Legacy of Steel Read online

  General Abrena obviously had the same thoughts, for she turned her swift glance to Sara and said, "No. Weapons must be chosen. I will not allow the duel for rank to be turned into a street fight."

  Massard curled his lip. "Daggers, then. And that dragon must leave. I don't want to be scorched by him when she dies."

  "I wouldn't worry about the dragon if I were you," Sara said caustically. "I'd worry about breathing near open flames. Your breath alone could kill an ogre."

  Mirielle held up her hand to stem the gathering tide of insults"Daggers are acceptable. Knight Warrior Conby, do you want armor?"

  Sara noticed that Massard wore his usual tunic and padded leather vest. "My opponent is not wearing any. I will abide as I am."

  The adjudicator held out his scepter for the crowd to see and shouted for quiet. As soon the audience settled down enough to hear, he continued. "The defender has chosen daggers. So be it. The fight is to the death. Let the dragon withdraw to the limits of the arena."

  Whistles and cheers met his announcement. The knights withdrew to the walled seats above the arena floor.

  Cobalt gently nudged Sara's arm. "He may be drunk, but he is strong and wily. Be careful," he warned in a soft hiss. She patted his neck in reply, then hooked her sheathed sword to the saddle and lovingly slapped his leg. He leapt up into the stands, crushing a few more wooden rails as he went, and took a precarious perch on the uppermost level of the coliseum, where he could see Sara but still be considered at the "limits of the arena."

  All too quickly the expanse of the arena was empty except for Massard and Sara. A hush of anticipation settled over the crowd.

  The adjudicator stood on a platform above the sands and shouted, "You may begin."

  Massard pulled his lips back in a sneer. Deliberately he drew his dagger and threw it into the sand. "I want to feel your death with my bare hands," he grunted to Sara.

  Sara drew her own dagger, letting its blade shine in the sunlight. "You'll have to catch me first, you drunken lout," she taunted.

  Like a bull, Massard roared in anger and charged forward. But the spirits were working deeper into his system, and their effects began to interfere with his vision. Suddenly he saw two identical women laughing at him. Before he could clasp either one of them, they ducked out of his grasp and ran around behind him. He staggered, caught himself before he fell on his face, and turned clumsily.

  Sara looked into his eyes and recognized that unfocused look. "Massard, you're a fool!" she yelled. "Mush-rooms are smarter than you. Ogres are better-looking. You couldn't fight a blind kender in a barrel."

  The officer charged her again, and once more she slipped out of his reach. She hoped she could exhaust him by taunting him into these thoughtless rushes, As long he couldn't see her very well, she could easily stay out of his reach. She knew well he was so strong and heavy, he could kill her if he were to catch her.

  They continued this deadly dance back and forth around the arena for some time, until Massard's face was flaming red and bathed in sweat. He breathed hard whenever he stopped, and his hands clenched at his sides.

  Sara was tiring, too. The chain mail felt like a shirt of lead on her chest and shoulders and was becoming very hot. Her bruised ankle ached from the constant turning and twisting; her head had begun to pound.

  Massard came at her again, his head lowered, his powerful legs thrusting his weight forward to crush her. This time she waited a fraction of a second longer, and as he bore down on her, she slashed outward with her dagger. The blades slid along his leather vest and skittered into the flesh of his upper arm. Blood had been drawn. Sara dropped and rolled away.

  The crowd had grown restless during the charge-and-dodge game. Now they roared their approval and stamped their feet for more action.

  Massard ignored the wound. It was only superficial, a mere scratch to him. He shook his head and mopped his face with his tunic sleeve. His vision seemed better; for the moment, he could see only one image of Sara.

  He sprang for her again, but this time he slowed down and controlled his rush enough to see which direction she leapt away. As she dodged, he pivoted in the same direction and caught her by surprise. His fist swung up and slammed into her midriff. She staggered, wheezing with pain.

  Massard punched her again and felt with tremendous satisfaction his fist connect with her cheek. The crowd roared with delight.

