the shoulders, a brace of perfect power through arms, back and legs. Farys's blade deflected effortlessly by, glancing from her swinging edge like a skate on ice. She could perhaps have finished it then with his guard exposed in the follow-through, the commonest form of death for regular fighters against the svaalverd…yet the perfection was lacking and the feet could not quite position for the stroke the hands desired.
He recovered fast and pressed the attack. This time, there were no enormous follow-throughs, as if someone had thought to coach him what not to do. Sasha retreated, a step to each stroke as their facing shifted, countering one, and another, and then another in a clever, deceptive combination that swung at the last moment to an unexpected, high-quarter slash from an interrupted backswing. But it was the simplest, most beautiful thing in the world to shift her guard from low to high, switching the retreating foot to rear and rotating that defence into a fast, offensive cut.
Farys survived only with a desperate, downward slam of his blade, but his left foot failed the transition, and so she swung to that side instead. His frantic parry barely made it in time, and his balance not at all as he stumbled back a step…and that necessary movement opened the way for the most exquisite shift of balance to her forward pivot foot, as the blade circled to his low, right quarter and slashed him cleanly open from right hip to left shoulder.
Farys stumbled back, slowly collapsing as his eyes stared in disbelief. Blood spurted in a horrid flood, drenching vest and legs, and he crumpled in a motionless heap on the grass. Sasha held that posture, blade held high in final flourish, arm perfectly extended from the shoulder, feet at the precise position and angle. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever done, that killing stroke. So perfect. So supreme. She gazed up at the lethal, gleaming edge, almost bloodless with the speed of her strike, and marvelled at her own magnificence.
Of the horrified gasps, cries and then yells from the Hadryn surrounding, she was only dimly aware. Of the sudden roar from the Halleryn walls, beyond the silent pause that followed Farys's fall, even less so. Except that suddenly, there was a sound of rumpling cloth, a cloak thrown back and a high, metallic slide of a small blade leaving its sheath.
A desperate yell came from the perimeter's friendly side and she spun, aware only of an onrushing threat, her blade slashing to meet it…and struck the knife from midair, sending it spinning into the nearby turf. The thrower himself was felled a moment later, clutching another knife in his neck, and then there were men breaking the circle on all sides in a flurry of dropping cloaks and flashing blades.
Before she could think to find her target, Kessligh was beside her, dropping one onrushing man with a single stroke of such simplicity, it took her breath away. Another, too, came at him, Kessligh simply stepped inside the swing, cutting him down as a gardener might slash a weed.
Amidst the confusion, someone slashed from her left…Sasha ducked, but already that body was falling, cut down by Jaryd, his eyes wide with fury. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it all stopped. An entire line of Hadryn lords and men, behind the two Kessligh had felled, were now all wavering, staring with fearful, furious stares at Kessligh. Falcon and Royal Guards alike had closed at Sasha's sides, weapons ready and eager.
“Honour has been satisfied,” Kessligh told them all. His voice was hard, yet calmer than Sasha had heard in many a training session. “The result is clear. Take your losses and leave. Be thankful I ignore the cowardly knife and do not challenge each of you to mortal combat, one at a time, for your complicity.”
Sasha had never seen any array of faces more furious, and more hateful, than those of the Hadryn lords confronting them. Nor, she thought, more scared. They drew back, gathering the bodies of their fallen as they went. Sasha looked over her left shoulder to where Jaryd still stood above the body of the man he'd killed. It was a long way back to have been a Hadryn man…and she realised with shock that the dead man was a Falcon Guard.
Another guardsman knelt to remove the fallen man's helmet…it had a lieutenant's crest and came off to reveal the heavy, round face of Lieutenant Reynan.