by Blaze Ward
Such a stupid way to live. Had he really been like that? All the worse.
The dancers spun again after another noisy pass.
Arnulf ended up facing Daneel, but Daneel didn’t think he was seeing anything at this point. His eyes were all pupil, no color. He was covered in sweat in a way that the regular room temperature did not explain. It looked as though he was burning up from in inside.
Perhaps he was.
Perhaps he was using every bit of his kingship right now, as fuel for a bright flame.
Better to die gloriously than live in shame.
And then it was over.
They came together, passed, parted.
Daneel watched Ian Zhao come to rest almost exactly across from him, empty–handed.
He looked back, saw the blade quivering in Arnulf’s chest, slid expertly between two ribs and trapped there.
Arnulf collapsed to his knees as his eyes glazed over.
He opened his mouth to say something, but there was only blood.
And he fell.
Beside him, Daneel felt a sudden weight fall into his side.
He caught Desianna before she collapsed as well.
As if cut as well, the sound ended.
It was over.
And he had failed.
Ian Zhao leapt lightly onto the platform and turned to smile out over the crowd.
“King Arnulf is dead,” Jing Du said. It sounded like a yell in the utter silence that had fallen. “Long live King Ian.”
The cheers were more subdued. Almost polite. Perfunctory, if one could say that about such a monumental event.
Jing Du stepped forward to stand next to the new king with a pleased smile on his face.
“Captains,” the Chancellor intoned, “a new king is proclaimed. Would any of you dispute his right to rule?”
Daneel let go of Desianna and braced her upright until he felt her strength take hold.
He stepped forward once, appearing out of the crowd and entering into that bare area.
Before he could speak, Ian Zhao pointed a finger at him.
“You have no standing in this Court. Daneel Ishikura,” he sneered. “You are no longer a captain.”
Daneel cursed inside. Of course they no longer cared about him.
“In fact,” King Ian continued, “you are nothing at all. I look forward to destroying you next, Warlock.”
He was nothing. And David Rodriguez wasn’t here. They were doomed.
And then she spoke. The Angel of Retribution.
“I have a ship.”
Chapter XLV
Date of the Republic March 14, 394 Orbital Palace Station, Above Petron
They did not get to win.
Simple as that.
All this work. All this planning. All this everything, and the bad guys would not walk away laughing.
Every eye in the room was locked on her. As they should be.
She was angry.
It was a room like she would find anywhere in the Fribourg Empire.
Men. Accustomed to cultural superiority. Unused to hearing a woman speak. Unwilling to listen.
They would listen to her. They would listen now.
Jessica stepped out into the clearing, past Daneel Ishikura. Warlock couldn’t do anything at this point.
They had taken him into account, their former conspirator. There were rules that even pirates would obey, marking them at least vaguely civilized.
Fine. Because she wasn’t feeling benevolent right now. Or civilized.
Destructive.
She had been sent to Lincolnshire to make it safe from people like this. She had come to Corynthe to do just that. Not to try. To succeed. If it had to be over the body of two kings, so be it.
“You aren’t one of us,” Ian Zhao sneered down at her.
He wasn’t a big man. There weren’t many people he could look down on, without the benefit of the platform.
“The rules don’t say one of you, assassin,” she snarled back. “They say only a captain may challenge a king. Besides, before you murdered him, Arnulf Rodriguez made me an admiral. So that does make me one of you.”
“And you would fight me for the crown, Aquitaine?”
She had his attention now. There were murmurs behind her that sounded ugly. Words like assassin and murder had gotten people’s attention.
“If that’s what it takes to see justice, Ian Zhao,” she replied, not angry now, but hard enough, loud enough, clear enough that every person in the room would hear her.
Command voice. Taught to her, once upon a time, by the man who would become First Lord of the Fleet, Nils Kasum.
The best.
“What is justice, woman?” he snarled back, anger coming to the fore.
“I say you poisoned King Arnulf,” Jessica called, “because you could not face him in a fair fight. I’m sure you won’t trust an Aquitaine doctor to test for the poison. I’m sure we can find a local who is neutral. Will you stand for such a thing?”
Ian Zhao stepped forward and dropped off the platform with a resounding crunch, aimed directly at her.
For a moment, she considered that she had goaded him too far, and that he was about to charge her. Jessica shifted her weight subtly and prepared to receive him.
Valse d’Glaive did not require blades. It just made effective use of them.
But he stopped after a long stride into the clearing.
“I cannot have your ship if I win, can I?” he said conversationally.
She could see the wheels turning in his head, plans and angles. In any other circumstance, she might have found him to be an adequate king.
But not here. Not now.
“No,” she replied simply. “But my squadron will leave, and leave you alone to rot on your barbaric throne forever, King of the Pirates.”
She turned and nodded at her flag centurion.
“Aye, sir,” Enej nodded back.
“And if I chose not to accept this Challenge, Aquitaine?”
She could see something in his eyes. Perhaps nervousness? Even a touch of fear? Come so close to victory to have it all fall apart at the last moment? Welcome to my world, you bastard.
