Fire Blades
Christopher looked at Anya in pure horror. She looked back at him, her eyes wide.
‘All righ’, boy,’ said Vigo. ‘Now I wan’ ter see you dance.’
Christopher saw Anya flinch. He saw her face flood suddenly red.
‘Dance for us, boy,’ said Vigo. He was beginning to slur his words. ‘Shake those hips!’
‘You!’ Anya’s voice was like a bird call, high and sharp. She pushed through the crowd to stand next to Christopher. ‘You don’t speak to him like that!’ The two red patches were high on her cheeks and she was breathing hard.
‘It’s the little ex-princess!’ said Vigo.
‘I challenge you, Vigo Nex,’ she said, ‘to a pirate duel.’
Vigo’s lip curled. ‘Wha’s this nonsense, Princess?’
‘My father told me years ago that a pirate king has to agree to a duel if challenged.’
‘You want ter fight me?’
‘Yes. And I set the terms. If I win, you give me the Belt of Hippolyta.’
Vigo smirked. ‘An’ what do I get if I win? If you ken so much about pirate lore, you must know tha’ the stakes must be fair an’ even. What d’you have tha’s worth as much as a priceless piece of Glimourian history, little girl?’
‘I …’
Christopher could see her searching furiously about herself for something valuable.
They had almost no money left, and no jewels.
He could offer his sword – but without that, they would be defenceless.
He thought with agony of all the treasures in Glimt, useless to them now: his sphinx tooth on his bedside table; the gold goblets in the strongroom.
There was a cough, and a fluttering of wings.
Jacques came to land in front of the pirate. ‘If you win,’ he said, ‘you get me. I am the wager.’
‘The bite-size dragon,’ said Vigo. A covetous spark ignited in his eyes. ‘What d’you mean, I get you?’
The dragon held his chin high. ‘I will live and work in your service, should Anya Argen lose the duel. I swear it. I do it in honour of a great woman, and her hiccup cures.’
Greed and desire flashed across Vigo’s face; then he snatched a glass of black liquid from a nearby pirate and downed it. ‘All righ’. I’ll put you in a wee waistcoat an’ leash, an’ tie you to my chair. Shake on it.’
Anya shook his hand. She bowed, and beckoned him to the circle in which Christopher still stood. ‘We fight.’
Vigo gave a roar of laughter so huge Christopher could see his tonsils. ‘By the Immortal, lass, I’m not goin’ to fight you! It’d be like a lion fighting a wee maggot! Did you no’ know tha’ the pirate king can offer up a deputy in his place?’
‘Yes,’ said Anya, though her face said she had not known it.
‘Skadi Finnesse! Come here.’ Anya’s eyes narrowed as the young woman who had been singing pushed through the crowd, unsmiling.
The woman – not much more than a girl – was tall, broad in the shoulder, her muscles defined like the roots of a tree.
She looked like a sculpture. She wore small gold hoops in her ears: the sign of a Berserker.
She turned to Vigo. ‘I’m not going to fight an unarmed kid. It’d be embarrassing. Give her a weapon.’
‘Pavel.’ The man was long and thin as a knitting needle, with eyes as sharp. ‘Take the lass t’the weapons tent. Quick, before my attention wanders an’ I kill you all.’
The weapons tent was in the far corner of the camp, lit by flaming torches. Christopher ran after Anya as she followed Pavel in through the canvas doorway. Her eyes were very bright and her lips were tight.
The tent was a murderer’s dream. Knives and swords were ranged on tables, crossbows leaned against the canvas wall and vicious-looking throwing stars were piled in pyramids.
‘Pick fast, kid,’ said Pavel. ‘Don’t matter which you choose, you’ll be down in seconds.’
Christopher felt a dreamlike horror. ‘Anya! Don’t do this – you’ll be slaughtered. Let me. I’ve got the obsidian sword.’
