leapt forward, lunging with a straight sword blow toward
Oster’s chest. The Clockwork Hero brought his own blade
up quickly and parried the lunge, tossing his helmet at the
Highlord. She dodged, but the bronze helm grazed her
head, disorienting her for a moment. Oster used the
moment to draw back into the room, waving to Kali and
Eton to move away.
Kali and Eton scurried to the fireplace, which was
graced by a number of Eton’s new plow-share-shovels.
These fireplace tools had a graceful sweep of metal
welded to the base, making them useless for scooping
ashes, but excellent for small gardening tasks and fair for
bashing. The pair edged around the perimeter of the battle.
Kali had heard that kender could merge into the stone
itself and move without leaving a shadow. He desperately
wished for that ability now.
Oster’s attention was riveted on the dark-armored
form before him. Kali expected the Highlord to taunt,
laugh, snarl, and behave in the way of all good bad people
when confronted with virtue, but the Highlord kept her
input to a few growls of the mid-gear type. She lunged
forward in a flurry of blows, lunges, and backswings.
Oster parried them easily, and drove her back with a swing
to the mid-section, a swipe to the head. What he lacked in
form, he made up in force, and the Highlord was staggered
when one of Oster’s strong lunges caught her in the left
arm.
They fought for a minute, two minutes, an eternity of
three. The Highlord never lost track of the two gnomes
(learning from her experience), and avoided all their
attempts to get behind her. The two main combatants
made quick work of most of Kali’s living room furniture –
every breakable was introduced to the dangers of being
inadvertently close to clashing steel. The Highlord would
charge, locking steel with Oster. The pair would stagger
against each other in a few deadly dance steps, then one or
the other would be flung backward, usually just far
enough to reduce some other furnishing to its component
parts. Lunge, the clash of locked blades, the stagger, the
destruction of a chair. Lunge, lock, stagger, writing desk.
Lunge, lock, stagger, spoon collection.
Sweat was now running down Oster’s face in rivulets,
but his eyes burned with fury. The battle had run long
now, and Kali knew that all their deaths were long
overdue. A bud of insight blossomed within his skull, and
he suddenly understood why the Highlord had not made
quick work of all of them. While Oster had been in
training as the local hero of the gnomes, the Highlord had
been under an enforced and extended rest for six months.
While the Highlord was sufficiently powerful to make
short work of a pair of gnomes, or a surprised cleric
expecting a demure young lady, she was having more
trouble with someone trained for combat.
The length of the battle was telling on the Highlord.
Blood leaked between the epaulets of her wounded upper
arm, forming a deadly calligraphy on her armor. Even Kali
could see she was favoring that arm, and Oster pressed his
advantage, driving her back, step by step, to the bedroom
door.
Kali’s eyes took in the battle, but his mind whirled
with options, all of them bad. At first it seemed to him that
Oster would surely perish under the attack, which was
good in that at least he would die without finding out his
ladylove was his murderer, but bad considering that said
murderer would probably avenge herself on the rest of the
community. Now it looked like Oster would be victorious,
which would be equally disastrous, for once he discovered
the Highlord was his Columbine, he would perish just as
surely of a broken heart, if not busted ribs.
Kali chewed on his beard, fidgeted, raised his
weapon, fidgeted again. Eton was a statue next to him,
working out his own thoughts, or perhaps preparing
himself for the afterlife. The pair were enraptured by the
deadly ballet played out before them.
Oster was now beating the Highlord’s attacks easily,
reducing her to weak parries and dodges. The two locked
blades again (Kali made a mental check to see if there was