NOVEL NEXT Chapter 12: Close Quarters
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Harry: I had 'knight in shining armor' in mind, but every choice I made led me closer to 'barbarian'. This was a compromise.
Gordon: I'm going to need you to get burn scars on half your face. You're incomplete.
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Saturday, November 9th, 2091, about 4:10 pm MST, Ghostlands, Kingdoms Server, Mournhollow
Gordon leaned against a marble column, arms crossed, his smirk half-hidden beneath his tilted hat. Karen stood stiffly beside him, her fists clenched as she watched Harry step into the center of the floor, towering over his opponents. His eyes flickered as he read chats, occasionally murmuring a response–Karen was glad she wasn't managing that this stream.
She shivered. He noticed and doffed the duster again, and she accepted it gratefully. With the duster off, he was back in full cowboy nonsense—buckskins, fringe, the whole frontier catalogue. She'd tease him later. Maybe. Every movement she made made the damp leather tug and shift, and the duster, while ridiculously oversized, was warm. Freshly warm.
She walked over to Gordon and took his arm in fingers the gloves had only partially protected from the cold. Warm. He reflexively pulled away, but then allowed her to hang on when he saw her shivering.
Behind them, soft footsteps—bare, human—approached at a rapid pace. Claire stopped beside them, arms crossed stiffly over her chest, posture taut with frustration.
And above that familiar body—donkey head.
Karen blinked. The long ears twitched once, then again. The oversized eyes were limpid with soft, vacant patience, entirely incongruous with the seething tension radiating from her friend's furious figure.
Karen reached out and gently scratched the fur between Claire's eyes. "You poor thing.".
The duel began with the sharp retorts of readied pistols. Two shots rang out, echoing against the vaulted glass ceiling at the first ricochets from Harry's helmet. He reeled but held his ground, ducking behind the massive tower shield. The faen woman, moving with predatory grace, swept in to wrench the shield away, her slender fingers finding the edge, her legs curling up to her body as she let it take her whole weight, becoming top-heavy and twisting free. The courtiers murmured approvingly as her lover stepped forward and fired his remaining shots. This fight would not be long.
Harry didn't hesitate. He threw himself forward, slamming the shield—and himself—down atop her as another pair of pistol shots cracked through the air. The weight of the shield kept her arms pinned away from her swords, and her body, and the bulk of the shield, kept his own helmet protected, the bullets slamming into his pauldron and vambrace but rebounding harmlessly off its hardened steel. Beneath him, the faen lady twisted unnaturally, bonelessly, her silver hair a blur as she wriggled free, abandoning the shield to regain her feet. Harry rolled back onto his heels, straightening up to standing, his zweihänder hissing free of its scabbard, the enormous blade coated with a thick frozen layer of dirt, gore, and slush.
The faen woman's sabers were sheathed, but a flash of motion brought them to her hands in an instant, the quickdraw sure and practiced. Karen's lips thinned at the resemblance to her own signature move—thumbs through the hilts of each, arms extending out and up like a salute, blades allowed to rotate down and around as each hand grasps the grip in unison. She lunged forward, her right saber driving toward the narrow slit of Harry's visor, the left steadying the strike as it went, blades sliding along one another with a quiet hiss.
Harry shifted, his sword's pommel rising past as the crossguard's underside rose to meet the thrust, diverting the saber, its dulled back scraping along the scalloped metal backs of his gauntleted fingers. Strike deflected, his blade slashed upward, left hand guiding it upward even as his right pressed the pommel downward, an upsweeping strike offside to her blade, aimed to catch her right hand.
The faen woman was quicker. Her left saber dropped, catching the length of Harry's rising blade in a full-contact parry. Sparks sprayed as the steel screamed against steel, and she sidestepped the slowed attack with a dancer's step. Rime and debris scraped free from his sword, scattering on the floor. Continuing her motion, she stepped into a slash with the tip of her right saber, the blow rebounding harmlessly off Harry's gorget. Karen would have gone low, she mused.
Harry advanced with a hop-step, his left foot leading. His blade reversed mid-motion, the false edge arcing downward deceptively, well within her guard. The faen woman's saber darted forward simultaneously, a lunge for the lower seam of his breastplate drawing a quick flash of pain. But Harry's blade found its mark as well, arcing from her brow to the edge of her ear in a dazzling flash of ice-rimed, dulled steel. No blood spilled — only a jarring clang that rattled her teeth and sent her tottering back two steps.
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The duelist, having reloaded, leveled his pistols again. Twin shots streaked toward Harry, sparks flying from his throat guard and faceplate as the rounds struck true but failed to penetrate. Because bringing low-caliber pistols to a steel plate fight was a dumb move. He'd be better off using them as clubs. Before the pistoleer could fire a third time, Harry bent low, snatching up the discarded tower shield, which he swung in a brutal arc, forcing the swordswoman to leap back, her sabers raised defensively, the shield then sent spinning end over end toward the gunman, whose next shot went wide. "One bullet left," Harry muttered, his voice low, panting, only audible to Karen over the team channel.
