It seemed, in that moment, that the drums themselves faltered in fear.
Gûlraht didn’t hear the hissed gasps of shock and awe from the men behind as he watched the creature approach, nor did he make out Erek’s curse or Rako’s hasty prayer to Them of Stone. He watched, through a veil of bloodlust and excitement, as the thing left clawed prints, moving parallel to the path Carro al’Dor had taken back to the Laorin.
Only when it stood not ten feet in front of him did Gûlraht finally make out some of the mumblings going on in the group behind him. His heart felt as though it skipped a beat every time he caught the word he had so desperately hoped for, repeated again and again as it chased itself through his army.
“Dahgün,” came the whispers.
Dragon.
In all his life, Raz had never imagined he would have to look up to a man. It was a foreign concept to him, a thought that he’d never so much as paused to contemplate. If someone had asked him that morning to consider it, he suspected he might have laughed at the idea.
Now, though, Raz found no humor in the notion.
Gûlraht Baoill, Kayle of the mountain tribes, might have done better to consider himself more giant than man. He stood well over seven feet tall, the top of his head some inches above Raz’s, and his shoulders and hips were half-again as broad. His arms, their top halves bare to the storm that was building steadily around them in gusts and heavy flurries of snow, were as thick as a large man’s thighs, the muscles beneath their weathered skin bunching like rolling, vein-covered boulders. His legs, planted slightly on either side of him in a confident stance, looked more like the trunks of trees than limbs. Hardened leather settled about his form in thick iron-studded plates, and grey and black fur tufted about his neck, shoulders, gauntlets, and boots. The heavy brown pelt of what appeared to be some kind of bear was thrown about his shoulders, and in his right hand the Kayle held a massive double-headed great ax that looked to be of a weight comparable to Ahna’s. He bore no other weapons, but there was an air about the way Gûlraht Baoill held that ax that said all too well he’d never had need of any other blade.
It was the same sort of deadly confidence with which Raz carried the dviassegai, slung over his right shoulder.
This man, Raz thought with a silent thrill of realization and anticipation, might just be the death of me.
In kind, he had the impression, as he stopped less than a dozen feet before the Kayle and took in the odd, excited expression on the massive man’s face, that Baoill was having the exact same notion.
They squared off with each other then, both silent and both staring, each taking in all there was to behold about the other. For almost half a minute there seemed to be a holding of all breaths, during which they acknowledged one another as something more than the lesser men all about them, and respected each other for it.
Gûlraht Baoill broke the silence first.
“You speak, beast?”
Raz narrowed his eyes at the man.
“I speak, Kayle of the clans,” he said, growling over the wind. “As well as any man you have cause to discourse with.”
The Kayle looked surprised at that. “Hard to believe, it is then, that you are creature of sorcery…”
Raz snorted. “Is that what you’ve been told?” He eyed the men behind Baoill. “That I’m some summoned thing brought down on your heads by the Laorin?”
“Is, yes,” the Kayle responded, surprising Raz. “‘Demon’ and ‘dragon’ you are called among men of mine. They tell stories, how you have been birthed of snow and shadow, how bear you such strength and speed only witchcraft could carry you to life.” He smiled at this, his blue eyes growing hungry beneath the thick, beaded brown hair lashing about his face. “Hope, I admit I do, that you prove them wrong.”
Raz said nothing, taking in the man a while longer, pondering him. After a time he reached up and put a steel claw against his cheek, one of the few places not covered in leather or fur or steel.
Then he drew the razor edge across his skin, splitting the thick scales before flicking the blood out to pattern the snowy stone between them with splattered red.
“I am of flesh and bone, as you are,” Raz snarled at the Kayle, whose eyes had fallen to watch the blood freeze. “I am born of sand and Sun, not sorcery and spellwork. Your men died by a living hand. They were not slain by a conjured blade. They took something from someone I care for, so I took something from them.”
At this, the Kayle grinned. It was an ugly look, twisting his shaggy, cruel face.