But Anya’s face was full of a fierce and angry joy. ‘I’m going to fight, Christopher. And I’m going to win. For Irian.’ And more than that – for all the times she had longed to fight and had not been allowed to, had been held back. There would be no holding back now.
She picked up an ugly broadsword and set it back down. ‘Too heavy.’ She bent to one of the wooden trunks, and her eyes suddenly lit up. ‘The crest of Dousha!’
Anya pulled from the trunk a dusty leather harness, with two long, very narrow leather sheaths that crossed over the back of the wearer. From each sheath protruded a silver hilt stamped with a winged unicorn. She turned to the pirate. ‘Why do you have this?’
‘Vigo raided a Doushian ship, years ago. Pick something. If we keep him waiting he’ll punish all three of us.’
But Anya ignored him. With the soft whistle of metal on metal, she unsheathed the two rapiers. They were perfectly matched, each as thin as a reed.
‘I’ll take these,’ she said. She swiped them through the air. ‘Don’t panic, Christopher. She won’t actually kill me – and like Nighthand says: What’s a little bit of maiming between friends?’
When they arrived back in the circle, Vigo had procured a magnum of dryad wine and was sitting on his throne drinking it from the bottle.
Liquid ran down his chin. His pirates stood around the circle, laughing, drinking.
The stars shone bright enough to perform surgery by. The fairies darted overhead.
‘Quick then!’ Vigo called. ‘Knock her down, Skadi, an’ the little dragon’s mine.’
Anya stood opposite Skadi Finnesse. The two bowed to each other. Then Skadi reached across her back, and pulled her sword from its scabbard. It was long, curved like a crescent moon, and its edge was thin as a razor.
Christopher wanted to stop the fight, to roar that it had gone too far, it wasn’t a joke, it was death – but he held silent.
‘Set to!’ roared Vigo, and the fight began.
It was an instant disaster.
Anya was quick and nimble, and she moved like what she was: a princess who had had fencing lessons – but Skadi Finnesse was a warrior.
She had been trained from childhood to fight and she was capable of ruthless action.
Anya’s lips were bitten together in concentration, and she swung both swords hard and desperately.
Every jab and cut and dart Anya made, Skadi parried as easily as if she were swatting away flies.
‘Stop messin’ about, Skadi!’ Vigo shouted. ‘Give us a show!’
Skadi moved like a cat, her bare feet spinning in the sand, and every ten seconds she darted forwards and picked a hole in Anya’s dress; a slice from her hair; a tiny scrap of lace from her collar. She was very deliberately not hurting Anya, Christopher could see.
So could Vigo Nex.
‘Cut ’er down, Skadi! If you let ’er win I’ll have yer buried alive in the sand dunes. I won’t lose this belt!’
Skadi sighed, but the mood was darkening, and Vigo’s hand was at his cutlass. The men were jeering. ‘Do it, Finnesse!’ – ‘Get on, girl!’
With her mouth turned down at the corners she advanced, parried right, and cut a long red flare into the skin of Anya’s forearm. Anya hissed.
‘She’s going to be hurt,’ whispered Jacques at Christopher’s side. ‘This must not happen. I will stop it. I will surrender for her. I will go to Vigo—’
But in that moment, Skadi struck again, and Anya leaped backwards, dropping one of her swords. She swore, scrambling to pick it up, and as she did so, the very tips of the two rapiers struck against each other.
There was a sudden smell of gunpowder and dragon’s breath, and Anya’s twin swords burst into flame.
She gasped and her face was suddenly pure wonder.
She swept a long, sparking line through the night air. The two bright spots on her cheeks spread: the scarlet flush swept over her face, down her neck. She began to shake. Her head came up – slowly, as if she were hearing distant music. And then Anya Argen attacked.
She was like a Catherine wheel, a girl-firework.
The blades were white hot – Christopher could feel it from where he stood at the edge of the ring – but Anya seemed to grip the two hilts without pain.
Her nostrils flared and her teeth were bared, and she almost seemed to fly as she leaped forward, both blades slicing through the air.
