Bemused, the Champion took a step to his right and half turned to regard his king.
Who calmly drank down the wine in three quick swallows. At some time earlier the crown had been placed on his brow once again. Nisall was standing just behind the throne, her eyes narrowed on the First Eunuch, who had finished his own wine and was stepping back down from the dais, making his way to stand near the Chancellor at the far wall.
Ezgara Diskanar fixed dull eyes on Brys. ‘Stand aside, Champion. Do not die this day.’
‘I cannot do as you ask, my king,’ Brys said. ‘As you well know.’
A weary nod, then Ezgara looked away. ‘Very well.’
Nifadas spoke. ‘Champion. Show these savages the measure of a Letherii swordsman. The final act of our kingdom on this dark day.’
Brys frowned, then faced Rhulad Sengar. ‘You must fight me, Emperor. Or call upon more of your warriors to cut us down.’ A glance at the kneeling Hannan Mosag. ‘I believe your sorcery is done for now.’
Rhulad sneered. ‘Sorcery? We would not so discard this opportunity, Champion. No, we will fight, the two of us.’ He stepped back and raised the mottled sword. ‘Come. We have lessons for one another.’
Brys did not reply. He waited.
The emperor attacked. Surprisingly fast, a half-whirl of the blade high, then a broken-timed diagonal downward slash intended to meet the Champion’s sword and drive it down to the tiles.
Brys matched the momentary hesitation and leaned back, drawing his sword round as he side-stepped to his right. Blade now resting on the top of Rhulad’s own as it flashed downward, the Champion darted the tip up to the emperor’s left forearm and sliced through a tendon near the elbow.
He leapt back, thrusting low as he was pulling away, to push the tip of his sword between the tendon and kneecap of Rhulad’s left leg.
The emperor stumbled forward, almost to the edge of the dais, then, astonishingly, righted himself to lunge in a two-handed thrust.
The mottled blade seemed to dance of its own accord, evading two distinct parries from Brys, and the Champion only managed to avoid the thrust by pushing the heavy blade aside with his left hand.
The two lower fingers spun away from that hand, even as Brys backpedalled until he was in the centre of the space once more, this time with Rhulad between himself and the king on his throne.
Ezgara was smiling.
As Rhulad wheeled to face him once more, his weapon dipping low, Brys attacked.
Leading foot lifting high, stamping down on the emperor’s wavering sword-blade – not a perfect contact, but sufficient to bat it momentarily away – as he drove his point into Rhulad’s right kneecap. Slicing downward from the upper edge. Biting deep into the bone near the bottom edge. Twisting withdrawal, pulling the patella out through the cut A shriek, as Rhulad’s leg shot out to the side.
The kneecap still speared on Brys’s sword-point, he darted in again as the emperor drove his own sword down and to the left in an effort to stay upright, and slashed lightly across the tendons of the Edur’s right arm, just above the elbow.
Rhulad fell back, thudded hard on the tiles, coins snapping free. The sword should have dropped from the Edur’s hands, yet it remained firm within two clenched fists. But Rhulad could do nothing with it.
Trying to sit up, eyes filling with rage, he strained to lift the weapon. Brys struck the floor with his sword-tip, dislodging the patella, stepped close to the emperor and severed the tendons and ligaments in the Edur’s right shoulder, sweeping the blade across to slice a neck tendon, then, point hovering a moment, thrusting down to disable the left shoulder in an identical manner. Standing over the helpless emperor, Brys methodically cut through both tendons above Rhulad’s heels, then sliced diagonally across his victim’s stomach, parting the wall of muscles there. A kick sent Rhulad over, exposing his back.
Slashes above each shoulder blade, two more neck tendons. Lower back, ensuring that the sheets of muscle there fully separated, rolling up beneath the coin-studded skin. Back of shoulders, coins dancing away to bounce across the floor.
Brys then stepped back. Lowered his sword.
Rebounding shrieks from the emperor lying face down on the floor, limbs already curling of their own accord, muscles drawing up. The only movement in the chamber.
A slow settling of dust from the corridor.
Then, from one of the Edur warriors,
King Ezgara Diskanar sighed, leaned drunkenly forward, then said, ‘Kill him.
Brys looked over. ‘No, sire.’
Disbelief on the old man’s face. ‘What?’
‘The Ceda was specific on this, sire. I must not kill him.’
‘He will bleed out,’ Nifadas said, his words strangely dull.
But Brys shook his head. ‘He will not. I opened no major vessels, First Eunuch.’
The Edur warrior named Trull then spoke. ‘No major vessels… how – how could you know? It is not possible… so fast…
Brys said nothing.
The king suddenly slumped back on his throne. Rhulad’s shrieks had fallen away, and now he wept. Heaving, helpless cries. A sudden gasp, then, ‘Brothers! Kill me!’
Trull Sengar recoiled at Rhulad’s command. He shook his head, looked across at Fear, and saw a terrible realization in his brother’s eyes.
Rhulad was not healing. Leaking blood onto the polished tiles. His body… destroyed. And he was not healing. Trull turned to Hannan Mosag, and saw the ugly gleam of satisfaction in the Warlock King’s eyes.
‘Hannan Mosag,’ Trull whispered.
‘I cannot. His flesh, Trull Sengar, is beyond me. Beyond all of us. Only the sword… and only
Fear grunted at that. As if punched in the chest.
Trull studied him – but Fear had not moved, not a single step. He dragged his eyes away, fixed them once more on Rhulad.
‘My brothers.’ Rhulad wept where he lay. ‘Kill me. One of you.
The Champion – that extraordinary, appalling swordsman – walked over to where the wine jug sat near the foot of the throne. The king looked half asleep, indifferent, his face flushed and slack. Trull drew a deep breath. He saw the First Eunuch, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall. Another man, elderly, stood near Nifadas, hands to his eyes – a posture both strange and pathetic. The woman standing behind the throne was backing away, as if in sudden realization of something. There had been another man, young, handsome, but it seemed he had vanished.
Along the walls, the six palace guards had all drawn their weapons and held them across their chest, a silent salute to the King’s Champion. A salute Trull wanted to match. His gaze returned once more to Brys. So modest in appearance, so…
Rhulad screamed. ‘Fear!’
Hannan Mosag coughed, then said, ‘He is gone, Emperor.’
Trull spun round, looked about.
‘He… walked away.’ The Warlock King’s smile was bloodstained. ‘Just that, Trull Sengar. Walked. You understand, now, don’t you?’
‘To call the others, to bring them here…’
‘No,’ Hannan Mosag said. ‘I do not think so.’
