Then all were swept into the melee, steel clashing, men and horses falling, horses screaming riderless and wounded as lances splintered on shield and mail and bone. As the fighting closed hand to hand, lances falling aside, cries of the wounded and dying punctuated the butcher sounds of sword and axe on flesh.
It was so very different from Duke Richard’s drills: Alaric’s first true battle. Somehow surviving the initial clash unscathed, he soon found himself locked shield to shield with a man twice his age and size, who pressed him relentlessly and tried to crush his helm with a mace.
Alaric countered by ducking under his shield and wheeling his horse to the right, hoping to come at his opponent from the other side, but the man was already anticipating his move and swinging in counterattack. At the last possible moment, Alaric deflected the blow with his shield, reeling as he tried to keep his seat and strike at the same time. But his focus had been distracted, and instead of coming in from behind, on the man’s temporarily open right side, he only embedded his sword in the other’s high cantle.
He recovered before the blade could be wrenched from his grasp—just—gripping hard with his knees as his horse lashed out with a steel-shod foreleg and caught the man in the knee. Then, desperately parrying a blow from a second attacker, he managed to cut the first man’s girth and wound his mount, also kicking out at yet a third man who was approaching from his shield side. The first man hit the ground with a muffled clank of battle harness as his horse went down, and narrowly missed trampling as one of his own men thundered past in pursuit of one of Brion’s wounded.
Another strike, low and deadly, and Alaric’s would-be slayer was, himself, the slain. It was the first time Alaric had killed a man, but he dared not think about it just now. Breathing hard under his helmet, he wheeled to scan the battle for the king—and immediately had to defend himself from renewed attack by two men now afoot. He managed to finish them off, but less cleanly than he might have wished. He tried not to look at the ruins of the second man’s face as he fell screaming. But on a battlefield, he realized there was little room for finesse; only survival.
The king himself was faring little better. Though still mounted and holding his own, Brion had been swept away from his mortal enemy in the initial clash, and had not yet been able to win free to press for single combat. Nigel was fighting at his brother’s side, the royal banner in his shield hand and a sword in the other, but the banner mostly served to hamper Nigel and mark the location of Gwynedd’s king. Just now, both royal brothers were under serious attack from half a dozen of the Tolan men.
As for the Marluk, Alaric finally spotted him on the far side of the fighting, sword now in hand, apparently content, for the moment, to concentrate his efforts on cutting down some of Brion’s men and avoiding Brion’s reputed superior skill. As the two Haldane brothers beat back their attackers, the king glanced across the battlefield and saw his enemy, unhorsed another of his opponents with a backhanded blow, raised his sword, and shouted the enemy’s name:
“Gwernach!”
The pretender turned in his direction and jerked his horse to a rear, circling his sword above his head. His helmet was gone, either lost or discarded, and pale hair blew wild from beneath his mail coif.
“Leave him to me!” he shouted to his men, spurring toward Brion and cutting down another Haldane man in passing. “Stand and fight, usurper! Gwynedd is mine by right!”
The Marluk’s men fell back from the Gwynedd line as their master pounded across the field. With a savage gesture, Brion waved off his own men and spurred his horse toward the enemy.
Now was the time both sides had been waiting for: the direct, personal combat of the two kings. Steel shivered against shields as the two men met and clashed in the center of the field, exchanging ferocious blows. Their men, suddenly aware of the shift in battle, gradually ceased their own fighting and drew back to watch, temporarily suspending hostilities. Alaric kneed his mount closer to Nigel, standing a little in his stirrups to see, praying that the king could survive.
For a time, the two seemed evenly matched, exchanging and parrying blows with ease, though both men clearly were tiring. The Marluk managed to take a chunk out of the top of Brion’s shield, but Brion divested the Marluk of a stirrup, and nearly a foot.
Finally, Brion’s sword found the throat of his opponent’s mount. The wounded animal collapsed with a liquid scream, dumping its rider in a heap. Brion, discarding niceties in the interest of survival, tried to ride down his enemy then and there.
