by Джеффри Лорд
«I (and here each said his name) swear by the War Wisdom of Melnon, the Peace Wisdom of Melnon, and my own honor, to uphold all laws and customs that govern the war upon this day, the twelfth of the month of the Ox. I swear to slay any man under my command who holds not to these laws and customs. I ask that I myself be slain if I fail in this wise or in myself upholding and obeying that which governs the wars of the Towers of Melnon.» A pause for breath. «Do you witness that we have sworn the Commanders' Oath?»
«We so witness!» came again from many of the watchers.
«Is there your consent that we begin the war?»
«There is!» this time coming from nearly all the spectators in a single roar.
Both Pen-Jerg and Zef-Dorn turned to their warriors. «Line leaders-are you ready?»
Blade joined seven other warriors in a single shout of «We are ready!» He found himself having to fight off the notion that this was some sort of religious ritual, that there was not really going to be any fighting or any danger. He knew things were quite different, but it was hard to accept this stylized situation as dangerous or even warlike. He shook his head. After fifteen generations of this sort of flight from reality, the warriors of the Towers of Melnon would be swept away like mice by cats if they ever came up against a realistic and efficient opponent.
The two commanders exchanged a final look. Then each turned back to his warriors and shouted:
«Let the war begin!»
And the line leaders on each side strode forward into the fifty-foot space between the war parties.
Blade came out with a slow sidling step, already dropped into a fighter's crouch, long sword raised to strike, short sword raised to guard. His opponent, half a head shorter than he was but just as broad, strode out without taking any such precautions. As they closed, Blade could see a grim smile on the man's face. Obviously he expected that a man fighting almost naked, and so nervous that he apparently could not stand straight, would be an easy opponent. That was one thing Blade knew he would never be-an easy opponent.
They were twenty feet apart when Blade's opponent dropped into fighting stance. But he did so with an almost negligent air, as if to indicate that he didn't really need to deploy all his skills to defeat Blade. Blade's own face creased in a brief smile. An opponent this overconfident could be easy meat.
Blade let the Eagle warrior launch the first attack. The man came in fast, feinting at Blade's head with the short sword. At the same time the long sword came round in a horizontal slash. It was meant to slice in under Blade's raised guard and chop him nearly in half.
Instead Blade's own short sword darted down like a snake's tongue, warding off the long sword. Steel met steel with a terrible clang. For a moment the other's right arm was frozen by the shock. In that moment Blade's left arm twisted, sending his short sword grating up the long sword, driving point-first into the man's unprotected thigh. His own long sword swung overhand, smashed down through the desperate lunge of the other's short sword, and crashed down on the white helmet. The blow did not penetrate, but it stunned quite thoroughly. Blade stepped back as the Eagle warrior toppled forward on to his face with a resounding thud. From the man's first attack to his last twitch, the whole bout had lasted barely thirty seconds.
Blade was aware of a good many snake-like hisses of indrawn breath from the Serpents behind him. And he saw a good many eyes open wide among the Eagles and the witnesses. But he had no time to care about the audience. His next opponent was stepping forward into the open, looking somewhat nervously at the line leader's prostrate form. But he got himself under control, and signalled to Blade that they should carry the line leader out of the fighting area. With Blade at the head and the other at the feet, they did this. Then they squared off against each other, both in the standard crouch.»
The second Eagle warrior was perhaps not so competent as the first. But he lasted longer, because this lack of competence kept him from rushing straight in to his doom like Blade's first opponent had. He stood on the defensive instead, and Blade eventually had to attack and smash down the man's guard in half a dozen quick exchanges. On his seventh long sword blow, Blade struck the Eagle hard enough on the right shoulder to lay open the armor and the flesh beneath it. Blood spurted, then the man dropped both swords on the ground and bowed his head in submission. Blade motioned him aside and waited for the third man.
