Weasel's Luck

by Michael Williams

  For two such skilled and accomplished Knights, the first pass is tentative, even awkward. Androctus, no doubt daunted by his opponent’s reputation, gives Sir Prosper and his huge cream-colored destrier a wide berth in the lists, and Sir Prosper feints clumsily with the big lance, clearly adjusting to the shield attached to his opponent’s right arm.

  Lesser men would have undone themselves in the first pass, scrambling to topple their opponents at once in a flashy, obvious stroke. But poised and patient—what the older Knights called scientific—Sir Gabriel and Sir Prosper pass each other again, then once more. Only at the fourth pass does lance strike shield. The older, more experienced Knights, Sir Robert and Sir Ramiro included, settle back, expecting a long afternoon.

  Even the oldest, most veteran of Knights is surprised at the next pass. For it is as though each man discovers a weakness in the other’s defenses, and exploits it immediately. At the fifth pass the lances splinter, Sir Prosper’s striking Sir Gabriel’s shield head on, sending the Hooded Knight tumbling off the right flank of his destrier, where he catches his foot in the stirrup, is dragged a few paces, then tumbles free of the horse and scrambles unsteadily to his feet.

  Sir Gabriel’s lance in turn has hit Sir Prosper’s shield head on, and as in the fateful tilt with Sir Orban, explodes through toward the breastplate of the charging Knight. But Prosper, though older, is quicker than his late comrade in arms: a lightening twist to his left avoids the padded end of the lance, which shoots by him at the speed of a meteor. Still, Sir Prosper’s turn in the saddle costs him his balance. He falls over the central railing of the lists and lands on his side, rising painfully by pulling himself up along the side of the railing.

  For a moment, surely each man thinks he has lost. Then, seeing his opponent dismounted, each draws his sword with renewed confidence and wades toward the other.

  Ten feet from each other they stop. Sir Prosper reaches to the blade of his sword, blunted carefully in tournament fashion.

  “Arms extreme, Sir Gabriel?” he asks, ceremoniously, politely, and coldly.

  “If our host permits,” Sir Gabriel agrees. “After all,” he pronounces loudly, “Sir Robert has reminded us that it is his tournament.”

  “Arms extreme,” Sir Robert declares, without hesitation.

  “Then so be it,” declares Sir Gabriel, and holds out his hand, into which the hooded squire slips a wickedly sharp sword. The squire of Sir Prosper follows suit.

  Slowly and warily, the two Knights circle one another. Then, with snakelike quickness, they close. They lock blades.

  “I can’t even follow the swordplay,” Sir Ramiro whispers to Sir Robert, then starts to say something else.

  But in that moment a flickering movement from Gabriel’s wrist strikes home. Sir Prosper wobbles, a deep and draining cut on the back of his right leg. It is all but over: tendons severed in the back of his knee.

  “N-now, see here, Sir Gabriel!” Sir Robert cries out into the sudden silence of the tournament grounds. “Don’t you think this is enough?”

  “Enough?” Sir Gabriel calls back calmly. “Oh, hardly enough.” Another abrupt move of the dodging left hand, and Sir Prosper falls to his knees, then over face first, completely hamstrung.

  Still, never an outcry from Prosper. He is completely silent in the pain and in the prospect of pain—and worse—to come.

  “You’ve won the tournament, my holdings, Enid’s hand,” pleads Sir Robert. “Now stay your sword.”

  “Who was it agreed to arms extreme?” asks Sir Gabriel. “For once, Sir Robert, for once in the history of your family, abide by your word.”

  For the last time, lightning-quick, the sword hand flashes down upon the defenseless head of Sir Prosper of Zeriak, who looks southward impassively in that moment before the blade strikes home.

  So on the Sunday next, four days from now, Sir Robert di Caela will give the hand of his daughter Enid to her betrothed, Sir Gabriel Androctus. With his daughter’s hand he will give, in time to come, the lands and holdings of the di Caela family. He will give Castle di Caela itself.

  CHAPTER 11

  While all of this happened, we were still in the Vingaard Mountains.

