The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [87]
Truly, she was already wounded, and fear for her wiped away the embarrassment over his lack of clothing, that and the sudden realization that finally, after all these months, he was facing another student of dessrata.
“Come on,” Cazio said, “Let’s finish this before anyone shows up to interfere.”
He could already hear more guards coming.
The man cocked his head to the side, then thrust. Cazio took a retreat, not trusting the verity of the move, and was taken aback when the fellow suddenly darted toward the wall, lifting a tapestry and vanishing into a dark opening beyond.
Cursing, Cazio leapt after him, brushing the tapestry back with his left hand. A blade snaked out of the darkness, and he just managed to deflect it. He stepped inside the point and pressed the weapon into the wall with his off hand—then ran straight into a fist. It hit him in the jaw; the blow wasn’t so much strong as it was surprising. He released the blade.
Cazio stumbled back, weaving Caspator through the parries, hoping to catch a thrust he couldn’t see. But receding footsteps told him that the fellow was running now, without renewing the attack.
Cursing, Cazio ran after him.
After a few seconds, reason reasserted itself and he slowed to a walk. After all, he couldn’t see anything. He considered going back for a torch, but he still could hear soft footfalls ahead, and he didn’t want to lose the trail. Keeping his left hand on the wall, he pressed forth quickly, Caspator held out before him like a blind man’s cane.
He almost stumbled when the passageway became stairs, descending in a narrow series of turns. Ahead he heard a click and saw a brief moment of moonlight casting a human shadow on a landing below.
Then the light was gone.
He reached the landing and, after a brief search, discovered the door and pushed it open. The passage issued from a garden wall hidden by a hedge. A short path led to an open, grassy glade suffused in moonlight. He didn’t see Anne’s assailant anywhere.
He couldn’t imagine that the man had had time to cross the open grass, so instead of walking out of the hedge, he rolled and found his deduction satisfied by the sough of steel where his head ought to have been.
He came back to his feet with a guard in prismo.
“This is disappointing,” he said. “I’ve come across land and sea and land again and never met another dessrator. I am so sick of the meat cleaving that passes for swordplay in these barbarian lands. Now I finally find someone who might give me some entertainment, and I discover that he’s a coward, unwilling to stand and fight.”
“Sorry,” the fellow replied in a muffled voice. “But you must understand that while I’ve no trouble fighting you, I can’t be bothered to engage with the whole castle. And if I allow you to delay me, that will be my position.”
That was right; they had been in Anne’s room.
Cazio had heard the guards approaching behind him, and then—
They were outside. How had that happened?
He hazily remembered chasing the fellow, but if he had followed him out of Anne’s room and down the stairs, shouldn’t they have gone past the approaching soldiers? Had they leapt out of a window?
The man cut short Cazio’s wondering by attacking. He was small and nimble, a Sefry, perhaps? Cazio had never fought a Sefry dessrator. His blade was lampblacked and difficult to see.
Cazio parried, but the attack turned out to be a feint, the real attack slipping in from a low line. Cazio took a step back to give him time to find the blade, which he did, catching it in the parry of seft, then twisting to one side to avoid the rapid renewal of the attack in the high line. The blade whispered through the air near his throat, and he straightened his arm.
His enemy deflected it with the flat of his palm,