Bransen saw that the scout didn’t understand. He was simply too edgy at that moment to go into great detail. “They will,” he replied.
He turned to glance at Jameston and ensure that the explanation would suffice just as the scout froze in his tracks, his eyes locked.
“Looks like we’re going to find out,” Jameston whispered out of the side of his mouth. Following his gaze to a pair of thick pines across a small open patch of ground, Bransen saw a warrior, lithe and strong with tightly wound muscles. His brow, furrowed and pronounced with the dark, thin lines of his eyebrows, made his black eyes seem even angrier, fiercer, an imposing appearance that grew only more so for his shaven head. He was dressed in black silk clothing akin to Bransen’s own and casually swung a strange weapon at the end of one arm, a pair of forearm-length solid wooden poles secured at their ends by a short length of leather.
“Nun’chu’ku,” Bransen mouthed as he considered the very deadly weapon he recognized from his lessons reading the Book of Jhest.
The warrior said something in a strange tongue, and Bransen tried to unwind the words. He knew the language from the book his father had penned, but he had never heard it spoken before. The warrior repeated his phrase, a demand from the insistent tone.
“You know what he’s saying, boy?” Jameston whispered.
“Something about Jhesta Tu,” Bransen answered, shaking his head. “Asking if I am Jhesta Tu, I think, but I cannot be certain.”
“Act certain, then,” Jameston replied.
“Jhesta Tu,” Bransen said loudly.
The warrior’s dark eyes narrowed immediately, and he began to walk slowly to their left, putting himself more in line with Bransen.
“Wrong answer,” Jameston said.
“Jhesta Tu?” Bransen asked this time, and he pointed at the warrior. That stopped the man in his pacing, and his expression turned more to curiosity.
“Who be you?” the warrior asked in the common tongue of Honce, though heavily accented in the dialect of Behr, a rolling and bouncing singsong effect of consonants bitten off and vowels exaggerated.
“I am Bransen Gari—” Bransen started, but he changed direction and said with confidence, “I am the son of Sen Wi of the Jhesta Tu and of Bran Dynard, trained at the Walk of Clouds.”
“But you have de sword,” the warrior said, his accent thick.
“I wield the sword of Sen Wi.”
“You be Jhesta Tu.”
Bransen shook his head, and the warrior snickered.
“You give me the sword.”
Bransen shook his head again.
“You give me the sword now, and you go.”
“And if I do not?”
“Then I take the sword from your body, yes.” As he finished, the warrior sent his nun’chu’ku into sudden motion, spinning the bottom length in a fast rotation at his side, then snapping it across his chest so that it wrapped under his upraised arm and slapped flat against his back. It came back in front of him and to his right for another spinning display before going under his upraised arm and around his back. When he brought the wooden pole humming before him once more, he set it into a furious reverse spin before him, then worked it back and up beside his right ear. He slapped his left wrist across his vertical right forearm and caught the flying pole in his grasp, immediately tugging it across back to his left while letting go with his right hand so that the other pole now flew freely.
Back and forth he worked the amazing weapon, changing hands and perfectly moving the momentum from one pole, through the leather tie to the other pole, reversing the spins.
It ended as suddenly as it had begun, the man somehow turning the nun’chu’ku so that its spin tucked it neatly under his right arm.
“Awful lot of bluster for so few words,” Jameston quietly remarked.
“Give me de sword now,” the warrior said.
Bransen drew his blade in a fluid and powerful movement, snapping the sword before him, angled diagonally to the sky. He slowly folded his elbow, bringing the back of the sword blade in against his forehead. After only a very short pause he snapped the blade down and to the side with such speed that it cracked through the air. He ended, as the practice demanded, with the tip of his blade a hair’s breadth from the dirt, angled down and slightly away from him.
Bransen kept his expression purposely grim, although he was beaming inside in confidence, bolstered by the Behr warrior’s expression, which confirmed to him that he had executed the sword salute perfectly.
