by CJ Brightley
“The terms?” He was dismounting now, deliberately turning his back on me as he did so. A terrible insult, but I was already furious enough that it made little difference.
“Single combat, any weapon you have on your person. On foot.”
“And if I win we get our pick of the girls?” He smiled viciously, and a light colored scar at the corner of his mouth stood out with odd clarity.
“If you win, I’ll not stand in your way.” Take that how you will. I meant that I would be dead, but he apparently was satisfied, for he flung the reins to one of his friends.
I spoke in Common. “Stand back, everyone. If he wins, defend yourselves how you may.” There was a grumbling mutter and I hoped no one would do anything too foolish.
The fight was short, as most are. He had a shield, small for suvari use, and I didn’t, but I’m used to fighting without one. I prefer a knife in my off hand when I’m using a sword one-handed, but I didn’t use it yet. I could tell from his stance he was a little afraid of me, though he hid it well.
He made a quick slash, I dodged, then another, I blocked and drove in, my left hand grasping the top rim of his shield to pull it aside and my right delivering the sword thrust from high down into his chest. It is a good move for me, since I’m so tall, and difficult for an opponent to counter. It also leaves my gut open, so I use it with caution, though often I can keep my opponent’s shield between our bodies.
His death was quick. I hate to see a man die slowly. His friends muttered a moment and I stood, waiting to see if they would leave or if they would charge. Someone in the crowd retched. I remembered that sickened feeling after my first kill. It never quite goes away, but sometimes you have no other options.
I’d hoped one death would be enough, but it wasn’t. They charged more or less in a group, but the three remaining horsemen hung back a moment. The men on foot did not use their advantage of numbers well, or I would have had no chance. A group must take advantage of its numbers, surround a lone fighter to strike from all sides. I had enough time to step back, to put the wall to my back. The first man left his shield a little too high, and I slipped my sword under it as I knelt, then swung it around again, higher this time, to catch another in the throat. By then my knife was in my left hand, and I moved automatically.
If it were not for the blood and the cries of pain, fighting would be almost like a dance. Not that I ever learned to dance, but I’ve seen it. The precision, the judgment. When can I have my knife there in his side, if I first block this strike? Where does that put my feet, and where can I move from there?
It was almost over when the three horsemen charged. I had not a scratch until then, though I was covered in hot blood. I would have twisted away, but my boot caught on a man’s arm as he lay dead at my feet. The horse tripped and barreled into me before crashing headlong into the wall just behind me. The horse screamed in pain, the white bones of one broken foreleg glistening, and I gasped at the sharp blinding pain in my ribs where its knee had hit me.
I rolled away from flailing hooves that narrowly missed my head, one hand slipping on the bloodied arm of the body beneath me. It was probably more luck than skill that enabled me to block the deadly thrust as the man leapt towards me, and then more luck still that he stumbled and I slipped my knife between his ribs, hard and fast. He fell heavily into me but I rolled away, sword still in hand, to face the other two horsemen.
“Go back.” I wanted my voice to sound intimidating, but to me it sounded like a croak.
However, they gave me one final look of horror and galloped away, so I suppose it worked.
I’m always a little dazed after combat, the scent of blood metallic in my mouth, and it was a moment before I realized that everyone had moved forward to stare at me. Hakan pushed past Priven to stop in front of me.
“Are you hurt?”
I could not seem to find my voice again, so I shook my head.
“You’re covered in blood. Come, let’s clean you up.”
I nodded. Speak, fool. “Right. Is anyone hurt?”
Several more men were around me, and they all seemed to be jabbering, though the voices blurred together. I felt light-headed from the pain in my ribs, which seemed to be growing rather than receding.
“No. Take off your tunic.”
It felt odd to strip down next to the well, with dozens of people watching, but I did. Hakan poured several buckets of icy water over me, and my muscles tightened in the chill. I knelt, leaning my elbow on one knee, so that he could dump another bucket of water over my hair, which was stringy with blood. It would be a pleasant smell, coppery and warm, if it didn’t also taste of fear.