“Explain to your captains, Corynthe,” she replied sweetly, gesturing at the crowd behind her, “that you were afraid to face a woman in the ring.”
Yes. There. That particular flash of anger. Like a splinter under a fingernail, wasn’t it? Like a wolf with a paw in a trap. Willing to gnaw it off to escape me, pirate?
“And if I am weak from my wounds, Captain?” he sneered.
“Oh?” Jessica observed tartly. “Your wounds did that?”
She prepared to pivot, pretty sure she had taken Ian Zhao right up to that line where rational thought stopped and he lost his temper. It was just as useful in single combat as it was in fleet actions.
She could see the anger boiling off of him.
It warmed her from the sudden cold that Arnulf’s death had draped her in. She drew a breath deep, held it, released it.
Cold, flat eyes stared at Ian Zhao and dared him.
“But if you require ministrations before we dance,” she waved a hand negligently, “by all means. I will in turn make it fair and only fight you with one hand.”
That was almost a bridge too far. She watched him draw a breath to charge her before he came to his senses.
Instead, he moved to the edge of the platform and seated himself. A medic materialized and began to dress his wounds. Most of them were superficial, clean slices with razor–sharp edges that could be glued back together until they healed. Only the one in the thigh required work, and that not much.
Jessica watched him drink something while he waited. She presumed a regular energy drink of some sort. They couldn’t have planned well enough to buff him up with some near–magical concoction that would make him super–human.
Not that it would matter. Not now.
Jessica considered the room, and all these men. A pit viper might have sm
iled like that.
She began undoing buttons on her outer tunic, stripped out of it, and handed it to her flag centurion. She was still wearing the heavy–duty boots she had worn to the surface of Bunala. They had felt more appropriate this morning than the ship’s slippers she normally wore. Perhaps she had known the day would end thus.
The under–tunic went next, leaving her in just close–fitting pants and a sports bra.
The men fought naked to the waist as proof they weren’t wearing any armor. No tricks.
Men.
Jessica peeled the sports bra off next and handed it to Enej as part of the bundle he held.
His jaw hit the floor first, followed closely by every other man in the room. The cold air bit at her nipples. That what she told herself.
Morons.
What was it her mother had used to say? A man loses fifty percent of his IQ when he sees a boob?
Here, have two.
Let her be the object of their lust. If she won, she would be their queen.
Jessica smiled suddenly.
If she won, she would be their Queen.
Jessica Keller, Queen of the Pirates.
It was a shot of pure adrenaline to the base of the skull that was better than an orgasm. She turned and smiled at him, wondering if she could just strike Ian Zhao down with a Zeus–like bolt of lightning from here.
It had that kind of mad power to it.
She turned back to the men around her, the captains that upheld this throne, and smiled even broader.
“Gentlemen, I have no blade to fight this Challenge. I call on the Free Captains of Corynthe to aid me.”
A forest of steel erupted around her. Men pushed and shoved at each other to try to get closer. All for a pair of boobs. And, perhaps, men who didn’t particularly like Ian Zhao, or wondered what had been put in that wine glass, or if they might be next.
Someone had taken the time to remove Arnulf’s body, treating it like a holy relic as they did, and then to wipe down the floor in preparation for the second round.
A king had died here. A second might follow.
Valse d’Glaive used a saber and a main–gauche. Long and slashing, heavy and blocking.
Ian Zhao was about of a size with the fighting robot she danced with regularly. It hadn’t been a fair fight, so she couldn’t rate him against it for ability, not with Arnulf poisoned and probably already dying.
Still, the man would have height and reach comparable. His stiletto was fifty centimeters of double–edged blade, more of a short sword than anything else. Cut on both the pass and the exit.
Jessica drifted right to left, letting these men get a really good view of her body as she inspected weapons.
Only one of you gets to touch, she smiled to herself.
In the end, she took a short, heavier blade, almost a cleaver, from a smaller captain, himself almost a dwarf compared to the giants around them. It was thicker than her training main–gauche, and ground down to only a basic edge, a tool for dismantling chickens.
She looked over her shoulder as Ian Zhao rose and stepped forward.
Chickens, and kings.
Ξ
Jing Du seemed content in his spot again, overlooking the mob below with a warm smile.
Jessica had no intention of being his second victim today.
She held the blade in her right hand. Most of these people were right–handed, so it would seem normal to them. It even felt like her main–gauche, literally the left–hand, that she normally parried with, so being in her off–hand was natural.
While Ian Zhao stood prepared in a fighter’s crouch across the way, she stood upright and held the blade loosely at her side.
“Ian Zhao,” she drawled loudly enough to be heard by everyone, “you are a coward and an assassin. You are unfit to lead and should take up the nun’s robes and retire to a life of introspective prayer to whatever God might accept a worthless loser like you as a follower.”
A little bit thick, but these people weren’t exactly known for subtlety.
The room had grown warm. Or she had. She could feel sweat dripping down her neck and back, running between her small breasts.
