The Northman pursed his lips. “Where is your horse?” Nils asked the big Mongol. As large as you are, you must have a very large, strong horse.’
The Buriat frowned, puzzled. “Horse? What has my horse to do with our fighting?”
“Take me to it,” Nils said, “and I’ll show you.”
The man stood indecisive for just a moment, then wheeled. “Come,” he said, and strode off toward one of the paddocks, Nils and his companions following, Kudu-ka’s friends bringing up the rear. Baver’s right hand was in the holster pocket of his worn jumpsuit, gripping his pistol. In the paddock, Kuduka lea them toward a large horse, which came to him. It was a stallion about sixteen hands tall, enormous for a Mongol horse, and powerfully built.
“This is my favorite. It is he I ride for hunting.”
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Nils nodded. “Before I answer your challenge, you must let me strike him with my fist.”
Kuduka stared uncomprehendingly. “Strike him?” He frowned, then nodded. “Strike!” he said.
Nils struck the horse on the nose, and it fell like a rock. Instantly Kuduka was on his knees beside it, lifted an eyelid, then seemed to sniff, to smell, as if for the horse’s breath. Finally he got to his feet, face writhing. “He is dead!” he said.
“That’s why I’m called Ironhand,” Nils replied calmly, then made his point. “Among my people, the man who is challenged has the right to name the form or weapons of the fight. If I accept your challenge, then the fight must be with fists. No grappling permitted.”
Kuduka paled, and shook his head. “I challenged you to wrestle. Wrestling it must be!”
Nils shrugged. “Fists or nothing!” he said. For a long moment Kuduka stood confounded, then Nils turned his back and began to walk away. Several voices called out in warning, Hans’s first. Nils, instead of turning to look, dove low to his left, hit the ground rolling and came up onto his feet with sword in hand, somehow not getting tangled up with his scabbard as he did so. It was a move Baver had seen him drill repeatedly with Hans, and made none to soon, for Kuduka’s sword stroke was close. The big Mongol adjusted quickly, sword hacking, clanging against Nils’s. Baver’s attention left Nils then. Gun in fist, he watched Kuduka’s henchmen. Achikh and Hans too had drawn weapons, but Kuduka’s companions, though with swords in hand, seemed content for the moment to watch the two giants fight.
Kuduka was remarkably fast for his size, and skilled, and just now had the energy and savage commitment of a berserker. Yet despite the ferocity of his attack, technique was there to, too thoroughly drilled to be lost in the heat of his bloodlust. Nils, on the other hand, seemed fully occupied with avoiding or fending the blows that rained on him, though he did it most skillfully. Mean-
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while men came running to watch, and quickly the fighters were ringed by a small but growing crowd.
At the first brief pause, each man had drawn his knife with his left hand, but first blood was let by Nils’s sword, which partially fended, hacked Kudukas left deltoid deeply. Yet the Mongol did not falter. Instead his frenzy increased. His face was contorted, his eyes wide and red, and he snapped and foamed at the mouth like a raging boar. Once he stumbled, yet recovered so quickly, so nimbly, that he took only a modest cut on the back, a gash by the sword tip. Someone was bellowing at him in Mongol to stop. The one shouting was Jaghatai, who did not, however, move to interfere.
Nils’s defense had awed Baver; despite the onslaught he’d endured, the Northman seemed to have only a single cut, though it was long, a knife slash across his belly. Blood welled from it. Now he altered his tactics, took the offensive and drove Kuduka back. The Mongol began to tire, his breath hoarse gasps. He was bleeding profusely from a thigh cut that it seemed to Baver should have put him down. Suddenly he sprang backward and threw his sword spinning at Nils. As the Northman dodged, the hilt struck his face, then the weapon wheeled on into the ring of men behind, scattering them.