The First Blade Of Ostia

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  ‘Banneret-General dal Sharnhome leads punitive raiding parties into Ruripathia! Duke assures citizens that there will be no war!’

  The news continued, but it was the mention of Mistria that Bryn was most interested in. Mistria certainly was the man of the hour, getting precedence over the brewing conflict in the north. Bryn supposed that petty wars with Ruripathia were so common, and so little came of them, that Mistria’s achievements probably were more newsworthy. He had remained undefeated for some time and many of his fans seemed to believe that would continue to be the case. The lofty goal of a perfect one hundred and twenty-five points was growing ever closer for Panceri Mistria.

  Bryn returned his thoughts to the task at hand. Finding physicians who would attend duels was not difficult; there were many around the city who were happy to provide the service. This was despite the tacit illegality of the enterprise, and due to the extortionate rates they could charge. As Bryn handed over their share of the fee, it occurred to him that it would have been more than enough to satisfy his family’s creditors for the next few months. Perhaps he had chosen the wrong career path.

  * * *

  A LIGHT MIST hovered over the ground of the chosen duelling field, lifted from the grass by the warming air. It was early, but already Bryn could feel the temperature starting to rise even though the summer was all but over. Bryn’s eyes were heavy and he hadn’t slept well the night before. Amero looked relaxed and refreshed, clearly less nervous than his second.

  All of the previous duels that Bryn was involved in had taken place when he was at the Academy. They usually occurred during the darker days of winter when people had less to do and boredom led them to poor choices. That meant dawn happened several hours later than that day, and Bryn rued having had to get up so early.

  The rules were simple. At the first sight of blood, both combatants ceased fighting. It was this standard, accepted rule that Bryn and Thadeo’s second, Giaco dal Barraco, were there to ensure was followed. There was no rule to dictate how or from where that blood would be drawn and overzealous strikes could cause far greater injury than was required. That was what the physician was there for. Even a simple cut could go septic, lead to blood poisoning and kill if left untreated, an eventuality that was not in anyone’s interests.

  The duellists were informed of the rules, limited as they were, and faced one another waiting for the instruction to begin. Dal Strenna looked as though he would rather be anywhere else. Amero looked raring to go. Bryn checked with dal Barraco and then, with a sigh, gave the command to begin.

  The reason for Bryn not having any recollection of dal Strenna’s ability despite his best efforts to remember was quickly exposed. He was a middling swordsman at best, by Academy standards. Bryn could see right from the off that the duel would not last long and that there could only be one result. Dal Strenna was a perfect example of the aristocratic type who attended the Academy for no reason other than it being expected of them because of their position. He was not bad—no one who managed to graduate from the Academy was—but Amero was in an entirely different class.

  Amero danced forward with three fast cuts, right-left-right, none of which were intended to strike home. He was far lighter on his feet than dal Strenna, who didn’t seem to have maintained a rigorous training regime since leaving the Academy. At best he could have been one of the idlers lounging around on a sofa in one of the more expensive salons like those Amero had initially been keen on. Bryn’s insistence on choosing a salon of substance rather than style was certainly paying off now.

  Amero allowed dal Strenna to take the initiative for a moment, for nothing other than to exercise his back leg it seemed. He danced backward as fluidly as he had forward, effortlessly parrying away dal Strenna’s comparatively clumsy strikes. Amero had a broad smile on his face as he toyed with dal Strenna. Bryn looked to his opposite number whose face gave away the fact that he was all too well aware how this duel would end. All he could hope for now was that his friend would not be too badly injured.

  Amero held his ground and parried away a thrust that left dal Strenna so open Bryn would have had enough time to walk over and put in a cutting strike himself. Bryn expected he would make a quick cut to one of dal Strenna’s shoulders, or if he felt particular offence, to a cheek. Instead he whipped his sword across dal Strenna’s face in a vicious cut that opened it from jaw to opposite temple.

  Bryn’s jaw dropped in surprise and horror as dal Strenna shrieked in pain and dropped his sword. Both of his hands went to his face and blood flowed from between his fingers. Dal Barraco and the physician rushed forward to dal Strenna while Amero turned and began to walk toward Bryn. He nonchalantly inspected the tip of his blade as he went, and smiled to Bryn when he arrived.

  ‘Glad that’s dealt with,’ he said. ‘I think I owe you breakfast now.’

  Bryn didn’t know what to say. The viciousness of Amero’s behaviour was unwarranted and utterly shocking. The calm and detached way he spoke about it was equally so. The young man was maimed for life over a foolish and unintended insult, and Amero didn’t give a damn. Bryn wondered if this was what he had intended all along, and felt ill at the thought.

  CHAPTER 15

  Bryn woke to the sound of shuffling and scraping. It was still dark outside, although the warm orange glow of a mage lamp out on the street cast enough light through his window blinds to create harsh shadows in his small apartment. It took him a moment to go from sleep to awareness and his heart began to race as he realised the sound was coming from his door.