  In the steep foothills, our progress had slowed considerably as a heavy rain washed down over the trails. Agion and Bayard had been forced to stop on two occasions, fell some nearby trees, and lay logs across the mired trail—because, mired or not, off-road was so steep it was impassable for horses, and the road was our only way through the mountains without going back and around and missing the tournament entirely.

  After two days of mire and sludge and misery, we had begun to climb even more steeply, into a landscape of solid rock that formed the mountains themselves. That morning was gray but surprisingly cheery, for the sun rose veiled behind the clouds, and the promise of rain or worse weighed less heavily on all of us. Bayard rode at the lead of our party, flamboyant on Valorous.

  The horse was obedient and danced gracefully on the pathway ahead of Agion, who was lost in the delight of an armful of apples he had gathered, and who carried me, sulking, on his back. I in turn was leading by the rein a pack mare whose sullenness had no doubt passed into smoldering rage back at the swamp, when Bayard returned the showy, burdensome Solamnic armor to her load.

  The road began to level off at midmorning, and it was like passing through to the other side of the season. The grasslands of Coastlund, not yet lost entirely to autumn, faded to brown once we climbed into the foothills of the mountains, the rich soil that was the source of so much boring greenery and scenery giving way to a stingier, rockier ground beneath us.

  It was getting on toward evening, and we had yet to reach Bayard’s remembered pass when we first saw the ogre. He was a hefty creature, dressed in full battle armor, his powerful thick legs rising to a chest as huge around as a vallenwood trunk, and broad shoulders atop that, upon which sat a helmet surprisingly small. His fangs were yellowed and as twisted as cypress trees. His knobbed feet seemed to sprout from the metal legs of the armor as though he was sending out deep, grotesque roots into the rocks. He carried a trident and net, as though he had come from the sea. His horse looked freighted and unhappy.

  About him the air seemed to shimmer gray, shimmer black. It was as though something within the armor was on fire. The bare branches of the scrawny mountain trees that lined the trail bent away from him as though he were poison or an intense and unforgiving cold.

  Ahead of me Bayard nodded, made as if to pass, but the monster reined his horse into Valorous’s path and stood there. Bayard saluted and tried to pass on the other side, but again found the ogre in his way.

  From beneath me Agion called out, “The thing hath little Courtesy, Sir Bayard. Don thine armor and civilize it.”

  Bayard tried to pass the creature once more and was again obstructed. Now Agion’s suggestion sounded better to him. He wheeled Valorous about and trotted back to the pack mare, where he dismounted, dragged the armor to the ground, and began to dress.

  “Well, squire?” he asked, looking up at me from the disarray of metal he had scattered across the ground.

  “Well, sir?”

  “Isn’t it your squirely duty to help me on with this?”

  We sat there assembling in front of the monstrosity. I worked frantically, guessing which buckle went where, which strap tied over which, even which direction the visor faced as I slipped the iron helmet over Bayard’s head. Finally, Bayard stood pieced together before me, and I boosted him back atop Valorous. Agion stepped aside, too chivalrous to join the fight that was about to take place, and too dense to see the great advantage there would be if he only cast chivalry aside.

  Of course I thought about turning and running. But I knew I would not get far on foot, and that the big savage would kill Bayard first, then Agion, then ride me down over the rocky foothills, tying my severed ears to his bridle as some sort of barbarian trophy. As Gileandos said, my imagination was “prone to frolic at disaster’s edge,�
� and it was frolicking now, through fields of murder and torture and every kind of mutilation for which there was a body part to be disfigured.

  Bayard mounted, drew his sword, and spurred Valorous off in a canter toward Sir Enormity, who stood waiting calmly, clutching his trident with both hands.

  Disaster drew closer when Valorous broke to a full gallop and Bayard raised his sword. Instead of lunging with the trident, our huge enemy backed away from Sir Bayard’s charge and, as casually as if he were beating a rug, swung the trident at the passing figure, catching Bayard with the flat side of the tines and sending him over backwards onto the rocky ground, where he lay as still as the stones around him.

