‘My wife is not for your companions’ sport and my purse is my own.’
The man sighed. ‘Don’t make me take it from you. It might cost you more than money.’
‘Don’t make me have to stop you,’ Corbel said, his voice very quiet. His calm made the stranger hesitate momentarily, but his companions hardly registered the change.
‘Let’s cut off his bollocks, Barro,’ Blacktooth said, saliva forming at the corners of his mouth. ‘Then he can’t fuck his wife again.’
‘We’ll have to do it for him,’ the older one tittered.
‘You’ll have to forgive my fellow travellers, sir. As you can tell, they have no refinement.’
‘I forgive them nothing,’ Corbel said, his voice so cold it was now brittle.
The man shifted his gaze back to Evie. ‘Your husband is courageous, madam. And he speaks like a noble. I think I understand your attraction to him.’
Corbel was glad to note that Evie remained silent. The man smiled, shifted his weight, and Corbel didn’t wait for him to make the first move. Instead, he bent sideways and kicked out suddenly with his leg, smashing his foot into the old man’s hip. The sound of a bone breaking in the old man’s skeleton was chilling and both Evie and the victim shrieked in tandem. But Corbel heeded neither. He had already regained his balance and crouched, spinning low and kicking Blacktooth’s legs out from under him. He was vaguely aware of the old fellow writhing on the ground and very aware of Barro raising his sword to strike.
In a fluid move that was already in motion while he was spinning, Corbel retrieved the hidden blades stored vertically along the sides of his ribs. One quickly found its way into Blacktooth’s throat, and the young man began gurgling helplessly as Corbel straightened and leapt away from Barro’s sword in the space of the blink of an eye.
Turning back, both he and Barro looked at the dying youngster and his companion, who was on the ground next to him, screaming and covered in Blacktooth’s blood.
‘That wasn’t very sporting of you,’ Barro remarked. ‘Although perhaps I should offer some gratitude. I was desperately tired of them both.’
‘I’ve simply made the fight a bit fairer,’ Corbel remarked.
They both smiled. And began circling each other.
Evie watched in horrified disbelief. There was a sense of the unreal — as though she were participating in a piece of medieval theatre. Except it was all sickeningly real. The screams were genuine, the blood was real, the knives and sword were not toys and this was not make believe. Corbel de Vis and the man known as Barro were engaged in what she sensed was going to be a fight to the death.
She stared at Corbel circling the man, a cold and calculating expression on his face that she had never seen before. She thought she had known Reg so well, but though the man who now accompanied her looked like Reg and talked like Reg that icy smile was chillingly unfamiliar. Reg meant to kill Barro, she was sure, because he had threatened her safety.
In fact, only now, as Barro began to laugh, did she realise she hadn’t taken a breath since the youth called Clem had fallen.
Clem! She looked again at the two figures on the ground. And finally her instincts kicked in and she moved into action.
‘You fight like a soldier. I’m impressed.’
‘Then engage me, or I’ll think you’re scared of me.’
‘Engage?’ Barro grinned, prodding at Corbel. ‘You speak like you’re from the old world.’
‘Perhaps I am,’ Corbel replied.
‘Stop this!’ Evie cried.
‘Too late, madam. I think your husband is determined to fight for your honour … not that I had any intention of threatening it.’
‘But your accomplices did,’ Corbel snarled. ‘And you will share the punishment.’
Barro laughed again. ‘You have a single dagger, my friend. You’d better ask your wife to look away. I’ll tell you what,’ Barro said, feinting with the sword and failing to lure Corbel into his trap. ‘I’ll marry your widow and treat her well when this is done. I can’t be more fair, can I?’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Corbel replied. ‘As you have no wife to mourn you with flowers, I’ll bury you in this deserted landscape and piss on your grave so the weeds can at least grow over you.’
Barro appeared to enjoy his threat, laughing loudly. ‘I think I’ll regret killing you.’
‘No more talking, Barro. Fight, or die as you stand.’
‘As you won’t share your name, soldier, I’ll ask your wife for it later.’
Corbel was aware of Evie’s movement but his focus was now entirely on his opponent. He knew his dagger looked like a pointless weapon against the long sword but wielded with skill it could triumph. Barro’s sword was heavy — deadly, for sure, but cumbersome by comparison. Corbel would just need speed. And cunning.
Barro stabbed and though Corbel leapt backwards the blade caught him high on the arm. He felt the telltale sting but had no time to even check how deep the wound was, for Barro continued advancing without pause.
He thought he heard Evie yell but then everything dulled to the roar of his blood pounding. Nothing mattered but the man before him. He could smell Barro’s sweat and noticed, for the first time, that Barro carried an injury. While the man was right-handed, he favoured that right side. It must be his shoulder. And now that Corbel concentrated on it, still ducking and weaving and knowing he was entertaining Barro by permitting him to slash at him — taking the punishment but mercifully unable to register any pain for now — he saw that the man’s fighting arm was lowering. The sword was heavy, Barro’s fighting side was injured, and he had to keep adjusting and straightening his stance.
Corbel took a deep breath. He needed to unbalance Barro. His opponent’s natural inclination to re-align himself might do the rest and give Corbel the opening he needed. On the rim of his mind he could hear Evie still yelling, but he had to ignore it.
In that moment he felt a deep pain, one that made him want to retch and dragged him from the special place in his mind, back outside to where the smell of blood hung in the air.
‘No, please, Barro, please … ‘he could hear Evie screaming.
Corbel had taken all the punishment that he knew his body could withstand. But wearing Barro out was working; the strength in the man’s arm had so dissipated that he looked lopsided now, as he struggled to rebalance himself. He lifted the sword one more time, and, oddly, Corbel heard his brother’s voice in his head: Now, Corb, now!
Without thinking, Corbel launched himself forward, dagger extended. He glimpsed a look of bemused surprise on Barro’s face before he hit the man in the belly and then toppled with him. Regaining himself quickly, he straddled the soldier and, to a howl of protest from Evie, he plunged the dagger with great force into the man’s chest, just beneath the ribcage, feeling the satisfying give of flesh and the sudden sigh of breath.
It was over. Barro stared at Corbel with confusion and then looked down at his own chest. ‘You got me,’ he murmured. ‘Damn you,’ he said, with what sounded to Corbel like a hint of respect.
‘Corbel … ‘ Evie sounded ragged. ‘Corbel!’ Then suddenly she was upon him, shoving him off Barro, whose head had lolled back.
‘No!’ she screamed.
‘Evie,’ Corbel murmured, a tremor claiming him now as his mind began to accept that the immediate danger was over and his body began to register his wounds.
‘Shut up!’ she yelled into