Cold Iron (Masters & Mages)

by Miles Cameron

  ‘Must you?’ he asked.

  The Westerner pushed past him.

  ‘I challenge you, peasant boy. Now run away and stop pretending to be a man, or fight me.’

  The magister turned to Aranthur in the heavy silence.

  ‘You have the choice of weapons, if you choose to fight.’

  Aranthur’s heart was beating very fast, and it was difficult to breathe. He saw Nenia looking at him – and Lecne – and he really didn’t want to die.

  ‘Magister,’ he said, ‘what would you do, in my place?’

  The magister smiled. ‘I would ask me to be your second. Then, it would be my duty to advise you.’

  Da Silva shook his head and his face took on an odd look, like an actor’s mask of anger.

  ‘You? Sir? You would take this bumpkin’s side?’

  The magister shrugged. ‘You are behaving badly, waving your vaunted prowess around a tavern full of yokels. For what? To bed this little kitten?’ His smile was cruel, and Hasti flinched. ‘I’m looking for something better in my swordsmen.’

  Aranthur gave his best City bow.

  ‘Magister, would you condescend to be my second in this matter?’ He was proud of himself.

  The magister nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I would.’ He turned to the Westerner. ‘You, too, will need a second.’

  The Westerner shrugged. ‘I’ll take any of them.’

  The magister looked around. ‘You’d best find one, then.’ He smiled his mirthless smile. ‘I suspect that Master Apucu of Volta is your most likely candidate.’ His eyes flicked to Aranthur. ‘Except that you are already fighting him too.’

  Da Silva sneered. ‘I do not need a second.’

  ‘If you kill this boy without one, you’ll be arrested,’ the magister said flatly.

  Around them, people had begun to gather and talk. Duels were not so infrequent in the City, but at an inn …

  Lecne came and stood by Aranthur, and so did Nenia. Hasti had drifted away, and was standing with the farm boy who had been dancing with Nenia.

  Aranthur found that his mind was running very fast – and his thinking was very clear. He was able to watch Hasti, and understand that she was flirting with her best friend’s dance partner simply because that was her reaction to fear and discomfort. He noted the speed with which Nenia was breathing, and he smiled at her.

  ‘You seem very calm,’ she said.

  He managed a smile. ‘I am surprising myself.’

  He felt very alive.

  He turned to his adversary. ‘I’d be your second. But I’m otherwise engaged.’

  People around them laughed.

  Kartez Da Silva turned to the magister. ‘Tell this clod that he may no longer speak to me, as we are engaged to fight.’

  The magister shook his head.

  ‘Have your second tell him. Like your adversary, I am otherwise engaged.’ He turned back to Aranthur. ‘My first advice to you, young man: go to bed immediately – and alone.’

  He smiled at Nenia, who flushed.

  Aranthur opened his mouth to protest that he was nothing to her – that she barely had a civil word for him. But that seemed ungracious. So he merely bowed and took Lecne aside to arrange for a wake up and breakfast.

  When he went back to the magister, the Westerner was gone.

  ‘I assume we will fight in the morning?’ he asked. ‘I’m sorry, Magister, but I need to be back at classes.’

  The magister laughed – genuine warmth.

  ‘By the Sun, boy. You think you can beat him, and you are more concerned about classes?’

  Aranthur sighed. ‘I agree. Perhaps I will be dead.’

  Just in that moment the reality of that statement struck him. His chest grew tight. He could envision it – his body lying in the slush in the yard, with that curious flatness of the dead.

  ‘He wanted to fight you tonight,’ the magister said. ‘I forbade it. He can fight Apucu first, because that is what he is here to do. If he survives Apucu, and still wishes to fight, he can face you.’

  Aranthur nodded. ‘That seems unfair,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘You have some wonderful ideals, boy,’ the magister said. ‘Do you know why these two men have come here to fight?’

  Aranthur shook his head.

  The magister looked around. ‘I am seeking a replacement,’ he said quietly. ‘There is no substitute for single combat in my profession.’ He seemed amused by the whole situation.

