Son of the Hero

"You're the one who dares challenge me? What a disappointment. I had hoped for something more diverting."

"Divert your head up your ass where it belongs," I said. And, for a moment, that's exactly what I saw. When that image faded, it was replaced by a more complete version of the face atop a normal-looking body-as normal as any eight-footer can look. The elflord was only ten feet away from me, and armed much as I was. His claymore fit him better than mine fit me.

"Okay, you got that trick down pat," I said. "Now try this one. Drop dead."

He didn't oblige this time, though. It was too much to hope for. I moved my sword back and forth in front of me and started whistling that strange melody again as I advanced toward the elflord. There was no place to run, so I decided that I might as well act as if I weren't unduly worried about the elflord. The music seemed to give him an instant's pause before he brought his sword up and came to meet me. The battle tune he whistled was different from mine, but it was just as eerie.

I didn't know what the co

The elflord made the first attack, bringing his sword overhead as he stepped forward-stomp the lead foot ahead, then drag up the other foot. I met his blade and pressed to his left. We disengaged and came at each other the same way again. I pressed to his right this time, trying to feel him out. There were a few more tentative, probing passes, then the fight shifted gears rapidly, heating up in a hurry.

This time it was real fencing, not the hurried hackwork my earlier encounters had been. The practiced routine brought its own sort of comfort. We fought at reach. We fought corps à corps. The long swords smashed into each other in combination after combination, at every possible angle, the shock of impact jarring my wrists and sending signals of pain all the way up arms that soon started to feel like lead weights. That was different from my earlier fights with Dragon's Death too. Before, the sword had seemed almost weightless. After a few minutes this time, I could feel the full weight of the claymore. Maneuvering the sword, parrying the elflord, got harder. I met each of his attacks with less leeway, less leverage. It wasn't hard to project the outcome. Soon I would miss a parry and the elflord's blade would slice through me the way I had sliced troll and dwarf with Dragon's Death.

I had to find an edge if I wanted to get out of the duel alive. I would have liked to slip a hand grenade down the front of his tights, but I didn't have a grenade handy and I couldn't be sure it would work if I did.

Something.

I followed a parry with a quick step toward Xayber, and our blades locked at the guard.

Surprise! Xayber hadn't been expecting me to close like that. He could have rested his chin on top of my head… if he had leaned over a little. He was that much taller than me. His sword pressed in and down on mine. His weight pushed forward, trying to force me to step back. He had the weight, but my being two feet shorter gave me a slight advantage in leverage the way we were locked together.

Then the elflord disappeared from sight. I could still feel the pressure of his sword and body, but I couldn't see him. I could still see myself, an image of myself, standing a little beyond, holding the elf sword at an angle, hilt on the ground, point angled toward my gut. I saw myself fall on the blade, saw the point spring out of my back-about where I had been injured before-at the center of a fountain of bright red blood. The vision multiplied until I could see hundreds of copies of myself in all the phases of committing suicide. Miniatures, drive-in-movie-screen size, everything in between, over and over and over. Then the pictures started to strobe-again, over and over. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed against the invisible elflord. When I opened my eyes again, he was back-gri

Then the elflord changed himself into a copy of me and I dueled with myself. The absurdity of that gave me a lift.

"Gee, I even get to costar with myself," I said-or grunted, one word at a time. "Think of all the movie stars who never got to try a dual role."

The elflord returned at that, but he wasn't gri

"So. You're more than you appear to be." Xayber forced a disengagement and stepped back out of reach of a lunge. I brought my sword up in a salute and tried to spread a grin across my face. From the reaction I got, I guess it worked.

"You don't recognize my magic?" I don't know what brought that comment out of me, but I loaded it with obviously mock surprise. "You must be slipping. Shall we have another go? I think it's time Xayber belonged to a lord more fit to hold it." I took two quick steps toward him and lunged at his throat. He backed out of reach again, brought his sword up to his face, and vanished. The gray and the light went with him. I collapsed across Lesh.

15 – Coriander

Lesh woke noisily when I fell on him, and that woke the others. I was so wiped out that I couldn't move, not even an arm. Limp, exhausted, turned inside out, I could scarcely mumble answers to the questions that Lesh and A

A

That sounded good to me, but the three of them had to do all of the work. It's a good thing we had unloaded only the essentials. I was baggage, useless, as if I didn't have a bone or muscle left-Dorothy's Scarecrow with his stuffing ripped out. The others even had to hoist me into the saddle and tie me in place. When we rode out, Harkane was at my side to make sure I didn't fall. He held the reins of my horse.

A

The duel with Xayber was real. I could have died during it even though I never physically left our camp and the elflord never physically entered. That was why my wound didn't hurt during my duel. My body wasn't physically involved. It must have remained just standing in place while the fight went on. I could have died wore at my mind through the night. There was no question whose magic was more powerful. In my short time as Hero of Varay I had come to rely on my new ability to sense danger, but the elflord had almost completely negated that puny talent as an offhand prelude to his attack. His magic had barely begun when mine ended. The elf sword was a bonus, pure luck. It as the only thing that let me survive the duel. The sword had its own magic, and drawing the weird battle tune from me was only a small part of it.