The momentum of his shield throw carried him into a spin. His left arm tucked across his body, he leaned into it, pulling his zweihänder around and flashing in an arc from right to left before him. With nowhere to go and no way to block the brutal blow, the woman dove toward him, her sabers leading, blades up and back behind her, the motion carrying her above the arc of his blade. Both pommels struck in split second sequence against the side of Harry's helmet, even as the woman jackknifed, bending at the waist to thread her feet through and land within the circle of his arms. The blows rang his helmet like a struck bell, and Harry staggered, vision darkening as the system penalized him for taking the hit as she ducked around his right side, beneath his arm.
Karen's breath caught as the woman pressed her advantage. Dropping one saber, she stepped fully onto Harry's foot, locking the back of his knee with hers as her freed hand shot upward, gripping the back of his armor and yanking him backward and down with startling force for her size. Harry had a split second to realize what she was doing before he fell—likely spending it cursing his lack of pommel daggers, they'd talked about that—but wouldn't have been able to do anything to stop her now in any case. It was close combat time now.
Harry hit the ground hard, his armor clanging against the mirrored floor, the sound swallowing the murmur of the court. His sword fell by his side, unneeded—it was too long for up-close use. He'd be better off fighting with empty gauntlets. His eyes flicked to the fallen saber lying beside him, nearly within reach, even as she lined up a thrust, two hands on her sword this time, one halfway up the hilt. She struck like a serpent, but having seen it coming, he rolled to his side and lunged for the fallen sword, gauntleted fingers closing around the hilt. Karen winced as Harry scooped up the fallen saber. The weapon looked like a toy in his massive, gauntleted hand. He was a greatsword fighter; a duelist's blade would feel clumsy and unbalanced to him. This was going to be ugly.
She was on him in a flash, lightning flickering strikes probing his defenses, intent on the joint of his arm and helm. Parrying with a saber was different, he found, and he would do it as little as possible in the future—the rounded guard allowed the blade right off, not binding in the slightest. Her blade flickered past again, but his deflections had been enough.
Running footfalls were all that saved him—the pistoleer was closing in, moving fast, a final shot primed. His lover drew aside, clearing his field of fire.
Gordon straightened, the first tinges of concern appearing on his face, but Harry was already moving.
The pistoleer's mistake was in his haste. In his eagerness to use his last shot wisely, point blank, he entered into Harry's range. The borrowed saber thrust upward, the motion quick and brutal. The faerie's own inertia did the rest, his weight driving the blade home with a sickening inevitability, momentum carrying the corpse over him, pistol still with one shot in it, clattering to the floor in the suddenly silent room.
Harry rolled to his hands and knees, his breath rasping, and pushed himself to his feet. His armor bore the marks of the duel—scratches, dents—but as he stood, the saber in his hand dripped once, a solitary droplet of blood striking the pristine floor. He was the victor.
The silence stretched, broken only by the faint snick sound from Harry's abused armor as he turned to face the faen woman. She stood motionless, her saber lowered, her expression unreadable. The courtiers began to stir, their whispers a growing susurrus. Harry offered her her saber back, hilt forward, but she made no move to take it, backing into the crowd of courtiers instead.
Karen clapped. It seemed like the thing to do.
Gordon's smirk returned. "He does have a flair for the dramatic."
Harry let the borrowed saber fall from his hand with a metallic clang, then turned his gaze up to the Faerie Lady.
"Approach, sir knight," the lady commanded. Shayla, Karen thought—but this could be a faerie faction called Shayla, or it could be a family named Shayla—maps and nomenclature in Ghostlands were something of a work in progress at the best of times.
"Surely you have come on a quest, brave knight, for my favor," she told him, gesturing at the three hapless, chained NPC peasants. "'Tis given, and these are freed: Take but my favor beyond my realm, and it shall grow to be a dear companion unto your grave. Drop it but once within my dominion, and be surely hunted by mine devoted forevermore."
The chains fell from the peasants, who bowed awkwardly toward him and left the courtyard hurriedly. She wondered how they'd be expected to maneuver the climb up, but dismissed the thought—they were NPC's, they probably just respawned.
Shayla did not approach Harry, nor did any other courtier, but standing on the step before him was a silver figurine—a dog, or a wolf. He strapped his sword to his shield, slung it over his back by its handle, and gingerly took up the token of her favor with his other hand.
"You have that which you desired," she said, frigid. "Get that slattern out of my sight." He froze and began to turn. Claire hastened forward, tugging his shoulder, wickering gently. Karen's eyes crinkled, but she tried not to let it show. Harry tucked her under his arm, still holding the token, and let her guide him. The rest of them followed, together.