Bransen held his position and glanced all around and down. Still he saw no guards walking sentry. After a few more moments of silence, he slipped into the room.
He moved away from the window, crouching in the darkness and allowing his eyes to adjust. Gradually, the distinctive shapes within the room came into clearer focus: the closed door across the way, the chairs before the hearth off to his left, the hearth itself.
And something set on the wall above the hearth.
Bransen sucked in his breath. Had good fortune shone upon him? Had he wandered into the very room that contained his mother's sword?
Silent as a shadow, he slipped to the hearth and saw the outline on the wall. It was a sword, a long sword, too long for bronze or iron.
Behind him to the right, the door banged open, and he saw the steel of the fine blade flash with the sudden intrusion of torchlight.
Bransen swung around to see a surprised Bannagran standing just inside the door, torch in hand and wearing only a tunic and loose breeches. The man's eyes were so wide that they seemed as if they might roll out of their sockets, and his jaw drooped open. But that dumfounded expression fast twisted into a wicked grin.
"Was it the Ancient Ones of the Samhaists or Blessed Abelle that put you here in my grasp?" the large man asked as he quickly set the torch into a bracket beside the door. "For truly such good fortune as this falls within the realm of divine miracle!"
He balled his huge fists and rushed forward.
Bransen sprang over the chair behind him, putting more ground and now two chairs between himself and the charging warrior. He landed in a defensive crouch and easily ducked away as Bannagran lifted one of the chairs and threw it at him. Then he hopped aside as the second chair flew through the air, swept away by the wrath of the powerful Bannagran.
The mighty warrior waded in with a wide-arcing left hook that the nimble Highwayman easily ducked, then came with a straight cross. Bransen's hand knifed up to deflect the blow, but Bannagran would not be so easily deterred. He launched a straight left and followed with a right, then back and forth in a sudden and vicious flurry, barreling forward like an angry bull.
Up came the Highwayman's hands one after the other, slapping left and slapping right, and ducking and swerving. A couple of glancing blows clipped him, but only at first, only while he was acting with his conscious mind instead of letting himself fall into the teachings of the Book of Jhest.
As the rhythm of the book flowed through his body, as his concentration became a pure interaction between mind and body, a fusing of the mental and the physical, and again it almost seemed to him as if his opponent were moving under water. Even the expressions of Bannagran's face as he roared in increasing frustration seemed an exaggerated, slow-moving thing, as the roar itself seemed to stretch out in the Highwayman's ears.
Now Bransen dared to counter, getting his hand up inside Bannagran's punch, deflecting it and launching one of his own. He hit the big man once, twice, thrice about the head with short, snapping jabs.
But Bannagran pressed on, ignoring the blows. And as he stepped forward, he dropped his right shoulder and launched a roundhouse punch that seemed to come from his ankle, his heavy right hand swooping in for the side of the Highwayman's head.
A right jab smacked into Bannagran's nose, but the big man didn't flinch. The Highwayman, in trying to drive his opponent back, didn't duck but bent his arm, his wrist against his ear to cover.
It was a perfectly executed block, a detailed maneuver in the Book of Jhest. But neither that book nor the Highwayman had taken into account the strength difference between the diminutive Bransen and the giant and powerful Bannagran. Bransen's arm blocked the punch, but the weight of the blow sent him flying sideways. He staggered and nearly fell, but instead threw himself into a sidelong roll that brought him back to his feet near the wall.
In charged Bannagran, fists flying, but suddenly Bransen wasn't in front of him. Bannagran only began to understand how completely Bransen had out-maneuvered him when he felt the weight of the man in black crashing against his legs, tripping him headlong into the wall. He managed to get his arms up to absorb some of the jolt.
He spun immediately, launching a wide-flying right hook.
Bransen ducked it, dropping so low that his butt nearly touched the ground. Up he sprang into the air, lashing out with his feet, one and then the other.
But as he landed, he found that he had done little damage to Bannagran, for the big man went right back to the attack. And now he was altering the angles of his strikes, high and low, and seemed perfectly willing to accept Bransen's stinging counters.
Bransen's ear ached from the last blow, and he understood that it wouldn't take many hits from Bannagran to drop him!
The flurry intensified; Bannagran snapped off a series of crosses, then dropped and repeated with three left jabs in a row, though Bransen brought his knee up to block. Up went Bannagran, and Bransen jumped back a step, then came back in, his hands rotating in overlapping circles before him, offering no openings.
A left jab snapped in, and Bransen turned it, retracted his hand, and started to counter. Then he saw the blood pouring from his fingers, and then he noticed that Bannagran's hand was no longer empty. Bransen leaped back, glancing from the cut to Bannagran, to the long knife that the man now held.
A sweeping crosscut had Bransen sucking in his gut and leaping backward. Bannagran charged ahead, stabbing hard, but Bransen went around the outstretched arm in a quick roll, then sprinted past the man for the wall.
Bannagran cried out in victory and turned to pursue, then watched in amazement as the Highwayman seemed to run right up the wall, springing directly over him in a twisting somersault. The Highwayman landed lightly, and a second leap brought him to the top of an overturned chair. He sprang away again, gathering momentum, in a great leap that sent him flying across the room.
He landed right before the hearth, grabbed the magnificent sword by the pommel, and turned to face Bannagran. With a grin, Bransen yanked the sword in an upward and sliding motion, its fine edge easily severing the two leather ties securing it to the upturned hooks.
Bannagran skidded to a stop.
"You drew first," the Highwayman chided. "I was content to embarrass you with open hand. Now it seems I must kill you." As he finished, the Highwayman leveled the deadly blade Bannagran's way. "Which will you pray to, mighty Bannagran? The Ancient Ones or Blessed Abelle?"
The Highwayman took a fast step forward, thrusting the blade; but Bannagran leaped back, caught a chair by the arm, and whipped it across to block. Then, with strength beyond anything Bransen had ever seen, the big man stopped his swinging arm suddenly and threw the chair.
The Highwayman dodged it, barely, and spun in a pirouette, then fell into another defensive crouch.
But Bannagran hadn't pursued; he had run back to the open door, shouting for the guards. Bransen heard a commotion out there.
He ran to the window, turned to salute the big man, and promised, "We two will fight again, sword to sword or fist to fist!" Then he went out.
But not down.
Like a spider, the Highwayman moved to the side of the window and then up. He reached the top and pulled himself over even as the head of a guardsman poked out the window and began looking all around at the ground. "Did he fall?" the man cried.
Bransen put his back against the crenelated tower top and lifted the gleaming sword before his eyes. He felt the smooth steel and the keen edge and marveled at the beauty of the etchings running the length of the blade. This was the work of his mother as surely as the copy of the Book of Jhest had been created by his father. Bransen didn't know the technique that had gone into making this sword, of course, the folded steel and precise and disciplined toil. He didn't know that it had taken his mother years to craft it.