But Tedric, although in plain sight, had chosen the battleground with care. He was in a corner. At his back a solid-walled stairway ran up to the second floor. On his right the wall was solid for twenty feet. On his left, beyond the stairwell, the wall was equally solid for twice as far. They would have to come after him, and as he retreated, they would be fighting their way up, and not more than two at a time.

This first swing, horizontal and neck-high, was fully as fierce-driven as the one that had cloven the test-piece and almost ruined his testing-block. The god-metal blade scarcely slowed as it went through armor and flesh and bone. In fact, the helmet and the head within it remained in place upon the shoulders for what seemed like seconds before the body toppled and the arteries spurted crimson jets.

He didn't have to hit so hard, then. Good. Nobody could last very long, the way he had started out. Wherefore the next blow, a vertical chop, merely split a man to the chin instead of to the navel: and the third, a back-hand return, didn't quite cut the victim's head clear off.

And the blows his steel was taking, aimed at head or neck or shoulder, were doing no harm at all. In fact, except for the noise, they scarcely bothered him. He had been designing and building armor for five years, and this was his masterpiece. The helmet was heavily padded: the shoulders twice as much so. He had sacrificed some mobility—he could not turn his head very far in either direction—but the jointing was such that the force of any blow on the helmet, from whatever direction coming, was taken by his tremendously capable shoulders.

The weapons of the mercenaries could not dent, could not even nick, that case-hardened high-alloy steel. Swords bent, broke, twisted; hammers and axes bounced harmlessly off. Nevertheless the attackers pressed forward; and, even though each blow of his devastating sword took a life, Tedric was forced backward up the stairs, step by step.

Then there came about that for which he had been waiting. A copper-clad priest appeared behind the last rank of mercenaries, staring upward at something behind the ironmaster, beckoning frantically. The priest had split his forces; had sent part of them by another way to the second floor to trap him between two groups; had come in close to see the trap sprung. This was it.

Taking a couple of quick, upward, backward steps, he launched himself into the air with all the power of his legs. And when two hundred and thirty pounds 

 Prev. P 11/20 next