poised to go up, left, or backwards.

It was an odd stance, so unlike any of the traditions that
Valse d’Glaive
had inherited from all its ancestor–forms. But then, humans had had eleven thousand years in space to experiment with movement. They were bound to find interesting variations.

This one, so her first instructor had told her, had been the best at inducing a mugger to actually attack, instead of letting you pass and preying on an easier victim later.

Ian Zhao rocked as he moved. It was like watching a crab eke its way up the surf, back and forth, blade and free hand.

He didn’t seem to be sweating now. Or rather, an aide had toweled him off and then a chill had settled over him.

Perhaps Arnulf’s ghost.

Jessica, on the other hand, was warm. Calm. Poised.

Again, perhaps Arnulf’s smile.

She stood perfectly still as the man closed for his first strike, blade held loosely for a flat slash. At least he acted like a professional, gripping the killing blade in a way that did justice to the setting.

She wasn’t above bad killing. Not here. Not now. But she could appreciate good form.

It also made the man more predictable.

For Jessica, the world slowed down.

Ian Zhao slashed with his right hand, a flat arc parallel to the deck. It wasn’t close enough to be very dangerous, just annoying.

Unlike Arnulf, the man had no idea how she would react, so he wanted to probe her.

And as with any physical task and a new partner, you had to find the corners, whether it was dancing, or sex.

Or death.

Jessica let her anger erupt out of her soul. This man was expecting her to flinch backwards, possibly forgetting how close she was to the edge of the circle and a wall of men who would shove her forward again, possibly onto a waiting blade.

It was a good opening gambit. Low risk, possibly high reward. Like kissing a girl on the back of the neck.

She wasn’t that kind of girl.

Jessica surged straight at Ian Zhao, twisting crossways like a tornado to slam her
main–gauche
into contact with his poniard, blocking him just like in a musketeer video.

If she had had a second blade, it would have been over right then. Right there.

Pinwheel withershins around him to continue the spin, anchored to his blade by the impact. Ride it around the maelstrom and slash neck high as she came out the far side of the pass.

With her saber, she could have possibly decapitated the man on this first pass. Certainly killed him.

Jessica settled for back–handing him with her left as she exited. It was probably not something many women had ever done to Ian Zhao.

The blow echoed off the walls and ceiling like a crack of thunder.

For a moment, the crowd fell utterly silent. She hadn’t realized the roar, the volume of sound that had erupted at the combat, so lost in herself.

Ian Zhao almost stood upright in surprise, but Jessica was too far away to take advantage of him.

She had ended up clear across the space. Looking back, Ian Zhao was framed where he stood by two people behind him. Her two favorite people right now. Daneel Ishikura and Desianna Indah–Rodriguez.

Beyond, a flicker of movement. Her flag centurion. Enej was talking to someone now on the comm, standing next to the marine with the big tactical backpack, one that apparently had a two meter tall whip–pole with a flag atop it.

Auberon
’s flag. She had missed that earlier.

Her
flag.

She felt another pulse of power flicker all the way down to her toes as she moved to First Form and closed.

She wasn’t evading Ian Zhao now. She was hunting him.

Something of that seemed to get through to the man. He started to back away, caught himself, and slid to his left, back to the crab walk.

She could see a bright red mark on the side of his face. Not quite the color of fresh blood. She would have to fix that soon.

Ian Zhao shifted to his left as she closed, backing crablike around the arena, butt–first, blade staying centered on her as she closed.

Jessica decided to return the favor. She flared her left hand, open at his eyes, to make him blink, and slashed wide and overhand with her right. She had the heavier blade, the stronger. If he moved to block square, she just might shear it off into a stump.

Very few people understood the physics of sword–fighting anymore.

Ian Zhao wasn’t an expert, but he was a knife–fighter, and she seemed to have spooked him. Rather than stand, he skittered back another half step as her slapping hand came up, and let her blade pass rather than try to resist.

It was a good defense. Hang back, let the enemy over–commit, strike at an opening. A useful strategy when fighting in two dimensions, or a simple foe.

Jessica was already three movements ahead of him in her tactical planning.

She was a lunge and a thrust away from the man now. She smelled rather than saw it as his weight shifted forward and he prepared, turning slightly sideways to present his blade and less of his body.

Someone else who watched old musketeer videos.

She smiled to herself. His stiletto would be nimbler. Her blade heavier.

He would lunge. It was there in the set of the hips, the drawing of the back leg under instead of keeping it out as a pivot, ready to crab–step again. It was there in the wrist, suddenly rigid instead of flowing.

