“I’m a man,” Calistin corrected for the third time. “And my name is Calistin.”
“What’s in it for me, Calistin?” Karruno leaned forward, lacing his fingers on the table in front of his empty mug. “If I lose, I look the fool. If I win, it’s simply foregone.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Now, go home, boy.You’ve wasted enough of our time.”
Karruno’s companions made similar motions, and all three turned away from Calistin. They leaned forward, as if thoroughly engrossed in the conversation they had long ago lost.
Fire lashed through Calistin’s veins. His nostrils flared. He understood that these men did not know him or his abilities, but their willingness to turn their backs to him meant they considered him no threat. And that was the gravest insult of all. Without another thought, Calistin dumped the contents of his mug over Karruno’s head.
Ale cascaded in a foamy, golden wave, soaking Karruno’s dark mop of hair, his no-longer-meticulous black cloak, and pooling in his lap. All three men were on their feet in an instant, rounding on Calistin. “You gods-damned little pissant!” Karruno yelled. “I’ll wring your scrawny neck.”
It was exactly the reaction Calistin wanted. His hand slid to his hilt, but he waited for his opponent to draw first.
The bar fell silent, except for the sound of ale dripping from Karruno’s clothing. Every eye in the place went suddenly to their table.
Oscore shouted from across the room, “Take it outside!”
“Fine!” Karruno glared down at Calistin, a full head and shoulders taller than the Renshai. “You want to fight, we’ll fight.” He made a stiff motion toward the door.
The tavern emptied in a rush, as every man inside funneled to the streets to watch the battle. Soon, they formed an eager circle around the soggy farmer and Calistin. Karruno threw off his sodden cloak to reveal torn and soiled britches and a plain linen shirt. The sword and dagger still girded his waist. He shook ale from his hair.
“What’s the end point?” Calistin asked calmly.
“First blood,” Karruno growled, drawing his sword.
Faster than thought, Calistin drew, lunged, and retreated. “Done.”
“What?” Karruno raised his sword arm to reveal a sticky trail of scarlet dribbling from the back of his hand. “Damn it. I wasn’t ready yet.”
Calistin shrugged. “Are you ready now?”
Sword drawn, Karruno crouched. “Yes.”
Again, Calistin made a lightning draw-cut and resheathed the weapon in a single motion. “Done.”
This time, a bright red line scratched across Karruno’s forearm.
Karruno’s face purpled. His fingers went white around his sword hilt. “Damn you to the pits, you smug little bastard! I’m going to kill you!” He sprang for Calistin in a wild fury.
Calistin easily dodged the assault. “So now the end point is death?” He did not wait for an acknowledgment. “Very well.” His blade licked out only once through Karruno’s furious assault and cut across the farmer’s throat in a deep, fatal line.
Karruno’s eyes went enormous with surprise. He dropped his sword and clutched at his throat, gasping in a single, bloody breath before collapsing to the ground.
“Done,” Calistin said, wiping his blade on a soft cloth before returning it to its sheath.
For several moments, the crowd stood in stunned silence. Then some ran to Karruno, too late to help him but trying fruitlessly to do so. Others charged into the streets, swallowed by the shadows. A few remained in place, staring at Karruno’s body or openmouthed and furious at Calistin. No one challenged him, however.
Finished with his task, Calistin headed out into another night of lonely sleep in the cold, wet Western forests.
CHAPTER 25
Cowardice is always wrong, but it is acceptable to abandon a battle if it can only result in killing friends.
—Colbey Calistinsson
THE SUN BEAMED OVER the western forests, promising a beautiful day of travel, and Saviar tried his best to savor it. He had discovered the purpose his life had lacked for weeks, he had found his twin brother, and the funk that had settled over him since his mother’s death finally seemed to have lifted. No one was dying or mourning to excess. No one was stalking or harassing him to the point of violent confrontation. Even the denizens of the forest seemed oblivious to the two Renshai in their midst. Birds flitted between the trees, exchanging happy twitters. Squirrels scrounged unhurriedly for nuts, and tiny lizards sunned themselves on rocks still damp from the previous day’s rain, moving only when a shadow fell directly across them.