“I think not,” he said, taking a slow and deliberate step forward. Jameston faded away from him a couple of short shuffles to the side, bow in his left hand, right hand positioned to grab an arrow from the quiver strapped diagonally across his back.
The warrior paid no heed to Jameston, his dangerous gaze locked on Bransen. He moved his right arm just a bit, the nun’chu’ku dropped free of his hold and unwound to its full length at the end of his grasp. He slid into a crouch, left hand coming up before his chest in a blocking position, his right arm sliding back just a bit. He gave a brief shout and stood from his pose. He never blinked and never stopped staring at Bransen as he took a couple of steps farther to the left and fell once more into that ready posture.
“What’s that about?” Jameston asked.
“He is showing me that he is unafraid,” Bransen explained.
“Should I just shoot him?”
“You wouldn’t hit him.”
“Hmm,” was Jameston’s doubtful response.
The warrior’s eyes narrowed, and his lip twitched into a snarl as if the chatter was an insult to him, which Bransen realized it probably was.
The Highwayman saluted crisply with his sword again then slowly walked his left foot forward toward the warrior, falling into a widestance, forward-diagonal crouch. He crooked his right elbow and turned his right wrist so that his arm looked like a serpent as he brought it back up high, his sword pointing forward past his head. He gracefully lifted his left hand before him, palm out. The warrior from Behr sent his weapon into a spin and strode forward a step.
The Highwayman dropped his arm, stabbing his sword forward in an underhand movement as he stepped closer to his opponent. He came up fast, handing the blade to his left hand and striking a mirror-image of the pose from which he had started.
They were barely three strides apart and then only two as the warrior from Behr gave a shout and came forward, his weapon working a dizzying blur of spins before he caught it in both hands. He turned them so the poles snapped vertically, the leather tie drawing a horizontal line before his face.
The Highwayman tried to sort out a counter. His next movement would likely end the posturing and begin the actual fighting. He tried to remember everything he had read about nun’chu’ku and the techniques involved, tried to somehow link that book knowledge against the minimal display he had witnessed from the Behrenese warrior.
He simply wasn’t sure of what he was up against here, of the limitations and strengths of this exotic weapon. A mischievous grin came to his lips and he thought himself very clever as he began to shift again very slowly.
Suddenly, thrusting his blade, turning it over so that its razor edge pointed skyward Bransen poked toward the warrior’s face but pulled up short and slashed the sword for the sky, thinking to sever the leather tie of the nun’chu’ku. The warrior didn’t try to pull the exotic weapon away; the Highwayman thought he had scored a clean hit.
But the man from Behr lifted his hands as the sword came up, absorbing most of the strike’s energy. As the blade connected with the leather but without any momentum to cut through, the warrior crossed his hands before his chest then thrust upward with his right and pulled downward with his left, the resulting turn of leather and wood nearly tearing the sword from the Highwayman’s grasp!
The warrior drove the weapons higher and stepped through, turning right-to-left suddenly as he went, his trailing left foot snapping out to kick the Highwayman squarely in the gut. Bran
sen had to grab his sword with both hands to prevent it from being torn from his grasp.
The Highwayman threw his hips back, absorbing the brunt of the sharp blow. As the warrior turned about before him, now driving the sword’s blade back down, Bransen went forward a short step and leaped into a twisting somersault, still holding fast with both hands and now tucking his elbows in tight to try to gain control of the movements of the weapons. He thought he could tear his sword free with the momentum of the twist and take the leather tie apart in the process, but the Behrenese warrior, again one step ahead of him, simply disengaged as Bransen tumbled past. The sudden freedom of his blade nearly toppled Bransen as he came around to his feet.
The Highwayman moved instinctively, knowing that his opponent would expect an overbalance. Taking his sword in his left hand alone, he pivoted onto the ball of his right foot, spinning around and dropping a downward backhand parry perfectly in line with the flying end of the nun’chu’ku. The metal rang out in vibration from the heavy hit as Bransen came up square with his opponent, falling immediately into a defensive crouch, hands joining on the hilt of his sword before him.
