If we could not hold back the vhangxi, they would all be slaughtered. And as much as I detested their foolishness, I still needed them. I briefed Deshiel and Ranai, then took command of a dozen men who, prior to our meeting, had only threshed grain and gigged toads. The two of them took their squads out into the darkness, and we waited as we had so many nights before.
This night, though, we did do one thing that we had not done before. In the past, I would block the road as a highwayman might by felling a tree across it. The vhangxi would stop to move it. While they were thus engaged, we would fall upon them from the front and both sides of the road, slaughtering them mercilessly.
This time we set up a bit differently. My group hid on the north side of the road just past a thicket of thorned-berry bushes. Ranai positioned her people, including the handful of archers we had, twenty yards down on the south side. Deshiel set up further to the east and back, ready to circle around north to cut the road behind the scouts. Since Ranai’s people would launch the attack and thus be most vulnerable, we had sharpened stakes and driven them into the ground before her position, in the hopes that rampaging vhangxi would impale themselves as they attacked.
The enemy crept up the road, taking great care as they went. In the past, they had jostled each other like boys at play, but now they came with flat eyes wide, watching the forest. With such huge eyes I assumed they could see well at night, but how well I could not guess. In the past it had not mattered much and, as we would engage them closely, I didn’t think it would matter to us, either.
Ranai let a half dozen get past her position, then black arrows sped from darkness and scythed through the vhangxi. Four went down, stuck through their chests. A half dozen sprang off the road toward Ranai’s position, but an equal number leaped the other way. Attacking an ambushing force head-on was the only way to defeat it, but the vhangxi had never done that before. Moreover, their action suggested they had analyzed our tactics and, anticipating a trap, planned a counter.
More arrows flew, dropping another pair of vhangxi. Those who had been following loped forward. Some cut into the woods almost immediately, but others came past the point of ambush, then drove in, looking to encircle Ranai’s force. This revealed tactical thinking on a level unseen before. They knew what we did and had figured out how to counter it.
Which meant it was time to do something else.
Without even bothering to draw my swords, I broke from cover and sprinted down the road. A heartbeat later-or a half-dozen, given how their hearts were pounding-my troopers followed me. They came as quiet as death and when I pointed south, they poured into the woods and hit the vhangxi in the flank.
Further east, from the darkness, someone shouted a command, and more of the hulking beasts came running.
I had no time to consider what I had heard. The enemy who had gone north now emerged from the woods to attack south-only to find me in their way. My first draw-cut opened a vhangxi from hip to shoulder. His guts gushed out in a wet rush, and he collapsed atop the steaming heap. Drawing my second sword, I bisected a skull before spinning away from slashing claws which, with one circular cut, I amputated at the wrist.
A quick thrust finished that one, then crosscut slashes beheaded the next. Dropping to a knee, I allowed a leaper to pass above me. His claws raked through air while my right blade raked through his stomach. He landed hard, bounced and rolled, entangling himself in his entrails.
Coming up, I stepped back. Claws passed within an inch of my face, but concerned me no more than the touch of a spring breeze. The missed blow twisted the creature, exposing his back to me. I whipped the sword in my left hand up and snapped it flat against his body. The tip bent, spending its energy against a vertebra just below the juncture of neck and shoulders. Without breaking the skin or even loosening a single scale, the blade shattered that bone, severing his spinal cord.
The vhangxi collapsed, only able to open and close his mouth as he struggled for breath that would not come.
From the south came the sounds of battle. Vhangxi grunted as they struck or were struck, and only the abrupt cessation of the sound differentiated between circumstances. Men screamed, all of them differently. From the quality of those screams, I could tell who would live or die. My mind tallied the sounds and I knew we were giving better than we got, but that this ambush was the last we’d be doing for a long while.
Then a man rode up the road. At least he looked like a man, and wore a man’s armor. He reined back as he saw me standing amidst the slaughter. I read no fear on his face and this I welcomed.
The vhangxi, having no discernible facial expressions, had been unsatisfactory foes.
The armored rider looked at me and spoke. He addressed me in a dialect I’d not heard in a long time. Moraven had never heard it. By the time he had come to be in Phoyn Jatan’s care, such formal and precise language, as well as the special dialect in which it was delivered, had long since passed from vogue. Those who had used it the most had died, and it had died with them.
I stood there, my swords dripping, then bowed my head. Though my mouth had difficulty with the words, I answered him in kind and stepped back down the road to a clear spot. With the tip of my right blade I scribed a circle. Its diameter was the road’s width. When I reached the point where I had started it, I spun on my heel, presenting him my back. Then I marched to the opposite side, resheathed my blades, and turned to face him.
He’d removed his helmet, then doffed his breastplate and gauntlets. He did not bother to remove the armored skirts or mail and greaves on his legs-the rules of the formal duel he offered precluded slashing legs. His robe and overshirt bore the crest of a bear’s paw, which would have marked him as a simple citizen of Erumvirine.
A blind man could have seen he was neither. Sharpened ears poked up through his black hair. His flesh had a blue tint to it, which made him very dark in the night. His amber eyes, however, glowed like those of a cat. I assumed he could see as well as one in the darkness, and likely had reflexes to match. Though he did not seem hurried in anything he did, he was ready to strike.
He bowed in my direction, holding it for a respectful time, but hardly as long as I was due. I returned the bow and held it for as long as befitted a peasant new-come to the sword. Though he covered his reaction well, his eyes tightened enough to tell me I’d drawn first blood.
Sounds of fighting in the woods tapered off. More important, I still caught tingles of jaedun. The strongest came from Ranai, and some came from Deshiel. The weakest came from Grieka-but mastering the wasp-flail had ever been difficult. I even caught a hint of Luric Dosh and the havoc he wrought with a spear, scribing his own circle with the blood of vhangxi.
My foe drew his sword and struck the first Crane guard. With his forward leg lifted and that foot planted against his right knee, his left arm drawn up and his sword high but back, it looked dramatic, but was seldom practical in actual combat. While it countered the Tiger and Wolf forms well, he’d not paid attention. I might wear the black tiger hunting, but I’d killed his troops as an Eagle. He should have adopted a Snake form to face me, but my slight had stung him and he wished to show he understood some of the more complex forms.
I understood them as well, so I stood there and waited. I did admire how he maintained his balance. His arms did not tremble or otherwise betray fatigue. He didn’t sway at all. He waited, knowing he had chosen a form that invited an attack. Given my arrogance, he clearly expected one and, had I had any way to measure his skill, I might have obliged him. With him being an unknown quantity, the only invitation I would accept was the one to join him in the circle.