9
The horse-thing had traversed the distance between the camp and the lake in a matter of moments; it took Jean far longer to make the return trip. He had begun to fear that he had missed the place entirely and become lost when he saw the faint glow of a fire flickering through the trees of the grove.
With a sigh of relief he increased his pace, grateful that his fire had not burned out.
But then again, it should have by now. He checked his stride and approached more cautiously.
His anger, smothered by his long walk, flickered to life again. Were the little thieves still at work, making free with his belongings?
As he came closer, the sound of voices reached him. Adult voices. He cursed under his breath. Was he now going to have to deal with common brigands after everything else? Enough! He altered his course slightly to come up through the thicker growth.
He had just reached the first of the trees when a horse nickered from inside the camp.
Jean froze, dropping to a crouch. For the first time, a voice reached him clearly. "What is it?" a man asked.
Someone answered with a hiss. The voices were still. Jean did not move. After a few moments, someone said, "There's nothing there. The horse is restless."
A deep voice answered. "Maybe the djinn have returned."
"Pixies, N'Kombe. Those were just pixies. Pesky little things."
Jean drew a silent breath and crept forward. Who were these men? And what did they mean, pixies? He reached the outskirts of his camp and peered around a tree.
Whoever the travelers were, they had taken over his camp. They had built up the fire; a spit laden with fresh meat turned over it while a man in a hood sat poking the flames with a stick. Nearby, partly screened from Jean's view by a bush, someone with their back to him was bent over a pile of something; he caught the glitter of firelight on steel. His armor.
He glimpsed a movement on the far side of the camp. A horse was tethered to a tree — Jacques! Back, safe and sound and looking none the worse for wear.
Sighing with relief, he returned his attention to the brigands. His hand crept to his sword hilt. Only two of them.
His anger warmed him, chasing away the chill of fear. After what he had already gone through, he felt capable of dealing with two mere human thieves.
He rose, drew his sword, and walked into the circle of firelight. "This is my camp and those are my belongings," he said sternly, his eyes flicking from the man's startled face to the woman's shapely backside. "Unhand them at—" His voice died as his gaze riveted back to their second target. A woman?
But yes, most definitely a woman — considering that the black leggings she wore left nothing of her full curves to the imagination, there could be no mistake.
She rose and turned. The view in front was no less impressive, and as poorly concealed by the form-fitted leather jerkin that laced up the front, straining across most admirable terrain. Jean gaped. "Madam, clothe yourself — you are indecent!"
He looked up at her face in time to see the surprise turn to cold ire. The black hair that fell in a braid to her waist in back was cut mannishly short in front around a face of astonishing beauty. But her ivory skin was marred not only by an expression that would have daunted bolder men than Jean, but by three blood-red dots set in a triangular pattern on her forehead between her large, dark eyes.
Like the grey dots on the brows of Commander Freimann and Keppler.
"What did you say?" she asked in a voice of iron.
Too late, he noticed the sword belted around her waist, the dagger sheathed along her muscular thigh. She was not slight, and those generous curves were more hard muscle than womanly softness.
This was no brigand's doxy.
The man by the fire spoke before Jean could reply. "Do you know to whom you speak?"
Jean glanced at him and saw that he had risen and held a glaive at ready but not yet on guard. He saw also that the man's hood had fallen back; like the woman, he was good-looking, dark of hair and eye and fair of skin. Also like the woman, he bore three red dots on his brow.
Jean recovered himself and pointed the tip of his sword at the man. "I do not exchange introductions with thieves. Leave my camp and my possessions at once. Let the woman steal decent clothes from someone else."
The woman drew her sword, a single-edged weapon with a subtle curve to the blade, and stalked toward Jean with the purposeful tread of a hunting tiger.
Jean raised his sword on guard and risked a glance at the man, backing away so he could watch both of them. The man at the fire had not moved, though his face had nearly the same deadly chill as the woman's. As Jean glanced at him, he lifted his eyes and looked not at Jean, but past him.
A heavy hand descended on Jean's shoulder. He started to turn, but the hand spun him to the ground, slamming him into the dirt with a force that drove the air from his lungs. Gasping like a landed fish, he looked up at his assailant. And up. And up. His mouth, open for air, stayed open from astonishment.
Looming over him was the tallest man he had ever seen, assuming the man was human, which was open to doubt. Skin like polished ebony covered a lean frame of whipcord muscle that seemed to stretch to the sky. The hide of a leopard bound his loins and the fangs and claws of great beasts hung in a curtain over a powerful chest.