Still, Saviar had to force himself to revel in the warm, clear comfort of balmy weather and the fresh aromas of evergreens and undergrowth. He and Subikahn would devote themselves to a conventional heroism his life had sorely lacked, and he anticipated so much exhilaration and worthiness in their future. It had taken immense tragedy to get them to this point, but those misfortunes were mostly behind them. He wished he could find the will to enjoy every glad moment his mind and heart could spare.
Yet, despite the weather, and Saviar’s deliberate focus on positive thoughts, two days spent trudging silently through the western forests frayed at his mood. He had not given much thought to the journey, instead imaging himself and Subikahn performing heroic acts and earning grateful companionship, the finest drink, and plates heaped with fresh-cooked food. Between their feats of courage, the twins would discuss the time they had spent apart, learning great new insights about one another, and becoming ever closer.
Subikahn and circumstance, however, seemed absolutely determined to sabotage Saviar’s glee. Whenever the redhead tried to engage his twin in conversation, his attempts resulted in gruff monosyllabic responses. No matter what he said, the topic veered to Subikahn’s private dilemmas, which always resulted in an angry plea to let bitter secrets lie. Furthermore, Saviar had the feeling that his furtive brother was deliberately avoiding inhabited areas, forcing them to subsist on journey bread, weeds, and berries. Those seemed to satisfy the smaller, slighter Subikahn but left Saviar with a painful hole in his belly that further devastated his mood.
In a last desperate effort to revive his failing joy, Saviar whirled through a glittery sprinkle of sunlight. “So, Subi,” he said, in the happiest tone he could muster. “Just tell me something good that’s happened to you recently.”
Subikahn jerked his head toward Saviar, clearly startled by the question. His black hair hung in stringy tangles, twined through with twigs and leaves. Though his lifelong brother, Subikahn looked strangely alien that day: his features so very Eastern, his skin darker than Saviar remembered. It seemed odd to Saviar how a months-long separation could make the most intimate friends and family appear so utterly foreign. “Something good?”
“Something good,” Saviar insisted. “It can’t be that hard.”
“Talamir . . .” Subikahn fairly choked on the name, and Saviar thought he saw a welling tear. “He . . . he said I would definitely pass my tests of manhood.”
Not wanting to ruin the moment, Saviar did not mention that it no longer mattered; they had both become men through warfare. Instead, he glommed onto the positive. It was the most words Subikahn had strung together since they had started on this journey. “Mama said the same to me.”
“Mama did?” Subikahn’s brow furrowed, and he shook his head dubiously. “Mama? Not a chance.”
Saviar stopped walking to confront his brother directly. He felt the familiar ire rising, the one he thought he had finally fully shaken. The last remnants of his forced good mood drifted away like smoke. “What do you mean, ‘not a chance’? You think I’m lying?”
“I just can’t see Mama saying it. No maneuver in the history of Renshai was ever done well enough to please Kevralyn Tainharsdatter.”
They both added simultaneously, “Unless Calistin did it.”
Stilted laughter followed. Saviar could not remember the last time he had found anything funny; but, oddly, even sharing a joke w
ith his twin did little to lift his slumping spirits. The anger he had kept suppressed for two days seeped out, no longer containable.
Subikahn added soberly, “Well, he really is pretty amazing.”
“And he’s the first to admit it,” Saviar could not help growling. “Damn it, now you’ve wrecked my mood.”
“Sorry,” Subikahn said, not sounding it at all. “But it seems to me you started this conversation.”
“Yeah,” Saviar said, not bothering to track the thread all the way back to its beginning. “I told you what Mama said, and you called me a liar.”
“I didn’t,” Subikahn protested. “I merely stated that Mama was never, shall we say, ‘free’ with her praise.”
“But she did believe I’d pass my tests.”
“All right.”
“She did!”
Subikahn snapped, “I’m not arguing with you.”
“No, but you don’t believe me.”
“If you say it happened, it happened. Saviar, I’ve never known you to lie.”