  There was no reason he could think of that anyone would be at his door in the middle of the night, unless they were there for nefarious purposes. He had heard few enough instances of arrests being made over duels, let alone any of the City Watch turning up at a participant’s home in the middle of the night. A moment’s consideration was all it took to dismiss that possibility.

  He had no enemies, so it would have to be a case of robbery. Any would-be robbers had made a poor choice in coming to his apartment. He took his sword from the hook on the wall beside his bed as quietly as possible and slowly sat up, swinging his legs out from underneath his blanket. He placed his feet on the bare floorboards as softly as he could and stood, hoping they wouldn’t creak and betray his movement.

  The door to his apartment was still bolted. He padded towards it as silently as he could manage, carefully stepping over the one floorboard he knew to have a particularly bad creak. He pressed his ear to the door but of the sound that had woken him he could detect no trace. He felt his foot brush against something on the floor.

  Satisfied that his door was not about to be kicked in he knelt down and fumbled around in the darkness to find the object his foot had brushed against. It was a small fold of paper. It seemed that someone had felt the need to push a note underneath his door in the middle of the night.

  He returned his sword to its hook and went to one of the windows. He opened the window blind, allowing more of the light from the mage lamp on the street to get in.

  The lamps were something of an anachronism. They were one of the few objects that had survived down to the present time from the days of the mages. It was difficult for Bryn to imagine just how old they must be. Each lamp was a thick glass sphere that contained some form of enchanted magical energy. Each evening as the light of the sun waned, the lamps would wax. By the time full darkness had fallen they would reach the peak of their illumination, casting a warm orange-yellow light all around them. There were thousands of them all along the streets of Ostenheim, ensuring the major thoroughfares were illuminated every hour of the day.

  To steal or tamper with a mage lamp would invite the attention of the headsman’s axe. The reason for their harsh protection was simply down to the fact that there were no more of them being made. The last true mage had been put to death the better part of a thousand years before and no more magical items could be created. They were said to have not dimmed an iota in all the years of their existence, so the
only danger was theft and vandalism. Such was the way of things that this rarely, if ever, occurred.

  Bryn broke the wax seal on the note and unfolded it. He had to angle it to cast some of the light coming through the window onto the paper. It was from Bautisto. He was intrigued to see what information needed to be conveyed to him in the small hours.

  In a neat and austere script—much in keeping with his swordplay—Bautisto instructed him to bring his full fighting kit along with clothes and other necessaries for several days away from the city the next morning. There was no other information and Bryn’s curiosity was piqued. What could Bautisto have planned?

  * * *

  BRYN HAD STRUGGLED to get back to sleep after reading Bautisto’s note. He yawned repeatedly as he leaned against one of the posts supporting the roof of Bautisto’s salon as he watched through the skylight his second sunrise in as many days. Finally Bautisto appeared out of the back room with a travelling bag slung over his shoulder.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Tanosa,’ Bautisto said. ‘I heard of a match becoming available there, but the duel is tomorrow evening. We’ll need to travel hard to get there in time. If we catch the morning express carriage it should have us there by late tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Is that the best that’s on offer?’ Bryn said, disappointed by the reality behind the mysterious note.

  ‘At such short notice it is. But believe me when I tell you that it is a good option. Better than I had hoped for, merely less convenient. It is against a decent regional duellist and there are Ladder points to be had if you win. I sent word that we would accept the match last night and at such short notice I was able to command a high price. Twice your usual purse. No one else was available so we must count ourselves lucky.’

  Other than the inconvenience of getting to Tanosa by the next day, it didn’t sound bad. He needed the money and would have taken it anyway, but the Ladder points were an added attraction. In essence, the match would be no different to a duel in the city. His initial reaction was born from snobbery. The swordsmen who populated the regional circuit were often looked down on as being second rate, for no reason other than that they were not in the city. Many of them were Bannerets, so they had the same Academy training most city duellists had. When Bryn thought about it he realised that the scorn was foolish, but nonetheless felt uncomfortable with the notion that a regional duel was the only one he could get.

  While most of the money and glamour was to be found in Ostenheim, and it was certainly where the very top tier of swordsmen were, there were several small cities and large towns dotted around Ostia that also had a demand for the spectacle offered by the arena. While none were big enough to sustain a large and diverse pool of competitors, between all of them it was possible. For those who found it difficult to make a living in Ostenheim it was an alternative, but not one Bryn was initially interested in. It was usually a more attractive proposition for Bannerets who were originally from the provinces and wished to return there after leaving the Academy.

  For Bryn, born and bred in the city, the thought of traipsing around the country from town to town leading a nomadic life was not appealing. Ostenheim was the centre of the world as far as he was concerned.

  They walked from Bautisto’s salon to the eastern gate of the city. There was a passenger coach station outside each of the city’s gates where private individuals could pay for passage to any of the other cities and towns of the Duchy. Tanosa was one of the largest, perhaps the largest in the Duchy after Ostenheim. It was also the home seat of one of the twelve elector count families of Ostia, where his elder sister lived and hopefully the location of a successful duel and good payday.

