Innkeeper Chronicles 3.5: Sweep of the Blade Page 18

  subtlety of a battering ram.

  “Speaking of examples, we were all in awe of Lord Arland’s escapades on

  Karhari.”

  Maud drank her wine, killing a wince before it started. Once she had

  paid the blood debt for her husband’s murder, she had started looking

  for ways to escape Karhari. In a desperate gamble, she had sent a

  message to Dina with a random courier, never expecting it to

  arrive. She’d included coordinates of a Road Lodge. Karhari lodges were

  rough. They served as waypoints for mercenaries, bandits, caravan

  raiders, and whatever other refuse floated in on the winds of the wastes.

  It was a dangerous place, but she had to try for Helen’s sake and her own.

  Then Dina arrived, bringing her werewolf and Arland with her. The

  moment Arland, in his top of the line armor, stepped into the lodge,

  Maud had known there would be a fight. And she was right. Arland had

  recorded himself during the brawl and the recording had gone viral

  throughout the Holy Anocracy.

  Tellis was still smiling. “How many attackers did you take on? Was it

  four or five, I can’t remember?”

  “I was a little busy and I didn’t have time to make them count off. In a

  real battle, things get a little hectic.” Arland was still floating in his own

  private cloud of Zen.

  “Would you care to give us a private demonstration, Lord Marshal? I’m

  afraid that the game hadn’t quite lasted as long as we would’ve

  liked. We still need a bit of exercise. If you don’t mind, that is.”

  He did not just say that. Apparently, House Krahr was so weak that Tellis

  hadn’t broken a sweat.

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  Arland looked bored. “I haven’t finished my wine. If I take the time to

  engage in a demonstration, it will be warm by the time I return.”

  Tellis blinked. Maud hid a smile. Yes, he did just tell you that his wine

  getting warm was more important than you. Tellis would have abandon

  all pretense of propriety to goad Arland into action.

  “Of course, if the Lord Marshal is too fatigued from chasing his unwilling

  human bride to redeem the honor of his House, I understand

  completely. We have all enjoyed your noble pursuit, however, I do

  believe the lady finds you wanting.” Tellis looked at Maud and smiled.

  Yes, that would do it.

  Arland sighed and rose to his feet, looking put upon as if someone had

  asked him to take out the trash in the middle of a good movie.

  “I’ll have your wine refreshed, dear,” Ilemina said. “Go and have some

  fun.”

  Arland turned to Tellis. “If you insist. Full armor, primed weapons, first

  down?”

  Tellis’ grin didn’t die all the way but definitely faltered. Under normal

  circumstances, vampire weapons had the same limitations as Earth

  weapons. They were made of an advanced alloy that provided greater

  durability, and the vampire metalsmiths had developed weapon making

  into an art, but if one tried to chop a large tree down with a vampire

  sword, the sword would break before the tree did. Priming a weapon

  flooded it with Rathan Rhun, the Shining Blood. Nobody, not even her

  father, knew exactly what Rathan Rhun was. It was red and glowing, and

  it flowed through the weapon emitting a telltale whine, spreading

  through the metal just like its name suggested it would. Once you heard

  a blood weapon being primed, you never forgot it. A blood mace

  wielded by a strong vampire knight would knock down a telephone pole.

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  Blood weapons were not used for practice. Arland had just suggested a

  fight under battle conditions, to the point where combatants were out

  when they were unable to continue.

  “Primed weapons?’ Tellis asked.

  “You are the one who wanted exercise.” Arland looked at Tellis. “Was

  my lord under the impression that the fight at the Road Lodge was an

  exhibition bout? You asked for an accurate demonstration. I have

  honored your request.”

  Arland raised his head and bellowed, “Bring our guests their blood

  weapons! Gather to honor their bravery for they are about to do battle.

  And someone alert the medic. We shall require full use of his talents

  today.”

  Chapter 12 part 1

  July 27, 2018 by Gordon

  No Innkeeper next Friday – we will be on vacation at the beach.

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  This was stupid, Maud decided. In fact, this was one of the dumbest

  things she had seen Arland do, and he was, by no means, a stupid man.

  Arland eyed the two Serak knights that stepped forward to join

  Tellis. Both held themselves with the seasoned confidence of

  veterans. They had fought before, they had won, and they didn’t find

  Arland’s presence or his reputation especially intimidating. In a word,

  they seemed ready, and Maud didn’t like it one bit.

  Arland raised his voice. “Are these the only brave knights House Serak

  has to offer?”

  What is he doing?

  He looked around, spreading his arms. “Is there no one else?”

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  Two more knights stood up from their tables on House Kozor’s side,

  Onda and a grizzled male knight, who looked like he would knock a

  charging bull out with one punch. Great, just great.

  “We are up to five,” Arland said. “Fantastic.”

  Maud grabbed her glass and drank.

