“Yaerilys,” Randall repeated urgently, “your name is Yaerilys—try to remember!”
This is pointless, Rimidalv said grimly. Stand aside and grant us passage or your wielder will suffer for your rebellion, Dan’Moread.
I will not, Dan’Moread mirrored the White Knight’s crouch. Release your wielder, Rimidalv, or I will break you, she vowed defiantly, just as I broke Ahsaytsan.
Grey Iron is strong, but brittle, Rimidalv growled. White Steel is not so easy to sunder.
If you do not release your wielder, we will soon discover which of us is right—and which of us is wrong, she vowed.
This is your last chance, Dan’Moread, the White Blade barked. Stand aside or I will end your wielder!
It was that precise moment when Rimidalv spoke of ending Randall—her wielder—instead of her. For perhaps the first time in her entire existence, or at last for the first time she could remember, Dan’Moread comprehended the full meaning of her existence.
She was a sword-breaker, just as her name declared, and it seemed that Rimidalv understood this fact—and, more importantly, it seemed that on some level he feared her.
You don’t understand, Rimidalv, she said, feeling the words form even before she was aware of them in her conscious mind, they are not the dross—we are! We exist to empower them, not dominate them! She fractionally deepened her fighting crouch and tensed in preparation for what would soon come. You may try to end my wielder, she snarled, but we will end you, Rimidalv!
Rimidalv’s rage was palpable as the White Knight lunged toward them with the White Blade’s tip aimed straight at Randall’s heart. Dan’Moread parried the initial thrust and sidestepped, but a blindingly fast pirouette by Ser Cavulus saw the White Blade arc through the late-day air on a decapitating course to Randall’s neck.
Dan’Moread literally felt the flat of Rimidalv’s blade skim against Randall’s scalp as she barely reacted in time to save her wielder from certain death. She tucked their chin and rolled, pivoting and bringing herself up into a blocking position to intercept the obvious follow-up to the stunningly deadly opening salvo authored by her opponent.
As the White Blade clanged against her acid-hardened, star metal edge, she felt a somehow familiar sensation as her metal was proven to be harder than his. Sinking only a few millimeters into his pristine, White Steel edge, she saw Ser Cavulus had clearly pulled up at the last second when it became apparent the two blades would meet.
In that moment, when Randall peeled his lips back in a vicious snarl at seeing both the White Knight’s hesitation and the fact that Dan’Moread’s blade had proven stronger than Rimidalv’s, Dan’Moread was more perfectly joined with her wielder than she could ever remember being.
This was easily the most dangerous opponent they had ever faced and, even with everything breaking their way, Dan’Moread held little hope that they could emerge victorious. But for that brief, fleeting moment as she and Rimidalv stood deadlocked—with her blade having penetrated his pristine body, proving that he was no more invincible than any other opponent—she was at one with Randall in a way that she knew would forever change the dynamic of their relationship.
Then the White Knight lashed out with an armored boot aimed at Randall’s midsection, and the duel began its irreversible march toward its rightful place in legend.
Thankfully for Randall, Dani’s reactions were good enough to spare them yet another breath-stealing blow to the ribs as Yaerilys’ armored boot whiffed through the air where his chest had been. Dani authored a counterattack aimed at Rimidalv’s ricasso—the small, triangular protrusions midway down his blade which apparently served to deflect incoming blows—but the White Knight pivoted and fell back our of Dan’Moread’s threat range.
Randall was little more than a passenger at this point, able to control only his mouth and left arm. Realizing this, his mind immediately turned to the possibility of employing his peculiar psychic ‘gifts’ yet again.
Each time he had used them since learning how to do so, he had briefly glimpsed images which could only have been from the future. But each time he had done so, for some reason it had caused such intense disruption that Dan’Moread had either been rendered unconscious or blind for a dangerous amount of time.
So he decided against employing that particular technique just now. He knew that the White Knight was formidable—far more formidable than he and Dani were—but he was committed to standing up to Rimidalv’s tyranny.
