Highlander - Donna Lettow [101]
Avram drew his sword, one he’d once liberated from a Cossack sacking his village before driving it into the Cossack’s heart. “So be it.”
Constantine kept his hands in plain sight, still trying to placate him. “It doesn’t have to come to this, Avram. I’m your friend. We can talk this out.”
Avram snorted derisively. “The talking’s long done, Roman. This is a fight we should have had two thousand years ago, before I let you enslave me and drag me to Rome.” With that, he slashed wildly at his teacher’s head. The blade was neatly deflected by the blur of a Roman gladius as Constantine swiftly withdrew it from hiding.
It had been a long time since he had taken the sword out in battle, but for a thousand years on a thousand campaigns he had slept with it, eaten with it, killed with it, died with it. It was a natural extension of his arm, and the patterns long ago ingrained in his mind and his muscles returned to him at its touch. The curator might be a bit rusty, but the general was far from overmatched.
“You were never my slave, Avram.” Constantine stayed on the defensive, turning back attacks, blocking thrusts and jabs that would have killed a lesser fighter, but he was reluctant to attack, unwilling to try for his friend’s head. “You were my student. You came with me willingly.”
“Because you’d left me nothing. My city was gone, my people were gone.” Avram swung at Constantine, and their two swords locked, hilt to hilt. “What else could I do,” Avram snarled. The two men faced off momentarily in a test of strength and will, then Avram slipped under Constantine’s guard and hit him hard in the stomach with his shoulder, driving him back against a leg of the arch. His sword freed, Avram swung for the head, but Constantine, with barely enough room to maneuver, managed to dodge at the last second.
Avram’s sword bit deep into the faux stone and Constantine took advantage of the precious seconds it took to free it, spinning out of Avram’s reach and slipping through the arch to the other side. He turned to look at Avram and saw his resolve waver—Avram almost followed him through, but he couldn’t bring himself to enter the hated archway. Constantine hurried deeper into the labyrinthine exhibit.
Behind him, he could hear a popping and a tearing sound. The dividers between the displays were simple drywall. Avram was ripping himself a path directly into the gallery with his sword, bypassing the despised monument.
Constantine’s sword led around every corner. He had the advantage of geography, he knew every nook and jog of his creation. Still, he trod warily, expecting Avram around each bend, behind each case.
Avram knew better than to attempt to surprise the general on his home field. When Constantine found him, he was standing openly in the middle of the corridor, sword ready.
“You can still stop this, Avram,” Constantine offered, conciliatory. “It doesn’t have to end this way.”
“It’s the only way it can end.”
Constantine nodded, resigned. “As you wish.” He unleashed a flurry of blows that Avram, surprised by Constantine’s sudden aggression, was hard-pressed to beat back. Then the battle was joined in earnest.
The Roman scored first blood, slicing a bloody line down Avram’s upper arm, but the Jew held the sword firm, seemingly oblivious to the pain.
They fought through the corridor, in and around the displays, hacking, slashing, thrusting. Each man tallying minor hits on the other, neither man gaining the upper hand. Each determined not to be the one to yield.
At last, despite the fatigue that was creeping into his own arms, Avram could see the Roman was also tiring, and he pressed his advantage with a series of slashing blows to the head that Constantine managed to parry, but that forced him back, little by little.
To avoid being maneuvered against a wall, Constantine ducked into the room of the Great Temple. Avram continued to hammer away—at his unprotected left side, at his legs, at his throat—but each time Constantine was ready with a block or a parry and an attack of his own.
Frustrated, Avram