by Roland Green
Darin thought of asking whether he and Waydol would follow the same rule, as he wished. But that would be treading too close to the border of a dishonor that no minotaur would ever accept.
“But if the worst happens—?”
“If the worst happens, then we will have killed a Knight of Solamnia. I will take the oath of peace from that sell-sword captain, Birak Epron, to settle the matter of the men. They will then be no danger to us, even if they do not join our ranks.
“Meanwhile, the Knights of Solamnia will be taking the field to avenge one of their own. They will end the war far more swiftly than those Istarians, who seem to be trying to fight the cheapest rather than the best war. Also, the knights are disciplined and well supplied, will not loot the country or mistreat the villagers, and will take prisoners and treat them with honor.
“To them, you may yield the band with some confidence that the men will at least be spared. If there is danger of the knights wanting your head, you may join me in the boat north—though I would trust the knights more than my own folk, given a choice.”
“I see.” At least Darin thought he did. The idea of arranging a fight so that defeat could be turned into victory, or the reverse, and with equal ease, would have been difficult to understand coming from a human captain. From a minotaur, even from Waydol, one had to force oneself at first to believe that neither the minotaur nor oneself had gone mad.
“There is something else that you did not see,” Waydol continued. His voice was harsher now. “No more than you saw the planning of treachery against Pedoon.”
“I cannot be everywhere, and spying on the men—can I have honor, and still trust men with none, even if I need them?”
“A dilemma, to be sure,” Waydol said, with infuriating blandness.
“Not one easily solved, when I have so much to do,” Darin snapped.
“I know that there is five times the work for a leader than there was before, and that you do nine parts in ten of it,” Waydol said reassuringly. “But that means you must spend some of your time training new underchiefs. Kindro and Fertig Temperer will not be enough if you are to lead the men after I am gone.”
“I will seek them after the fight. But what is the other thing that I did not see?” Darin was as close to anger with Waydol as he had been in many years, and knew that weariness was only part of it.
“Forgive me. I think you did not see it, because you were not in the right place. I could see more clearly how Pirvan and Haimya fought. It was as if one mind were controlling four arms and four legs.
“You and I have fought as partners in a few practice bouts, but never in real strife. I would wager that the knight and his lady have fought together for their lives more times than we have practiced. So our victory will be honorably earned, and by other than their deaths.”
“The way you put it, they might even win!” Darin exclaimed.
“Yes,” was Waydol’s only reply.
* * * * *
Sir Marod’s pen left a small blot on the parchment as he finished the letter. But the sand dried it along with the rest of the ink, and he was shortly able to read back over the letter with satisfaction.
Dargaard Keep
Fourth Holmswelt
Sir Niebar:
You are hereby directed and commanded to take three trusted knights and study the matter of a kender named Gesussum Trapspringer, unlawfully held captive at the Inn of the Chained Ogre, just west of the town of Bisel.
If you determine that you may need more men, you may draw on the men-at-arms at Tiradot Manor. You are not to communicate with the local kender community until you have freed Trapspringer and discussed the circumstances of his captivity with the innkeeper of the Chained Ogre.
I appreciate that this is the sort of work we commonly leave to Sir Pirvan. However, he has other tasks in hand, which he cannot leave. However, I command this action on the basis of letters from him, so you may know the information is reliable.
By the Oath and the Measure,
Marod of Ellersford
Knight of the Rose
The old knight folded and sealed the letter, then summoned a messenger to take it, as well as a servant to remove the remains of his dinner. He was eating alone in his chambers more often than he ought to of late, and less than even his aging body needed.
Yet there was so cursed much to be done, so little time to do it, and now nothing heard from Pirvan in so long that one had to prepare for the possibility of his death. Jemar the Fair was reported well and offshore, but he had scant power to affect anything happening on land.
