Instead he jerked his head just enough aside to let the pell of the ax go by; blood started from his cheek as the grazing steel kissed him, a burning coldness. Then he slid forward again with that dancer's grace, his left hand gripping the ax and pulling it to one side, the knife in his other whipping across in a backhand slash at the other man's eyes. The guardsman bellowed in alarm and snatched his head aside in turn, saving his eyes at the price of taking a nasty cut that opened his face to the bone along one cheek, and relaxing his hold on the ax as he did.

Sir Nigel's hand clamped down on it at once and pulled sharply; he stabbed backhand with the knife once more, and the ax came free as his opponent twisted once more to avoid the point. It hit the shoulder joint of the back and breast and snapped with a musical tunnnggg sound; then the Varangian did something sensible: smashed one gauntleted fist at Nigel's face, and used the other to draw the short sword hung at his waist. Sir Nigel skipped backward away from the gutting stroke of the man's upward stab.

The mass of furniture overturned with a roar, scattering itself across the room in a bouncing, crackling tide. The two Varangians who'd pushed the barricade out of the way stumbled forward, puffing and off-balance for an instant. Nigel saw that, but there was nothing he could do about it. His own panting reminded him forcefully that he was fifty-two this coming September-in superb condition for a man his age, but still a good three decades older than his immediate opponent-and air burned like thin fire in his lungs. He could smell the acrid odor of his own sweat as it ran down his cheeks and shone through the thinning gray-blond hair on his scalp.

The Varangian was enraged by the slash that had nearly taken his eyes. It streamed blood into his red beard across a face contorted in fury, he stood eight inches taller than the Englishman, and seemed to have arms longer than an ape's as they wove with sword and dagger advanced.