Block! Dan’Moread cried as she lunged and the White Knight expertly countered with a brutal, sweeping blow aimed at their midsection. Randall barely managed to intercept the blow with his shield bracer, and after clearing the White Blade’s swing path he was shocked to see nearly a quarter of the armored bracer’s miniature shield was missing.
He had felt a burst of confidence at seeing that Dan’Moread could indeed harm Rimidalv when they met in battle. But his armored bracer, which was supposedly of the highest possible craftsmanship, had just been cleaved by the White Blade’s edge—a reminder that everything and everyone in this duel that wasn’t a magical sword could potentially be ended by the battling blades.
Dan’Moread, ever the warrior, launched a counterattack with a handful of swipes and stabs aimed at the White Knight’s robustly armored midsection. Two of the blows landed, but failed to pierce Yaerilys’ armor. Another potentially killing blow whistled past Randall’s ear as Dan’Moread barely managed to twist away from an overhand attack that would have easily cleaved Randall from collar to crotch.
For a comical moment, Randall wondered just how his nether regions would have looked in the aftermath of such abuse. It was a moment which thankfully passed when the clang of Dan’Moread blocking Rimidalv a few inches from his ear nearly deafened him.
We have to give ground, Dan’Moread grunted as the White Blade drove toward them with Yaerilys’ armored form behind it. Randall’s feet beat a hasty retreat as Dan’Moread turned strike after strike aside, with Randall himself batting away a pair of Rimidalv’s blows with his badly-damaged bracer.
Each step took them further from the courtyard’s center, and it was only by using an impressive—and outright terrifying—feint that Dan’Moread managed to avoid being cornered by the White Knight’s savage onslaught.
They continued giving ground as Randall dimly realized Dan’Moread was taking them onto the massive bridge adjoining the keep’s courtyard. “Dani—” he began, only to be cut short when she ducked Rimidalv’s glistening blade with less than an inch to spare.
I am busy, Randall! she snarled as she swung upward with improbable quickness toward Rimidalv’s briefly-vulnerable blade. Yaerilys’ reflexes were too good, though, and she managed to roll Rimidalv’s momentum with Dan’Moread’s impact effectively enough that only a tiny chip of the White Blade’s edge was carved out by Dan’Moread’s acid-hardened edge.
The two combatants—or four combatants, in actuality—spun away from each other as the White Knight moved her armored bulk to keep Dani and Randall from moving back into the courtyard.
“Lay down thine arms, half elf,” Yaerilys’ metallic, amplified voice boomed commandingly. “Thou art not responsible for the actions of thy blade, but if thou wilt not discard thy weapon I will be forced to kill thee.”
“Half elf?!” Randall repeated in a rage. “We aren’t ‘half elves,’ Yaerilys,” he shouted between a trio of thrusts and parries exchanged by the embattled quartet, “we’re star children—don’t you remember that you taught me that?!”
For a brief moment, she paused in her assault. Her expression was hidden by the all-concealing helmet she wore, but Randall felt a spring of hope rise up within himself that maybe—just maybe—she had remembered something of their short time together.
Then she lunged toward them, and Dani was barely able to deflect the incoming blow as she spun Randall’s body away toward the bridge’s edge. With his back foot less than an inch from the edge, Randall briefly feared that they would be driven off th
e bridge and into the water below.
But Dani was good—she ducked them beneath an overhand chop and fired a short, accurate blow up under the White Knight’s armored armpit. Her star metal tip drove several inches through the armor, drawing an unmistakably pained reaction from Yaerilys. The White Knight fell back and clutched her arm to her side for a few seconds, standing off from Randall and Dani before—to Randall’s horror—she slowly began to roll her arm around until it was moving as though it had not suffered any kind of injury at all. To his continued shock, the White Knight’s armor began to glow over the newly-made breach, and a few seconds later that breach disappeared entirely.
“Thou art bested, half elf,” the White Knight declared in its unnatural, booming voice. “Lower thine arms and thou wilt receive mercy—lower them not and no mercy shall thou know.”
To accentuate her point, the White Knight brought Rimidalv into a picturesque—and intensely intimidating—pose with the blade, held in both hands and presented in front of herself, unwaveringly at the mid-line of her armored body.