Marod decided to keep a vigil on his arms tonight. He would have ill rest in any case. A vigil once a month was a requirement for Knights of the Rose, and perhaps it would even ease his mind as it was supposed to, according to the Measure.
* * * * *
In every direction but one, the darkness about the farm was so complete that Pirvan and Haimya might have been plunged into a thick sack of black velvet.
In the direction of their soldiers’ camp, the watch fires still burned, though the cook fires were fading embers. By the light of those watch fires Pirvan could make out sentries, the least armed with spear and helmet, making their rounds. Others, he knew, waited in the shadows, to surprise anyone who slipped past the visible watchers.
His men were fit and ready for whatever might come of the trial. If his speech to them tomorrow was fated to be a farewell—
He swallowed. That meant a farewell to Haimya, too, and he would have to use all the discipline of mind he had learned to keep that thought from unmanning him before the soldiers. They would understand; he had heard their praises of the knight’s lady and comrade when they thought he was not listening.
But it would still seem ill-omened, and he needed to raise more hearts than his own tomorrow.
An arm stealing around his waist made him jump, but he recognized the touch before he drew steel.
“You came so quietly I did not hear you.”
“Forgive me.”
“No, you forgive me. Please, Haimya. What I said when you seemed commanded by your fear—”
“You speak truly about my fear getting the best of my tongue. That shames me as much as you think your reply shamed you.”
“I note that you were yourself again before the fighting started.”
“Yes, and when the trial is over I am going to sit down with that bola-tosser and that kender and learn how they work together. I had not thought a kender had the discipline for that.”
“Waydol seems to bring out from many folk what even they did not know they had in them.”
“Yes. It would be well if we all lived past the trial. I want to learn more about Waydol. Either he is the shrewdest minotaur ever calved, or his folk can be even more formidable enemies than we have thought.”
“Both could be true. But we can think on how to fight for a bloodless victory tomorrow. Tonight is ours.” Her arm tightened, and her head rested on his shoulder.
“Ours?”
“The house has three habitable rooms, my love. Birak Epron and Rubina are at last asleep, the gods be praised, in the one at the far end of the house. In the nearest one I have laid blankets and furs. I traded a dagger for them, to one of Waydol’s sergeants.
“We can sleep soft, for this one night.”
Pirvan turned and let Haimya lead him into the house, and when at last they slept, the blankets and furs were soft indeed.
Chapter 16
Pirvan finished smearing the oil on Haimya’s back and started working farther down her body. Briefly, he let his hands linger.
She laughed, turned, and kissed him, then spat. “Kah! That fish oil tastes worse than it smells.”
“No doubt we should have asked for fresh oil, or perhaps bear grease.”
Pirvan finished smearing his lady from head to toe, then turned while she returned the favor. As she picked up her fighting garb, two strips of leather, she frowned.
“Is this oil re
ally going to do anything, save make our friends and foes alike fight to stand upwind of us?”
“Believe me, every thief I knew had done it three or four times in their night work. Mostly they did it to slip through small spaces, but it made them hard for any thief-taker to grasp as well.”
Pirvan donned his own fighting garb, a strip of leather over a padded loinguard, and walked to the corner where their quarterstaves stood. He picked them both up, twirled one in each hand, and grinned at Haimya. She might have seemed more desirable and more deadly at other times, but Pirvan could not remember them.
Haimya took one of the staffs, dropped into fighting position, then whirled and jumped at the same moment. But her smile as she turned back toward him was a bit uncertain.
“What if they do wear armor?”
“We’ll have a bigger edge in speed than we would otherwise. But I doubt that they’ll shame themselves that way. I made sure that everyone knew that you and I would be fighting without armor.”
The trial would certainly be not only without armor, but also with no overabundance of rules. They would fight in a square a hundred paces on a side, and anyone who stepped outside the line of stakes marking it would be out of the fight. Neither side would use edged weapons, spears, or bows. Anything found within the square could be used as a weapon, but nothing could be given to the fighters after the fight began.
