Koban: The Mark of Koban (76 page)

All he had was theoretical calculations and scientific
estimates of a Krall’s strength compared to his own, so he played it safe on
his approach, using his speed against its power. The wide taloned feet with
claw tips that had better grip than his boots, and he nearly forgot that they
qualified as an additional eight knives coming from a different direction. He
slashed in as if going for a stomach cut, kicked himself back as the Krall
slashed down where he expected the human’s arm would be with his large knife,
and held his small knife ready for a slash or thrust if the human tried to
parry the left hand.

Carson kicked down with his right foot, and bounced away as
he lifted the curved sharp tip of his knife to slash up at the wrist of the
right hand, which he’d anticipated would be following through on the backside
of the downward left-handed slash. He cut a deep grove transversely across the
inside of the wrist, but the warrior did not lose the smaller knife as he’d
hoped. He quickly forgot that disappointment, as two razor sharp talons of the
Krall’s left foot raked along his right calf before he pulled it away.

The Krall displayed a sneer of pleasure at delivering a
greater wound than it received, and instantly moved to take advantage.

The boy felt a painful burning along his calf, but didn’t
betray any expression, and didn’t look down, as the Krall quickly proved it had
obviously expected him to do just that. It brought the large knife up as it
lunged towards him, in an effort to skewer or cut him while he glanced at a
gaping leg wound.

Carson’s blade sliced backhanded to pass under the upstroke,
and deeply gashed the bottom of the forearm, using the long reach of the
Krall’s full arm extension to leave that area exposed. The warrior’s sneer vanished,
as it now did what it had expected Carson to do. It looked not at its own fresh
forearm cut, but at the unmarked trouser over the calf, which it had struck
solidly.

It paid for that minimal distraction, somewhat differently
than it had expected Carson to pay. The boy pivoted on the right leg that the
Krall looked at in momentary disbelief, as the left boot flashed around and
kicked the right hand holding the smaller knife. The slashed wrist, and
possibly the regrown lighter gray digit on the right hand, proved too weak a
combination to prevent the nine-inch blade from flying out of Stilkap’s grip.

Smart cloth or not, that slashing kick hurt like hell.
Carson decided he’d pay more respect to those short bowed legs. He realized
that without the single nine-inch knife to grip, the bastard now had four
one-inch long razor sharp tips on its right hand to use instead.

He made a feint towards the warrior who, in typical Krall
fashion, moved towards him instead of backwards. This was part of the training
he’d received from Uncle Thad, who had watched the Krall practice with each
other, and saw them kill humans on hunts through binoculars. They nearly always
advanced, on the attack, anytime you went at them.

Carson, in anticipation, used his speed to dodge aside and go
around the Krall, who quickly pivoted to keep facing him. He hadn’t been trying
to get behind him exactly, just around him. He used the toe of his boot to tap
sharply down on the slightly raised tip of the shorter knife the Krall had just
lost. It spun up from the pavement, spinning rapidly. Hardly taking his eyes
off the warrior, Carson snatched what was to him a slowly pin wheeling object
out of the air by its handle.

He made a mock salute, quickly bringing the point of the
blade to his left eyebrow, and tipped back out. He added a toothy smile rather
than a sneer, being of a happier disposition.

Stilkap was enraged, but cagey enough to recognize that he
was facing an opponent that had almost Krall-like skill and even greater speed.
Blindly charging in would be a poor tactic used against another skillful
warrior. He had to bring his bulk and strength into play against this smaller
faster foe. He was in survival mode now, no longer contemptuous of his
opponent, and had banished the shame of the gunfight loss from his mind.
Gunfight!

How had that crucial detail been pushed to the back of his
mind? The human had both its pistols in their holsters. It could kill him
anytime it chose, but continued to play with him, as if this were a game. A
chill spread down his chest that he’d never experienced before. He’d never
known fear, and knew only that he did not like what he felt. He wasn’t high
leadership quality, he knew that, but he was better at avoiding human traps on
Poldark than many warriors that he had outlasted. He didn’t see a trap this
time, but he sensed one in the delaying action of this human.