“Blood for blood,” he chuckled darkly. “Done well among my kind you would have, dragon, had you been born to the tribes.”
“To be molded by cruel gods into an even crueler man?” Raz retorted, bringing Ahna down slowly from his shoulder as he saw the minute flexing in the man’s ax-hand. “I’ll take my chances with the foolish peace of gentler divinities.”
“Long way seeking death, you’ve come,” Baoill said even as he undid the fastenings of his bearskin, letting it fall to the ground before settling into an aggressive stance. “If make it you do to the halls of Them of Stone, will have you tell me such a story, I think.”
“If I make it,” Raz agreed, taking Ahna in both hands. “In the meantime, save me a seat.”
The Kayle grinned at that, the look one of such utter, ravenous hunger it shot a shiver down Raz’s spine.
A man came forward then, one of the Kayle’s generals by the look of him, moving around his master to stand between and beside Raz and Baoill as they faced off. He was older than Baoill by some years, his black hair streaked with silver and grey that patterned well with the shine of gold rings and baubles braided into it. For a second the Sigûrth eyed Raz, then turned to Baoill.
“Al’Kayle,” he spoke in hushed tones, addressing the massive man in the guttural tongue of their people, clearly questioning the situation, “dü sen—?”
“Agor,” the Kayle responded harshly, cutting the newcomer off. “Sted.”
Despite the difference in languages, Raz understood this last statement clearly, as it had been given not as reply, but as a command.
Agor, the Kayle had said, speaking to the man. Enough.
And the Sigûrth did as ordered, turning to face them equally again.
“Sen ül Karyn-Des!” he bellowed, raising his arms to either side, his voice echoing over the mountains as the wind faded momentarily. “Da brán ed brûn, dü’vren ist micht!” He looked to Baoill.
“Da brán ed brûn,” the Kale responded, inclining his head reverently.
Agor—if that was indeed the man’s name—turned to Raz.
“Under eyes of Stone Gods,” he repeated in broken, accented Common. “By blood and bone, this challenge yours will be met.” He paused, watching Raz meaningfully.
Raz had an idea of what was expected of him.
“By blood and bone,” he repeated, hoping he had caught the translation correctly as he inclined his head respectfully, if not as deeply as the Kayle.
The general gave him what could almost have been an approving look. He then turned from the pair, facing the mountains beyond and around, where Raz realized Baoill’s armies had come to stand still, like a monster suddenly frozen and holding its breath. Agor began to shout in his native language, and Raz didn’t bother trying to understand what the man said. He suspected it to be part of the ritual, perhaps the announcement of titles or the stakes of the fight. Whatever the reason, his eyes never left the Kayle’s for the full minute Agor yelled himself hoarse to the men of their army.
The Kayle, too, never looked away.
At last Agor turned back to them. With only a short pause, he raised a hand, like the starter at a horse race.
Then the hand fell, and whatever words the man shouted to commence the duel was lost to the winds as Gûlraht Baoill launched himself forward with a howling war cry, and Raz lunged to meet him.
LI
IF RAZ had had any lingering illusions about the balance of the fight
, they were whisked away in the first handful of engagements. He had expected his first impressions to be of the man’s strength, of the power of his blows and the firmness of his parries and blocks. He had expected Baoill to bull into him, to use his mass and size to his advantage. In the end, the Kayle did exactly this.
But not before Raz gained the abrupt—and painful—knowledge that, above all else, Gûlraht Baoill was fast.
It was as though the great ax he alternated between wielding in one and two hands weighed nothing more than a child’s toy hatchet. It blurred about the man, slashing this way and that as the pair of them danced over the courtyard ground, the snow crunching beneath their feet as they moved. By the time they separated for the first time, Raz had almost lost a limb on three separate occasions, was bleeding from a shallow gash where razored iron had cleaved through the leather wrappings about his thigh, and was half-nursing his left shoulder where the ax had left a sizeable dent in his steel pauldron. Gûlraht, too, was hurting, blood welling out of a narrow puncture in his left bicep, his lip swollen where Ahna’s wooden haft had caught him a blow across the face, and his chest plate askew from when her blades had severed the strapping holding them in place over one of the man’s shoulders. Both men’s breaths billowed out, hovering like smoke about their faces as they edged a rough circle around each other, eyes flicking this way and that looking for an opening. From above the wind Raz just made out the roar of the Kayle’s army, soldiers cheering on their lord, as well as the nearer shouts and bellows of the Laorin.