At the moment, no words would have soothed Saviar. He fumed, for reasons he could not wholly explain. “You think you’re a better swordsman than me. Don’t you?”
Subikahn stopped walking to study his brother. “I’d be a poor excuse for a Renshai if I didn’t believe I was a better swordsman than everyone.”
“You don’t think you’re better than Calistin.”
Subikahn smiled. “Well, that would just be stupid.”
Saviar could not understand why this conversation bothered him so much. He thought he had overcome his rage against his family, his belief that all of them had gone insane.Yet, he still found Subikahn’s words an irresistible challenge. “Oh, but it’s not stupid to think you’re better than me?”
Subikahn heaved a deep sigh. “Look, Savi. We’re both blooded, pretty much at the exact same moment. We’re men now, tests or no. What does it matter who’s better than who?”
“I don’t know!” Saviar admitted, still shouting. “I don’t know why it matters, but it does. It matters.”
“Not to me.”
Saviar turned away. His own irrationality frightened him, but it refused to go away. “So Talamir said you’d pass?”
“Virtually assured it.”
Saviar grunted. “Well, if he’s such a great torke, where is he? Why isn’t he helping the Renshai when they need every sword arm?”
Subikahn’s jaw set. “Leave Talamir out of this.”
“Why?”
“Because I said to.” Subikahn’s tone went dangerously flat.
Saviar knew he had gained the upper hand, and he found himself incapable of not exploiting it. “Why? Was he detained by a phalanx of Eastern girls? Is he too much of a coward to face real Northmen?”
“That’s it!” Subikahn threw up his hands. “Draw your weapon, Savi.”
“Did he get waylaid by a terrifying band of roving squirrels?”
“Draw!” Subikahn hollered.
Saviar turned away, that gesture alone an implicit declaration of war. “If you’d just tell me what’s going on instead of leaving me—”
“Draw, you obnoxious lumbering bastard, or I’ll cut you down where you stand.”
Saviar whirled back to face an angry Renshai with sword in hand. Subikahn’s face had gone red as brick clay, his knuckles white around his hilt.
They had sparred before, of course; but always under the watchful eye of a torke, who could step in if a wayward stroke began to fall. Realizing he had gone too far, Saviar relented. “I’m sorry, Subi. I didn’t mean any of it. It’s just I’m so sick of—”
Subikahn was not so forgiving. “Draw, you sniveling coward. Or are you afraid to face a man half your size?”
“Fine.” Saviar could no longer back down without appearing craven. “But, if I win, you have to tell me everything.”
“All right!” There was acid in Subikahn’s tone. “But, if I win, you have to shut up about Talamir. And about my having secrets.”
“Fine!”
“Forever!”
“Forever?” Jarred completely from his rage, Saviar stared. “You mean, you’ll never tell me anything?”
“Maybe never. If you lose.” Subikahn added in that same searing tone, “You’re just worried because you know you’re going to lose, aren’t you?”
“Not a chance!” Saviar drew his swords and lunged at his brother.
Subikahn met the attack with a deft in-and-out dodge and parry maneuver that put Saviar instantly on the defensive. Saviar freed his left sword and threw up the right to catch Subikahn’s blade. Steel rang against steel, driving the birds into sudden silence and sending the squirrels scampering.
Saviar threw off Subikahn and stepped back to realign. Suddenly realizing they had never chosen an end point, Saviar announced, “It’s first would-be fatal touch that wins it.”
“Agreed.” Subikahn dove in with a vicious offensive that left Saviar scrambling to defend. He met each blow with a block, dodge, or parry but did not manage a single riposte. Finally, an opening presented itself, and Saviar thrust for Subikahn’s gut. He met empty air as the smaller man skipped aside, then disappeared into the brush.
Surprised by his brother’s odd, hiding tactic, Saviar spun to prevent an attack on his flank. “You’re running away, you coward? Come out and face me like half a man.”
No reply followed, and Saviar abruptly realized he had absolutely no idea where his brother had gone. He lowered his body weight, moving constantly, graceful but erratic. He did not want to leave any openings for Subikahn to catch him unaware or from behind. Though rarely invoked, the Renshai maneuvers did include stealth and forest movement, lessons Subikahn had nearly single-handedly revived. Where in Hel is he?