He looked around quickly, but didn’t see anything out of
place, but noticed that his field of vision centered mainly on where he was
looking. His peripheral vision was somewhat hazy. His cuts did not hurt, nor
bleed, but that was to be expected. No, that wasn’t quite right; he should be
ignoring the pain, from the two cuts, and the bruise to his chest. Only he now
noticed that he didn’t need to do that. He wasn’t feeling pain that needed to
be ignored.

The human walked around him and he stayed facing his enemy,
but didn’t understand what new game he was playing. Now the human wasn’t even
looking at him, but at the shuttle behind him. He slowly stepped nearer, and
Stilkap tensed, raising his own knife and advanced a step, moving his right leg
forward, using his stronger left leg as support for a sudden lunge. He felt
disconnected from his movements, as if he were watching them rather than
feeling them.

The human rushed forward, his right arm and knife swinging
sideways in a slash that had to be blocked, but was a useless attack because it
was too easy to block. The left hand simultaneously flipped the short knife
around and he gripped the blade, raising his arm. With a flick of his wrist,
the human threw the blade directly at his right eye. The Krall raised his hand
to snatch the knife out of the air, as the human had done, but found that his
right arm moved too slowly and his vision had narrowed to see just the sweep of
the larger blade towards his side. It was only a last moment twist of his head to
the left that prevented the small blade’s tip from penetrating his eye,
possibly reaching his brain. The knife buried itself nearly in his right ear,
grating against the bone. He completed his block of the inbound slash from his
left, and reached up to reclaim his second knife. He’d lost sight of the
human’s feet. What was wrong with his vision? Suddenly there was a heavy thud
and cracking sound and his forward extended right leg was no longer supporting
him. He looked to his right as he started to fall, in what seemed slow motion,
and saw his leg bent backwards, as if his knee were backwards. He didn’t feel
any pain, but knew from decades of seeing combat injuries that his weak newly
regrown knee had snapped backwards. How had that happened?

In the background of the tunnel vision view of his broken
knee, he saw the human’s feet come down. The devious creature had used the
useless attack on his left side as a cover for leaping into the air and coming
down with a vicious kick to his leg and snapped the joint. It didn’t explain
why he had not seen the last attack coming, or been able to counter the last
two. The lack of pain had to be a clue. He went to thrust the small knife at the
human only to find it wasn’t in his hand after all. It must still be stuck in
the side of his head and he had failed to pull it out. The human reached out
and grasped his right hand, pulling him forward, finishing the collapse of his
right leg. He tried to clutch at his enemy’s forearm, to hold him as he brought
his left knife hand around to stab at him. He watched the human snap all four
of his fingers backwards, and reached over and took his knife away from him.

He wanted desperately for the human to kill him, to end this
unendurable shame and humiliation. He tried to force himself to die. That was something
a captured Krall could do by stopping both hearts. It takes concentration, but
he couldn’t do that. He was aware but had no sense of touch, yet his eyes would
move and he could breathe and hear, but had no conscious muscle control.

The human drug his body around where he could see the
shuttle, positioning his head sideways so he could see his clan mates looking
at him, with what was a mixture of shock and disgust. Now he discovered he
actually could experience pain, but it was nonphysical.

Carson turned his back on his paralyzed foe. The extract
from the thorns of the Death Lime had done its quiet job.  He wanted to smear
more of the substance on his knife tip, but if his skin came into contact, he’d
end up on the ground like the broken warrior behind him. The scientists had
removed the terrible burning agent from the compound, which made you so keenly
aware of the progress of the paralyzing component. Thad had given him the tube
with a warning to be careful.

He had accomplished most of what his distraction intended to
achieve. He had observed some of the progress as attention was riveted on his
knife fight. It was unfortunate that the paralysis had spread as fast as it
had. He’d hoped for another minute. Perhaps he could renew their focus for
another minute.

“I challenge any other warrior to face me.”

