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of his boatman's weariness, if those screams across the lake really were
Yount's party. I suppose they were. I'd like to think those flying things had
nothing to do with me, but I think perhaps old Ludvig was right after all. I
was a Jonah to Yount's people.
He looked nervously up at the shredding sky, half fearing to see bat-winged
black figures wheeling above. Then it occurred to him that, whatever they had
been, they couldn't help being blown away east by this fierce wind. It's as if
their presence here itched the earth, he thought, and it's sneezing.
The guide-rope was pulled tight across the water and thrummed like a bass lute
string each time the old man clutched it. Duffy gripped the rail and held on,
still half-expecting the old man to drop dead.
By imperceptible stages, though, the shoreline worked nearer, and eventually
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the ferry's ragged bow bumped the pilings of the north side dock. Duffy stood
up. 'Well, sir,' he said, 'thank you for the extraordinary -'
'Get out of the boat now,' the old man told him.
The Irishman frowned and climbed out. Laconic, these rural types are, he
thought.
There was a clearing littered with torn hides and splintered wood and the
trampled remains of a campfire, but he could see no bodies. He wasn't sure
whether to feel better about that or not.
Chapter Five
Toward midday the wind died down. It had blown away the cloud cover, and the
sunlight began to make Duffy sleepy, so he laid his cloak under a tree and
stretched out on it, dozing in the dappled evergreen shade.
He was snapped awake an hour later by a sound that was lately becoming
uncomfortably familiar to him: the clang of swords. He got up, rolled his
cloak, and padded a few yards deeper into the woods. This, at least, he
resolved, is a fight I stay out of.
'Get the bastard!' someone was calling. 'Don't you see him?'
'No,' echoed a reply. 'He was down in that thicket a second ago.'
'Well - Oh Jesus-' Three quick clangs followed, and a gasping cry.
There was silence for a few moments, then the second voice spoke up again.
'Bob? Did you get the hunchback or did he get you?'
There was no answer. It's my guess the hunchback got Bob, Duffy thought with a
hard grin.
Footfalls crackled somewhere near him, and he breathed a curse. Surrounded, he
thought. I may have to climb a tree.
Exploding abruptly out of a bush in a spray of broken twigs and leaves, a
little curly-haired man with an absurdly long sword leaped at the Irishman,
whirling a quick cut at his head. Not having his own sword out, Duffy leaped
up and parried the cut with the heel of his boot, and the impact flung him two
yards away. The little man followed up the attack furiously, but Duffy had
scrambled up and drawn his rapier now and was parrying the blows fairly
easily, for the little man's two-handed sword was too heavy to be used
deceptively.
I'm going to have to riposte soon, Duffy thought, exasperated, or he'll break
my blade. 'What is this?' Duffy asked, blocking a hard cut at his chest. 'I've
done nothing to you!'
The hunchback - for, the Irishman noticed, that's who it was - stared at him
for a moment, choked with rage. 'is that right?' he yelled finally, redoubling
his attacks. 'You call all that nothing do you? Watch, while I do nothing to
your filthy entrails.'
First demons, Duffy thought unhappily, and now madmen. I guess I've got to
kill him.
He shifted his sword to his inside line, inviting a cut at the shoulder. When
he goes for it, he calculated, I'll parry outside, feint a direct riposte to
his inside line, then duck around his parry and put my point in his neck.
The hunchback cocked his arm for the expected blow, but at that moment four
armed men strode up through the tangled brush. 'Kill them both,' growled one
of the newcomers, and they advanced with their points extended.
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'God, help us,' gasped Duffy, alarmed by this escalation. 'We can finish our
fight later,' he barked to the hunchback. 'Deal with these boys now.'
The little man nodded, and they turned on their four attackers. Duffy engaged
the swords of two of them, trying to draw one into an advance so he could put
a stop-thrust in his face, but the hunchback leaped at his pair, whirling
maniacal hammer-strokes at them. The forest resounded like a dozen smithies.
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