  The impact knocked Sara off her feet. She fell flat on her back, while her head rang and her face felt as if something had shattered it. The flesh around her eye began to swell. Gasping for breath, she looked up and saw Massard take a flying leap to land on top of her. Desperately she wrenched her body sideways just as he crashed to the sand where she had lain. She managed to scramble upright and put some distance between herself and the knight.

  Massard climbed slowly to his feet. Blood trickled down his arm and sand covered his clothes. "Almost," he said with a sneer. "Just lie down—you're good at that. Lie down and I'll kill you quickly."

  Sara laughed in spite of the pain in her face. "At least I'm good at something. You never were, Massard. Isn't that why Lord Ariakan sent you away? Because you couldn't do anything worth an ogre's spit? Isn't that why you drink yourself into a stupor every day?" She snorted in contempt and finished with, "How did you ever get to be a knight?"

  Massard's rage roared in his ears and his blood burned with fury. He lunged forward to catch her again, but this time, instead of trying to punch her in passing, he grabbed for her clothing so he could hold her down. His right hand closed on her upper wrist, and his left fingers caught a fistful of her chain mail. He forced her wrist back until she cried out in pain and dropped the dagger to the sand, then he dragged her close and pressed his lips to her mouth.

  The audience in the seats laughed and cheered him on.

  Sara spat in his face. She struggled wildly, trying to break his grip. Realizing that her panicked struggles got her nowhere, she forced her fear back and tried to think—quickly! Her son, Steel, had spent hours teaching her methods of self-defense, but she hadn't practiced them in so long, she had forgotten much of what she had learned. Leverage was everything, he used to say to her. Leverage… sparks of memory fired in her mind. Images became clearer. Phrases and words came back to her.

  Another little snippet of information swam back into clarity. The gully dwarf had said Massard had a bad knee. It was too bad he hadn't told her which one.

  These thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, and in the time it took for Massard to tighten his grip on her chain mail, let go of her wrist, and pull back his fist to punch her in the mouth, she decided what to do next.

  Immediately she collapsed her knees and dropped to a crouch. Her move took him by surprise and forced his balance forward over his toes. Sara abruptly straightened her legs, driving her shoulder into his stomach. She grabbed his arm and, using his forward balance to assist her, deftly flipped him over her back. The knight crashed to the ground and lay gasping in the sand.

  "Kill him!" The words echoed from one side of the arena to the other. "Kill him!"

  Sara groped in the sand for her knife. Massard rolled over and staggered up. He pulled a second knife, a black stiletto, from his boot and reared back to stab her. Shifting her weight to her arms, Sara lashed out with a booted foot at Massard's left knee, the one she had noticed he favored in the past. Her hunch was right. The force of her blow slammed his knee sideways, and he fell like a stricken ox. His knife dropped to the sand.

  But if Sara hoped he would lie on the ground and groan or nurse his knee, she was disappointed. Massard slipped beyond reason and the limitations of pain. Bellowring with rage, he scrambled over the ground and grabbed her leg.

  Sara suddenly saw her dagger half buried in the sand, where it lay just beyond her fingertips. She tried to reach for it, only to be wrenched back by a vicious yank to her leg. Her face banged into the arena floor; sand ground into her nose and mouth and tore into her swollen skin. She spat out the
sand with a mingled cry of pain and fury.

  Somehow she twisted around to her back and used her free foot to kick at Massard's head. Her first kick missed, but the second connected solidly with his chin and knocked him backward just enough so his hands loosened their grip on her leg. With all the strength she had left, Sara jerked her leg loose and shoved herself back to her dagger.

  The knight bellowed his anger. He threw himself forward over her, crushing her down into the sand with his greater weight. His hands grabbed for her neck.

  She felt his fingers tighten around her throat like a noose. They dug into her skin, cutting off the flow of blood and air to her exhausted body. Her face turned a sickly red; her lungs burned from lack of air. The pain gripped her like a red-hot iron band around her neck and head. She wanted to scream, but she couldn't make a sound.

