And heard the sounds of battle.
The castle bore scars of its own, and people stood on its parapets shooting arrows that flashed and flamed. Others fought viciously with sword and axe on the burned and barren ground around it.
He would probably think of home, and about his lover, Eve decided. About vengeance.
She thought: Shit, shit, I hope I don’t fall off this thing. And charged.
She drew the sword, instinctively squeezing her knees and thighs to keep her seat. Wind rushed through her hair, over her face, and the speed, the sheer power of motion lit a fire of excitement in her.
Then she stopped thinking, and fought.
Bloody and bitter, the battle raged. She felt her sword slice through flesh, hit bone. She smelled blood and smoke, felt the mild jolt from a glancing blow as the horse danced and pivoted under her.
She saw him, his armor black and stained with blood, sitting on a huge black horse with the castle—her castle—at his back. The sounds of the battle receded as she rode forward to face him.
“So, we meet at last. A pity for you, our acquaintance will be short.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she responded. “Let’s go.”
“This day my sword will wear your blood, and the blood of your lover.”
“Yawn.”
“You rush death? Then come meet it.”
The programmers, she noted and quickly, had made Manx very big and very strong. Blocking his blows sent shocking aches up her arm, into her shoulder.
Wrenched shoulder.
Sweat ran down her back, down her face, into her eyes to sting. She’d never beat him on these terms, she realized. She had neither the skill nor the strength.
And when he slid past her guard, she felt the jolt as his sword drew blood.
Arm wound.
He lifted his sword, the dark light of death in his eyes; she ducked and plunged her sword into his horse.
It screamed. She had a moment to think the sound was eerily human before it stumbled. As it fell, she swung out, caught her opponent in the side. Not a death blow, she decided. Time to finish it off.
“Pause game. Save, and stop.”
Breathing hard, she turned, looked at Roarke across the empty holoroom. “I don’t get to kill the bad guy?”
“You’re past Bart’s time, by a minute or so. Interesting strategy, killing the horse.”
“It worked. They built that bastard strong. He was going for the . . .” She swiped her finger across her throat.
“He certainly was. And if he’d landed the blow, game over. You’d have to repeat the level until you defeated him to move on to the next.”
“This is the game he was playing when he died. It all fits. Bruises from fighting, the shoulder, the arm wound, and the loss with the decapitation. K2BK. King To Black Knight.”
“Yes, I got that when he came into play.”
“Obviously there weren’t real horses and a bunch of dead guys littering the ground, but the killer reconstructed the game, using a real weapon. If he got in, programmed himself as the Black Knight, and used a real weapon. The right steps, the right angle.”
“I’d agree, but it doesn’t explain how he got in, and how he managed to delete a two-man competition from the unit without leaving a single shadow or echo anywhere in the system.”
Screw logic, she thought. Sometimes facts weren’t logical. “He figured it out because the Black Knight killed the king. Bart played that exact scenario before, that’s why it’s on this disc. But he didn’t stab the horse, and he lost. He’d have been more prepared this time, may have avoided the loss, or that exact loss, but—”