“You are hurt.”
“What?” I blinked in surprise.
“Go get a bandage!” He flung the words over his shoulder to whomever would listen, and several people moved away from the small crowd. Hakan examined a deep cut on my arm. I didn’t remember it happening at all.
I stood, or rather I tried. My head suddenly whirled with the pain in my ribs and I clutched the edge of the well, feeling ashamed of my weakness. I wished everyone would stop staring at me.
Hakan looked me over and suddenly cried out. “Kemen! Your leg!”
“What?” I felt stupidly confused until I looked down. Blood was dripping steadily from a generous cut high on the outside of my breeches on the right, soaking through the thick fabric. That must have happened right at the end, when I didn’t move quickly enough out of the horseman’s way. His sword had trailed behind him, a poor move, hardly an intentional strike. He’d been off balance as his horse stumbled into me and then into the wall.
“Come on. Let’s go inside. You’ll need to strip down completely.”
I blinked in surprise. Was he going to dress the wounds himself? Surely that wasn’t part of a prince’s education.
He put one arm about me for support as we walked the short distance from the well to the boarding house, but my pride would not let me lean on him until the end. Aye, there was a distant ache in my right leg, I started to feel it as we walked, but it was more a feeling of weakness than pain in the leg that made me limp. There was a growing cloud at the edges of my vision, and the ground seemed to rise steeply in front of me as we got closer to the boarding house.
“It’s only a little farther. Come on.” He hitched my right arm about his shoulders more firmly and the pain in my ribs exploded.
Everything whirled, darkness threatening to take me, and I stopped to lean over, putting my head down close to my knees.
I could hear the fear in Hakan’s voice as he spoke to me. “Come Kemen, it’s not much farther.”
I couldn’t seem to get enough air, and I closed my eyes for a moment as I took a deep breath. I coughed, and the sudden searing pain well nigh overcame me. Everything was spinning, and how I stayed on my feet I don’t know. Hakan hauled me by my arm, stumbling and half-blind, into the boarding house and straight to a bed.
Flat on my back, the coughing eased a little, though the pain of each breath brought spots before my eyes. I tasted blood in my mouth after each bout of coughing. Hakan pulled off my boots and bloodstained breeches, swearing at the wound on my leg. I didn’t know he knew some of the words he used, and I laughed until I gasped for breath and coughed up more blood.
“Hakan?” I felt as if I were underwater, breathing water, forcing it out of my lungs only with difficulty. “You have to kill the horse.”
“What are you talking about?” He was not really listening.
“The horse. Its leg was broken.” I coughed again, and my skin prickled with cold suddenly as spots whirled before me. I let my eyes close, but Hakan’s working on my leg would not let me sleep. He cleaned the wound and started to bandage it.
“It needs stitches.”
He looked up at me, his eyes wide and afraid.
“In my pack. A tin in the bottom.” I coughed again. “Needle and sinew.”
He dug around in the pack and finally pulled out the tin. “Wha
t do I do?”
“Sew it up.”
“I don’t know how.” He sounded panicky.
“Then get a woman to do it.” A woman’s stitches would be more even anyway.
He disappeared and came back only a minute later with Twilling’s wife. Lira Twilling was a calm and stolid woman, but now she looked nearly as frightened as Hakan did. She pushed Hakan down to sit in the one chair and knelt to examine the wound.
“Hold the edges like this.” Her voice was steady, and I hoped Hakan heard it as reassuring.
Hakan’s fingers were cool and I could feel them shaking slightly. She looked at me and I nodded. She and Hakan both held the edges of the wound firmly, as if they expected me to twitch away. I closed my eyes. The sting of the needle was distant and inconsequential next to the searing pain in my ribs. My left hand explored the damage gently. Three ribs broken, another possibly so. Cracked maybe. At least one of the three was broken in two places.
I had to cough between the third and fourth stitches, and swallowed blood. Hakan cursed, I think because my leg jerked a little, and then began to apologize in a manner entirely too courtly for a border town. I interrupted him roughly.
