Engines & Demons - The Undestined

Chapter 44iii

As soon as Cravit went down, Grifford sought his sword at the platform's edge, but could not see it. At first he assumed it had lost its precarious balance and tumbled down to the water below, but then he spotted it, lying not far from Tahlia's bow, miraculously thrown there with the platform's shaking. He leapt towards it.

Sabstan was slow. He was still gaping at Cravit, as the crousk continued to crack open his chest. Grifford had the rough made grip of the sword in his hand, and was already rising to his feet, when the man finally turned on him.

"Sword down, boy!"

"No," said Grifford, and charged.

Sabstan slashed with his sword at Grifford's stomach, but the blow was lazy and he parried it easily. The man struck again, this time for his head. He parried that blow, and the next, and it was then that Sabstan must have realised that he was not just fighting a child with a blunt sword. He straightened himself and raised Tahlia's knife.

"Come on then, boy, if you want to die a fool!"

He lunged with the knife, and when Grifford leapt back out of its range, he struck with his sword. Grifford barely parried the blow, and he could feel his anger returning, burning at the back of his eyes, intensified by the lazy sneer on Sabstan's face, but he remembered Lance-master Tzarren's words to him.

'You let your anger better you. Do that in a real fight and your opponent will take his advantage and you will be dead.'

He took a deep breath, and his rage stilled, though it did not leave him. He could still feel it through his body, tensed and ready.

"Come and die!" he said to the man who faced him, and Sabstan sneered as he struck again with knife and sword.

Grifford was used to fighting with a rail-shield, and felt the lack of it, but his Sword-master would often make him train without, and his blade was fast as he parried. Though he knew he had the measure of the man's skill, and was certain he could defend against him, Sabstan was twice his size and his blows were heavy. He understood that he would not stand for long against him. He felt the pain start to throb in his arm as he parried, and he took one step back, and then another.

"It will not be me who dies today, boy!" Sabstan grinned.

* * *

Like Grifford, Tahlia had been quick to move when Cravit fell. She went for her bow, but it was still lying close to Sabstan's feet when Grifford attacked, and it was between them when Sabstan's first blow was parried. She danced around behind her brother, looking for an opening, and she nearly tripped him when he leapt back from Sabstan's knife thrust. She jumped to the side as the blows fell on her brother, and as the man stepped over her bow to drive him back, she jumped behind him and scooped it up. Her quiver was lying close by, and she deftly undid its draw string and pulled out the first arrow her fingers found. She straightened up, the clash of swords still close behind her, nocked the arrow to the bow's string, and pulled it back, aiming across the chamber at Vlambra.

The one time Engineer had crossed the walkway and was at the platform's edge, the heavy cudgel in his hand.

"Drop that," hissed Tahlia.

Vlambra merely smirked.

"What are you going to do, girl? Shoot me with that little bow?"

There was a high thrum as the arrow left the bow string, and the echo of it had not died before Vlambra shouted his pain.

A fraction of a second before she released the arrow, Tahlia had focused on its head, and she cursed as the arrow struck. In her haste, she had pulled out a stringer arrow. When its wide rounded head, made for slicing through a karabok's tendons, struck Vlambra in the leg, it did not penetrate far, its force taken by his tragasaur hide trousers. Still, it was enough to make him flinch and crack his hand on the walkway's railing. In his clumsiness he dropped the heavy cudgel, and it disappeared into the vile waters below.