by Garth Nix
It seemed that everyone for leagues around had been woken and “encouraged” to come to witness the combat. There were at least a hundred people gathered on three sides of the green. Even children and babies were there, the prospect of blood notwithstanding.
A cheer rose up as Sir Odo walked onto the green.
He waved back, wondering if he should say something. But anything he might have said was drowned out by Sir Saskia’s appearance, which prompted a roar like nothing he had heard since Lenburh had beaten the rival village Gelton in the greased-pig-chasing contest.
If the combat was to be judged by popularity, he had already lost.
Eleanor noted, though, that Sir Saskia’s people were vigorously encouraging the cheering. She frowned as she saw one of the soldiers slap a young man hard on the back. He hadn’t been cheering. Now he was.
“Good morning, people of Hryding!” Sir Saskia cried, waving gauntleted hands that caught the sunlight, sending golden flashes into the eyes of her admirers. “This is a rare and wonderful day. I am delighted to introduce to you Sir Odo of Lenburh and his enchanted sword, Hildebrand Shining Foebiter!”
Odo took an awkward bow, then drew Biter and waved him above his head. He tried to reflect the light the way Sir Saskia had, but that only made people squint and look annoyed.
Eleanor stood to one side with Mannix, trying to imitate his impassive stance, although she was barely half his size. Mannix looked as though nothing ever bothered him. Maybe a squire was all he’d ever dreamed of being. He seemed happy enough standing on the sidelines while someone else got all the glory.
Eleanor wondered if she should grow her hair long and plait it like Sir Saskia’s.
“Your boy looks nervous,” Mannix said to her out the side of his mouth. “Ten to one says he gets trounced.”
“Not if Biter has anything to say about it.”
“Ah, yes, the sword.” Mannix smirked. “All talk and no teeth, I bet. What else have you got?”
Eleanor rose to the defense of her friend. “His armor was forged in a dragon’s fire. Beat that.”
He looked down at her, perhaps wondering if she was making it up. “This place you come from … Lenburh, was it? I must pay it a visit one day.”
A third cheer dragged their attention back to the field of combat. Sir Saskia was bowing to Sir Odo and beaming encouragement. He bowed too, their heads almost touching.
“Don’t worry, lad,” she whispered to him. “I’ll go easy on you.”
Odo nodded in gratitude. Then his stomach lurched inside him again as their swords came up and the blades touched in salute.
The rules of the contest were simple. They would fight until one of them yielded, or was unable to go on due to wounds, unconsciousness, or death.
“Have at you, Sir Odo!”
Eleanor held her breath as Odo fell into the opening stance he had been practicing for days now. With the sun shining on his new armor, he cut a pretty figure, and Biter of course knew how to look good.
Odo and Sir Saskia moved at the same time. Odo flowed into his favorite of the Five Lethal Forms, White Eagle Threads the Needle, and Biter moved smoothly in his hand, weight shifting subtly to guide his stroke towards Sir Saskia’s exposed forward leg.
But Odo pulled Biter’s blow, not wanting to sever Sir Saskia’s limb, not realizing until it happened that the knight wasn’t going to be hit anyway. She was extremely fast, bending to one side so quickly that Odo barely registered how she did it. One moment she was where he had aimed, the next she was not, and then she was striking at him!
Biter managed to parry the blow, but the force of it was so great that Odo was pushed backward and down, almost to his knees.
Sir Saskia struck again, and Odo only just managed to avoid it, throwing himself to one side and clumsily managing to get upright and back away.
The crowd roared. They were cheering for Sir Saskia. Eleanor found herself cheering too, then forced herself to stop.
Sir Saskia allowed Odo no respite. She attacked again and again, with fast, heavy blows that only a combination of Biter’s speed and anticipation allowed Odo to parry or dodge. Every time he had to back away as well.
Soon he was almost at the edge of the green, and the crowd had to part to give the combatants room. Odo tried to get past Sir Saskia with several attacks of his own, but she parried and blocked and counterattacked, giving no ground.
