Hilo had not spoken of his wild plan to anyone other than Kehn and Tar. That could hardly be helped, but now he regretted not having said some small thing to Wen before he left. He wondered, abruptly, if his own father had said anything to him and his siblings before he’d left to fight for the last time. Hilo held his moon blade out to the Maik brothers, who both spat on the metal for luck. “If I die, tell my family I fought well,” he declared to Tanku and the more daring bar patrons who were watching from the mouth of the alley.
The combatants touched their blades to their foreheads in salute. Hilo attacked immediately, rushing in Light with a blindingly fast hurricane of slices. Tanku parried the cuts expertly and countered with precise, powerful strokes, shearing Hilo’s weapon with steady, battering force. It took Hilo all of three seconds to grudgingly admit that Tanku was more skilled with the moon blade than he was. He wasn’t surprised, but that didn’t make the fact easier to swallow under the circumstances.
Staggering back from the man’s Strength, Hilo repositioned his stance and attempted to create defensive space by throwing up a quick Deflection. Tanku twisted his body and dispelled the energy with a perpendicular cross-Deflection before Hilo’s wave could travel even an arm’s length from his body. Hilo pulled in his jade energy for another try, but when the tip of his moon blade dipped, Tanku’s weapon darted instantly into the momentary opening, slashing him across the top of his sword arm. Hilo Steeled in time to prevent a terrible gash, but it hurt badly.
“Where’s your shit-talking now, Kaul?” Tanku asked with a smirk.
With a snarl, Hilo charged Tanku with the fury of a bull, slashing and hacking. Tanku kept his Steel up, flexing and shifting it with each of his opponent’s attacks. When Hilo’s energy began to wane and his arms started to shake, Tanku exploded forward and broke through his defenses with ease, cutting the younger Fist across the ribs and then nailing him in the face with the pommel of the moon blade.
Hilo swayed and fell against the wall, hanging on to his weapon but clutching his injured side and blinking through tears of pain as blood poured from his nose. He retched and spat. Kehn yelled, convincingly, “Hilo-jen! Concede before he really hurts you.”
“Listen to your friend, Kaul,” Tanku suggested, lowering his weapon. The fury in the man’s jade aura was ebbing with the satisfaction of seeing his arrogant opponent in great pain and so thoroughly outclassed. Tanku’s energy hummed confident and steady. He could fight like this forever.
Hilo sucked in a wounded breath along with his jade energy and leapt Light at Tanku, who tossed up a Deflection that threw Hilo against the brick wall. Hilo managed, somehow, to Steel against the impact and still hang on to his weapon as he crashed to the floor of the alley.
“You really want me to kill you?” Tanku asked.
From the corner of his blurry vision, he glimpsed Tar taking an alarmed step forward before Kehn stopped him. Hilo shook his head as if clearing cobwebs from his eyes. He’d told the Maiks that he held no personal grudge against Tanku. Now, Hilo saw the man’s scornful thoughts written clearly across his face and in the relaxed set of his shoulders: You’re a stupid kid, a thug, that’s all—and he found it easy to summon a real sense of hatred.
Hilo crawled to his feet and came forward again like a stubborn mule. Tanku sighed. He caught Hilo’s sluggish downstroke and they clinched close, blades locked. Hilo spat in Tanku’s face. The man flinched and Hilo, who had deliberately not employed Channeling once in the entire fight so far, sent a spear of destructive energy straight toward the man’s sternum.
The unexpected suddenness and power of the attack caught Tanku off guard. All his Steel came up into his chest like a door slamming, and with stone-cold sober precision, Hilo went low and slashed open the man’s femoral artery.
Tanku’s eyes flew open in abject astonishment as blood emptied down his legs upon the asphalt. Without any sluggishness or hesitation, Hilo’s left hand seized Tanku by a fistful of his hair, jerking forward with all his Strength to bring the man’s throat down onto the edge of his moving moon blade with a horrible sound.
For several seconds after Tanku’s body hit the ground, Hilo stood panting in a fog of adrenaline, barely able to believe he’d done it. The small group of spectators from the Black Goose stared at the scene openmouthed. Hilo recovered his wits. Raising his moon blade, he wiped it down the inside of his sleeve. “My blade is clean.”
Clean blade or not, he needed to get back to No Peak territory as fast as possible. The bartender had already run back into the building, no doubt to alert other members of the Mountain clan, who would arrive within minutes. Hilo couldn’t count on the Maiks for much help. They were both extremely drunk, having surreptitiously consumed Hilo’s alcohol for him over the course of hours. A squeeze of lemon juice had made Hilo’s eyes bloodshot and a whole spicy pepper had made him sweat and raised his heart rate, so when he confronted Tanku, he would appear to be what the older Fist expected of him—drunken, heedless, unworthy of a real fight.