Shallows of Night - 02 (8 page)

Ronin watched, outwardly impassive, as Freidal went slowly aft until he was near midship. The right eye, the real eye glared at him.

“Of course you were behind this,” Freidal called across the frozen expanse as the ships drifted closer. “I have come for you, sir; you and the Magic Man. He willfully escaped my custody.” Ronin’s eyes roved the other ship. How many? “You were taken from me but I still have many questions to ask you.” Certainly two daggam. Were there more below? “The Surface is forbidden to all of the Freehold. I am charged with your return.” They will be the best Bladesmen under his command; he will not underestimate me now. “The Saardin wish to question you.” Discount the scribe, writing tablet strapped to his wrist, stylus scratching across its face, recording for Freidal. “Unfortunately, neither of you shall survive the journey back. I am no longer concerned with where you were or what you were doing.” His good eye blinked and burned. “My daggam are sacrosanct; no one attacks them without being charged with the consequences. You broke Marcsh’s back. Now you will pay. Death without honor awaits you, sir!”

Ronin heard a shout aboard ship, saw Borros’ head and shoulders emerging from the cabin’s hatch.

“Oh, Frost, they have caught us!”

Ronin was fed up. “Get below,” he yelled. “And stay there until I come for you!”

The Magic Man stared at the tall figure of the Security Saardin, so close now over the narrowing slice of ice, transfixed with terror at the glowering visage.

“You shall die now, sir!” Freidal called.

“Get below!” Ronin shouted once more and the figure disappeared. The hatch slammed shut.

The twin ships raced on before the wind, and now Freidal motioned to the daggam and they lifted cables with black metal hooks, swung them over their heads, hurled them toward him. They hit the deck and they hauled on the cables, the hooks scraping across the deck until they bit into the wood of the sheer-strake and held.

Now the feluccas were fairly touching and, securing the cables, the daggam leapt to the gunwales. Ronin lashed the wheel in place as they came aboard. Freidal stood silently, his false eye a milky round; the scribe was immobile, stylus poised.

They were tall, with wide shoulders and long arms. They had brutal faces, feral but not unintelligent; one narrow and hatchetlike, the other with a nose wide across the flat planes of his cheeks. Triple brass-hilted daggers were scabbarded in oblique rows across their chests; long swords hung at their hips.

For Ronin it was a moment of delicious hunger, these last still instants before Combat, when the power surged like a flood within him, controlled and channeled. He licked his lips and drew his blade. They advanced upon him. Now the waiting was at an end.

Over the ice they fled, the white spray of their swift passage rainbowed the light, the ships rocking, locked together in an embrace only death could now sunder.

They were a team. They swung at him from different angles, but at the same instant, seeking to confuse him. The blades caught the rising sunlight and, because he was watching their descent, he was blinded momentarily, his eyes watering, and it was instinct that guided his parry, the sword up and twisting broadside on. He got one but missed the other and it sheared into his shoulder, no help for it now. The nerves numbed themselves and the blood began to flow. The daggam grinned and came on.

Everything, said the Salamander,
every thing
that occurs during Combat may be used to your own advantage if you but know how. A strong arm but holds the sword; the mind is the force which guides it. They were more confident now, seeing how easily he was cut, and they swung at him in tandem, with co-ordinated precision, chopping and slashing, moving him backward in an attempt to cut off the number of angles through which he could attack them. They passed the bulk of the cabin as they moved forward along the ship. Let your opponent make the first moves if you are unsure of his skills; in his actions will you find victory.

And so they battered him as he catalogued their offensive strategies, attacking occasionally to gauge their defenses. They were excellent Bladesmen, with unorthodox styles, and he lacked the space to effectively attack them together.

At midship, he split them, using the yard as a barrier. It was done most swiftly, for they were not stupid and they would counter almost immediately. Almost. He had one chance only and he went in fast at hatchet-face, slashing a two-handed stroke that slit the daggam’s midsection just under the ribs. His innards glistened wetly as they poured upon the deck. The mouth opened in silent protest, so quick had been the blow, and the tongue protruded, quivering. The eyes bulged as the body collapsed, hot blood pumping, congealing on the frigid deck.

