Free Sword Masters by Selina Rosen Page A

will lead only to your ruin. My champion shall hack this boy to pieces," Jero said.
    Persius looked at Tarius. He was like a wild animal ready to spring. "Let the fight begin." Persius raised his hand and a horn was sounded.
    Jero's champion didn't wait for the horn to quit sounding. He ran full speed at Tarius, wielding a sword easily twice as big as the one Tarius carried. Tarius stood there till the giant of a man was almost on her, then stepped smartly out of the way. As the man passed her she swung the flat of her blade into the back of his legs, and he went crashing to the earth. Tarius stood back in a ready stance and gave the man time to rise and face her.
    "Damn it! He is his father's son," Tragon heard Darian tell the king. "The man is roughly three times his size, and he's playing with him!"
    The man was mad now, and he ran at Tarius, swinging just as soon as he was within sword range. Tarius caught the blade easily, forced it down, and then slid her blade up his till it sunk neatly into the meat of his shoulder. She quickly drew her sword all the way across his shoulder and jumped back.
    The barbarian finally seemed to realize that he could not intimidate this opponent. When next he approached Tarius it was with skill instead of strength. But instead of standing calmly to meet the attack as she had with the first two, Tarius screamed like someone posesed and jumped in the air, bringing both feet to rest in the big man's chest. At nearly the same moment that her feet landed on the man's chest, her blade slid quickly and precisely across the man's neck, cutting the man's throat completely and evenly. Without seeming to have stopped, she completed the vault over her opponent's dying body, and landed on the ground facing his back. Both her feet were firmly planted on the ground, and her blade was at the ready, but all she really had to do was jump out of the way when he fell. Which he did in stages, first his head and then his body.
    Tarius bowed to the king then wiped her fingers down her blade clearing it of blood, flipped her fingers in the air to clean them, and wiped the remainder on her pants.
    Tragon wasn't sure how he felt.
    The crowd went wild, and Tarius looked at Jena just in time to see her peeking out from behind her fingers. She looked at Tarius and started to cry again—this time in relief.
    What the hell am I going to do about you? You are ruining everything, and you don't even know you're doing it! Tarius thought.
    Jero broke the cheering with angry words. "It is a trick! Foul magic!"
    Persius was undaunted. "You make excuses for your kinsman's bad swordsmanship. There is no magic here. Do you not know that all Swordmaster's of the Jethrik fight as Tarius does? It is why we are the mightiest kingdom in all the land."
    "If my witch should say that there is magic in his blade . . ." Jero started.
    "Then your witch would be a liar. Have you so little honor that you will not admit to defeat? My man was a better swordsman. No more and no less. The competition is over. Let us remove the body and continue with our merry-making as good allies should."
    Jero reluctantly agreed. The body was removed, and the party went on.
    Tarius sat down beside Jena and started to eat.
    "How can you eat when you have just killed a man less than ten feet from here, even as his corpse is removed?" Jena asked in disgust. "When his blood is still on your hands!"
    "Well, I couldn't eat before , it would have made me sluggish," Tarius explained calmly.
    "That's not the first man you've killed is it?" Jena asked.
    "Not by a long way." Tarius laughed. "Now it's I who don't understand you. I thought you wanted me to win. I thought you didn't want me to die."
    "I didn't. Thank the gods you're all right." Jena was confused. "But shouldn't you feel some remorse?"
Tarius shrugged. "He would have killed me. Now take Tragon. There's a man who has never killed and will feel sad when he does."
    Jena slapped at Tarius playfully and smiled