Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [68]
This young human with the sun-gold hair and the sky-blue eyes was the Chief’s son. He was the one who had wanted to fight them all at dinner. The one who had sneaked aboard the dragonship and slain two ogres and escaped. The one who had killed the boar. This would be a good kill. The godlord would bash in the young pup’s skull and then depart.
The godlord cast a dark glance at the dragon. The ogre was fifty years old, and he had faced dragons before. He knew that the dragons of the Vindrasi had something to do with their famed dragonships, though he was not entirely sure what. He had the vague idea that the ship turned into a dragon, and so he had made certain that the Torgun dragonship was safe in ogre hands.
Then had come the daring raid in the night. The surviving ogre guard could not say exactly what the Torgun warrior had removed from the ship, but it must have had something to do with the dragon, for the ship was still surrounded by ogre vessels, and here was the dragon carrying off his warriors as the eagle carries off rabbits.
Seeing that the dragon posed no threat to him, at least for the moment, the godlord turned his attention back to his foe. The young human advanced on the godlord unafraid, carrying his sword and a dented shield he had taken off a dead man. His long fair hair shone in the sunlight, seeming to surround him with light. His blue eyes were hard and glittering with battle rage.
Some god must love him, the ogre thought sourly, and he strode forward to do battle.
Skylan was caught up in the Madness of Torval, and he did not see the dragon, or the ogres, or his own men. He saw only his foe—the ogre godlord who wore the Vektan Torque around his neck. It seemed to Skylan as if Torval had lifted the two of them up off the earth and dropped them both down on some distant shore where they could fight together, isolated and alone.
Some thought the Madness of Torval sent men careening headlong into battle, witless as raving lunatics. That was not true. Torval had more sense. The madness opened a warrior’s eyes, gave him insight into his foe—how he thought, how he would react, which way he would move.
Ogre and human used far different fighting techniques. Ogres had little use for developing weapons skills. They saw no need. Ogres counted on strength and brute force to strike down an opponent, generally with a single blow. Their weapons of choice tended to be war hammers and battle axes.
Skylan, by contrast, had started learning to fight at the age of four, when Norgaard put a wooden sword into the child’s hands and showed him how to use it. Not a day had gone by since that Skylan did not practice, first with a wooden sword, then with a real one, learning the Vindrasi technique of dividing an enemy’s body into quarters and striking first at one quarter and then another, forcing the enemy to constantly shift position.
He and the godlord squared off. Skylan had to remain constantly on his guard, not allow his foe to hit him. A single blow from the godlord’s war hammer would bring the battle to a quick and bloody end.
Skylan adopted a balanced stance, left knee forward, right leg braced behind, his shield held parallel to the shield of his opponent. Skylan raised his sword above his head, blade pointed down. Fighting a human, he would have been prepared to strike at the face. With the ogre, he was going for the chest.
The ogre held his shield roughly parallel to Skylan and slowly swung the hammer, giving Skylan no indication where he meant to strike. Skylan shifted his weight and made a quick sword thrust at the ogre’s chest. As he had hoped, the ogre raised his shield to block the blow, leaving his legs exposed. Swiftly Skylan lowered his sword, stabbed the blade into the ogre’s unprotected thigh, swinging his shield outward at the same time to sweep aside a blow from the hammer.
If the ogre had struck Skylan’s shield with full force, he would have broken his