by C. S. Pacat
His frown deepened. The outbuilding was set away from the cluster of homes. It stood intact. Curiosity drew him closer, boots turning grey with ash. The dog was whining, a high, tinny sound. He put his hand on the door of the outbuilding and found it unyielding. It was latched, from the inside.
Behind him, a girl’s unsteady voice said, ‘There’s nothing there. Don’t go inside.’
He turned. It was a child of about nine, of indeterminate gender, only maybe a girl. White-faced, she had pushed herself out of the pile of firewood stacked against the building wall.
‘If there’s nothing there, why not go inside?’ Laurent’s voice. Laurent’s calm, invariably infuriating logic, as he arrived, also on foot. With him were three Veretian soldiers.
She said, ‘It’s just an outbuilding.’
‘Look.’ Laurent dropped to one knee in front of the girl, and showed her the starburst on his ring. ‘We are friends.’
She said, ‘My friends are dead.’
Damen said, ‘Break it in.’
Laurent held back the girl. It took two impacts of a soldier’s shoulder before the door splintered. Damen transferred his hand from sword hilt to knife hilt, and led the way into the confined space.
The dog rushed in beside him. Inside, there was a man lying on the straw-strewn dirt floor, with the broken end of a spear protruding from his stomach, and a woman, standing between him and the door, armed with nothing but the other end of the spear.
The room smelt of blood. It had soaked into the straw, where, ashen, the man’s face was transforming with shock.
‘My Liege,’ he said, and with a spear in his stomach, he was trying to push himself up on one arm to rise for his Prince.
He wasn’t looking at Damen. He was looking past him, at Laurent, who was standing in the doorway.
Laurent said without looking around, ‘Call for Paschal.’ He stepped into the crude space, moving past the woman, simply putting his hand on the spear shaft she held and drawing it out of the way. Then he dropped to his knees on the dirt floor, where the man had collapsed back onto the straw. He was gazing up at Laurent with recognition.
‘I couldn’t hold them off,’ the man said.
‘Lie back,’ said Laurent. ‘The physician comes.’
The man’s breath rattled. He was trying to say that he was some old retainer from Marlas. Damen looked around the small, mean room. This old man had fought for these villagers against young, mounted soldiers. Perhaps he had been the only one here with any training, though any training that he’d had would have been from his past; he was old. Still, he had fought. This woman and her daughter had tried to help him, then to hide him. It didn’t matter. He was going to die from that spear.
All of this was in Damen’s mind as he turned. He could see the trail of blood. The woman and the girl had dragged the old man in here from outside. He stepped over the blood and knelt as Laurent had in front of the girl.
‘Who did this?’ She said nothing at first. ‘I swear to you, I will find them and make them pay.’
She met his eyes. He thought he’d hear fear-darkened flashes, a truncated description, that he’d learn, at best, the colour of a cloak. But the girl said the name clearly, like she’d carved it into her heart.
‘Damianos,’ she said. ‘Damianos did this. He said it was his message to Kastor.’
* * *
Outside, when he pushed outside, the landscape lost colour, greying out.
He had his hand braced against the trunk of a tree when he came back to himself, and his body shook with anger. Soldiers shouting his name had ridden in here in the dark. They had cut down villagers with swords, burned them in their houses, a planned move meant to injure him politically. His stomach had heaved as though he had been sick. He felt in himself something dark and unnamed at the tactics of those he fought.
A breeze rustled the leaves. Looking around, half blindly, he saw that he had come to a small cluster of trees, as if seeking to escape the village. It was far enough removed from the ruined outbuildings that he had not directed any of his own men here, so that he was the first to see it. He saw it before his head really cleared.
There was a corpse near the tree line.
It wasn’t the corpse of a villager. Face down, it was a man, sprawled at an unnatural angle, in armour. Damen shoved away from the tree and approached, his heart pounding with anger. Here was the answer, a perpetrator. Here was one of the men who had attacked this village, who had crawled out here to die, unnoticed by his fellows. Damen rolled the stiffened corpse with the toe of his boot, so that it lay face up, exposing itself to the sky.
The soldier had the features of an Akielon, and around his waist was a notched belt.
Damianos did this. He said it was his message to Kastor.
He moved before he was aware of it. He went past the outbuildings, past his men digging pits for the dead, the charred ground underfoot still surprisingly warm. He saw a man wiping his ash-streaked, sweating face with his sleeve. He saw a man dragging something lifeless towards the first of the open pits. He had his fist in the fabric at Makedon’s neck and was flinging him backwards before he thought.
‘I will give you the honour of trial by combat that you do not deserve,’ said Damen, ‘before I kill you for what you have done here.’
‘You would fight me?’
Damen drew his sword. Akielon soldiers were gathering, half of them Makedon’s men, all wearing the belt.
As the corpse had done. As every soldier who had killed in this village had done.
‘Draw,’ said Damen.
‘For what?’ Makedon gave a scornful look at his surroundings. ‘Dead Veretians?’
‘Draw,’ said Damen.
‘This is the Prince’s doing. He has turned you against your own people.’
‘Don’t speak,’ said Damen, ‘unless it’s in contrition, before I kill you.’
