The Spark

by David Drake

  I looked at my supporters and smiled. “Guntram,” I said, “you know my vassals Garrett and Welsh, but Louis and his aides may not. Garrett—” turning my head toward him and Welsh again “—all of my supporters here are Makers. Master Louis very kindly agreed to stand with me and to bring his staff.”

  “You’re one of our own, Lord Pal,” said a young fellow named Feeney or Sweeney.

  “Sirs?” said Brian to Garrett and Welsh. “Lord Pal is our hero. Warriors like you take what we make for them and maybe you appreciate it, but you don’t understand. And us, we’re like the servers who bring you dinner. But Lord Pal, him you all notice.”

  “I think they’re getting ready,” called one of Louis’s people. “The Sergeant and the trumpeter ’re walking out.”

  “Well, we’ll be getting out of the way, then,” Welsh said. “Since you don’t need us after all.”

  “I needed you two showing up more than you’ll ever know,” I said. And more than I’d dreamed, though I didn’t say that aloud. “Hey look—can you take orders from a Maker?”

  “I guess we’ve taken your orders pretty well, haven’t we, Pal?” Garrett said.

  I laughed. “Look,” I said. “Louis is in charge of my staff. You do what he tells you, right?”

  “Right,” said Garrett, and he and Welsh both gave me big grins.

  The trumpet sounded a fanfare from the east end of the field. Buck and I turned and moved to the front of the marquee. Everybody made way for us.

  “The trial of Lady Jolene of Leys for murder will now commence!” the Sergeant called through a megaphone. He and the trumpeter stood twenty yards in front of the Leader and his Consort. “The Prosecutor is Lord Baran ben Joos, in red.”

  There were a lot of cheers from the other side of the field. Baran, with a white-furred wolfhound, stepped onto the field and waited.

  “The defendant is represented by Lord Pal of Beune, in white and blue!” the Sergeant called. I stepped forward and took a deep breath. I had my weapon and shield out, but neither Baran nor me switched on yet.

  There were cheers, including from some of the general spectators. Many had cheered for Baran too. They were looking forward to the fight, not backing me.

  The trumpeter blew a long single note, then with the Sergeant trotted toward the east end, getting off the field. I switched on, entered Buck’s mind, and walked toward the center of the field.

  There was a slight breeze. I couldn’t see individual grass blades through Buck’s eyes, but the surface rippled and swept past us again and again. It was like sitting on a tethered boat in a windstorm, watching the water approach and rush past.

  Baran was a black figure to me now. He was taking full strides, not running but clearly looking forward to swatting me out of the way.

  I think he must’ve expected me to try circling, but my footwork’s never been very good. I went straight for him.

  Baran swung a trifle sooner that he should have, a quartering stroke aimed down at the left side of my neck. Buck saw it coming before a human would’ve noticed movement. Instead of letting my shield take it, I met Baran’s weapon in the air and deflected it down into the sod to my right front. Baran jerked back, recovering the weapon.

  The first time I’m fought Baran’s image on a practice machine, we’d had an exchange like that. The image’s shield was low and I’d thought I had the opportunity I needed: my weapon was already up, so I’d struck over the shield at the point of the image’s left shoulder.

  Its shield blocked my stroke, and its weapon thrust through the middle of my thigh. Baran was extremely strong. Even when he looked like he was out of position, he wasn’t. He could whip his massive shield about like it was a flyswatter.

  Now I just shifted my leading foot—the right—a little forward. Baran’s blow had rocked me back, even though I’d redirected it.

  Baran swung again, this time down from straight overhead. My weapon was in position almost before Baran’s arm started to move. Again the stroke hissed into the ground, leaving a smoldering black scar when he withdrew the weapon.

  Everything had gone as planned; but though I’d caught both strokes, I felt them. They hit me like tall pine trees which toppled slowly but slammed the ground like thunder.

  “Aren’t you going to fight, you coward?” Baran shouted. I waited. He thrust and I slid his weapon past the left side of my shield.

