Sea of Death (4 page)
Tiring of this standoff, or perhaps worried that his master would grow impatient, the dark Jakifi darted in, feigning a sweeping cut. The long dagger met the curved blade, sending the latter slightly downward, but then the straight steel was pulled away before the long dagger could be trapped and the arm holding it sliced by the curved weapon. The Jakifi assassin was fast, and he started to come out of his semi-crouch immediately with an upward stab. The stranger darted back, but only a step, and his long poniard began to thrust out and down.
This first motion was the feint, designed to draw the assassin's dagger farther to the side. The next part of the move did the "damage"; the young man in black simply flicked his wrists and changed the direction of his blade in mid-stroke. He aimed high as Zameer Dey was straightening up, drawing the slender tip of his blade diagonally across the front of the Jakifi's silk turban. The slash, aided by the upward movement of the assassin's body, sliced through several layers of the thin cloth. The easterner sprang backward just as the turban-cut ran its course, apparently content to let matters develop instead of trying to continue the infighting.
The remnants of the turban promptly began to cascade down around Zameer Dey's face, revealing in the process that he wore a spiked tarboosh underneath. That was of no import, but if he did not break off his countermove and get rid of the cloth, the distraction would make him vulnerable to attack. The Jakifi leaped backward, yanking the tattered cloth up and away with his left hand as he did so. His metal cap, no longer fixed firmly by the turban, fell off the side of his head and landed on the floor in front of him. The clattering noise of its fall was drowned out by Zameer Dey's voice.
"Filthy, diseased son of a dozen unnatural fathers!" the assassin cursed, his swarthy features distorted and even more darkened by rage.
"Know me as Gord of Greyhawk, you slinking murderer," the young man replied with neither expression nor force as he lowered into a crouch. "The last man you will ever attempt to slay by treachery and poison."
The Jakifi began his next move before his opponent had finished speaking. With his first step, his left foot struck the fallen helmet and sent it spinning on a low arc toward the young man. He continued the lunge, following the helmet's path and moving in to finish the fight. But the young man who had just named himself Gord of Greyhawk was not there to receive either the spiked helmet or the curved blade. Instead he shot his body upward and out, somersaulting over the attacker's head. Turning and twisting in mid-air, Gord landed facing the assassin's back. By the time his feet hit the ground, Gord's dagger was already penetrating the space between Zameer Dey's shoulder blades. Almost faster than the eye could follow, Gord withdrew the dagger and once more drove it in to the hilt. The man coughed once, weakly, then sprawled face down, dead. His blood began to run over the bright tiles and smooth marble of the floor.
Dead silence enveloped the wine house. Not even the mercenary fighting men from the east had expected this startling finish to the duel. The Kettites and other westerners were in shock, for they had anticipated an easy victory for the Jakifi killer. Then the stillness was broken.
"Kill him!" The shout came from the Kufteer, Shah of Wadlaoo, Vizier to the Caliph of Jakif.
This time the command was obeyed not by a single assassin but by the half-dozen men who formed the Shah's personal guard. They had slowly started to move from their position along the back wall of the establishment during the contest between Zameer Dey and the foreigner. Now, as the crowd frantically parted to let them through, they sprang to do their lord's bidding, confident that their superior numbers would tell.
The foremost of the onrushing guards was a giant sporting a bulbous turban and diaphanous pantaloons. He wore a byrnie of chainmail adorned with thick breast chains and swung a monstrous tulwar one-handed as if it were a willow wand. The remainder of the Vizier's guardsmen trotted several paces behind, ready to follow up their leader's rush even though the giant warrior alone seemed more than sufficient to handle the slight Ourmi dog who had dared to slay the servant of a noble Jakifi.
"A…a…l R…u…u…h…k!" The huge man bellowed his name, drawing it out in the form of a battle cry, as he rushed upon the smaller opponent, his tulwar held high for a cleaving stroke. Such a blow, if carried through, would surely split the black-garbed foreigner in twain. Instead of seeking escape to one side or the other, Gord drew his short sword with his left hand, bent his knees slightly, and stood still – ready to take the blow head-on!
