"Fynn" – a Hesirion fragment.

Light glinted along the curved metal edge of the Khotai as it reached the zenith of its motion. The blade, two and a-half cubits in length and three fingers broad, seemed to hang there weightless in the thickening air. Until, after what seemed like an age, the Khotai, swung by the powerful arm of the Dhejenim warrior, was brought back down with such force that it would have severed the head of a bull.

Fynn, debris scraping his eyes, felt the blade slash by and the sharp pull as it bit through his hair. He had rolled to his right instinctively, and it had saved him. Blind, he reached to where he thought his weapon had fallen, and found nothing. The Dhejenim grunted and Fynn through their entangled legs felt his assailant straighten to strike again.

To Fynn time seemed to have slowed almost to a standstill, the reflex like parries and thrusts, defences and counter attacks of the last two minutes had stretched into a languid slow dance, as if the warriors fought in deep water. His eyes, undone by a hand full of dust and ground eggshell, would not recover fully for an hour at least, and almost immediately his other senses had shifted and swelled to fill the vacuum of his awareness.

With careful precision he shifted his weight, his left foot moving to encircle the flexing leg of his enemy. At the same time he raised his right leg into the air and sliding it like a serpent across the oblivious Dhejenim’s body, found purchase beneath the heavy girdle of leather and horn that supported the Khotai’s sheath.

Fynn then did the impossible.

……………

Ghozhai-han, had killed two men today already, this unarmed and un-armoured stripling would be his third. He just wished the eel would stay still. He had to grant the boy his speed. How he had avoided the Khotai’s killing stroke the Dhejenim could not fathom. But the pocket full of powder had done its job and he knew his opponent was as blind and helpless as a new born kitten. Raising himself up to his full height, a full head above any other warrior in the personal guard of Bholmenn-Khett; all of whom were tall men, he raised his deadly blade for the final time.

To Ghozai-han what happened next felt peculiarly like he had been picked up and then laid gently down again, like a child being laid in its cot by a careful mother. To Fynn it was a single soft stepping forward. While to the stunned spectators within the makeshift arena it seemed as if the two warriors, one prone the other standing above him victorious, had simply been turned ninety degrees, as if by an interventionist god as a man might turn the hands of a clock.

……………

As his body lifted from the ground, propelled upward by the falling motion of the Dhejenim, Fynn raised his hands to intercept the moving sword arm that still carried the blade toward him; the force of the blow lessened by Ghozai-han’s disorientation.
Taking the upper part of the Khotai’s grip in his right hand, Fynn twisted his enemy’s wrist and hand sharply with his left, removing one from the other.

……………

Later, as they huddled and discussed the fight in the shadows of a grim dockside tavern or the oil-lit back row of another baiting pit of Hereborn, those that had been in the crowd claimed the whole shift of power had seemed to have been a single, almost ballet-like movement.

Even those who could claim prowess with a blade and a working knowledge of hand-to-hand violence for themselves, and of those there had been several, grunted their approval and admiration.

For at the apparent moment of his death, and in one flowing movement, the boy had raised himself up, and blocking a deadly sword blow, had pushed his assailant flat. Turned, with his opponent’s sword now in his own hands, and using the long Khotia blade like a scythe had removed the head of the fully armoured Dhejenim warrior at his feet.

What came next happened just as swiftly.

……………

Fynn, could feel the silence that followed his victory, it pushed up against him, abrasive and predatory. His eyes, still blind, felt like hot coals, tears streamed down his face, and in the half-light of the baiting pit he was suddenly aware of a movement behind him. Turning towards the threat he struck out with the blood stained blade at the nearest of a group of blurred shadows.

……………

Bholmenn-Khett, Pharhai of Eigermon, had been applauding his champion as he raised the Khotai for the final blow, and had turned to face his latest bride who sat behind him in the silk draped seats separate from the common stalls. He had hoped that this bloodletting might go as far as to stir up her own blood. Perhaps even engender a vicarious respect for her new and eager husband, anything but the cold venomous stillness that he had experienced the last two nights. Yet as he looked at her and watched her half-lowered eyes widen and her beautiful but melancholy face transform into a picture of joy, Bholmenn-Khett could not help notice the look of horror on the faces of the rest of his entourage.

His attention swung back to the pit at almost the exact moment the great blade, now impossibly in the hands of the ragged pirate whelp, struck the throat of his prize gladiator.

He was incredulous, a disbelieving laugh transformed into red-faced anger in his throat and he choked, spittle frothing onto his chin and splashing onto the dry floor of the arena.

