The Luck Of The Wheels

by Megan Lindholm

  'I've fought all day. I've taken a sword-slash on my hip. I've had a hot bath, a heavy meal, and wine, and I've sat still long enough to stiffen up. Will you call this a fair match?'

  'Fair is like honor. Of no real value. But take a moment or two to limber up if you must.'

  Vandien was silent as he drew his rapier, made a vain attempt to stretch out his muscles. They felt liked dried-up twisted leather strips. At his first tentative lunge, he felt the wound on his hip open up. The blood seemed hot enough to scald as it soaked through the bandages. Ironic, when his sword arm felt so cold. He knew he gripped his rapier's hilt, but he could not actually feel his fingers. He glanced over to where the Duke was limbering up. He stared for a moment, then suddenly saw. The fancy shirt with the lace at collar and cuffs was camouflage for chain mail. Light and fine as it must be, he could still see its betraying outline when the Duke lunged. Vandien's sparse chances suddenly shrank.

  He would have been better off not to have eaten at all. His whole body felt heavy, and his mind was muzzy. He tried to consider his options. There didn't seem to be very many. He could fight the Duke and die on his sword. He could accept the Duke's offer of a position as fencing master, and take a slash down the face and die of the poison. He could refuse to fight the Duke ... and the Duke, a man without honor, would kill him anyway. Funny. It all seemed to end with his death. Well, if all he could do was die, he'd die well. He wondered how high up the Duke's throat his mail went. Probably a good leather collar under the one of lace. Halikira was watching him with unreadable dark eyes. Brurjans. Whatever else you might say about them, they died well. He grinned at her, offered her a sketchy salute with his blade. Her black lips writhed up slightly, a shadow of the Brurjan smile-snarl. And inspiration struck Vandien.

  His hand and sword arm were cold, his hip stiff. He slammed his mind shut to pain, forced his body to respond as he limbered it up, rapidly and roughly. He turned to face the Duke. Two other Brurjans were lifting the laden table, setting it up against the wall. 'Rules for this bout?' Vandien asked quietly.

  'None,' the Duke said in an equally soft voice. 'What do rules mean to men without honor?'

  'Nothing. Nothing at all,' Vandien conceded.

  Vandien drew himself up straight. The Duke matched him. Their blades were down. Then slowly the salute began, the guards brought up chin high, tips up, blades vertical. The jeweled hilt glinted into Vandien's eyes, but his face never changed expression. Then, as the Duke began to bring his blade down and around, out to the side in a standard salute, Vandien extended in a lightning thrust. The tip of his rapier leaped precisely into the Duke's eye socket, sank a good four inches. It was out again before the Duke even began to fall.

  'Lesson one in Harperian fencing,' Vandien heard himself say. 'Precise point control is everything.'

  The Duke's body hit the carpet.

  Vandien swayed where he stood. The chill was spreading. He caught the rapier in his off hand as his sword arm died and fell numb to his side. He turned to the Brurjan guards, lifted the rapier to guard position. He'd show them a Human could die well, too.

  Halikira was making a peculiar sound, almost like a dog panting. Her great jaws were wide, baring her gleaming battle fangs and blue-spotted tongue. She clutched suddenly at her belly, and leaned against one of her companions, who abruptly joined her in panting noisily. Suddenly she raised her crest, the spiky swath of semi-hair that crowned a Brurjan and was usually erect only during battle or moments of great emotion. Vandien braced himself.

  The third Brurjan guard crossed the room slowly. Vandien turned, keeping his rapier up and threatening. This one was an older male, grey mottling his black pelt. He squatted by the Duke, and he, too, began panting noisily. He leaned forward suddenly, and with a thumb gouged out the Duke's pierced eye. He held it up, dangling tissue clinging to his black-nailed thumb. 'Pig's eye, anyone?' he offered raspily. Halikira yelped suddenly and slid to floor, her panting increasing in tempo as the black male popped the eyeball into his mouth and gravely crunched it.

  The strength went suddenly out of Vandien's body. He staggered to a chair, sat. 'I never heard a Brurjan laugh before,' he admitted bewilderedly to no one in particular.

  'Then it's even. I never saw a Human do anything funny before,' Halikira replied.

