533 - (FREE TO READ) Vunak Of Antares: A Novel By James LaFond & Jeth Randolph
Chapter 4: The Dawning Of A New Sun
Copyright 2025 LaFond & Randolph
A Casting Darts Publishing Original
Written by LaFond & Randolph
James LaFond, author of the Paladin Press knife fighting classic, “The Logic Of Steel” writes: “Paul Vunak, as one of the most innovative martial arts instructors of the late 20th Century, which saw the rebirth of the Pankration in the form of MMA after a 1,500 year sleep, was also involved in training for weapon combat, like gladiators of old. How would one of Modernity’s empty hand/weapon gurus fare if transported to some alien gladiator planet as a trainer?”
Vunak leads “The Dirty Dozen you always wanted” against an opposing team lead by non other than Bruce Lee!
New chapters will be serialised for readers here at The One In One Journal every week!
Click to read Chapter one: “Like Water”
Click to read Chapter two: “Stardust Express”
Click to read Chapter three, part one: “The Galactic Fix is In”
Click to read Chapter three, part two: “Charon’s Song”
Click to read Chapter three, part three: “Best and the Blessed”
The Dawning Of A New Sun / Vunak of Antares #4
Sir Richard Francis Burton and Hernando De Soto fight for the captaincy of Team Vunak
Burton walked out first, striding upright and poised with resolute purpose amid the hot stench of the deafening arena. He would be damned if these savages would see anything other than cool detachment on the face of an officer of Her Majesty’s army!
Glancing at his two shadows momentarily, he adjusted his shirt and the knotted sash that hung from his belt.
He drew his sabre from the scabbard which he cast aside, inspected the familiar sword and noted it’s sure connection to his right hand due to the adaptions (0) he’d recommended in another time and place.
‘Ah, old friend! These beasts have done their research, I’ll give them that’.
As he walked to the centre of the arena, there a was a disturbance as De Soto stormed out following him. His eyes were boiling with anger as he took his place opposite some ten paces away from the Englishman and started relentlessly pacing, two and fro, all the while staring at Burton and muttering.
Charon, boomed from his piped throat and the hissing voice rang throughout the arena, “Aaaannnnd nowwww!! An added match to today’s card! May that it pleases you my lords… A grudge match!!!
This bout will be for the captaincy of Blue team and will run as always… TO THE DEATH!!!!”
The crowd went wild, all from the lowest to the highest castes chanting as one:
“KILL! KILL! KILL!!!”
“From the time of the extinct British Empire!” He continued excitedly, ”Aristocrat adventurer, spy and soldier of … a Queen. Richard Francis Burton! Oh wait, forgive me…” He turned to the crowd and the sarcasm dripped from his voice, “’SIR’ Richard… Hahahaha!”
Booing swept from the crowd especially the lower levels close to the sands who commenced throwing their permitted food and drinks which rained down about Burton as he stood fast.
“A somewhat regretful introduction…” muttered Burton under his breath as he slipped a well aimed can of some noxious, foul smelling liquid.
‘I fear this contemptible beast’s utterances will have me stoned to death before I even raise sword!’
Charon laughing paused and then, with new added drama in his delivery, continued:
“And facing him, from Spain; The Conqueror! Destroyer of the Americas! With the glory of thousands of deaths to his record…! Hernando De Sotoooooooooooooo!”
The crowd roared for their obvious favourite - mass killers were always a crowd- pleaser at these games. De Soto stood as if separate from all around him, ignored the din and stared only at the eyes of Burton.
The giant screens at either end of the arena glared a burning light with the images of the two men, their likenesses turned to face each other. And the animated words “GRUDGE MATCH!” began strobing at a faster and faster pace, until a countdown appeared. Charon joined with the vast mob and began screaming the descending numbers:
“5...4...3...2...1… FFIIIIIIIIGGHTTTTTTT!!!!!”
Upon the hissed command to begin from Charon, there was suddenly a lull in the din and a palpable confusion then travelled the length of the arena in a wave.
Neither of the men moved.
Booing began to echo across the sands.
Burton looked across at DeSoto.
‘By the look of the fellow it would seem I’m about to receive a demonstration of “the wild-beast style”. Let us try and calm “Il furor” with application of somewhat higher arts…’
The highly agitated De Soto ripped the conquistador sword from it’s sheath and looked wildly around unsure of the crowd and then back at Burton. Spitting on the ground he cursed:
“Prepárate para morir, cerdo inglés!”
Burton stiffened slightly and then loosened almost instantly.