Toltak’s focused her attention on him intensely, as did all
four of the other warriors. They burned for an excuse to shoot him down, but they
had met the honor challenge, and their representative lost. The odd but rigid
Krall honor code forbade a vengeance murder. However, the human offered another
challenge.

Toltak, like all of her clan mates, had observed the young
human’s blistering speed and accuracy in the short gunfight. He had clearly won
that easily. Why he chose to continue into a knife fight when he could have
shot Stilkap at his leisure was too Krall-like to believe of a human. That part
of the fight was not so one sided, and for a time Stilkap had seemed like he
could win, despite some injuries. It had been impossible for the other Krall to
tell if the shot that destroyed his chest pistol had penetrated to do some
internal damage that caused his collapse at the end. The lack of blood wasn’t a
good indicator, because bleeding from wounds always stopped quickly for the
Krall.

The challenge already answered settled the original matter
of honor, and there was no matter of honor involved for this new challenge. However,
every single one of them wanted to accept, if Toltak permitted.

As leader, she had to consider the present circumstances, where
they faced an undetermined number of humans. A claim of so many humans was
ridiculous, since why would thousands of them not attack the six of them,
regardless of losses.

The mindless and weak emissary had said one thing that
struck true now, which had cost her a removed part when she said that. She had
said criminal humans (whatever that meant) had birthed children that they had
bred to be faster and stronger than the Krall. They supposedly did this in only
one or two breeding cycles of the Krall, when humans normally took longer for
their reproduction, hatching only one, sometimes two of their weak, slow growing
cubs at a time. Toltak knew this was so, having opened some human females to
see for herself, when conducting interrogations.

She looked over at the lump of the emissary, noting that it
had shifted position while they were watching the fight. The breathing was more
nervous now than when it had been in the human death sleep. It was awake now
and pretending to sleep.

“Rudbit, raise the insane one here, I have questions.”

Cahill screamed again when lifted bodily, the strip of meat
missing from her arm a blaze of agony. Only fear had kept her from moaning
earlier.

Carson heard her, and despite his dislike for the woman,
didn’t want her tortured. He’d actually assumed she was already dead. He called
out again. “I demand honor to be satisfied. She is still our representative,
sent to negotiate. Fight me, for your honor.”

He was desperate to get them focused on him again. “Bring
her around where I can see her, to see what you have done. Have you no honor at
all?” He was really trying to play the honor card, since that seemed to be the
only lever that worked, sometimes.

Toltak answered with one of those bizarre twists of Krall
honor and logic that left humans scratching their heads. “That is a stupid
human way of thinking. The challenge satisfied the matter of honor. What I will
do with this human was paid by Stilkap’s death. I will have more truth from her
or I will have more pieces from her.”

“Your warrior is not dead! I will kill him if you do not
return the emissary.” He didn’t want the so-called emissary, who was a traitor
to the people here. He did want to make a scene that kept their attention.

Toltak looked up quickly in a rare show of surprise for a
Krall. “He is alive?”

“Yes.”

“Kill him for me.”

That was a surprise for Carson, but he’d never dealt with the
Krall before. His apparent bargaining chip was worthless. He thought of just one
use for his chip. Bet it in one big gamble.

He needed to set up the last part of Mirikami’s plan. They
could not allow the Krall to return to the Clanship, and they could not let
them lift off in the shuttle. He knew his next action would determine if they
could prevent both.

He turned back to Stilkap, and assessed his belt harness. The
tight waist belt and the shoulder belt that passed diagonally across his chest
and across his back was actually all one piece. The stretched skintight black
body suit was tough material but had no slack for a grip. The belt it would be.

Carson rolled the limp warrior onto his face and chest,
Stilkap’s eyes rolling to try to see what was happening.  The boy took a firm
grip on the shoulder belt near the middle of the back, using his right hand,
and lifted the warrior upright in one powerful easy movement. He was heavy, but
easily manageable with one hand and arm if he didn’t need to hold him very
long. He lowered the body a bit, so the feet at the ends of the short bowed
legs were barely touching the ground. He looked out into the grass beyond the
tarmac, almost behind the shuttle and nodded.