The Horsemen's Gambit bots-2

by DAVID B. COE

  "Onjaef!" called the old guard by the doorway.

  She stepped forward, stopping just beside the man, waiting for the door to open. Padar, the guard, said nothing to her, as was proper. He had once served under her father, and for the past six years he had stood by these doors and ushered her into the ring. But he was bound by the rules of the tournament to treat all combatants the same way.

  She stood for several moments, listening to the cheers of the crowd, waiting. At last, the door opened, flooding the chamber with brilliant sunlight, so that Tirnya had to shield her eyes. A tall Qosantian soldier stepped past her, scowling bitterly, blood running from a cut along his jawline. Enly had won, as if there had ever been any doubt. The warrior paused and glanced back at her.

  "Ya'd do us all a favor if ya beat 'im, ya know. Jest this once."

  "I'll try," she said mildly.

  He stared at her another moment before shaking his head and walking away. "Ya'll lose," he muttered. "Jest as ya did last year. No one can beat 'im."

  Tirnya smiled faintly. The Qosantian wasn't alone. Those looking to wager on this last match would have a hard time; there couldn't have been more than a few dozen people in the entire arena who gave her much chance of bloodying the lord governor's son. A far smaller number than that would have been willing to risk their hard-earned gold and silver on her.

  Because Enly had just finished his match, the rules of the tournament allowed him to take as much time as he needed to rest and prepare for this final contest. Tirnya knew, however, that he'd want to fight her immediately. A delay of any length would have been an admission of weakness. It would have given her cause to think that he was concerned about their encounter. Even had he needed some time, he never would have taken it. And chances were he didn't need the rest.

  "They want t' know if ya're ready," the guard said, his voice level.

  "I am."

  He nodded, held his arm up high, and gave a short, single wave to the guard across the ring. A moment later, the second guard waved back. "Time to go, then," Padar said.

  She started past him, and as she did he winked at her once and offered a barely perceptible nod.

  "Thanks, Padar," she whispered, and entered the ring.

  Enly hadn't yet stepped out of the other doorway. That was his way, and though she generally thought him arrogant and full of himself, she could hardly begrudge him this small extravagance. He was, after all, the champion for two years running. Still, Tirnya slowed her gait. She had no intention of standing in the middle of the ring looking like a fool as he sauntered toward her with the crowd cheering.

  As it was, the cheers that greeted her entrance were loud and sustained. While few thought she could defeat Maisaak's heir, a good many of the people watching the match would have given up gold if they thought it would help her win. Enly was better thought of than was his father, but he was still a Tolm.

  Perhaps hearing how she was greeted and fearing that his own entrance would be met with less enthusiasm if he waited too long, Enly entered the ring from his doorway. Immediately, the sound coming from the spectators changed. Taken together, the cheers didn't grow quieter or louder, but some who had been cheering for her fell silent, and others who had offered little response to her appearance cried out seeing the lord's son.

  Tirnya chanced a quick glance at the lord governor, and saw that he was scowling, his gaze wandering the crowd, as if he might remember the face of each person who cheered more enthusiastically for her than for his son. She looked toward her father, who was merely staring back at her, his expression deadly serious. "Stop worrying about the rest of us," he seemed to be telling her. "You should only be thinking about Enly."

  Right.

  They met in the center of the ring, turned to face the center box, and bowed to Maisaak.

  "They'd cheer more for me if you were uglier," Enly said under his breath. "You know that, don't you?"

  "They'd cheer more for you if you weren't such an ass," she answered in a whisper.

  "Well, that's obvious."

  She couldn't help but giggle.

  "But I was speaking of you," he went on, still not looking at her. "You look beautiful today, your cheeks still flushed from your last battle, your hair tied back the way I like it. Just lovely."

  "Shut up," she said.

  He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more. Maisaak nodded to them, a smug smile on his handsome face. Clearly he assumed that his son would win again.

