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It's been a whilte since I pposted this. Some newer members may not have seen it...
Did any of you guys ever read the Richard Blade books by Jeffrey Lord? Most of the covers showed a muscular naked hero fighting off soldiers or warriors. Sometimes he was naked, sometimes a tiny loin cloth or kilt.
The books contained very explicit sex with girls and women (ignore what comes first in this story if that turns you off). I am bi so the descriptions of his manly sperm spurting into young girls gets me off just as much as the descriptions of swords penetrating warriors bodies and spraying blood on the other side.
Here is on except from "Warlords of Gaikon" See if you see the gladiator fight arouses you are not. I have lost so much cum to this over the years, and sometimes read parts of it to guys I meet over the phone, ejaculating as I describe each kill.
The girl was young, but her body had unmistakably matured. Graceful curves were evident under the pink robe. And she gave off a subtle but undeniably appealing and arousing perfume. Blade suspected he knew the «service» she was supposed to render. Well, why not? He doubted if the dabuni were supposed to be ascetics. He certainly wasn't!
He remained standing, returning the girl's look, until she gave a little giggle and looked down at the floor. Without looking up, she undid the blue sash at her waist. The robe fell open. Then she shrugged slim shoulders, and the robe fell whispering to the floor and lay in a pink pool at her feet.
Like her perfume, the girl's beauty was subtle but arousing. All the curves were as delicate as if they had been drawn by a master artist with a very fine brush. In the dim light Blade could make out the faint sheen of shoulders and hips, the lift of small, pointed breasts with the nipples faint smudges at their tips, a small black strip almost perfectly centered between slim thighs. The girl threw her head back, until her black hair flowed down almost to the small of her back, and thrust her hips forward.
Yes, undeniably arousing. Blade couldn't have denied the arousal if he had wanted to. His massive member jutted forward, swollen, solid, sending urgent demands tip to his brain. He responded to those demands. He stepped forward, lowered his massive hands until he could cup the girl's firm buttocks, and lifted her. Her eyes and mouth flared open as Blade drove upward between her legs, into her wet channel. Then she closed her eyes and stretched out her arms to grab Blade by the shoulders. Her legs twined around Blade's hips, locking her into place as she began to rock back and forth with Blade inside her.
She was not only wet but fantastically snug. After what seemed like only seconds Blade knew that she was going to push him over the edge soon. Too soon? He didn't know. He didn't know anything except that he needed and wanted to hold against the glorious agony that was boiling up in his groin and threatening to boil over. He didn't know anything, didn't care about anything, couldn't have paid attention to anything else if his life had depended on it. The girl was light, but his breath was coming in great sobbing gasps, and she seemed to be threatening to tear his aching arms out of their sockets as she twisted her hips around and around and around-
Suddenly she pressed down, locking herself so tightly around Blade that he felt as though the breath was being squeezed out of his body. But it was her breath that came out in a great shuddering gasping groan as she heaved herself up and down in a final desperate effort.
The girl's efforts put an end to Blade's self-control. His own hips twisted and turned as he felt his own heat spurting savagely upward into the girl, going on and on and on. There had been a terrible heat in him, and it took a long time for it all to be released.
But finally he was empty, and he lifted the half-conscious girl in his arms and laid her down on his sleeping pad. Then he lay down beside her and pulled the quilt over both of them.
As he finally drifted off to a deep sleep, Blade couldn't help running his mind back over his first day in Gaikon. A dangerous world, yes. But he suspected it would be a strangely exciting one as well.She was tall for a woman of Gaikon, tall and long-limbed. She could run her fingers through his hair without reaching, press her warm lips against his throat and run them up and down the side of his neck. She twisted from side to side as she did this, and bit by bit the robe crept wider and wider open. Then suddenly with a faint hiss of silk on soft skin it was gone, falling and spreading on the sleeping mat at her feet. Her whole exquisite body gleamed bare, the highlights shifting as she slowly turned about in front of Blade.
