PD.2.14 (Patreon)

Lubau moved first. Not forward. Sideways. One step to his left, enough to keep the others from bunching, enough to make Ouz read the line again.

“Keep him alive,” Lubau said. He did not shout. He did not need to.

The shape changed at once. The shield-bearer stepped into the center to close the lane. One spearman widened right. The other slid left. Club-man drifted to the flank, ready to crush whatever got pinned. The bowman snatched for his weapon with both hands, half crouched, eyes fixed on Ouz. The wounded man with the bad leg dragged himself nearer the fire, knife in hand, waiting to stick steel into anything that came close.

They had not trained together. Ouz could see that at a glance. Fear was doing the work.

The spearmen pushed in first. The others tried to crowd through behind them. Too many lines.

Ouz moved before the shape finished forming. He slipped toward the low spear thrust, knocked the shaft off line with his short sword, and let the higher point rake across his shoulder instead of driving through his chest. Pain flashed at once. He stepped deeper before either spearman could recover and buried the blade in the nearer man’s throat.

Blood burst hot over his hand. He ripped the sword free and hurled the dying man into the second spearman. They crashed together for one beat. Ouz turned just in time to see the club coming for his skull. He ducked. The weapon missed by inches. The bowman had the bow in hand now and was trying to rise into a shot through his own men. Too slow. Not a real fighter. Ouz caught the shield rim with his left hand, tore the shield-bearer off line, and dragged him into the path of the arrow. The arrow came anyway. It punched through leather and sank into the shield-bearer’s upper back. The man screamed and buckled. Ouz wrenched the shield free from the man’s loosening grip and smashed its edge into club-man’s mouth. Teeth broke loose. The thick man staggered, hands flying up too late.

The second spearman had shoved the dying body away and came again with both hands on the shaft. Better angle this time. Hard thrust for the ribs. Ouz turned the shield. The spearhead punched through wood and stuck fast. Ouz dropped the shield at once and went forward along the trapped shaft, one hand sliding down it to keep the point pinned. The spearman tried to wrench free. Ouz chopped once at the hands. Two fingers spun away. The man screamed. Ouz drove his forehead into the man’s nose. Bone cracked. The short sword went up under the jaw. He let him drop.

Something smashed into Ouz’s side before he could reset. The man with the wounded leg had come in lower than Ouz expected. Slower than the others, but pain had not kept him down. He hit low and hard, more tackle than attack, and the two of them crashed into mud and slush beside the firepit. Ouz’s sword hand struck stone. His fingers went numb. The wounded man clawed for Ouz’s throat with both hands and screamed for the others.

Ouz jammed his forearm into the man’s face. Teeth snapped at skin. The scream broke into a wet gargle. Ouz drove his thumb into one eye. The man recoiled. Ouz twisted under him, forced a knee between them, and heaved. The wounded man rolled off clutching his face.

Club-man was already coming back. So was Lubau. Ouz snatched a half-burnt log from the edge of the fire and hurled it into the thick man’s chest. Sparks burst across cloak and beard. The man flinched and slapped at flame, and that gave Ouz room to get one foot under him. He found his sword by feel, fingers still half numb, and closed his hand around the grip. That saved his life.

Lubau’s sword cut through the place where Ouz’s neck had been a breath earlier. Fast. Too fast for a camp brute. Too clean for a man who had spent the night barking orders by a fire.

Ouz rose hard, half stumbling, and got his blade up just in time to meet the next cut. Steel rang. The impact ran from wrist to elbow. Lubau did not overreach. He did not throw himself into the attack. He gave a step to keep his balance and cut again for the blood-slick shoulder. Ouz slipped back, but not far enough. The sword point tore cloth and opened skin. Warmth spread at once.

The bowman loosed another arrow. Lubau heard it and shifted first. Ouz saw that shift and dropped. As he went down, his free hand closed around a fistful of wet slush and ash. The arrow hissed over Ouz and buried itself in club-man’s throat. The big man froze, one hand rising to the shaft. Blood bubbled around it. He dropped to his knees.

