Chapter 235: The Last Prince of Ryazan
The riders who had come through the iconostasis door spread along the sanctuary walls without needing orders. The last defenders in the nave had already been dealt with behind them. The sounds from that direction had changed, and nothing there required attention anymore.
Nasan stopped in the doorway. He looked at the two men standing in the center of the sanctuary, judged the situation immediately, and jerked his chin toward them.
"Leave them. That’s Gal’s kill."
No one moved toward the center.
Gal held his saber in his right hand and studied the man facing him.
First he forced himself to take stock of his own condition. Blood had soaked through the left side of his coat. The wound was fresh, and every exchange since then had stolen a little more movement from his left arm.
The morning’s work weighed on him. The earthwork slope, the breach, the gate, the fighting in the nave.
None of it had broken him, but every movement now cost more than it had before.
Yuri Igorevich stood at the far edge of the altar with his broad sword raised. He was larger through the chest and shoulders than Gal and wore a well-kept mail coat, heavy riveted rings built for real warfare rather than ceremony.
Everything about the armor was practical. A commander had chosen it for battle.
The sword matched the man. It was a prince’s weapon, long and double-edged with a heavy cross-guard, designed for mounted combat but still dangerous in trained hands on foot.
His stance remained steady. His face was calm.
He advanced without haste. The sword never changed height.
Yuri attacked first.
The strike came diagonally from his right, aimed straight at Gal’s injured side.
Gal reacted on instinct, but the stone floor changed things. On packed earth he knew exactly how his footing would respond. Here the surface offered no give and little grip.
His defensive step came half a beat later than intended.
Yuri’s blade scraped across the top of Gal’s right shoulder plate. Metal screamed against metal. The strike failed to bite flesh, but it came close enough to matter.
Gal marked the timing immediately.
He slipped clear and moved in as Yuri recovered.
The broad sword’s reach favored Yuri. Gal knew he could not fight at the distance Yuri preferred. He cut forward and targeted Yuri’s right arm.
Yuri met the attack with a clean parry. The cross-guard caught the saber and turned it aside with practiced efficiency. There was nothing sloppy about it. The technique was sound, and it showed in every movement that Yuri understood real combat.
Both men drew apart.
By the third exchange, each had learned something useful.
Gal seized the initiative and reached Yuri’s left forearm below the armored sleeve. The saber opened a shallow line from elbow toward wrist.
The wound was not deep, but blood spilled immediately. It ran down the forearm, over Yuri’s hand, and dripped steadily onto the stone.
His grip never changed.
The riposte targeted Gal’s left shoulder, exactly where he had been already struck twice. The broad sword drove through damaged padding and found the injury beneath.
Pain shot through the joint, hot and sharp from elbow to neck.
Gal gave no sign of it.
He stepped back, reset his footing, and held his guard.
The two men stood in the center of the sanctuary surrounded by burning candlestands. Yuri’s broad sword remained even with his eyes while Gal kept his saber poised and ready.
The room had gone quiet. Only their breathing and the flicker of flames against stone disturbed the silence.
Yuri pressed the attack.
He had identified the weakness just as Gal had identified his habits. If he could force Gal’s guard upward again and again, the injured shoulder would eventually fail.
He advanced and delivered two strikes into Gal’s defense.
Gal deflected both, changing direction and keeping the saber moving.
The third strike carried the full weight of Yuri’s right shoulder behind it and drove Gal’s guard higher than he wanted. Before Gal could recover, Yuri shifted the line.
The sword came across lower and the pommel smashed into Gal’s left shoulder where the padding had already been hacked apart.
The blow crashed through the injury.
Fresh blood spread through the cloth at once, darkening it further.
Gal tested the arm as he moved. It still responded, but the range of motion had shrunk again. From this point forward, every exchange would have to account for that.
He gave ground under the pressure, retreating two steps.
Then he reset and considered what the last exchanges had revealed.