Then suddenly she knelt down and after a moment almost threw herself backward. «Oh, Blade,» she murmured. «Let it be now. Let it be now, and not a moment later. It is time for us. Kunkoi would have it so.» Slowly her legs spread apart, inch by inch, as she spoke. Meanwhile her hands cupped her small conical breasts, whose nipples were already solidly erect spots of darkness against the creamy brown skin.
If Blade hadn't already decided to answer Lady Oyasa's appeal, he would have decided at that moment. He was not a stone statue, and nothing else could have resisted the appeal of Lady Oyasa's naked body-and the naked desire in her eyes and voice. His hands worked swiftly, stripping off his own robe, then he lay down on the mat beside her.
His hands roamed up and down her body, while her hands did the same on his. She nuzzled his throat again, and nipped the tanned skin with small sharp white teeth. Desire swelled further in Blade, a desire to lose himself in this woman, to lock his arms around her. He had not felt such a total desire for a long time; he had wondered if it was perhaps something he had lost.
But it was not, and so he gave into it. He pulled Lady Oyasa over on top of him, and she settled down to take him into herself, deep and deeper, until they were locked together more tightly than Blade would have imagined possible. His arms bent her downward even farther, until her gorged and solid nipples brushed his chest. Her flesh was both cool and hot at the same time. Its feel against his own drove Blade's desire higher-higher and faster even than the tightness and wetness and warmth that were wrapped around him.
Lady Oyasa began grinding her hips down against Blade, twisting them around in a circle, rocking her body from side to side against his chest. She began to whimper, then to gasp in a rhythm that increased to match Blade's. Her long fingers arched themselves into claws and raked through his hair, digging into his scalp. But the pain did not penetrate Blade's mind. Nothing did, nothing could. He was becoming totally absorbed in this woman, in the act of love with her. No, not necessarily love, or even affection. Passion-raw, burning, and exhilarating enough in its own right.
Suddenly Lady Oyasa's fingers clamped down hard, her nails digging deep into Blade's scalp. He gasped with the sudden stabbing pain and his efforts to hold on. She opened her mouth wide and let out a howl of pure animal feeling, a howl that filled the hut. It was so loud Blade could imagine it escaping
through the walls and being carried for miles through the forest outside. The lady thrashed and heaved and twisted as though an electric shock was passing through her, alternately jerking half upright and plastering herself harder than ever against Blade.
Then Blade himself groaned and let out a shout of relief and triumph as his own spasm came. It was his turn to lock his arms around Lady Oyasa, his turn to run his fingers through her hair, his turn to pull her hard against him as he jetted furiously up into her still-twisting body. For long minutes they stayed locked together in a common release, and if the hut had fallen in on them they would not have noticed it.
Eventually the explosion of passion faded away. Blade lay on the mat, one arm curled around Lady Oyasa, waiting for his breathing to return to normal, feeling his body as damp with sweat as it would have been after a battle. Even after he had the breath to do so, he did not feel like speaking.
Lady Oyasa broke the silence, propping herself up on one elbow and looking down at Blade with a soft smile on her face. Even now Blade could not help noticing that her breasts were so firm they did not sag or droop out of shape as she took this ungraceful pose. She ran the tip of one finger lightly across Blade's rib cage and said, «Well, Blade-what of folly now?»
Blade bowed and spoke formally. «Honorable First Dabuno, I confess my ignorance and ask that you enlighten me.»
«It is simple. The master game of Hu is played by the Hongshu with each of the five pieces of the hand represented by a living dabuno. You will be the first warrior, the most powerful piece of the hand. It is known that with your spear you are all but invincible, so this is proper.»
Doifuzan's smile broadened. «You will honorably represent our lord, Blade. And you will make this game of Hu memorable for the Hongshu as well. When a piece captures another in it, they fight. To the death.»
