055 – Teamwork

***

Yurk couldn’t possibly survive getting his throat slashed—not if he were a normal person anyway. Blood loss would kill him in a minute or two. But our man focused on body augmentation, which increased his powers of recovery to superhuman levels. He might be able to staunch the flow of blood and survive with medical care and bed rest, but his injuries removed him from this fight.

It was up to Zambulon and me to win this battle for all of us.

“Strythe, how did he do that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I had my eyes on him the whole time. He clearly missed. And I felt no change in his fire from a projection technique.”

The two of us backed up as Logrev approached. Our confusion about his Cutthroat Slice technique greatly amused him.

“Lay down your swords, dogs, and I’ll make your deaths fast. Except for the girl. I’ve grown tired of the dancers at the Queen’s Treasury and could do with some novel entertainment.”

“Oh come on,” I said. “That’s more obvious than your fighting style. You need to think up better taunts, Master Logrev.”

“You bastard!” Zambulon growled.

Zambulon, of course, reacted to a threat against Hwilla, even one so transparent and uninspired. His heated emotions caused his soul fire to writhe around him. He was losing his cool.

Logrev made a few attacks, and we retreated down the road. His mysterious ability to turn a miss into a hit changed our tactics. There was no way to know his reach. I parried a few of his attacks, and had to extend fire into my thin dress sword to prevent the blade from snapping. It was not a suitable weapon for this fight. On a whim, as we passed the carriage, I sheathed my sword and snatched up my trusty wizard staff.

“What are you doing now?” Zambulon said.

“I need more reach to keep away from his weird technique.”

My hunch proved more or less correct. Logrev had drilled against other swordsmen, but he had little experience against spears or staffs. My maneuvers with a long stick further confused him and broke up the routine of his attacks. He did not adapt well to new things. Still, I was not up to the level of the swordsman or Zambulon in raw power.

Fightmaster Putrizio had claimed that techniques alone didn’t win fights. He repeatedly told us a canny fighter can win against a stronger opponent. Today, I would test his claims.

“Observe. Analyze. Adapt,” I muttered to myself.

I reviewed everything that happened thus far in my mind and thought back on the deadly strike to Yurk. Somehow, Logrev had landed an impossible hit. He made a very predictable horizontal strike at neck level. Yurk gently moved out of the blade’s path, confident that he had dodged the blow. Then his neck exploded in blood. But that wasn’t all. There was the distinct sound of metal striking metal, even though Yurk hadn’t parried the blow. A clue.

“Observe. Analyze. Adapt.”

“What are you saying over there, Strythe? Can’t you see we’re in trouble here?”

“It’s a trick sword,” I stated.

“What?”

“There’s no magic technique. It’s the sword.”

Logrev laughed out loud. “Ha ha. So you figured it out. That’s why I don’t like to use the Cutthroat Strike against groups. There’s always a chance for someone to observe the trick from the side.”

Logrev held out his two handed war sword with the blade down. The blade snapped out, extending about fifteen centimeters. The construction had two separate parts: the blade and long tang formed one piece, the cross guard and hollow handle the other. The tang slid through the tubular grip, allowing the blade to extend when released. Normally, that would be worthless. But on a powerful swing, the blade would fly out and increase the sword’s reach that tiny extra bit to turn a miss into a hit.

Yurk had been overconfident as he started winning the fight. After several bouts back and forth, he got an exact feel for Logrev’s reach and the length of his sword. He dodged all the incoming attacks, but allowed the blade to come within a hair’s breadth of his body. That left him no margin of error. When the sword miraculously extended, the tip of it passed through the flesh of his neck.

“Disappointing that I won’t get in another throat slash.” Logrev locked the blade back in place. Now that we knew the trick, it would do no good against us.

“You really are a loser. Using cheap gimmicks like that,” Zambulon spat in disgust.

“If it works, it works.” Logrev said with a shrug.

And it had worked. His trick sword grievously wounded one of us. Now I tried to fill in for Yurk and did not do a great job. Zambulon and Yurk had a solid partnership from years of training together, but he and I were the opposite. I got in his way almost as much as I helped. We moved out of synch. Our styles didn’t match.

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“Gah!” Zambulon took another stab to the leg, just above the knee. The wound slowed down his footwork and must have hurt incredibly, but he powered through it.

The battle wasn’t looking too good for us, when I suddenly started scoring hits on Logrev. I struck him solidly on the arms and back. My skill hadn’t increased. The swordsman decided to ignore me as a lesser threat. His Titan’s Flesh technique made him especially resistant to blunt hits, which is how he endured a pummeling from Yurk. Zambulon had inflicted a number of minor cuts, but the blood turned blue and stopped flowing. Logrev’s healing technique protected him from minor injuries. We would need a decisive strike, such as chopping off his head, to defeat him.

I stopped trying to do anything but support my senior disciple. Instead of inflicting damage, I tried to trip up Logrev, deflect attacks, and generally interfere with his fighting. Zambulon would have to deliver our side’s offense. Only his Whetted Razor Strike could overcome our enemy now, his one technique, and he had yet to use it.

In the past, I had defeated two powerful opponents: Browsk the Mighty and the golem. But in both of those cases, I took time to prepare before the fight. Now there was no heavy object for me to drop on Logrev’s head. Only some quick thinking could get me out of this situation.