Always watch the center of a man’s chest when knife–fighting, her ground combat instructor had taught her on day one. Ian Zhao seemed to be looking in the right place, but she doubted that his eyes were focused on her sternum, from the way that they flickered back and forth.
“And you, Aquitaine,” he called back, anger slurring his words, “are an abomination in this Court. A woman pretending to be equal to a man. I will not have it.”
“Oh, no, Corynthe,” she said. “I am Civilization. You are a mongrel only fit for the servant’s entrance.”
That gibe hit home.
Jessica watched Ian come nearly out of his crouch with rage, before he sank back down and edged forward crabwise, blade leading.
She relaxed from sudden tension.
It wouldn’t be the sudden bull rush that had initiated the duel with Arnulf. But then, she hadn’t drunk anything that was going to dull her senses and her reflexes, and needed to be spurred into the bloodstream.
She settled down into the Fifth Form, blade flat against her thigh, standing almost upright, but with her toes poised to go up, left, or backwards.
It was an odd stance, so unlike any of the traditions that Valse d’Glaive had inherited from all its ancestor–forms. But then, humans had had eleven thousand years in space to experiment with movement. They were bound to find interesting variations.
This one, so her first instructor had told her, had been the best at inducing a mugger to actually attack, instead of letting you pass and preying on an easier victim later.
Ian Zhao rocked as he moved. It was like watching a crab eke its way up the surf, back and forth, blade and free hand.
He didn’t seem to be sweating now. Or rather, an aide had toweled him off and then a chill had settled over him.
Perhaps Arnulf’s ghost.
Jessica, on the other hand, was warm. Calm. Poised.
Again, perhaps Arnulf’s smile.
She stood perfectly still as the man closed for his first strike, blade held loosely for a flat slash. At least he acted like a professional, gripping the killing blade in a way that did justice to the setting.
She wasn’t above bad killing. Not here. Not now. But she could appreciate good form.
It also made the man more predictable.
For Jessica, the world slowed down.
Ian Zhao slashed with his right hand, a flat arc parallel to the deck. It wasn’t close enough to be very dangerous, just annoying.
Unlike Arnulf, the man had no idea how she would react, so he wanted to probe her.
And as with any physical task and a new partner, you had to find the corners, whether it was dancing, or sex.
Or death.
Jessica let her anger erupt out of her soul. This man was expecting her to flinch backwards, possibly forgetting how close she was to the edge of the circle and a wall of men who would shove her forward again, possibly onto a waiting blade.
It was a good opening gambit. Low risk, possibly high reward. Like kissing a girl on the back of the neck.
She wasn’t that kind of girl.
Jessica surged straight at Ian Zhao, twisting crossways like a tornado to slam her main–gauche into contact with his poniard, blocking him just like in a musketeer video.
If she had had a second blade, it would have been over right then. Right there.
Pinwheel withershins around him to continue the spin, anchored to his blade by the impact. Ride it around the maelstrom and slash neck high as she came out the far side of the pass.
With her saber, she could have possibly decapitated the man on this first pass. Certainly killed him.
Jessica settled for back–handing him with her left as she exited. It was probably not something many women had ever done to Ian Zhao.
The blow echoed off the walls and ceiling like a crack of
thunder.
For a moment, the crowd fell utterly silent. She hadn’t realized the roar, the volume of sound that had erupted at the combat, so lost in herself.
Ian Zhao almost stood upright in surprise, but Jessica was too far away to take advantage of him.
She had ended up clear across the space. Looking back, Ian Zhao was framed where he stood by two people behind him. Her two favorite people right now. Daneel Ishikura and Desianna Indah–Rodriguez.
Beyond, a flicker of movement. Her flag centurion. Enej was talking to someone now on the comm, standing next to the marine with the big tactical backpack, one that apparently had a two meter tall whip–pole with a flag atop it.
Auberon’s flag. She had missed that earlier.
Her flag.
She felt another pulse of power flicker all the way down to her toes as she moved to First Form and closed.
She wasn’t evading Ian Zhao now. She was hunting him.
Something of that seemed to get through to the man. He started to back away, caught himself, and slid to his left, back to the crab walk.
She could see a bright red mark on the side of his face. Not quite the color of fresh blood. She would have to fix that soon.
Ian Zhao shifted to his left as she closed, backing crablike around the arena, butt–first, blade staying centered on her as she closed.
Jessica decided to return the favor. She flared her left hand, open at his eyes, to make him blink, and slashed wide and overhand with her right. She had the heavier blade, the stronger. If he moved to block square, she just might shear it off into a stump.
Very few people understood the physics of sword–fighting anymore.
Ian Zhao wasn’t an expert, but he was a knife–fighter, and she seemed to have spooked him. Rather than stand, he skittered back another half step as her slapping hand came up, and let her blade pass rather than try to resist.
It was a good defense. Hang back, let the enemy over–commit, strike at an opening. A useful strategy when fighting in two dimensions, or a simple foe.
Jessica was already three movements ahead of him in her tactical planning.
She was a lunge and a thrust away from the man now. She smelled rather than saw it as his weight shifted forward and he prepared, turning slightly sideways to present his blade and less of his body.