  This comment further convulsed all three Brurjans. Vandien sat in his chair, feeling the cold seeping from his arm into his chest. Strange, he thought, to die hearing the sound of Brurjan laughter. His own smile dawned as the room darkened around him. He clutched at the chair to keep from falling.

  When his vision returned, the Brurjans were already stripping the body. 'His stuff ought to fit you pretty well,' Halikira observed. 'Korioko! Get that fancy helm out of the chest; the one with the crest on it. Hurry up. In fact, get out the whole battle harness. Bet it looks better on this one than it did on old Pig-eyes.' More of the dog-pant laughter. Halikira tossed the fine chain mail into Vandien's lap. With difficulty he sheathed his rapier, ran appreciative fingers over the fine intermeshed links. The metal was still warm from the Duke's body.

  'Get it on!' Halikira ordered him impatiently. Then, peering at Vandien more closely, 'What's wrong with your arm? Your hand's turning blue.'

  'Poison,' he said absently, fingering the chain mail. 'Kellich's blade was poisoned. I'm dying.'

  'Coward's weapon. No fighter should ever have to die of poison. Here, I'll help you,' she said matter-of-factly, and Vandien sat quietly, expecting a quick knife slice across the throat. LastFriend, the Brurjans translated knife, and were rumored to carry special ones to dispatch their own wounded. But instead she hauled him to his feet and began wrestling him into the chain mail. The cold was squeezing his chest now. He had neither the strength to resist her, nor to help her. In a moment more Korioko was setting a crested helm crookedly atop his head, and the other Brurjan, addressed only as Tiyo, was buckling the Duke's jeweled sword onto his other hip. Their hot meaty breath enveloped him as they laughed their way through the task of arraying him in the Duke's personal battle dress, right down to the heavy purse the Duke had been carrying. Then Halikira stood back and nodded her satisfaction.

  'Looks better,' she said affably. 'Always turned my gut to see Pig-eyes in Brurjan harness. Man should fight like a Brurjan before he wears Brurjan harness.' She glanced around the room, then turned back to Vandien. 'You want any of his other stuff?'

  He shook his head slowly. His good arm cradled his numbed one to him. Cold, spreading cold. His answer seemed to astonish them. Avariciously happy snarls broke out on their faces. They looted like children, competing and squabbling and bragging, and occasionally bringing some special piece to him and offering it to him. He always refused it, and with each refusal, their respect for him seemed to grow. Korioko bared his yellowed teeth in a Brurjan smile, and commented, 'So were the Old Ones, who fought only for blood and weapons. So we are, even today, when we have made a Great Kill. You honor the harness.' He glanced to Halikira and Tiyo. 'Let's drink with him.'

  Tiyo tucked his chin into his chest, a Brurjan gesture of surprise, but Halikira cuffed him roughly. 'It's a good idea. We'll do it.' She stuffed the last of the Duke's jewelry into her shoulder pouch, and stood.

  When she dragged Vandien to his feet, he nearly blacked out. Dimly he heard her say something about 'His ass is still bleeding,' which seemed to occasion much merriment among the threesome. His vision cleared slightly to find they were walking him down the stairs. He wasn't sure if his boots were touching the steps or not. As they passed the doorway to the common room of the inn, Halikira paused and leaned in. 'Duke's dead!' she announced to the Brurjan patrollers lounging there. 'VandienScarface killed him.' She paused a moment. 'It'd sound better in Brurjan. KeklokitoVandien. Now there's a proper name. Keklokito will drink with us! He leaves the spoils of the Duke to such as want them. And he says the town is yours! Celebrate a Great Kill as befits it!'

  The Brurjans dispersed like bees from a smashed hive. Vandien heard
the racketing of feet up the stairs, but as Halikira dragged him out into the cool night, it seemed an equal number of Brurjans had followed them. He was aware that they cut a swath of destruction through the town. Festival booths crashed down in their wakes, door leathers were casually torn from the ties and flapped out into the streets. He heard screams and harsh Human shouts that drowned in Brurjan roars and curses. He felt strangely untouched by all of it.

