Between flashes of metal, idle thoughts still come and go.
Cassius will be mad that I’m using my boots a little bit.
Why were there people in the circle? Has the dome gone down?
Should I kill Fá here? Should I draw it out?
Then I’m punched in the back and reality crashes down on me.
Clarity shatters. Sound rushes in. I fall to a knee and smell my skin burning. Many of the Volk are chanting my name. The dome is down. Two bodies wearing ruby amulets lie in the circle. The Gorgons, Fá’s inner circle, old friends of the king. Given reprieve from my attacks, Fá stumbles to one of the dead men and falls to a knee.
“Darrow!” I follow the shout. It’s Cassius. He’s staring at me like I’m on fire or something. I check my arms. My suit tells me the shot I took in the back isn’t mortal. “Stop toying with your meal. Kill him!”
I thought I was doing just that.
Fá stands up from kneeling beside one of the bodies baying like a wounded animal. He rushes at me. He must have cared deeply about that Gorgon.
I baffle his charge by continuing my circle around him. This time I whip at his eyeshields a few dozen times with both Bad Lass andPyrphoros. He tries to tangle them in his warsaw, so I just switch Pyrphoros to its longest spear setting and poke at the weaknesses I’ve made in his armor as I whip him repeatedly in the helmet with Bad Lass. It’s almost funny how off-kilter he is now. When a wild slash overextends him and presents his flank where I’ve worked on the armor a bit, I close and thrust Thraxa’s razor into the underside of his extended left arm. The armor gives, the blade passes in and comes out the other side red with his blood. I retract it, see him try to grapple with me, so I swim right and back off while inhaling a fresh breath. The flow state is gone, but I still wade in its shallows. I bang my blades together.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
“Confess,” a dozen people yell.
It’s the first time they pick up the call.
Having Sevro and Cassius both out there has freed me to focus. I know they have my back, but it’s no longer all about the duel. There are other factors at play outside the circle. Fá is beyond exhausted now. I go at him again, circling like before, striking only at his helmet’s eyeholes with the tips of my whips until they’re so mauled he can’t possibly see out of them. As I’m doing it, I’m glancing around. The Ascomanni have fallen silent, but many of the Volk scream and cheer. Those Gorgons that have not rushed in are almost surrounded by Skarde and his friendly jarls. They look nervous. I’m beginning to see why. There is no question to any watching, I can kill Fá at will.
I can’t, not at will. Not truly. I won’t be tempted by hubris. Even wounded he’s dangerous and waiting for his chance. But he and I both know eventually I will kill him.
So I back off, and slam my weapons together again to give him time to think.
Clang. Clang. Clang.This time more blades join mine in slamming together. Volk blades.
Sinister. The sound of judgment. “Confess!”
Fá can no longer see out of his helmet. He has no choice but to remove it. It reveals a face flushed and soaked in sweat and even tears. He pants steam into the cool air and leans on his warsaw. The look of fear in his eyes is total. It’s a fear you can only know if there’s ever been a man who wants to kill you more than he wants anything else in all the worlds, a man relentless and without pity, a man you are too tired to stop.
“Atlas au Raa is your master. Confess!” I whip him in the face and leave a bloody gash. “Tell them how he stole theDustmaker.How he gave you the keys to Ilium. How he helped you master the Ascomanni. Turned you from their hunter into their king. Confess.”
Someone is shouting translations in the Ascomanni tongue. The Ascomanni know the name of Atlas au Raa all too well. They stare in absolute silence at Fá.
Skarde and others beat their axes together.Clang. Clang. Clang.
I wait for Fá to speak.
The circle waits with me. The wind howls around the acropolis. It carries laughter from the other islands. The smell of roasted meat, the iron tang of the slaughtered leviathan, the rich scent of burning wood, and the sighing of the sea.“Shoot him,”Fá whispers. He looks over at his Ascomanni bodyguards. Those with their helmets down look horrified at Fá’s distress.“Shoot him now.”
Before they can obey, an Ascomanni shaman with emeralds embedded in his forehead shouts something I can’t understand. More shamans enter the fighting circle and put their bodies between me and the bodyguards as shields. None of the Ascomanni bodyguards move. The horror on their faces becomes shame. Shame at what Fá has asked them to do, and confusion. He has not yet answered my accusations. His shamans yell at him in their alien tongue.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Enraged, Fá turns to the richly dressed Gorgons. There are only four left. Two lie dead in the circle, where have the others gone?“Brothers. Kill the Gold.”
Only one of the four is stupid enough to try. He raises a pulseFist but Skarde throws an axe end over end to cleave his head in two. The others sense the conservative jarls waiting to kill them should they dare intervene.
“You are blessed by the Allfather. Kill him yourself, Great Fá,” Skarde calls.
Fá just waits, heaving for air, smiling at me. A scream comes from atop the acropolis. I hear metal on metal and the sound of men dying. A howl goes up. Sevro. He slipped away during the fight to search for snipers and the like. Cassius hasn’t. He monitors the circle for threats.
