by Adrian Selby
“Find another boy to shield you, Gant,” he said. “Perhaps one old enough to have lost his fig this time.”
The lumber shed by him was catching fierce now with the wood in it, cracking and booming as the pine and the oil barrels went up. He didn’t flinch as the place collapsed yards from him.
“Who’s first, boys? Shall I do Gant quickly? Or shall I kill the Fieldsman with you. The other one was clever enough with his staff for a while.”
“Try me, Kigan, yer plant in’t goin’ to make the difference between us,” said Shale.
“Shale, I see your sweat from here, the flicker of your eyes as you weigh up where best to engage me. I hear the sound of five men behind you hissing at each other to find some courage and jump the injured one. Eight children, three men and six women are crying within forty yards. A son is beating his father to death in that inn, the open shutter on the first floor lets me hear his dying words. You have nothing that can bring you square with me.”
I got some bags out of my belt.
Kigan shook his head. “Gant, you were never the sharpest on the rack. You’re as good as dead judging by the smell of you and the poison that’s in you.” The battle at the gates was getting closer, the metal clack of men in armour running into the streets, a host of voices shouting for surrender.
Shale looked over at me. He tore off his necklace what had the Flower of Fates in it.
“No!” I yelled. “No, Shale, you can flatten this cunt without it.” It was more that I wanted some chance he should outlive me than that he could kill Kigan, more that I couldn’t face being alone. I had no doubt he’d kill him, none till it began. I didn’t see the point of him killing himself.
“I’m grateful for yer help, Laun, but I need you to get Gant into the town hall, find Mirisham.”
“Laun is it? One season you’re killing the Twenty, the next you’re saving them. The Post is a fickle creature, isn’t she?”
“What’s he sayin’, Laun?” said Shale, not taking his eyes from Kigan. “You need killin’ too?”
She sheathed her sword and reached for my arm.
“I am no threat to either of you. You will find your answers in the town hall. Come with me.”
“I’m goin’ nowhere, friend,” I said. “I can’t be saved. You can see I’m dyin’ and it’ll be here with him. Get Mirisham safe, you don’t want to be around if we’re takin’ our Flowers an’ without your help might be Mirisham won’t make it, and one of us must. It can’t be for naught. If yer willin’ to help us then help him.”
I reached for my necklace, but it wasn’t there. I looked over at Shale and he couldn’t meet my eyes for a moment, then looked back at me, his now full of tears.
“Why, Shale, what the fuck, when did you take it?” And it must have been when they were dragging me after Kigan shot me, when he did my wamba.
Kigan strode forward. Laun looked at us, tried to grab me but I roared at her to go and she left, unchallenged by the militia. Now I could see Kigan was shining and ready.
“I’m sorry I din’t get you home, Gant,” said Shale. “I hoped I would. But we were never goin’ to do him on the Honour alone an’ you in’t in a fit state to help. Now get out o’ here somehow, get home, an’ speak well o’ me.” He give me a smile and it said all the rest to me that he might have said. He’d weighed his chances up against Kigan of course, there was little of the gambler in him. The Flower of Fates was a soldier’s way to go out. There was nobody in the known world could stop Shale on the Flower.
He took it out of the tube, a small thing, its four petals unfurling in a riot of reds, oranges and purple, the stem black. Then he ate it, so he was set.
Kigan shook his head. “It seems it really will end here. I would have killed you more quickly than the Flower, but it’s your choice.”
Kigan rushed us, a mighty leap from where he stood that had him on us in a moment. Shale met the first blow and returned it, but Kigan was indeed fast. Both jumped at each other, looking for a short violent end to it, but neither was able to outmove the other.
Kigan’s poison was seeping through me, I struggled to move and find a way to help.
