Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [89]
As she turned to go, he said, ‘Look for her again, after the trial.’
She nodded and walked away.
‘Proceed,’ the emperor said.
The Samarol came at him running, astonishingly quickly for a man of his size. His leather boots made no sound on the flagstones. His seeing knife flashed. Granger feinted left, but then pushed himself away from the corral wall in the opposite direction. The bodyguard turned like a dancer and passed by in a blur.
Searing pain ran up Granger’s arm.
He stared in astonishment at blood welling from a knife cut across the back of his right wrist. It was deep. He hadn’t even seen the bodyguard’s attack.
The crowd shouted, ‘One!’
The Samarol relaxed into a jog, and made a circuit of the corral. Granger turned with him, following the other man’s progress with the tip of his sword. Blood flowed freely over his right hand, spattering the flagstones at his feet. As the bodyguard drew near, he picked up his speed, flipping the knife from one hand to the other and back again.
Granger thrust his blade up at the man’s head.
The Samarol ducked and pivoted, and spun away.
‘Two,’ roared the crowd.
Granger felt warm blood spilling down his leg. A second cut had sliced through his breeches and split the skin on his thigh. He clamped his hand across the wound and turned again to follow the bodyguard’s progress.
The Samarol made a second leisurely circuit of the arena, and as he ran he wiped his knife against a leather patch sewn across his belt. He closed on Granger a third time, the seeing knife now clenched in one back-turned fist, his wolf helmet gleaming.
Granger swiped his blade in a wide arc, hoping to drive his attacker back. After all, he had the advantage of reach.
But the bodyguard caught the sword on the edge of his knife, and turned the blow up, over his own head. Granger had never seen reflexes like it. The man was inhuman. Within a heartbeat he had ducked again, moving inside Granger’s reach. And then came that same strange pirouette, and Granger felt something scrape his rib.
‘Three.’
Granger’s chest had been punctured on his left side. A third stream of blood now flowed from his flesh. He staggered back a few steps, gaping at his own lacerated body. His muscles were starting to ache and soon they would fail him altogether. The Samarol meanwhile continued his performance for the crowd, cleaning his seeing knife again as he jogged away. He had been deliberately inflicting shallow, non-lethal wounds. He was carving Granger up for the emperor’s amusement.
Granger watched his opponent wiping the edge of that unholy knife against the leather patch on his belt. The Unmer metal was conveying its surroundings to the blind warrior, while granting him unnatural swiftness. In this battle the blade was Granger’s real enemy.
The Samarol turned inwards for a fourth attack.
And Granger let him come. He feinted an uppercut with his sword, leaving his right shoulder vulnerable to attack. The bodyguard spotted the opening and struck out with the knife, but Granger was ready for him.
As the attack came, Granger dropped his sword and grabbed his opponent’s wrist. And then he plunged the knife even deeper into his own shoulder. A grunt of surprise came from behind the wolf helmet. The Samarol tried to withdraw the knife, but Granger now seized the other man’s wrist in both hands and held it fast. He had momentarily denied the bodyguard his sight.
Still fiercely gripping the other man’s wrist, he swung him around, and around again in a circle, hoping to further disorientate his opponent, hoping to break his grip on the Unmer blade. But the Samarol folded his knees and buckled in one fluid movement, dragging Granger down to the ground with him.
Granger landed heavily against the man. For several heartbeats they wrestled, the Samarol trying to wrench the knife