‘I won’t pretend remorse for Veretian dead.’
Makedon drew.
Damen knew that Makedon was a champion, the undefeated warrior of the north. Older than Damen by more than fifteen years, it was said that Makedon only notched his belt once for every hundred kills. Men from all over the village were dropping shovels and buckets and gathering.
Some of them—Makedon’s men—knew their general’s skill. Makedon’s face was that of the elder about to school the upstart. It changed as their swords met.
Makedon favoured the brutal style popular in the north, but Damen was strong enough to meet his massive two-handed attacks and match them, not even needing to draw on his superior speed or technique. He met Makedon strength against strength.
The first clash sent Makedon staggering back. The second ripped his sword out of his hands.
The third came, death in steel shearing through Makedon’s neck.
‘Stop!’
Laurent’s voice cut across the fight, ringing with unmistakable command.
Makedon was gone. Laurent was there instead. Laurent had wrenched Makedon backwards to hit the dirt, and Damen’s sword was driving towards Laurent’s exposed neck.
If Damen had not obeyed, his whole body reacting to that ringing command, he would have severed Laurent’s head from his body.
But the instant that he heard Laurent’s order, instinct reacted, wrenching every sinew. His sword stopped a hair’s breadth from Laurent’s neck.
Damen was breathing hard. Laurent had pushed his way alone onto the makeshift battleground. His men, racing after him, had stopped on the perimeter of onlookers. The steel slid against the fine skin of Laurent’s neck.
‘Another inch and you rule two kingdoms,’ said Laurent.
‘Get out of my way, Laurent.’ Damen’s voice ground in his throat.
‘Look around you. This attack is cold-blooded planning, designed to discredit you with your own people. Do
es Makedon think like that?’
‘He killed at Breteau. He wiped out a whole village at Breteau, just like this.’
‘That was retaliation for my uncle’s attack on Tarasis.’
‘You would defend him?’ said Damen.
Laurent said, ‘Anyone can notch a belt.’
His grip tightened on his sword, and for a moment he wanted it to cut into Laurent. The feeling rose in him, thick and hot.
He slammed the sword back into its sheath. His eyes raked Makedon, who was breathing unevenly, looking from one to the other of them. They had been speaking quickly, in Veretian.
Damen said, ‘He just saved your life.’
‘I should give him my thanks?’ Makedon said it, sprawled in the dirt.
‘No,’ said Laurent, in Akielon. ‘If it were left to me, you’d be dead. Your blunders play into my uncle’s hands. I saved your life because this alliance needs you, and I need this alliance to overthrow my uncle.’
The air smelled like charcoal. From the deserted patch of high ground that he strode to, Damen could see the whole sweep of the village. A blackened ruin, it looked like a scar on the earth. On the eastern side, smoke was still rising from rubble-strewn dirt.
There was going to be a reckoning for this. He thought of the Regent, safe in the Akielon palace at Ios. This is cold-blooded planning designed to discredit you with your own people. Does Makedon think like that? Kastor didn’t think like that either. This was someone else.
He wondered if the Regent felt the same furious determination that he did. He wondered how he could be confident that he could deliver cruelty like this, over and over again, without consequences.
He heard footsteps approaching, and let them draw up beside him. He wanted to say to Laurent, I always thought I knew what it felt like to fight your uncle. But I didn’t. Until today, it was never me he was fighting. He turned to say it.
It wasn’t Laurent. It was Nikandros.
Damen said, ‘Whoever did this wanted me to blame Makedon, and lose the support of the north.’
‘You don’t think it was Kastor.’
Damen said, ‘Neither do you.’
‘Two hundred men cannot ride for days in open country without anyone noticing,’ said Nikandros. ‘If they did this without alerting our scouts or our allies, where did they launch from?’
It was not the first time he had seen an attack designed to frame Akielons. It had happened in the palace, when assassins had gone after Laurent with Akielon knives. He remembered with clarity the provenance of the knives.
Damen looked back at the village, and from it to the thin, winding road leading south. He said, ‘Sicyon.’
* * *
The indoor training arena at Marlas was a long, wood-panelled room, eerily similar to the training arena at Arles, with packed sawdust floors and a thick wooden post at one end. At night, it was lit by torches that flickered light across walls ringed with benches, and covered over with mounted weaponry: knives sheathed and bare, crossed spears, and swords.
Damen dismissed the soldiers, the squires and the slaves. Then he pulled the heaviest sword from the wall. He liked the weight as he lifted it, and, setting his body to the task, began to wield it, over and over again.
He was in no mood to hear arguments, or to speak to anyone. He had come to the one place where he could give what he felt physical expression.
Sweat soaked into white cotton. He stripped from the waist up, used the garment to wipe off his face, the back of his neck. Then he flung it aside.
It was good to push; hard. To feel exertion in every sinew, to gather every muscle to a single task. He needed the feeling of grounding and certainty amid these repellent tactics, these deceptions, these men who fought with words and shadows and treachery.
He fought, until he was only his body, the burn of flesh, the pounding of blood, the hot slick of sweat, until everything concentrated into one simple focus, the power of heavy steel, that could bring death. In the moment when he paused—stopped—there was only silence and the sound of his own breath. He turned.
