Dar parried and shifted to the right, giving some ground as the big pirate danced in, his blade moving so swiftly it was nearly invisible. He beat it back somewhat clumsily, and there was another red track across his arm. Av would have chewed him out for his sloppy form, but the pirate merely smiled his grim smile.

For the first time since this whole mess had begun, Dar was beginning to feel real fear. This wasn’t an elaborate exercise anymore. This wasn’t a grand game of adventure and daring — this man might actually kill him!

He slid backward and shifted stance, bringing the blade up and center in a more traditional fencing presentation, hiding behind the basket guard as though it were a shield. No real attacks from here save the thrust, which he was unlikely to get, but a far wider array of defenses while he caught his breath.

Both of them were breathing heavily now, running with sweat in the close confines of the cluttered room, their clothing stained dark with perspiration. Both bore the signs of multiple near defeat in the sliced and tattered clothing that hung from their heaving frames.

The difference was that the tatters hanging from Dar’s shirt were bloody, while those hanging from the pirate’s were mostly not. In fact, after that first surprise cut, Dar hadn’t been able to touch the big man hard enough to matter. Not once. Not that he could see.

Oh, he’d gotten pretty close three or four times. There might even be a scratch or two to show for his efforts under those flaps of cloth, for Dar’s training had been extensive and thorough, and the old man who’d trained him not particularly gentle. But there was no more blood. He couldn’t get his blade in far enough quick enough now that the big man was properly on his guard.

He was learning to his chagrin that no matter how thorough, how all-encompassing the training he’d spent his years engaged in, nothing really prepared you for a genuine fight to the death. No matter how well-practiced your moves, slicing with a live blade wasn’t truly the same as slashing with a blunt or a foil.

Spacing was different, distances changed. What had been a solid blow in sparring wasn’t even an inconvenience in a true fight. Even the cutting drills against hanging meat hadn’t translated to live combat the way he’d expected.

His opponent had no such problems, and Dar bled from half a dozen or more shallow cuts across torso, arms, and legs. Each and every one of them itched like poison ivy from the sweat fouling them.

Dar couldn’t know that he was causing his opponent equal worry, for Heinemann had been certain as he’d struck them that several of those shallow cuts had been death blows. That the boy’s defenses had been clumsy and inelegant was small consolation. They were no less successful for that inelegance.

The pirate captain was realizing for his own part that he wasn’t facing the half trained farmer or fresh cadet that he’d been expecting. The boy’s skill betrayed a depth of study that few could muster in these days of the pistol and rifle. There was dedication there — the legacy of thousands of hours with blade in hand, and the firm core of a master’s tutelage, and those along with no small measure of innate talent.

Lacking in real world experience though he obviously was, the boy was nonetheless a stouter challenge than Heinemann had faced in some years. For all his fearsome reputation, he was coming to understand that this wasn’t to be the same as cutting down half-trained airmen or frightened merchanters. This was a warrior of the old school, youth be damned, and a creature he’d thought to be all but extinct.

Dar was learning things too, although at some cost. The man didn’t really like the thrust, though he supposed that should have been obvious by his choice of weapon.

He was all about the cut, sweeping and grand. Like whatsisname — Freidrichson? Fredrickson? whatever that guy’s name was who showed up at Av’s place every once in awhile to drink dark beer, trade war stories, and train and spar with Dar. Another of Av’s mysterious friends and Dar’s eclectic instructors. Come to think of it, that guy’d had a facial scar too.

Fredrickson or whatever had been all about the flourish. He’d hated sparring with Av, and by extension, with Dar, although Dar less so. Dar, he could sometimes convince to match his style.

Not Av, though. Av was all business. No mathematical genius, still Av had —as many before him had— figured out that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. With a straight in attack, there was no flourish, no honor scar. Only death.

So here was Dar, in a sore pickle. Ten years of the sword at the old man’s hands had him mad for the thrust, and he was equipped only for the slash. Wasn’t he?

Heinemann was moving around on his left again, thinking to take advantage of his weak side and counting on the blood dripping from his belt to be slowing him down....

* * *

Martin heard the Lewis pause and then start working again just about the time the grenade went off. He let that go. He was at the east edge of the porch now, and he could see a squad’s worth of red suits charging at him from the area of the tractor shed. They were less than twenty yards away.

Damn! Palming his fourth grenade as he ducked back, he sidestepped and hurled it straight between the leader’s feet. Spinning on his heel, he dove headfirst through the bunk house doorway and under the nearest iron cot. The kill radius on those things was supposed to be fifteen yards, but it wasn’t like they were never known to ignore the manual.

There were shouts of alarm and confusion and then the grenade went off, followed by shouts of pain and the rattling of metal shards against the bullet-riddled structure. With the debris from the grenade’s explosion still rattling on the roof, he let his breath out and scrambled out from beneath the bunk, heading for the windows.

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He had no idea how many of these guys were left, but he was running out of things to throw at them, and not getting anywhere near close enough to any of the bodies to supplement his load. He was also running out of cover or routes of egress.

At this point, he figured most of the enemy were aware that at least some damned body was playing hide-n-seek around the bunkhouse, and they were chewing the place apart with those fast shooting rifles that seemed to have no end of ammunition in them. He didn’t find someplace else to shelter pretty soon, they’d bring it down on his head even if none of them got lucky and tagged him with a bullet directly.

Trouble was, there wasn’t anyplace he could really go that wouldn’t put him squarely into the sights of more rifles than he wanted to think about. The main house was the closest building, and he could see two doors, one of which Dar had gone through. But that was better than twenty yards straight across a shooting gallery with no cover whatsoever.

