In Which We Learn
a Possible Origin
of a Previously
Familiar Term
Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being.
MOHANDAS K. GANDHI
Just once, I'd like to have an enemy against whom nonviolence would be a workable alternativeworkable in the sense of me not ending up dancing on the end of a spear, or cut into tiny, bite-sized pieces.
WALTER SLOVOTSKY
I shouted a warning to the others as I cut down at its broad, hairy back, only hacking once before I had to bring up the sword to skewer the one charging me, its hands outstretched.
The standard drill on that is straightforward: you parry his weapons, thrust, then withdraw with a twistturning a narrow wound that might not slow him down into a broad one that will definitely sting him a bitas you pull out your sword and get it ready to parry or cut something else. What you don't want is for him to be able to pull either a distraction, where one opponent monopolizes your attention while another one gets to you, or a sacrifice, where he forces you to spend too much time killing him, setting you up for the next one.
Either way, it's parry, thrust, and out-with-a-twist-fast.
Trouble was, this thing wasn't only larger and stronger than a human, it was also fasterit rushed up my sword, burying the hilt in its hair-matted belly, and seized me in a bearhug as it lifted me up and off the ground. Or, not quite a bearhugwhile it pinned my right arm to my side, I managed to get my left hand free, and smash a bottom-fist down on its leathery face once, then again, and again.
Wrong, wrong, wrongthat had less effect than the sword did. It was like slugging a leather-covered rock.
The two massive arms squeezed the breath out of me, and kept squeezing so hard that the hilt of my sword was pressed hard against my gut. Warm bloodits warm bloodwas running down my belly and leg, but I was the one losing strength; it seemed unaffected by the sword that had run it through.
Darkness started to close in, but I was able to get my free arm over and around its hairy arm, and liberate one of my flintlocks from my holster on my left thigh. I cocked the hammer as I brought the pistol up to its head, and then closed my eyes as I set the barrel against its snout.
I pulled the trigger. Fire and wetness splashed my face; with a liquid gurgle, it slumped to the ground, releasing me as it did.
My next breath tasted of sulfur and fire blood and foul sweat and my own fear: it tasted wonderful. I drew another pistol and cocked it, but the others had already dealt with the other two creatures.
Tennetty's, the one I had wounded, lay dying on the ground, its chest heaving slowly up and down, bleeding from a dozen wounds, some light, some cuts to white bone; the third had been split almost from collarbone to waist, spilling dark blood and yellowy viscera onto the cold dirt with callous indifference.
Ahira stood over the last one, panting heavily, his axe and mail slick with blood, glossy in the starlight. "Everybody okay?"
"Jason and I are fine." Andrea was behind him, Jason beyond her, his sword in one hand, a flintlock in another. The two Cullinanes were unmarked, as far as I could see.
"I'll live," I said.
"Unh." Tennetty was on all fours on the dirt. She knelt back for a moment, then slowly, painfully, got to her feet. "Been worse." Her hair was a bird's nest, and she had scraped her face badly just above the right cheekbone, but she looked not much the worse for wear.
The three things lay on the ground in front of us.
Take a human, blow it up to one and a half times its size, stretch its face and then cover it all with a thick mat of stinking fur, and that's what you have. Something big and too strong, if not overly brightif the three of those things had been a bit faster, or a bit smarter, all of us would have been dead.
Ahira knelt over a severed arm and poked at the hand with the hilt of his axe. "Partially retractable claws, and the thumb's just barely opposable. It may be intelligent."
I felt at my side. It hurt like hell, but maybe that was all. I breathed deeply, and didn't feel the broken edges of ribs grate against each other, so maybe I was okay, too.
That's where age and experience had saved our asses. Most of the precautions you take are wasted ones; ninety-nine plus percent of the time that you post a guard, nobody's going to even bother him; the rear guard of the party is usually a waste. Young people learn that too quickly, and not only do their minds tend to wanderso does minethey also tend not to be able to pay attention to what's going on.
You live through this sort of thing for a while, and your chances of surviving the next time go up.
Nothing to it, really. Nothing but effort and patience and concentration and luck. Nothing to worry about.
I wiped my trembling hands on my thighs.
"What the fuck are you?" Tennetty asked the dying creature.
The last of them rolled its head slowly toward her, its eyes wide with pain, certainly, or anger perhaps.
"Urrkk," it said, slowly, painfully reaching out claw-tipped fingers toward her.
And then it shuddered and died.
"Time's wasting," Ahira said. "Let's go."