Staggering to his feet, his eyes bulging, his whole face a mask of hate, Bholmenn-Khett, began to draw the short Hensai blade from the silk-wrapped scabbard worn across his waist, launching himself toward the still blind Fynn, several of his bodyguard at his heels.

……………

It was a matter of honour as well as tradition that the Dhejenim keep the blades of their Khotai razor sharp, and a smith or a travelling whetstone-man who knew how to keep these all but sacred blades in this ideal condition where prized indeed. Ghozai-han had gone as far as to employ a particularly skilled and favoured smith into his own small retinue.

The blades, traditionally used as one would a cutlass and designed for heavy slashing strokes, were usually only sharpened on one side. Yet following a display of arms at a gaudy tournament in Gol-Simion, Ghozai-han had adapted his fighting style to include several straight thrusts. He had then instructed his servant to grind and sharpen the first few finger breadths of the upper edge to create a deadly lance-like point that, with enough strength, could be forced through a coat of mail or lacquered shell armour, as well as the heavy gambeson beneath.

……………

It was this blade, so sharpened, that punched through the breast-bone of the still incredulous Pharhai to protrude a foot from the expensive fur lined cloak at his back.

Hundreds of semi-precious beads and tiny cut-glass masks tumbled to the floor, freed from several long necklaces that garlanded the throat of Bohlmenn-Khett by the razor edged Khotai.

The first of the small yet ingeniously shaped masks to hit the floor was crushed and cracked beneath the heavy boot of the nearest bodyguard; while at almost exactly the same instant one of the falling beads was shattered by a steel-tipped arrowhead.

Then, as if pulled from behind with ropes, the armoured bodyguards where whipped backwards, each with at least two black-fletched arrows buried deep in their bodies.

The last of the arrows struck Bohlmenn-Khett in the chest and neck, all this still just moments after Fynn’s sword had struck home, jerking the Pharai’s dying body backwards so hard that it was pulled free of the long blade.

Finally the room was still.

……………
……………

“Karl?”

Flynn’s hopeful question hung in the air with the dust.

“Aye, and some of the lads.”

At least a dozen dark cloaked archers stood in the shadows at the rear of the stands behind Fynn. In their midst was a dark shape that stood at least as tall as the dead Dhejenim.

“I can’t see Karl… the bastard used ground eggshell, and...”

Fynn’s words were cut short by the sound of several longbow cords being stretched.

“What?”

Fynn turned his head left and right trying to locate the new threat. Then suddenly he was aware of a smell so out of place in a baiting-pit, not a smell, a fragrance.

Bergormine and Esterwood.

……………

The young widow of the Pharai stepped slowly down from her bench, her eyes never leaving the face of the young warrior who had unwittingly freed her from the unwanted attentions of her ogre of a husband. Her two handmaidens squeaked in fear and reached for her as if to stop her. Ignoring them she stepped into the pit.

The walk from the silk strewn bench to the body of her husband could not have been more than nine feet, yet it seemed to her that it took forever to close the distance.

……………

Fynn, trapped in the pain scraped dark, and reaching out with his senses recalled a fleeting glimpse of a beautiful young girl seated behind a wealthy looking merchant type. It had been as he was being led into the small arena behind The Candlehand Inn.

This fragrance had to be her he thought. Standing so close now he could feel her breathing.

What in hell did she want?

He suddenly remembered his sword arm, still outstretched. The ache in his shoulder now acutely uncomfortable he let the sword arm fall, the sudden movement making the girl gasp.

The rest of the crowd, so quickly cowed by the sudden violence toward none combatants, were beginning to regain their bravado, yet other unified creak from the black bows again urged them to silence.

“Fynn, come on. One of these bastards is bound to have sent for the harbour watch, we need to get clear… at least to a different ale-pit.”

“Just… just a moment Karl… I…”

Never taking her eyes from her ragged pirate saviour the girl bent down to her husband’s body. Taking the Hensai, still half in and half out of it’s scabbard, she lifted the hem of her husband’s expensive tunic, gold thread work still showing through the damp dark stain that continued to spread. Then cutting the heavy purse free and leaving the blade on the ground beside her husband’s body, she stood; taking the young pirates hand she placed the purse in his palm, closing his fingers slowly around it.

Fynn smiled, and the girl smiled back though Fynn could not see it. It was a beautiful heartbreaking smile.

The girl turned and stepped back to her handmaidens, their hands flapping theatrically in panic and fluster. There was a rustle of cloth behind her and she turned only to find the pit, now empty but for the blood and the cooling dead.

…………………

16/06/05

h.