Not an instant too soon. The Behrenese warrior, offering no opportunity for Bransen to move to an offensive posture, launched a sudden and furious routine, the nun’chu’ku whipping before him in a sidelong swipe, then going into a spin above his head, where he cleverly changed hands and came in from the other side.
Bransen barely blocked.
Again and again and again the wooden poles hummed through the air up high, down low, behind the warrior’s back. He came in left and down, right across, right and down from on high.
The Highwayman was purely reacting, trying hard to follow the man’s dizzying movements to get his sword out to block. Somehow he kept up, but he felt as if he were drowning, as if the water were rising too fast for him to stay above it.
He tried to block another swing from the right, but the warrior shortened the strike and the nun’chu’ku whipped past. The Highwayman understood as the man dropped low before him, still rotating. Instinct alone had Bransen leaping and tucking his legs, narrowly avoiding a cunning leg sweep that would have put him to the ground.
He couldn’t leap fast enough, though, and he had to put all his weight to his right leg and lift his left, turning it to absorb the blow as the nun’chu’ku came around and smashed him hard against the side of his shin.
Bransen gritted through the hit and stabbed down hard. With no momentum left in the nun’chu’ku, the warrior let it go and caught it quickly with a reverse grip, then slapped the pole against the descending sword blade. Again he loosened his grip and shoved, pushing Bransen’s sword away, turning his hand over as he went, using that sword as a fulcrum to throw the bulk of the nun’chu’ku beneath it. His left hand crossed under his thrusting right elbow, catching the free pole as he sprang from the crouch before Bransen. Momentum regained as he lifted his left hand up high and over then down and back across, the descending warrior got past Bransen’s desperate defensive turn enough to send the flying nun’chu’ku pole hard against Bransen’s right shoulder.
The Highwayman gasped at the explosion of pain and stumbled to his left, stunned by the sheer weight of the blow.
J
ameston had seen more than enough. He had long ago taken a measure of the Highwayman as the finest young warrior he had ever seen, but he already knew that Bransen was ill-prepared to battle this fierce warrior. In a single fluid movement, Jameston’s right hand snapped up and grasped an arrow, pulling it from the quiver, drawing it down over his right shoulder, and setting it expertly to the bow. Still moving in the same beautiful line, the scout drew back and lifted the bow, string coming against the side of his nose. He didn’t have much space between Bransen and the strange warrior, but he didn’t need much.
A form, a leaping and spinning, black-clothed warrior, flew in from the side and behind, just above Jameston. His bowstring lost all tension, the top of his bow snapping forward suddenly and awkwardly, arrow falling to the ground.
The scout cried out in surprise but kept his wits enough to grab his bow in both hands like a stave and swing to his left where the assailant had gone.
Had gone and was now coming back ferociously. Jameston turned that way. Smaller than the other opponent, a woman warrior came at him with clenched fists. She opened her left as she thrust it forward. Instinct alone prompted Jameston to pull his bow in close defensively. The small knife she had used to cut his bowstring stabbed into the bow and stuck fast.
At the last moment Jameston leveled his bow like a spear to fend the charging warrior. She did stop but slapped at the bow left and right, grabbing at the wood.
Jameston retracted and stabbed ahead repeatedly, trying to keep her at bay. He began rotating the staff’s end in small, fast circles; when he had her attention there he cleverly charged and thrust forward. He thought he had her, would have scored a solid hit, but a second stave entered the fray, chopping hard from the side, turning down Jameston’s bow-staff.
“What?” he cried, noting another black-clothed warrior to his left. He let go of his bow with his right hand and lifted it to block. Too late, for the warrior ran the staff up the angled wood above his lifting hand.
Jameston managed to turn so that he only took a glancing blow across his jaw, but when he looked back he saw the woman flying through the air at him, spinning a forward somersault. She straightened as she came over, her legs snapping forward, her black silk slippers poking from under the wide cut of her silken pants.