  It was a long time before Bayard stirred from that place. Meanwhile, his opponent rode up the trail some distance, stopping where it narrowed and cut through a granite escarpment, where the stone that bordered the trail rose well above his shoulders. It was impossible to travel around the ogre as he sat on horseback, wedged into the pass like a boulder.

  Agion had moved to Bayard’s side at once, had knelt by him—not an easy thing to do for a centaur—and was treating him, trying to revive him with various strong-smelling herbs.

  I, on the other hand, stood there. I watched the enormous creature sit on his horse like so much inert baggage. He did not move. He did not menace.

  But I felt as though he was regarding me. And I had been regarded in that manner before.

  I heard Bayard sputter behind me, heard the armor rattle as he rose to his feet.

  “What is that you waved under my nose, centaur?”

  “Goldwort, designed to …”

  “I know, I know, to steal the breath and kill the patient. Now if you’re done trying to poison me, perhaps you’d …”

  It took Bayard a moment to remember where he was. He stopped suddenly and looked up the path, to where the ogre sat astride his horse, waiting like a huge metal barricade. I stood where I was, in no hurry to rejoin my companions. But as I watched Bayard stagger a little on the rocky incline, raise his sword in the Solamnic salute, motion to Agion to help him back onto Valorous, I felt something a little like shame.

  Shame for not lending a hand.

  Not that I let that bother me for long. After all, a fellow could get killed up here among the ogres and centaurs. I crouched by a stump downhill from the conflict and awaited the outcome, all set to run if the conflict turned against my protector.

  Mounted now, Bayard wheeled Valorous about, and shouted out a challenge to the monster who loomed over the path ahead of him.

  “Who are you who so rudely stands between us and our peaceful way across these mountains?”

  No answer.

  Bayard continued. “If you have aught of peace or justice in your spirit, stand aside and let us pass without quarrel or conflict. But if it is quarrel and conflict you desire, rest assured you will receive it at the hand of Bayard Brightblade of the Vingaard Keep, Knight of the Sword and defender of the three Solamnic Orders.”

  It sounded pretty, indeed, but the guardian of the pass stood where he stood, a darker form against the dark eastern sky.

  Sword raised, Bayard charged at the ogre again.

  This time it was over almost as quickly as it began. The creature flicked his net casually, entangling Bayard’s sword and sending it clattering into some rocks south of the pathway. Then, he brought the flat side of his trident thundering down on Bayard’s helmet, and again our champion toppled to the ground, where he lay still. The victor sat on his horse and watched as Agion galloped forward, lifted Sir Bayard in his arms, and carried him awkwardly back down the trail and out of immediate danger.

  It was a brave move and a foolish one for the centaur, for who could say when that trident would descend with stabbing quickness?

  Out of trident-reach, Agion passed me at a trot, and I turned to follow him, dragging a reluctant pack mare behind me.

  A hundred yards or so from the waiting ogre, we settled in a small clearing of stones just off the road. Agion knelt again and passed the goldwort under Bayard’s nose once more.

  This time it did not work.

  “Is he …”

  “Just battered senseless,” Agion assured me. “Sir Bayard is liable to be past recall for some time.” He looked up the trail ahead of us. “And it seems our adversary has vanished.”

  I followed his glance. Indeed, the narrow pass was now clear of behemoths.

  “Can you carry him, Agion? Maybe we can slip through there while Sir Largeness is away. Or maybe we can go back west, into Coastlund.”

  The centaur shook his head.

  “We are here, my little friend, for the duration. The Knight is injured. He cannot be moved safely. So until he wakes … we keep a fire, keep a vigil, keep a watch for ogres.”

  I looked around us. It was scarcely a promising landscape. Bayard had led us higher and higher into the Vingaard Mountains, past the tree line and into a forbidding, rocky country of gravel and ice and solid rock. Around us the world had fallen into a pensive, uncomfortable silence.

  The next day was possibly the worst so far. Bayard did not respond to goldwort, to mimseng, or to switchweed. I know because Agion had me scouring the rocks for those herbs and for any others I could find. Once I had rooted around the clearing as far up the trail as my courage would take me, I returned to our campsite, where Agion knelt above a still unconscious Bayard.

  “Did I ever tell thee what Megaera had to say about switchweed?” Agion asked.