Blade bowed. «I am honored by our lord's confidence in me.» There was nothing else he could appropriately say. Besides, this was certainly being at the center of things!
Chapter 14
Blade stood in the first warrior's black square and stared out across the enormous Hu-board pattern that covered the entire floor of the huge chamber. The black and white squares gleamed in the light of the lamps swinging from the beams overhead. Behind him Lord Tsekuin sat on a chair cushioned with white silk. At the opposite corner of the board sat the Hongshu. Beside him Lord Geron lay on a litter. Lord Tsekuin had not wounded the second chancellor as seriously as it had been believed at first. But it would be several weeks more before he could walk about normally. The sid
e of his face that was now swathed in bandages would be scarred for life.
Beside Lord Tsekuin sat Doifuzan. Other than the two players and their companions, the only people in the chamber were the five «pieces» of each player's hand. Blade had wondered why the Hongshu thought he would be safe facing a man whom he had disgraced and doomed.
«You may wonder that,» Doifuzan had said. «But not aloud. To even think of striking at the person of the Hongshu is an abomination. Were any of us to do that, the whole clan would be swept from the land. Castles and huts alike would burn, fields would be plowed up and sown with salt, men, women, children, warriors, and peasants-all would perish by fire or steel or slow torture. Do not speak the least word of rebellion against the person of the Hongshu.»
Blade saw the wisdom of that. It was not the time or place to point out that dead Hongshus execute no rebels. It was also not the time to ask what might be done against other enemies than the Hongshu himself. Blade was sure that Yezjaro and Doifuzan were already thinking about this. He was just as sure they would not welcome his questions about it.
Blade threw a brief glance at the Hongshu. He was on the small side, but he wore his hair tied higher than usual and sat very erect to conceal the fact. He looked lean and in fighting trim, although a full beard suggested something about his face that he preferred to conceal. His eyes moved continuously about the chamber. In another man this might have given the impression of restlessness. In this man it gave the impression of a ceaseless curiosity, a constant ferreting out of other people's secrets.
A formidable man, Blade suspected. Perhaps there was reason why even the Hongshu's enemies preferred his ironhanded rule to that of the present overeducated, weak-willed emperor.
But the politics of Gaikon meant nothing one way or the other in this chamber. Blade turned his eyes to the five dabuni of the Hongshu's hand. The man had certainly picked them for size. There wasn't one of them less than six feet tall or lighter than two hundred pounds. Their swords and spears were in proportion. But did they have skill to match their brawn?
All four of Blade's own comrades were at least competent fighters. Two carried spears, two carried swords. But Blade suspected he was going to wind up doing most of the fighting.
The sound of another of Gaikon's thousands of gongs broke into his thoughts. The Hongshu rose from his chair and stepped forward to stand beside his first warrior. Lord Tsekuin did the same with Blade. Lord Tsekuin bowed deeply; the Hongshu bowed much less deeply. The Hongshu stepped back and intoned in a surprisingly deep voice:
«We meet here in the master game of Hu. Such is the wish of Lord Tsekuin. Such wish is his right by the laws and customs of proper obedience, as established by the Hongshu Korlo in the fifty-fourth year of the power of this house. Let it be witnessed that this is his wish, and to it we consent.»
Lord Geron and Doifuzan spoke together. «It is witnessed.»
The Hongshu nodded slowly. «Then let the game commence.» He sat down again, while the gongs sounded again from above. Then he folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, waiting for Lord Tsekuin to declare the first move.
Even with only ten pieces on its forty-eight-square board, Hu was a complicated game. Each of the five pieces of each hand-first warrior, first and second swordsman, first and second spearman-had about thirty different moves. Some they could make at all times, others only under certain conditions. Blade remembered his remark when Yezjaro first summarized the rules and moves for him.
«It sounds like a long game.»
«It is. Two truly skilled players have been known to sit at a board for three days continuously, without food or sleep. A normal game can last six or seven hours.»
