Free Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams

behind a tree just as a blast peeled bark and sent leaves flying. He lunged out of cover to the right, Tecmessa in a high parry, and saw the priest’s boots disappearing around the tree in the other direction. The sword made a great slashing cut to the left just as the clay ball darted around the palm trunk, the cord whipping around the tree like the chain of a morning star.
    The cord was severed. The clay ball flew spinning through the air.
    The priest shrieked, a hair-raising sound like the battle cry of a cougar. Aristide took a step back as the tall, black-clad figure lunged around the palm trunk, a thrusting spear held high in one hand. The orange eyes blazed. The tail of the turban had been torn away from the lower face and revealed a mouth brimming with dozens of needle-like, moray-sharp teeth.
    The priest was inside Tecmessa’s effective range and Aristide parried desperately as he fell back, kicked to the priest’s knee, and fell back again. The priest hissed, thrust. Aristide dodged inside the thrusting spear and cut upward beneath the priest’s arm, slicing through the triceps. The spear fell from nerveless fingers; the tall black-robed figure staggered with shock. Aristide drove upward again, this time with the point, through the ribs and to the lungs and heart.
    Blood fountained past the priest’s needle teeth, and the tall, slender body began to fall. Aristide cleared Tecmessa from the corpse and rolled just in time to avoid a blast from the third priest.
    Aristide rolled to his feet, the sword on guard. The third priest hobbled toward him. He had got an arrow through his left knee early in the fight, and had spent most of the combat kneeling, protecting his followers from inbound arrows. Now he had no choice but to take the fight to the enemy.
    The clay ball quested out from his right hand. The left carried a long, curved sword.
    Aristide took a step back, keeping his distance.
    “May I suggest that you surrender?” he said. “By now your position is quite hopeless.”
    The priest snarled and continued his lurching march. An arrow whistled past his head.
    “Archers should fire all together,” Aristide called in a loud voice. “And from as many directions as possible.”
    Archers fanned out on either side. The few remaining outlaws—they were down to eight or nine—crept along in the wake of their priest. Many were badly wounded. Desperation clung to their faces.
    “You can’t defend against the arrows,” Aristide told the priest. “The second that ball of yours moves to cover an arrow coming from one flank, either I’ll take you or you’ll be hit by arrows from another quarter. So I suggest you drop your… weapon, and we can discuss your fate like reasonable men.”
    The priest hesitated. He seemed to consider the matter.
    Apparently he decided that Aristide’s analysis was correct, because in a single purposeful motion he raised his sword and slashed his own throat.
    The bandits gave a collective moan as their leader fell.
    A few fought to the last, but most tried to surrender.
    The Free Companions of Grax were not in either case inclined to mercy.

    Aristide did not participate in the brief, bloody massacre, but instead retreated to the body of the second priest he’d killed and squatted before the clay ball that lay by its tangled, knotted cord. There was a dab of blood on the end of the cord, which caused the swordsman to examine the hand of the dead priest. The cord was not tied onto the priest’s finger, but grew out of it—the cord had been alive.
    Aristide wiped Tecmessa on a clean part of the priest’s robes, then sheathed the sword. He took his dagger out of his belt and wound a bit of the cord around the tip, then raised it to examine the ball more closely. It was a dusky red in color, and plain-featured, without runes or script or magic signs.
    Bitsy dropped from one of the palms and came up to rub her cheek against the swordsman’s free hand before she gazed up at the