Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  But Dame Zirresca? Who loathed him, and whom he was swiftly learning to despise in turn? He would take no more of that! If he revealed the limits of his martial knowledge here, what of it? What would they do? At worst they would assume his physical and mental state to be even more damaged than they had believed.

  “Enough, Zirresca! You’ll swallow those words, and maybe a blade along with them!”

  The other knight recoiled, startled, then snarled. “Come, then!” She tossed her szandzsya end over end, tumbling over the stands. Nycolos snatched it out of the air with blinding speed.

  As he bounded down the steps, Zirresca turned to Prince Elias. “May I, Your Highness?”

  “Uh…” He hesitated, moths of doubt fluttering about his features. “I don’t know about this, Dame Zirresca. I’m not so sure this is a good—”

  “Nobody’s going to be harmed too severely, Your Highness,” she assured him. “Probably.”

  “I…” Already a crowd of soldiers and pages had gathered round, eager for the coming display, and Nycolos had reached the base of the stands. With obvious reluctance, the prince handed over his own weapon.

  It was right about then, as Zirresca twisted to face him, that Nycolos registered the true nature of the foreign weapon he clutched. These were not the dulled, heavy practice blades Kortlaus and his partners had been using. Zirresca and Prince Elias had been training with live, razor-edged steel.

  “First blood, then?” Kortlaus shouted, clearly desperate to at least put some half-sane restrictions on what was about to happen.

  “Fine by me!” Zirresca agreed. Nycolos nodded, grunting.

  They slammed together with twin screams.

  Zirresca retreated before the sheer force of Nycolos’s charge. Not with the controlled steps of any formal duel but at a near run, the combatants moved out into the field’s center, their audience desperately stepping aside to clear them a path. His blade flashed in blinding arcs, driven not by skill but by an impossible, inhuman strength. If he could end this quickly, nobody should have opportunity to spot the deficiencies in his style.

  She was having none of it. Her szandzsya spun almost like a baton in her two-fisted grip, constantly parrying even the fastest of Nycolos’s strikes with either the blade or the thick haft. Where she couldn’t deflect she pivoted away, sidestepping, always retreating. Whether or not she found her opponent’s ferocity and near savage assault suspicious, she’d adapted to it instantly, allowing him to tire himself out while she avoided his clumsy, albeit powerful, blows.

  Yet he wasn’t tiring, would not tire for a good while. Even as he came at her Nycolos grinned, glorying in the power that was, if far less than he once boasted, still greater than she could ever expect. He hacked and thrust, utterly without finesse, driving her back, always back…

  Zirresca must have recognized that he wasn’t about to falter, that fatigue was not an ally on which she could rely. She broke the pattern of her retreat in midstep, lashing out with a low kick. Against a normal opponent, it might well have broken an ankle. Against Nycolos, it produced a jolt of pain and set him staggering, off-balance.

  Her own sabre-spear whistled in a short arc that would have left an ugly gash across his chest. Nycolos hurled himself away, desperate to avoid the oncoming blade, and found himself landing hard on his back, nostrils filled with the scent of crushed grass, staring up at the bright blue sky.

  Still Zirresca attacked, spinning, weapon sweeping around her and then upward, her first strike flowing smoothly into a second. Nycolos saw the szandzsya rise over him and begin its downward arc. Pushing with both heels, he slid himself across the grass and rolled to his feet.

  His opponent’s blade had plowed a furrow into the earth where he’d lain a heartbeat earlier. Zirresca retreated a step, shaking soil from the weapon, studying him with a narrowed gaze. He tried to mimic her earlier motion, spinning the szandzsya in both fists, but he knew he must appear awkward and slow in comparison. Indeed, he could hear puzzled mutters among the onlookers, wondering at his apparent ineptitude.

  His face warmed as his embarrassment grew, though he was scarcely aware of it and would wonder only later what the sensation meant, if it was another human peculiarity. In the moment, he knew only that he had made himself look the fool, had potentially revealed an element of his deception, and had accomplished nothing in exchange.