  Sparks showered away each time our weapons made contact. The spectators were certainly getting a show. I’d seen matches where both parties moved in slow circles around a center, like partners in a leisurely country-dance. I was willing to fight, but I wasn’t counterstriking.

  Because Baran would kill me if I took the fight to him. It was that simple. I couldn’t match his strength and the power of his equipment.

  After the thrust, Baran started using his size to grind away at me. He stepped close and struck. When I caught the blow he stepped in again and struck again. I gave ground each time.

  I didn’t try to disengage, but I couldn’t hold him. That would be like trying to push a plow-ox backward by main strength. I managed to slant to my left so that he was driving me toward the east end of the field instead of the shorter distance straight into my marquee, but that wasn’t much of a victory.

  Baran fought for every inch, though. I couldn’t stop him, but he knew he was in a fight. He snarled, “You coward, you bloody coward!” each time before he stepped into the next blow. I met each one in a rush of sparks, and I gave back because I had to.

  The trumpet called. I was barely aware of it. Blackness covered me, the same blinding darkness that Guntram had projected over my first duel with Easton. I switched off my weapon and shield and fell to my left knee.

  The first round was over. We’d been fighting for fifty minutes, and there’d be a ten-minute break before the next round.

  An instant later the blackness vanished. I heard spectators crying out in surprise. Baran, with his shield still live, stood two paces away. He stared toward the Sergeant and the trumpeter, who continued to blow. Only then did Baran switch off his own equipment.

  Baga and a group of Makers reached me first, carrying a skin of wine, buckets of water, and towels. Garrett and Welsh were right behind them with their shields up and weapons in their hands. They didn’t switch off their shields until Baran shut down.

  Baga unstoppered the wineskin for me and held the nozzle to my lips. I sloshed the first swig around my mouth, then swallowed the next two cautiously and waved Baga back. The wine was mostly water, but even so I didn’t want a lot of liquid sloshing around in my gut when we got back into it.

  Two Makers rubbed my face with wet towels and my torso through the thin silk. Two more were working on Buck, and they’d poured a half inch of water into a pan for him to drink from. I reached over and scratched the base of his spine; his tail wagged.

  Guntram had joined us. “I wasn’t sure that Baran was going to stop for the trumpet,” he said, “so I took a hand.”

  “If he struck me after the time call,” I said, “he’d forfeit his prosecution.”

  “You would be dead,” Guntram said.

  “That’s not much of a threat the way I feel right now,” I said. That must have been why Garrett and Welsh ran up armed, too: just in case.

  I opened my eyes—they’d been closed. Baran was twenty feet away, surrounded by his supporters. I caught only fleeting glimpses of him, but the bright red of his tunic and breeches had darkened with sweat.

  He felt my eyes on him. “Bloody coward!” he shouted. “I don’t care how far you run, I’ll catch you and cut you to collops! Maybe I’ll toss the pieces onto the pyre when we burn the slut you’re serving! What do you think of that?”

  I think you’re an uncultured barbarian. I didn’t say the words or any words, just closed my eyes again.

  “I really don’t care much about the Consort,” said Guntram. I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was smiling. “I would not regard it to be a fair exchang
e if she were to live because you died.”

  He turned slightly to the man kneeling beside him. “Louis believes in the Consort’s importance to the Commonwealth,” Guntram added, “but of course Louis believes in the importance of the Commonwealth.”

  “So do I,” I said, realizing for the first time that Louis was here, in a trance viewing my weapon. “But that’s not why I’m fighting Baran. Jolene isn’t guilty and it wouldn’t be right to execute her.”

  “‘Justice’ is another concept that I’ve never fully understood,” Guntram said. “But I accept that others whom I respect feel as you do.”

  Louis come up from his trance and shook himself. “How has the weapon felt when you use it?” he asked.

  “It seems at full strength with no falling off,” I said. “It gets a little warm, but only a little. My forearm, though, that gets hot every time I take a blow and it’s getting worse.”

