Nature's Servant (63 page)

“WINNER: BRUKASI!” the mayor announced as Taurnil leapt to his feet, cheering loudly. Gaspi wondered if he’d be so enthusiastic if they had to fight the warrior woman and her awesome force-whip. Taurnil’s staff carried a powerful enchantment, but in the main that was for fighting demons, not other people, and he didn’t know how well it would stand up to that whip.

Taurnil nudged him with a hard elbow. “Can you make me one of those?” he asked, watching avidly as the deadly length of red light retracted into the whip’s pommel and disappeared.

“I could give it a go,” Gaspi answered, “but not without seriously draining myself. It’ll have to wait till after the tournament.”

“’Course,” Taurnil said, tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for the next bout.

The next fight was between a dark-skinned desert soothsayer and an older magician from the South. Gaspi remembered from the mayor’s introduction that he worked as an advisor in the cultured city of Bolanze. Both were teamed up with swordsmen, and though the soothsayer was creative, he didn’t have the power to match a fully trained magician who’d probably studied at the College of Collective Magicks in his youth.

Watching them, Gaspi remembered what Rimulth had told him about the shamanic tradition in the mountains, where magic was used almost exclusively for the purposes of healing, aiding in childbirth, and performing traditional rites. Combat was a purely physical thing for them, and an ignoble pursuit for a shaman, who was a kind of holy man. He didn’t think that magic users from such traditions would have much of a chance against those who studied martial magic as a discipline. And then there were those magicians who had shunned the ways of forceful magic altogether, and wouldn’t dream of attending a tournament to show off their skills. He smirked as he thought of what Heath would say about the Measure. He would see it as the worst kind of vanity!

The next few matches weren’t as impressive as the first two had been, and Gaspi started to think they weren’t out of their depth after all. Fighting Brukasi or Kusar would be a serious challenge, but they could probably hold their own against these other teams. The magicians weren’t particularly strong, and the exchanges were mostly filled with standard strikes. Gaspi and Taurnil compared notes as they watched, studying the tactics each team used in case they had to fight them in a later round.

Their studious focus was broken when Jaim and Sabu were called to fight. Gaspi’s nerves, which had diminished during the last few matches, returned in full force. He liked Jaim and he admired Sabu as a master of his art, and he was suddenly desperate for them to win. His opponent was a wiry gypsy magician called Delami. He was robed in such a garish clash of colours that Gaspi wondered if they were designed to put his opponents off.

Sabu drew his swords in advance, curved scimitars with gleaming blades and wicked edges. He began to go through some poses, the very picture of balance as he stretched from stance to stance, his swords flashing in the sunlight as he moved. Gaspi found himself entranced, bewitched as always by the blademaster’s unique grace.

Sabu’s counterpart was a compact gypsy fighter, who held a short, stabbing spear in one hand and an odd-looking device in the other. It looked like a squared-off sword with notches cut into the blade. He had something bundled against his back and a knife on his hip, and he was watching Sabu intently as the swordsman limbered up.

“What’s that weapon?” Gaspi asked.

“Swordbreaker,” Taurnil answered, “and I think that’s a net on his back.”

“What’s a swordbreaker?” Gaspi asked, nonplussed.

“Those notches can shatter a sword if you catch it right,” Taurnil answered. “It looks like that fighter’s kitted out for defence. He’ll try and break Sabu’s weapons and he’ll trap him with the net if he gets a chance. The spear and knife are his only offence. Lydia says gypsies have their own kind of hand to hand combat, so maybe he wants to disarm Sabu and force him to fight with his fists.

“Is Sabu bad at hand to hand?” Gaspi asked.

“No,” Taurnil said. “He’s just as good with or without weapons. That guy’s gonna have a hard time.”

Gaspi grinned in anticipation of the fight. Sabu would hold his own, come what may, but Jaim was as yet an unknown quantity.

“TAKE YOUR POSITIONS!” the mayor shouted, and the teams stepped into the enchanted circles of light. “BEGIN!”

