feet, catching a loop and drawing that over and down one foot to stand on it with the other, gave me a crazy kind of anchorage. My left hand held the leading rein. My right hauled out the Krozair brand. I nearly went head over heels into nothingness; but the blade whipped free. The fluttlann swerved at the last moment and the ukra slashed, wide and horizontal and deadly.
The Krozair brand met that sweep. Steel chingled against steel. The shock made the tyryvol’s head bob up and down like a water duck. Gyrating like an insect caught in a spider’s web, I got a breath, took a fresh grip on the handle of the sword, glared about the sky for the wildman.
He spun up, circled, turned and then hurtled down again.
This time, set, I angled the blow. The Krozair steel simply sliced clean through the stout wooden shaft of his ukra. The steel head spun away below.
He screeched — wild, incoherent mouthings. I shook the sword at him.
“If you want to finish it, come in! Otherwise — clear off.”
He circled. No doubt he was waiting for me to put the sword away so as to climb up. It occurred to me to consider the way Seg would handle this situation.
Seg could have done it easily, I know.
It was more difficult for me.
The wildman circled, around and around. The little fluttlann was willing. The tyryvol ploughed on, heading for the opposite side of the valley. That was my direction, also. There lay the Pass of Lacachun.
The wildman wouldn’t be going away. He’d wait. He had me. If I didn’t tire and fall off, he could sweep in any time he liked. His patience would be rewarded.
Savage and barbaric tribesmen are noted for impetuous anger and headlong attacks; also they do not take kindly to fools. Often they are less noted for patience, although patience is one of the basic necessities of survival in barbaric communities. Yet this very readiness to wait blinded the wildman to a simple answer to the problem. It was simple only if he trusted his own skill, and I judged him a young man, an unfledged would-be warrior who sought to gain a great coup by the capture of this tyryvol. So as I put the longsword away and reached around on my back, the wildman drew his leather-wrapped bowcase.
His gorytus was decorated in only the most rudimentary fashion: a line of beads and a handful of feathers. As he gained in stature the gorytus would become smothered in applied marks of his prowess. But if I got my shot in first his gorytus would remain undecorated forever.
Now here was where Seg would have come into his own.
I held the leather leading rein in my left hand and into that hand, parallel with the rein, I transferred the bow. An arrow drew from the quiver with that initial little resistance to show it was firmly affixed and would not fall out when I stood on my head — an occurrence of routine nature, I assure you, in aerial combat.
The wildman had drawn his bow from his gorytus by this time. He eyed me, quite aware what I was up to. I saw his teeth again. We fitted shafts within the space of the same heartbeat. He nudged his fluttlann and I felt the choke of bile in my throat as he flew a little way to the side. I was dangling uselessly and swinging in the opposite direction.
I contorted my body like a chiff-shush dancer out of Balintol, all liquid wrigglings and writhings. The tyryvol poked his head down and I sagged in the air. I looked up.
“Hold still, tyry, you ungrateful beast! That wildman will beat you, for sure.”
The leather coiled the other way...
The wildman shot a tiniest fraction of time before I did.
His arrow buzzed off somewhere. My shaft took him in the thigh. That was not my point of aim. Seg would not have missed.
The moorkrim let out a shriek of rage and reached for another shaft. He had not faced a Lohvian longbow before. His own flat bow, while a fine weapon for aerial combat, did not draw with the same long power as a Lohvian longbow. He had no idea that the steel-headed arrow, piercing through
The Krozair brand met that sweep. Steel chingled against steel. The shock made the tyryvol’s head bob up and down like a water duck. Gyrating like an insect caught in a spider’s web, I got a breath, took a fresh grip on the handle of the sword, glared about the sky for the wildman.
He spun up, circled, turned and then hurtled down again.
This time, set, I angled the blow. The Krozair steel simply sliced clean through the stout wooden shaft of his ukra. The steel head spun away below.
He screeched — wild, incoherent mouthings. I shook the sword at him.
“If you want to finish it, come in! Otherwise — clear off.”
He circled. No doubt he was waiting for me to put the sword away so as to climb up. It occurred to me to consider the way Seg would handle this situation.
Seg could have done it easily, I know.
It was more difficult for me.
The wildman circled, around and around. The little fluttlann was willing. The tyryvol ploughed on, heading for the opposite side of the valley. That was my direction, also. There lay the Pass of Lacachun.
The wildman wouldn’t be going away. He’d wait. He had me. If I didn’t tire and fall off, he could sweep in any time he liked. His patience would be rewarded.
Savage and barbaric tribesmen are noted for impetuous anger and headlong attacks; also they do not take kindly to fools. Often they are less noted for patience, although patience is one of the basic necessities of survival in barbaric communities. Yet this very readiness to wait blinded the wildman to a simple answer to the problem. It was simple only if he trusted his own skill, and I judged him a young man, an unfledged would-be warrior who sought to gain a great coup by the capture of this tyryvol. So as I put the longsword away and reached around on my back, the wildman drew his leather-wrapped bowcase.
His gorytus was decorated in only the most rudimentary fashion: a line of beads and a handful of feathers. As he gained in stature the gorytus would become smothered in applied marks of his prowess. But if I got my shot in first his gorytus would remain undecorated forever.
Now here was where Seg would have come into his own.
I held the leather leading rein in my left hand and into that hand, parallel with the rein, I transferred the bow. An arrow drew from the quiver with that initial little resistance to show it was firmly affixed and would not fall out when I stood on my head — an occurrence of routine nature, I assure you, in aerial combat.
The wildman had drawn his bow from his gorytus by this time. He eyed me, quite aware what I was up to. I saw his teeth again. We fitted shafts within the space of the same heartbeat. He nudged his fluttlann and I felt the choke of bile in my throat as he flew a little way to the side. I was dangling uselessly and swinging in the opposite direction.
I contorted my body like a chiff-shush dancer out of Balintol, all liquid wrigglings and writhings. The tyryvol poked his head down and I sagged in the air. I looked up.
“Hold still, tyry, you ungrateful beast! That wildman will beat you, for sure.”
The leather coiled the other way...
The wildman shot a tiniest fraction of time before I did.
His arrow buzzed off somewhere. My shaft took him in the thigh. That was not my point of aim. Seg would not have missed.
The moorkrim let out a shriek of rage and reached for another shaft. He had not faced a Lohvian longbow before. His own flat bow, while a fine weapon for aerial combat, did not draw with the same long power as a Lohvian longbow. He had no idea that the steel-headed arrow, piercing through
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