‘Sang foid old chap, sang foid…’
He assumed Inner Tierce position and then a second thought entered his mind:
‘Perhaps a final olive branch may be accepted?’
The displeasure of the crowd was growing palpably, Charon looked around and then up to the lords themselves uneasily as the booing intensified.
Burton called out across the heat of the sand towards DeSoto, “Senor, this is folly! The mob be damned! Agree to be my second in command and ...” his voice was cut short by De Soto’s screaming charge and the crowd erupted once more but with increased volume this time, thrilled by the Spaniard’s enraged negation of the Englishman's illegal appeal for dialogue.
From the centre of the arena, the throng of voices seemed to join in a guttural rumbling of bloodlust that perceptibly shook the ground:
“Kill! Kill! Kill!…”
De Soto launched murderously forward with a high right-hand slash at Burton’s head. His blade flashed wickedly in the light of the twin suns as it arced towards the left side of his waiting opponent’s head.
Burton tensed at the sight of the descending blade and in a movement like the uncoiling of a taught spring stepped right, shifted and brought his sword up and across to defend with the strong of the blade and an inward turn of the wrist to to attempt to pass the blow but the power was too strong and the distal edge of De Soto’s blade struck Burton’s left cheek, impacting to the bone, driving Burton’s head back.
“Uugghh!” came the involuntary groan from Sir Richard as his upper body recoiled and his mind was filled with a distant recollection of Somali steel…
He pressed outward with his sword to open the pressure from De Soto, his head lowered and blood flowed freely down his neck as he supported the sword with a powerful left cross punch that found De Soto’s right eye socket, cutting the eyebrow and driving him back far enough for Burton to stab for his left thigh but the strike fell short of its’ mark and punctured the hip of the Spaniard superficially as he turned.
Burton immediately broke distance raising the sword as he did so in preparation for an opportunist blow from De Soto to his face that didn’t materialise.
De Soto hinged forward somewhat, his left hand holding the small wound in his hip momentarily, and then assuming a crouched posture to begin stalking his opponent once more.
His rage, which had left him momentarily upon the pain of the blow, was raised again at the sight of the blood that flowed down the right face and throat of the Ingles who moved about him now freely using his notable stride length to stay just outside of non-committed attack range.
De Soto knew only too well that the difference in that extra step was too far not to give away his next attack and he began to sense a creeping doubt of his ability to kill the tall Englishman. He drove it away with contempt: ‘Ver cómo sangra…’
He licked his upper lip as if tasting the blood of his foe before baring his teeth in a grimace.
He back-stepped close to the arena wall, immune to the nearby yells of the workers that lined the edges of the ellipse. Behind him, the red banner bearing the image of a raven with it’s head lifted upwards to the gods billowed gently in a slight breeze.
Burton, his left hand withdrawn and held behind his back for protection, side stepped left and right before seeming to initiate a backhand blow with the blade high and to the right side of De Soto’s head which he responded to just at the movement that the strike seemed to literally disappear and the Englishman’s deceitful sword dropped in an instant to it’s true intended course and destination, De Soto’s left thigh.
The point hit home this time, again superficially, as Burton stepped away and out of range for what would now have been a desperate counter. De Soto’s left knee buckled and hit the sand. He righted himself immediately but grabbing a sweat soaked fistful of sand as he did so, and launching it at the eyes of the taller Ingles.
Burton wiped his eyes and spat to clear his mouth.
De Soto turned and hobbled at speed to the near edge of the arena, seizing the raven banner and pulled it from it’s fixings by dragging it behind him with his left hand as he turned to face Burton to the thrilled exclamations of the nearby audience members.
Sword forward, he faced his approaching nemesis, a grin appearing now on his lips as Burton stepped tantalisingly closer.
‘Lo que funciona para el toro funciona para el hombre.’
The Ingles was in range and the height advantage would now be equalled. De Soto ripped his left fist up and forward in a whipping movement, propelling the torn banner forward away from his grasp and entangling Burton’s sword and at the same moment, uttering a grunt of exertion, he launched a horizontal slashing attack on the midline from his right catching Burton across his belt buckle and then rebounding upwards to causes a shallow six inch cut through his shirt and across his ribs as the taller man hollowed out attempting to dodge the blade.
De Soto’s total commitment of his weight with the attack had left his sword far extended past the Ingles and to his left at the extreme end of it’s arc.
Burton closed ruthlessly, knowing his moment had now arrived. His left hand seized the Spaniard’s sword arm, immobilising the elbow against his body as he pressed forward with a stiffened arm.