  She and Enly turned to face one another, bowed, and raised their swords. In their previous meetings, Tirnya had fought carefully, even tentatively, knowing how dangerous Enly could be with either hand. This time, she immediately launched into a ferocious assault, her blade flashing like sorcerers' fire. Enly tried to counter with his dagger as he parried her blows, but she struck at him with both blades, making it impossible for him to do anything more than defend himself. He gave ground slowly, grudgingly, but give ground he did.

  The boxes seemed to be quaking, so loudly were the people there shouting at what they saw, but Tirnya concentrated solely on Enly. He tried to pivot to throw her off balance and then attack her from the side, but she had seen him do this before, and she spun as well, still pressing him.

  Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and ran down his temples. He wasn't breathing hard yet, but his face was reddening. Tirnya was sweating, too. The muscles in her arms were starting to burn. But she had him on the defensive, and she refused to relent.

  He tried to strike at her again, using the momentum of his retreat to carry him into a spin and an assault of his own. Again, she was ready, parrying with the shillad and lunging at him with her dagger. He jumped away, and she was on him once more, her steel a glittering beast, like something called forth by the gods.

  Enly tried his spin maneuver a second time, stumbled, and sprawled on the ground. Tirnya leaped forward, putting one foot on his sword and the other on his dagger, and laying the edge of her blade against his neck.

  She could have won then. First blood.

  A few people shouted for her to end the match, to take the crystal dagger as her own. But she didn't want to win like this. She took a step back, and then another.

  "Get up," she said.

  She heard someone groan in the boxes, but then people began to call her name again. "Tirnya!" they called. "Falcon!"

  Enly climbed to his feet slowly, and picked up his weapons. He stared at her for a moment, his grey eyes ghostly pale in the sunlight. Then he bowed to her.

  Tirnya started forward, intending to renew her assault, but Enly wasn't willing to let her gain that advantage again. He attacked as well, and for long moments they stood face-to-face, their blades lashing out, clashing loudly. And then Enly began to advance on her, forcing her back.

  She tried to parry and strike, to find once more the energy she'd had when they began. But she was tired, her arms and legs heavy. Enly must have sensed her weariness, but his expression didn't change, nor did the speed of his attacks. He had been known to talk to some of his opponents. It was said that he often taunted them, hoping to provoke them into mistakes. But he had never done anything of the sort to her, nor did he now. He merely kept after her. And when she tried to spin to the side and strike over his off hand, he was ready.

  Tirnya saw both attacks, the chopping blow with his sword and the thrust with his dagger. But the pivot had left her off balance; not much, but enough. She managed to parry the sword strike, but she could do nothing about the dagger as it darted out at her cheek. An instant later, she felt the sting on her flesh and the hot trickle of blood running down her face like tears.

  Enly stepped back and looked at her, his brow creased, as if he had surprised himself with the assault.

  "I'm sorry," he mouthed. Then he raised the dagger over his head and turned a slow circle so that all could see, stopping when he was facing her once more.

  At first there was silence. No one seemed to believe that he had won. The fierce smile on t
he lord governor's face began to fade as he looked around the arena. After a few moments, those sitting in the boxes seemed to realize that they ought to be cheering, and they began to call out Enly's name. But His Lordship still didn't look pleased. And Tirnya heard her name being shouted as well.

  She turned to face the center box.

  "We have to bow," she said under her breath.

  Enly turned smartly toward his father and made himself smile. They bowed in unison and then they walked their separate ways back toward the doors.

  As she walked, not bothering to wipe the blood from her face, Tirnya looked up at her father. He was staring back at her, looking both proud and concerned. She smiled, and he did as well. But she felt her eyes starting to well. She'd come so close to beating him. And then she'd let him win. She shook her head. That wasn't quite how it had happened, but it felt that way.

  Padar was waiting for her at the door.

  "Ya had him," he said grimly.

  She'd hear a lot of this in the next few days. "Yes."