“Stop nipping at my heels, you annoying mutt!”

Logrev punched me in the chest and projected a burst of soul fire, a physical attack combined with telekinesis. The blow sent me flying through the air. I landed at the edge of the road and scrambled to find my staff.

Logrev faced Zambulon alone.

“Now let’s finish this! You’re at the limit of your strength, boy,” Logrev said. The pace of the fight had slowed down. Everyone ran low on mana. Zambulon was injured, and blue splotches covered Logrev’s white robes, marking the spots he had been cut.

Zambulon successfully parried a blow from Logrev, but his weakening fire could not repel the other swordsman’s projection. The sword snapped at the notch in the blade. Holding half a sword, Zambulon could not defend against the following attacks and received a stab to the leg and a slash to the right arm. He dropped his broken sword and fell to his knees, clutching his chest in pain. Logrev stood in triumph above him.

“It was a good fight, young one. You should be proud of how well you did. But now I’ll send you to the afterlife…”

Logrev took a new stance we hadn’t seen before. He stood with his sword raised high in the air, poised for a decisive, downward strike. This was a headsman’s stance meant for clean decapitations.

“No!” I yelled.

I raced forward to stop this roadside execution. I put myself in the blade’s path to protect Zambulon’s crouching figure and used my staff to intercept the descending sword stroke. Holding the staff at both ends and catching the blade in its center caused my weapon to crack in half. It bent into a V shape in my hands. Logrev’s trick blade came right to my face, but the wires of spiritual steel winding around the staff did not break. My fire kept them whole. Barely.

Logrev glared at me past our crossed weapons. “You bastards,” he growled.

“Gotcha,” I said.

“You cheating bastards!"

Logrev spat up blood as he cursed us. Red blood this time. He stumbled away and dropped his trick sword on the road. Wrapping both arms tightly around his guts, he tried to keep his own intestines from spilling out of the massive wound across his midsection. A stream of blood dyed the man’s robes crimson. Logrev the Swordsman fell dead on the dusty ground, without ever having gained a title of renown.

I helped Zambulon to his feet. “Come on, senior. I’ll carry you back to the others.”

Zambulon looked at the crumpled corpse of our adversary, and he whispered, “Whetted Razor Strike…”

***

As a last desperate maneuver in our battle with Logrev the Common Swordsman, I threw myself over my ally to save him from getting cleaved in two. It was risky. I put all my fire into my staff to block that massive overhand swing. Had it failed, Logrev would have split us both in half with a single blow. After my interception, the rest was up to Zambulon.

The two of us didn’t get along. You might say he hated me. We certainly didn’t have the same fighting synergy that he and Yurk shared. But I had to trust that my senior disciple would catch on to another one of my crazy ideas.

As I shielded Zambulon with my body, leaning over the top of him, I momentarily trapped Logrev in a poor stance with his sword locked in place. Meanwhile, my own blade of spiritual steel hung unused at my waist. Zambulon simply reached over to take the hilt of the sword and then delivered a Whetted Razor Strike to Logrev’s completely exposed midsection. Logrev didn’t anticipate an attack from a disarmed and defeated foe. His magical healing technique could not fix being completely disemboweled.

We had won the day with teamwork and a surprise attack. An impromptu version of Logrev’s own Cutthroat Slice defeated him when he should have anticipated it more than anyone.

I hauled Zambulon limping back to the carriage. He didn’t let on to the severity of his injuries during the fight, but now he could barely stand. His blood loss was almost as bad as Yurk’s.

“Did we win?” Hwilla asked as I opened the door to the carriage. Yurk lay prone with his head in her lap. He had gone incredibly pale and held a bloody rag to his throat.

“We did. We got you a souvenir.” I placed the trick sword by Yurk, who responded with a thumbs up.

I also held my own sword and broken staff. Zambulon hadn’t even drawn my blade; he just sliced straight out of the scabbard and across Logrev’s belly.

“Come on. Let’s go back to Drainditch. You two need some rest.”

***

The two senior disciples needed some time to recover. Normal people would be bed ridden for weeks and impaired for life after such injuries, but this sort of thing was routine for swordsmen. A day of rest would take them out of life threatening danger and a week or two would see them fully healed.

I worked with Knogule while they slept.

After the defeat of Logrev, the proprietress of the Queen’s Treasury willingly stepped down as the crime lord of Drainditch and handed control to the cult’s agent, Knogule. The power transfer was remarkably peaceful. Without a swordsman to serve as her enforcer, Iaanda had no way to threaten or intimidate the local gangsters. She wisely decided to leave town before any of her former crimes caught up with her.

Iaanda sold her brothel and her private villa to Knogule at discount prices. The official story was that she wanted to flee Sandgrave before a civil war broke out. This wasn’t uncommon, and no one in power would question her departure, or how an enterprising newcomer managed to snag two of the local businesses. Most of what followed was paperwork.

Knogule apologized many times to the wounded disciples for his poor spying. In his request to Luniquial for aid, he did not mention the presence of another swordsman working with the local criminals. The mission proved far more dangerous than he had made it out to be in his reports, which almost got us killed. We were all too exhausted to resent him for his failure.

With nothing left to do in Drainditch, we prepared to leave the dirty smelting town behind and return to the capital. Our mission was accomplished.