But this game would not last even a few hours, let alone several days. There would be no captures, only death, and the blood on the tiled squares would be entirely real.
The gongs died away. From behind him Blade heard the rustle of Lord Tsekuin's robes as he sat down. Then the man's voice rang out in the sudden silence of the chamber, loud enough to echo.
«Second spearman-Jufon move to square six-five.»
Both players devoted their first few moves to maneuvering their five pieces out toward the center of the board. The Hongshu seemed to prefer a more open formation, Lord Tsekuin a tight one. Blade suspected that was to make it easier for him to move into action against any of his five possible opponents. There were strategies in the regular game of Hu built around the first warrior in just that way. They made even more sense here.
After that came a quick series of another half-dozen moves, most of them unnecessarily intricate. When that was finished, the two clusters of warriors were almost exactly where they had started. Blade suspected the two players were trying to either impress or confuse each other with their skill at the more intricate moves of the game.
But both players were too experienced to let a show-off opponent's tricks bother them. When the sequence of moves was done, Blade shot a quick look behind him. Lord Tsekuin sat motionless in his chair, arms crossed on his chest, his face a mask as immobile as if it had been cast in bronze. Blade's respect for the doomed lord rose. Keeping that iron calm under the circumstances was admirable.
A long silent pause followed. The moment for the first blood was approaching. Blade knew that neither player was hesitating out of any fear of that moment. But now the price of a wrong move had suddenly risen. Now it could throw away a warrior of the hand, and perhaps the game.
It was the Hongshu's turn now. One of his swordsmen made a simple move out to the right. Simple- but it brought him to where one of Lord Tsekuin's spearmen could engage him by any of half a dozen moves.
The Hongshu had thrown out his challenge. Now the decision lay in Lord Tsekuin's hands. Blood now or later?
Lord Tsekuin rose to the challenge. He called out a move in clipped, cool tones. The spearman moved to engage. He was the youngest of the five dabuni in Tsekuin's hand. Could he have any chance against the Hongshu's swordsman?
His opponent was half again as large as the spearman and looked larger still. With a rasp of metal he drew his sword. The spearman's weapon rose into position and he dropped into fighting stance. The silence in the chamber deepened. The two opponents stood motionless, their weapons raised. From where Blade stood, he couldn't even see them breathe.
Suddenly the two frozen figures in the center of the chamber exploded in sound and movement. The
swordsman's weapon swung wide, leaving him open to the spearman's thrust. The spearpoint flashed forward. The sword whipped back as fast as it had swung out. Steel point and steel blade crashed against each other with an echoing clang that filled the chamber. The spearpoint dropped down, the sword blade rose up. It flicked out toward the young spearman, but he seemed to twist aside at the last second. He stood as his opponent pulled his sword back and raised it again. Blade wondered why the young man didn't turn back to face his opponent.
Then the spearman's point dropped further, to rest against the floor. His fingers opened and the spear clattered to the floor. A moment later the spearman followed it. As he struck the floor and lay full length on it, blood began to gush from the wound in his side, under his armpit. Blade looked more closely. The gash went in halfway through the chest. Had it gone straight into the heart, with that single split second blow?
As if to answer Blade's question, the spearman gave a final convulsive jerk, gurgled, coughed, and lay still. Blood trickled out of his mouth to join the spreading pool on the tiles.
Blade took a tighter grip on his own spear. That was a quick kill even by Gaikon's deadly standards. It now seemed quite likely that the Hongshu's dabuni were as skilled as they were big.
The Hongshu wore a smug, arrogant grin. Blade risked another look behind him, at Lord Tsekuin and Doifuzan. Then he looked again. Both men had their eyes fixed on the Hongshu. As his grin broadened, they began to have trouble keeping their own faces straight. Blade swung his eyes back across the body on the floor to the triumphant Hongshu. Then the light dawned
for him.