That’s going to hurt, Jameston thought, as one foot crunched against his cheek and nose; the other slammed him hard in the collarbone. He went flying backward, arms and legs akimbo, and landed on his back, his breath blasted away. Before he could begin to even think about rising, the other warrior was above him, the tip of a staff in tight against the bottom of his chin, ready to drive through his throat.
Jameston lifted his hands in surrender.
T
he Highwayman tried to block out Jameston’s troubles. He couldn’t afford even to glance at his friend’s precarious position while battling a man of such talent and speed. He was still reminding himself of that when the Behrenese warrior faked high and swept low with his legs, sending Bransen tumbling to the ground.
Even as he fell Bransen sought the malachite, lessening his weight. He landed lightly on his back, turned his legs under him and tightened his stomach, hoisting his shoulders with such force that he propelled himself right back to his feet with a suddenness that took his opponent by surprise.
The Highwayman went for the win, thinking to wound this warrior fast and spring away to help his fallen friend. He thrust out, a certain hit on the warrior’s hip, but he shortened the strike, both because he had no desire to kill this man and because he was anxious, too anxious, to get to Jameston. And because the Highwayman simply wasn’t used to fighting someone this quick and trained in the Jhesta Tu manner.
So when he expected his blade to penetrate flesh, he found instead a nun’chu’ku spinning an underhand block, pushing the angle of the cut wide. Worse, the exotic weapon wrapped up and around and the warrior grabbed both ends, locking the sword in place. The Highwayman reacted in time to prevent the sudden twist from snapping his blade in half by turning with the angle change, but the movement had him and his opponent in an awkward alignment, slightly askew of each other and both leaning away.
The warrior from Behr fell even lower, dropping his back, left leg into a deep crouch. Then he began kicking with his right leg, hitting the Highwayman in the shin and side of his knee, and then again in rapid succession.
The Highwayman fell into a similar crouch and responded with his own kicks, but his opponent had the advantage, the momentum, and the initiative. Feet circled and kicked forward and back, slapping and bruising as the two held tight to their entangled weapons.
For a few heartbeats, the Highwayman took two blows for every one he delivered. He gradually moved
to more even footing and even managed a solid hit against the back of his opponent’s outstretched thigh, his toes jabbing hard into the man’s hamstring.
But that leg came up higher suddenly and clipped Bransen’s chin, nearly sending him tumbling away. He moved in closer, and kicks became jabbing knees. Again the Highwayman took the worst of it. He knew the style of fighting well from his readings, but he had never engaged in it, had never even sparred with this technique, and he was up against a master.
A knee came in hard against the side of his thigh, bruising him sorely. He shifted away from the assault. The warrior from Behr promptly straightened his leg in a snap kick that left Bransen’s left arm numb.
He wanted to retreat and regroup, but he couldn’t pull his sword free, and he surely couldn’t surrender it.
So the Highwayman went the other way, crouch-walking even closer to his opponent. He let go of his sword with his left hand, punching at the warrior, who easily shifted back enough so that, even if the punch landed, it could do no real harm.
But the Highwayman wasn’t trying to punch the warrior. Instead, he grabbed the man by the front of his silken shirt and with a yell, threw himself forward so that they were tight together.
The warrior from Behr laughed—exactly the response Bransen had hoped to elicit, for it told him that the warrior had believed his move to be a desperate attempt to drive the trapped sword in for the kill. The warrior then snapped his head backward and forward viciously, his forehead crunching against the Highwayman’s nose.
Bransen accepted the powerful hit, for he was already deep into the graphite of his brooch, bringing forth its powers. As the warrior from Behr snapped his head back again for another butt, the mighty jolt of lightning power kept him moving backward, had him flying backward, arms and legs flailing. He hit the ground and jerked about wildly.
The Highwayman stood and with a flip of his wrist sent the nun’chu’ku into the air where he caught it with his free hand. He hid well his grimace of pain as he straightened, for his knee, thigh, and hip were beyond bruised.
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