The third warrior was the biggest warrior Blade had yet seen in Melnon. He must have stood six feet eight, and he was broadly built. But he was also slow in proportion to his bulk, and apparently the slowness extended all the way up from his feet to his wits. He had no ideas for dealing with Blade except to charge in like a mad bull, trying to knock Blade's guard down and his head off by sheer brute strength. This he did so fiercely and so persistently that Blade eventually had to kill him with a thrust in the exposed throat above the neck of his armor. Blood gushed all over the white armor and over the trampled ground. The man gurgled, choked, and swayed. Blade stepped back in time to watch him crash to the ground.
It took two warriors from each side to lug the huge corpse off to the sidelines. The spectacle apparently so preyed on the mind of Blade's next opponent that he considered himself doomed the moment he stepped out to meet Blade. He made no effort to defend himself or even launch an intelligent attack. Instead he charged straight at Blade, screaming at the top of his lungs, waving both swords like the arms of a windmill determined to at least die spectacularly.
He did not even succeed in doing that. Blade saw at once that this fourth opponent was hardly more than a boy. He certainly didn't want to kill him, and he even preferred to take chances himself to avoid this. Blade dropped down on one knee as the boy closed. He did this so suddenly that the attacker's strokes both whistled through the air where Blade's head had been. Then, before the boy could recover, Blade's own swords darted up. He was gambling on his own speed and sure eye, aiming at precariously small targets-the other man's wrists. Blade's aim was perfect. Both his swords drove into their targets, and both his opponent's swords went flying. Blade jerked a thumb at them, indicating to the boy that he should pick them up and get out of the way. Then he smiled.
«Don't panic, the next time,» he said to the boy. «You'll live longer almost any other way. And I think you'll live to be a fine warrior for the Eagles someday-if you're sensible.»
The boy stared at Blade with eyes so wide that Blade felt uneasy for a moment. Had he violated the War Wisdom in some way? Then he realized that the boy was trying to hold back tears, which were unfit for a warrior of the Towers of Melnon.
«Thank you, line leader,» he said in a strangled voice. Then he bent, retrieved his swords, and stumbled off to the sidelines.
The fifth man was easy, so easy that Blade wondered if the man had deliberately thrown away the fight to save himself wounds or death or captivity. The sixth tried harder, but no more successfully. Eventually Blade closed with him in a corps a corps as classic as he could manage with the two curved swords. His knee went up into the man's groin. As the man doubled up and crumpled, Blade slammed the flat of his sword across the back of the man's neck. This time Blade chose to exercise his right to capture the man, who would then have to be ransomed by the Tower of the Eagle for whatever sum in goods or Low People the Tower of the Serpent might set.
As his comrades behind him in the third line led the prisoner off, Blade noticed a look of something like awe in the eyes of several of them. He shrugged. Perhaps he had shown endurance, but he hadn't needed that much skill-yet. His opponents had so far been either inept, half-paralyzed with terror, or overconfident. Sooner or later he was going to meet an Eagle as good as Kir-Noz, who was none of these things.
The seventh man was not that good, although he was the best opponent Blade had met so far in the war. He was fast, completely unintimidated by what he had seen Blade do already, and exceedingly strong. He conducted a very effective defense with arms that were lightning-fast and as strong as the branches of an oak tree. They kept his own swords between his body and Blade's strokes for a long time. So long, in fact, that Blade began to become worried. His opponents were coming to the war completely fresh except for the walk from their tower. He on the other hand had the long and wearing fight with Kir-Noz behind him. He might be able to beat each one of the ten men in the Eagles' third line individually, but the ten of them together might be too much for his endurance.
Fortunately, Blade had no trouble outlasting his seventh opponent. He kept slashes and thrusts coming at the man continuously, from all directions, at all intervals, and at all speeds. Eventually it was a slow thrust with the long sword that found an opening in the man's guard. The tip of Blade's long sword drove into his mouth, and he reeled back, spitting blood and teeth. For a moment shock and pain caused him to drop his guard, and Blade thrust low into his thigh. Blood gushed down the man's leg, and he dropped his swords, knowing that he had lost too much speed to have any hope of coping with Blade's next attack. Blade was not entirely sure of that, so he willingly let the man stumble back to the side of his own tower.
The interval between opponents was longer this time, and Blade had a chance to check on the progress of the War on either side of him. In the fourth line, to his left, Eagles and Serpents were both only on their third fighter. Apparently the two Towers were almost perfectly matched in that line, because the score seemed to be one victory apiece.
In the second line, immediately to Blade's right, the Serpents had a definite edge. Here also they were only on their third warrior, but the Eagles had been forced to bring up their fifth. Before Blade could discover what was going on in the first line, to the far right, his own eighth opponent strode forward.
Blade's trained eye immediately picked this one as the most dangerous yet. If the Eagles were going to put into the war against him anybody as good as Kir-Noz, this was most likely the man.
The warrior came out slowly, steadily, his eyes never leaving Blade's face but with both swords in position even before he was in the open. Blade did the same. And he did not go straight in to the attack as he had done before. He dropped into a defensive crouch, and began a slow circling around the other man. The other did the same, and they circled slowly around each other three times in succession. Each kept his eyes fixed on the other, searching for any clues to the other's weaknesses. Blade hoped to find some hint of overconfidence or nervousness in the other's expression, but he could not. This man was as sure of his war skills as Blade himself. And he was far fresher than Blade, who was conscious of the sweat pouring off him, the aches in his legs and arms, and the tightness across his chest. He could not hope for luck with this opponent, and for the first time he wished he had insisted on being properly armored. Even if the other wanted only to defeat or capture Blade, it would be hard to keep those razor-sharp swords away from his flesh entirely.
Suddenly, with no wind-up or warning, flat-footed and quick as lightning; the other man struck. Blade plotted the path of the incoming swords and had his own up to meet them in a split-second, but even that was barely in time. The long sword whistled down past Blade's ear, and only a frantic twisting of his body kept it from slashing into his arm. As he twisted he thrust low with his short sword, but the thrust also missed its mark, driving harmlessly into the other man's armored flank.
Around and around the two men went in a succession of deadly circles. They were no longer sizing each other up, for each knew that he would require all his strength and skill to survive, let alone to win. As they circled, they slashed and thrust and parried in a continuous flashing and clanging of steel. And as the swordplay went on and on, Blade became more and more worried. He could not break through this man's guard, nor could he hope to keep up his own guard for much longer. The man was too fast and strong, and Blade knew that he himself was tiring rapidly. If he slowed down, he would be finished.