A headdress made from the mane of a lion surrounded the black, scowling face. Though the skin of his face was scarred in elaborate patterns, Jean saw at once the three red dots that stood out like embers among coals over the burning eyes.
Jean could not move. He had never seen a more terrifying human being.
Behind him, he heard the woman say, "He's mine, N'Kombe."
"No, A-Ta-Nee," the giant rumbled without taking his malevolent gaze from Jean's. "He has insulted my Ranger. By the Code, he must answer to me."
"Mine." The woman's voice was hard and chill as stone.
"Athane," the other man called, his voice soothing. "The man is carrying a sword and has armor. He is a Cavalier. It is N'Kombe's place to chastise him, not yours."
The black giant pointed the tip of his broad-bladed spear at Jean's breast. "I am N'Kombe Djat Rozwi Karanga, called Lionkiller, Cavalier of the Red Triad. You have insulted my Ranger, my Triad, and my honor. By the Seven and by the Three, for Honor and Glory, I Challenge Thee."
Fresh anger followed closely on the heels of Jean's fear, chasing it away. He had not asked for this! All that he had endured, from the time he had entered this hellish land, and now he was expected to submit to pretentious rogues and scoundrels? They were the ones in the wrong, yet they challenged him? By the Great God, he could endure no more! He would show them or die trying. "I accept," he spat.
A slight frown flickered around the giant's brows, as though Jean had not given him the answer he expected.
Jean rose to his feet, shifting his grip on his sword. Doubtless the giant did not expect him to fight back. Well, he would surprise them. He would at the very least give an account of himself that would make them regret their arrogance.
If he died, so be it — without his belongings, he would not survive long in this place, and at least this way he would die in honorable combat.
Unless, of course, he beat this wild blackamoor. After all, what could a savage know of the art of swordplay?
Of course, it would be simpler if the giant could be induced to drop his spear and take up a sword. Jean eyed the deadly length of wood and metal the giant held, and licked his lips nervously. Very well. All he had to do was get inside the reach of that spear.
The hooded man raised a hand. "Wait. You have not named the stakes. And the dueling circle must be drawn."
Jean shifted his gaze briefly from his opponent to the other man, wary but puzzled. Was this some sort of ruse? "The stakes?"
"Is it to first blood, death, or simply until one of you cannot continue?" the hooded man asked impatiently. "You know the Codes. Do you think N'Kombe
does not?"
Doubtless this was a trick. Still, perhaps he could make use of it. "Ah, yes, the stakes. We will fight with swords only." That should put the giant at a disadvantage. "To first blood."
The giant shrugged. "Very well." He handed his spear off to the woman, who came forward to take it, and drew from behind his back a sword — at least, Jean assumed it was a sword, though it looked more like a very long, heavy-bladed knife.
The hooded man began to scratch a line in the ground with his glaive. He circled Jean and the giant, marking as he went, until he had inscribed a circle perhaps thirty feet in diameter, with the two combatants at its center. When he had finished, he stepped back from the circle and planted the butt of his glaive on the ground.
The woman moved to stand beside him, her arms folded, her pale, perfect mouth pulled into a straight line. The hooded man touched her shoulder briefly. "Gentlemen," he said to Jean and the giant, "you may begin."
The giant was a black blur before the hooded man's voice had died away; the blade whirled up and around to slice Jean in half at the waist.
Jean blocked the blow, gasping at the power of it, and spun away. He hacked at the long leg the giant extended in front of him for balance, but the leg and the man it supported were already gone, leaping behind Jean to slice at his shoulder.
Jean ducked, then ducked again as a blow came from the other direction. He barely managed to deflect the point that drove for his stomach and desperately batted aside the cleaving stroke aimed at his head.
The giant moved like a panther and struck with the speed of a serpent. Jean struggled to parry blow after blow with never the chance to return one.
Sweat stung his eyes and he panted with the effort of keeping up. He clutched his sword in hands gone numb from the force behind each strike the giant rained on him. Hopelessly outmatched, he sent a desperate prayer skyward that God would see fit to save him, that the giant would honor the terms of the fight.
The giant aimed another blow at Jean's head, but as Jean moved his sword to block it, the attacking blade veered and dropped; Jean felt a cold sting along his leg and it folded under him.
With a cry of surprise, he collapsed in the dirt. Blindly, he swung upward with his sword, but a kick with the force of a hammer stroke smashed into his arms and his blade flew from his hands.
Before he could move, the giant loomed over him and the tip of the rough blade pricked Jean's throat. "Do you yield?" asked the giant.
