Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  “Well, I’ll just have to be—”

  A trumpet blared, announcing the start of the next match. Only those who had already won a significant number of duels or melees were invited to contest here, beneath the watchful gaze of the king himself, so whoever appeared would be skilled indeed, and well worth observing.

  “We present to you,” the herald’s voice rang out over the field, “the Lord Kortlaus, Baron of Urwath!”

  Cheers and applause—some from Nycos himself, glad to see his friend having advanced so far in the tournament. Kortlaus stepped out into the grassy arena, clad in his finest reinforced chain hauberk, sabre held high for the crowd to see.

  “And his opponent, Silbeth Rasik, of…” The herald’s pause was brief, nigh unnoticeable, as though he were faintly startled by whatever bit of information had been passed on to him to relay. “…the Priory of Steel!”

  Now the audience reaction was one of wonder, a wave of murmurs that formed a slow whirlpool around the field. Although it wasn’t uncommon for mercenary guilds or martial organizations to participate in the Kirresci tournament, it had been quite some time since the Priory had bothered. Most of the citizenry had heard tales of their prowess, some doubtless exaggerated, and they were eager indeed to see what this Silbeth Rasik could do.

  The king’s guests and even guards were no more immune to that draw, leaning forward or craning their necks for a better view. Hasyan himself had grown suddenly intent—and not just intent but somewhat distracted, as though pondering questions to which few present were privy.

  It was neither his Majesty’s reaction, however, nor any particular curiosity over the Priory of Steel that held Nycos spellbound, rapt in open fascination. No, those might have drawn his initial attention, but what kept it, snagged like a fish wriggling on a hook, was the woman herself.

  No mere physical attraction, this. The pale brunette, clad in worn mail and an old, mismatched cuirass, was handsome enough, but not remarkably so. Many of the palace’s noblewomen, not least Mariscal herself, were easily her superior if physical beauty was all Nycos had sought, but of course he rarely even noticed such things. No, it was something about the way this Silbeth moved, held herself; her steady gaze, her every fluid step.

  The creature that Nycos had been, that still lurked within his heart and soul, recognized a kindred spirit, a fellow hunter, when it saw one.

  “Wonderful!” Mariscal appeared at his side. He hadn’t even noticed her approach or her presence until she spoke. “It’s been a few years since a woman was tournament champion. I know Lord Kortlaus is your friend, Nycos, but I think I’m cheering for her.”

  He scarcely heard, but he knew, without the faintest sliver of doubt, that the margravine would not be disappointed. Kortlaus didn’t have a chance. The baron might not have been the greatest swordsman in the land, but he was an experienced knight of Kirresc. That alone made him better than most who dared take the field against him. Today, however, Nycos was certain it wouldn’t be enough.

  Kortlaus raised his sabre, twisting his body so that his torso was concealed from his opponent behind his round-topped, kite-shaped shield. With a faint hiss of metal on leather, not unlike the whisper of a soft breeze, Silbeth drew her own sword, narrow and straight, long of blade and of grip so that it might be—but didn’t quite have to be—wielded in both hands. And indeed she held it in one fist, her other wrapped around the handle of a small steel buckler.

  The officiating herald called for the two challengers to begin. Kortlaus advanced, slowly, smoothly. Silbeth waited, the tip of her blade weaving tiny curls in the air.

  And then she proved Nycos absolutely correct. The fight was over almost before he had a chance to cheer for his friend—which didn’t matter since, in his fascination with watching Silbeth, he’d utterly forgotten to do so.

  They came together, and though the greater length of her blade allowed Silbeth to strike first, she made only a few tentative prods, tip of the sword glancing off Kortlaus’s shield. The baron, in turn, took the opportunity to move inside her reach and make a few quick attacks. She sidestepped the sabre once, deflected it with her buckler, ducked the third stroke, and retreated.

  Disappointed mutters sounded here and there, members of the audience wondering when the fabled skill of the Priory might show itself. Mariscal herself made a small tsking sound.