“She’s so quick,” Odo whispered to Biter.
“I know.” The sword’s admiring tone didn’t help Odo’s confidence in the slightest. “But together we will defeat her!”
Odo nodded and launched into another of the Five Lethal Forms, Twisting the Tiger’s Tail. He thought he had started it pretty well, but Biter moved in his grip, throwing his weight off. Odo knew what Biter was doing — he was trying to fight better than Odo could alone — but the blow didn’t stand a chance with both of them trying different things at once.
Sir Saskia easily dodged them and brought her sword around to strike in return. Odo went to block, but again Biter took him by surprise, moving in a way that counteracted what he was trying to do. The flat of Sir Saskia’s sword struck him on the right shoulder, his hauberk ringing with the sound of metal on metal. But he kept his footing and retaliated with a desperate sweep at her midriff. She danced backward. Biter’s tip missed her middle by barely an inch, but she didn’t seem fazed. With a triumphant “Hah!” she came close while Biter was still moving, pushed with one fist against Odo’s chest, and tipped him off balance.
He went down in a tangle of feet, arms, and sword. Eleanor was amazed he didn’t impale himself in the process.
Odo closed his eyes for an instant, panting. The combat was barely two minutes old and he was already out of breath. Sweat trickled down his face. He felt boiled alive inside his hauberk. The crowd called a mixture of mockery and encouragement, Eleanor’s voice loudest in the latter camp.
With a grunt, he stood up.
“You’re game, Sir Odo, I’ll give you that,” said Sir Saskia with a grin, shifting eagerly from foot to foot.
“Maybe we should yield,” Odo said to Biter, daunted by Sir Saskia’s enthusiasm.
“Never!”
And then the sword was moving, dragging him along behind. The ferocity of the blow took Odo by surprise. It was all he could do to hang on, a dead weight dragging Biter’s tip upwards, causing it to miss his target. Sir Saskia responded with a backward step and another blow to Odo’s shoulder, exactly where she had hit it before. He cried out as she struck. The mail held, and his collarbone beneath, but he would be severely bruised.
Biter struck again, and again Sir Saskia easily parried the blow, a sweeping movement that brought her great blade once to the left, and then again to the right, her mouth set in a serious line.
She wasn’t playing now. Odo’s right arm wasn’t working properly — his shoulder felt like it was swelling up inside the armor. He had to hold Biter with both hands, but he no longer had the strength to help the sword fight, or even to adequately follow the sword’s movements.
Sir Saskia got another blow through Biter’s frenzied defense — on his shoulder again, jarring it so much he lost feeling all the way down his arm. His nerveless fingers could no longer hold the sword, and the grip of his left hand was too weak.
Biter fell from his grasp and went point-first into the green, quivering in place.
Sir Saskia drew her sword-arm back, the blade level with Odo’s eyes, ready to punch it forward and kill him instantly.
“I yield!” Odo gasped.
Instantly Sir Saskia withdrew. Her good-natured grin returned.
“Excellent!” she said, raising and then sheathing her sword with one easy movement. “A fine combat, and now it is over. Here, let me help you with this.”
She extended her hand to Biter, going to pick him up. But Biter suddenly darted away, sliding across the grass and trimming a swathe of it as he went.
“Ha! The blade still has fight in
it. Come here, you.”
Sir Saskia went after the sword. But Biter flew across the green like a scared hare, far too fast for the knight to catch him. The audience gasped at the sight of a sword moving on its own.
“I am not trying to take you,” Sir Saskia said. “I wish only to return you to … Oh, you have your fun with me, eh? So be it!”
Biter flew like an arrow between Sir Saskia’s legs and leaped into Odo’s hand. Odo grimaced with the shock of it, but managed to hold on, leaning the blade against his good shoulder.
“Are you all right?” Eleanor called out anxiously as she wove through the crowd to Odo’s side.
“Bruised shoulder,” said Odo, with some difficulty. “Nothing broken, but my arm … hard to use it.”