From their enthusiasm, it sounded as though neither group had come to the understanding Raz—and he was quite sure Baoill—already possessed.
They were evenly matched.
For the first time in many years, something happened to Raz, then. As fear bubbled up within him, taking hold in the subtle way it does in brave men, something else rose as well. It was an alien feeling at first, a twisted sort of rush that was less than bliss but more than excitement.
He was enjoying the fight.
And with that understanding, Raz leapt at Baoill, Ahna coming around in a massive two-handed sweep from the side, aiming to take the man in the ribs as her master’s face creased into a terrible, serpentine smile.
Baoill leapt clear of the blow, then forward again, raining strikes with his ax down on Raz’s head and shoulders. Raz dodged and darted, blocking some and even punching one out of the way that cut too close to his collarbone. He moved back all the while, trying to lengthen the gap between him and the Kayle and get to a place where he could use Ahna’s length to her full advantage. When he managed it, he put the dviassegai to rapid use, and suddenly it was Baoill who was on the defensive, the man cursing and grunting with every reverse step he was forced to take.
By the way the Kayle was suddenly frowning, Raz thought it might have been the first time in his life the giant had ever been beaten into any kind of retreat.
Baoill recovered rapidly, though. As Ahna swung above and down at his head, the man stepped nimbly aside and forward, bringing Raz within reach again. The ax shrieked as it aimed to sever Raz’s neck, but he ducked and twisted, bringing a steel-clad fist around to punch at the Kayle’s face. Baoill shifted and brought an arm up to accept the blow, and the sharp edges of Raz’s knuckles cut black and blue furrows down the man’s shoulder. Baoill gave as good as he got, though, taking advantage of the brief opening to throw his own punch.
The haft of the man’s ax caught Raz in the chest, knocking the wind of out of him.
It was Raz’s turn to retreat, wheezing and struggling to catch his breath as he danced away from a pursuing Baoill. The man seemed unwilling to release his advantage, hounding Raz about the courtyard, bellowing his war cry as he swung and cleaved at the air, his strikes only ever barely missing as Raz ducked and weaved. By the time he got his wind back, Raz was bleeding from two more wounds across his chest and upper arm.
Slowly and steadily, the ground about the two men was turning from white to streaked and splotchy red.
As soon as he was able, Raz went on the offensive again. Ahna lanced out abruptly between Baoill’s strikes, her points finding their mark but becoming fouled in the thick plating of the man’s lopsided chest piece. The Kayle responded instantly, grabbing the dviassegai about the neck below her blades and holding her firmly to him. As the ax fell once again, one-handed this time, Raz dodged sideways before returning and vaulting over Ahna’s haft as he kicked.
The top of his foot connected with the side of the Kayle’s face, and Raz felt the crunch as at least one tooth came loose of its socket.
Baoill grunted in pain and staggered back, releasing his hold on Ahna. As she came away she took the loose leather platings with her, tearing the other straps and dragging them off the man’s shoulder. More blood fell to the ground as the white shirt beneath was revealed, the pale cloth marred by two thick points of crimson where the dviassegai’s tips had apparently managed to work their way through the armor. When Baoill found his footing he stood straight, spitting out blood and a pair of broken teeth before touching the fingers of his free hand to one of the red splotches, staring as they came away wet and sticky.
Then he looked over to Raz, who was busy kicking the leather chest piece free of Ahna’s points, and began to laugh.
A second later he was charging in headfirst again, the roar of the man’s army spurring him forward like the thunder of hooves leads a stampede.