  Aranthur frowned. ‘Magister, these men are fighting for your approval?’

  ‘Nicely put,’ the older man said. ‘First light. You may as well have that rarest of advantages – that of seeing of your man in combat. My servant will knock at your door and I will arrange that you eat separately.’ He smiled. ‘I hope that you live. You are a remarkable young man, in your calm if nothing else. How will you fight him?’

  Aranthur felt another jolt of fear as he heard the word ‘fight’.

  ‘Perhaps I should ask you that.’

  The magister shrugged. ‘I’ve not seen what you know. You are tall – you are strong – you have good co-ordination of your sinews. And you killed a man who fought by profession.’ He looked around. ‘I would say – do something you know and understand, and remember that your opponent is as afraid as you are yourself. Don’t attempt to improvise, and try to banish your fear.’

  Aranthur thought on that advice for a great deal of the night.

  At some point he fell asleep – he must have, for he was awakened by a soft knock at the door.

  ‘I’m awake,’ he said.

  ‘I brought you chai,’ said a soft voice, and he opened the door to find Lecne and his sister with trays.

  He took the chai, smiled at them both, and began to get dressed. He felt an odd pressure in his chest and his arms felt weak. Aside from those symptoms, which he thought were the direct effects of fear and lack of sleep, he felt ready for anything. He dressed carefully, in the clothes he’d avoided for days – a fine shirt, Drako’s black hose, black shoes with soft soles. He pulled the heavy wool cote he had borrowed from Lecne over them all and drank his chai.

  He almost forgot his sword, which made him smile at himself. Indeed, throughout his preparations, he had the oddest sense that someone was watching him. He was more aware than usual. He was so aware that he could see dust motes in the candlelight and hear the man snoring down the hall and think that he would, in many ways, give anything to be that man, snoring blissfully, and not about to die.

  He met Nenia on the steps and she reached out and took his hand. Her touch hit him like a compulsion, so that his eyes opened wider, but she meant nothing by it. Her hand was warm and very soft – and hard with ridges where work brought out calluses.

  ‘I’m to take you to breakfast,’ she said softly.

  She was as tall as he, her face at eye level.

  He wanted to say something to her. In his heightened awareness, he saw that she was slightly flushed, even if that was the candlelight in the hallway, and her eyes were very large.

  ‘You must think me a fool,’ he said.

  She grinned. It was not a flirtatious smile or a cunning one, but a simple, open smile.

  ‘I do, too. But I still hope you win. There, I was looking for a way to say that.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  She kept his hand and led him downstairs. He found the touch of her hand to be almost magikal – perhaps there was no almost about it. She released him at the kitchen door.

  He ate two eggs, carefully coddled, and a piece of toast, and then it was time, the magister’s blond servant beckoning from the doorway of the yard and the cold air like a malevolent thing. The Dark was still very close, even if Darknight was past, and as he rose to go out he felt the weakness in his limbs again. He thought that his knees might fail – and yet his head seemed to work perfectly well.

  He took his sword and walked out into the yard, which was lit by eight torches – all pine cressets with pitch on them, so that the s
mell was beautiful, at least to a young man about to die.

  He wondered if he was in love with Nenia. He could see her at an upper window, and he knew her comfort was the best gift she could give him. He wondered how he would feel – who he would be – if an hour later, he was still alive.

  I’ll still be a fool, he thought.

  In the night, he had many times imagined how his father and mother would react. He’d had time to imagine Tiy Drako, or the priest, his mentor, or any of his Magi at school. And what each of them would say about his present predicament.

  It had, in fact, occurred to him ten times or more that he could simply rise and go to the stable, saddle his horse and ride for the City. He couldn’t imagine that anyone would care, except perhaps the handful of witnesses at the inn.

  And he himself.

  He had come to the understanding, deep in the marches of the night, that he was not a fool for fighting.

  He was a fool for wanting to fight. He wanted to fight.

  His whole body was shaking with fear.