Both magicians drew power and threw a force strike to test the strength of their opponent. The strikes clashed in mid-air with a booming sound that hurt Gaspi’s ears, spinning harmlessly off track, and the magicians summoned power to their fingertips once more. Sabu stepped forwards in his customary half-crouch, balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to move in any direction at a moment’s notice, but the gypsy fighter didn’t attack, waiting for him to make the first move.

Sabu obliged him, stepping in with a blistering flurry of attacks that forced the gypsy warrior into a desperate defence. He tried to catch one of the blades on his swordbreaker, but Sabu tightened the angle at the last moment and his sword clanged harmlessly off its side. Using his other sword, he knocked the stabbing spear from his opponent’s hand, and the gypsy leapt backwards, pulling the net off his back.

The blademaster circled him carefully, searching for an opening. Suddenly, he attacked again, springing at his opponent at speed. The gypsy flung his net with a sharp outward thrust of his forearm and fingers, but Sabu rolled under it, sprang back up and struck out with both swords. The gypsy brought his swordbreaker up, catching one of the blades in its notches. It shattered like it was made of glass, but the other blade cut across the gypsy’s chain mail. The mail didn’t split, but the blow was hard enough to knock him backwards. Sabu fell back too, dropping his broken sword. The gypsy drew his knife and began to circle, holding himself in a way that showed he was injured. Sabu grinned at him, and the gypsy grinned back fiercely. Gaspi remembered what Voltan had said about true warriors, thinking that he was watching two of them right here.

Jaim and Delami were locked in an exchange of strikes, and Gaspi was concerned to see that although Jaim’s spell work was tightly controlled, he was clearly the weaker of the two magicians. He was able to loose multiple strikes in rapid succession, varying the type and trajectory of each one with impressive magical dexterity. This forced Delami to maintain a strong defence and kept him from using his superior power to overwhelm the weaker magician, but it couldn’t go on that way forever. Unless Jaim came up with a winning strategy he would be overcome by Delami’s strength sooner or later.

Ignoring the magical combat, the two fighters battled with a kind of wild abandon. Sabu only had one sword left but his opponent only had a long knife and his swordbreaker. They sprang in at each other at the same time, weapons swinging to attack. Sabu thrust low, getting past his opponent’s guard and sending the long knife flying. He reversed the strike, going for a quick finish but the gypsy brought his swordbreaker up in time and caught the blade on the last notch, shattering it in Sabu’s hand.

Sabu threw the broken blade away and rolled to the right. Both fighters were weaponless now, and the gypsy discarded the now useless swordbreaker to one side as well. Sabu nodded his head in acknowledgement of the gypsy’s skill, and the gypsy nodded in return. The two fighters began to circle again, prepared to fight with nothing but their bare hands.

The magicians continued to duel, but Jaim was clearly beginning to tire, his strikes landing with less strength and frequency. Delami was stepping forward with each strike, launching his own powerful attacks, and Jaim was shuffling backwards to maintain the distance between them. One of Delami’s strikes finally broke through Jaim’s weakening shield, and it was all but over. Delami followed up with a hard, narrow force strike which struck him in the gut, sending him sprawling to his back. Jaim tried to rise again but Delami held out a hand, holding him in place with sheer magical force, as if pinning him with a giant hand. Jaim fell back, and Delami lifted the hold just long enough for him to lift his hands in surrender.

Gaspi thought that would be the end of the bout, but Delami didn’t interfere with the physical combat. Instead, he stood with folded arms and watched the fighters as they prepared to engage each other hand to hand. He was clearly confident that he could finish Sabu off if it came to it, and wanted to see how the combat played out. The crowd cheered at his decision, keen to see which of the skilled fighters would come out on top. Delami lifted a hand in acknowledgment and they fell silent, watching with baited breath as the two fighters circled.

Sabu and the gypsy continued to pace each other, seemingly unaware that the magicians had stopped fighting. The silence of the crowd meant nothing to them; only the fight mattered.