But the Marluk rolled beneath his shield on the first pass and nearly tripped up Brion’s horse, scrambling to his feet and bracing, sword still in hand, as Brion wheeled to come at him again. The second pass cost Brion his mount as well, gutted by the Marluk’s sword. As the horse went down screaming in a bloody tangle of entrails, Brion rolled clear and managed to end up on his feet, whirling to face his opponent.
Both men were breathing hard. Alaric could hear them panting inside their helmets. For several taut minutes the two circled one another and exchanged tentative blows as the rest of their forces eased cautiously closer to observe. Though the Marluk had the advantage of weight and height, Brion had youth and greater agility in his favor. The outcome, in terms of mere physical ability, was by no means certain.
Finally, after another inconclusive flurry of blows, the two again drew apart, visibly tiring, and the Marluk sketched an ironic salute in the direction of his opponent.
“You fight well, for a Haldane,” he conceded, still breathless. He gestured with his sword toward the waiting men. “We are well matched, at least in steel. And even were we to cast our men into the fray again, it would still come down to the same, in the end: you against me.”
“Or your power against mine,” Brion amended softly, letting the tip of his sword sink to rest against the ground. “That is your eventual intention, is it not?”
The Marluk shrugged and started to speak, but Brion interrupted.
“No, you would have slain me by steel if you could,” the king said. “To win by magic exacts a price, and might not give you the sort of victory you seek, if you would rule my human kingdom and not fear for your throne. The folk of Gwynedd would not take kindly to a Deryni king, after your bloody ancestors.”
The Marluk smiled and shrugged again. “By force, physical or arcane—it matters little in the long reckoning. It is the victory itself which will command the people after today. But you, Haldane, your position is far more precarious than mine, dynastically speaking. Do you see yon riders, and the slight one dressed in blue?”
He gestured with his sword toward the far opening of the clearing, where a dozen watching riders surrounded a pale, blue-clad figure on a mouse-grey palfrey.
“Yonder is my daughter and heir, Haldane,” he said smugly. “Regardless of the outcome here today, she rides free—you cannot stop her—to keep my name and blood and memory alive until another time. But you—your brother and heir stands near, his life a certain forfeit if I win.” He gestured toward Nigel, then rested the tip of his sword before him once more. “And the next and final Haldane is your uncle, Duke Richard of Carthmoor: a childless bachelor of fifty. After him, there are no others.”
Alaric cast a nervous glance at Nigel, watching with the Haldane banner beside him. What the Marluk had said was basically true. There were no other male Haldanes beyond Brion’s brother and his uncle, at least for now; and the queen, thus far, had failed to quicken, though he knew it was not for want of trying. Brion seemed besotted with his new queen, and she with him.
Nor, indeed, was there any way to prevent the escape of the Marluk’s heir, regardless of the outcome here. Even if Brion won today, the Marluk’s daughter would remain a future threat. The centuries-long struggle for supremacy in Gwynedd would not end here—unless, of course, Brion lost.
He knew Brion was very much aware of that, too. They had known it before they wor
ked the ritual that, God willing, had released the Haldane potential in Gwynedd’s king and given him the knowledge and power to stand against the Festillic pretender. He found himself holding his breath as the king, in a gesture of disdain, cast aside his shield and then removed his helm, tossing it after the shield.
And then, displaying far more confidence than he probably felt, for he would never play for higher stakes than life and Crown, Brion Haldane slowly backed off a few paces and lowered the tip of his blade to the ground, carefully and decisively tracing a symbol in the dust.
“Hear me, Hogan Gwernach, for I, Brion Haldane, Anointed of the Lord, King of Gwynedd and Lord of the Purple March, do call thee forth to combat mortal, for that thou hast raised hostile hand against me and, through me, against my people of Gwynedd. This I will defend upon my body and my soul, to the death, so help me God.”