  “Look, Agion, I don’t think this is the time—”

  “ ‘Good for what ails thee, Agion,’ she would say, ‘as long as thou’rt willing to wait a year for it to work.’ ” He tossed the switchweed aside indifferently.

  “Agion—”

  “Thou must keep watch for the return of the mysterious ogre. Between the weather’s sudden turnings and the hidden properties of these foul-smelling plants, I have enough to worry about. As for me, I plan to make us comfortable for the night, for today the odds do not look good for Bayard’s waking and our departure.”

  It looked even worse as the night approached. The air thinned and the temperature dropped even further. It was as though the season had suddenly changed to winter. The landscape around us was bathed in the bloody orange light of the setting sun, and our shadows grew taller and taller as the darkness rose out of the east in front of us. Soon our only light, our only heat, came from the meager flame Agion had managed to kindle from the sparse dried branches and leaves.

  I drew my tooled leather gloves from my pocket—the expensive ones I had bought with the servants’ money and hidden all of our long, swamp-infested journey in order to avoid suspicion. It was too cold for me to care what anyone thought of my accessories.

  “Don’t you think Sir Bayard is taking these games down in Solamnia too seriously?” I whispered to Agion. “After all, it isn’t his life alone he’s risking on this harebrained jaunt through the mountains, though he has done a good job at risking that.”

  “I know not,” Agion replied. “Is it not written so in his Code somewhere—that the tournament is life and death?”

  “I grew up among Solamnics, Agion, and I trust I would have heard such foolishness had such foolishness been around. What’s life and death is this depth of winter we’re about to plumb. Look at him there.”

  Bayard lay on a blanket beside us, bundled against the cold, descending wind. He showed no signs of waking, and it was twelve hours since he had moved.

  “What wouldst thou have me do?” Agion snapped. “It is not the onset of death by cold, nor even the onset of frostbite. What thou sufferest is mere discomfort, Master Galen—the aches of a nobleman’s son who finds the fireplace ready when the frost first touches the ground. Th’art soft, Master Galen, and though ’tis not my place to tell thee such things, th’art in need of the telling.”

  He turned to face me with a look of distaste he no doubt believed would make me repent on the spot.

  “First and foremost
, it is the cowardice that is most unseemly, most unbecoming for one in the service of a Knight such as Sir Bayard. But it is also the lesser things—the whines and the whimpers and the concerns with long odds and stormy weather. Th’art often a pain not worth the having, for if there’s a burr in thy saddle, thou’lt find it, and a pebble in thy pallet, so that thou hast me marveling at what thou wouldst say in the teeth of real danger, real discomfort. I have said too much.”

  “At least in that you are right, centaur. You have said too much. Maybe I do whine and whimper about the weather, but look around you, Agion. It’s getting colder the higher we travel, and a big thick-witted centaur is going to be the last one to feel any real emergency in the temperature.

  “But emergencies happen. We could run out of food in the highest reaches of this pass. You’ve heard the stories—how the travelers go through provisions, then through the horses, then through each other? Well, after the traveling food is gone, it’ll be the pack mare first, then Valorous—I’m sure we’ll go in order of familiarity. Guess who’ll be third, Agion? Folks wait until the last moment to eat something in their species—it’s just human nature, everything’s nature except maybe goblins.

  “Remember who’s the odd one out here,” I whispered, closing my argument as menacingly as possible. “Species loyalty is a powerful thing.”

  So we sulked and refused to speak to one another. We traded off watches for the rest of the night, each sleeping fitfully when it wasn’t his turn.

  Agion surely did, snoring so heavily that at times I woke suddenly at my post on watch, filled with the fear that I was about to be covered by an avalanche or a rockslide tumbling down upon us from some peak we hadn’t noticed.

  All of this was silliness, was dream. But sleep was fitful because of the dreaming, as old fears rose from memory and imaginings to share my fireside and blanket. I dreamed of the Scorpion finding me, of Bayard finding out about the Scorpion, of Alfric rising from the mud of the swamp, knife in hand, and of Father on the road to meet us, clutching the order for my hanging tightly in his gloved hand.