CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE—DUEL IN THE URUTAI STEPPE

Shiro arched his blade around for an upward slash while his opponent came in at an angle.

Shiro was forced to change his trajectory.

Their blades flashed.

Sharp metal scraped and the two passed one another, quickly turning in case the other decided for a rejoinder from their first engagement.

But neither man attacked again.

Ali breathed out so heavily, Shiro could hear him from five paces away. “Shiro!” he said, stressing his name. “I don’t like this.”

Shiro said nothing as he skirted to the side slowly, their movements in a circular fashion as they both continued to study one another.

This Urutai warrior would try to keep Shiro from moving in close. It was more difficult for him to defend with his long blade. What he gave up in defense, he had the advantage in attack with his long reach.

Shiro narrowed his eyes.

This time he would change his strategy.

He cried, and rushed forward, but not close enough to strike the Urutai as the ends of their swords met in a flurry of slashes. Shiro side-stepped to the right with an arching horizontal slash and then angled his body weight to the left and lunged forward, his right leg outstretched, his left leg bent at the knee in the direction he had moved.

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Swinging his blade toward his opponent’s arms, the Urutai warrior reacted by jumping. Shiro’s blade missed its mark. It was greedy, but he tried to come back toward the Urutai’s front with another horizontal slash.

But as his opponent’s feet touched back down, he landed in a crouch, lowering his hilt far enough that Shiro’s blade connected with the lower portion of Urutai’s sword.

Shiro’s head whipped back and he blinked against the white flash in his vision. Finding himself on his backside, he rolled out of the way of Urutai’s successive strike to end him and whirled to his feet.

Forehead throbbing, Shiro made no move or facial expression indicating his pain. Nevertheless, his cheeks heated furiously with rage.

He screamed and ran forward again, holding his hilt to the right side of his chest with his blade sticking straight up into the air.

With the intent to lunge in close, the Urutai warrior must have realized this and struck out at Shiro before he could, but Shiro bent low to avoid his horizontal blade strike that would have severed his arm near his shoulder and turned, lashing out with his sword before he even saw what he would hit.

His blade passed through the Urutai’s forearm, dismembering him and his blade fell to the ground, clattering metallically with the hand still attached. The Urutai cried out, lunged backward and held the gushing wound.

Shiro stood still, his sword dripping with his enemy’s blood.

The Urutai warrior was on his knees, his face red and the purple veins in his forehead writhing. His lips pulled back in a rictus of grinding teeth and sheer pain.

“Yes!” Ali called. “Shiro, you beat him!”

“Hai.”

“What are you waiting for? Finish him!”

Shiro looked down at the warrior.

I have no ill will towards this man…

“No,” he said.

“What? Why not?”

“An honorable death it might be,” he said, “I still have no wish to end this man’s life. Let us go to their mounts and escape.”

Ali looked disappointed, but Shiro didn’t care.

“All right,” Ali finally said with a nod.