The bitterness of defeat welled in Jean's throat. He had to swallow before he could reply. "I yield," he choked out.
The giant snorted and replaced his sword in its hidden sheath behind his back. "This is no Cavalier. I should have let you have him, A-Ta-Nee."
"Cavalier or not, he can no longer fight. Leave him be, Athane," said the hooded man.
"He's not worth my time," replied the woman.
Jean closed his eyes while pain shot fire up his leg, no longer caring what they did. It was no use.
The hooded man's voice sounded from directly overhead. "You are wounded. I will heal you if you will give your word not to resume your attacks."
Jean opened his eyes and glared defiance at the man looking down at him. "Does it matter?" he asked bitterly. "Without my horse and supplies, I will perish soon enough. If I am healthy, it will only happen later rather than sooner. I have already escaped death twice tonight. I do not think I shall be so fortunate a third time. But why should a thief care what happens to his victim?"
He closed his eyes again. The pain worsened, and he could feel hot wetness spreading across his thigh and trickling into his boot, but he would not let them see his agony.
The hooded man was silent for a moment, but the woman, nearby, was not. "Leave him, Ansgar. He does not deserve your pity."
The hooded man did not answer her. "Again, you call us thieves. Yet we came upon a camp with a loose, untended horse, a burned-out fire, and a band of pixies throwing things everywhere, with no human in sight. Naturally enough, we assumed that the owner was dead. We drove off the pixies and took possession. That can hardly be termed theft."
Jean opened his eyes and looked up at the man standing over him. "My horse was stolen or driven off. I went in pursuit of him, but encountered—" he did not feel like relating his adventure to this man, and changed what he had been about to say —"some creature that tried to kill me. I escaped and made my way back to find you here. What was I to think?"
"You could have asked first, instead of rushing to insult us. Or you could have opened your eyes and noticed the marks we bear. But I suppose, under the circumstances, a little irrationality on your part is understandable. I ask you again: if I heal you, will you refrain from attacking us?"
Hope flickered awake in Jean's heart. He swallowed and schooled his voice to smooth politeness. "I promise on my honor that I will offer you no harm, if you will do the same."
The other's mouth pulled into a slight smile. "Done," he said coolly, and knelt beside Jean.
The woman appeared beside him, scowling. Her eyes, flickering over Jean, bled the air of warmth. "Ansgar."
From closer to the fire, the giant spoke. "The Code speaks to us of compassion for those in need, A-Ta-Nee. Let An-Skahr do as he will."
She looked back at him, one slim eyebrow raised. "And will you then surrender your prize, N'Kombe? Out of compassion? You said he isn't a Cavalier."
"It was an honorable duel, nevertheless," the giant replied, unperturbed. "I claim the coat of steel. But I will take nothing else."
Jean tried to sit up; Ansgar pushed him back down with a grunt of exasperation. "Do not move while I am healing," he said. "It breaks my concentration."
"But you must not take my armor," Jean cried, half at Ansgar and half at N'Kombe. "I have need of it!"
"Then you shouldn't have agreed to duel with a Cavalier," Ansgar replied. "It was a fair duel, challenge was given and accepted under the rules of the Code. You must surrender something to the victor. Be thankful he doesn't take your sword, and next time, don't be so quick to fight. Now be still and let me do my work."
"But—"
The woman planted her booted foot on his chest and shoved him flat. "Lie still," she commanded.
Jean looked up at her and something in her face told him that protest was not only futile but foolish. He gave up and lay back, gazing at the moon, which was almost overhead.
Instantly, a wave of warmth and relaxation filled him, and his eyes drifted shut. He felt a tingling throughout his body, though it centered in his leg. Remarkably, there was no pain. None at all.
"Done," Ansgar announced. Jean opened his eyes and sat up. He glanced at Ansgar, then leaned forward to examine his leg. Even in the dim light, he could see the blood-soaked tear in the fabric that began halfway down his thigh and disappeared behind his knee.
"I've heard of Mystics who can remove bloodstains and mend cloth," Ansgar said from beside him, "but I can't, yet. You'll have to do your own sewing. But the leg is sound."
"I thank you," Jean murmured, pulling the torn cloth aside to see the pale flesh underneath. A thin, pink line marred the skin under the blood, but it was the sort of thing that would vanish in a week or two.
He looked up at the other man. "How did you do this?"
Ansgar looked surprised. "I spent most of my life learning the technique. You are not a Mystic. You would not understand if I told you." He stood and reached down to help Jean to his feet. "Is that your journal that we found?"
Jean had bent to brush the dust from his clothes. He looked up sharply. "Yes. It is whole?"
