But she had failed at that. Her best skill had already gone into minimizing the damage that Isendter had caused her. She had no more resources to bolster her defences with. His siege of her swordcraft breached the walls further with every foray.
She wondered if she had read it in his eyes, but it was a terrible bleak thought, more fearful almost than his claw as it hunted her, twisting the hundred paths in the air between them, closer and closer with every motion.
A quick exchange of steel, a gash to the back of her hand, and she was clear again. The thought sat like a leaden weight within her, no, not that, even as she planned out how it might be achieved.
For a moment she thought he stumbled, the sloping ground treacherous beneath his feet, and she leapt for this opening instantly, faster than thought. Thought, catching up, cried, It’s a feint! but she had taken the bait already, lunging in even as he struck out at her whilst twisting aside from her blade.
There was barely an impact felt, but she heard a scream and thought it must be her own. Her sight was filled with red, and the slope of the ground seemed to roll under her feet, pitching her half a dozen reeling steps downhill, sword raised to ward him off, blindly covering one of a hundred approaches his blade might make.
It was Che who had screamed, she now realized. She herself kept silent as the tomb. There was blood in her eyes, and she drew a sleeve across them. That hurt, a burning pain shooting across her face where his blade had lashed her. My face One eye was still running with blood, but she had the other one clear, enough to see him approach again, steady and measured in his pace. The searing pain had not stopped, but she forced it away, locking it in the depths of her mind, perhaps in one of those chambers where Tisamon had so recently resided. Her mouth was full of blood, refilling each time she spat it out. He had cut her across her face. .. her face.
She had lived in two worlds, once. The Mantis child in her had fought, the Spider had smiled and plotted, painted herself in the mirror, charmed her enemies and made them fools. She had even smiled a path all the way to the Imperial palace at Capitas, because swords could not be relied on to win every fight.
She felt the Mantis path before her feet now, all others cut away. One-eyed, she met his gaze, and thought that he would understand. It was not true that every Mantis tragedy ended with a body on the floor. Some had two.
When he came for her next, she turned her body in a vain attempt to let his blade slide off her, while her own blade was already in motion. Her expected parry did not come, that he angled his blade to anticipate. Instead she dragged her hand back and up, the point of her rapier remaining almost motionless as she pivoted the rest of the sword around it in the air. The solid shock of contact came as his claw drove into her hip, driving a choking gasp out of her as she spat blood. His own left hand was lifting to catch her blade, but she drove it down anyway, calling on every ounce of strength to speed it on its way.
He had his hand almost in place, but the edge of her blade flayed his palm and cut the web of skin between thumb and forefinger down to the bone, and he could not put enough force into his gesture to deflect her.
Angled downwards and inwards, the point then dug into his pale leathers, just below his left collarbone, and it did not stop until the quillons were an inch from his ribs.
Through a film of new blood, she saw Isendter’s head cock back abruptly, his eyes closed. His expression was that of a man listening to musicians in some private, peaceful place. She felt his blade grind against bone and, for a moment, they were propping one another up.
She drew in a breath raggedly, and let go of her sword hilt, gifting him with the blade. When his own drew clear of her, from the bloody landscape it had left of her hip and thigh, she let out a brief, horrified bark of pain.
For a moment they just stared at one another. Blood had begun painting the grey of his arming jacket, welling slowly around the inch of steel she had left showing.
Something tugged at the corner of his mouth. It might even have been a smile. Then he let himself go, slumping down to one knee with a grating whoosh of breath. The whole world was silent.
She looked beyond Isendter and saw Salme Elass standing there, her face a picture of rage and denial. There came no instant command, though, no immediate breaking with the Commonweal’s ancient traditions. The princess was too shocked even for that.
Tynisa felt her legs tremble, and knew that if she also fell now, she would lose. She was the winner only so long as she stood. Salme Elass’s paralysis would not survive any show of weakness.
Tynisa turned, very carefully indeed, to see Che’s agonized face, Thalric’s grim one, and fewer bandits than she had remembered. They were standing uphill from her, of course, curse them.
The pain had become a constantly expanding fire in her, battering at her mind, demanding that she give in to it, tearing at her self-control. She remained upright only by application of pure will.
With the utmost precision she placed one foot in front of the other and began to walk.
Forty-Five
They could do nothing but watch Tynisa’s tortuous progress back towards them, even as some of the Salmae’s people began to approach their own kneeling champion. Tynisa swayed, and each time she put weight on her right leg a shudder went through her, like a dying thing, but somehow she was still on her feet when Che reached out to clasp her arm, and take her weight. The duellist’s face was a mess of blood, the wounds impossible to trace beneath it. One eye was clear and open, but focusing on nothing. Her teeth were clenched together hard enough for Che to hear them grinding.
‘Into the trees,’ Dal Arche snapped. ‘Get beyond the treeline. Keep her on her feet until then.’
When Che rounded on him furiously, he made a wild gesture at all the Salmae’s people. ‘They’re staying where they are because she won, and even when the princess gets her voice back and starts telling them that the fight meant nothing, a lot of them will hold back. Tradition, just useless, rotten tradition, but this once it works for us. Our champion won, so going after us now counts as bad form.’ He spat the words disgustedly. ‘Oh, they’ll come, sure enough, but we have some time so long as it’s us that won.’
‘But…’ Che started, already moving for the trees with Tynisa leaning on her, barely more than a dead weight.
‘That fellow she took down is still alive back there, for all her sword’s sticking in him,’ Dal shot back. ‘If she just keels over in full view, well, she might be dead, then. In that case their man won, and we’re all dead a moment after that.’ He glanced back anxiously. ‘Tell the truth, I’m not sure who did win there. Bloody mess, all of it. Soul-’
‘Stay by the treeline and watch what they do,’ the Grasshopper pre-empted him. He had an arrow to his bow, his eyes flicking left and right across the breadth of the enemy host, and then up to the sky.
The trees loomed sooner than Che had expected. ‘A doctor, there must be,’ she said. ‘We have to…’ She looked down in horror at the sheer quantity of blood. ‘Bandages, medicines, something…’ She tried to catch Maure’s eye but the magician would not look at her.
‘Carry the girl into the woods,’ Dal stated flatly. He glanced at Thalric, who bristled for a moment, but then got an arm round Tynisa’s back and simply gathered up her knees with the other, hoisting the girl in his arms. She gave out a wretched, rasping cry, and Che almost hoped she would pass out, escape for a moment from the agony she must be in. But instead, Tynisa rested her head on Thalric’s shoulder, sheer willpower twisting her face.
‘Go,’ Dal urged, and he and Mordrec set the pace, letting the other two keep up as best they could. Released from Tynisa’s weight, Che’s injured leg took the chance to register its own complaints, for all her durable Beetle nature. She let herself lean on Maure’s arm, while Thalric strode and stumbled ahead, trying to balance Tynisa’s weight. If Mordrec had been unwounded then the two bandits might have got clear of them and simply vanished into the trees, but his shoulder was troubling him still, sapping his strength, and Dal hung back to match his friend’s pace.
‘She’s dying!’ Che called out, not caring who heard her now. ‘I need to tend her wounds, please!’
Dal looked back, and she saw the internal conflict on his face, the man who wanted to run for it fighting desperately with the man so many had chosen to follow. He cast his eyes about furiously, trying to judge how far they had come. Not far enough, was written plainly in his expression, but then one finger jabbed out, indicating a dip where the land fell away, offering some pitiful shelter from enemy eyes.