Yuri generated most of his power from the right shoulder. Every committed attack followed the same rhythm. The weight of the sword carried through each strike with real force.
But force carried a cost.
At the end of every swing there was a fraction of a second before the next attack could begin. The body needed time to recover from full commitment.
During that brief moment, Yuri’s right side opened slightly.
The opening was small. The window was short.
Gal had seen it three times.
That was enough.
He intentionally created the opportunity.
Lowering his saber guard along his left side, he exposed the injured shoulder Yuri had targeted throughout the duel and held the position.
The weakness looked genuine because most of it was.
Yuri saw it and committed immediately.
The strike came with full rotation from the right shoulder, aimed at the wounded side and everything beneath it.
It was the largest attack Yuri had attempted.
Gal moved before the swing finished.
The blade clipped the outside of his left arm as it passed, opening a cut from elbow toward wrist. Blood welled at once and ran down his sleeve.
But the shoulder Yuri wanted was already beyond reach.
Gal had stepped inside the swing.
Inside the cross-guard’s distance, the broad sword lost the room it needed to generate power.
The saber did not.
Gal drove the point into Yuri’s right side beneath the ribs.
It was a short thrust. Only a few inches of steel entered, but it found a weak point between the ribs where the mail protected least effectively.
Yuri’s body reacted before his mind could.
Both arms pulled inward from the shock. His sword hand clenched reflexively.
The broad sword dropped nearly a hand’s breadth.
Gal withdrew the blade.
Dark blood poured from the wound in a thick stream. It spread across the lower rings of the mail coat, ran beneath them, and continued pouring down his side.
Yuri stepped backward.
Then another.
His right hand found the edge of the altar behind him. He still held the sword.
His posture had changed. He bent slightly toward the wounded side as blood dripped steadily onto the stone beneath him.
But his legs remained steady.
He spoke a single word.
"Domine."
The word was calm and brief, offered to God before the pain fully arrived.
Yuri moved to the center of the altar and set his back against the stone. He raised the broad sword again. The wound prevented him from lifting it as high as before, but the weapon remained ready.
His eyes returned to Gal.
Then he spoke in Latin, unhurried despite the blood loss.
"In te, Domine, speravi."
Three words and a name.
In you, Lord, I have hoped.
He did not lower the sword.
Gal advanced.
He crossed the distance in two strides and entered the remaining guard before Yuri could compensate for what the wound had taken from him.
The saber swept across Yuri’s throat from left to right.
The cut opened the throat completely.
Blood burst out in a hard pulsing spray, splashing across Gal’s right hand and blade before he stepped away. More followed immediately, pouring down Yuri’s chest and soaking the front of his mail.
Yuri’s fingers opened.
The broad sword slipped from his hand and struck the stone floor with a sharp crack that echoed through the sanctuary.
His legs failed.
He dropped to his knees against the altar.
He did not turn aside. His back came to rest against the stone. His face remained pointed toward Gal and the doorway beyond as blood continued to spill over his chest and lap.
He was dead before his body stopped moving.
The broad sword lay on the floor between them.
Gal remained standing. Blood covered his saber hand, the blade, and the left sleeve of his coat from the duel’s final exchange.
The noise of organized resistance had vanished.
Gal listened and recognized the difference.
In their place came scattered noises from a city being consumed. Nothing remained to resist the destruction. Timber groaned and shifted in the streets while fires moved through district after district on their own, needing no guidance and meeting no opposition.
Nasan came through the icon screen door.
His gaze moved from Yuri’s body against the altar to the broad sword on the floor.
"It’s finished," he said. "Every building behind those windows is burning."
The gold dome stood above this room.
It had been a landmark, a destination, a constant point through smoke and battle.
Now Gal stood beneath it.
Through the decorated glass of the sanctuary’s high windows, each pane painted with saints in gold, red, and deep blue, Gal could see the smoke of Ryazan rising in every direction beneath the spring sky.