Once it began, it would go on until one side or the other declared that they’d yielded, or became clearly unable to continue the fight. Death, if it came, was intended to come only by mischance—but both sides would have guards posted against anyone tempted to follow in the footsteps of Pedoon’s murderer.
“My lady?” Pirvan said, with a bow in the direction of the door.
She brushed his cheek with her lips and stepped through the door. As Pirvan followed her, the horses sent by Waydol whickered softly.
“Come along,” Fertig Temperer, leader of the escort, growled. “Some trader slipped into the cove last night with a load of wine. Give those loons an extra hour, and there’ll be no keeping the peace.”
Pirvan swung into the saddle. A breeze blew, chill on his bare skin. The oil would make him hard to grip, but gave little protection. At least the sky was a uniform gray, so that there should be no time wasted maneuvering to get the sun in the other man’s eyes.
“Forward!” Pirvan called, and his men’s newly acquired drummer started pounding out a slow march beat. As the column fell in behind the mounted escort, Pirvan admired their order and how they’d managed to clean their weapons and even try to clean their clothes.
The drumbeat went on, a small but determined voice calling out against the vastness of the gray sky and the scarred land.
* * * * *
The breeze had dropped by the time Pirvan and Haimya led their men up to the fighting square. It had been laid out the day before, at a safe distance from both camps to avoid disorder. Pirvan studied Waydol’s men, saw no signs of any drunkards, and looked for his opponents.
What he found was a large brown tent, erected at one end of the square. It had the look of an improvised affair, probably an old sail, but it meant that Waydol and Darin could step straight from hiding into the square. No chance for their opponents to study them in advance, while Pirvan and Haimya were fully exposed in more than one sense of the term.
Your pardon, knights, for not thinking of that myself.
“Ah,” came a familiar woman’s voice. “I thought you would be fair to the eye, Sir Pirvan. Now I am certain.”
Pirvan took a firm grip on his staff and turned to Rubina with a thin smile. “I thank you, my lady. But I also warn you. If you distract me so that I perish in this fight, I will come back to haunt you, if Haimya does not have your blood.”
Rubina put her hands on her hips and laughed. “Your pardon, Sir Knight. I gave oath to let this fight be fair, and I would not break it.”
“Good,” Pirvan said shortly and, turning his back, began exercising to loosen his muscles.
Haimya did the same; then they each picked up their staffs and worked with those, though they did not work against each other. The less known about how he and Haimya made a fighting pair, the better—though if Waydol was half as shrewd as Pirvan thought, he might well have guessed something.
Which is as the gods will have it. We can do no better than our best.
What was no doubt intended to be music broke the waiting silence. Waydol’s band had five drummers and even someone who thought he could play a trumpet. Pirvan thought that if anyone ever broke the sleep of the knights at a keep with such wretched braying, he would be swimming in the moat before the echoes died.
Pirvan’s one drummer started to reply, then cheers drowned out all the musicians as the tent opened and Waydol and Darin stepped out. Pirvan swept his staff onto his shoulder, took Haimya’s hand, and began walking toward the line of stakes, as their own men began cheering.
The cheering fought its own battle, as Pirvan studied his opponents. One gamble he’d won: neither of them wore armor. Darin had even forsworn his armored fighting gauntlets, which could turn those massive arms of his into deadly war clubs. Indeed, neither he nor Waydol wore anything at all except heavy loinguards.
Pirvan listened intently for any undercurrent of discontent with him and Haimya having weapons against opponents with none. He heard nothing, and breathed brief prayers of thanks.
Darin looked like a champion out of some tale of the days of Vinas Solamnus. Big he was, but there was nothing uncouth in his proportions or clumsy in his movements. As for Waydol, Pirvan had never seen any living creature so embody raw physical strength. He wished he could have seen Waydol in his youth.