  Now Zirresca came at him and it was he who retreated. Her szandzsya struck first from one side then another, and even where he avoided the blade the heavy wooden shaft often knocked him staggering. He couldn’t even pretend any longer, couldn’t attempt to mimic what little technique he’d seen. He augmented his human form, allowing the muscles beneath the flesh to grow as swift and as strong as he could without becoming visibly unnatural, and even then it was only with the greatest effort that he parried Zirresca’s attacks. Had it been a matter of pure skill, had he been as limited as a human, the struggle would be long over.

  So be it. With what little corner of his attentions he could yet spare, he concentrated his innate magics on the skin he wore, hardening it right to the very edge of where it would take on inhuman hues or the texture of scale.

  And not a moment too soon. Zirresca’s weapon ended its spin in an underhand grip, held flat against her arm. She cross-stepped past him, twisting her body, dragging the inner curve of the szandzsya across his ribs and his left arm. She halted, facing him, butt of her sabre-spear planted, forcing her quickened breathing to slow, presumably so that she might accept his concession or perhaps lightly mock his clumsy efforts and his defeat…

  Nycolos managed not to laugh aloud, but couldn’t suppress a nasty grin, at the expression on her face when she saw she’d drawn no blood.

  His first blow, unexpected and oh, so swift, struck the weapon on which she leaned, knocking it aside and staggering her. He stepped in and delivered a swift punch to her midsection, doubling her over, and then yanked her szandzsya completely away with that unoccupied hand. A final blow, again with the butt end of his sabre-spear, sent the knight flying. She landed hard, hissing in pain, hand rising to what must surely have been a bruised if not fractured collarbone.

  Standing over her, Nycolos tossed aside his own weapon. With hers, he deliberately, even contemptuously, reached down and poked just the very tip of the blade against her jaw, drawing a tiny squiggle of blood across the faded scar on her chin.

  “I believe this means I win,” he told her.

  Her glower of overwhelming hatred would have done one of his own kind, his true kind, proud. “I hit you. I know I did!”

  He lifted an arm to reveal the gash in kaftan and tunic but not skin. “Clearly you were mistaken. Perhaps you need more practice.”

  “You son of a—!”

  “Sir Nycolos Anvarri!”

  He looked up, only noticing that every man and woman present had stared at him in various degrees of bewilderment and dismay—perhaps even disdain—now that they were looking away toward the source of that shout. He, in turn, followed their gaze, and frowned.

  Where the hell had he come from?

  Marshal Laszlan stomped across the field, heavy-footed, as though the grass had recently offended his mother. His face bore a ruddy tint beneath his bristling beard.

  “Is this the man I’ve trained for years? The man I permitted to vie for my office? I am ashamed of you, Sir Nycolos, and so should you be!”

  The szandzsya creaked, wood threatening to split, in his grip. “Marshal—”

  “No. I don’t want to hear it right now. I’ve seen pages just come of age fight with more proper form than you’ve just displayed here. And your behavior! I’ve no idea how you could possibly have bested Dame Zirresca, incompetently as you wielded that weapon…”

  The woman, clambering to her feet with the assistance of several friends and Prince Elias himself, growled low in her throat.

  “…but to show such disdain for a fallen opponent—”

  “So,” Nycolos interrupted, tha
t act itself drawing gritted teeth from Orban and gasps from several of the others, Kortlaus included, “it’s only permissible to show such disdain for an opponent before battle? Convenient that you arrived late enough to miss the insults she cast in my teeth before blades entered into it.”

  Jaws dropped and eyes widened. No one could believe what they were hearing from him. Although he was quite certain the act was rude in and of itself, Nycolos departed without awaiting further word or permission from the Crown Marshal, determined to be gone before he could make his situation more dire still.

  Smim fell in behind him, but while Nycolos could sense, could literally smell, the disapproval radiating from his smaller servant, the goblin wisely chose to keep his own counsel for a change.

  ___

  As a knight of the realm and gentry in residence at Oztyerva Palace, Nycolos was entitled—and, more often than not, expected—to dine with His Majesty, along with a veritable throng of other nobles, courtiers, advisors, favored guests, and so forth. (It was an invitation that, as had been made politely but explicitly clear, did not extend to his goblin retainer.) On his first night back, nobody had looked for him to attend, not as exhausted as he had clearly been. Tonight, however, was another story.