A cry went up from the crowd. ‘By the Immortal! The girl can fight!’
Anya darted left, right, right again – she moved across the sand on feet so light she barely seemed to land. She feinted; Skadi lunged, and Anya dropped and rolled in the sand to evade the point of her sword.
Skadi parried fast, but the sparks of flames flew in her face, and she had to put up her hand to protect her eyes. Anya advanced, step by step, across the sand, until she and Skadi were exchanging blows just inches from Vigo’s face.
Then Skadi gave a scream as Anya’s sword, burning white, sliced through the top of her sword.
‘I surrender!’ Skadi dropped her sword on the sand. ‘I can’t fight fire with steel.’
‘Keep fighting! It’s not over!’ said Vigo.
‘Vigo. She fought fair. Give her the belt.’
Vigo stared at her – then he gave a great bellow of laughter. Flecks of spit landed on the faces of his courtiers. ‘I’m no’ goin’ to give some squitty little kid the Belt o’ Hippolyta! It wasna a real bet. Ge’ lost, kids. Be glad I’m not throwin’ you to the kludde.’
‘The belt, Vigo,’ said Skadi.
‘You keep yer mouth shut, you young chit.’
The young woman met his eye. ‘I’m old enough to know a deal when I see it.’
The mood was shifting against him. There was a murmuring among the guests. ‘Give it to the girl!’ – ‘Can’t you keep a bargain?’
‘Enough!’ Vigo held up his hand. He drained the wine bottle and kicked it away from him. There was a long and terrible silence. Then he rose from his throne. He swayed slightly as he unbuckled the belt, and threw it on the ground.
‘Get out o’ here, both o’ you. If I meet you on a less festive day I’ll make yer sorry for it. And, Skadi: if I see yer face again I’ll cut yer down where you stand.’
The young half-Berserker said nothing. She picked up her truncated weapon, and stalked away into the desert.
Christopher bent and snatched up the belt.
Anya touched the tips of the swords together, and the flames disappeared.
She thrust them inside their sheaths, and slung the harness over her back.
It was too large – it had been designed for someone taller and broader – but it fitted well enough for the purpose.
They exchanged identical looks – and they ran.
They did not stop until they had put several dunes between themselves and Vigo’s camp, Ratwin leading the way over the darkened desert.
Then Anya held out her hand to Jacques and he landed on it.
‘You are,’ she said, ‘the bravest dragon in the Archipelago. Thank you.’ She kissed the back of his head.
‘Unhand me!’ said Jacques. ‘This is most undignified!’ But he did not move, and his tail swished from side to side on her palm.
They walked across the sand by the light of the moon. It was hard going, but every now and then they glanced at each other and exchanged smiles. They spoke little, until they came in sight of the shore.
‘Christopher.’
‘Yes?’
‘That fight.’
‘Yes.’
‘I loved it.’
‘Yeah. I could tell.’
‘But – I wasn’t fully there. Something came over me – the same feeling as before.’
‘Yeah. You had that same look that you had, back in the City of Scholars.’
‘Since I was born, everyone around me – everyone, except my father and the gaganas – told me what I was. I was a princess. My job was to look and behave exactly right at all times. My grandfather once told me that my job was to be watched. “To be seen and admired and envied and coveted.” I remember it – that’s what he said.
I used to get so angry: I spat on the floor, once, at his feet.
I used to feel like a volcano – like I wanted to explode – I wanted to roar, to run, to bite, to kick things.
He said I had to be sweet and good and charming. That I was born to be. But …’
‘But?’
‘What if I was born to be something else?’
‘What?’
‘I know how this sounds.’ She was scowling at the sand as they walked. ‘You’ll laugh.’
‘I won’t.’
‘What if I was born to be brave?’
Understanding is not a single thing: it happens over and over, painfully. It is more like rolling a stone up a hill than it is like a firework. But Anya Argen was on the move.