It was the gypsy who attacked first, taking a single
bound forward and leaping feet-first at Sabu’s head. It was an aggressive move, but somehow Sabu anticipated it, sidestepping the flying kick and sweeping the gypsy’s legs out from under him as he landed. The gypsy fell and tucked into a roll, barely escaping Sabu’s heel, which slammed into the ground where his head had just been. He chased the gypsy across the sand, launching a flurry of well-placed kicks, but though a couple of them landed, none of them connected fully, and suddenly the blademaster was on his back too, his legs skilfully hooked from under him. Both fighters rolled in opposite directions and sprang to their feet several yards apart.

They began to circle again, their arms and wrists locked in strange rigid shapes. The gypsy stepped in with a series of rapid punches, which Sabu blocked with his stiffly held forearms, flashing from position to position as he held the attacks at bay.

The interplay was bewildering to watch, the gypsy’s hands a blur of motion as he sought to strike Sabu, but despite a blistering combination of jabs and flat-handed strikes, Sabu’s defence was like an impenetrable wall, his arms snapping into position without hesitation, blocking the gypsy’s attacks time and time again. Suddenly the gypsy grabbed him by the shoulders and surged upwards with his whole body, thrusting at his gut with his knee. Sabu blocked the knee, but was forced to use both hands to do so, and the gypsy slammed an elbow into his face, snapping his head back.

The gypsy didn’t hesitate, following through with a flurry of punches that knocked Sabu’s head about in an alarming way. Sabu retreated, trying to get back into his rhythm, but when he managed to block the flow of punches flying at his head the gypsy thrust his knee at his gut once again, and this time it got through, sending the blademaster staggering backwards, both hands clasped protectively over his belly. Gaspi winced, struggling to believe what he was seeing. He’d never seen Sabu seriously threatened in combat before; he’d always seen him as invincible. He glanced at Taurnil, who appeared to have stopped breathing, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the sight of one of his heroes taking a beating.

Sabu was in full retreat, desperate to put distance between himself and his opponent, but the gypsy wouldn’t give him any quarter, matching his pace and throwing punches at him all the while. And then, so fast that Gaspi almost didn’t see what happened, Sabu caught the gypsy’s wrist and pulled the smaller fighter into his own lifted knee. The gypsy doubled up as it crunched into his abdomen, sending him staggering backwards. Sabu struck out with a foot, a vicious strike that collided with the gypsy’s chin, sending him spinning to the ground. Sabu walked over to him, his bloodied face fierce as a storm. Gaspi had never seen the normally calm warrior be anything other than controlled, but it was as if a war god had awoken and possessed his body. The gypsy struggled to his feet just as Sabu launched himself into the air. He spun all the way around like a whirlwind, lashing out with his foot at the last minute and connecting with the gypsy’s chin. The gypsy fell to the ground like a rock and was still.

The silence in the arena was deafening for the briefest moment, and then the crowd surged to its feet, roaring exultantly at the staggering display of skill. Gaspi assumed that, having won his personal battle with the gypsy warrior, Sabu would surrender to Delami, but the blademaster had other ideas. Ignoring the cheering, he flipped backwards like an athlete, spun around and ran straight at the magician.

The crowd’s triumphant cheering faltered and then rose again as a swelling roar of excitement. Taurnil grabbed Gaspi’s arm so hard he cried out in pain.

Delami straightened in alarm, summoning power as quickly as he could. Gaspi could hardly believe what he was seeing. A warrior attacking a magician! The odds were so heavily stacked in the magician’s favour it was inconceivable. All Delami would have to do would be to hit him with a force strike, or hold him in place with the kind of shield he used on Jaim, and it’d be over.

Delami summoned a single, large strike and launched it at the approaching warrior. The blademaster bounced forwards onto both feet and sprang upwards with explosive power. He somersaulted right over the strike, which passed harmlessly under him, and landed on his feet. Delami panicked, desperately drawing up power and retreating at the same time, but Sabu didn’t give him time to do anything with it. He sprinted the last few yards and leapt into the air, launching the same flying kick the gypsy fighter had tried against him minutes earlier. Delami froze, his power dissipating in his hands as the fearsome warrior flew at him. Sabu’s foot connected with his chin with a sickening crack, and the magician flopped bonelessly to the sand.