  Nycos swallowed a laugh. Wait for it…

  The sabre sliced through the air, and Silbeth parried with her buckler. Again, and she dodged. Kortlaus lunged, shoving with his shield, and she pivoted away. He swung the sabre once more…

  Just that suddenly, the woman was a blur; Nycos wasn’t sure how much the others, with their mere human senses, actually saw of what happened. Silbeth swayed sharply backward so that the baron’s blade swept past her, his arm crossed diagonally before his chest for the barest instant, and then she snapped upright.

  The edge of her buckler came down, hooking the lip of his shield and dragging the two opponents together. Her sword came up and across, the blade resting against his throat. The weight of her body slamming into him knocked him off balance, and she extended a foot to catch her heel behind his.

  And like that, they froze. Kortlaus couldn’t attack, for his sword arm was pinned between her breastplate and his own shield. He couldn’t straighten, with her leaning into him. He couldn’t step backward to catch his balance without tripping over her boot. The hilt of her sword pressed against the side of his neck kept him from sliding or pivoting to his left, and the blade would begin to cut into his throat were he to drag himself across its edge to the right.

  An unorthodox clinch, to say the least, and not one just anybody had the speed and precision to master. Half the audience was on their feet, astonished, trying to figure out what precisely they’d just seen.

  “Yield, my Lord?” It didn’t take Nycos’s senses to hear that. Her voice carried nearly as far, as clearly, as Marshal Laszlan’s would have.

  “I’m not entirely sure what just happened,” Kortlaus rasped, chagrined but with good humor, “but I think I’d better.”

  The herald announced Silbeth’s victory, a trumpet sounded, and the Priory warrior stepped back so the baron might regain his balance. They exchanged salutes and abandoned the field to a wave of applause and acclaim.

  Mariscal said something, then, but Nycos, still enraptured, caught not a word of it.

  ___

  The last few days of the tournament were a bit of a blur for Nycos. He still had duties to perform, and he saw to those with as much haste as he could manage. So, too, did he have various social obligations—though fewer than he otherwise might, as Mariscal spent long stretches with her visiting father—and he rushed through those as rapidly as propriety would permit.

  The rest of the time, he watched.

  He learned a lot, then, of human martial arts and, to a lesser extent, their various cultures. He watched a twelve-on-twelve melee in which nine fighters essentially sacrificed their chance for victory rather than defend the trio of despised Ktho Delian soldiers with whom they’d been matched. In group melee and individual duels, he witnessed his fellow Kirresci knights in victory and in defeat. He studied the axe-wielders and staff-fighters of Althlalen; the knights of Quindacra, modeled after but never quite so well trained nor so well equipped as those of Kirresc; religious crusaders and masterless mercenaries both out of Wenslir, one of whom fought with a most peculiar style, a flanged mace in each hand. Even a handful of tribal warriors from the Vingossa Plains made an appearance, putting on astonishing displays of mounted archery, then fighting on foot with hatchets and sickle-shaped swords, calling battle-prayers to their animist Vinnkasti spirits.

  But it was all quite secondary. Whenever she was competing, Nycos’s attentions were entirely on Silbeth Rasik.

  It would have been dishonest of him to insist that she was amazing at everything she set her hand to. She was a fair archer, but hardly an expert, and never reached the final rounds of that compet
ition; and while her skills at unarmed combat were significant, she lacked the mass or strength to overcome a few equally skilled but larger wrestlers in the tourney’s final days.

  Even in defeat, however, she was impressive, well worth watching, for still she moved with that almost unnatural grace, a fluidity and clarity of purpose that spoke directly to his soul in a language Nycos recognized yet couldn’t begin to comprehend.

  He was, in a word, fascinated, and he could not articulate why.

  And that? That was when she lost, wielding a bow or an empty fist. Put a blade in her hand and she became something greater, something for whom “defeat” seemed an alien concept. Men and women, Kirresci and foreigner, experts in sword or spear or axe or whatever weapon one cared to name… Some lasted longer than Kortlaus had, a few even made their fights a near match, but none could conquer her.