Ansgar shrugged. "It seems to be. But I cannot read French very well. What was the name on the first page?"
Jean straightened and bowed. "I am Jean LeFleur."
Ansgar nodded. "Very well, these things are yours. I believed you before, but I had to be sure. You're a long way from Anagni."
"I am
not from Anagni." Jean paused, then decided he had nothing to lose by trying. "A few days ago, I left my own land and through no will of my own came through a Gate outside a place called Tisza in Yasenovo. They told me to go to either Anagni or Tir, so I was on my way."
He gestured around at the camp helplessly. "I have faced trolkien, been ambushed, imprisoned, released, bespelled, wounded, and healed by means I have never known. I have ridden halfway across the world, it seems, seen things I cannot name and can scarcely credit. Then this happens. I am almost killed by some creature that posed as a horse but was not. My horse is stolen, my belongings rifled, I lose a duel and my armor at once and I do not know why, or what I am to do now."
He looked at Ansgar again, frustration filling his throat like bile. "Will no one tell me what has happened to me? Who are you? How is it that you do what you do? What are the marks on your foreheads? I have seen such marks before, on the faces of the Commander of Tisza and his Mystic, but they were grey. How did you come to this land, and how does one leave it?"
Ansgar seemed taken aback. He looked around at his comrades for assistance. The woman shrugged, the giant merely shook his head and grinned, his teeth a shock of white against the ebony of his skin.
Ansgar turned back to Jean with a rueful expression. "An Outsider. I've never met one before. No wonder you're confused. Well, I'm no Priestess of Ohma, but I'll do my best. Why don't we sit down? You can eat with us; there's plenty."
Jean nearly replied that since half of it was doubtless his own anyway, there certainly was. But the hope that he could reason with these people, even get some sensible answers, kept the words in his throat. Instead, he bowed. "I would be most pleased to join you. I have some supplies of my own I should like to contribute."
If Ansgar caught the irony, he gave no sign, but nodded and turned toward the fire.
Jean assured himself of Jacques' well-being and assisted with the food preparation, biding his time. It was not until they were all sitting around the fire eating that he framed his first question.
"From the result of my unintended insult," he began carefully, watching their expressions, "it is clear to me that you hold a position of honor. May I ask what it is?"
Ansgar swallowed the bite in his mouth and gestured to himself and his two companions. "We are the Red Triad."
Jean raised a polite eyebrow. "And, if I may ask, what is a Triad, and how is such a rank achieved?"
Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought Ansgar seemed at a loss for words. The other man stopped chewing and lowered his trencher, glancing at his comrades as if asking for assistance. The other two continued to eat in silence, returning his look with an air of amused serenity.
He cleared his throat, frowning. "A Triad is…a company, a team of three people chosen from each of the warrior classes: a Cavalier, like N'Kombe…" He indicated the obsidian giant with the tip of his eating dagger.
"Pardon," Jean interrupted, "but where I come from, to call a man a Cavalier carries a certain meaning." A very different one, obviously. This N'Kombe was surely no noble knight. "Is it not a matter of birth?"
Ansgar blinked, then looked at N'Kombe. The giant merely shrugged. Ansgar turned back to Jean. "A Cavalier is a swordsman, one sworn to follow the Code of Ohma. They are warriors who have dedicated themselves to the art of combat, and seek perfection of the self through the mastery of arms."
He paused, throwing another glance at N'Kombe that held a hint of irritation, and his voice rose. "You should really ask a Cavalier about this. I think they all see themselves differently. After all, the Codes apply to everyone, but the Cavaliers make a special study of them."
Receiving no more response from N'Kombe than before, he sighed, and returned his attention to Jean. "There's more to it than that, but it would take a lifetime…." He shook his head, then shrugged helplessly and pointed to the woman.
"Then there is the Ranger, a sort of scout, hunter, woodsman, and also a fighter, such as my sister, Athane…" The knife touched his own breast. "And a Mystic. Each Triad is Chosen to serve one of the Fey Factions."
"Factions?" Jean poured himself a cup of wine from his leather bottle.
Ansgar hesitated, spearing another chunk of meat. "Those we serve are not all one in thought or purpose. Certain clans or families are in alliance with one another and form Factions amongst themselves. Each is represented by a color. That's how we know them."
Jean's imagination rebelled, and he nearly choked on his wine, quickly lowering the cup to cover his start. He swallowed and cleared his throat. "How many of these are there?"