  “Yes,” said Louis with a shrug. I hadn’t expected him to be concerned. “That’s not to be helped, I’m afraid. The energy has to be dissipated somehow. If it’s any consolation, the same thing is happening to Baran. And your shield?”

  “It’s only taken a few blows that I’ve deflected into it,” I said. “I really haven’t noticed any problem. How does the weapon look from inside?”

  I could have checked it myself, but I was no mood to go into a Maker’s trance. Besides, I was logy for a bit after a trance, and that was the last thing I needed now.

  “It’s in perfect condition,” Louis said happily. “And having watched you fighting, I’m not sure that our changes limited the weapon’s general usefulness as much as I feared that they would.”

  He looked at Guntram and said, “Teacher, I’ve never considered Lord Baran one of my more reflective clients. I think if he were, however, he’d be getting worried.”

  Guntram smiled. “I don’t think Baran is reflective either,” he said. “I’d be very interested to examine his weapon, though. I think we did a better job on Pal’s than we realized.”

  The trumpeter blew a two-note call. I quickly took another drink, then turned the mug upside down so that Baga wouldn’t dither wondering if I wanted more. I got to my feet and only then bent to pick up the weapon and shield where I’d dropped them on the grass while I rested.

  “C’mon, Buck,” I said as he lurched to his feet also. “No rest for the weary. We’ve got a lot more hours of this yet, if everything goes right.”

  My supporters were scampering off the field. Well, Guntram and Louis were walking off with dignity. They’d be clear before the call to resume, though.

  I looked at Baran. He snarled, “You bloody coward! Your mother must be ashamed to have raised a coward who won’t fight!”

  I grinned at him. My mother hadn’t raised me. And if she was who I thought she was, she didn’t think either that I was a coward or that I wouldn’t fight.

  I didn’t say any of that. I figured that my smile would get home to Baran better than anything I said.

  I walked around Baran, keeping the same ten feet away that we’d been while resting. My right arm tingled; the silk sleeve was still damp and that felt good.

  “What’re you doing?” Baran said. “What are you doing?”

  I was putting myself between my opponent and the east end of the field, giving myself the longest distance to retreat in. Which I’d be doing for the next fifty minutes.

  I glanced toward Jon and his court. A woman near the Consort’s seat was waving her bare arm.

  The trumpeter blew a single blast. He and the Sergeant rejoined the court. I faced my opponent and switched on my equipment.

  Baran came at me fast, like I thought he would. He brought his weapon up and straight down with all his strength, a blow that would’ve burned my shield out in a spectacular overload if I hadn’t skidded it to the right with my own weapon—as usual. Believe me, I felt it all the way to my toes, though.

  Without moving from where he stood, Baran brought the weapon around for a second, identical blow, like I was a tent stake he was trying to drive into the ground. I deflected it again, this time to my left. That changed the stress on my right arm, but I had to time it perfectly or Baran would cut me in half the way he was trying.

  He buried the point in the ground, withdrew, and bloody hell! swung overhead and down a third time. I slanted it to the side again, but my right arm ached to the shoulder and the sleeve of my tunic was stiff and dry. I wouldn’t be surprised to find the silk had started to sear. My forearm was in an oven.

  He had me. The next stroke and I was going to go down. Baran was too strong for me and too determined. Guntram and Louis had built me weapons to match Baran’s, but the component they hadn’t fixed—me—was about to fail.

  “You bastard!” Baran shouted. “You sniveling coward!”

  I waited for the blow that would finish me. My arm hurt like never before. The next time Baran hit me my flesh would burst into flame. It was over.

  Instead of hammering down again, Baran strode forward and banged his shield against mine, his weapon out at his side. He drove me back a step, but when I feinted an over-arm blow—the first attack I’d made today—Baran jerked backward instead of meeting the stroke with his own weapon.

  Baran’s weapon arm was hurting just as much as mine was. He was unwilling to take that fourth crashing swing, because he was afraid that if he did, he’d drop his weapon and run screaming.

  Baran was afraid.

  I don’t know what he imagined. He knew Makers were helping me. Maybe he thought they’d somehow made me magically invulnerable.

