Lakshaman didn’t move; he didn’t even blink. As soon as the final knot was loosened, he flexed the fingers of his right hand, and the Mongol guard fled.
The gate banged shut behind him, leaving Lakshaman alone in the arena, surrounded by the thunderous noise of the eager crowd. Slowly—Zug would have accused him of playing to the crowd slightly—Lakshaman stripped the loose bindings from his wrists and hands, tossing the rope aside. He flexed his hands, bending each of the joints of his fingers.
His knives waited for him. Unadorned, hilts wrapped with stained leather, blades marred with age and use, they were not fancy weapons. Lakshaman scooped them up, the hilts slapping comfortably against his palms, and finally turned his attention to his opponent.
The man was by now waiting for him in the center of the sandy arena, swathed in a coating of maille from neck to knees. A white coat covered his midsection, stained with dirt and stitched with a red sword beneath a Christian cross of the same color. The man’s helmet was an unadorned metal can that offered only a thin slit in the front. While it made the man’s face a difficult target, it also reduced his field of vision. He held a short hatchet in one hand, a horseman’s hammer in the other.
A frown crossed Lakshaman’s face. He was wearing mismatched leathers, a sleeved jerkin, and pants he had acquired from a dead man a long time ago. Though his blades were long, each roughly the same length as the span from his elbow to his fingertip, they were made for cutting. Against this man, they would not be very effective. Lakshaman glanced up at the colorful silk hangings of the Khan’s pavilion. He would not be able to see the Khan very well if at all—the sun was high overhead and most of the pavilion was clothed in shadow—but the Khan could see him.
He would kill this man—he could imagine no other outcome. But the Khan’s dismissal of his value was like an itch in a spot he could not easily reach. He was under-armed and underprotected to fight this man. Either the Khan was supremely confident of his ability, or Onghwe simply wanted a spectacle, a passing bloody fancy to occupy an otherwise indolent afternoon.
Like flies, he thought, and spat in the dirt. If he survived, he would speak with the Flower Knight. He did not care what Kim’s plan was, as long as it allowed him an opportunity to kill Mongols.
Tightening his grip on his knives, he approached the knight. As he closed, the knight fell into an easy stance, hatchet held ready in front of him, hammer raised behind his head. Lakshaman adjusted his step, circling to his right—just outside the reach of the knight’s hammer swing.
The knight shuffled, shifting to keep Lakshaman in front of him. He held himself with an easy confidence, assured in the superiority of his weapons and armor. His reach was longer; he had no reason to attack first. Lakshaman would have to get in closer to use his knives, and during that time, the knight would have a chance to use the hammer and hatchet.
Arrogance is good, Lakshaman thought. It will make him slow.
He continued to drift around the man, maintaining the same distance and letting the tips of his knives dance hypnotically. As if he was mentally assessing the knight’s armament, and trying—vainly—to ascertain a weak spot in the man’s maille. He stopped being aware of breathing, as his mind unconsciously focused on the subtle changes in the knight’s posture and position.
The sun beat down, and Lakshaman felt sweat bead up on his neck and drip down the inside of his arms within his leather bracers. The knight’s white coat would keep him somewhat cool, but his arms and head did not have the same protection. It had to be getting hot in that armor. How much patience did the knight have?
Having completed two complete circuits of the man’s stationary position, Lakshaman settled into a low stance, knives ready, and waited. How long?
The Westerner leaped forward, the hatchet lashing out at Lakshaman’s neck. It was a marvelously delivered blow, the weight of his opponent trailing behind the ax head as it whirled toward him. Waiting behind it was the hammer, held high in preparation to swing down and shatter bone. A less experienced fighter would have expected the hammer to come first, but Lakshaman had never doubted that the first strike would come from the hatchet. For all the swiftness of the knight’s attack, signs of his intent had been readily clear to Lakshaman. The hatchet was in his enemy’s left hand, and as it snapped toward him, Lakshaman stepped forward and to the outside. He slammed the pommel of one of his knives and his other forearm against the Westerner’s arm, blocking the blow before it could even be fully extended.
He was close enough now for the knives.