“I’ve got an ointment,” said Eleanor. “And bandages. I’ll fix it up. Let’s get you away.”
Odo kept his eyes down, feeling humiliated and beaten. He had never wanted to fight anyone, least of all a proper knight. Even in a friendly contest, it hurt to lose.
As Eleanor helped Odo away, Sir Saskia approached and inclined her head to him in something well short of a proper bow.
“A fine knightly combat,” she said. “And lucky for you, my boy, it was a chivalrous contest. I’d think hard on that if I were you. That magical antique of yours won’t save you in a serious fight. It belongs on the wall of some great noble’s hall, not on a battlefield. And you — you’re a child. You should go home before you get seriously hurt.”
Odo nodded, unable to meet her eye.
“But we can still help you, can’t we?” protested Eleanor. “If you let us join your party we can start off small, help fight bandits, and —”
“Hush, child.”
Sir Saskia’s eyes were kind and sad at the same time, or so they seemed to Eleanor.
“I know you mean well, and believe me, I am flattered by your offer. But the truth is, you have no idea of the dangers that await you on this quest. Yes, I know you are not afraid, but you should be, and it worries me that you are not. I fear that your recklessness will see you hurt, perhaps seriously, and … I do not have time to worry about your well-being. I am a knight. My mission is to slay a dragon, not nurse children. Do you understand?”
Odo felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “I understand.”
“Good lad. Maybe when you are older, come look for me. Or if I’m ever passing Lenburh …”
Her smile was like the sun, but Eleanor was not soothed.
“Couldn’t we just travel with you, at least?” she asked.
Sir Saskia leaned in close, her lips brushing Eleanor’s ear to whisper six words that only she could hear.
“You would get in the way.”
Before Eleanor could think of a reply, Sir Saskia turned to face the crowd. As she did so, Mannix started a chant, instantly picked up by the other soldiers, and then by the crowd.
“Sir Saskia! Sir Saskia!”
The knight walked into their midst to accept their praise, with awed children throwing rose petals provided by her entourage, admiring adults falling to their knees as she passed, as if she were a queen, and young men and women offering their daggers hilt-first, begging to become part of her retinue.
Red-faced Eleanor walked away, Odo stumbling at her side.
Sir Saskia is right,” said Odo, grimacing as Eleanor finished applying her father’s bruise ointment. “I’m not a real knight, you’re not a real squire, and if we go on, we will die. And what good will that do anyone?”
“You get better all the time,” said Eleanor. Sir Saskia’s words still burned inside her, but she had overcome the humiliation. Now she just burned to show the knight just how wrong she was. “It’s no shame to be beaten by a knight with so much more experience. How can we go back home and tell my father and your parents that we simply gave up?”
“Better than never going home at all.” Odo moved his arm and winced. But at least he could move it now. He sighed and began to fold his hauberk, ready to pack it away. There was no point continuing to wear the armor of a knight. “Think of your father, waiting for his daughter who never came home, getting word of your death —”
“My father knows who and what I am,” interrupted Eleanor hotly. “What about you, Biter? Surely you think we should all keep going, right?”
The sword came only half an inch out of his scabbard and spoke in a sulky voice.
“An antique, she said. I belong on a wall, she said.”
“You don’t believe that —”
“Sir Saskia is a great knight. Why shouldn’t I believe what she says? She bested us in single combat. Sir Odo was no match for her, and I was no match for an ordinary sword. Even with a novice knight I should have triumphed. I am nicked, and old, and I slept too long. My time is past.”
“I want to go on,” said Eleanor, her voice and her heart firm. “We have a duty.”
“Sir Saskia will slay the dragon and restore the river,” said Odo dully. He laced up his pack and gingerly lifted it onto his left shoulder, leaving the right-hand strap hanging. “We’re going home.”
Eleanor couldn’t speak, she was so furious. She picked up her own pack and took three very deep breaths.
Was the adventure really over? Were they really going home?