Lord Tsekuin had deliberately sacrificed the young spearman, who was after all the least important dabuno of his hand. He had cold-bloodedly sacrificed him to make the Hongshu overconfident, judging by the other man's expression, he had succeeded. And the young spearman had gone to his death with no regard for anything but his lord's orders, although he knew what was coming.
Blade suspected that there were two games being played today. There was the deadly master game of Hu here in the chamber. There was another, larger, deadlier game being played for far higher stakes all over Gaikon, of which this game of Hu might be only a part.
Blade clutched his spear so tightly in both hands that his knuckles stood out white. He managed to give a slight tremble to both his lower lip and his knees, and swallowed rapidly several times. He wanted to give the impression of a man suddenly realizing the deadly stakes of this game, and half- unnerved by his discovery. As he turned away from the two men behind him his eyes briefly met Doifuzan's. The old dabuno's lips flickered apart in a brief smile, one that the Hongshu would never see. Blade turned back to stare across the chamber at the enemy. The Hongshu was rubbing his hands on the knees of his white silk trousers, and the visible half of Lord Geron's face was split by a broad grin.
Good. They looked like men who would be half-blind with triumph and anticipation of an easy victory. Blade relaxed his grip on his spear and waited for Lord Tsekuin to announce his next move. He suspected it would bring him into the play.
He was wrong. Lord Tsekuin apparently decided it would help if he also acted like a man who had lost his self-control because of the death of the spearman. He indulged in a flurry of moves, simple and
complex, varying them without any apparent pattern. He didn't pay much attention to the Hongshu's responses, either. Blade hoped Lord Tsekuin wouldn't carry the act too far. If the Hongshu decided to move in for a quick victory while Tsekuin was doing his imitation of a frightened, indecisive man, things could get very nasty very quickly.
The Hongshu didn't. But then he was obviously one of those men who savored watching his enemy sweat in fear before striking. Here he couldn't wait two weeks before striking, as he had done before. But he could wait a few minutes, and then a few minutes more-and then a few minutes beyond that.
The minutes added up until nearly an hour had passed since the spearman's death. The aimless maneuvering went on, neither side pushing their warriors into a fight. Blade threw occasional looks behind him. Had Lord Tsekuin really lost his head and his skill? He began to wonder. But each time he looked, Doifuzan met his eyes with a faint smile or nod.
The maneuvering went on for a few minutes more. But now it had a purpose. One move at a time, Lord Tsekuin was shifting Blade. Soon he would be within a single move of battle with any of the Hongshu's five dabuni.
The ruler of Gaikon was too filled with anticipation of his easy victory to notice what was happening. Blade made his last necessary move. The Hongshu shifted a spearman in a minor move that still left him within range of Blade. Blade deliberately dropped his spear to keep up the act of being nervous and panicky.
Then behind him Blade heard Lord Tsekuin's voice.
«Sha move to square four-seven.» Three quick steps and Blade was facing the Hongshu's second swordsman. To Blade it seemed the room had suddenly become even quieter than before.
In a regular bout, Blade would have started a slow circle around his opponent, forcing him to shift position, testing his footwork, perhaps trying to disorient him. But here the fighters had to stay within their squares. All they could do was freeze into their stances and hold position, weapons aloft and ready, eyes watching for the slightest sign of an attack.
Blade was determined to wait and give his opponent the first blow. It was a gamble, since he couldn't leave the square to avoid his enemy's sword. But it was only a small gamble. Blade knew how fast he was. The other man didn't.
A slight flickering of the swordsman's arm muscles was all the warning Blade had. The sword leaped high, ready to slash down at Blade's skull. Then it leaped sideways and came whistling at Blade's side- or where Blade's side should have been. But Blade recognized the stroke-a clumsy version of Yezjaro's own «flying bird cut.» The defense against it was something built into his reflexes by long hours of practice against the instructor.