  Until, as the sun passed noon on the tournament’s last day, and a moist, cooling autumn gust swept across the fields, leaving brief shivers in its wake, the many duels culminated in what was—barring any challenge by a noble competitor—the final one-on-one match. The only match to which the prior duels could possibly have led. Nycos, the entirety of the royal pavilion, and every member of the audience waited in breathless silence as the herald made his announcement.

  Silbeth Rasik of the Priory of Steel, against Zeyaash Viruk of Suunim.

  The first moments of the contest were a blur of whirling steel, striking limbs, clashing shields. Zeyaash was everywhere, lashing out with spear, foot, fist, spinning and twisting, always in motion. Silbeth was less acrobatic but no slower, her own blade and buckler always in place to deflect an attack no matter how exotic, her own boots and gauntlets landing blows where opportunity allowed. The song of steel was an unbroken ring, less a series of impacts than a single, tremulous note.

  They met, parted, came together once more, a dance in which even the war god Teslak must have found beauty and grace.

  Just as swiftly, it very nearly ended.

  Zeyaash, shield tucked tight to his side, spear moving in tight arcs before his body, stepped in and whirled the haft of the weapon at Silbeth’s head. Even as she smacked the attack aside with the flat of her sword, he was spinning, crouched, shield abruptly extended to sweep her ankles. Again she saw the attack coming, easily hopped over it.

  But the Suunimi warrior continued his spin, leaping into the air. Feet pinwheeled upward in a devastating kick, and the outer edge of his boot cracked hard across his opponent’s face.

  The audience members came to their feet, Nycos among them. It was a brutal blow, powerful and well aimed. Silbeth staggered, toppling, and every soul watching must have believed the duel was ended then and there.

  Silbeth came out of her backwards roll, springing back to her feet and grinning through a mask of blood. Unable to avoid the massive kick, still she’d managed to turn with it, transforming what could—should—have been a stunning blow into a merely painful one. The entire crowd roared with excitement as she wiped the blood from her eyes with the back of a gauntleted hand and the two opponents advanced again.

  Another series of clashes, dodges, parries, ripostes, and then it truly was over. Using her buckler, Silbeth smacked aside another thrust of Zeyaash’s spear, knocking it wide. At the same instant, she leaned left and kicked, turning her entire body horizontal save for the one leg on which she stood. The heel of her boot shoved his shield in the opposite direction, leaving his body open if only briefly. Her sword whistled, slicing the autumn air, and crunched into the raised leather collar that protected the man’s throat.

  It didn’t quite penetrate, but nobody—Silbeth, Zeyaash, or the officiants—doubted that it could have, had she wished it.

  The herald sounded his trumpet, the Suunimi bowed, and the crowd once more roared in a single, unbroken voice.

  As for the victor, she waved once to the crowd and then knelt, planting her sword blade-first in the soil and leaning heavily upon it, catching her breath. Her lowered gaze scanned the crowd, however, as though seeking someone particular.

  Nycos blinked, startled, as her eyes locked on his and ceased moving.

  Relying on his rank where it proved sufficient, and on his size and armored elbows where more forceful measures were required, he pushed his way through the milling throng to stand before her. She rose as he approached, her expression mildly amused.

  “You know me?” Nycos asked, struggling to be heard over the ambient clamor.

  “I might ask you the same. You’ve been watching me for three days.” Then, at his expression, “I pay attention, and not just to obvious opponents.”

  “Um.” Somehow, in all his fascination with observing her, Nycos had never given any thought as to what he would do or say should they actually meet. “You’re very good.”

  Her lips twitched. “Why, so I am! How did that happen?”

  Was he blushing? He still didn’t know this damned body well enough to know if that was what the faint warming in his cheeks actually meant. “I’ve been considering challenging the champion,” he told her, trying to regain some measure of dignity.

  “I’ve not been declared champion yet.”

  “Formalities. You just won the final match. It’s just a matter of his Majesty making the declaration.”

  “And you’ve the right and rank to challenge, my Lord…?”

  “No lord. Sir Nycolos Anvarri.”