The Marluk’s face had not changed expression during Brion’s challenge, but now he, too, cast aside his shield, pulled off his mail coif and arming cap, then strode out confidently, to set the tip of his sword to the symbol scratched in the dust and retrace its lines.
“And I, Hogan Gwernach, descendant of the lawful kings of Gwynedd in antiquity, do return thy challenge, Brion Haldane, and charge that thou art base pretender to the throne and the crown thou holdest. And this I will defend upon my body and my soul, to the death, so help me God.”
With the last words, he began drawing another symbol over the first one. Alaric could not see what it was, but it caused Brion to start back and then dash the Marluk’s sword aside with his own, using his boot to obliterate whatever his opponent had begun to draw. Alaric could not hear what Brion said then, as he restored the original lines, but he sensed the anger, and prayed that the king would not let that anger sway him to recklessness.
Fortunately, good sense prevailed. Whatever the king had said, it caused the Marluk to step back and salute sharply with his blade, a hard look on his face, then retreat perhaps a dozen feet as Brion did the same. As the king extended his arms from his sides, sword still in hand, Alaric saw his lips move: a warding spell, no doubt, for answering fire sprang up crimson at his back.
The Marluk answered with a similar defense, blue fire joining crimson to complete the protective circle. Nigel and the other men around Alaric gasped as it flared up in a containing dome of shimmering purple, and everyone moved back a few steps more.
With that preparation, both men raised their swords again, though the protecting dome partially obscured what went on within. Fire sizzled along both blades, vast bolts of energy beginning to arc from sword to sword between the men, ebbing and flowing as battle was joined. The dome brightened as they fought, containing energies so intense that all around it would have perished, had the wards not held it in. The air within grew hazy, so that those without could no longer see the principals who battled there.
So it continued for what seemed to Alaric like an eternity. The king’s men and the Marluk’s eyed one another with increasing nervousness. When, at last, the crackling haze in the dome began to flicker erratically and die down, naught could be seen within save for two ghostly, fire-edged figures in silhouette, one of them staggering drunkenly.
Even Alaric could not tell for certain which was which, though he thought he knew, and prayed he was correct. One of the men had fallen to his knees and remained there, sword lifted in a last, desperate warding-off gesture. The other stood poised to strike, though something seemed to hold him back.
For several heartbeats, the tableau remained frozen, the tension growing between the two. But then the kneeling man reeled sideward with a cry of anguish and let fall his sword, collapsing forward on his hands with head bowed in defeat.
The victor’s sword seemed to descend in slow motion, severing head from body in one blow and showering dust and victor and vanquished with blood. The act quenched the fire almost to nonexistence, so that at last they could see that it was Brion who had survived.
At that, a cheer went up from the men of Gwynedd. At the mouth of the canyon beyond, a slender figure on a grey horse wheeled to ride away with her escort. Those of the Marluk’s men who were still ahorse scrambled to follow after, some of them picking up men afoot as they fled. A few of the king’s men briefly gave pursuit, but fell back as the rest of the Marluk’s men began casting down their weapons and surrendering.
Brion could not have seen much through the haze that remained, for the dome seemed still intact, but he clearly was aware on some level that more was yet required of him. Staggering back to the center of the circle, he traced the dust-drawn symbol a final time and mouthed the syllables of a banishing spell.
Then, as the remnants of the dome collapsed inward and the fiery circle died away, he stabbed his sword into the cleansing earth and staggered to his knees, bracing both hands on the quillons to bow his head briefly before the cross-hilt. When he finally rose, at last becoming aware of the cheers of his men, he retrieved his sword and gazed briefly at the now-empty canyon mouth before turning to walk slowly toward the Haldane banner, leaving the headless body of his enemy behind him. The men fell silent and parted before him as he came, Gwynedd and Tolan men alike.
Most of Brion’s men remained ahorse or on their feet, perhaps two score of them, and most of Earl Arban’s men and Arban himself; far fewer of the Marluk’s men, and nearly all of them were wounded. The silence was palpable as he passed among them, and many of them looked wary of him.