The answer came as a blazing kidney stroke that Saviar barely dodged. For an instant, he lost his balance. A flurry of sword strokes followed as he sought to regain it, wedded only to defense until he was back in control. The strategy paid off. Soon, Saviar found himself not only stable and ready for attack, but in the superior position. Now sword to sword, he used a deadly combination of quickness, agility, and strength to batter at Subikahn, herding him steadily backward toward a waiting clump of nettles.
Now, Subikahn found himself wholly on the defense, only dodging the lethally accurate hammer blows of his twin because blocking sapped his strength. Pounded, his expression turned from cocky to concerned. Only his lithe movements spared him from two well-aimed blows, one to the side of the head and another to the throat.
Only then, as Saviar bore in one more time, did Subikahn blaze in a thrust for Saviar’s gut. He moved like lightning, but his foot mired in detritus, slipping. His stroke went low, opening his upper defenses. Saviar slapped a triumphant, side of the sword “killing stroke” against Subikahn’s ribs with bruising force.
Then, agony seared Saviar’s left thigh as flesh parted before a line of exquisitely sharp steel. Against his will, his leg folded under him. He rolled from instinct, stopped short by pain so achingly intense it stole all focus. He found his swords raised in his defense without any conscious memory of hefting them, and Subikahn stood over him with an expression of helpless terror.
“Modi!”Trained to wall up pain and keep fighting, Saviar struggled to a stand. Subikahn’s left-hand sword skewered the outer part of his thigh, resting solidly against the bone. “Mooodi!”
“I’m sorry,” Subikahn said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
They had both seen many wounds before, as well as death itself. Yet, the image of his own leg encasing a sword, knowing his brother had inflicted the injury, left Saviar stunned for several silent moments. “Get it out,” he finally said.
“But—” Subikahn started. Renshai training included only enough herbal lore to help prevent infection. They battled to the death, and survivors’ scars were considered badges of honor. Nevertheless, they both knew to leave a penetrating object in place. Its removal would start bleeding they might not be
able to staunch, the usual cause of death in combat.
Saviar did not care. The pain encompassed his entire being, and the area where steel wedged against bone was so excruciating it made coherent thought impossible. “Pull it out, damn it! Pull the damn thing out! Pull it out!”
“Savi, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I swear I didn’t mean to—”
Saviar found himself incapable of concentrating on words. “Pull . . . it . . . out!” He braced his hands on the protruding hilt, his breathing turning to ragged gasps of anguish, “Subikahn, pull it out, or I’m killing . . . both of us.”
“All right. Lie down.” Subikahn gave his brother a light push.
It proved too much for Saviar’s delicate balance. He collapsed, and the impact sent another shock of pain through his thigh. He tried to shift position, but his injured limb would not obey. “Gods! I can’t move my leg.”
Subikahn dropped to the ground beside Saviar. “Of course, you can’t move your leg. It’s pinned to the ground.”
Pinned . . . Realization struck Saviar in a jolt. The blade had not just penetrated his thigh, it had run him through completely. His fall had buried the point in the dirt, fixing it in place.
Subikahn knelt over his fallen brother. “Savi, you know we’re not supposed to remove—”
Saviar had taken all he could stand. He lunged toward his brother, seizing the fabric of his tunic, near the throat, in both hands. “Pull it out, Subikahn; or I’ll pulverize you!”
Apparently wise enough to shut his mouth, Subikahn did not mention that, affixed to the ground, Saviar could not pulverize a butterfly. “All right. Just let me prepare some bandages to stop the bleeding.”
“Hurry,” Saviar growled, releasing his brother. Torke’s lessons had often left him with a myriad of bruises and contusions; but, all of those together did not equal the pain he suffered now. He closed his eyes, listening to the sound of cloth tearing and rustling, invoking the Renshai mind techniques that usually allowed them to fight past the agony of even a fatal wound. “Hurry,” he whispered.
Flight of the Renshai Page 39