  "Ya did th' right thing."

  "There are those who will disagree."

  The old guard shrugged. "Wha' d' they know? Ya don' bloody a man when he's down, even if i' 'tis fer th' crystal blade."

  Tirnya nodded, fearing that she might weep. The crystal blade! She'd come so close! "Thank you, Padar." She started to walk away.

  "Captain, wait," the guard said.

  She halted. He crossed to where she stood and looked at her cheek.

  "I' doesn' look too bad," he said after a moment. "Probably feels worse than i' 'tis. It'll heal before ya know it."

  Tirnya smiled bravely, though a tear slipped from her eye. "Right," she agreed. "Just another scar." Just another tournament; just another year.

  But this time, she had come so close.

  Chapter 2

  Before leaving the chambers beneath the boxes, Tirnya stopped by to see the healer who treated the wounds of all the combatants. Left to decide on her own, she would have ignored the cut on her cheek, but she knew that her father would be waiting for her outside the arena, and he would make a fuss if she left the wound untended.

  The healer examined her in silence, using a warm, damp cloth to wipe away the dried blood. He then dabbed a different cloth in spirits and gently patted the cut. Tirnya winced, sucking in air through her teeth.

  "It cleans the wound," the healer said, holding her chin with a firm hand. He dipped the cloth in the spirits again and dabbed at the cut a bit more.

  "I know what it does," she muttered, still wincing. "That doesn't make it burn any less."

  The healer put down the cloth and eyed the cut, clicking his tongue as he did. He was a heavy man, only a few years older than she, with brown curls and short, fat fingers that were more deft and gentle than she would have thought possible.

  "We can leave it to heal as it is, or we can stitch it up," he said after several moments. "Either way you'll wind up with a scar. It may be less noticeable if we use the sutures."

  She pointed at the scars on her chin and temple. "What do I care about one more scar?"

  "Will you at least let me put a poultice on it?" he asked, though from the tone of his voice it seemed clear that he knew she'd refuse this as well.

  "And have me walking around the city looking like Enly sliced off half my face? No, thank you."

  The healer shook his head. "Very well, then. You can go. Try to keep it clean. If it starts to hurt more, or the skin around it turns red and fevered, get yourself to a healer. Any healer. You understand me?"

  Tirnya nodded sullenly and stood, grabbing her swords and striding toward the door. Taking hold of the door handle, she paused and looked back at the man, who was clearing up his medicines, herbs, and bandages. Naturally, she was the last. No doubt he'd had a long day.

  "Thank you," she said.

  He looked up a smiled wanly. "You're welcome, Captain. You know," he said a moment later, stopping her as she began to open the door. "I understand that you're disappointed. Anyone would be. But there's no shame in losing the final match to the lord heir."

  Surely the healer was trying to help, but his words stung more than did his spirits. She merely nodded and left the chamber.

  Her father was waiting for her just outside the arena, chatting amiably with passersby and flanked by several of his men. There had been an attempt on Jenoe's life several years before-a single attacker who came at the marshal with a dirk while Jenoe was drinking in a small tavern near the river. Tirnya's father had killed the man himself and there had been no further attempts. But since then, Jenoe's captains had each assigned a man to guard the marshal in shifts, so that he always had four armed guards at his side.

  There was nothing to indicate that the attacker had been anything more than a drunken soldier who sought to exact revenge for some imagined slight, but some believed that he had been sent by the lord governor, or one of his subordinates. The Onjaef and Tolm families had mistrusted each other for more than a century, and Maisaak had long been envious of Jenoe's stature among Qalsyn's soldiers and subjects.

  While Tirnya was not so naive as to deny that the lord governor might well be jealous of her father, she didn't believe that Maisaak would resort to murder to rid himself of a rival. Jenoe's popularity might have bruised His Lordship's pride, but her father could hardly be considered a threat to Maisaak's power.

