The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [202]
His horse reared and shied, so Neil quickly dismounted, facing the knight as he rose back up, wielding the arcane blade.
“They say Virgenya Dare’s warriors had weapons like that,” Neil said. “Feyswords. Weapons for heroes, weapons to fight evil. I don’t know where you got that, but I do know you aren’t fit to carry it.”
The nauschalk pushed up his visor. His face was pale and pink-cheeked, and his eyes were as gray as sea waves.
“You,” he murmured, almost as if in a dream. “I’ve killed you once, haven’t I?”
“Only almost,” Neil replied. He lifted his shield. “But by Saint Fren and Saint Fendve, this time I will die or you will.”
“I cannot die,” the man said. “Do you understand? I can’t.”
“Forgive me if I’ll not take your word for that,” Neil replied. All along he’d been shuffling forward, finding his distance. Now he slowly began to circle, his gaze fixed on the eyes of the nauschalk, a red fire kindling in his belly as the rage began.
Then the nauschalk blinked, and in that instant Neil attacked, leaping forward and cutting over the shield. His enemy replied with a swift thrust from a stiffened arm to Neil’s shield, a good fighter’s instinct, for it should have stopped Neil’s attack by keeping him at sword’s length.
But the feysword sliced through the shield just above Neil’s arm. He still had to arrest his blow to keep from impaling his face on the glowing weapon, but he twisted the shield down, taking the stuck feysword with it, and chopped a second time. Cuenslec rang against the armored joint of neck and shoulder, and Neil felt the chain links part. The visor clanged down with the force of his blow, and once again Neil’s enemy had no face.
He dropped the shield before his opponent could carve the deadly blade through his arm and drew back for another blow, but the feysword whirled up too quickly. Neil let the assault come but faded back from it, so the attack missed him by the breadth of a hair. Then he made his own counterattack.
He had reckoned on the knight having to recover the momentum of his attack before making the backswing, but he’d reckoned wrong. The weapon must have weighed almost nothing, because here it came, shearing up into his attack. Only by scrambling quickly back did he avoid being gut-sawed.
Neil’s breath was coming raggedly already, for he was still weak from his last fight with the fellow.
The nauschalk, seemingly not tired at all, advanced.
“What’s happening here, Stephen?” Aspar asked as he got Ogre still and took aim at a monk. The churchman had been down on the ground when they arrived, and was now rising shakily to his feet. Aspar let fly. The fellow never saw his death coming; an almost motionless target, the arrow took him in the heart and he sank back to his knees.
Around the clearing, more and more of the formerly motionless figures were rising again. Aspar aimed at the most active.
“I don’t know,” Stephen replied. “I felt something as we were approaching, something strong, but it’s gone now.”
“Maybe they never got the instructions from the praifec,” Leshya guessed. “Maybe they did something wrong.”
“Maybe,” Aspar allowed. “But whatever happened, it seems to be to our advantage. Stephen, you and Winna go get the princess. Hurry.”
Neil’s battle with the armored knight didn’t seem to be going that well. The knight’s sword flickered like the knife Desmond Spendlove had planned to use to assassinate Winna, the one—he now recalled—the praifec had confiscated for “study.”
He shot a man and selected another target, but this one saw him in time and dodged the shaft. Then he was running toward them, faster than an antelope. To his left, on the other side of the clearing,