The remaining four stood, looking shocked and stupid. I nocked an arrow and advanced on them with the bow at full stretch, snapping my aim from one to the other as quickly as the breath went in and out of my lungs.
“You can’t get us all, boy,” shouted a man who carried a longsword and stabsword. His voice rang in the still wood, and he dropped the snarling visor on his wide helm. If he thought it would protect him from my arrow he was a fool.
“I can get two of you,” I said, sitting on the fallen statue and sliding over it. There was no waver in my voice, no doubt of the threat I posed. “Maybe I’ll get three.” I returned my aim to the man with his visor down. “You die first.” I could see his eyes behind his visor as he watched. Occasionally his glance flicked to his friends as they spread out around me. I walked forward until I was in the centre of the clearing and Rufra lay at my feet. His dented helm had come off and he was still as a corpse. But he breathed.
He breathed.
“Rufra,” I hissed and nudged him with my foot. He groaned.
Did his eyes flicker?
The moment I glanced down at my friend the swordsman advanced. I drew the bow the final few fingerbreadths I needed to get the arrow through his armour.
The bow snapped.
“Dead gods,” I cursed as the thing jumped out of my hands, stinging my fingertips and leaving them numb.
“You should have run, boy,” laughed the swordsman. “Just go. Leave him. We don’t expect mage-bent to fight real men.”
I could run. My cover would stay intact if I did.
But Rufra was unconscious. He would not see what happened here.
And he was my friend.
I drew my blades.
“If you want him, come and get him.”
The warrior shook his head. “Well, you’ve had your chance, cripple, and you have chosen to be pig food.”
I wanted to curse Rufra for falling in the centre of the clearing rather than somewhere more tactically useful. Three of the men were using the traditional long and short sword, one held a large shield and a stabsword. My skills were in close work. I had no doubt that one on one with paired swords I could take any of them. But four on one was a different matter. They could circle me and keep feinting until I tired. Then, while one distracted me, another would take me from behind. It would only be a matter of time.
Their leader began with a thrust of his longsword. It was an obvious feint as his blade could not reach me. All my instincts said to ignore it as he only tested me but instead I swung wildly, like the novice I was meant to be. He laughed again.
“Not much of a swordsman, are you, boy?”
I lifted my head and tried to appear like a boy faking confidence. “I have trained to wield a blade. I am a squire of Maniyadoc.”
“Trained, have you?” His friends chuckled around me. “How long for, an hour?” He feinted again and I swung wildly in return.
“I have had over a week of training at the hands of Squiremaster Nywulf,” I said.
“A week?” He laughed and gave a subtle nod at the two swordsmen behind me. “Well, we’d best be careful of you then, eh?”
He feinted again. I did not move this time as I had seen his signal to the men behind me. The two ran in to finish me and I spun on the spot then began to fall, making it look like I stumbled on my club foot. Their swords came up and I turned my fall into the twelfth iteration, the Fool’s Tumble. As I fell, I threw my longsword at the man on my right, tangling and cutting his legs. The tumble took me under the blade of the man coming from my left and I came up into a crouch. My extended stabsword hooked under his chain kilt and took the man in the groin, severing the artery. He dropped his blades. I pushed him away and grabbed his stabsword from the ground, turning to send it through the air and into the throat of the second warrior as he untangled himself from my longsword.
The two remaining men did not move as I walked over to retrieve my longsword and then back to Rufra. I stuck the long blade in the ground by my unconscious friend and picked up one of the fallen stabsword belonging to the men I had killed.
“Maybe it was two weeks training with the blade,” I said. “You know how time flies when you are doing something you enjoy.” Behind me a man wept as his blood pulsed from his body. I lowered my voice and pointed my blade at the leader of the men. “You should run,” I said. He knew he should. I had shed Girton ap Gwynr like a wet cloak and there was no concealing how dangerous the assassin, Girton Club-Foot, was.
He rushed me. A foolish move that showed his lack of real skill. He came in trailing his longsword for a big swing and gambling everything on it. As his arm came round I danced with him and was as disappointed as anyone who loved their art could be when confronted with a clumsy partner. First iteration: the Precise Steps. One step, two step, and I was within his reach. Eighth iteration: The Placing of the Rose. With an upward thrust I drove my blade through the bottom of his jaw and into his brain. Using the remaining momentum of his charge I spun him on the spot and threw his body at the man with the shield who was coming at me from the other side. He did what comes naturally when an object is thrown at you and used his shield to push the body away. Unfortunately for him, the body also hid my actions—the Speed-that-Defies-the-Eye—and when he exposed himself I was there. He was unhelmeted and I slashed my blade across his eyes, blinding him.
He screamed. And he kept screaming as I returned to Rufra. My friend’s breathing had changed. It seemed faster, almost as if he was frightened. I did not know what that meant though I knew head wounds could be bad. I hoped he was not dying.
I faded out the screaming of the blinded man while I tried to think. I could not help Rufra. I carried no medical supplies and he was too heavy to carry in his armour. Rufra’s longsword lay on the ground and his stabsword was still in his limp hand. It was a terrible weapon, all rusted and nicked. As was the longsword, which was barely bloodied, but the blades gave me an idea. I took his longsword and returned to the blinded man.
“Quiet,” I hissed and placed Rufra’s blade against the man’s throat. “Who sent you?”
“Garim,” he choked out. “Dead gods, you have blinded me! How will I feed my children? You have blinded me.”
“I said be quiet.” I pushed the sword harder against his neck. “Answer my questions if you want to live.” He swallowed and nodded. “Who is Garim and why did he want my friend dead?”
“Garim is who leads us. You killed him. As to the rest. I only know someone at the castle paid him. I just do what I’m—”