The third warrior was the biggest warrior Blade had yet seen in Melnon. He must have stood six feet eight, and he was broadly built. But he was also slow in proportion to his bulk, and apparently the slowness extended all the way up from his feet to his wits. He had no ideas for dealing with Blade except to charge in like a mad bull, trying to knock Blade's guard down and his head off by sheer brute strength. This he did so fiercely and so persistently that Blade eventually had to kill him with a thrust in the exposed throat above the neck of his armor. Blood gushed all over the white armor and over the trampled ground. The man gurgled, choked, and swayed. Blade stepped back in time to watch him crash to the ground.
It took two warriors from each side to lug the huge corpse off to the sidelines. The spectacle apparently so preyed on the mind of Blade's next opponent that he considered himself doomed the moment he stepped out to meet Blade. He made no effort to defend himself or even launch an intelligent attack. Instead he charged straight at Blade, screaming at the top of his lungs, waving both swords like the arms of a windmill determined to at least die spectacularly.
He did not even succeed in doing that. Blade saw at once that this fourth opponent was hardly more than a boy. He certainly didn't want to kill him, and he even preferred to take chances himself to avoid this. Blade dropped down on one knee as the boy closed. He did this so suddenly that the attacker's strokes both whistled through the air where Blade's head had been. Then, before the boy could recover, Blade's own swords darted up. He was gambling on his own speed and sure eye, aiming at precariously small targets-the other man's wrists. Blade's aim was perfect. Both his swords drove into their targets, and both his opponent's swords went flying. Blade jerked a thumb at them, indicating to the boy that he should pick them up and get out of the way. Then he smiled.
«Don't panic, the next time,» he said to the boy. «You'll live longer almost any other way. And I think you'll live to be a fine warrior for the Eagles someday-if you're sensible.»
The boy stared at Blade with eyes so wide that Blade felt uneasy for a moment. Had he violated the War Wisdom in some way? Then he realized that the boy was trying to hold back tears, which were unfit for a warrior of the Towers of Melnon.
«Thank you, line leader,» he said in a strangled voice. Then he bent, retrieved his swords, and stumbled off to the sidelines.
The fifth man was easy, so easy that Blade wondered if the man had deliberately thrown away the fight to save himself wounds or death or captivity. The sixth tried harder, but no more successfully. Eventually Blade closed with him in a corps a corps as classic as he could manage with the two curved swords. His knee went up into the man's groin. As the man doubled up and crumpled, Blade slammed the flat of his sword across the back of the man's neck. This time Blade chose to exercise his right to capture the man, who would then have to be ransomed by the Tower of the Eagle for whatever sum in goods or Low People the Tower of the Serpent might set.
As his comrades behind him in the third line led the prisoner off, Blade noticed a look of something like awe in the eyes of several of them. He shrugged. Perhaps he had shown endurance, but he hadn't needed that much skill-yet. His opponents had so far been either inept, half-paralyzed with terror, or overconfident. Sooner or later he was going to meet an Eagle as good as Kir-Noz, who was none of these things.
The seventh man was not that good, although he was the best opponent Blade had met so far in the war. He was fast, completely unintimidated by what he had seen Blade do already, and exceedingly strong. He conducted a very effective defense with arms that were lightning-fast and as strong as the branches of an oak tree
. They kept his own swords between his body and Blade's strokes for a long time. So long, in fact, that Blade began to become worried. His opponents were coming to the war completely fresh except for the walk from their tower. He on the other hand had the long and wearing fight with Kir-Noz behind him. He might be able to beat each one of the ten men in the Eagles' third line individually, but the ten of them together might be too much for his endurance.
Fortunately, Blade had no trouble outlasting his seventh opponent. He kept slashes and thrusts coming at the man continuously, from all directions, at all intervals, and at all speeds. Eventually it was a slow thrust with the long sword that found an opening in the man's guard. The tip of Blade's long sword drove into his mouth, and he reeled back, spitting blood and teeth. For a moment shock and pain caused him to drop his guard, and Blade thrust low into his thigh. Blood gushed down the man's leg, and he dropped his swords, knowing that he had lost too much speed to have any hope of coping with Blade's next attack. Blade was not entirely sure of that, so he willingly let the man stumble back to the side of his own tower.