  “The Road Lodge offered me seven, but if five brave souls is the best your

  two mighty Houses can scrounge, I’ll make do.”

  What? The wine went down the wrong way, and she choked.

  Four more knights stood up, two from Serak, two from Kozor.

  “That’s more like it,” Arland declared.

  Nine opponents. He’d gone insane. That was the only explanation.

  The weapon racks were being brought onto the lawn. The knights armed

  themselves. The sharp whine of blood weapons being primed sliced the

  quiet. Arland hefted his mace. Their stares crossed, and he grinned at

  her.

  “He’s gone mad,” she muttered.

  “Nexus,” Otubar said.

  She glanced at him. “I don’t follow, my lord.”

  “We have advanced quite far from the days when this castle was built,”

  Ilemina said. “These days the conflicts between Houses are decided in

  space. The ground battles are precious few. I doubt either Kozor or

  Serak have ever truly fought in one.”

  “Nexus permits no air battles,” Otubar said. “On Nexus, ground is fought

  and won inch by inch, watered with blood and fertilized with corpses.”

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  “I knew I would have to send my son to Nexus twenty years ago.” Ilemina

  smiled. “His father and I did everything we could to make sure he came

  back alive. This is what he does best. Trust him.”

  A young knight ran up to Arland and held out a round shield, about

  eighteen inches across, made of the same dark alloy as the syn-armor. A

  half-moon indentation had been cut out on one side, just large enough

  to trap an arm. A buckler, she realized. Not just a bucker, her

  buckler. She had shown him the buckler and blade technique during one

  of their practice sessions at Dina’s Inn. He had asked abo
ut Earth sword

  fighting and she had gone through several different styles with him. At

  the time, he’d scoffed at the buckler. Vampire shields were

  obsolete. The syn-armor offered superior protection without

  encumbering and the only shields still in use were massive and designed

  to protect the wielder during bombardment. Vampires either dual-

  wielded or favored enormous two-handed weapons that made the most

  of their strength and stamina. After she’d stabbed him a couple of times,

  he had changed his tune.

  Arland gripped the buckler with his left hand. The shield whined,

  priming. Veins of red streaked it, and as he turned the buckler, Maud

  saw its red tinted edge. It was razor sharp.

  Aww. He had a custom shield made based on her buckler.

  Tellis, carrying twin blades, laughed. “Are you so poor that you couldn’t

  afford a proper shield or so stupid that you think that little toy will

  protect you?”

  “All in good time,” Arland said. “Wait, and I’ll show you.”

  Ilemina leaned forward, focused on Arland. “A shield. Interesting. But

  why so small?”

  Otubar grimaced. “Because it’s lively.”

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  The nine vampires spread out, encircling Arland. Suddenly she

  understood. Because there were nine of them, arranged around him in

  a rough circle, each knight only had a forty-degree angle to work

  with. The ideal distance for combat was about the length of your

  weapon plus a step. If they had stayed at the ideal distance, they would

  be nearly touching. They needed room to work, so instinctively they

  backed up, giving themselves space, but now they were so far away from

  Arland, they might as well announce their attacks before launching

  them. He had more than enough time to react, and they could only come

  at him two or three at a time, or they would get in each other’s way.

  The knights realized it, too, but there was no time to plan any kind of

  strategy. The longer they just stood there, the more it looked like they

  were afraid, and their plan to humiliate Arland was going belly up.

  “Today!” Arland bellowed.

  An older knight on his left charged, the huge two-handed sword slicing

  through the air in a vicious arc. Arland dodged. The vampire’s

  momentum carried him past Arland who smashed his mace into the back

  of the other man’s helmet. The force of the blow knocked the knight to

  the ground. He rolled and lay still.

  Onda and a blond knight to her right charged at the same time and

  collided. A leaner red headed knight dashed in at Arland, thrusting his

  sword. Funny thing about bucklers: held close to the body, they offered

  very little protection, but when held out at arm’s length, not only did

  they protect most of you, they also cut your opponent’s view down to

  nothing. Arland let the blow glance off the buckler, directing it to his

  right and brought his mace down like a hammer on the knight’s exposed

  right shoulder. Bone crunched as the armor failed to fully absorb the

  force of the hit. The red headed vampire dropped his sword, but Arland

  was already turning to meet Tellis attacking him from behind.

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  Tellis’ left sword met Arland’s mace, his right glanced off the buckler,

  leaving Tellis wide open for a fraction of a second, and Arland sank a

  vicious front kick in his stomach. Tellis stumbled back.

  A broad shouldered female knight leaped at Arland from the left, while

  a tall male knight charged from the right. He stepped back, and the

  female knight plowed into the male, both collapsing in a heap. Arland

  smashed the woman’s back with his mace. She screamed and rolled off

  the knight flailing under her. The knight tried to rise and got a face full

  of buckler.