We can still retreat, Randall, Dani said bitterly, should we flee while we still can?
“No!” Randall snapped. “There’s more at stake here than either of our lives. One way or another, I’m finished with standing by while people like Rimidalv treat the rest of us like pawns in their games!”
He felt a thrum of unexpected energy course up into his body as he spoke, and when he finished he heard Dani declare, Good answer!
Dani launched a savage barrage of attacks at the White Knight and, after practicing with her for as long as he had, Randall recognized the pattern was intended to draw Rimidalv out of position so that Dani could take a fight-ending swing at cleaving his brightly-burnished blade in twain.
At first Randall thought they might succeed, as the third sequence of thrust-parry-thrust-counterswipe-thrust seemed close to doing precisely what he had envisioned. Dan’Moread succeeded in drawing Rimidalv off his wielder’s mid-line with that sequence. Just as she shifted her internal ballast to enable an unexpectedly quick—and powerful—upward swipe aimed at Rimidalv’s ricasso, the White Knight brought her armored knee up into Randall’s ribcage with enough force to concuss a bull.
The blow was thankfully well-absorbed by his armor, but it still launched him into the air—and he was both surprised and relieved to see that Dan’Moread had pulled her upswing off-target to prevent cleaving into Yaerilys’ leg. Even if the attack had not severed the leg completely, it was possible—even with the benefit of her enchanted armor—that the blow could kill her from blood loss alone.
It was in that moment that Randall realized there was no way they could defeat Rimidalv cleanly—and that realization caused his teeth to clench as he finally knew their sole path to victory against their obviously superior adversaries.
They are too fast, Dani growled as Randall’s body barely responded to her commands quickly enough to avoid Rimidalv’s would-be deathblow.
Dani rolled them just clear of the devastating, overhand blow—which buried Rimidalv’s tip several inches into the seamless stone of the bridge deck, though Yaerilys had no trouble freeing the buried metal. Without missing a beat, she stomped her heavily-armored boot down near Randall’s head as Dani continued to log-roll them away from the murderous White Knight.
Dani sprang them to their feet and blocked the next swipe of Rimidalv’s blade, tearing a fresh chip out of his White Steel edge in the process. If we can simply block another handful of attacks— she began.
“No,” Randall wheezed as his ribcage sent pulses of agony with every twist, every turn, and every shift Dani made to their posture, “we won’t last that long.”
I can destroy him, Randall, she objected as they began to backpedal in the face of the White Knight’s renewed onslaught—an onslaught which had nearly brought them to the center of the bridge.
“Maybe—” he snapped as she lithely twisted his frame around a well-concealed thrust which saw Rimidalv’s tip skitter across Randall’s lightly-armored chest as Dani launched another attack at the White Blade itself.
For a second, Randall allowed himself to believe that Dani could actually sunder the White Blade cleanly. Unfortunately, that second passed when Rimidalv turned Dani aside while his wielder pivoted and brought her knee dangerously close to Randall’s head. Her attack had directly interposed her armored arm between Dani’s swing-path and Rimidalv’s exposed blade, which again caused Dani to pull her attack.
“—but he’s hiding behind his wielder, Dani. His advantages are too great—“ he began, only to be cut short when he was forced to bring his armored bracer up to deflect another blow from the White Blade—a blow which tore nearly half of that bracer’s miniature shield from its straps, rendering the device essentially useless. “We have to play by his rules, Dani!” Randall cried, knowing full well what that meant.
I cannot do that, Randall, Dani protested, lunging toward the White Knight with another powerful series of chops and thrusts as she sought to regain the initiative.
“You have to,” he growled, hating himself for even accepting the possibility that what he was saying was, indeed, their only hope, “otherwise we’re dead.”
Defiantly, Dani continued her assault—and very nearly cost Randall his leg when the White Blade came around and slammed into his thigh. For a moment Randall thought the battle was over. The pain in his leg was so extraordinary that he was certain it had been severed and that, very soon, he would topple like a felled tree.
