He twisted aside and the point struck his chainmail, but it clove through the metal rings with only a little more force and went deep into him, so that the mace fell from his hand. He tried to clutch the blade but it sheared across his fingers. Then she was darting away, the greataxe sweeping past where she had just been. She rounded on the two of them, seeing the spear coming in towards her. Instead of staying back she moved in and caught the spearhead with the guard of her rapier, driving it towards the ground, using her sword-hand as a pivot for her whole body, dancing over the spearhead and bringing a knee down on the shaft. It was too good a piece to snap, but it bent and then sprang back, and she leapt past the spearman’s startled, painted face and, when she had passed, her sword followed and slashed his throat.
Tisamon was still fighting, one against four now, so she turned to the axeman, who was staring at her and backing away. She fell into her duelling stance, began advancing step by step. To her surprise and gratification he turned and ran away.
She looked round for Tisamon, saw him trading blows still with three men. They were obviously the pick of the lot. There was another Spider whose rapier moved like light and shadow, the second a rogue Ant-kinden complete with shortsword and tall shield, and the final man was some kinden she did not recognize, white-haired and whirling some kind of bladed chain about his head.
As she moved to join Tisamon something cut across her back, just a brief slash of the blade. She whirled, ducking into a crouch, silently cursing herself that she had not heard the newcomer.
He stood there sneering, a rapier in his hand, a tall, angular figure that she recognized.
Piraeus the Mantis-kinden, and he had a lean and hungry smile on him.
‘Enough play, Spider-girl,’ he said. ‘Let’s try it for blood now. Then we’ll see who’s best.’
‘Aren’t you going to ring a bell?’ Stenwold said softly, holding them at his sword’s point, trying to keep his eyes on both the men who were trying to reach for him.
‘A bell?’ Thalric asked, wrong-footed for a moment.
‘Oh you know, sudden betrayal, with Tisamon about to kick the doors down to save my sorry hide. It just reminded me of poor Elias in Helleron. Never mind. If you want my sword you’ll have to take it, and I’ll make that point-first if I can.’
Thalric glanced at Scadran, who began to move forward on Stenwold, his two companions going left and right so that the Beetle was now in a circle of five. He kept turning and turning, sword first this way and then that, waiting for the moment when everything turned to chaos.
‘Master Maker,’ Thalric said, ‘I would rather take you alive, but that’s just personal sentiment.’ Arianna had joined him there, alongside Lieutenant Graf, and he saw the way Stenwold’s eyes followed her for a moment. ‘You’ve been in the trade too long,’ he said harshly, ‘to lament over that. Sentiment is folly, Master Maker.’
‘Perhaps I just have higher expectations of people,’ Stenwold spat. He lunged at Scadran abruptly, making the big man stumble away, then he dropped back into the centre of the circle.
With a pained look Thalric extended his hand towards Stenwold, fingers open. ‘Scadran, take him now. If you can’t, I’ll shoot the man myself. Go!’
On the word ‘Go’ one of the grimy, high-up windows to his left exploded in shards of dirty glass and the man directly across from Scadran was punched from his feet, dead even before he hit the ground with a hole torn in his chest. In the echoes ensuing, like small thunder in the space of the warehouse, Scadran fell back quickly. Only one of his band tried to rush Stenwold. The luckless man had got a hand on the Beetle’s collar before he realized he was alone in his courage, and Stenwold rammed his sword up to the hilt in his stomach. Even as the dying man dropped away his sword was wrenched from its scabbard as Stenwold took it and ducked low. Thalric’s sting scorched across his shoulder, charring his robes black, and then Stenwold was running for whatever shelter he could find. A stack of crates suggested itself, but the top one exploded into splinters even as he neared it. He glanced back wildly, and just then there was another hollow boom from above, and then two more. Another man of Scadran’s pack was dashed to the ground, and the one next to him pierced through the leg by a finger-long missile that then buried itself entirely in the floor beyond.
Stenwold kept running. Thalric’s shots smashed a jagged hole in the planks of the floor nearest the entrance and he veered away, knowing he was being drawn full circle. He put on more speed, as much as he could manage, and raised his sword high. If this was to be it, if there was no more than this, then he would make an account of himself that even Tisamon would respect.
Another sting blazed past his cheek and he suddenly changed his mind, diving to one side, bouncing awkwardly on the floor where he had intended merely to roll, but ending up crouching behind a solid-looking box. In a second he felt the shudder as Thalric’s sting seared into it.
Piraeus dropped into his own favoured stance and saw Tynisa do the same. He had been waiting for this moment. She should realize his kind never forgot. She had blackened his reputation, slurred his previously untarnished name. When she now disappeared, no finger could accuse him, but everyone would know.
And blood-fighting, that was his kinden’s game. Let the Spiders dance and prance and win their false battles, he decided. He was a champion duellist in the Prowess Forum, but he was also Mantis-kinden. Revenge and murder were imbued in his very sinews.
He lunged forward, a simple move to start with, noting her style, her steps, as she backed away from him. Perhaps he should have killed her when he stood unnoticed behind her, but that would have given him scant satisfaction. He wanted her to know. To know who and to know why.
He had never challenged her with a rapier, only the clumsy practice blade of the Prowess, but it was a weapon that both their kinden knew well. She was some Spider dilettante, though, while he had been fighting since his tenderest years. He was a warrior from the Days of Lore, when his kind were acknowledged as the iron fist of the old ways.
He pressed his advantage, driving her back, enjoying the frown of concentration on her face. Go on, try your tricks on me, he sent his thought to her. He quickened his pace, his sword constantly testing hers, batting it from side to side, making his opening.
He blinked suddenly, staring at her. She was abruptly much closer than she had been a moment ago and his sword. she was inside the reach of his sword, which must mean that he was inside the reach of hers.
He glanced down, but he saw no more of her sword than the hilt. His own, in the meantime, was no longer in his hand.
He frowned at her, at that expression of concentration that had seemed so ludicrous before.
‘What?’ he said and began to fall backwards.
She had been fighting for blood, he realized at last, and he had still been playing.
Tynisa drew her blade from Piraeus’s body, already looking around. Tisamon was still making heavy work of the last two, the Spider and the man with the chain. The Ant-kinden lay nearby, having been gashed across the throat over the rim of his shield.
Tisamon glanced at her, and shouted, ‘Go get Stenwold out of there!’
She turned instantly and kicked her way through the doors to the warehouse. There was a scene of utter confusion, several bodies on the floor already. She located Stenwold, though, or at least his back. He was crouching behind a great box, but he had his sword in his hand and looked ready to make an unwise move any moment. There was a scattering of men across the warehouse from him, busy taking what cover they could, but it was not the threat of Stenwold Maker that had sent them there, for a great roar erupted from a broken window high on one side, and she saw wood splinters spray from the floor three, no, four times, punching a line of shot towards them.