An express train hurtled out of the darkness and slammed into his back.
Chapter Fourteen
The impact knocked Blade prone, the breath whooshing from his lungs, and sent the Marlin skidding across the landing. He heard Tabitha and Selwyn laugh—laugh?— and then he frantically pushed to his knees and tried to turn. A naked foot caught him at the base of the neck and sent him down again, his surroundings spinning as if in a whirlpool.
The serfs laughed below.
Numb from the last blow, Blade feebly attempted to roll over. Iron hands closed on his shoulders, and he was bodily lifted into the air. He struggled weakly, but it wasn’t enough to prevent his assailant from throwing him against a corridor wall. He landed on his left side and finally saw his attacker.
The hulking form of Elphinstone moved toward the youth, his mallet-like hands clenched into huge fists.
In a certain sense, Blade felt relieved. It was the apish brute, not Grell.
At least he stood a chance. Since he’d arrived at Castle Orm, he’d been played a fool, beaten, treated like dirt, and experienced the supreme humiliation of stark cowardice. Now was his chance to show these bastards what Warriors were made of.
Elphinstone halted next to the youth’s head and leaned down to grab him.
Not this time, Blade thought, driving his knees up and around, his legs bent, and succeeding in catching Elphinstone in the left temple.
The brute grunted and staggered backward.
Blade was up in a flash, in the on-guard stance. He considered resorting to his Bowies and promptly discarded the notion. His foe wasn’t armed.
Using the knives would be unfair.
Neither of the serfs were laughing.
Straightening, Elphinstone vented an inarticulate growl and charged, swinging his fists wildly, going for the youth’s face.
This time Blade was ready. He ducked under a couple of punches that would have caved in his skull and delivered three swift jabs to the brute’s ribs. When Elphinstone shifted to the right, Blade pivoted, pressing his initiative, burying his left fist in the apish man’s stomach and following through with a right to the jaw that rocked Elphinstone on his heels.
Instantly, Blade closed in, kneeing his adversary in the groin.
Elphinstone wheezed and doubled over, and Blade executed a flawless snap kick into the brute’s nose that sent him tottering backward almost to the edge of the landing. “Had enough?” he asked.
Elphinstone recovered his balance and bellowed his enraged response.
“No!”
Blade wanted to end the fight before Morlock or Grell showed up, especially Grell. As Elphinstone came toward him, he ran to meet the brute halfway. But instead of using his fists, he leaped into the air, performing a flying side kick, the yoko-tobi-geri, and struck Elphinstone full in the mouth.
As if smashed by a sledgehammer, Elphinstone catapulted head over heels onto his stomach with a loud thud. For a moment he lay stunned.
His head slowly rose from the hard floor, his lips cracked and bleeding, and he spat blood. With a guttural growl, he started to rise.
Blade was ready. Instead of slugging it out with the brute, he must rely on the martial arts. Elphinstone obviously knew nothing of the science of self-defense, and while the brute might be stronger, his reflexes and coordination were no match for Blade’s.
The young Warrior glided in and flicked a snap kick to his foe’s head before Elphinstone could rise, rocking the apish man on his haunches.
Another snap kick with the right leg was blocked, but a crescent kick with the left connected and sent the brute onto his back.
Elphinstone took longer to rise this time. Dark stains coated the lower half of his face and neck. He grunted as he propped himself on his elbows, then came off the floor in a surprising burst of speed.
Still in the on-guard stance, Blade retreated a step to give himself more room and leaped into the air, whipping his body in a spinning back kick that hit the brute at the base of the throat and lifted Elphinstone from his feet to sail to the edge of the landing and over it. He alighted on the balls of his feet and moved to the first step, expecting to see the apish figure barreling up toward him.
There was no one there.
Perplexed, Blade scanned the stairs below and saw no sign of his adversary. Yet Elphinstone had to be down there, somewhere. He doubted the brute was gravely injured. It would take more than a few kicks to put the Neanderthal out of commission. Pivoting, he looked at the serfs.
Tabitha and Selwyn were riveted in place, their expressions reflecting total astonishment.
Blade anticipated they would be elated at his victory and walked up to them. “See? I told you I’d take care of you.”
“You hurt him!” Tabitha declared angrily. “You hurt Master Elphinstone!”
“You had no right to be so cruel!” Selwyn added.
Bewildered by their passionate reaction, Blade blinked and jabbed a finger at the stairs. “He was trying to kill me,” he said defensively.
“He was not,” Tabitha disagreed. “He probably just wanted to put you in a cage.”
“And you think I should have let him?”
“Certainly. He’s one of the masts, after all. All of us should serve them gladly.”
“I’m no one’s slave,” Blade snapped, “and I don’t serve your masts. If I can, I’m going to put them out of business for good.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“I mean I’m going to put an end to their enslavement of the serfs.”
The brother and sister looked at each other.
“You can’t,” Selwyn responded in horror, forgetting his usual excessive civility.
In exasperation Blade threw his hands into the air and both serfs flinched. “Why not?” he demanded.
“Who will watch over us?” Tabitha asked, on the verge of tears. “Who will protect us and clothe us and feed us?”
The implications of her questions shook Blade to the core of his being.
He took a pace backward and gazed at them in blatant disbelief. “Let me get this straight. You want them to take care of you?”
“Of course, sir,” Tabitha said.
“We’d be lost without them, sir,” Selwyn chimed in.
“But they take advantage of you.”
Tabitha giggled. “How do they ever do that, sir?”
“They make you work for them, make you till the fields to produce their food, and they keep you cooped up during the day. You’re little better than slaves.”
“Oh, you have it all wrong, sir. We like working for the masts. They love us and treat us fairly.”
“How can you say such a thing? They beat and tortured your friend Tweena until she died. And Grell ate a serf.”
Tabilha nodded. “But Tweena deserved to be punished for disobeying the masts. And Cathmor deserved to be eaten for trying to leave the Domain.”
The absurd illogic baffled Blade, and he pressed a palm to his forehead as he tried to make sense of it all. The serfs were enslaved and didn’t even know it. Worse, they preferred the status quo. How could they? Didn’t they realize how precious freedom was?
“Can we go now, sir?” Tabitha asked.
“Go where?” Blade responded absently.
“We’d like to find our friends and play before dawn, sir,” Selwyn said.
“Or before the masts catch us,” Tabitha stated and snickered.
Blade stared at their pale skin, at their pale features, at their pale eyes, and suddenly their very paleness offended him. Their personalities were as colorless as their complexions, devoid of all character, stripped of any semblance of conviction and independence. They were pale imitations of human beings, at best, puppets on a string who didn’t want the puppeteers removed. “Go,” he said harshly. “Get out of here.”