  Onda smashed her hammer into Arland’s back. He must’ve sensed the

  blow but with no way to avoid it, he simply hunched his shoulders and

  took the hit. Onda must have expected him to go down, because she

  stared at him for half a second. Maud knew from experience that giving

  Arland half a second was a lethal mistake. He spun around, putting all of

  his weight behind a horizontal strike. His mace connected with Onda’s

  ribs. The hit swept her off her feet. It was almost comical – one moment

  she was there, brandishing her hammer, and the next she was gone, lying

  somewhere on the grass.

  The six knights still standing attacked. Arland worked through his

  attackers with methodical precision, crushing limbs, smashing bone,

  ramming his buckler into their joints. They swarmed him, and he broke

  them one by one, until they could no longer move. It was a cold,

  controlled rage, harnessed and channeled into carnage.

  Finally, only Tellis and Arland remained standing. Arland bled from a cut

  on his left temple. Gouges and dents marked his armor. The right side

  of his jaw swelled. Maud feverishly tried to remember all the hits he had

  taken. There was no way to tell if he was okay or bleeding inside that

  damn armor.

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  Tellis was breathing like he had ran a marathon. A bruise darkened his

  left cheek. The armor over his left forearm had lost integrity, turning

  dull.

  Arland dropped his buckler and attacked. His mace whistled through the

  air. Tellis blocked, letting the blow glance from his right sword and

  stabbed with his left. The blade sliced a hair above Arland’s right

  shoulder. Arland lunged forward and punched Tellis. It was a

  devastating left cross. Tellis stumbled and Arland brought his mace onto

  Tellis’ left arm. The groom shied back. Arland swung again and Tellis

  danced away.

  They circled the battle field, Tellis fast and agile, Arland unstoppable like

  a tank on a rampage.

  They made a full circle.

  Tellis kept backing up. Arland stalked him, but the other knight never let

  him get within reach.

  Arland stopped and waited. Tellis stopped too.

  The lawn was silent.

  Arland took a step forward. Tellis took a step back.

  Otubar called out, “It’s not a dance. Fight or get off the field.”

  Tellis looked at the eight bodies lying on the grass. Some moaned, others

  simply laid still. His eyes were wide and glassy. Maud had seen that look

  before. It was the look of someone who had seen his own death. Tellis

  had forgotten that this wasn’t a real battle field. The urge to survive had

  taken over. He had nowhere to go. Back was dishonor, forward was

  Arland, pain, and death. So, like the bodies on the grass, Tellis held still,

  too.

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  Arland shrugged his massive shoulders, powered down his mace, turned

  his back to Tellis, and walked off the field. Maud let out a breath she

  didn’t know she was holding.

  He stopped by the table, beat up and splattered with blood, and looked

  at her. You could hear a pin drop.

  “We didn’t finish our discussion, my lady.”

  Oh, she was more than ready to have a discussion. It would feature

  topics like Why the hell would you let nine knights pummel

  you? and What were you thinking? If he were bleeding
internally, this

  was the only way for him to make a graceful exit. She had to get him out

  of here and out of that armor.

  Maud rose, aware of every stare. “In that case, my lord, I suggest we

  retire to your quarters, so we may carry out our debate in private.”

  “I’d be delighted.” Arland extended his hand towards the path.

  Maud bowed her head to Ilemina and Otubar. “My apologies.”

  Ilemina waved at her. “Think nothing of it, my dear.”

  Maud started down the path, aware of Arland only a step behind her.

  “Ahh, young love,” Ilemina’s voice floated to her. “Where is our medic?”

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  Chapter 12 part 2

  August 8, 2018 by Gordon

  As soon as they got to the tower and the door slid shut behind them,

  Arland swayed and sagged against the wall.

  “You’re such an idiot,” she whispered through clenched teeth.

  Arland smiled. “Maybe. But I won.”

  Ugh. She had no idea how badly he was hurt. He probably didn’t know

  how badly he was hurt. They had to get him out of the armor. She could

  just pull it off him here. Every House crest contained the basic supplies

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  necessary for emergency medical intervention. But if she took the crest

  off him now and applied it, he would have to remain stationary in this

  tower. They had to climb the stairs, cross the bridge, and get to either

  his room or hers and they had to do it with Kozor and Serak

  watching. Any show of weakness would dilute Arland’s victory.

  The value of the beating he delivered wasn’t in humiliation of Kozor and

  Serak. It was in fear and uncertainty. Both House Kozor and Serak came

  to the fight reasonably sure what to expect. They had done their

  research, they had watched the fight in the Lodge, and they expected

  Arland to be a superior fighter. They didn’t expect him to be invincible. If

  he had been carried off the field by medics or had limped away obviously

  hurt, they could quantify it. “We almost beat him with nine knights, we

  can kill him with ten.” But he had crushed them and walked away like it

  was nothing. Now they didn’t know how many knights it would take, and