  The sun cleared the distant horizon and the morning bells rang in the town up the ridge, and the two combatants drew their swords. One of his many fears was of doing the wrong thing, so Aranthur stood nervously watching them, unsure what to do with his sword, where to stand, what to watch. But as the red ball of the sun began to creep over the far eastern horizon, the magister told the combatants to stand to their guards, and both of them adopted postures that were familiar to Aranthur. The Voltain stood with his right leg forward and his sword hand, his right, covering his right leg, the sword point up, aimed at his adversary’s throat.

  The Westerner, Da Silva, stood with his left leg forward, his sword hand covering his left leg. Both men were tense, and Aranthur’s heightened awareness caught their nerves. Both were tense where they ought to have been relaxed, and both swords trembled slightly.

  The magister dropped his handkerchief in the muck, and the two men moved. But not towards each other. Instead, they circled. As their feet moved, their sword hands moved effortlessly to cover their legs – small hand movements to close the new lines created by each step. Several times in the first few moments their swords – the long one of the Westerner, the shorter sword of the Voltain – crossed with a dull click and then both men seemed to freeze for a fraction of a heartbeat, and nothing happened.

  They circled for so long that the tension in Aranthur’s chest began to ebb away, and then – in a moment – both men struck.

  Aranthur, despite his heightened awareness, could not discern exactly what had happened. Both weapons seemed to miss; then both men raced their weapons – too late – to cover. The two swayed together, all elegance gone. Each released the pressure of that forceful cross and each swung a heavy blow on leaving the bind, and neither connected.

  By the standards of a fencing salle, it looked fairly clumsy. Aranthur was skilled enough to suspect that actual combat reduced many of the elegant encounters of the art to this – two men hacking when each lost control of his opponent’s blade.

  ‘Halt,’ the magister ordered, his voice like old images of the Sky God for whom Aranthur was named. ‘You are both wounded. Will you continue?’

  Now, in slightly brighter light, Aranthur could see blood on both men’s forearms. They were fighting in shirts and hose, with no armour and no cotes.

  ‘Yes,’ they both said.

  ‘Then carry on,’ said the magister.

  And then, in defiance of their first encounter, they were at it again, but this time with both fire and elegance. Da Silva attacked, two quick backhand blows from the shoulder. The Voltain caught the first in a fine cover and cut into the second, winning the cross and pushing his opponent, who fell back a step to avoid taking the blade across his face. Even as it was he was cut on the eyebrow, and he threw a powerful overhand blow to cover his escape. Somewhere deep in his fighting brain, Aranthur agreed that the heavy blow would compel the Voltain to make a big cover or parry, and they would again be at equilibrium.

  But the Voltain’s parry was a rising one, and he advanced, confident that he was about to make his kill. Da Silva also advanced, and so neither sword went where its owner intended, and they were breast to breast, hilts locked in front of their faces. Both men pushed.

  The Westerner rolled his hand outside – the same movement from thumb up to thumb down that Aranthur practised endlessly – and his sword struck the Voltain master hard enough in the head to make a sound.

  The man gave a choked scream and fell, his sword dropped, clutching his head with both hands as he sat in the muck of the yard. Blood poured out into the slush.

  The magister went and looked at the Voltain. He nodded to his servant.

  ‘Not mortal,’ he said. ‘Master Apucu, I have to declare your opponent the winner in this contest, and ask you to rise to your feet and go with my servant who will see to your wound. I assure you it did not penetrate the bone.’

  He waved to Da Silva, who was stepping forward.

  ‘Give him a moment.’ he said.

  ‘Bah.’

  Da Silva stamped, and when slush sprayed over his hose, he cursed.

  The Voltain did not lack courage. He got to his feet, wiped blood off his face, and bowed. He could barely keep his feet, but he then bowed to Aranthur.

  ‘Your turn.’

  He managed a shaky smile, and Aranthur bowed low in return.

  He prayed that he might match the other man’s performance. A head wound would bleed badly, but the skull was thick. Barring infection, the man would be healed easily enough …

  Aranthur took a deep breath, as the Magi at the Studion told students facing tests to do – three deep breaths and begin his ritual trance. He didn’t stay there, but the trance soothed him.

