The Zenda Vendetta (TimeWars 4)

“You refuse me?” said Drakov, frowning.

“No. No, I don’t have that right, Son,” he said. “You misunderstood. I have a small device strapped to my chest beneath my shirt. It contains a nerve gas, very quick and very lethal.”

“I see,” said Drakov. “That is why you were so concerned about Corporal Cross.”

“Give me a moment,” said Forrester, “and I’ll remove it.”

Drakov nodded and started taking off his own shirt as Forrester removed his. As Forrester disarmed the device and took it off, Drakov tossed aside his shirt, revealing a massive, muscular chest, powerful arms and rock-hard abdominals. He took two knives, both daggers with ten inch blade, and offered Forrester his choice.

It was almost dawn.

13

Lucas hit the moat feet first and thrashed his way to the surface. He was barely able to tread water. He knew that he was functioning on adrenalin and he wondered how long it would be before he collapsed. It was some thirty or forty yards to the drawbridge, a bit less to the bank. He struck out laboriously for the bank. He managed to pull himself out and he lay there for a moment on the ground, trying to get his breath back. The plasma burns were throbbing and he was shivering. With an effort, he picked himself up and began walking along the bank towards the chateau. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he got there. He merely tried to concentrate on one step at a time. That was effort enough. He moved from tree to net using the trunks for support, resting as briefly as he could when it seemed that his energy had completely given out and then forcing himself to go on. He tried not to think about the mission. Apparently, it had failed. He tried not to think about Forrester or Finn or Andre. He tried not to think about the Timekeepers or about the pain and he tried not to imagine what he must look like with half his face burned away. He had seen what the plasma had done to his leg and the sight of it alone, much less the smell, was enough to make him gag. He concentrated all his will on getting to the castle somehow. All he could do was to go on. He was still alive and so long as he was alive, he still had a job to do.

“It’s over,” Falcon said. “He’s dead!”

“Perhaps,” said Hentzau, “but there’s still the king. Release him or I will fire this mysterious weapon of yours.”

“If I release him, you’ll kill me,” she said.

“Perhaps,” said Hentzau. “Perhaps I’ll turn you over to Colonel Sept and give you to him as a present. Or perhaps I’ll take advantage of the opportunity to see how good you really are with a sabre. There should be no interruptions now.”

She looked at him for a moment, then released the king. Coughing, Rudolf crawled away from her. Hentzau took the laser away from her head and allowed her to stand. He backed off a space, then tossed the weapon aside.

“I’ve always preferred steel, anyway,” he said.

Falcon smiled and drew her own Sabre. “You’re a fool, Rupert. You should have killed me.”

“You’re probably right,” said Bentsen, grinning at her. “But where would be the sport in that?”

“If it’s sport you want,” she said, “you’re about to get more than you can handle.”

Hagan threw back his head and laughed. “En garde,” The hall began to echo with the sound of clanging steel.

Father and son circled each other warily, knives held ready, each looking for an opening, Forrester quickly saw that his son was an experienced knife fighter. Drakov had assumed a slightly bent over stance with his balance on the balls of his feet, one hand held out before him with the arm bent a little, held slightly crossways of the body. Unlike the amateur, who knew no better, he held his knife not out before him, but in close to the body so that he could stab out or slash without leaving his knife hand out where it might be grasped or cut or where the knife could be kicked away. His eyes were on Forrester’s, that being the only sure method to be constantly alert for any sign of movement. He carried a lot of muscle, but he moved nimbly, like a dancer, darting in for a quick feint, pulling back at once when he saw that Forrester had read the move, skipping lightly out of the way when Forrester attempted a move of his own.

There was no flurry of knife blades, no tricky motions with the hands to distract the opponent. Both men knew what they were doing and this was very serious business. Each used utter economy of motion. Each watched the other with a fierce intensity, knowing that with two skilled knife fighters, it was a war of nerves more than anything eke. It was not like a duel with swords; one did not thrust and slash and parry. One waited for the other to make a mistake in judgment. Good knife fighters did not cut each other up, at least not very much. Forrester realized that he could not resort to any of the usual tricks, such as doing something totally unexpected-barking loudly and suddenly like a dog or spitting in his opponent’s face, then taking advantage of the one instant in which he was startled to move in and gut him. Nikolai would not be fooled like that. It would take a great deal of concentration to avoid being caught off guard or-off balance. The first one of them to make a mistake would lose and it would be over in an instant.

The only problem was that Forrester was losing his concentration. He kept staring into Drakov’s eyes, trying to put all thoughts out of his mind, but it was like staring into his own eyes in a mirror. In combat, especially close combat, the mind had to be empty, free of any thoughts of winning or losing. The idea was to get into the rhythm of the deadly ballet, to flow with it without thinking. To think about winning was to admit the possibility of losing. To think about surviving was to dwell upon the spectre of death. Yet, try hard as he might to focus himself on the pure interplay of motion, Forrester’s mind kept drifting, like a boat with a sleepy captain that kept wandering off course, then lurching back as the captain caught himself and seized the wheel.

Drakov’s eyes were his eyes. It was like locking gazes with himself. His face echoed Vanna’s face so strongly that Forrester kept seeing her. He kept pushing the vision away, but the thought resurfaced again and again in his mind- I’m in deadly combat with my son, with my own flesh and blood.

Don’t think about it, he thought to himself, you’ll slip, you’ll make a mistake! And, having thought about it, he made one.

He recovered in the very nick of time, blocking madly, and Drakov’s blade opened up his forearm from wrist to elbow. The daggers were sharp, both at the points and on both sides of their narrow blades and the knife bit deeply. The blood flowed freely, dribbling down onto the stone floor. Forrester began to move more quickly, never staying for more than a second or two in the same spot, so that the blood would not puddle and create the danger of his slipping in it. For a brief instant, Drakov’s eyes left his and glanced quickly at his wound. Forrester lunged. Too late, he saw that he had been taken in. Drakov had done it on purpose.

Already committed, Forrester tried to recover and, for a second, he was caught off balance. Drakov dropped to the floor instantly. Using his leg as a scythe, he swept Forrester’s legs out from under him. As Forrester went down. Drakov rolled and in an instant he was on him, pinning him to the floor and grasping Forrester’s knife hand with his own free band while his other hand holding the knife flashed in on Forrester’s throat. Forrester felt the point of the dagger penetrate the skin at the hollow of his throat ever so slightly and in that moment, a great calm swept over him and he ceased to struggle. But the white heat of the killing thrust never came.

Instead, Forrester looked up into his son’s eyes and saw that they were wet with tars.

He saw the tremendous inner s

truggle going on as Drakov tried to will himself to finish it and found that he was unable to. He saw his son’s lips begin to tremble, whether from rage, sorrow or frustration, he did not know. Perhaps it was all three.

“It’s all right, Son,” he said. “It’s all right. I thought that I could do it, too, but now I know I never could. She never would have let us.”

He let his hand go limp, opened it and the dagger rolled off his palm and onto the stone floor with a gentle clink. Slowly. Drakov got up and backed away from him, saying nothing, his tears speaking more eloquently than any words he could have said.