Laurent was standing in the doorway, watching him.
He didn’t know how long Laurent had been there. He had been practising now for an hour or longer. Sweat sheened his skin, his muscles oiled with it. He didn’t care. He knew they had unfinished business. As far as he was concerned, it could stay unfinished.
‘If you’re this angry,’ said Laurent, ‘you should fight a real opponent.’
‘There’s no one—’ Damen stopped, but the unspoken words hung, dangerous with the truth. There was no one good enough to fight him. Not in this mood. In this mood, angry and unable to hold back, he would kill them.
‘There’s me,’ said Laurent.
* * *
It was a bad idea. He felt the thrumming in his veins that told him it was a bad idea. He watched Laurent draw a sword of his own from the wall. He remembered watching Laurent’s sword work in his duel against Govart, his own fingers itching to pick up a sword. He remembered other things too. The tug he had felt on his gold collar from the leash in Laurent’s hand. The fall of the lash on his back. The driving fist of a guard as he was thrown down onto his knees. He heard his own voice, thick and heavy.
‘You want me to put you on your back in the dirt?’
‘You think you can?’
Laurent had cast his sword-sheath to the side. It lay disregarded in the sawdust as he calmly stood with an open blade.
Damen hefted his own sword in his hand. He was not feeling careful.
He had warned Laurent. That was advance notice enough.
He attacked, a ringing three-stroke sequence that Laurent countered, circling so that his back was no longer to the door, but to the length of the training arena. When Damen attacked again, Laurent used the space behind him, moving back.
And further back. Damen quickly grasped that he was progressing through the same set of experiences that had derailed Govart: expecting the fight to be more straightforward than it was, and finding that instead Laurent was difficult to pin down. Laurent’s blade teased, slipping away without follow-through. Laurent enticed, then stepped back.
It was irritating. Laurent was a good swordsman, who was not exerting himself. Tap, tap, tap. They had by now travelled almost the full length of the training area, and were drawing alongside the post. Laurent’s breathing was undisturbed.
The next time Damen engaged, Laurent ducked and swung around the post, so that he had the length of the training area again at his back.
‘Are we just going to go up and down? I thought you’d push me at least a little,’ said Laurent.
Damen unleashed a strike, full strength and with brutal speed, giving Laurent no time to do anything but bring up his sword. He felt blade catch blade with a screech of metal, and watched the force of the impact travel through Laurent’s wrists and shoulders, watched it wrench the sword almost out of his hands, and throw him, satisfyingly, out of a balanced stance to stagger three paces back.
‘You mean like that?’ said Damen.
Laurent recovered well, moving back another step. He was looking at Damen with narrowed eyes. There was something different in his posture, a new wariness.
‘I thought I’d let you go up and down a few times,’ said Damen, ‘before I take you.’
‘I thought you were down here because you couldn’t take me.’
This time when Damen attacked, Laurent put his whole body into weathering it, and as one blade raked shudderingly down the length of the other, he came up under Damen’s guard, so that Damen was forced into a startled defence and only with a flurry of steel flung him back.
‘You are good,’ said Damen, hearing the pleased sound of his own voice.
Laurent’s breathing was showing a little exertion now, and that pleased Damen too. He pressed forward, not allowing Laurent time to d
isengage or recover. Laurent was forced to bring all his strength to bear to block his attacks, the barrage jarring down Laurent’s wrist to his forearm and shoulder. Consistently now, Laurent was parrying two-handed.
Parrying, and countering in a deadly flash. He was agile and could turn on a hair, and Damen found himself drawn in, engrossed. He did not attempt to force Laurent into mistakes—yet—that would come later. Laurent’s swordsmanship was fascinating, like a puzzle made up of filigree strands, complicated, delicately woven but without obvious openings. It almost seemed a shame to win the fight.
Damen disengaged, walking a circle around his opponent as he gave him space to recover. Laurent’s hair was starting very slightly to darken with sweat and his breath was quick. Laurent shifted his grip on his sword minutely, flexing his wrist.
‘How’s your shoulder?’ Damen said.
‘My shoulder and I,’ said Laurent, ‘are waiting to be shown a real fight.’
Laurent swept his blade up, ready for the attack. It satisfied Damen to force some real sword work from him. Damen drove into those exquisite counters, forcing them into patterns that he half remembered.
Laurent was not Auguste. He was cast from a different mould physically, with a more dangerous calibre of mind. Yet there was a resemblance: the echo of a similar technique, a similar style; perhaps learned from the same master, perhaps the result of the younger brother emulating the older in the training yard.
He could feel it between them as he could feel everything between them. The deceptive sword work that was too much like the traps that Laurent laid for everyone, the lies, the prevarications, the avoidance of a straightforward fight in favour of tactics that used those around him to achieve his ends; like a consignment of slaves; like a village of innocents.
He swept Laurent’s blade out of the way, slammed the hilt of his sword into Laurent’s stomach, then threw Laurent down, his body landing hard enough on the sawdust to knock the wind out of his lungs.
‘You can’t beat me in a real fight,’ said Damen.