I could see that Shale was moving him away from the square, rarely conceding initiative from the stances due to his stronger technique. Gradually they moved back to the cluster of alleys that we come out of. Shale was visibly shaking as he tried to manage Kigan’s ferocity and the Flower’s claim, building as it was on the Honour. Kigan was simply that bit quicker, for the time it took the Flower to get hold, catching Shale in his side, again on his face, a vicious welt, other cuts slicing at his wamba. Shale give little back. What advantage he gained from his technique and guile was pressed back with Kigan’s speed and strength. The plant he was on was an order above anything in use in the Old Kingdoms, but the Flower recognises no poison, and so that at least wouldn’t be a concern for him. Each clash of blades and bodies would’ve broke lesser men apart. Then Shale managed a kick using Kigan’s own momentum that sent him flying some fifteen feet back, the Flower now finally into him. Kigan was back up in a moment as Shale leaped in to strike, a feint from a near impossible position off balance, and it was Shale that got thrown at a wall so hard the mortar cracked. I give nothing for the honour of a duel, fuck that. I was aiming to find a way in myself, to do something would throw Kigan off, but I was hobbling, struggling to land caltrops or disrupt Kigan’s movement without that it would hurt Shale somehow. Truth was they were fighting on a level beyond what I witnessed even with Kailen, a speed of body that was close to matching the instant of thought and stratagem.
A shouting come up behind me. There were men, I think the last of the town’s militia, coming back this way to defend the town hall. A couple come at me, seeing me injured. Some men emerged from the mill, they told the militia to back off, knowing it was death. One didn’t and with the Honour strong enough I ripped him open in moments, sending pieces of him flying yards about. My eyes were going in the dark about, the fires blinding me as they were getting more intense. I was losing grip of my senses. A group of the militia then rushed at Shale and Kigan, thinking they’d close them off in the alley. It seemed as though they paid no direct mind to the militia as they continued their own duel. As they come in they were dealt with, each who got close enough was battered by blows they had no hope of countering. I put some bags down around us to ward them off, and as the dust rose they scattered.
Shale was moving to a smith’s workshop, which was burning. He must have seen some advantage in it, something that must be affecting Kigan though there was little to notice even on the Honour. Their movement, each adjustment to balance and weight, anticipated multiple counters, as though they were each fighting off multiple enemies. The blades were exchanging nicks and sparking so much that it was hard to see, but the Honour in my eyes, enraptured by what played out, seemed to reveal each moment of their engagement, each possible outcome of a maneuvre becoming real as my mind caught up with reading their fight, like many Kigans and Shales were fighting each other in the same instant.
Kigan was working harder now though, a thrust hit, slicing his leg, but he slid in through it, a calculated risk to drive his fist at Shale’s throat, a blow that would’ve felled a bull had Shale not dropped to the side of his foot, balancing in a way I scarcely thought possible, to land rapid blows to Kigan’s ribs. With a kick Kigan was away from him, under the eaves of the burning joists of the blacksmith’s outhouse.
Kigan got a blow in that took Shale’s sword out of his hand. He dodged the kick Shale aimed at his head but the dodge put him also in reach of a spear stood on a rack. He took it and closed on Shale, using it and the sword to force Shale back. Some slates fell in then as the joists give a bit. Shale took two slates in mid-fall, throwing each at Kigan, who parried them, in the moment of which Shale snatched at a knife and shield, using the shield to drive an advantage again, trying to force Kigan into the smith’s living quarter, which was aflame. The spear was soon useless as Kigan
fought in the doorway, but he still got another cut to Shale’s arm as he took advantage of another moment he was out of position.
Shale was bleeding more than he should’ve on the Honour, Kigan was bleeding a little, the thigh the main cut. His poison was ignoring the Honour’s hemlock bark that thickened the blood and made it scab quicker. Seemed that for all the potency of the Flower, Kigan had something in his paste even for that.
Shale threw the shield and pushed Kigan into the room. They were lost to me for a moment, fire and smoke pouring out of the shutters next to the doorway. It was Shale that come flying out of the shutters to the side of the house, his leather smoking and his skin burned a bit. The spear followed. Shale must’ve seen it for he somehow jumped his body from the ground and the spear flew beneath him. Kigan leaped after him but Shale was crouched in stance. Kigan stopped, took a breath, dousing his sword with the poison in his scabbard. Shale took some wood from a bit of shutter what flew out with him that was smouldering and pressed it on his cuts. The Flower was strong, he was almost lit up with it, a steam rising off him like you saw on a horse’d been galloping. The pain didn’t register as he seared his cuts up. I saw he didn’t have his sword so threw him mine.