The Minotaur might be showing his age, but his heir was in his prime fighting years. Both had a huge advantage in reach and striking power over any unarmed opponent. Without their staffs, Pirvan’s and Haimya’s efforts might prove more entertaining than useful.
Haimya now stepped away from Pirvan and began marking circles in the ground with her left foot. Pirvan could not see what need she had of rituals or testing the ground, as it was as level as a tabletop and neither hard nor soft in any pattern he could make out. But if it eased her, then so be it.
One herald from each side stepped forward and, with drums rolling again, read out the rules of this trial by combat. Mercifully, the trumpeter stayed silent until the reading was done, then he brayed forth all alone, like an ass being whipped.
“Waydol!” Pirvan shouted. “When you give me oath after this fight, I will demand one thing at least.”
The Minotaur tossed his horns. “What is that?”
“You find a new trumpeter, or teach the one you have how to play!”
Laughter joined cheering, and from both sides. Then the drums rolled again. The two heralds raised their staffs of office (they looked to have been carved from whale ribs), and held them aloft while the drums rolled.
Then the drums ceased, the heralds scampered for the sides of the square, and the four fighters advanced to battle.
* * * * *
The first few minutes passed in feints and maneuvers, as each side tried to learn about the other without revealing anything about themselves. This put a burden on Pirvan and Haimya, to not show their team-fighting too soon or weary themselves using their greater speed to stay clear.
There was only a single touch in this part of the fight, when Waydol launched a full-strength, straight punch at Pirvan’s staff. The blow was only glancing, but it jarred Pirvan’s arms all the way up to his shoulders. He rolled with the punch, turning a somersault that opened the distance, then rose, spat out dirt, and looked at Waydol with new respect.
The Minotaur laughed. It was not a cruel laugh of pleasure at another’s pain. It was instead the laugh of one caught up in the joy of combat.
I want to live through this fight, Pirvan thought. It will be one to remember. Even talk about with Waydol and Darin, if we all live to grow old in comradeship.
&n
bsp; Future camaraderie did not seem to be much in Darin’s mind, however. He was faster than Pirvan had expected, not agile but able to gain speed swiftly with those long legs. Several times he ran at Haimya, and only her darting left or right faster than he could change direction saved her from a close and perhaps final grapple.
Twice she thrust at Darin’s knees with her staff, and once she got home hard enough to make him stop for a moment and test the knee. But it could still bear his weight at any pace he needed to use; Haimya could not even claim first blood.
Pirvan also had to move faster, in order to try a few strikes at Waydol. He would have been willing to strike from behind at first, but saw no way of doing any damage there. So he played at Waydol’s elbows and hands, and struck three times without doing more than make the Minotaur stop to suck a knuckle.
But the knuckle was bleeding; that tough minotaur hide could be broken. Also, it was first blood.
Pirvan went through the first blood ritual, as he had with the archer. Waydol’s reply was another boisterous laugh; Darin, less polite, spat on the ground near Haimya’s feet.
The fight began anew.
* * * * *
Before much longer, both sides were pouring with sweat and breathing heavily. Pirvan did not mind the sweat; over the fish oil it would make him and Haimya still harder to grasp firmly. But they would need to hold back some breath for the inevitable climax of the fight, which would come, barring a miracle, when Waydol and Darin thought their opponents were slowed enough.
Then would come a rush to close, a grapple of strength and size against speed and quarterstaves, and only the gods knowing how it would end.
All four fighters also showed more than sweat and heaving chests. Darin favored one arm, where Pirvan and Haimya had each caught him with a clean, hard strike. Pirvan had grazes and bruises from too-close escapes from both of his opponents.
Haimya had an ugly swelling on one hip, where Waydol had caught her with an unexpected kick. Had the hoof struck with its intended force, it would have shattered her bones like a dropped pot. But she rode with the blow, Pirvan knocked Waydol farther off balance with a blow to the stomach, and Haimya nearly put him down altogether with a thrust at his throat.