But now the second daggam hurled himself under the temporary barrier of the yard, furious at being separated from his partner. Ronin parried his first attack, moving away from the center of the ship, toward the gunwale across which the hooks had been thrown. The second daggam had glanced briefly at his fallen companion and, noting this, Ronin kept his blows low so that the flat-faced daggam would assume that he was attacking the same spot now. Their blades hammered at each other, sparks flying as they scraped together, then snapped apart, only to clash again in mid-air. Ronin parried again and then, instead of the oblique strike he had been attacking with, swung his blade in a horizontal arc. Too late the daggam brought his own sword up and the flat-faced head, severed now at the neck, flew from the jerking body and landed not a meter from where Freidal stood on the other ship. Ronin heaved at the corpse with its curtaining fount of blood, sent it overboard as he sprinted, gaining his ship’s gunwale. He leaped, landing with his soles firmly on the deck of Freidal’s vessel.

The rigging vibrated, singing dolefully in the breeze as the Security Saardin turned to face him, the tight cap of his blue-black hair gleaming, his long lean face swiveling like that of a predator’s. His hand at his chest; a blur, and if Ronin had had to look, he would have been dead. But he was already turning as the blur came at him, whispering past where he had just stood. And he was off across the deck, sword up, knees bent, searching with his peripheral vision for other daggam. He passed the scribe, solitary and unmoving, stylus poised until words rather than weapons filled the air. His cloak flapped sullenly in the wind; otherwise he could have been carved from rock.

“Ah, sir, you have come to me at last.” Stylus in motion, then he was off, circling in a shallow arc so that he could see the entire length of the ship. “The corps are unleashed first.” The voice emotionless. “A basic rule of warfare.” Past the creaking mast, the straining sail. “Soften the enemy with a preliminary attack.” Mind the yard, swinging. “Deplete his energy with the soldiers.” Past coils of rope, lashed kegs, the spare mast as on his own craft fixed to the port sheer-strake. “Then come the elite.” Slick patches of ice near the starboard gunwale. “To finish the task.”
Shhhhhhh,
the runners peeling the ice below. “An admirable plan, sir, do you not agree?”

The face closer than expected, white, the thin-lipped mouth, long and cruel, pulled back into a sneer. “Not too much trouble to kill a traitor!” The two remaining daggers caught the light as they lay nakedly strapped to his chest. Freidal, Saardin and Chondrin in one man. “The Freehold cannot tolerate your kind. You are a disease that must be cleansed. You see, I cannot allow you to return to the Freehold.” At last he drew his great sword. “Now I will crush you; with great care and equal skill, paying attention to the finer points. He twisted sideways until just his right shoulder was presented, leaving Ronin the smallest target to attack. “Of pain.” He advanced obliquely. “And fear.”

The first was a downward thrust twisting at the last moment; the second a horizontal slash of enormous power coming from the opposite direction. Ronin parried them both and then Freidal had a dagger in his left hand, holding it before him, point tilted upward.

The scribe observed them impassively as they moved slowly along the deck in a strange and deadly dance. They were just forward of midship when Ronin’s booted foot hit something on the deck and he stumbled. At that moment, his eyes still on Freidal’s face, he saw the barest flicker of the Saardin’s good eye and instead of struggling to regain his footing he relaxed his body and fell to the deck. He heard the angry whine as the dagger buried itself in the wood of the sheer-strake above his head.

Now there was but one, yet it would be enough, and he had to close immediately before Freidal got to it and he sprang at the tall figure looming over him. The ship shuddered in a heavy gust of wind and the Saardin, shifting to compensate, avoided the full brunt of the blow of Ronin’s gauntleted fist. It scraped along his cheek, missing the bone which it would have otherwise shattered, dragging shards of skin as it flayed the flesh, split the corner of his mouth at the end of the arc. His head snapped back, recoiling as Ronin flew by, momentum carrying him into the port gunwale, striking him in the ribs, forcing the breath out of him. He gasped and tried not to double over. Freidal swiped at the blood whipping from his torn face in long droplets and swung a two-handed blow. A haze had descended over Ronin and with only his hearing now, not even fully comprehending what was occurring, he threw up his mailed fist, the scaled hide of the monstrous Makkon his only defense now. The blade hit the gauntlet and its hard peculiar surface rippled with movement. It absorbed much of the force of the blow and the sword slid against the scales as if they were oiled, glanced off, the killing blow turned aside, and it sliced into Ronin’s already wounded shoulder. The pain woke him and he pivoted off the gunwale, blood whirling like a crimson scarf about him and, renewing his grip upon the hilt of his sword, staggered away from the sheer-strake while Freidal stared in disbelief at the dull hide of the gauntlet.