  A story that could have most kindly been dubbed a farce, and more accurately a disaster.

  The dining hall was the same carpeted, buttressed, and portrait-adorned stone as the bulk of the palace, and occupied primarily by an enormous table of finest wood.

  No, tables, plural. One, smaller and standing upon a slightly raised floor, seated the king himself, his offspring, and his closest advisors and honored guests. The other, lower and much, much longer, was for everyone else, seated in strict descending order of rank, from nearest the royal family to farthest.

  Nycolos, having squeezed himself into dark and stiff-necked formalwear that nearly made him claustrophobic, had deliberately arrived as late as he could without giving offense. The near breach of propriety drew some disapproval, but far less attention than he might have attracted had he been unable to find his proper seat. As everyone else had already arrived, however, it was simple enough to estimate roughly where he would fall, as a baronet, and then choose appropriate open setting.

  He planted himself upon well-cushioned velvet, unfolded his napkin and tucked it into his collar as the others had done. It was the last thing he managed to do wholly right that evening.

  Domatir Matyas, the court prelate, rose to speak a blessing over the meal, over His Majesty and his guests, just as he’d done over the court gathering of the previous day. Thankfully for Nycolos’s swiftly waning patience, this prayer was shorter than the prior.

  Then the servants brought out the first course, an array of pickled fish and hen’s eggs served on a bed of vegetables so heavily spiced one could practically taste them from the kitchen. The dishes were wood, far more practical than the crystal, ceramic, or precious metal one might expect in a royal dining hall, though the silver utensils and glass goblets more than made up for it. The table manners and customs, too, were a peculiar combination of fine and functional; Kirresc’s was a culture that celebrated its joy in good food and drink, yet also bound itself in custom. Noble etiquette was, perhaps, less convoluted than in some other nations, but what rules there were must be observed in every detail.

  And it was here that Nycolos made his first blunder. Oh, not with his manners in and of themselves. He was quite careful to study the men and women about him, to note their every move. He learned swiftly enough that knife and fork never switched hands, that both must be laid down before a drink was lifted to his lips, that hands never dipped below the table nor elbows rested atop it, that platters were passed always with the right hand, that the silverware was laid thus to indicate one was finished with his dish but that way if one awaited a second helping, that one always requested a dish or seasoning from a servant even if one’s fellow guests could easily pass it along, and so on and so forth.

  Irritating, particularly to one who had once been accustomed to eating whole cattle and the equivalent as a cure for peckishness, but hardly impenetrable. No, his error was in being caught staring at those around him. Some flinched away, some boldly returned his examination, but all seemed to take it as tacit permission to openly discuss amongst themselves what had already been on their minds: Namely, the events of that morning and Nycolos’s mental and physical state in general. Their conversations, ranging from hushed whisper to arrogant proclamation, rang out over the clatter of dinnerware.

  The rampant supposition grew wilder and, in its own way, more entertaining as the appetizer course concluded, the dishes and scraps removed and replaced with vinegar-drenched salads by the serving staff’s well-practiced sleight of hand. Nycolos had taken a bad head injury, some theorized, one that had transformed his entire personality. He suffered from the dragon’s dying curse. The goblin was a tribal shaman and held the knight in thrall with foul witchcrafts. Tivador Valacos—one of the youngest knights in attendance and son of Amisco Valacos, Judge Royal of Kirresc—even suggested to his dinner companion, in a low murmur, that perhaps Tzavalantzaval had not been slain at all, and that Nycolos either labored under the wyrm’s evil influence or was burdened by the guilt of his lies and disgrace.

  That was one theory that, however inaccurate, Nycolos had to find some means of quieting. He wanted nobody dwelling on the possibility of the dragon’s survival.

  Not that he could find any willing conversationalists with whom he might readily change the topic. Kortlaus seemed to be having difficulty meeting his gaze, and reddened anew each time he tried, clearly embarrassed for his friend and utterly uncertain of what, if anything, he might do about it. Margravine Mariscal wouldn’t even try, refusing to so much as glance his way, maintaining polite interest in her neighbors’ chatter while absently chasing errant cabbage around her plate with a fork that hadn’t touched her lips that evening. Zirresca, on the other hand, refused to look anywhere but his direction, clenching her knife so hard her arm trembled, glaring with hatred hot enough to overcook any dish carelessly set between them.

