A Piece of the Action

Here's a little sample from something that I hope will be out soon.

The Vhichang sighed, reached up to rub at his slashed cheek. I glanced at him. His yellow eyes were hard. He hitched up his sword belt and drew a dagger into his left hand to give himself two blades to match mine. He started walking toward me.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” I told him.

“I took the gold,” he replied.

“A hard way to make a living,” I said.

“Aren’t they all.”

He lunged for me then, blades winking with light, his movements smooth and fluid, his technique nearly flawless. Nearly.

My rune-blade licked out, met his dagger, hacked it free of his hand. My rapier hooked up and inside his sword, driving it out of line with his body as his thrust brought him a little too close to me. I stepped into him, looping my arm around his, locking my elbow to catch his wrist and sword against my side where they were useless to him. I wrenched upward on the Vhichang’s arm, heard him grunt as his shoulder came out of its socket.

I lifted my other sword, the runes glimmering along its length as I brought it high. The Vhichang snarled, spat at my feet. I didn’t hold it against him, but I killed him anyway, hacking the blade down into the soft juncture where the shoulder met the neck. He sagged, collapsed against me with what sounded almost like a sigh, and I released my grip on him so that he fell at my boots.

The Ss’Korra had not moved. I saw him shiver, and tossed him the rapier I’d taken from him only moments before. He caught it reflexively, breathing hard, his green eyes skittering from side to side like minnows fleeing the approach of a shark.

“Tell me who hired you and I’ll let you live,” I said.

He groaned, and if it were possible his pupils dilated even more widely. “No!” he screamed, and threw himself toward me.

Our blades linked, slid together in a rasping burst of sparks. I stepped back and away. The Ss’Korra stood for a moment, then collapsed to his knees, dropping his sword in a clatter on the ground as his hands came up to try and stuff the pouring blood back into his chest. I turned away, heard the thud of his body on the stones as he fell the final distance onto his face and died.