For longer than either might have believed, the pair fought. Neither felt the fatigue that attempted to weigh them down, each too entranced in the battle. Pain was non-existent even as they cut and slashed each other’s skin and flesh, the sting of the wounds melting together with the bite of the wind as the snow began to fall harder about them. When one part of the courtyard became too precarious, slick with blood and packed ice as they stomped and darted over the ground, they would move to another area, then another. Eventually it seemed to onlookers that not a square foot of the massive semicircle was untouched, but before long the snow was falling so thick and rapid that the red evidence of the titans’ vicious passings was obscured by the even more powerful force of the squall rising around them.
Raz, though, was as unaware of the storm as he was the lacerations that cut across his chest, arms, and thighs, or the burn in his shoulders as he brought Ahna around faster and faster. He had eyes only for the Kayle, whose dark form shifted in and out of the snow as they met and retreated, then met and broke apart once more, over and over again. Ahna slashed. The ax fell. Claws arced though the air. A massive fist hurtled forward. Wings and tail whipped out. Heavy boots kicked up.
There seemed no end to the pattern, but even of this Raz was oblivious to. He was gone, taken away from the world in a way he had never been before, not even within the oppressive wall of Azbar’s Arena. It wasn’t the animal that had overcome him, for once. The scene before his eyes was white and grey and dark and bloody, not the frightening shades of black and red that descended as the Monster rose. His mind was clear and whole, his own in its entirety.
And it was focused on the single, obsessive need to kill the man towering before him.
They had made it to the edge of the courtyard that opened up to the endless emptiness of the heavens. On a clear day the pair might have looked out, over the edge, to bear witness to the splendor of the green and white lands laid out for them by whatever gods of creation truly reigned supreme. Instead, there was only a solid ocean of swirling, cold grey, the snow falling so thick and fast now Raz could barely make out the shape of the Laorin party standing some fifty feet away, their backs to the wall of the Citadel.
It was here, at the edge of the world, that Raz’s strength failed him.
Ahna flowed around him like liquid metal, whirling and spinning and striking out at every opening the Kayle offered him. They traded ground for the better part of three minutes, back and forth along the edge, each unwilling to disengage and step away for fear of leaving themselves vulnerable. Their weapons cr
ashed and cracked against each other, shrieking as only metal screaming over metal can. Sparks flew, flashing in their eyes, but not once did either give the other enough of a gap to go for a killing blow. Every opening was a trap, every feint readied with a counter attack. They were matched so evenly, Raz a little faster and Baoill a little stronger, it seemed for a time nature would decide the winner as both men blinked away snow and wind, fighting to keep their vision clear.
But Baoill, in the end, proved the more enduring of the two.
It happened as Raz decided it was time to chance a change in his patterns. The Kayle was too good a fighter, too skilled with his ax to allow himself to be beaten with moves he’d seen a dozen times. Until that moment Raz had kept as far from the man as possible, using Ahna’s greater reach to his advantage as often as he could. The tactic had been his saving grace often enough, but it had also been his bane, as the Kayle was always just quick enough to react to the strikes and lashes.
He had to get closer.
Raz made his move in the same moment he came to the decision, hesitation having long been cut from his mental state as he fought. As Baoill knocked aside yet another overhead cut from the dviassegai, Raz twisted and lunged forward, bringing Ahna’s pointed bottom end around with momentum the Kayle’s parry had provider her, driving the steel forward. For half-an-instant he tasted victory as the man’s blue eyes went wide, seeing the mistake he had made.
Schlunk!
Ahna’s point buried into flesh, and Raz went cold.
Blood followed the edge of the dviassegai’s steel, dripping to the ground and freezing to the metal. Baoill had brought up his right arm, using the limb like a shield. The dviassegai’s tip had run it through, driving between muscle and bone, but the sacrifice of the limb had saved the Kayle’s life.
And cost me mine, Raz realized in horror as the ax came down on Ahna’s haft, the inside curve of the iron blades catching the wood and steel like a hook. There was a massive tug, and Raz felt his fingers, numb and weak from the cold and fight, give way.
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