  Her eyes grew wide, then came alight. “The dragon slayer?”

  Not exactly. “So they call me.” He grinned at her. “Does that make you nervous?”

  “Not at all.”

  “And why not?”

  “I’m no dragon.”

  Nycos laughed, loudly enough to draw puzzled looks from several of nearby observers. “Your opponents might argue differently.”

  She returned his grin, but her expression swiftly turned serious. “Please tell his Majesty that I must speak with him when the tournament has ended.”

  “All you need do is defeat me,” he said, still chuckling. “The king addresses all the tournament champions at the end of the final—”

  “I need him to speak with me in private.”

  The sounds of the crowd receded and Nycos grew tense, swaddled in a caul of suspicion. “Why would you need that? Why would you expect his Majesty to agree to something so unheard of?”

  “Just tell him… Tell him the salmon were even later than expected this year, but they’ve finally reached Lake Orist.”

  She vanished into the milling throng before Nycos could voice even the first of the many, many questions he suddenly needed to ask.

  Chapter Twenty

  As he was not an utter fool, Nycos recognized that the bizarre statement as a signal or a code of some sort. It was a fact that left him with more questions than answers. Who was this Silbeth Rasik? What connection had she with King Hasyan? If they had some prior interaction or communication, why choose to make contact through so roundabout a method as fighting her way to the tournament’s championships? Why ask a knight of the realm, rather than any one of the hundreds of soldiers or servants present, to deliver the incomprehensible message?

  It left him both suspicious and utterly bewildered, two emotions of which Nycos was rather emphatically unfond.

  Unfortunately for his burning curiosity, his Majesty seemed disinclined to clarify. He merely nodded thoughtfully when Nycos explained the conversation and delivered the message, dismissing the knight with a curt thank you before sending a page to go find and retrieve the Crown Marshal. Nycos wandered away, growling to himself.

  Late afternoon brought a chilly autumn drizzle, less real rain than a haze of droplets squished tightly between clouds above and earth below. Grass, guards, stands, and stalls all shimmered in the wet. Pennants hung limp, clothes clung to shivering skin, and a good portion of the audience decided that they didn’t actually need to stay for the last few performances, challenge bouts, or closing ceremonies. Smim, after a quick check of his master’s c
hainmail and other accoutrements, delightedly wished Nycos good luck and headed back toward their quarters, where he no doubt already had a comfortable fire roaring away.

  Nycos gave some real consideration to ordering the goblin to stay, purely out of vindictiveness, but decided to let it drop.

  Even the trumpets seemed soured by the turn of the weather and ready to call the whole thing over and done with. They announced the challenge match between Silbeth Rasik and Sir Nycolos Anvarri with something of a wet and deflated blat. In the grey of the rain-smeared twilight, the two combatants saluted one another and met in the slippery, glistening grass.

  Here, at least, the remaining crowds showed life still within them, shouting and cheering the advancing warriors and raised blades.

  Nycos had chosen to go with the szyandzsya in a two-handed grip, foregoing the use of a shield—though his sabre hung at his waist, a fallback in case he should lose the spear. Silbeth bore the same longsword and buckler with which she’d fought every match, though something in the way she held them struck Nycos as ever so slightly off. He couldn’t quite say what; perhaps, had he the lifelong training he was supposed to have had, he could have put a finger on it. As things stood, it was just another nagging worry.

  Carefully, meticulously, he had prepared himself for this fight, mystically bolstering muscle and bone until he’d made himself as swift and as strong as he believed he could get away with, just below the point he would give his prowess away as obviously inhuman. Against most foes, it would have proved an overwhelming advantage.

  Against this woman? He was not entirely sure he’d done more than even things up.

  And still he nearly lost as soon as it began. Silbeth took one step, a second, and the buckler hurtled directly at Nycos’s head, a thick steel discus that would have knocked him senseless had it connected. He barely managed to dodge aside, and in that split second of distraction she leapt upon him. Her sword, now held firmly in both hands, sprayed rainwater as it neared, and even his nearly superhuman speed only allowed him to avoid the tip by inches.