Ghostwalker - Erik Scott De Bie [38]
Torlic staggered back, righting himself with effort, only to find Walker standing before him, that same stoic expression on his face.
Impressed, Torlic slashed right, and left, then right again, but Walker dodged each blow. Whirling, Walker knocked the rapier away, but Torlic allowed the parry to spin him the same way, and his dagger shot out. The half-elf sneered, thinking this to be a deadly strike.
Walker continued spinning as well, and, to Torlic's astonishment, he floated into the air. With matchless grace, Walker leaped over the chest-level thrust. The shatterspike slammed down, and Torlic barely managed to block it. The blades sparked and the half-elf staggered back.
When he looked up, blades held low, Walker landed and faced him, nonchalant, his sword held down.
Torlic was shaking with anger. "Enough," he snapped.
With a furious snarl on his lips, the half-elf came forward in a rush, low to the ground, balancing on the balls of his feet. As he ran, Torlic waved his weapons around him in a whirlwind flurry, faster than any but the greatest duelist could follow. As he came on, he jumped, rolled, cartwheeled, and twirled through the air, in a confusing and dizzying charge.
This devastating acrobatic rush, seemingly reckless but actually tight and controlled, was an elf technique Torlic had used to slay his greatest enemies in his adventuring days. No ore chieftain, no fencer, no knight, no swordsmaster had ever been able to stand against it.
Leaping headfirst, Torlic lunged at Walker, both weapons before him. The ghostly man took a single step back and swept his sword as though to parry. As he flew through the air, Torlic snapped back then forward with his right arm, bringing his rapier just out of line with Walker's parry and punching it forward again. Walker's sword swept through the seemingly vanishing rapier, making no contact, and Torlic threw the main-gauche wide, as though deflected, to disguise his feint.
The rapier, pulled and thrust just in time to avoid the parry, darted for Walker's chest.
Torlic gave a triumphant cry as the blade drove through Walker, lancing his heart and punching out his back.
* * * * *
Arya spurred her horse ahead, but the guard's horses crowded the road and so she arrived at Torlic's townhouse with the last of the guards. When she arrived, several of the soldiers were already milling around the door and two were slamming their shoulders against it. Meris had dismounted and was standing among them, snapping at the watchmen pounding on the locked door.
"Swords inside," a watchman shouted as Arya pulled up next to them. "I hear steel!"
"Mielikki's scowl. We need a battering ram!" another cursed.
"Stand aside!" Arya shouted.
Protests on their lips, the watchmen turned toward her, but then their eyes went wide in shock and they leaped aside. With a pump of her legs, Arya's reddish mare slammed both hooves into the shut portal. The door caved in with a crash and its hinges snapped.
"Battering horse," Arya explained to the staring watchmen. "Just as good."
"Inside!" Unddreth ordered, leaping out of his saddle.
With a short cheer to the Nightingale of Everlund, the watchmen rushed inside. Arya slid off her steed, right in front of a startled Meris. She flashed him a quick, wry smile, drew her sword, and ran after them.
Meris's eyes smoldered.
* * * * *
They stood, Walker transfixed on the half-elf's sword, for a long moment, Torlic smiling with his offhand held artfully back and Walker with his eyes shut. The ghostwalker seemed almost translucent, as though the blade had stolen his very essence.
Then Walker's eyes opened. Torlic looked at him, confused.
The ghostwalker stepped to the right and became clearer, as though he had been but an illusion and was only now taking on solid matter.