His bloody face twisted in fury and he came in low and fast and their blades rang like angry thunder as they met. Ronin kept close to him and now the Saardin attempted to retreat as if he was being forced to give way under Ronin’s attack. But Ronin knew it for a ruse, knew that he wished only for room to throw the last dagger. Ronin drove into him, crowding him back against the mast. Freidal gripped the gleaming hilt of the dagger and Ronin’s gauntlet closed over it. Their blades locked, scraping edge against edge down their long lengths. Freidal shook himself, twisting lithely, and tore free of Ronin’s grasp to withdraw the dagger. They moved at once, as if provoked by the same impulse. The dagger’s bright blade came at him and it could not be avoided because Freidal was not throwing it as Ronin had assumed he would, but slashing, and Ronin’s momentum took him toward it. Freidal had aimed for the neck and missed, the point hitting Ronin’s collarbone, abrading the flesh. And then Ronin was past him, a dark blur, his sword held now in a reverse grip so that the blade trailed behind him. Plant the feet, breathe in with a long suck, swing the mass of his frame, pushing from his ankles, the sword like living lightning striking backward at the Saardin, who was just turning to face Ronin, the point ramming into his mouth. A bubbling scream choked off. A twist of the blade and Ronin was pivoting, his sword raised above his head for another blow. It was white in the light, darkened near the tip by red rivulets.

Freidal writhed upon the deck, the lower half of his face covered by his hands and arms. Blood was everywhere. Then he was still and Ronin looked up, awaiting more daggam. The deck was clear save for the scribe. He stood watching Ronin approach.

“You have written your last line.”

The stylus dipped to the surface of the tablet, scrabbled there. Ronin left him, went aft, and threw open the cabin’s hatch. Down the companionway and into the cabin. No one.

Across the deck and leapt for the gunwale and, crouching there momentarily, turned. Below him, blurred ice like marble. Freidal was where he had fallen. The scribe had not moved. Ronin scanned for the last time his impassive face, then with one long stride he was aboard his own felucca. With a mighty sweeping stroke, he severed the cables holding the ships as one. They parted and, helmless, the sister felucca gradually swept away to port, into the east, growing smaller and smaller, a memory now to some.

Borros did not believe him of course, but that was to be expected; it did not concern him.

“He is dead,” said Ronin as he moved about the cabin. “Believe it or no, as you will.”

The sun was setting dully behind curtains of blank cloud, colorless, featureless; a deflating end to another day. Just before he went below, Ronin had peered into the west, thought he had seen the outlines of land, but he could not be certain. As it turned out, it did not much matter.

“We still have far to go,” Borros said somewhat brusquely when Ronin gave him the news. “And I do not believe that he is dead.”

“Perhaps you would have us turn around and make sure,” Ronin said acidly.

“If we but had the time, I would insist on it,” the Magic Man replied obstinately, “so that I could kick his head in.”

“Of course you would. Now.”

“I do not regret,” he said with a trace of self-righteousness, “that I lack your zeal for Combat.”

Ronin sat on his berth and, having found a piece of material, began to clean the blade of his sword.

“My zeal for Combat, as you put it, is all the protection you presently have.”

“From the vengeance of the Freehold. Their power is severely limited now that we are on the Surface.”

One edge at a time, upward from the thick middle to the tapered tip.

“You would not have said that this morning.”

“Ronin, you do not yet comprehend. We have been locked away for generations, progress checked, choking on your own detritus.” A nerve in Borros’ face began to spasm. “You are as much a product of that as is Friedal. You are proud to be a Bladesman,” the voice dry and pedantic, “an artificial life style created by the Freehold.” His hand described a sweeping gesture. “It is totally useless here.”

“It has not been so far.”