  They were in an unfamiliar part of Tekum now. They passed a small corral of cattle and then entered a low-eaved building with no windows. Even Vandien had to duck to get inside, and the Brurjans dropped to their knees. But within, the building opened up to a peaked ceiling. The tables and stools were massive, making Vandien feel a child again in a world engineered for adults. And the smell was overpowering. Blood. Old blood, new blood, blood mixed with milk. Cutting even through the stench of the blood was another smell, abrasive and hot. He couldn't identify it. The floor was packed dark earth, and flies swarmed up from it as they entered. Light came from torches set in sconces on the wall and from fat candles on the tables. It did not illuminate the place very well, but Vandien did not mind. He had heard enough of Brurjan Bloodhalls that he didn't need to see more. He heard an animal scream briefly in an adjacent room. A Brurjan entered, a small animal clasped expertly under one arm. Blood pumped from its cut throat into the beaten silver vessel he held beneath it. He looked up in mild surprise at the throng of entering Brurjans. Glancing about, his eyes settled on Vandien. He pointed a black-nailed finger in his direction. 'No pets!' he said sternly.

  'Not a pet,' Halikira contradicted him irritably. 'Keklokito made a Great Kill tonight. The Duke fell to him, and he has ceded to us all that was his, save his armor and arms.'

  Her words penetrated a corner of Vandien's mind. Was that what he had done when he told them he wanted nothing else of the Duke's? Given it all, town and Dukedom, over to the Brurjans? He knew he should feel appalled but could only feel the deadly spread of the cold. He hitched himself up onto one of the massive stools, tried to sit so that his hip didn't pain him. Halikira was still talking. '... bull, or maybe two. We all drink with Keklokito tonight. Here!' She drew a gold neckpiece set with red gems from her shoulder pack, crashed it onto the table. 'Let that pay for all! And don't be slow!' She drew up a stool next to Vandien's and sat down heavily.

  The rest of the table filled up rapidly. Halikira began loudly telling the tale of Keklokito's Great Kill. Her words seemed to blend with the swirling darkness of the Bloodhall and the muffled bellowing of a bull in the next chamber. The table had dissolved in helpless panting laughter and Halikira was struggling to add how Korioko had eaten the pig's eye when the Bloodhall's master appeared with an enormous basin. He set it atop the table, and a small red wave broke over the lip of it. As if from a great distance Vandien watched drinking horns set out, and then the master came again, bearing a small metal bucket that steamed. The contents appeared silvery as he upended it over the blood, and Vandien caught again the hot, abrasive odor. The master swirled it through the fresh blood and then stepped back from the table. All grew suddenly still.

  Halikira gave him a nudge that nearly knocked him off his stool. 'It's your kill; you fill your horn first,' she told him.

  Obeying seemed easier than arguing. His sword arm Was useless. Even in the dim light of the Bloodhall, its color was appalling. With his off hand he picked up a drinking horn from the table; it was a fancy one, spiraled, with hunting scenes etched into it. He dipped it into the blood, and no sooner had he lifted it than a dozen others were plunged in.

  His cup was heavy with warm blood, his fingertips red and wet with it. Whatever had been mixed with the blood made swirls of silver through the redness. He looked into it, felt he was falling into its depths. Halikira jogged him again.

  'Drink it before the blood cakes,' she advised him, and when he looked vaguely reluctant, she reminded him, 'Hells, man, you're dying anyway! Look at your arm!' This evoked another chorus of panting laughter, and Vandien found himself joining in it. And when it ended with the lifting of drinking horns, his rose with the rest. And he drank.

  He drank fire and sandstorms and curling whiplashes. The drink ignored his throat and belly and cut its own scorching passage through his guts. He couldn't even get the breath to gasp, and the Brurjans howled admiringly at what they judged his impassivity to their drink. His breath burned out through his nostrils and mouth. He forgot all pain from his hip, all coldness. He suddenly tasted the bull's blood in his mouth and nostrils, and it was hot and wet and alive, like sparks leaping on his tongue. His darkening arm on the table before him was suddenly funny, almost as funny as the Duke's eyeball. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Being alive was all that mattered, and using life up to the very last instant. Blood was life and life was in him. He swayed slightly as he turned to Halikira.

  'What the hell are we drinking?' he managed to ask.

  'Bull's blood,' she said simply.

