The Death of a Swordsman 3

3

The roof lines of the old part of Asali Al were jagged, filled with dark holes where windows and doors opened onto nothing or rooftop patios that had been gone for decades. Buildings of stone were the oldest and around them clustered younger wooden ones that had not yet collapsed. When they did, it was in piecemeal fashion, and walls were repaired with different materials as they became available. Stone was mixed with dried mud, and bricks enveloped rotting wood like a spreading fungus. The whole city looked decaying under double moonlight.

Worst were the fireflies. Somehow the old city was full of them. They spawned from crevices in the walls and flooded the streets and rooftops. Swarms of them boiled out of alcoves, engulfing Varad as he loped through, and closed behind him in a pale yellow fog. They made stealth difficult with their light, which was too diffuse to cast shadows. Occasionally they dove towards him and threw themselves at the reflected lights in the silver on his person. He ignored them and evaded their advances, moving quickly along the path of devastation.

Little ratlike faces watched from the black windows. Lit only by stars and lightning bugs, their distinctly inhuman features were mollified into strange plays of light and shadow. It seemed the ancient part of the city was full of ghosts. They watched him without doing anything, but so many observers made it impossible for the swordsman to determine if Morryin was watching him as well. It raised bumps on his neck. Varad soon took to running along rooftops so it would be harder for his enemy to charge mounted. Most unpleasant of all was the distinct impression of malice from the small ratlike people. It was not sharp enough to imply an immanent attack. Instead dull, suppressed hate came out at him from all sides, and he knew that the watchers would do him harm if they could. Something had changed, and Varad had a strong hunch what that was. It was a he, and his name was Morryin.

Varad cared little about suppressed hatred. The little people did nothing, and until that changed Varad ignored them. As he ghosted across rooftops, those in his way disappeared by the time he arrived, and reappeared behind him. Both fireflies and watchers formed a vacant island around him as a distinct reminder he did not belong there.

Eventually he rounded a pile of filth and found what he was looking for. Morryin sat on the roan's back in the middle of the street, and a dozen little ratlike faces were looking up at him in panic. He had lashed them one to another with a silken rope and loomed over their tiny forms with the Hurt drawn. A number of similar small forms lay in sad piles, outlined by the moonlight around him. Glowbugs landed on them occasionally, and when they left the corpses seemed to evaporate back into ghosts. They were only solid briefly in death.

Nearby, the several dozen more of the small creatures he had captured had the coffin. They had dragged it to an old curb and held it half on, half off. Together they heaved it up, lifting it over the collective heads, and dropped it. The edge of the curb hit the mahogany with a resounding 'thwack,' and then the end tottered down to crash onto the road. Unbroken, the coffin came to a rest.

“Again,” demanded Morryin in a quiet, deadly voice. The little denizens crept forward again, and bustled about the coffin, getting back into position. Jagged holes had been torn in the ruined walls around him. The little people would have had no warning of what Morryin was capable of.

Varad was not surprised. The horseman could not carry the massive sarcophagus, and he was going after the body as directly as possible. Incidental murder was the fastest way to that objective. That gave Varad an advantage, for with so much malice directed at the horseman it drowned Varad's murderous intent. The building the redcloak was on was about thirty feet away, and in the mid-twenties in height. On running leap should drop him neatly onto the rider's head.

He vacillated a lift and drop of the coffin, choosing between leaping with blade sheathed or drawn. If he waited until the coffin hit again, he could draw in the clattering thud of ornamented mahogany hitting stone. There would only be a tiny metallic click. Yet that click was very distinctive, and if Morryin heard it he would be forewarned. Varad decided to draw in the air, and use the clatter to conceal his steps. The little people heaved the coffin upwards again, and the swordmaster leaped.

Morryin heard something, twisted on his horse, and their blades crashed together in the night. Sparks shot out and torched nearby lightning bugs. All of Varad's weight was behind the stroke, and though Morryin stopped the cut, Varad's chest crashed into the inside of his curved blade and drove forwards. Nearly bisecting himself with his own sword, Morryin rolled with the impact, abandoning his saddle, and crashed to the pave stones. Varad hit and rolled as well, before leaping backwards to kill the horse.

The roan skittered away almost precognitively. Varad went after it again before he realized the rider was whistling, and at every change in pitch the mount dodged. Its eyes were wild with fury, and it wanted to charge and trample, but Morryin's command over it, even with just a whistle, was unbreakable. Varad abandoned the chase and went after Morryin again.

They met on the street and went after each other murderously. The Narrow's watching denizens had been shocked to see Morryin's lethality, but they were terrified now to see it reflected and matched. The fighters plowed through the fireflies, scattering and cutting them from the air. Parry and riposte shot through the spaces between the glowing bugs. Suddenly Morryin turned and fled, dashing full on into the crumbling wall of a building.

Varad rolled onto his toes but halted, and tracked the other's movement through the building by sound. Rubble crashed through the broken walls at a constant height, meaning a floor must had stood at about waist-height. Morryin was shredding it at a sprinters pace. Then he exploded out of a wall and sailed through open space to land perfectly on horseback. The roan had come around to wait for him.

