'No!' screamed Arya. The knight started forward, but one of the rangers cuffed her on the side of the head, stunning her. She slumped in their hands, helpless.
'How does it feel to be set free?' Meris asked.
Walker could not respond through the blood bubbling up in his throat.
'Still alive, eh?' Meris kicked Walker up to a kneeling position and stepped on his right hand. 'No wolf’s head ring keeping you that way. What, did you lose it somewhere? You know, the ring you always wear on this hand?'
Walker could only moan.
'Or did you give it to her?' Meris said, pointing the bloody shatterspike at Arya, who glared at him. He stomped over to the knight and slapped her across the face.
As Walker watched, he roughly tore off Arya's gauntlets to search for a ring, and then her breastplate, in case she wore it on a chain around her neck.
'The ring's not there,' Meris shouted. 'You must have lost it. Poor, poor Walker-the one time you break your routine is the one time it counts!'
The ghostwalker could not stop himself. He wheezed.
Sneering, Meris turned back to the Arya. His eyes were burning, but it was not merely anger this time. He smiled and turned back to Walker.
'I hope you live long enough to see this,' he snarled to Walker, who could do nothing but twitch in reply. 'I've waited for this a long time as well.'
He gestured to his men, and they began pulling off the rest of Arya's armor. At first, the knight struggled, kicked, and screamed, but Darthan slapped her on the side of the head and she lay there, dazed, stunned, and helpless once more. Meris, standing over her, untied his cloak and began unbuckling his leather cuirass.
Walker tried to rise, but he could not. His strength literally bleeding away with his life, he, too, was helpless. The wild scout finished with the hauberk, looked down at Arya, and turned to grin at Walker one last time.
A whistling alerted Meris just in time to jerk aside as a throwing knife darted for his face. As it was, the projectile lodged itself in his shoulder. Roaring in pain, he dropped to the forest floor. Two of his rangers fell: Tough-Face cursed the blade in his arm and Thin-Man tried to breathe around the one in his throat.
Red-Hair turned in time to meet a huge man who leaped from the brush with a pair of maces.
'Forth the Nightingale!' the big man screamed, and his maces whirred in reply. They took the blades from Red-Hair's hands before the ranger could react. Then the wielder spun, and the first mace crashed into Red-Hair's chest with bone-crunching force. As the ranger started, the second mace slammed into his back, crushing his body between the two weapons. Red-Hair collapsed to the ground.
'A mighty blow, Sir Hartwine!' a weasel-like voice said.
'I wasn't the one who took down three in one breath!' Bars shouted back as he swung his twin maces around to knock an axe away and lunged, driving Tough-Face back a step.
Bars might have pursued, but he threw himself onto his back to avoid an arrow from Gieves that cut a red line across his shoulder. With the momentary respite, Tough-Face pulled his light crossbow from his belt and trained it on a spot in the brush.
'I suppose no one's perfect,' replied Derst as he stood from that spot, letting fly with two more knives. 'Except me.'
One of the blades neatly cut Gieves's bowstring and the other slashed across Tough-Face's forearm, ruining his aim. The ranger fired anyway, and the bolt drove into a tree a hand's breadth from Derst's head.
Bars roared and slugged Tough-Face in the stomach with a mace, knocking the bulky man back. The paladin pushed himself to his feet, only to find that he had to roll away again to avoid more weapons.
Disbelieving, Derst blinked at the quivering bolt for a moment. Then the wiry knight saw Darthan aiming a short-bow at him, holding it horizontally like a crossbow.
Derst leaped out of the brush, hooked his chain-dagger about Darthan's bow, and ripped it from the man's hand. Unarmed, the ranger reached down for a short sword but instead found a dagger sticking out of his side. The man went down swearing and Derst jumped over his head to engage Tough-Face, who bellowed in anger and slashed his war axe at the wiry man.
Derst dived under the slash and rolled back to avoid the next, overextending Tough-Face's reach. The man staggered and caught himself just in time to avoid landing on his face at Derst's feet. The short man looked down at his chain-and-dagger, then at Tough-Face's war axe, then up at Tough-Face sheepishly. Derst backpedaled, dodging slash after slash and seeking some respite to plan an offensive.
Meanwhile, Gieves drew a short sword and lunged at Bars, who barely had time enough to stand before he had to defend himself. Darthan rose, despite the pain in his bowels, and attacked Bars's flank with a pair of hand axes. Outnumbered, the paladin backed away to keep both opponents in his field of vision, but the rangers were too well trained to allow him to escape. His maces working independently, Bars fended off their attacks with a dizzying display of skill, but all three men knew it was of limited duration-he would tire before they did.
'Come play like a man, rat-boy,' Tough-Face growled to Derst.
'What sense does that make?' Derst wondered aloud. 'The very point of your threat is that men don't play, and yet you want me to 'play' like a man?'
Tough-Face snarled in frustration as Derst dodged and his axe took off a huge chunk of duskwood bark. 'Well, fight like a man, then!'
'I'd rather not,' Derst said as he hopped over a low slash and slapped Tough-Face's cheek with the chain of his dagger to little visible effect. 'People get killed that way.' Another slash claimed a sizeable portion of Derst's forest cloak. He gulped.
Then Derst feigned a stumble. Tough-Face roared in pain and rage, bringing the axe from on high to split the quick knight in half, but Derst slid between his legs and slashed the back of Tough-Face's leg with the chain-dagger. Hamstrung, Tough-Face screamed and plunged to the ground.
'How does that-' Derst began, but stopped as he sensed a blade flashing toward his head. With a tiny gasp, he threw himself away from it and felt fiery pain rip through his shoulder. He rolled to feet and touched his wounded shoulder.
His attacker, holding Walker's gleaming shatterspike and a wicked hand axe, grinned at him.
'Come, goblin,' said Meris. 'Let us see how you fight your betters.'
In the middle of the clearing, they circled one another, Derst with a chain-dagger whirling around his wrist and a worried look on his face. Meris's smile was a cruel one.
The scout launched an attack so fast that Derst barely registered it in time to block. The hand axe slashed open the leather covering his hip and the shatterspike tore his cloak in two. Derst tried to parry, but ended up having to dodge instead. Meris was by far the superior duelist, with strength and magic-in the form of Walker's sword-on his side. This would be quick.
Bars saw Derst's dilemma and howled in fury. 'Meris!' he shouted. Pumping his arms as fast as he could, he swatted blades aside on both of his flanks and ran toward Meris's back.
Though his posture said he was oblivious to the paladin's rush, Meris winked at Derst.
'Bars, no!' Derst yelled, but it was too late.
Meris spun and the shatterspike flashed. It intercepted both of Bars's maces and cleaved both stout pieces of steel as though they were warm cheese. The paladin stumbled to a halt, looking at his destroyed maces, and Meris seized the opportunity to step inside his reach and slam a knee between his legs. The bearlike man dropped to the ground, curling up and moaning.
'Pathetic, for a 'Knight in Silver,'' Meris spat. He raised the hand axe in his left hand to deal a killing blow to Bars's unprotected neck.
Then the axe would not obey Meris's commands. It even pulled him back a step.
He looked and found Derst at the other end of the chain-dagger, straining to hold back Meris's axe-trying anything to keep the man from killing his friend.
'How noble,' Meris sneered. He brought the shatterspike around in a dazzling arc and cut the chain holding his axe.
It snapped like thin twine and, because the opposite force had disappeared, Derst fell back a step. Meris took advantage of the misstep, continued his whirl, and hooked the axe around Derst's leg. He swept the man off his feet and dropped the axe. He raised the sword in both hands.