Lubau’s eyes cut to the bowman. The meaning in them was clear. The bowman stared in horror. He had just killed the wrong man.

Ouz went for the bowman. Lubau moved to intercept. Ouz flung the slush and ash into his face and cut past him at once. Lubau’s blade passed outside Ouz by inches. One beat. Enough.

Ouz reached the bowman as the man clawed for another arrow he had not even set. The short sword went into his belly. Ouz felt the blade drag through meat. The man folded around it with both hands on Ouz’s arm, trying to hold the steel inside himself by pure terror.

Ouz smashed his forehead into the man’s face, ripped his arm free, tore the blade out with it, and turned.

Too late to stop the next strike. Lubau came for the body first. Ouz turned into it on instinct, blade and shoulder closing the line. Lubau saw it and dropped the cut at once. Steel opened Ouz’s thigh. Not deep enough to take the leg. Deep enough to twist the world under him.

Ouz stumbled and dropped hard to one knee, one palm slamming into the slush to keep him from sprawling. Lubau stepped in to finish it. Ouz snatched up a fallen spear and jabbed it upward from the mud.

Lubau had to cut the shaft aside or take it through the gut. He cut it clean in half. Ouz used that instant to roll through blood, mud, and melting snow toward the firepit. The wounded man, half blind and somehow still alive, tried to crawl out of his path. Ouz drove the broken spear stump into the man’s back as he passed. The body arched once and stayed there.

Two left. Lubau. The shield-bearer with an arrow in his back, still breathing, still somehow upright.

Ouz rose slower this time. His shoulder burned. His thigh leaked warmth into his boot. One hand still tingled from the strike on stone. Breath came too fast. He tasted iron whenever he swallowed. Lubau saw all of it.

“You should’ve stayed in the dark,” he said.

They were the first words Ouz had heard from him that night. His voice held steady. That told Ouz what sort of man he was. Not a screamer. Not one of the fools by the fire. A man who could keep his head while bodies dropped at his feet. The shield-bearer had less of it. His shoulders sagged. Blood kept running down his back from the arrow his own man had put there.

Lubau circled right. The shield-bearer stayed in front, there to block the lane and die buying time if he had to. Two lines. One real threat.

Ouz gave them ground on purpose, stepping around the firepit so the flames stayed off to one side. Heat licked his cheek. Smoke rolled across the line between them. His thigh hated every step. Good enough. Let them see the limp. Let them think he was done.

The shield-bearer committed first. He charged with a shout, shield high, sword cocked behind it. Ouz waited until the last instant and slipped around the outer edge instead of meeting the rush head on. The man was tired, hurt, leaning too much into it. He could not turn fast enough. Ouz’s blade slid under the raised arm and deep into the side. The shield-bearer gave one raw gasp. Ouz tore the blade free and shoved him on. The man stumbled past, shield dropping, blood running faster now. He made it two steps before his knees gave way. He fell face first into the mud and did not rise.

Now only Lubau.

The camp had gone strange around them. Fires still burned. One tent had caught where a torch had rolled and now smoked from a low orange bite climbing the canvas. A horse screamed somewhere beyond the crates. One of the dying men coughed wetly, shuddered once, and went still. A dark thread of blood ran through the mud, found the coals, and hissed. The clearing smelled of smoke, shit, opened guts, and hot iron. Ouz dragged in one deep breath and made the next one smaller on purpose.

Lubau stood alone near the center with his sword out and a long knife in his other hand. He looked down once at the bodies around him.

Shield. Spear. Spear. Club. Bowman. Wounded man. He looked back at Ouz.

“You’ve done this before,” he said. “Someone trained you.”

Ouz had not said a word all night. He did not start now. He could feel what the fight had cost him now. Blood ran down his thigh from the sword cut. His shoulder burned where the spear had raked him and Lubau had opened it further. His side throbbed from the ground, the blows, the twists. One hand still felt half dead. He had won the count and bled for every man in it. Lubau watched him take one limping step and smiled a little.