He stopped and turned to look around him—at the wounded of both sides struggling upright to stare at him, interspersed with more than a score who would never move again. Among those dead, the Marluk was but one more. Under the Haldane banner in Nigel’s hand, Nigel and Alaric still sat their battle-weary steeds. He was relieved to note that Saer, Prince Nigel’s squire, had survived the battle: afoot, but supporting himself on Nigel’s stirrup.
In the silence after battle, Brion let his gaze fall on each man in turn, catching and holding each man’s attention in rapt, unresisting thrall.
“We shall not speak of the details of this battle beyond this place,” he said simply. The words crackled with authority, compulsion, and only Alaric Morgan, of all who heard, knew the force behind that simple statement. Though most of them would never realize it consciously, every man present had just been touched indelibly by Brion Haldane’s special magic.
Chapter 47
“For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.”
—PSALMS 18:39
IN what remained of the day, the king set his men to see to the wounded, Gwynedd men and Tolaners alike. The Tolan prisoners were detailed to bury the dead. Earl Arban’s forces had lost three men, but he elected to take them back to Eastmarch for burial; no pleasant task in the summer heat, but he wished not to leave behind any of those whose welfare he so recently had sworn to protect.
“I understand,” Brion told him, as Arban and his party prepared to ride out. “Know that I appreciate that you came back to assist us, and I value those men’s lives. Did they have families?”
“I don’t even know, Sire,” Arban said with a shake of his head. “They are so recently come to my service. . . . But I’ll find out,” he promised.
“Do,” Brion said. “I shall have purses sent to their families, when you send me word.”
“Thank you, Sire.”
When Arban and his men had gone, the Gwynedd men not tending the wounded began to make camp, for it clearly was too late to even think about heading out. At least there were three fewer graves to be dug, and the Tolaners would be allowed to take away the body of their fallen duke for burial with his own kin.
Once the others were buried, the Tolan men were sworn never to raise arms against Gwynedd again, before being released to take their wounded and depart. Lord Lester sent out pickets to guard the departure point toward Cardosa, to make certain they
did not return.
Shortly before dusk, while the Gwynedd men were settling into camp for the night, cleaning weapons and supping on meager travel rations, Jamyl Arilan and Llion arrived in a cloud of dust with twenty more Haldane lancers, sent by Duke Richard to find the king and his brother.
“We thought you would be in Eastmarch,” Jamyl said, throwing himself from his horse. “What happened here?”
Brion, who had been moving among the wounded with Alaric, came to join his friend as Llion dismounted with less alacrity, anxious eyes searching Alaric’s form for any sign of injury.
“A few of our friends from Tolan decided to meet me here instead,” the king said lightly. “Hogan Gwernach took particular pains to make me feel welcome.” He paused a beat. “I’m afraid I wasn’t feeling particularly hospitable.”
Jamyl’s eyes widened, and he came close to seize the king’s arm. “Brion, what did you do?” he whispered.
“I’d prefer not to talk about it,” Brion replied. “Suffice it to say that Hogan Gwernach is no longer a threat.”
“What does that mean?” Jamyl insisted, searching the king’s eyes. “Did you kill him?”
Brion pulled his arm away and glanced at the ground. “I did what I had to do,” he whispered. “Now, leave it, Jamyl!”
“But—”
“Just leave it!” the king repeated, and turned away to hail one of the men who had just risen from helping tend the wounded. As he continued on to join the man, Jamyl resolved to find out precisely what the king had meant.
He soon deduced that the king had, indeed, killed Hogan Gwernach—after something else had happened. But finding someone who would talk about it proved more difficult than Jamyl had expected. Though he questioned several of Nigel’s men who had joined him and the king at Rustan, none of them were inclined to provide details. It took more insistent persuasion later that evening, when he drew one of the knights well apart from the others and simply took control of his mind.
The King's Deryni Page 58