  All I’d done was to stand and take whatever Baran flung at me. He didn’t understand the equipment, so he was giving it all sorts of powers that it didn’t—couldn’t—have. As Louis had said, the energy had to dissipate somehow.

  Baran came at me again, but he thrust more than he cut, which he mostly hadn’t been doing. I continued to slant his weapon away, sometimes absorbing the last of the attack with my shield. I had to retreat, but he wasn’t driving me back as steadily as he had in the first round.

  But Baran was still making the running, no question about that. I responded to his attacks, but I didn’t dare attack myself or even counterstroke. Baran was favoring his right arm because he’d burned himself when he tried to hammer his way through me, but he was still a lot stronger. My only advantage was that Baran didn’t realize how bad he’d hurt me with those three blows.

  The trumpet called. I backed away and was glad to see that Baran did also. I switched off, dropped my equipment on the grass, and knelt. I bent over to breathe easier. My right arm throbbed and my lungs were burning.

  My supporters arrived at a run. I slurped more watered wine, not a lot but I was really dry.

  “Keep wet towels on my right arm,” I croaked, sticking it out in the breeze. A Maker and Welsh were already wrapping it. The flesh had started to swell, though Baran hadn’t really stressed me after that first flurry.

  “You’re all right, boss?” Baga said, sounding worried.

  I set the mug down. “I wouldn’t’ve been if he’d hit me one more time like at the first,” I said.

  I looked at Guntram. “The practice machines show you the moves,” I said. “They don’t get the way the fight wears you down, though.”

  Guntram nodded. “This is an unusual fight,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll modify your shield?”

  “Go ahead,” I said. I was too wrung out to have an opinion on anything. I trusted Guntram’s judgment, but I couldn’t imagine what he planned to do.

  I sipped more wine with my left hand and looked around for the first time since the previous break. Louis bent over my weapon, in a trance. Garrett was trickling water onto the towels around my right arm with a determined look on his face. Buck lay upright, panting; two Makers worked on him with wet towels, and a third poised to pour more water into his drinking pan at carefully measured intervals.

  I had a simple job today: fight Baran. The peopl
e here on the field around me didn’t know what they ought to be doing, and they really wanted to do something.

  We weren’t quite back to mid-field. Baran hadn’t driven me near as hard in the second round as in the first. He was in the middle of his own handlers; I got only occasional glimpses of his red outfit.

  Guntram was right about this being an unusually long fight. Even the assault on Rowley’s Roost had been over in five minutes, and I’d faced three separate opponents. Before now, the longest match I’d had was when I was sparring with Lord Clain and didn’t know it was him. That had lasted twenty minutes, and afterwards I’d felt like I’d been rolling a boulder all afternoon.

  Thought of Clain made me look toward the Consort. I wondered what was going through her mind now. My handlers weren’t the only people who couldn’t do much but watch and worry.

  May was waving again. Her favor was plastered to my arm with wet towels, but I knew it was there.

  Louis and Guntram came out of their trances at the same time. Louis said, “From inside your weapon shows no signs of wear. Have you noticed anything in use?”

  “No,” I said. “But the heat from fighting almost cooked my arm.”

  I glanced at the dripping towels and wondered if I’d gotten permanent injuries already. It was probably too early to worry about that. At present, a crushed skull continued to be a more realistic concern.

  “I’ve adjusted your shield’s resistance,” Guntram said when I turned my eyes to him. “It’s now biased with eighty percent resistance to vertical strokes or thrusts in the central six inches.”

  “That’s what he’s been attacking,” I said. “But I’ve been deflecting him every time, right?”

  Guntram shrugged. “I expect you’ll continue to deflect him,” he said. “But concentrating on where he’s concentrating seemed a good idea.”

  “Right,” I said. I looked again at Baran. He sat with three other champions; one of them was Wissing, like Baran himself one of Jon’s inner circle. Baran saw me and, though his lips twisted in what was probably a curse, he didn’t shout abuse this time.