“Naoki, keep your tongue civil in a woman’s presence.” It was the best I could do to cover his blunder, but even that left me gasping for breath.
“That must have hurt. I’ll have to do that stitch again. When we finish I’ll bring him some ale.” Twilling’s wife spoke quietly to Hakan.
I shook my head. “Only my ribs hurt.”
“Where, what happened?” Hakan looked down at my ribs for the first time. I used my left arm to point. Raising my right arm caused flickering tongues of pain to shoot through my entire torso.
“The horse’s knee hit me here.”
He looked more closely. If my skin had been lighter, I suppose it would have been easier to see, but he must have seen something because he cursed again. I laughed but only for a moment; even tightening my stomach hurt. I clenched my jaw in an effort not to cough again, but I couldn’t contain it, and when I took my hand from my mouth, it was spattered with blood. I heard his voice distantly, but I could no longer make out his words, and slipped into the warm darkness that had been beckoning for some minutes.
I woke on my side gasping for breath, gagging and spitting blood. Lira Twilling brought a bucket, and Hakan insisted that I stay as I was, lying on my right side on the broken ribs, because I’d nearly choked to death before he turned me. It hurt, but he was right. I coughed and spit and tried not to groan at the pain.
Lira Twilling brought me brandy, which helped with the pain some. I told Hakan that the bodies must be burned out of respect for the dead. I didn’t see it done, but I smelled the distinctive acrid scent of burning flesh. By nightfall I was exhausted, but I was breathing a little more easily and I could lay on my back without choking. Hakan asked me if I wanted dinner, but I shook my head.
Hakan ate dinner eyeing me worriedly. I let my eyes close, but I couldn’t really sleep. Finally I had him help me sit up, pillowed against the headboard of the bed. I closed my eyes and thought, because I didn’t have anything else to do. I didn’t devise any real plans to help Hakan regain his throne, but it gave me something to contemplate rather than the pain.
Lira Twilling knocked on the door and said that several people wanted to see me. I nodded.
But Hakan looked at me oddly and asked, “Are you hot? You’re sweating.”
“No.” If anything I was a little cold.
Lira put her hand to my forehead as if I were a little child. “I think you’re feverish. How do you feel?” I remember it startled me that she touched my skin as if I were any Tuyet; she wiped her hand on her apron afterward.
“Well enough, considering.” Talking was absurdly difficult and left me breathless, my vision fading at the edges.
She frowned, but she opened the door to let in the first of my visitors. There must have been a crowd, men and women, a few younger boys accompanied by older brothers or sisters. I don’t remember much of what they said, but I do remember smiling weakly at them, wishing they would go away, at least until I could speak properly. Their gratitude was welcome, though I’m not sure what I could have done differently, but it shamed me to be in bed while others walked around.
The last person who asked to see me was a young girl accompanied by her father.
“I wanted to thank you.”
I didn’t recognize her voice, but finally I realized she was the girl the horseman had pointed to when he said he wanted pretty girls. I didn’t know her father either, he’d only trained with the sickle once or twice.
“What’s your name?” Phraa, my voice was so weak.
“Bethla.” She was pretty; the horseman was right. A round face with a shy smile, a turned up nose, blond hair with brown eyes and the comfortable figure of one used to working outdoors.
“I hope you didn’t see the fight.”
She shook her head. “No, I closed the door. My father told me how brave you were.”
I smiled in surprise. “What else could I have done?”
She smiled back at me, shy and looking very young. I was already in the king’s service at that age. “Father says you’re a hero.”
I smiled again. The darkness called and I didn’t hear her leave, though I should have bid her farewell.
I woke sometime past midnight, thirsty and needing to relieve myself. When I sat up, with no little effort, the ends of the bones ground painfully against each other. The pale moonlight barely lit the room, and I stood still for a moment, trying to remember if there was a bucket close by or whether I needed to go outside. Was there water in the kitchen? When I moved toward the door, I stumbled over a dark mass and barely caught myself with one hand on the wall. Even that simple shock was nauseatingly painful.