Jessica flowed to her right to create movement.

There
.

Ian Zhao was good. She was going to bleed. There was just no way to avoid his speed.

Jessica didn’t have to. She had watched him fly
Kali–ma
. He thought in two–dimensions like the rest of the pirates. Brawlers with a single blade.

She pushed off and up as she flowed, turning an aerial cartwheel over the lunging sword.

The surprise on his face was priceless.

Jessica felt the kiss on her hip. It might have missed a man, or a woman with no curves. Cost of doing business, especially as a woman in this place.

She landed square and rotated, pivoting her right foot back first to open the bleeding hip. Her center turned, rotating her stomach, her breasts, her shoulders. The arms came along for the ride, long lines moving like whips, hands at the end like bolos.

A lighter blade would have left a vicious slash. Messy. Unprofessional.

Bad killing.

But that nasty little cleaver, barely sharp enough to bone a chicken, impacted with a dull, hollow thump. That rich, crunching sound a carcass makes just before it goes into the stew pot.

Bones separating.

Death.

Jessica flashed out with her open hand and caught Ian Zhao’s wrist as he sought to gut her with his own blade. They stood like dancers, like lovers.

She was stronger than she looked. And angrier.

There are sensitive bones in the hand and wrist. She felt every kilo of Arnulf’s betrayal, every moment of Daneel’s love making, every secret giggle with Desianna.

She transformed the rage into fuel and let it all flow down into her left hand, crushing those little bones in Ian Zhao’s hand and preventing him from killing her.

She sawed the cleaver in her right hand, but it was wedged deep, high into his chest, through the thorax and into lungs.

Blood leaked around it, but not much.

More came out of his mouth.

In the videos, the hero was always supposed to say something pithy, something memorable, right about now.

She didn’t have it in her. Instead, she held him close, like a lover, like a dancer, and watched the life flow out of his eyes.

Death was sudden. One moment a flicker. The next, nothing.

Jessica stepped back as Ian Zhao’s body fell limply forward. She let his weight pull the cleaver from his ribs, even as she caught his sword and held it.

Not quite
Valse d’Glaive
, but with these two blades, she could kill any man here.

She turned and gave every single one of these captains a look that conveyed that utter, calm conviction.

The room fell silent again. The noise had apparently been solid, obvious only by the sudden absence.

Jessica Keller came back to the present.

“Does anyone else demand to die this day?” she called.

From any of the men, that would have been a challenge. A
machismo
thing.
Braggadocio
.

From her, it was a promise. Simple as that.

And they knew it.

And accepted it.

And they accepted her.

Jessica Keller, Queen of the Pirates.

Movement caught her eye. Jing Du was making a break for it, fleeing towards a hatch behind the stage, no doubt to escape her and rally his allies.

“Someone stop him,” she pointed, using the bloody cleaver for emphasis.

Heads turned. Some men took a step to try to do something, but it was obvious they were just going to get in each other’s way.

Jing Du made it to the open hatch and stopped.

If she hadn’t seen it, with her own eyes, she would have called the story–teller a liar to his face.

Jing Du stopped moving. And began to levitate off the deck in a slow, elegant motion.

And then he drifted backwards into the room, followed by a shadow of utter darkness that looked at first like Arnulf’s ghost made flesh, made
Vengeance
. It had that size, that mass, that solidity. It resolved itself into
Auberon
’s dragoon, her two–meter–tall ground combat master.

Navin the Black
.

The man had caught Jing Du by the neck. Jessica had studied enough anatomy to know it usually took minutes to strangle the average man with your bare hands, with the victim normally fighting you all the while.

The dragoon wasn’t crushing Jing Du’s throat. He had picked the man up by wrapping one giant hand delicately around the chancellor’s neck and lifting on the underside of his jawbone, perhaps pinching those two sensitive nerve clusters behind the ears as he did so.

Jing Du hung perfectly still as this terrible ogre transported him back into the chamber. Perhaps he swayed a little, as one might when all rational thought has fled and only gravity was active.

The dragoon strode to the platform and mounted it in one stride, truly a dark angel, a demon, an ogre. He looked down upon the room from his great elevation and smiled, head shaved bald and carefully–trimmed Vandyke white with vast maturity.

“Your Majesty commands,” he rumbled.

Dragons have that smile when dwarves stumble into their lairs.

The silence was just as intense as the sound had been.

And then the room erupted in cheers.

Ξ

Her flag centurion brought her back to earth.

“We have a problem,” Enej said as he stepped forward and handed her back her sports bra. Daneel and Desianna also surged forward, but kept a step back.