  Terror welled up from the depths of her soul. Almost every conscious thought in her mind screamed at her to struggle, to fight back, to pry those killing hands from her throat. But a few strands in the cold, reasoning part of her brain held her terror at bay for just a few heartbeats, long enough to give her hand time to reach for the dagger. She could feel it still, under the small of her back. If she could just get her fingers on it and pull it out, she could get him off.

  Massard screamed incoherent oaths at her as he squeezed the life out of her. He paid no attention to her drumming heels or the struggle of her left hand to claw at his face. Nor did he see her right hand worm its way under her back and laboriously pull out the dagger that Derrick had so carefully sharpened to a razor's edge.

  Somewhere in the far distance, Sara heard the murmur of a crowd like the hum of insects, and even fainter, she caught the cry of a dragon. Cobalt, she wanted to cry. Cobalt, wait! The noises faded away into the thundering cry of her struggling heart.

  Her eyes bulged as the world grew dark. The dagger felt like a bar of lead in her hand. It was so heavy she could barely lift it. She didn't waste time trying to aim for a killing stroke; all she wanted to do was get his hands off her neck so she could breathe again. With the last dregs of her failing strength, Sara drove the blade into his side just above his belt.

  Massard screeched in pain and twisted around to grab at whatever jabbed his side.

  Sara's chest heaved upward in a frantic effort to breathe through her constricted throat. She gasped and a coughed as he struggled to pull out her dagger. The blessed air in her lungs brought back her vision and a trickle of energy. The black roar faded from her head.

  Massard was weakening. She could feel his body sway. Her nose, free to breathe again, caught the odors of mingled sweat and liquor and the metallic smell of blood. he thrashed around so much, she couldn't reach her dagger. But she could reach his. The black-handled stiletto he had dropped lay just an arm's length away.

  Her fingers groped for the handle. At that moment, Massard wrenched her dagger free from his side and raised It triumphantly above her, the bloody point aiming for her bruised throat.

  Sara gathered the last vestiges of her strength. She closed her fingers around the black stiletto and brought it around and up. The slender blade slid deep into the knight's stomach and sliced upward behind his breast-bone. A look of astonishment slid over his bearded face, He gazed down at the handle protruding from his abdomen as if he couldn't believe it was there. The dagger in his hand fell out of his nerveless fingers, clattered off her chain mail, and dropped harmlessly to the sand.

  Slowly Massard toppled forward on top of Sara, crushing her into the sand. His weight was more than she had the strength to lift.

  She sighed once and let the world go dark around her.

  17

  If Sara actually killed Knight Officer Massard with the stroke of the second knife, no one ever knew for sure, because the moment he slumped over her, a frantic cry reverberated through the arena. The onlookers all clapped their hands to their ears and watched in amazement as the blue dragon lurking on the rim of the high wall catapulted downward to the sands. He sank his teeth into Massard's torso and flung the body aside. Torn and bloody, Massard crashed into the stone retaining wall with a dull thud and dropped to the sand.

  "If that doesn't kill the old lush," remarked an officer to General Abrena, "nothing will."

  The crowd waited expectantly. All bets were on hold until it was apparent at least one of the duelists survived.

  On the sands, Cobalt gently nudged his rider. She breathed, he saw with relief. She looked bruised and battered, but there were no bloody holes, nothing obviously broken. He nudged her again with his scaly nose, and this time she groaned. One eye flew open. The other was swollen shut.

  "Cobalt!" she exclaimed. "Where's Massard?"

  "Over there," he said gruffly.

  He held his muzzle steady so she could pull herself to a sitting position.

  Cheers, applause, and a few jeers from losing bettors filled the stands. The show over, the spectators settled their bets, left their litter, and crowded through the exits.

  Sara watched them in a daze. She didn't dare climb to her feet for fear of embarrassing herself by fainting again or giving in to the nausea that racked her stomach. Her face throbbed where Massard had punched her and every muscle in her body ached.