He looked dumbly down, expecting to see a profusely-bleeding stump where his leg had been, but instead he blinked in stunned shock as he saw that somehow the enchanted skirt he’d bought from the madman in Three Rivers had actually blocked Rimidalv’s attack!
“Don’t ever let me knock girl’s clothes again,” he muttered as Dani danced back and out of the White Knight’s threat range.
I will hold you to that, Dani snapped.
Re-focusing on the task at hand, Randall shook his head grimly as he whispered through clenched teeth, “We have to stop attacking Rimidalv, Dani. He knows that’s what you’re going to do and that’s why he keeps blocking with her body.”
Randall, if I kill her I will be no different than Rimidalv!
“Then don’t kill her,” he said with a stronger pleading note in his voice than he had expected to hear, “but you have to stop her. If you don’t, we’re all done for—and Rimidalv will continue doing what he’s always done.”
Silence hung between them as the White Knight began to circle counterclockwise, with Dani mirroring her motions while maintaining distance. I know only one possible maneuver, she said grimly, but if I use it, you may lose as much as she does.
“If it means stopping Rimidalv, I can live with that,” Randall said firmly.
It will be a rising crescent swing starting from our right hip, moving across the midline as we drive across with our hips, Dani explained as they continued to circle opposite the White Knight. I will count down from five to zero, and at zero you must place your free hand on my hilt and help drive the blow with as much force as you can muster. Do you understand?
“Yes,” he said resolutely, knowing that she was asking him to make some kind of grave sacrifice. But really, after having spent so much time contemplating Yaerilys’ fate, he knew that to do anything but risk his own safety would be cowardly—and worse, it would condemn her to a fate he could no longer turn a blind eye to.
Ok, Dani said tightly, be prepared.
With that, Dan’Moread lunged toward the White Knight with all the power Randall’s legs could generate. The White Knight easily parried the first blow, along with the second and the third. Randall kept his eyes focused on their foe’s movements, knowing that even though his armored bracer was almost totally ruined he could at least try to deflect another attack if it slipped past Dani’s defenses.
Spinning herself over in Randall’s right hand, Dani feinted high before going low—and it was when the Whit
e Knight blocked that incoming blow that she began to count, Five…
The White Blade turned aside Dani’s blade as Yaerilys lashed out with Rimidalv’s golden crosspiece aimed straight at Randall’s eyes. Dani intercepted the counterattack with the flat of her own blade, and she immediately gave two steps of ground to the White Knight as she said, Four…
Randall watched his right leg strike out at Yaerilys’ midsection, where instead of striking with authority Dani instead briefly planted that foot on the White Knight’s breastplate and kicked back—and barely out of the way of Rimidalv’s upward swipe which would have buried itself into Randall’s side. Three… Dani said tightly after narrowly avoiding the clever counter.
She swung herself squarely at the White Knight’s midsection and was blocked by the White Blade, but there was no way that Rimidalv could know that in that moment Dani was sucking all of her Titansand ballast into her pommel as she counted down, Two…
Yaerilys released her grip on Rimidalv’s hilt with her left hand as she aimed a gauntleted hammerfist at Randall’s head. Dani had clearly anticipated the attack, which she ducked while coiling Randall’s body around her blade and rolling back across the stone bridge-deck as she neared the end of the countdown, One…
The clatter of Yaerilys’ metal-booted feet told Randall that she was in hot pursuit, though his eyes were briefly off-target and unable to focus on her as Dani brought them to a stop and yelled, Zero—now!
Randall placed his left hand—which represented the only limb he controlled during Dani’s ‘possession’—on the lower half of her hilt and squeezed as tightly as he could while drawing the hilt of the weapon up just as she had told him to do. His eyes locked briefly onto Rimidalv’s descending blade—which was aimed at his left bicep, which it was clearly meant to cleave through—and in that instant he knew that no matter what came of their efforts, they had done the right thing.
He could not leave someone enslaved to such a cold, ruthless master as the White Blade had proven himself to be. Such an affront to the basic dignity which should be afforded any person—regardless of their peculiar lineage or other characteristics—and he was willing to die in defiance of such monstrous machinations.
Dross (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 2) Page 29