There it was. Interest. Lubau was not rattled. He was measuring. Ouz kept moving. Small step left. Keep the fire off one side. Keep the smoking tent close enough to matter. Do not let Lubau choose the pace alone.

Lubau matched him. Straight sword. Slightly longer reach than Ouz’s short blade. Knife in the off hand. No shield. No waste. Heavy cloak open now, one side dark where another man’s blood had dried into it. Under the cloak, layered leather and a short mail shirt cut for movement. Good feet. Grip loose.

He had shifted around his own archer’s shot without turning his head. That told Ouz enough. The others had fought like men leaning on numbers. Lubau was the only one still thinking.

Lubau came in without warning. Sword high for the head. Knife low for the belly. Ouz parried the sword and twisted his hips clear of the knife. Lubau drew back in time to avoid the return cut to the wrist. Fast again. Boots never crossed. Never tangled. He knew his feet.

Three more exchanges followed in quick succession. Steel clicked, rang, scraped. Knife for the ribs. Sword for the collarbone. A thrust at the throat. Lubau recovered at once and pressed in again.

Ouz gave ground over blood-slick dirt and the broken edge of a shield, striking back only to buy room. Lubau knocked one cut aside, slipped another, and nearly drove the point through Ouz’s mouth. It missed by a thumb’s width.

Lubau was the better fighter in clean space. Ouz knew it now. Maybe Lubau knew it too. So Ouz stopped giving him clean space. When the next sword cut came, Ouz stepped in instead of away.

The edge bit into his side, shallow because Ouz had crowded the cut, and Ouz let it. He crashed chest to chest with Lubau before the man could recover full leverage. The knife punched toward Ouz’s back and skidded off rib instead of sinking where it wanted. Pain burst hot enough to blur the firelight.

Ouz hooked Lubau’s sword arm with his own bleeding left arm and drove his forehead into Lubau’s face. Once. Twice. Lubau snarled and kneed him in the thigh wound. The leg nearly buckled under him. Ouz bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to flood his mouth with blood and did not let go.

No room for form now. Ouz slammed Lubau backward into a crate. Wood cracked. Lubau stabbed again with the knife. This time it went into Ouz’s side for real. Short. Mean. Deep enough. The stab stole his breath for a beat. Ouz made a sound he barely recognized.

Lubau tried to rip the knife free. That was his mistake. For the first time in the fight, one of Lubau’s hands stopped trying to kill and started trying to recover. Ouz trapped the knife wrist with both hands, even with the blade still inside him, and dropped his weight. The wrist smashed against the crate edge. Something cracked. Lubau lost his grip, but the knife stayed buried in Ouz’s side.

Lubau still had the sword. He tore his other arm loose and hacked down at Ouz’s neck from almost no distance. Ouz let go of the ruined wrist, caught the sword forearm with his left hand, tore the knife out of his own side with his right, and drove it up under Lubau’s jaw. The angle was wrong for a clean kill.

The knife tore through tongue, teeth, and the roof of the mouth. Lubau convulsed, both hands clawing at Ouz as the sword slipped from his numb fingers into the slush. Ouz shoved harder. The knife point burst out near the cheekbone. Lubau made a wet choking sound and sagged.

Ouz started to pull free. Lubau’s good hand slammed into Ouz’s side wound. Pain flashed through him so hard his grip broke at once.

Lubau tore backward with blood pouring from his mouth and face, half blind now, making a raw animal sound. He snatched the fallen sword with his left hand, ugly grip, ugly angle, and slashed wild and fast. The skill had gone ragged, but not the intent. The first cut opened Ouz’s upper arm. The second carved across his cheek.

Ouz stumbled over a corpse and nearly went down. Lubau came on anyway, jaw ruined, one wrist hanging wrong, still trying to finish it. That was the worst part. He was still there. Still dangerous. Neither of them moved fresh anymore. They moved on will. Still refusing to die.

The smoking tent had burned lower beside them. Sparks rose into the cold. Ouz snatched a fistful of ash and blackened dirt from beside the firepit and threw it into Lubau’s face.