  Even the royal table provided no succor, no relief from the constant scrutiny. Orban whispered, as usual, in His Majesty’s ear, and while Nycolos could hear nothing of the conversation, he didn’t think it arrogant to assume he might be its subject. Hasyan’s other friends and counselors watched either Nycolos or their liege himself, and Princess Firillia studied the newly returned knight with a frank and oddly contemplative pity. Nycolos had to set down the goblet he’d just lifted, filled with a sour cherry wine, lest it shatter in his fist.

  Only Prince Elias, of them all, seemed largely oblivious to the ubiquitous disquiet, or at least to the source of that unease. On occasion he would raise his head, perhaps seeking to pinpoint a nagging wrongness, but otherwise remained contentedly focused on his meal.

  It was between the salad and the main course—a slow roasted and heavily flavored stew of mutton, by the aromas wafting from the kitchen—that Nycolos’s well of patience ran dry and he made his second error of the evening.

  “If I’d known I was to be the night’s entertainment,” he announced during a brief lull in the conversation around him, “I’d have prepared a performance for you all. Juggling, or perhaps an amusing ditty.”

  A few words choked off with quick gasps, the clatter of knives and forks laid down, and then silence save for the crackling and popping of the torches.

  “Sir Nycolos,” Denuel Jarta berated him from the king’s table, “this is unseemly.”

  Kortlaus rose with a scrape of chair legs. “Begging your pardon, palatine, but has not the behavior of this entire gathering been unseemly tonight? Sir Nycolos deserves better than to be gossiped of this way.”

  Several people voiced their assent, Mariscal—albeit somewhat reluctantly—included. A few others looked down at their plates, properly chastised. Prince Elias leaned over to Prelate Matyas, who sat beside him, and loudly whispered, “What’s go
ing on?”

  “Later, your Highness.”

  Most of those at the lower table, however, seemed unapologetic. “While I certainly intended no offense,” young Tivador began, “after his disgraceful behavior this morning, I hardly think Sir Nycolos has any right to expect—”

  “No, my Lord Kortlaus is quite correct.” Margrave Andarjin also stood, seeming oblivious to Tivador’s shock—and to his friend Zirresca’s, who looked ready to strike him for defending the man who’d humiliated her. Andarjin bowed at the neck, first to the baron, then to Nycolos. “Our behavior tonight, my behavior, has undeniably been inappropriate, even offensive, and for that I apologize.

  “Indeed,” he continued, turning in place to face each diner in turn, “we owe Sir Nycolos a debt we can never repay. He set out a brave and faithful knight of the court, to rid Kirresc, and other nations of Galadras besides, of a great threat. That he obviously gave the best of himself in the execution of his duty—his health, his honor, his dream of someday serving His Majesty in any greater capacity—is a sacrifice that should be revered, not mocked. I thank you, Sir Nycolos, and I am certain that in this I am not alone.”

  Nycolos knew it would be yet another mistake to stack atop all the others, that it would only encourage further talk and speculation, but the other option was open bloodshed. Ignoring Andarjin’s disingenuous smile, Zirresca’s ill-concealed gloating, the helpless pain of Kortlaus and Mariscal, and the growing whispers of everyone else, he pushed back his chair, forced a “With Your Majesty’s permission” through a portcullis of clenched teeth, and stalked from the dining hall.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Inhale. Good. Now hold that as long as you’re able and for God’s sake, try not to flinch.”

  Nycolos obeyed, swallowing a grunt of pain at the pressure that deep lungful of air put on his unhealed wound. A second helping of grunt followed the first as the woman, too, prodded at that tender spot.

  Lady Ilkya resembled nothing so much as a tree struck by lightning. Tall, gaunt of frame, spindly of limb, dark of both complexion and demeanor. She had little patience for the foibles of those less intelligent than she, which she believed was almost everyone, and was almost as lacking in sympathy for the discomforts her patients endured. Nycolos found it a particularly galling attitude, not merely because of the pain he suffered beneath her ministrations, but because he’d been forced to wait in this damn nest of squabbling nobles and petty rivalries and—and humans—for almost a week before she arrived!