Blade sprang back on legs like steel springs. The tip of the sword whistled by, inches from his stomach. The sword swung wide. Blade leaped in again, holding the spear out to his right in a vertical guard. The return cut with the sword crashed into the spear shaft. Again the clash of metal echoed through the chamber. As the sword leaped up again, Blade drove the spear downward. The sharp edge of the spearhead slashed down the second swordsman's left leg from knee to ankle. Flesh gaped open
and blood sluiced down on to the floor.
The second swordsman let out a howl of surprise and pain and stared wide-eyed at Blade. He seemed bothered more by his opponent's unexpected skill than by his own wound. But he hadn't lost any courage. His sword whistled down again three times in rapid succession-left, right, right. But his aim was poor and his footwork slowed by the wound. Blade considered using the prongs on the spear to disarm the man the way he had disarmed Captain Jawai. But why bother? There was no need to put on a show here-just a well-done kill.
The sword rose again and seemed to hover edge-on in front of Blade. He raised the spear, holding it horizontally in front of him. The swordsman launched a cut at Blade's ribs. Blade sprang back, shifting to a one-handed grip on the spear. The massive muscles of his right arm snapped the spear horizontally forward, straight into the swordsman's throat. Flesh, blood vessels, windpipe parted as neatly as if Blade had swung a giant razor. Blade jerked the spear back. The swordsman stood for a moment, blood fountaining from his gaping neck, the life going out of his eyes. Then he fell, landing with a splat in the spreading pool of his own blood.
Blade pulled off his tunic, which had been spattered by the spraying blood of his opponent's death- wound. He wiped his bloody spearhead with it. Then he spread the tunic over the dead man's head, stepped back into the middle of his own square, and pounded his spearbutt three times on the floor.
It was the signal of victory. It was also the signal for a sudden flurry of murmuring and whispering. Blade was conscious that every eye in the room was fixed on him. Then the four survivors of the Hongshu's hand started looking at each other. Uncertainty was in their eyes.
Their master's voice slashed through the silence. «Why stand and gape, you fools? He who lies there did nothing worthy of a wise dabuno. He doomed himself by forgetting who had instructed his opponent. That was no true victory we saw. That was a fool's bungling suicide!»
The Hongshu's voice was loud and harsh. But Blade realized that he was trying to reassure himself more than his four dabuni. He was certainly not improving their spirits. Blade noticed sour looks on their faces, sour looks directed at their master.
Before the sour looks could turn into open rebellion, the Hongshu called out his move. Blade watched. Would he now send his first warrior or first swordsman forward against Blade?
Instead the first swordsman moved back and around, on to the flank of the first warrior. Blade was still within easy reach of both spearmen. Would Lord Tsekuin-?
Lord Tsekuin would. Blade found himself face-to-face with the opposing first spearman. He considered his next move.
The first two kills had been crude, at least by Gaikon's highest standards. How to make more of an impression with the next one? An impression not only on the Hongshu's mind, but also on the other three opposing dabuni?
Then Blade grinned. There was a standard technique in Gaikon spear-fighting. In the hands of the average dabuno, it was more spectacular than deadly. But Blade was not the average dabuno. His arms were stronger and his eyes and reflexes faster. He could make the «spectacle» turn deadly.
Blade stepped back, out of range of a quick thrust from his opponent. He raised the spear over his head, holding it horizontally in both hands. Then he began to whirl it, his hands shifting with steadily increasing speed. The spearman's eyes drifted up to the whirling spear. No doubt he knew perfectly well that such a whirling spear could not be stopped and thrust forward without giving more than enough warning to an opponent. So did the Hongshu. He could not keep a sneer off his face as he watched Blade's spear whirl and listened to the mounting hiss as it cut the air. If one of Lord Tsekuin's men was going to make a fool of himself this way, so much the better.
