Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 51 of 57

The scarred swordsman had agreed to the duel at dawn. But when Damian and Rolo reached the grove before first light, they found it changed. The old clearing was gone. Fresh-cut brush choked the ground. Ropes hung between the trees. Wooden stakes jutted from the dirt in crooked rows. The killer had come early and reshaped the field on his own terms. He stood at the center, blade drawn. "You wanted the open," he said. "So I opened it my way. Come and stand where I say, or you break your own word." Damian saw the trap in it. The stakes forced a narrow path. The ropes cut off his angles. Every clear step led toward the killer's reach. A fair duel needed level ground, and there was none. Rolo touched his arm. "He's rigged it," she whispered. "He wants you angry and blind. Don't take the path he built." Damian breathed and cleared his mind, the way his master had taught him. He would not charge. He looked past the ropes to the tree line above. Then he raised his wrist and loosed his raven. The bird climbed and circled. It dropped, then rose, then dropped again over one bare patch of ground behind the stakes. Damian read its path. Beyond the killer's traps lay a strip of flat earth, clear of brush, wide enough for two men and steel. "That ground," Damian said, pointing. "We fight there, or you're the one breaking the word. You set the dawn. I set the fair floor." The killer's smile thinned. He glanced at the flat strip. He had not planted his stakes there. To refuse now was to admit he feared an even fight. His pride would not let him. "Then come," he said, and walked to the clear ground. Damian followed the raven's line, stepping wide of the ropes. He set his feet on level earth. The blue stone in his sword caught the gray light. This was the only blade that could cut the man, and now it had room to swing. The killer opened with the high cut. Damian knew it. He turned it aside. The low cut came next. He met it and held his stance. The man tried to step inside, but Damian had trained against this pattern for months. He gave no ground and let no rage break his guard. Steel rang four times. On the fifth, Damian turned the killer's blade wide and drove the gemmed edge across his sword arm. The man dropped his weapon and fell to one knee, bleeding, disarmed on fair ground at last. Damian held his point at the man's throat. "Who scarred my mother learns nothing more of tricks," he said. "You lost in the open." The killer looked up, beaten and shaking. "There is one above me still," he said. "The one who sent me. He will not stop." Damian lowered the blade. The duel was won. But the name of the man behind it was not.