  He ripped the Duke's purse free of its strings, smashed it down on the table. 'Blood man! Kill another bull!' he roared, and Halikira crushed him in a hug.

  'I like this Human,' she announced to the assembled folk. 'I think he should live!'

  Someone near him began a panting laugh, and others took it up. Vandien laughed with them, unsure of the joke but having a wonderful time nonetheless. More blood was brought, and he drank another hornful, and it burned its way down his scalded throat in an agonizingly delightful way. It seemed to him that the Brurjans began to get silly after that. One of them wanted the Duke's helm for a piss-pot, and Vandien gladly traded it away for a Brurjan one twice the size of his skull. It hung over his eyes most of the time so that he frequently was unsure who he was talking to, but after a while that didn't seem to matter either.

  Someone else bought another bull sometime later, and it was later still that Halikira sat down beside him again. He was a little surprised to find she had been gone. He was in the middle of trying to learn a new song, made trickier by the fact that it was all in Brurjan and he wasn't sure what he was singing about. She had a leaf laden with an ugly, tarry substance, and she wanted him to eat it. He explained to her several times, amid much panting laughter from the rest of the table, that he never ate anything that particular shade of brown. Someone offered to bet a bull against the Duke's sword that he couldn't keep it down if he did eat it. Vandien won the bet and had a horn of the bull's blood. It seemed much later that he traded the Duke's sword for another bull, and later still when a swaying Korioko convinced him that it was bad luck to ever let a coward's mark remain on one's body. Korioko yelled for a LastFriend to be brought to him, and when it arrived, he heated the snake's-tongue blade over the table's candles. Vandien willingly pushed his darkened arm out onto the table, sat still as the searing blade was laid over the mark of Kellich's rip. He smelled scorching flesh, and then a far-off pain itched at his arm. Before he could respond to it, Korioko was lifting the blade away and exclaiming with pleasure at how cleanly outlined the scar from the pronged blade would be. Everyone joined in congratulating him on the new scar, and the master of the Bloodhall donated a bull to the table in a rare display of Brurjan fellowship.

  He wasn't sure when or why they went outside. It wasn't dawn yet, but a strange light suffused the streets. Halikira was leaning on him and he was struggling valiantly to support her.

  'Keklokito. Black or white?' Someone demanded.

  'Take white. The black won't face a pikeman,' Halikira hissed.

  'White,' Vandien answered.

  Someone gave him a leg up, and when he pushed the helmet from his eyes, he was atop a large white horse trapped out with the Duke's black and silver harness. It felt strange to be up so high, but good. 'Everything feels good,' he observed to Halikira.

  'It always does,' she answered, 'after a Great Kill. Ride well and may your fangs taste blood often.'

  He couldn't think of a reply to that, and when he lifted a hand and leaned forward to speak to h
er, the horse interpreted it as a signal to charge. He left Tekum at a gallop, noticing in passing that half of the town was ablaze. It seemed an odd way to end a festival, but then, he had never really understood what they were celebrating in the first place.

  He tried to remember where he was supposed to be going. Home. That was it. That was fine. It was time he paid a visit home. When dawn began to break before him, he realized the horse had slowed to a nagging trot. He pulled it in to a walk, lifted his eyes to the sunrise. Ki came suddenly to his mind, and then the remembrance that he was dying. He had only moments for his grief. The physical pain hit him first, knocking him from the saddle before the first convulsion lashed him. When the fit finally passed, his vision seemed extraordinarily clear. His body gave him one last moment of stillness, a final glimpse of sunrise breaking over the green hills of his father's keep. The great cold uncurled inside him. 'I've come home, Father,' he said to the one waiting for him, and fell into the darkness.

  NINETEEN

  It wasn't a stone in his hoof; she could feel no heat or swelling. Damn and damn and damn. She'd have to hope it was only a bruise. She patted Sigurd's filthy shoulder and got back up on the box. So, they'd walk, then. Just when she needed speed, this had to happen. She stirred the team up, sat back and tried to calm herself. It didn't work. There was a marked hitch to Sigurd's stride that filled her with fury. She'd like to kill Willow and Vintner. And if that was dawn breaking over Tekum, then Goat and Dellin would be expecting her anytime now, and she wouldn't be there.