Frankowski, Leo - Conrad 01 - The Crosstime Engineer by Frankowski Leo

Author:Frankowski, Leo
Language: eng
Format: epub

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Chapter Twelve

It was a relaxed afternoon.

I was giving Lambert and Sir Miesko fencing lessons. Over their strenuous objections and at my firm insistence, we were using wooden sticks instead of real swords. Boris Novacek soon joined us, praising my previous battles. For men who lived by the sword, they had some odd attitudes. It was as if they didn’t believe that a sword had a point! Their fencing was strictly hack and chop. They didn’t see where the lunge had any use at all. Finally, Boris said, “My lords, I have seen him use this thing! I saw him put that little sword entirely through a man’s neck, and he killed the German knight with a single blow through the eye slit of his helmet.” “Well, I haven’t seen him kill anything, Novacek,” the count said. “Let’s do some killing and prove this thing properly. Bring your sword, Sir Conrad.” I followed Lambert apprehensively out of the building, along with the rest of the crowd. He led us to a pen containing six pigs destined to be the next day’s supper.

“Now then, Sir Conrad. You have allowed that the edge is useful on horseback but said that the point is stronger afoot. We shall see. I shall kill that boar with the edge of my sword, and you will take that sow with your point.” Without further discussion, the count vaulted, sword in hand, into the pigpen. The test was somewhat unfair in that the boar was mean. Lambert’s first two-handed swing caught the pig a little in back of the “belt” line. This broke the boar’s back without seriously cutting it. The boar was annoyed. Its hind legs were not functional, but it charged the count, dragging itself along on its front legs.

The pig is a very powerful animal, and its jaws can rip a man’s leg off. All that meat is muscle.

Lambert was back-stepping furiously, and his second blow-to the shoulder-didn’t slow down the boar at all. I was about to leap in when the count’s sword crashed into the animal’s skull and all motion stopped.

“You saw the power in that blow?” Lambert was actually proud of his performance.

“Your turn, Sir Conrad.”

I hated jumping into a pigsty with my embroidered tunic and leather stockings, but there was nothing else I could do. “That sow over there, my lord?” The remaining pigs were all studying Lambert intently. I was trying to remember just how a pig’s ribs went. I couldn’t remember whether they angled back like a man’s or not. I was obviously going to have to put all the power into my lunge that I could. Also, pigs being built the way they are, I was going to have to lunge downward.

This I did. Body upright, arm straight, blade out with the edge down. The results surprised me. I had never actually stuck an animal before. My sword went entirely through the first pig and halfway through the one behind it.

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