auspicious. He fingered the enameled cuirass with its twining snakes and glyphs
which the en-telechy Askelon had given him, touched the dirk at his waist, the
matching sword slung at his hip. The hilts of both were worked as befitted
weapons bound for a son of the armies, with the lightning and the lions and the
bulls which were, the world over, the signatures of its Storm Gods, the gods of
war and death. But the workmanship was foreign, and the raised demons on both
scabbards belonged to the primal deities of an earlier age, whose sway was
misty, everywhere but among the western islands where Niko had gone to strive
for initiation into his chosen mystery and mastery over body and soul. The most
appropriate legends graced these opulent arms that a shadow lord had given him;
in the old ways and the elder gods and in the disciplines of transcendent
perception, Niko sought perfection, a mystic calm. And the weapons were perfect,
save for two blemishes: they were fashioned from precious metals, and made
nearly priceless by the antiquity of their style; they were charmed, warm to the
touch, capable of meeting infernal forces and doing damage upon icy whirlwinds
sent from unnamed gods. Nikodemos favored unarmed kills, minimal effort,
precision. He judged himself sloppy should it become necessary to parry an
opponent’s stroke more than once. The temple-dancing exhibitions of proud
swordsmen who “tested each other’s mettle” and had time to indulge in style and
disputatious dialogue repelled him: one got in, made the kill, and got out,
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