For an instant Varad forgot all profanity and just yelled, “Goats!”

Morryin charged. Varad hurled his knife at the roan's breast, which the other dodged. Then Varad cackled triumphantly and charged the horseman on foot. Morryin gave the knife's trajectory only a passing glance, but realized it had swung wide and cut through the silken rope. The ratlings were scattering into their holes. Morryin was going to have to kill Varad and then go through all the work of capturing them again. This time they would know to flee. Morryin would have sworn as well, but already he was almost upon the other.

Varad leaped, planted one foot on falling wreckage, and hurled himself upwards to come down on the rider from above. Morryin faded sideways in the saddle and let him flash past. The mounted man caught himself as he was fully sideways, and the redcloak was sailing over his roan's rump. Then the steed donkey kicked, trying to catch Varad on the way down.

The man corkscrewed around, spinning between the hooves. Time started to slow down, and as he twisted droplets of sweat shot out to splash against the steel shoes. The movement prevented him from landing well, and he hit the ground flat on his stomach. Morryin wrenched the beast sideways so he could attack, but that gave Varad time to throw himself to his feet. Morryin swung, and Varad fled.

He had realized he needed terrain. Flat expanses like the road favored the rider's greater maneuverability, and the horse lent unmatchable strength to every blow. Without walls, trees, columns, something to get behind or on and force the rider to come after, there was no way the dismounted man would win. That meant leaving the street and casket. There was no help for it.

He sprinted towards a wall at full tilt and then dove through a broken window with hands extended forward like a swimmer. Landing in a corridor only two feet tall he ripped walls apart as he swam forwards through the wreckage, causing the ceiling to collapse behind him. Protected from thrown attacks, Varad then broke the floor below him to get leverage for his legs. After that he crashed upwards and forwards, ripping the dilapidated walls and masonry apart with his bare hand and sword until he broached the roof in an eruption of old bricks.

“You wasted your knife!” Morryin yelled up from the street below.

“Maybe. But even if you win, they'll never let you get close enough to catch any more. Without them to break the casket, how are you going to move it?” Varad yelled back over the lip.

“I'll kill you, and make your men work for me at sword point when they arrive,” he snarled.

Varad laughed, a fake sound to convey his mockery. “Oh? Leave your mount and come up, then.” He rummaged around and found some broken shale integrated into the roof. Taking some between two fingers, he flicked it down, putting all the spin into it he could. Morryin flowed out of the way, and the disk tore into a building beyond him. Varad repeated the process, and the shale cut through dried, rotting wood like butter. Morryin dodged easily, and all the swordmaster was accomplishing was destroying an already ruined building.

“How long do you want to do this?” Morryin asked mockingly.

“I'll get lucky eventually,” Varad replied with a shrug.

“Why don't you come down here and fight me?” Morryin invited.

“Why don't you come up here?” the other retorted.

Morryin stared at him and then the building calculatingly. Varad was fully two normal stories up, and there was a huge V riven into the wall where he had torn his way upwards. It cut from the top to the ground like a canyon. Morryin weighed his options carefully, and then accepted. “Okay.”

Varad had a peculiar sensation of deja vu as another dozen laws of physics were blatantly violated. Like a mountain goat the roan tore up through the crevasse. Where it couldn't find ledges for purchase, it created them by smashing footholds in the crumbling brick. It ran upwards into a hail of spinning shale, but Morryin batted them aside into the walls. More of the building imploded, and flowed like water behind him. Then they were on the roof and closed the distance again.

But the redcloak had chosen the roof for a reason. It was as uneven as all the other buildings, and existed at a dozen different heights. Now Varad could bounce off walls and over obstacles, coming at Morryin from a flood of angles. He worked relentlessly towards the flanks of the roan, aiming to disable to beast or kill its rider. Morryin had to retreat. Even his preternatural skill at riding could do only so much with close to a ton of animal atop rickety construction. Anyone else would have been meat. He still had an undeniable disadvantage.

It was so undeniable that eventually the impossibility of victory penetrated Morryin's tenacious brain. Before Varad could put two feet of steel through his guts, the rider suddenly gave unexpected ground in a retreat. He then put heels to flanks, and fled across the roof line, vaulting down a crumbling building to the road. The heaping masonry disintegrated under the mass of the horse, but somehow he came out all right, riding off down the road. He did not look back, though Varad taunted him as he fled.

Varad stared after him. Morryin would be back, he was sure, but probably not in any environment that so suited the foot soldier. The casket sat alone in a pool of starlight, and the fireflies had closed over it like a tide. Still and undamaged in the moonlight, the efforts of the rat people had not visibly marred it. The thing sat like some elder monolith, protecting its deceased passenger with the permanency of granite. The rat people themselves were gone, and the sensation of being watched was distant. Nothing was nearby. Varad breathed a sigh of relief, and the roof under him collapsed.