If the towering Jakifi thought that his furious rush and bellowing shout had frozen or disconcerted his opponent, he soon found out otherwise. As the giant closed and started his downward stroke, Gord brought both of his blades up and crossed them. He caught the descending tulwar in the X formed by his weapons and pivoted his body to the left at the same time, turning the tulwar away from its original path. Then he abruptly bent at the waist and leaned his upper body back to his right. The guardsman's momentum turned against him; his long, heavy blade sliced downward and to Gord's left, hitting nothing but air until it struck the floor, shattering the tilework where it hit. Off balance and confused, the huge Jakifi sought to recover, but Gord would not give this one a second chance as he did for the assassin. A backhand slash with the left, and the short-bladed sword fell across the giant's exposed neck. A lightning-quick thrust with the right, and the dagger penetrated the thick steel mesh of the guardsman's mail byrnie, right over his heart, as though the armor was not there.
"So goes the elephant," the stranger said aloud, tugging the dagger from the corpse. The huge guardsman was dead before he hit the floor.
Murmurs of astonishment swept through the crowd as Gord withdrew his dagger – even on the way out, the blade severed chainmail links as if they were strands of cotton! Never had any of them seen Keshrun chainmail severed thus by the mere edge of a dagger. The five remaining bodyguards had stopped their rush as Al Ruhk fell dead before them, but were now being urged on by catcalls and advice from the spectators. However, the eastern mercenaries were lending vocal support to Gord again, and this time even a few Kettites joined them. Here was a swordsman, and a weapon, the likes of which they had never seen!
The Jakifi guardsmen formed an arc and came forward slowly and with deliberation. They had encountered hard-bitten opponents before. Their plan was apparent; they would surround this foe and as two or three engaged him, the others would strike his unprotected flanks or from behind. Certainly, five of Kufteer's Own would make short work of this Ourmi cur. All were large, although none as big as the dead Al Ruhk. The tallest of the group, in the center of the bowed line, was also broad, with layers of fat overlaying his muscular body. This one sought to engage Gord first, to keep him busy while the others got into position. He came ahead, even before he got into striking range with his tulwar; as the senior member of the remaining group, he would get his chance to dispose of the foreigner alone – but the others would surround him, too… just in case. The big Jakifi rushed in and started to flail at his opponent with a series of furious cuts, shouting curses and insults all the while.
"You fight well, for a greasy pile of pigshit," Gord said, getting off the remark while he was in constant motion parrying and sidestepping the first few blows. The four other swordsmen had almost finished fanning out to cover Gord's sides and back when the foe in front of him took time for a long backswing.
Gord leaped toward the man suddenly, thrusting his sword out and upward. Caught off guard, the fat Jakifi swordsman tried to back away. He barely avoided the thrust, but was far too slow to prevent the followup strokes. Gord wounded him first with a dagger strike to the torso, then a painful backhand sword cut across the man's unarmored upper right leg. The big guardsman fell over backward, clutching at his leg, and lost consciousness when he hit the floor. Gord somersaulted over the man even as he fell and landed facing the four remaining attackers, who found themselves about to swing at empty space.
"Sheathe your swords now," Gord said flatly to them, "and I will forget this incident. If you continue to attack me, I will give you no quarter."
"Kill!" urged the Shah Kufteer.
Somewhat uncertain now, the four warriors came against their opponent once again, obligated to obey their master's command but loath to face this small and terrible foeman.
To your deaths, then," Gord said without threat or emotion.
The guardsmen of the Shah of Wadlaoo did not take the easterner's words lightly, but they really had no choice. Not to attack him meant death to them as surely as if they did come on and the small man's warning came true. Kufteer would boil them alive for failure, while at the worst this Ourmi offered them a clean and quick end. The four warriors launched themselves nearly simultaneously at the lone foreigner, not bothering to organize a plan of attack. Furious blows, lunging thrusts, and a flurry of slashes poured upon the black-garbed man from front and sides. It was frustrating to these attackers, for the small foreigner never seemed to be where he had been but a split-second before when a tulwar was sent swishing toward him.
In the course of this confused series of exchanges, the four men seemed to get in each other's way, while the stranger's own weapons inflicted many wounds of small sort upon the sweating guardsmen. The crowd was silent, awed by the feats of this single man. First he had dispatched a deadly assassin, then a giant swordsman, both without emotion or seeming strain. A third man was helpless on the floor, as good as dead if not already gone. Now he contested to the death with four expert warriors all at once. He stood still unwounded, holding four large tulwars in play, while those who dared wield them against this black-clad man were dripping blood from wounds he had given them.