  ‘Are you ready, young man?’ the magister asked.

  Aranthur drew his sword and then took his buckler off his belt.

  ‘Bucklers?’ Da Silva asked. ‘What are we, savages?’

  The magister neither smiled nor frowned. He shrugged instead.

  ‘My principal has specified bucklers. Your second agreed.’

  The local wheelwright, who’d probably never seen a duel in his life, nodded. He was shaking more than Aranthur.

  Time passed while the magister sent a boy to fetch a buckler from his own baggage. Aranthur found that he was not really there, and that the cold and the fear had to some extent cancelled each other out, leaving him in a place a little distant from himself, like a man on a hill watching the smoke from the chimneys of his beloved village below him.

  The sunrise foretold bad weather – a storm towards afternoon.

  Perhaps I won’t care.

  Perhaps I will.

  Some of his calm had come from having determined what he would do. He was half a head taller than Da Silva, and his own shoulders were broader. His sword was as long, and he suspected his arms were longer.

  The man had two small wounds already– a cut on his forehead that kept bleeding, and a cut on his sword arm.

  He is arrogant. And he has no idea how strong I am.

  Eventually, the buckler appeared, and the Westerner, now obviously suffering from the cold, grasped it. Only then did Aranthur slip his cote off, and pull his shirt over his head, so that he was naked to the waist. The Magister of Physik had said that cloth carried more dirt into wounds than any other substance. He was a farm boy – he’d worked with no shirt every winter morning of his life until he went to the City.

  ‘Ready,’ he said.

  ‘Gardes,’ the magister said. He sounded bored.

  Aranthur’s garde was very different from his opponent’s. He stood with his sword pointing almost straight behind him, and his buckler advanced as far forward as he could reach. Da Silva’s sword was practically under his eye – which made him afraid all over again. But having a plan seemed a wonderful thing, and gave him hope. His sword was a long way from Da Silva – but he knew he was fast. And the Westerner could see neither his sword nor
the arm that held it. He had no notion of the distance – the length of Aranthur’s arm or the length of his sword.

  That was his only advantage.

  Without a buckler, the stance would have been suicidal. The first blow would almost certainly outrace any garde or cover that Aranthur could throw, and he’d be dead. But the buckler changed the options in every garde.

  ‘Begin,’ the magister said.

  Da Silva wasted no time – probably due to the cold. He leapt forward as soon as the handkerchief dropped, his back right leg powering his left leg and torso forward – a feint to draw the buckler and a powerful thrust.

  Aranthur’s plan went out of the window in half an instant, but his buckler remained in place and his sword joined it, a crisp beat off the other blade. He didn’t give back.

  The Westerner turned his parried thrust into a cut with a wrist roll …

  Aranthur covered the low attack to his leg by withdrawing the leg. His sword seemed to be fighting by itself. That is, he knew all these attacks and defences, but he wasn’t thinking them. His sword, reacting to the leg-cut, was too slow, but the enemy weapon whistled past his leg, wrenched out of the way just in time. He counter-cut as he’d been taught, a backhand blow to Da Silva’s temple that arose naturally from the failed parry.

  His opponent leapt back.

  He continued his cut all the way back to the garde in which he’d begun – his sword all the way outstretched behind him – mostly because that’s how the drill he’d learnt worked. But finding that he’d put his sword there, and that withdrawing his leg had thrown his weight forward, he attacked without any more conscious thought than he had defended. He threw the heavy blow with which he’d intended to begin the fight – a simple, shoulder-level flat cut that came from behind his back and, powered by the whole weight of his hips and legs, snapped around like a scythe cutting wheat.

  Da Silva snapped his parry, a turn of his sword hand, and immediately counter-hit with a thrust.

  Aranthur felt the stinging pain and the cold of the sword, and then the other man fell to the ground clutching his neck, blood spurting into the snow and slush. Da Silva gave a garbled scream and his body arched with pain.