  The Onjaef family had come to Qalsyn a century and a half before, during the darkest days of the Blood Wars between the Eandi of the eastern Southlands and the Qirsi, the white-haired sorcerers who controlled the western lands. House Onjaef held the great city of Deraqor, the family seat, where Tirnya's ancestors ruled as lord governors. They also controlled the Horn, a narrow strip of fertile land between the Thraedes and K'Sand rivers. At the time, the Horn might well have been the most valuable land still under Eandi control. But as the Fal'Borna, a clan of fierce horsemen, who were as skilled with their blades as they were with their magic, pushed eastward, the leaders of the Eandi found themselves forced to cede territory. The Blood Wars of the northern plain were among the bloodiest fought during the long, violent history of the conflicts, and in the end the Onjaefs, led by Mehp, Tirnya's grandfather four times removed, had no choice but to abandon their ancestral home. They fled eastward, into what remained of Stelpana, settling eventually in Qalsyn. And they didn't come alone.

  To this day, descendants of the other families that came from Deraqor still saw the Onjaefs as their leaders, and they still hoped that someday the families of Deraqor would reclaim the city for the sovereignties. In the eyes of the sovereign and most of those who lived elsewhere in Stelpana, the Onjaef clan was disgraced, a family in exile, the vanquished stewards of a lost city. Only here in Qalsyn, where Maisaak was seen by some as a strong but capricious ruler, and Jenoe was revered by so many for his prowess with a blade and his easy manner, would anyone even stop to wonder if a rivalry existed between the two men.

  When Tirnya emerged from the stone doorway, her father ended his conversations and walked toward her, a sympathetic smile on his lips. He was still youthful, despite the fact that he no longer considered himself young enough to fight in battle tournaments. His brown hair and beard were unmarked by grey, and he remained trim and muscular, an imposing figure on the battlefield as well as in the city streets. Reaching her, he put his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

  "You fought well," he whispered.

  She closed her eyes, fearing that she might start crying again. He wouldn't have tolerated that-a warrior shed tears for lost comrades and fallen leaders, not for matches lost in the arena. He had made that clear to her years ago.

  "Not well enough," she managed to say.

  He pulled back and made her look him in the eye. "Yes," he said. "Well enough. Everyone in the boxes knew that you had the tournament won, that you could have bloodied him as he lay on the ground. The rest is…" He waved his hand vaguely. "The rest means nothing."

  Only a father
could say such a thing.

  "It means nothing that Enly won?" she asked. "It means nothing that I'm going to have another scar on my face?"

  "You're right," he said. "That will mean something. If nothing else, it'll mean that your mother will have a new reason to berate me for ever teaching you to hold a sword."

  Tirnya smiled, but only briefly. "What are they saying about me?"

  "Who?"

  She shrugged. "Everyone. Your men. The people in the boxes. Enly."

  "You think I've spoken to Enly?"

  "Of course not," she said. "But the rest of them. Come now, Father. You know what I'm asking."

  "They're saying that you should have won. Some of them mean it kindly; others don't."

  "The ones who don't-"

  He shook his head. "You shouldn't trouble yourself about them."

  "What are they saying, Father?"

  Jenoe ran a hand through his hair, and wound up rubbing the back of his neck. "They're saying that you made… that you made a womanly choice."

  "Womanly!" she repeated, her voice rising. "Womanly?"

  "I think they mean-"

  "I know what they mean!" Tirnya said. "I was weak. I took pity on him when I just should have won."

  "They're wrong," Jenoe told her.

  "Are they?"

  "Yes. What you did was honorable, not weak. Had you struck at Enly as he lay on his back, they'd be calling you a snake and worse." He laughed mirthlessly and gave a small shake of his head. "I know it didn't seem this way at the time, but Enly's fall was the worst thing that could have happened for you, and the best that he could have hoped for. Had I not seen it all with my own eyes, I might have thought that he stumbled intentionally."