The interval between opponents was longer this time, and Blade had a chance to check on the progress of the War on either side of him. In the fourth line, to his left, Eagles and Serpents were both only on their third fighter. Apparently the two Towers were almost perfectly matched in that line, because the score seemed to be one victory apiece.
In the second line, immediately to Blade's right, the Serpents had a definite edge. Here also they were only on their third warrior, but the Eagles had been forced to bring up their fifth. Before Blade could discover what was going on in the first line, to the far right, his own eighth opponent strode forward.
Blade's trained eye immediately picked this one as the most dangerous yet. If the Eagles were going to put into the war against him anybody as good as Kir-Noz, this was most likely the man.
The warrior came out slowly, steadily, his eyes never leaving Blade's face but with both swords in position even before he was in the open. Blade did the same. And he did not go straight in to the attack as he had done before. He dropped into a defensive crouch, and began a slow circling around the other man. The other did the same, and they circled slowly around each other three times in succession. Each kept his eyes fixed on the other, searching for any clues to the other's weaknesses. Blade hoped to find some hint of overconfidence or nervousness in the other's expression, but he could not. This man was as sure of his war skills as Blade himself. And he was far fresher than Blade, who was conscious of the sweat pouring off him, the aches in his legs and arms, and the tightness across his chest. He could not hope for luck with this opponent, and for the first time he wished he had insisted on being properly armored. Even if the other wanted only to defeat or capture Blade, it would be hard to keep those razor-sharp swords away from his flesh entirely.
Suddenly, with no wind-up or warning, flat-footed and quick as lightning; the other man struck. Blade plotted the path of the incoming swords and had his own up to meet them in a split-second, but even that was barely in time. The long sword whistled down past Blade's ear, and only a frantic twisting of his body kept it from slashing into his arm. As he twisted he thrust low with his short sword, but the thrust also missed its mark, driving harmlessly into the other man's armored flank.
Around and around the two men went in a succession of deadly circles. They were no longer sizing each other up, for each knew that he would require all his strength and skill to survive, let alone to win. As they circled, they slashed and thrust and parried in a continuous flashing and clanging of steel. And as the swordplay went on and on, Blade became more and more worried. He could not break through this man's guard, nor could he hope to keep up his own guard for much longer. The man was too fast and strong, and Blade knew that he himself was tiring rapidly. If he slowed down, he would be finished.
Blade began recalling details of the fight with Kir-Noz, considering whether that offered any clues to his present situation. He would have no advantage in footwork, and no easy way to make his opponent stumble. Here on the Plain of War the Eagle warrior was fighting on the kind of flat surface where his boots were at their best.
Nor could Blade use his unarmed combat skills. That would no doubt be a violation of the War Wisdom, and put an end to any hope he might have of rising in the Towers of Melnon. That was too bad, for the warriors of Melnon obviously had precious little understanding of unarmed combat. He could surprise his opponent thoroughly with a few karate blows, perhaps thoroughly enough to gain a decisive advantage. But that was impossible.
Or was it? A man disarmed was apparently at the mercy of the victor, to be killed, captured, or released at his discretion. Suppose a man was disarmed and would not submit, but wanted to go on fighting. The logic of the War Wisdom seemed to be to equalize the risks as much as possible for both men and both towers. But if a man deliberately threw away any chance of equality …? Blade wished he knew more about the fine points of the War Wisdom. He would like to be sure that there was nothing in his line of reasoning that was leading him into disastrous violations of the Wisdom. But he could hardly call «time out» while he consulted with Pen-Jerg. He flashed a brief glance toward the Serpents' Commander, who was standing where he had been since the beginning of the war. His face was as expressionless as a stone, but Blade noticed a thin sheen of sweat on it that seemed to come from more than the heat of the sun.