With the guard of the sword in his right hand, he punched De Soto in the forehead as he had turned to spit at him.
“Aaaahh!” the Spaniard let out a cry as the left hand of the Englishman slid to his wrist, bringing it out in front just enough to deliver a second downward blow to the wrist.
The craftsmanship of the finest swordsmith of Seville fell to the sand and was kicked away by Burton to the gasp of the crowd.
A second gasp then erupted as the taller of the men now seeming to be in perfect position for the coup de grace, threw his sword away too and instead, proceeded to repeatedly punch the Spaniard with right crosses, knocking him senseless to his knees.
At this moment, Burton holding De Soto left-handed by the back of his collar, stepped behind him, pulling the knotted scarf free that hung from his belt with his blood smeared right.
Holding it by one end he drove his right hand in a looping movement above De Soto’s head, catching the other end with his left and encircling the Spaniard’s neck, the medal hidden within its’ folds aligning with the front of his throat (1).
The fallen man gained his senses just as Burton pulled the right hand into himself and drove the left hand out just as the “Gentleman” from Jubbulpore had shown him those many years ago.
The crowd jumped to their feet just as De Soto drove to his own, realising too late what was happening. He clawed frantically at the sash that was now pulled taught and constricted his throat, while trying to turn and reach the Englishman's face.
A great pressure filled his head and eyes…
‘Aún puedo matarlo!’
The roar of the crowd seemed to be retreating far away from him somehow.
His hands seemed to be slipping strangely from his foe at the end of arms that seemed too to have changed to great length...
Was he standing?
Such heaviness...
A strange echo like water dripping in another room...
The crowd was ecstatic at the sight of such an exotic death. Charon tuned from the jubilant crowd, “Outstanding! See how…wha?”
He fell silent and the eruption of cheering from the stands faded in an instant as Burton quickly released the now slumped Spaniard, and he fell to the floor like a rag doll. He turned to look at the crowd with a look of disdain, and then down wearily at the beaten De Soto who lay at his feet.
A gasp filled the arena accompanied by Charon who screamed with rage, “This is illegal! All fights are to the death! Finish him! The Gods command it!!!”
Burton made no movement but continued to look down at the fallen man who now started to tremble, convulsing slightly.
De Soto was in deep, warm darkness that retreated and started to turn orange and then white along with a distant roar that suddenly came over him at great volume like a deafening wave…
‘ Dios, te ruego que recibas mi alma… Estoy vivo…!’
He attempted to gain his feet but fell unsteadily back to his knees, a hot feeling in his arms and face as his heartbeat seemed to fill his very being . Looking up De Soto saw that the Englishman was stood over him offering his outstretched right hand.
Shame now filled him and nearly overflowed at that moment, he was bested.
And now it dawned upon him like a new angry sun to rival even the twin stars in the strange sky above him that his life had been spared by this Ingles in total defiance of these strange beasts that ruled here and the low animals that made the deafening throng about them. This man stood above was a man apart, even from himself, he thought and he began to understand their situation.
“Now...Senor…” Burton said through deep exhausted breaths that seemed to be just audible above the crowd “I would ask you...once more... to join me as my second and support my endeavour to lead our small company and escape this infernal land. What say you sir?”
Burton paused and urged, “...Señor?”
De Soto’s eyes now filled with that new, different anger, and a smile formed on his lips as he took the English hand and rose to his feet.
Continued next week!
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Notes:
0 – Burton suggested adaptions to the British military sabre. He wrote:
“The equilibrium of the sabre, and the facility of firmly grasping the handle, are the two prime requisites for a good weapon.
When properly balanced and easily held, the sword calls for less exertion of strength; and the quickness and true direction of the Cuts are greatly facilitated. In direct proportion to the economy of force, we find the swordsman enabled to continue his exertion.
However well made and scientifically poised be the blade, it is subject to several variations of equilibrium according to the position in which it is held.
The nearer the centre of gravity approaches the hilt, the lighter and the better balanced will be the weapon, and vice versâ. Therefore: It should be our principal object to effect this improvement without changing the proper centre of percussion and the other requisites for offence and defence.”
1 – The Crimea Medal. awarded to British, allied and Ottoman forces who served in the war against Russia.
Although Burton did not see active combat, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Ottoman cavalry, Beatson’s Horse, in 1854. His role was to assist Major-General William Ferguson Beatson, who was tasked with organising and training the Ottoman forces.
Burton’s involvement in the Crimean War was brief, and he was subsequently involved in a controversy surrounding a mutiny among the unit. This incident damaged his reputation and led to his departure from the Ottoman service.