  The express carriage would travel through the night, changing horses at various way-stations along the route, thus allowing them to make the best time possible; better even than they would have been able to manage pushing hard on horseback. The carriage would also give him the best chance of arriving in Tanosa in a condition to fight a duel. If Bryn was lucky, the early departure hour might mean they were the only ones on the carriage. That would allow Bryn to stretch out and sleep as much as possible. The more relaxed and rested he was on arrival, the better a chance he would have in his match.

  * * *

  BRYN AND BAUTISTO’S sudden trip out of the city was perfectly timed for Amero. With all that was going on—having to deal with the dal Strenna idiot chief amongst it—he had little opportunity to take full advantage of his new-found energy. At first he had not known how much benefit he would derive from it, but the results were almost immediately visible. Being so much fresher made everything else easier, and had instantly closed the gap between him and Bryn.

  The extra speed that came with a well-rested body was only one of the advantages. He could push himself harder for longer when they were training, could wear Bryn down with less detriment to himself. Where before he had hobbled out of Bautisto’s salon at the end of every morning’s training, now he felt well-worked and nothing more. The daily visit to his secret friend on the way home alleviated even that.

  After a few days, Amero started to feel lazy. It was the same sense he used to get in the Academy when he knew he was letting his training slacken in favour of other pursuits. The difference now was that he was training as hard as ever. It was only that his capacity was greatly extended. It struck him as foolish to sit around and enjoy his new-found energy, and be content with the edge it had already given him.

  He could happily put in several more hours of work a day, and the advantage that could give him was tantalising. It would be difficult to explain how he was suddenly able to do another session in the afternoon however. Bryn and Bautisto being away gave him the chance to put everything in place without being noticed. A private and very expensive tutor to train against, and a small warehouse in Oldtown that still smelled of the exotic spices it had once housed were his solution.

  CHAPTER 16

  It was late the following afternoon when Bryn’s carriage clattered up to the gates of Tanosa. It had been filled to capacity, and the journey was far from comfortable.

  The small city sat overlooking what would become the Eastway River farther downstream, but here it was called the Whitewater. The river’s source was well away to the northeast, past the Silver Hills and up in the southern reaches of the Telastrian Mountains. The water was a cloudy white colour as it churned its way past the city; very different to the dark and not particularly inviting shade it took on by the time it reached Ostenheim.

  As in Ostenheim, the carriage depot was outside the town walls, so they had to walk from there. When Bryn exited the carriage, he could feel all of his joints pop and click. His muscles were stiff and his back ached from the cramped conditions on board. There had been several opportunities to get out for a brief walk while the horses were being changed, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the discomfort he was now experiencing. He worried about his duel later that evening—leaving the city for a duel was humbling enough, losing it would be downright embarrassing.

  They unloaded their baggage and made their way into the town. In many ways it appeared to be a smaller version of Ostenheim. There was little difference in terms of the style of architecture and the building materials used and as they walked down the street, between tall buildings on either side, Bryn thought one could be forgiven for mistaking the place as Ostenheim.

  ‘Do you have any idea of where we’re going?’ Bryn said, after they had been walking for a few minutes.

  ‘In a manner of speaking. I have the name of an inn where accommodation has been arranged for us. Once we’re there, I have the name of a man to contact. The duel is not for several hours yet, so there’s no hurry and hopefully you will have time to rest.’

  It appeared that Bautisto was not the type of man to ask for directions without very good reason and they continued wandering for several more minutes before Bryn finally demanded the name of the inn from him and asked a passer-by himself.

  Tha
t done, it didn’t take long to find their way to The Five Coronets. The inn was named to commemorate the fact that the counts of Tanosa had been dukes of Ostia on five occasions, more than any of the other elector count families.

  The inn was much like any other that Bryn had happened to visit. There was nothing about it, or the town itself, that justified the snide contempt those from Ostenheim often held the provincial towns in. He could see why his sister was happy there and wondered if there would be time to call on her and Nicolo. Probably not, which would no doubt draw his mother’s ire when he got home.

  There were a number of patrons in the taproom, eating, drinking and chatting. Bautisto instructed him to sit while he went to attend to the details with the innkeeper. Bautisto was insisting on taking care of everything, for which Bryn was glad. The journey had drained all the energy out of him, and he had no idea how he was going to reinvigorate himself before his duel in a few hours.

  * * *

  THE ARENA in Tanosa was far larger than Bryn had expected, far larger than the one he had fought at in Ostenheim. He was even more surprised to learn that it was one of several there. He had felt humbled by having to come to the small city in the first place, but now he felt humbled by his foolishly preconceived arrogance. There was a capacity crowd and he felt a flutter of nerves at the thought of competing in front of so many people. What made it worse was that he was duelling a local banneret and it was unlikely the crowd would give him a warm welcome.

  He had slept for a couple of hours, but it hadn’t been enough to entirely undo the effect of all those hours in a carriage bumping along rough roads. His aches and stiffness were supplemented by the dullness of thought brought on by a lack of sleep.