Once he had settled into a steady rhythm, Blade could keep a spear going like this for half an hour without thinking about it at all. He kept his eyes and mind focused on the spearman, with occasional glances at the Hongshu. He wanted to go on long enough to get everyone thinking he must be getting tired. Not long enough to really get tired, though. His one-shot kill might not come off. Years of single- combat experience told him to keep plenty of strength in reserve.
He whirled the spear faster. Now the hiss deepened into a drone, like a distant swarm of bees. He did not bother looking up. He knew that by this time the spear must be only a half-invisible blur above him, like a hummingbird's wings. Sweat began to trickle down his face and chest, and he felt the first twinges of strain in his, arm and wrist muscles. It wouldn't be long now.
Definitely it wouldn't be long now. The spearman was beginning to look speculatively at him and to shift his grip on his own weapon. Had he decided Blade was a madman, easily vulnerable? Time to change his mind, then.
Blade focused his attention on the spear for a moment. One, two, three, four more times around. Then his breath exploded out of him in a scream.
«Kiiiiy-a-a-ahhhhh!
The spear froze in midair. Before the spearman could blink an eye, Blade took the one step forward that brought him within thrusting range. The spearman's weapon jerked upward in a futile effort to guard. If the man had tried his own thrust, he might at least have taken Blade with him. As it was, his spear was still rising when Blade's spear drove
downward. It drove into the spearman's belly just below the ribs, drove through the spine with a sharp crack, and burst out his back in a spray of blood. Blade jerked the spear free and stepped away as the spearman collapsed backward. When the last convulsion subsided, Blade again wiped his spear on the dead man's trousers and turned to face the Hongshu.
This hadn't been quite as spectacular a kill as he might have managed. He had trained himself until he could bring a spear to a stop and pick off a fly on the wall. But why risk missing? The one blow had been struck and the spearman was dead. The Hongshu wasn't particularly happy about it, either. One hand was tightly clutching the arm of his chair, until Blade wondered if the hard black wood would collapse into sawdust under the pressure. He also had the look of a man trying to keep the shock he felt off his face.
Lord Tsekuin and Doifuzan were also fighting to keep their faces expressionless. They looked as though they wanted to throw aside their dignity and applaud or embrace Blade-or both at once.
The three surviving dabuni of the Hongshu's hand weren't even trying to look calm. They had seen
two of their comrades die under Blade's spear like rats in a dog's jaws. They couldn't avoid wondering who was next. Blade noticed the first warrior looking toward the Hongshu. His face showed a mixture of anticipation and fear. Blade guessed that this time it would be the Hongshu who forced the combat. Probably between the two first warriors.
Blade had guessed right. The Hongshu's first warrior was drawing his sword and raising it into position as he stepped forward. A simple move through four squares, and he stood in the square to Blade's right. Blade raised his spear and turned to face the man.
He was the largest of the Hongshu's outsized warriors, nearly six and a half feet tall. But there was no fat on his massive frame, only supple muscle. His feet moved with a delicacy and assurance that told Blade this man might be faster than he looked. Blade decided not to plan in advance any particular way of dealing with the first warrior. He would try a few exchanges first, to reveal the man's weaknesses, relying on his own speed to keep himself safe.
Blade almost wasn't fast enough. A sudden whuff, and the first warrior's sword split the air beside Blade's ear. A few inches closer, and it would have split his head as neatly as a grapefruit. Blade aimed a thrust at the man's thigh. The sword blocked the thrust, then smashed the spear aside with a blow that nearly tore it out of Blade's hands. If it had landed squarely instead of glancing, it would have chopped the spear in two.
This man definitely wasn't going to be as easy a victim as the first two. In fact, Blade wasn't even sure that the first warrior was going to be the victim at all. This was an opponent who could and would chop him in two if he slipped at all. Hope was written nakedly all over the Hongshu's face, and even the other two dabuni of the enemy's hand wore thin smiles.