  "Have some of this," Mirielle's voice said beside her. The governor-general handed her a flask filled to the brim with a pale golden liquid. Sara took a swallow and felt a fine, mellow honey mead coat her tongue and slide like liquid sunshine down her throat. Her rebellious stomach grumbled once and gradually subsided. She had another long drink and let her breath out in a long, heartfelt sigh of relief.

  "You'd better get something cold on that eye," observed Mirielle. She offered her hand to help Sara to her feet. "Good fight, talon leader."

  Sara's battered face broke into a smile. She had done it. She and the Sixth Talon were free of Massard. Her secret was safe for a while longer, and she had some breathing room. She took Mirielle's hand and made her way to her feet. Dizziness gripped her, forcing her to grab Cobalt's neck for support. Only grim determination kept her from fainting again at the general's feet.

  Mirielle was pleased. This knight had pride and the courage she was looking for in her commanders. "Take her to her tent," she ordered.

  The big blue was happy to obey. He scooped up Sara in his powerful forearms and carried her bodily into the air.

  Pressed tightly against his chest, the woman looked up at the dragon's fearsome head and grinned lopsidedly at his worried expression. "It's all right now, Cobalt," she told him.

  He would not relax, though, until he delivered her safely to her tent and saw her walk inside. As soon as she was lying down on her cot, he left the camp and flew around the city to the southwestern side, where the stables spread out beneath him. He knew he was not supposed to go near the barns to avoid panicking the horses. The dragon guards watched him closely, but he ignored them while he scanned the ground for any familiar figure. Far below, he saw Marika and Kelena emptying wheelbarrows of manure. He couldn't resist a single trumpeting cry of triumph.

  The girls looked up, saw him, and pumped their fist. They had understood his message. Satisfied, he winged across the broad valley to the nearest snow-capped peak of the encircling mountains. Frigid air blew over his wings and nipped the ends of his nostrils. He snorted great gouts of steam as he landed in the deep snow near the summit of the massive peak. He paused just long enough to scoop up a big armful of snow and ice, then he dropped over a ledge and glided back down the mountain to Neraka's vale.

  Some of the snow had melted or fallen away by the time he reached the tents in the Red Quarter, yet enough remained to make a giant-sized ice pack. Marika and Kelena met him at the camp. They had managed to get away from stable duty for a short meal break and had come racing back to find Sara.

  Cobalt dumped his snow by Sara's tent and watched while the girls made an ice pack for her eye, brewed her tea, and talked to her about every move made in the duel. They had to go back to the stab
le to work, but their faces glowed with excitement when they left. They couldn't wait to tell Derrick, Saunder, and Jacson.

  After two days of rest, Sara felt well enough to return to her duties. She was immediately struck by the change in attitude toward her, not only by the young men and women in her command but by the other knights as well.

  The day after her duel with Massard, Governor-General Abrena sent her goblin messenger with compliments, a new rank insignia for her uniform, and an order to appear before the armorer for a new set of armor.

  Chuckling at the irony of all this, Sara fastened the lily insignias to her sleeves, thanked the fawning goblin, and went out to greet her talon.

  The five members snapped to attention and executed perfect salutes. New respect shone on their faces as they waited for their orders. They knew nothing about Sara's past life and the true purpose of her challenge to Massard. All they knew was that they liked this officer who treated them fairly, as individuals with their own strengths, and who had rid them of an odious dictator who had made their lives miserable. They stood a little straighter, their pride evident to all, and went about their work with pleasure.

  On the third day, when Sara was able to move again without too much pain and the swelling around her eye went down enough so she could see, she took the talon out to train with their dragons. For the first time since the duel, she came face-to-face with other knights, both common and talon-ranked. Everyone she met, including knights who had never said anything to her before, had a word or two of congratulations or commendation, a salute, or a greeting. She guessed all this attention stemmed from the intense dislike Massard had generated during his time in Neraka. It never occurred to her that she had earned their respect on her own merits.

  A further sign of her increased status in the ranks showed up several days later in the form of three more squires. They reported to Sara that morning and told her they had been reassigned by Lord Knight Cadrel to the Sixth Talon to bring it up to strength. She had them line up with the other five and studied them one by one.