Chapter 281: The Duel, Part 2
The shot connected and Kian felt a surge of satisfaction. That was an overcharged round fired with complete disregard for the rifle's operational lifespan. He'd put enough energy into that single bolt to put an Astartes on the ground.
Then the Aeldari warrior stood up.
She came off the dirt and was moving toward him before he'd fully processed what he was seeing.
He swung the scope back onto her and tried to line up a second shot. At the speed she was covering ground, keeping her in a high-magnification reticle was nearly impossible. But in the fragments of clear view he got, he could see the damage.
The shot had caught her left arm. The energy transfer had burned through the entire shoulder. The wraithbone armour had clamped itself over the wound, sealing the joint to prevent blood loss, but the arm itself was gone below the shoulder. That kind of injury would have killed any human soldier outright.
She was still coming.
Kian got to his feet, switched to hip-fire, and sent a second shot at her midsection. She rolled sideways and the beam punched through five or six trees behind her, carbonising the wood and setting the trunks alight.
She was inside two hundred metres now. He squeezed for a third shot.
The rifle detonated in his hands.
Two overcharged rounds had been two too many. The barrel had been at the edge of structural failure since the first shot. He felt the blast across his gauntlets as the weapon came apart, shook the fragments off his hands, and pulled the bolt carbine from its magnetic clamp on his back.
He opened fire immediately.
The Aeldari warrior broke into an S-pattern approach, cutting left and right as she closed the distance. Her eyes were fixed on his trigger finger, not the muzzle. She didn't need to outrun the bolts. She just needed to move before he fired.
The carbine kicked hard with each shot, muzzle flash erupting two or three metres from the barrel. Each bolt-round ignited its secondary propellant charge mid-flight, hitting the target zone with armoured-vehicle levels of kinetic energy. One clean hit would end the fight.
She didn't give him a clean hit. She was flickering left and right faster than the eye could comfortably follow, and every round cratered the dirt where she'd been half a second before.
Nine billion people watching on screens across the Hive held their collective breath.
In the Zeppelin fortress tower, the General was already on the vox.
"All units, move to the duel site immediately! Armour, artillery, and I want aircraft fuelled and armed and ready to launch on my word!"
Cavendish stepped in front of him.
"Sir. What did the young master tell you before he left?"
Zeppelin's jaw tightened.
"No support during the duel. If she spots reinforcements she'll run and everything he's worked for is wasted." He bit the words out. "Get the nearest ground units moving anyway. Thirty minutes to arrival minimum. And I want those aircraft ready. The moment he needs them, they go."
In the Ecclesiarchy chapel in Mid-Hive, Confessor Pious knelt before the Emperor's statue with every priest in the building. Sister Teresa knelt beside him, her hands wrapped around a Purity Seal, her expression tight with worry.
The Confessor placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Be still. I have seen the Emperor's light on him. He carries the Emperor's blessing. He will return with victory. The only thing we can do for him now is pray."
Sister Teresa bowed her head and closed her eyes.
"Holy Majesty, if you are truly there, please protect him. Please bring him back."
At the Red Lady's bar, the usual noise was completely absent. Nobles and regular patrons alike sat rigid in their seats, eyes locked on the screens, nobody speaking.
In the corner, the Captain, who was not known for going dry voluntarily, sat in front of a glass of water. Clear-headed. Like a man expecting to make a decision that required full faculties.
The Red Lady came over, wine glass in hand, and sat across from him.
"The lord came to see you before he left for the duel. What did you discuss?"
The Captain smiled slightly.
"He paid me one hundred million Agri-Scrips for a single macro-cannon orbital salvo. If he loses, the Great Ivan puts six five-hundred-millimetre rounds into that valley from low orbit. Everything within five kilometres gets reduced to rubble."
Something moved in the Red Lady's eyes, an emotion she hadn't felt in a long time.
She ran her tongue across her lips.
"I'll cover the hundred million. Consider it paid."
The Captain shook his head.
"I didn't take his money. Shooting xenos, I'd pay for that myself. Mankind forever."
He raised his water glass toward her.
She touched it with her wine glass.
"Mankind forever."
Back in the valley, the bolt carbine's drum ran dry. The bolt catch locked back on an empty chamber.
The Aeldari warrior was fifty metres out.
No time to reload. He dropped the carbine, drew the power sword, and hit the activation switch. Blue disruptive energy crackled along the blade, and he brought it forward in a two-handed grip just as her power glaive came sweeping in.
The two disruptor fields met.
The impact threw a cascade of sparks in every direction, both weapons grinding against each other's field. The energy discharge lit the valley floor around them.
"This is where you die, xenos!"
"You'll pay for what you've done, human butcher!"
She pulled back and drove for his hip. He pulled back and cut across her line. Within a single second they had exchanged five blows, each one throwing another burst of light and noise into the darkening air.
The broadcast cut to a closer angle. The viewers watching across the Hive could barely track the movements. The footage was dropping frames. All they could see was two figures in close range and a continuous rapid-fire detonation of sparks between them.
Both fighters were running on adrenaline and calculation.
The Aeldari warrior was stunned. This human was keeping pace with her. An ordinary human, matching her movement for movement.
Kian was equally surprised. She'd been running and fighting without real rest for over a month, had just taken a shot that removed her entire left arm, and she was still this fast. At full strength she would have had his head off within thirty exchanges. He was certain of it.
But she wasn't at full strength. And right now the gap between them was close enough that the fight could go either way.
This was the window. He had to use it.
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