Blade turned back to the fight, and made his decision. He would have to gamble, little as he liked the prospect. And he would have to be as subtle as possible, to avoid the risk of trouble over the War Wisdom. He mentally consigned the War Wisdom and all of its votaries to whatever devils might be, then settled down to wait for an opening for his plan. He hoped it would come before too long. He would need all the speed and strength he had left to carry it out.
Fortunately his opponent was also beginning to slow down. Not enough to give Blade any hope of getting through his guard with a sword, but enough to give Blade an extra split-second here and there. Hopefully that would be enough. It had damned well better be!
The man came in again, and again, and a third time. The fourth time, Blade saw the right combination of strokes coming in, the one he had been waiting for. He had both his own swords guarding but held slightly downward as the other's blows descended.
A double-barreled clang! Blade opened both hands, and let the other's swords whistle down past him, smashing his own weapons to the ground. They hit with dull thuds and lay there. The other man looked at them, then up at Blade's face, finding no signs of yielding in it.
But the War Wisdom was explicit. «Do you yield yourself as my prisoner?» the man said. He managed to keep some of the triumph out of his voice, but he was clearly pleased with himself. Blade could imagine what honor it would bring the warrior, to have deprived the Tower of the Serpent of such a mighty fighting man.
Blade bared his teeth in a defiant grin. «Not at all, my friend. You will have my corpse or nothing-unless of course I have yours.»
It took the warrior a moment to recover from his surprise. Like Kir-Noz, he stared gape-mouthed, as though Blade had suddenly turned into some strange animal. Then he shook his head. «Are you sure, warrior? I would not dishonor you, not after such a fight as you have made. You would be admitted to ransom with small trouble.»
«No doubt,» said Blade. «Let us agree that I chose death before even honorable capture. And then let us see if you can take my body home to the Tower of the Eagle, or if I take yours to the Tower of the Serpent.»
The man shook his head again, as though he had to deal with a madman. He could not refuse to continue to fight, but he obviously did not want to. Blade felt a moment's regret at using his plan on this man, but it passed as the man came in again. His long sword rose high, then came whistling down, aiming at Blade's head, seeking to split it open like a melon.
As the sword came down Blade dropped into a crouch. Then he sprang out of it, toward the man and under the d
escending sword. He felt it sear his shoulder, but as it did so his balled left fist drove hard into the man's face. The warrior's head snapped back and for a moment he forgot that he still held the short sword in a position where he could easily drive it into Blade's side.
That moment was all Blade needed to crash his opponent's left arm, twist it at the wrist, and heave. The Eagle warrior sailed up and over Blade's shoulder in a perfect judo throw. He hit the ground with a crash that knocked all the wind out of him and knocked both swords out of his hands. Before he could recover either his breath or his weapons Blade was kneeling on his chest, both hands clamped behind the man's neck. The smallest jerk by his powerful arms would have snapped the fallen man's neck like a carrot. And the man saw that clearly. As his breath came back his lips began to move soundlessly. Finally he grated out two words.
«I yield.»
Blade grinned like a death's-head. «That is well. For I do not want to kill you either. Rise, take your swords, and return to the lines of the Tower of the Eagle.»
It took the man a moment to realize that Blade was actually letting him go. When he did, it seemed to restore all his strength in an instant. He sprang up as though he had been lying on an ant nest, snatched up both his swords, and lurched back to his own side as fast as his legs would carry him. Blade retrieved his own weapons and squatted on his heels, watching and waiting for his ninth opponent to come out. He could not help hoping that the remaining men in the Eagles' third line were either boys or old men. He did not feel strong enough to fight anything else.
The ninth man was coming out now, and so was the tenth. Side by side they walked out toward Blade, and side by side they stopped and threw their swords down on the ground. As they did that, shouts and cries rose from the warriors of both towers. They were cries of amazement from the Eagles' warriors, and of delight and triumph from the Serpents'. Even the Serpents' wounded were cheering.