A very small voice inside her, breaking through the anger and the foiled ambition, said that perhaps this was the only sensible course. Maybe she had always wanted too much, had dared to hope for too much. And now …
She couldn’t go on without Odo, and neither could she defeat Quenwulf without a sword.
She would never be a knight.
Odo started off, heading south. Back the way they had come, towards Spedigan, first of the many villages on the way back to Lenburh.
Her face set, no obvious alternative open to her but marching on to a pointless death, Eleanor followed.
Neither of them spoke on the long walk back to the outskirts of Spedigan. This time, they didn’t enter the village. Instead, they found a ruined cottage with only half a roof and many holes in its wattle-and-daub walls. But it was better than facing up to the villagers who had last seen them as brave adventurers going to face a dragon.
It was strange to be making camp without sword practice. Biter didn’t demand it and Odo didn’t suggest it. But the boy didn’t feel as relieved as he thought he might. He and Eleanor went through their evening routine without speaking, kindling a small fire, eating sparingly, and then settling down for the night.
As per usual, Odo unsheathed Biter and set the sword near the hole in the wall that had once been a doorway, where he would keep watch. Then he rolled himself in his cloak, wriggling about until he found a spot where his shoulder hurt least, and went to sleep.
Eleanor stayed awake, staring at the embers of their small fire. She had felt hopeless when leaving Hryding, but now the anger inside her was hotter than ever, burning more fiercely than even the dragon-started forge of Master Fyrennian.
Before she gave up and went home, she wanted to show Sir Saskia that she and Odo were not foolish villagers without a hope of defeating the dragon. They were beginners, true, but learning very fast. And even the greatest knights in the world had to start somewhere.
Eleanor did not want to give up. There had to be something she could do … but there was Odo. He had totally lost heart, which was unsurprising given he had never wanted to be a knight in the first place.
But Eleanor did. She still wanted to be a knight. It was the center of her being, her single ambition for all her life. Was she supposed to give it up now because her best friend wanted to go home?
Eleanor lay there for another five minutes, wrestling with what she had almost decided to do. Then she sighed and sat up.
“Biter, did you hear that? Out the front?”
“I heard nothing.”
“Well, I did. I don’t want to wake Odo — he needs his sleep to heal. Can you have a look?”
“You look,” said Biter grumpily.
/> “Please,” said Eleanor. She let a little quaver enter her voice. “I’m afraid.”
“Hmmph!” exclaimed Biter. But he rose into the air and slid out through the doorway.
As soon as he’d gone, Eleanor lifted up her pack and went out through what had once been a window, into the darkness. She didn’t look back.
She thought Sir Saskia was probably still camped somewhere near Hryding. Eleanor could catch up with her and do her best to earn her way into the knight’s good graces. Surely determination was a knightly quality? And being true to oneself? If Eleanor simply refused to go away, Sir Saskia would have to take her in eventually.
It was better than playing second fiddle to a miller’s son and a sword content to rust away to naught.
On the road, Eleanor made good time under the stars and moon. She felt bad about leaving Odo behind without any explanation, but she thought he would understand. He wouldn’t want to make her unhappy by forcing her to go home. That was what he wanted, not her. He would be happy there, particularly as Eleanor was sure Sir Saskia would defeat the dragon and the river would come back. The big waterwheel would turn again, Odo would be formally apprenticed, and all would be well.
She would send messages to Odo and her father once she was taken on as Sir Saskia’s second squire. No doubt she would return to Lenburh one day, having earned her knighthood her own way, without anyone else’s help. They would laugh about old times, a young giant of a miller and an already famous, slightly scarred young knight with her own pavilion — probably blue rather than red — and an entourage of her own soldiers. All women, Eleanor thought. That would be best.
The road was empty, though she had a slight scare shortly before the dawn, coming upon a small band of urthkin going in the opposite direction. Eleanor briefly thought she was in for a fight and drew her sword, ready to charge through them and run for it. But when the urthkin saw her blade they withdrew to one side, and gave her the low bows, right down to the earth. She replied in kind and walked on, her heart hammering at what felt like five hundred beats a minute.