And that was another thing. What the hell was going on in that house? All he knew for sure was that his son was in there with at the very least, the pirates’ leader and a pair of what looked like officers. Who or how many others were also in there remained a mystery.

He found that he hadn’t the faith in his heart that Av apparently had. He was still getting used to the idea of the boy as a warrior. In his head, Darnan was still the irresponsible kid who spent his afternoons mooning over airships when he should be at work or doing chores.

In spite of having watched the boy kill two men —no, three men— in the space of a few minutes, in his mind, Dar was still twelve years old and stealing pies from the windowsill.

The spang of a near miss glancing off the porch a few inches from his shoulder shook him from his reverie. He had his own battle to fight, just as Dar had his. He said a quick, silent prayer for the boy’s survival and crabbed his way deeper into the shadow of the disintegrating building. He still had to figure out where to retreat to.

Back to the slaughterhouse was an even longer dash than the house, and the survivors of his earlier attentions had that area well covered. They were laying down a pretty good cloud of fire as the near misses had testified. He had no desire to run into that fusillade. Worse, he had an ugly feeling that at least some of that incoming fire was cover for a flanking maneuver. If he let them get him surrounded out here, he was done for.

Laying down flat, he edged his head carefully out, watching for the winking of muzzle flashes. Rolling a bit, he looked south, into the target shadow of the bunkhouse. If he could make it to the base of the cistern, he could maybe work his way down past the mill and corn shed, then back around to the milking barn. Maybe meet the flanking party coming in.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, he broke from the bunkhouse door, leaping from the porch and legging it for the cistern, some seventy or so feet away. He was halfway there before the dust started jumping around him, letting him know the jig was up.

* * *

Av was hunkered down with his nose in the grain riding out a fresh fusillade of semi-accurate fire. Too damn’ many of the pirates were paying attention to him up here for comfort, and he’d about played out the advantage the height had been giving him. Not that he had too much to say at this point anyhow. He had just over half a drum left before he ran it dry.

He watched Marty make his break for the cistern, shoulders tense. When the enemy’s rifles started chasing him, he raised up long enough to feed them the last twenty or so rounds from the Lewis, raking it in short bursts across the deep shadows from which the flickering muzzle flashes flared.

The bolt slammed home on an empty chamber and he ducked back, slinging the heavy gun gingerly across his back, hearing the hot barrel jacket sizzle against the canvas of his blouse even as the heat penetrated to his back with a nasty sting.

Crabbing backward, he worked his way quickly back to the ladder, watching the grain before him erupt in liquid splashes as incoming bullets arced up through the concrete and into the silo’s contents.

The silence from the vent door would alert them in a moment that they’d either got him, he was out of ammo, or displacing, and would probably mean he could expect company here directly. He wanted to be downstairs and set up before they arrived.

* * *

The fire outside was growing sporadic. Either they were running out of bad guys, which was unlikely, or they were running low on ammunition, which was probable. Dar couldn’t hear the Lewis at all anymore. He cursed himself again for the stupidity of this duel — he’d had the Colt in his hand for cripes’ sake! In his hand! Never again!

He shuffled back and around again, exaggerating his fatigue. He’d weathered three more attacks by the big pirate, and had one additional slice to show for it, though not a deep one. He was getting the man’s feel at last, late though it might be for that.

Deliberately, he dragged his feet along the floor, feigning exhaustion as the big man pressed him harder. Done in, he was, to be sure, but Dar’s whole life had been about hard work and long hours. He had a bit left still.

He lunged and thrust, not so quickly as he could, crowding, hearing the clang as he felt the shock go up his arm with the pirate’s parry and counter-thrust. That counter had nearly gotten him. But it was almost time. The pirate was in close now — too close for his preferred attacks.

Abruptly, as the pirate moved to open the distance for a fresh attack, Dar changed up his form, lunging in, double stomping to throw off the man’s timing and dropping very low, quicker than he’d been moving for long minutes and in a direction he’d not moved in at all to this point.

The pirate’s blade was coming in for a slashing cut, high and tight, but too slow and in the wrong place — going for the throat with the base of the blade, just as Dar had expected he would.

He ducked his head and slapped the whistling blade up and aside with his off hand, feeling it shave skin from the balls of his palm as it diverted abruptly upward. The blade sliced between his shoulder and his shirt, glancing off the tab and shaving the button clear as it passed.

While the man was completely off balance and he was inside his guard, Dar twisted his whole upper torso, ignoring the searing pain that shot through his original, deep wound, and sent his own blade up and in, driving with all the force of his body, forcing the blunt tip deep into the man’s armpit and into the gristle of his shoulder socket. Then he dropped to his knee, throwing his weight well forward, twisting the tip of the blade around and out in a wash of blood.

Lurching up and back, legs quivering, he side-stepped three quick paces toward the table, breath coming in great, tearing gasps, his eyes bleary. That had been his last big move, and he was out of reserves. If that hadn’t done it....

The lieutenant was staring in horror at the Kapitän, who stood there stupidly, his arm nearly severed and gushing blood like a broken water main in cadence with his hammering heart.

The saber clattered to the floor. Heinemann dropped to his knees, eyes going glassy, arms limp.

The lieutenant looked back up and directly into the barrel of Dar’s Colt. It was big enough around that, in the bright kitchen lights, he could just make out the hollowed out nose of the bullet at its far end. He froze.

Heinemann flopped limply over onto his side. His head bounced off the floor with a hollow, melon-like thonk. He was still staring glassily up at the young Grouper, though the light was fading.

Perhaps it had been Red Finn after all. Perhaps. After all of these years. After all of these years. As he lay there on the bloody boards, he found himself wondering; once marked, could one ever truly escape the devil?