"Thirteen, altogether. But seven of them dominate; the others are splinter Factions of the main seven. There is the Red Faction, of course, and the Blue, the Green, Gold, Black, Orange, and Purple." He paused again. "Please don't ask me about their politics. No man truly knows. We can only follow the orders given us, and hope it is ultimately for the best. The Greater Fey know more than we do. They may not always agree with one another, but they have the welfare of the land at heart."
Beside him, Athane snorted softly and cast a sideways glance at her brother. Ansgar did not look at her as he took a bite of bread and chewed carefully.
Jean nodded, digesting the information along with his food. He wondered if Ansgar spoke the truth, or only believed he did. Or did he merely mouth a learned lesson, like a schoolboy — or a parrot? "In Tisza, and again in Yasenovo, the people would not talk to me of the Fey, saying that to speak of them was to attract their attention. Yet you do. Why is that?"
Ansgar shrugged. "They are already watching us. We are Chosen."
Jean's appetite diminished. He resisted the temptation to look over his shoulder. "How is it that you are Chosen? What does this mean?"
Ansgar exchanged a look with his sister and then N'Kombe. Athane merely shrugged her broad shoulders, which seemed her most common form of communication, wiping her knife clean with a piece of bread. N'Kombe grinned and shook his head, clearly passing responsibility back to Ansgar.
The handsome Mystic cleared his throat and set his empty trencher to one side. "The Fey choose only the ones they consider worthy," he replied. "They see which of us rise to greatness, and which fall. When our time comes, they call us from death's door and offer us a chance to serve. Each of us here," he indicated his companions, who watched him now in solemn silence, "chose to serve and live again."
Jean choked on a sip of wine, cold with a sudden flash of something between outrage and horror. "Only God can raise the dead. You tell me that your masters — these Fey — do this?"
Ansgar's eyes widened, but his teeth flashed in a quick grin. "Ah. No. When we're about to die, by whatever means, they intervene. They save us and offer us a new life in their service. Only those close to death are Chosen. They never take us if we have long, healthy lives ahead of us."
Jean had thought to spend his life in the service of God, not so long ago. If redemption was possible, he still hoped to do so. Each of these people had willingly chosen service to something else entirely. What was not of God, was surely of His nemesis. He shivered. "And if one were to refuse this call?"
N'Kombe spoke at last, before Ansgar could answer. "Who would choose a small, meager death when they could live a life of fame and die with honor and glory? All men die. How we choose to live, that is what matters."
He laid a huge hand on his chest. "A great man lives in such a way that he will be Chosen when the time comes. All my life, I have waited for that call. A lion would have slain me had I not listened to the call and followed the music. Now I am the Cavalier of the Red Triad, and my name will live forever."
N'Kombe waved to indicate his companions. "If we survive, we will grow in wisdom and power. In time, we may even become a Triumphant, and be given a city-state to rule."
He returned the intensity of his regard to Jean and grinned, an expression that reminded Jean of a lion
baring its fangs. "Or we may all be dead tomorrow. Old age is not something the Chosen have to fear. We who are Chosen know we may die at any moment. Danger is our meat and drink; the welfare of the land is given unto us, and if it costs us our lives, that is the price we willingly pay for the glory."
The passion that burned in N'Kombe's face left Jean mesmerized, momentarily bereft of speech. Despite his earlier misgivings, he felt a stirring in his blood in response to the Cavalier's words. What man did not wish to live and die with glory?
He glanced at the other two. Ansgar's face was still, his eyes hooded. Nor could Jean read anything behind Athane's shuttered impassivity. It was impossible to tell if the other two believed as N'Kombe did.
And yet, to willingly serve such masters….
He licked his lips and turned back to the Cavalier. "If one is Chosen—"
N'Kombe stood. "You fought with the heart of a Cavalier, if not the skill, so as a Cavalier, I tell you this. Go to Tir. In the Temple, the Priestess of Ohma will tell you all you need to know. It is late and we must walk far tomorrow. Sleep now, and ask what you will in the morning."
Jean bit back a protest. To press now might mean nothing more would be forthcoming. With luck, on the morrow he might be able to persuade the Triad to continue the flow of information.
He had yet to learn of the mysterious Code these folk apparently honored, that seemed to apply to all people, the women as well as the men. Perhaps if he understood it better, he could make an appeal that would reach them.
Perhaps he could even convince N'Kombe to return the brigandine.
He slept deeply, feeling optimistic for the first time since entering the Mists.
In the morning, Jacques woke him with impatient nickers of hunger. He raised his head to see if the horse had awakened the others and saw that he was alone.
Tales from Opa: Three Tales of Tir na n'Og Page 16