Lubau flinched. Barely. Enough. Ouz drove forward low and slammed his shoulder into Lubau’s hips. They went down together. The sword fight became something else. Mud. Blood. Weight.

Lubau punched for the face. Ouz took one on the cheek, one on the mouth, and answered by driving his thumb into the ruined jaw. Lubau bucked like an animal. They rolled through wet ash and spilled coals. Heat bit through cloth. Burned canvas stung the back of Ouz’s throat. Ouz’s hand found Lubau’s sword wrist. Lubau smashed his free hand into Ouz’s temple before the broken wrist gave out and failed him. White light burst across Ouz’s vision. He bit Lubau’s forearm through the sleeve just to make the grip change.

It changed. Lubau jerked hard to tear himself free. The sword slipped from his grip and vanished into the dark. Now Lubau had only his hands, his weight, and whatever spite was left in him. It was still enough to kill with.

He rolled on top and his fingers closed on Ouz’s throat. Strong. Very strong. Ouz clawed for anything. Found hair. Found ear. Found mud. Found nothing that mattered. The edges of the camp started to dim.

His hand brushed broken wood. Not wood. The snapped half of a spear shaft. He grabbed it and drove the splintered end into the back of Lubau’s calf.

Lubau roared and his weight shifted. Ouz turned with it, got a knee between them, and shoved. Lubau rose just enough. Ouz came up under him and tackled him backward into the low fire. Flame rolled over cloak and leather. Lubau convulsed, half from pain, half from instinct. Ouz did not let him up.

He found his short sword in the dirt beside the pit, got both hands on the grip, and drove it into Lubau’s chest. Mail caught it. Not enough. He ripped it free and stabbed again lower, under the edge, into the belly. Lubau grabbed his wrist. Still fighting. Still trying to stop the third blow.

Their faces were inches apart now. One eye full of ash. Nose broken. Blood at the mouth. One glove smoking where fire had caught and gone out. Ouz bore down with everything he had left. The blade moved a finger. Another. Lubau’s grip weakened. Ouz shoved harder and felt the point sink deep. Lubau exhaled once. He did not scream or curse. Breath just left him. The hand on Ouz’s wrist slackened. The eyes stayed on his for one more moment, still full of life, still refusing to believe death had reached him too.

Ouz yanked the sword free and drove it once through the throat to make sure. Lubau stopped moving. For a little while Ouz stayed over him because standing felt harder than killing had.

The camp had lost its shape. Fire here. Smoke there. Bodies in the dirt. One horse stumbling lame near the trees. The burning tent sagging into itself. The old stone entrance beyond the camp still open and black, waiting.

Ouz tried to rise. He had to tell his body twice before it moved. His right leg held. The wounded one nearly dropped him at once. He planted the sword in the mud and hauled himself halfway up. Pain tore through shoulder, thigh, side, arm, all of it hitting at once. His breath sawed in and out of him. His hand would not stop shaking.

He looked around to make sure the dead were staying down. The shield-bearer was still. The spearmen were still. Club-man lay on his side with the arrow in his throat. The bowman facedown in the mud. The wounded man stared at nothing. Lubau burned at one sleeve where the fire had licked the cloth and died. No one stood.

Ouz planted the sword tip harder and tried to climb the rest of the way up. The leg gave him nothing. The world tilted. Black crept in from the edges. He spat blood into the slush and forced himself to stay awake. He was not dying here. Not now.

Lubau was dead. The camp was his. The entrance behind it still waited. Whatever waited beyond the entrance had heard all this or it had not. Either way, the night was not finished.

He dragged himself one body’s length and braced a hand on the broken crate. Pain hit so hard his vision flashed white. He got halfway up. Dropped again. This time he stayed there, one hand pressed to his side, head bowed over blood and slush while the fires snapped around the dead. He had won. Barely.

Snow crushed underfoot in the dark beyond the camp. Ouz raised his head. Firelight had held his eyes too long. Blood loss blurred the line where the entrance opened into the trees. He could not make out more than movement.

Something was coming.