“What do you need?” The dark mass was Hakan, rolled up in his cloak.
“To go outside. And a drink.” I wondered distantly why he wasn’t in his own room down the hall in a bed, rather than on the floor. Probably worried about me, though he didn’t need to be.
“The bucket’s in the corner.” He leaned on one elbow. “There’s water here, but brandy’s in the kitchen if you want it.”
“Water’s fine.”
“I’ll get it for you if you want.”
“Water’s fine.” I repeated. I just wanted to lie down again.
Lira Twilling was right; I did have a fever. I was cold that night, despite the warm weather and the thick blanket I pulled up nearly over my head. But it wasn’t serious and I slept more deeply sometime near dawn.
Hakan wasn’t there when I woke around noon, so I pushed myself up, swaying and weak, waiting for the pain to recede. My breeches were washed and folded, my shirt replaced by a new one. I supposed the old one couldn’t be salvaged. Pulling the shirt over my head was a long and painful endeavor. I wondered whether I should sit down before venturing down the hallway, but that’s not my nature. I buckled on my sword more out of habit than anything else; I wasn’t fit to wield it.
Someone had repaired the slit in my breeches; the color was so faded it was hard to tell which stains were new. I followed voices down the hall to the dining room and pushed open the door to enter, hoping just to make it to a chair. Everyone stood, their faces swimming before me, and Hakan darted forward to guide me to a seat. I dropped into it and leaned forward, feeling the blood fill my head and clear it, the voices surrounding me becoming more defined. When I straightened there were dozens of eyes on me, and I nearly fled back down the hall. But a warrior faces his fears, and so I steeled myself for the onslaught.
I don’t like being stared at. You would think, having taught fighting, that I’d be used to people’s eyes on me, but the soldiers looked at the moves and techniques, not at me. I cannot say why it is different, but somehow it is.
Someone gave me a thick napkin, a bowl of steaming vegetable soup, rich black bread and goatsmilk cheese, ale and water, and a generous serving of
the best lamb of the spring. I ate slowly. Everything seemed difficult, and I had to turn aside to cough frequently, the pain spreading in a throbbing wave from my ribs up to my scalp, making my skin tingle with clammy sweat.
The conversation flowed around me like river water around a rock or a fallen tree. I was surrounded by it, but apart, as I concentrated on guiding each bite into my mouth and on not dropping the mug of ale. Water tasted better, but ale eased the pain a little, and by the time I finished I felt noticeably better. I leaned back in the chair, resting my right arm on the table so it did not pull my side.
Hakan leaned over to speak in my ear. “How are you feeling?” His eyes searched my face, and I thought he looked older suddenly.
I smiled as best I could. “Better. How much did this dinner cost?” Probably all I had left, I imagined. At the time, it seemed a logical question, because I’d no longer be able to train the townsmen, but now it seems a bit thick-headed.
“Nothing.”
I coughed, bringing the napkin up to my mouth as I leaned over. I could not conceal my gasp of pain, but the blood in the napkin was much less this time.
Hakan spoke quietly. “They want to sing you the Hero Song when you’re ready to hear it.”
I sat up in surprise. “What? No!”
Adin was sitting across the table, and he looked over at my exclamation. He leaned forward, placing both arms on the table to look squarely into my face. “Have you had enough to eat?”
I nodded.
“Then we’ll sing.” He smiled broadly.
“No!”
He stopped in surprise. There is an old tradition that the changing of dynasties comes when the father of a new line performs a great feat of heroism, one that is recognized as absolutely selfless and involves great personal risk, perhaps even death. Hakan’s father’s great grandfather became the first king of his dynasty by virtue of the heroism of his father, who died in battle defending a village from the Ophrani. Of course, there are many heroic deeds that are not the forerunner of a new dynasty at all. There are other conditions; a failing rule, a great threat to the kingdom, and of course the singing of the Song itself, among other things. I couldn’t remember them all, and I was fairly sure Adin didn’t either.