The deadly dance went on. Blade soon realized that he couldn't tire this man out. He couldn't force him off-balance-the man handled his two hundred and fifty-plus pounds too well. He couldn't get through his guard with any thrust or stroke that wouldn't leave him dangerously vulnerable. Blade began to get the ugly feeling that this bout would go on and on and on, ending only when one man or the other got lucky.
That wasn't so good. Luck could work for either man. Obviously the two players knew that. Both the Hongshu and Lord Tsekuin wore identical expressions of frozen strain.
More exchanges of cuts and thrusts. Blade now had a small cut in one hip, his opponent an equally small one on his shoulder. Blade still couldn't see any pattern in his opponent's responses that would help him break through the man's guard. He was beginning to wonder if there was one.
Another deafening clang sounded as spear shaft met sword. The shock deflected Blade's spear upward, the point driving over the first warrior's head inches above his tightly bound hair. He didn't seem to notice it at all.
Blade licked dry lips and deliberately made his next thrust a high one, aiming over the head again. He almost aimed too high. The sword came through his open guard and nicked his ribs, and blood trickled again. But the first warrior didn't notice the direction of Blade's thrust.
A light dawned for Blade. The Hongshu's first warrior seemed to have trouble coping with attacks coming in above his eye level. Did he have vision trouble? Or was it just that he so seldom had to look
up at anything that it didn't occur to him to look up, even in a fight? Blade didn't care. He knew he had a possible opening.
If he was right. If he was wrong-but he couldn't take more time to confirm his guess. Many more high thrusts, and the first warrior might become aware of his own weak point and extend his guard. Then it would be back to the endless dance, waiting for luck to turn for one fighter or the other.
Blade stepped back. He dropped into a crouch that made him look as though he was planning a thrust into the first warrior's groin. Then he leaped straight up, legs uncoiling in a single snap of powerful muscles. He soared upward like an Olympic high jumper, six feet clear of the floor. At the top of his leap his spear lunged out and down.
The first warrior had just started to raise his eyes and sword to follow Blade when Blade's spear drove down at him. It drove down into him almost vertically between the collarbone and the top rib, plunging through until it came out at the small of his back. With Blade's full descending weight behind it, the spear smashed the first warrior backward onto the floor hard enough to crush his skull. Then Blade let go of the spear and came down with both feet on the fallen man's chest and stomach. He heard more grisly noises as the first warrior's ribs and internal organs gave under the impact of Blade's two hundred and ten pounds.
Blade stepped off the body, pulled out his spear, and backed away into the center of his own square. He had never inflicted so many fatal injuries on one opponent in such a short time.
The Hongshu also looked as though he had lost a good deal of blood. His face had turned the same dirty off-white as the chamber walls, and the hand he raised was shaking slightly.
«Honorable Lord Tsekuin,» he called out. His voice was shaking slightly also. «Do you consent that I yield the victory to you at this time?»
Lord Tsekuin's reply rang out loud enough to raise echoes.
«I do not consent. Let the game continue to the end.»
The Hongshu's face turned even whiter. His hand no longer trembled. Instead it looked to Blade as though the man was having to fight an urge to draw his sword and fly at Blade or Lord Tsekuin. Nothing but fear of what he might unleash by sweeping away law and custom like that seemed to be holding him back.
Then the tension that might have flashed into violence and chaos passed. The Hongshu sighed visibly, crossed his arms on his chest, and nodded.
«Then let the game continue.»
It took only another fifteen or twenty minutes before the last two dabuni of the Hongshu's hand joined their comrades on the floor. Neither really had the nerve left to defend themselves, and Blade didn't feel particularly good about killing either one. He understood why Lord Tsekuin might want to rub the Hongshu's nose in his defeat. But it still seemed like an ugly and meaningless butchery.
Silence returned to the chamber as the last of the Hongshu's fighters gave his death rattle and lay still.
Blade was conscious that the Hongshu's eyes were fixed on him more intently than before. Blade raised his spear in the formal salute and waited for the man to speak.
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