“I admired you in your early years, Slave King,” Fá calls to me and lifts his metal hand. “I too know the importance of taking more than nature gave me.” The Oranges finish fitting his legs and lock on his gravBoots—another armament he insisted upon. “Unlike you, I know nature cannot be changed. The strong will always prosper. The mighty will always conquer.”
I do not answer. Shamans come forward to paint our armor in the ritual bright blue of an ashvar duel. They glaze it with paint wands, drawing runes in the leviathan’s blood.
I draw Bad Lass to duel-wield with Pyrphoros in my off-hand. I mean to keep Fá at a distance until I can deliver a sure blow.
“Here is my offer, dog,” I taunt. “Confess your crimes. Tell your jarls whom you serve, tell your ‘daughter’ there, and I’ll let you leave with your heart.”
He smiles, wily and confident within his castle-like armor. I summon my helmet up and bring my two blades together.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
“Confess,” I call.
Fá has no doubt killed too many men to count. For all those he’s killed, even more have tried to kill him and failed. But no man is the predator all the time. Even the best know there will come a day when they are the prey. I have been Atlas’s prey for years. I was Apollonius’s prey over Venus, and it terrified me. I will make Fá feel that same feeling for what he did to Sefi. For the perversion he has made of Ragnar’s dream.
“You serve Atlas au Raa. Confess.”
Clang. Clang. Clang.
“It will take more than your lies and needles to kill me.”
His armor powers on with a lion’s roar. He seizes his warsaw from Skarde and shoves him away. He hefts it with one hand and twirls its mass as if it were no heavier than a walking stick. The serrated edge of the warsaw becomes a liquid blur of vibrating teeth. He lifts his blade to the heavens and bellows, “In the name of my son Ragnar, Allfather, accept these stains!”
The Ascomanni roar. So do some of the Volk.
Fá and I watch the drone float between us and cast its shield. An iridescent dome glides down to meet the nexuses a few handspans from the ground. Fá wants it so we don’t end up dancing in the sky, and so that I can’t flee if the duel doesn’t go my way. A shaman shouts. The jarls outside beat on the dome with the flat of their axes. The Ascomanni slam the hafts of their spears. It thunders inside, and the duel is on.
Neither of us move.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
He circles to the right, measuring me, and then leaps into the air. Fueled by his gravBoots, he brushes the top of the dome, and accelerates down to bring a huge overhand onto the crown of my head. Only I am no longer there. I moved forward under the trajectory of his arc. He lands with a tremendous bang and accelerates straight back at me with startling speed.
I move out of the way of his charge. Only it’s not a charge. He is wily. He swings after me as he turns, a sweeping horizontal blow. Instinctively, I rely on the Willow Way.
I block with both blades, intending to deflect it upward and lash back at him under it. Instead, the force is so strong I am sent reeling. I counterattack and land half a dozen slashes on his armor in the Summer Lash of the Way. None even come close to penetrating, and they cost me. Four more of his attacks pound my guard. Reverberations rattle my bones.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to meet his strength when I saw the size of his armor, but I didn’t know he’d also be so bloodydamn fast. I should have fought him in heavy gravity. He has all the advantages here and he knows it. Pounding me back, he herds me toward the edge of the circle where the dome leaves no room for retreat. I’m running out of ground. His last sideways chop slams against my razors with so much force the blades are pushed back toward my helmet. His warsaw follows them, maintaining just enough momentum to take my head off if I don’t give ground. I can’t—the pulseShield is already pushing at my shoulders. There’s only one place to retreat. Up.
Gods I almost do it, but I listen to Cassius. Instead of using my boots, I lever the warsaw upward as I intended to the first time, slip underneath, and go for the kill.
Already shown the futility of slashes against his armor, I thrust for his head with Pyrphoros and his stomach with Bad Lass and follow through with my body. Bad Lass bites home but Pyrphoros glances off his helmet. Then his mass crunches into me with bewildering force. I thought I was the one hitting him. I feel a pinch in my left thigh and spin right.
Despite the quality of my armor, the collision is hard enough to send me stumbling around him. I got free, but shit it hurt. I retreat to the center of the circle. I lost hold of Bad Lass. The razor is embedded in his stomach armor. By his laughter I know it did not bite deep enough to penetrate. Damn that armor.
The pinch in my left thigh evolves into a throbbing pain and a racing itch. One of his spikes penetrated the armor enough to draw blood but not pierce the muscle. I’m surprised.
My eyes dart to the tips of the spikes on his armor. Onyxium metal. They’ll be poisoned too. The man’s a walking death trap.
A low chuckle comes from Fá as the poison races through my veins. “And now you are dead. The rest is all theater. I’ll chew your meat slow.”
73
DARROW
The Breath of Stone
I PRESUMED FÁ’S SPIKES WOULD be poisoned, which is why I took tissue samples from the wounds of the fallen Golds in the Raa grotto. I wanted to see if the poison matched that on the spines in Diomedes’s body when we found him in the pod. They did.
I only hope the blood leech Athena gave me and the anti-toxins they fit into the applicator in my suit will counteract Fá’s poison. I feel nauseous already, a little slower, and a burn spreads down my leg, but I’m not paralyzed yet.
Fá’s Ascomanni pound their spears on the dome. Thunder rattles and shakes. Fá does not let me recover. With Bad Lass still stuck in his armor, he closes in on me and unleashes an onslaught of downward blows, each strong enough to cleave through three men. My arms go numb taking the impacts. I land a dozen blows myself, but none come close to penetrating. Twice I try to grab Bad Lass, but that’s why he left it buried in his armor. Each time he lunges for me, his spikes hungry.
He issues another horizontal chop. I retreat, and he flows into the same spin maneuver he used before. The one that leaves his back exposed. A mistake. I see the opening and instinctively spring toward him, ready to flow into the Winter Storm counterattack of the Willow Way and spear him as his back presents itself.
But then I remember who Volsung Fá’s mentor is and bail out of the manuever. Atlas is the type to feign a weakness to bait an attacker, and I bet Fá is doing the same. No way he leaves his back open to me twice.
Sure enough, Fá never completes his spin. His maneuver and brutish style alter as he arrests his movement and flows into an elegant razor maneuver called the Horse Bane. His knees sink. With his back still to me, his warsaw comes at me off his hip like a pike rising to spear a horse in its chest.
If I’d followed through with my initial attack, it would have sheathed itself through my guts and ripped out my innards. It still almost does. Its teeth chew through a millimeter of chest armor before I shift my weight around it to the right.