Events were becoming too much for the westerners in the audience to bear. The insult inherent in all this was unacceptable. Onlookers from Jakif, Tusmit, and Ekbir grew angry and loosened their own scimitars and curved-bladed daggers. The various nomad tribesmen in the crowd watched the show without apparent allegiance, commenting to one another on style and form as they viewed the display before them. Most of the Kettites, along with all of the eastern mercenaries, however, were rooting openly for the small man called Gord of Greyhawk. They cheered his successes and laughed at the clumsy attempts of the Jakifi to strike him.
It was becoming obvious to all that the melee could end only one way, and that ending must come soon. All of the Jakifi guardsmen were wounded and panting with fatigue from raising and swinging their large blades repeatedly. In no more than a minute or two, one of them would fall, then another. Soon, all of those who had come against the small man would litter the floor as three already did.
When yet one more corpse crashed to the tiled floor, the shah had seen enough – and Kufteer himself entered the fray. Although the noble's dagger had a jewel-encrusted hilt, its silvery crescent below these gems was sharp steel, highly functional, and glittering with a dark enchantment. Kufteer came in a silent rush from a point slightly behind Gord, heading toward the young man's left side, with his curved dagger held across his body, set to deliver a disemboweling stroke as the black-garbed easterner concentrated on the three guardsmen still standing before him.
Gord gave no indication that he knew Kufteer was coming, but at the last instant he sprang aside suddenly, allowing the startled Shah of Wadlaoo to pass on a slant in front of him. The wickedly gleaming blade of Kufteer's dagger cut empty air; then, with a cross-body thrust of his dagger into Kufteer's side and a shove of his left foot against the nobleman's hip, Gord pushed the shah off course right toward the exposed blades of his own guards. The nearest of the swordsmen tried to pull his weapon up and away, but succeeded only in running the edge along Kufteer's neck as he did so. The mouth tried to scream, but no sound came out as the nobleman crumpled in his tracks.
The guardsman whose weapon struck the blow stood frozen for an instant, horrified at what he had just done. Gord's weapons flashed again, and the Jakifi warrior no longer had to concern himself with having slain his master, for he too was a corpse. As the guardsman's body collapsed on top of Kufteer's, the two survivors dropped their tulwars and ran. They would rather risk being captured some time later, given a thousand cuts, and then rolled in salt until dead than continue to face this terrible, black-garbed man any longer.
Silence reigned in the wine house for the space of a heartbeat. The flesh of the blubbery proprietor shook as he peered angrily about his establishment and realized his plight. It was bad enough that this upstart had won – now the bargain could not be sealed, and Omar would lose the thousand gold dok-shees and the fabulous pearl. Worse yet, the death of so great a personage as the Shah of Wadlaoo in his establishment would probably bring the wrath of the shah's own ruler, the Marcher Lord of Ket, down upon his body. Trembling and growing more furious by the second, Omar realized that the young foreigner must be killed at any cost. He vented his wrath in a shrill scream, pointed at Gord, and shrieked an order to "Attack!"
Several of Omar's armed servants reluctantly approached the circle where Gord still stood amid the fallen forms of his adversaries. At the same time, an uproar of sound and activity spread through the audience; these men had had enough of watching.
"Hoddo Ekbir!"
"Veluna and Struthburt!"
"Tusmani Akbur!"
In seconds, a cacophony of battle-cries and challenges erupted and the place truly became a battleground of east versus west. Kettites fought on both sides, each according to his feelings at the moment, brawling and using blades. The eastern mercenaries and outlaws generally contended with the dark-skinned and turbaned westerners, while Gord stood alone, an island in the turmoil because no one dared deal with him. Off to his right he saw the Pearl of Perfection making her way toward him across an uncongested area; the young man she had been with was nowhere in sight. One of the fat owner's servants lunged at the girl as she got near Gord, but with a lunge of his own and a flash of steel, the young man handled the threat easily. Then the crowd lost all semblance of cohesion, and the surge of the melee engulfed the open space that had surrounded Gord just a moment before. The girl moved closer to Gord and grabbed his arm.