Kigan took pause, was about to say something, but as soon as I realised he was hoping to buy some moments knowing Shale was starting to lose himself, Shale was back at him, knowing the same. I didn’t see him yell or rage at Kigan, he was everything Kailen taught us to be, working the enemy into positions he could make cuts. Once, twice he cut Kigan with the knife, the sword used as a distraction. Kigan was more passive, counting on the moments between each engagement and stance to have the Flower win it for him. Shale kept on, his aggression scoring more and more, though it was at the cost of blows and cuts to him. They didn’t matter and Kigan knew it, he was caught between taking the fight to Shale to get the most of his speed and strength on his plant, or slowing it down to bring the Flower’s consumption of Shale more into the reckoning, at the cost of Shale having the initiative.
Fire arrows come flying down the street. I turned to see soldiers and the town’s militia clashing at the far end of the main avenue that went through the town to the gates. Soldiers were putting these arrows into the mill to get it started and into houses and workshops to drive out those hiding. A number come running, twenty or thirty that kicked in doors and were bellowing at the people inside, others marshalling groups of people what had surrendered. A number of them come over and I put down more powders and caltrops, mixing with the haze of the smoking oil what was fogging the town. My noisies were pounding at my head, I was sick with the Honour in my guts, I knew I couldn’t fight them. I turned back to Shale and Kigan. The smithy was burning fierce and the roof had now collapsed. Kigan had just put Shale off balance, his sword getting an inch or two into Shale’s side as he span off it. Kigan used this moment to run for the smithy. There was a large roofbeam that had part collapsed. He danced up it through the fire to the remaining bit of roof, leaping over to the next building. Shale was after him, a few steps behind. I guessed Kigan thought the slope and the unsure footing of those tiles would give him the advantage.
I could do little but watch. I held my guts as they cramped and give me grief. Above me the two kept at it, both measuring the inches they had to tease the advantage and make a decisive move. Shale got into dagger distance, under Kigan’s high guard, and got its point into his shoulder. Kigan smashed Shale’s nose open with the pommel of his blade as he brought his fist across. Shale’s footing give a split, but he was audacious in dropping forward and threw his weight from his standing leg and barged Kigan across the gap of the roofs and onto his back on the next house. Ki’s knee took Shale’s weight and lifted him off, giving him leverage to beat him further, three rapid punches, and I heard Shale’s jaw crack from where I was stood. Shale then stuck the knife into Kigan’s side and twisted it about. Kigan twisted himself over and they rolled down the roof, clattering down the tiles and off onto the ground. Shale landed and moved away to get into a crouch. Then he clutched his head and cried out. He was breathing hard, drooling some, blinking.
“So it ends, Shale,” said Kigan, pressing a paste into his stab wound. Kigan was in a state himself, his skin dark with blood, his leathers glistened with it. Both stood swaying like drunks.
About us I heard a final clash of the militia and Caragula’s infantry. I was at the edge of the alley and I was shivering, Kigan’s poison playing havoc. My one eye was fuzzy, I was going blind in it. The guaia was helping but the poison was spreading, one of those that paralysed.
Shale stood up, trembling. The Flower’s effect would keep getting stronger till the body couldn’t take it and collapsed. He looked over at me. A nod for his farewell. His leap into Kigan was decisive. It come from no obvious readying of his limbs. He covered the eight or so feet as though thrown from a trebuck himself. Kigan was backed to a wall as Shale attacked with a speed and power that was unnatural, his joints cracking with the frenzied blows. Kigan moved as he could but had no way to adjust his feet or balance with the wall at his back. Then he managed to counter a blow, spinning a parry to take it over his head, Shale’s sword breaking against the stone. Kigan stabbed his blade into Shale’s chest. But with his sword arm now free, ignoring this mortal blow, Shale took hold of Kigan’s throat and brought his knife again into Kigan’s side, four stabs almost too quick to see. Shale inched forward, the knife held in Kigan to steady himself as he pushed himself into the sword in his chest. Kigan did his best to push him off but the knife decided it. Shale’s headbutt smashed Kigan’s eye socket flat.
It was over. For a few still moments both men were locked together by the blades they had stuck each other with. Shale’s head was bowed at Kigan’s chin. He still twitched. It was Kigan then that moved, pushing Shale back off his sword and gasping as the knife come out of him. Shale fell.
I tried to stand, keeping him in the focus of my good eye. Kigan was quick at putting some bark in the biggest of the knife wounds, spreading on something that seared his skin, hissing at the blood and clogging it up as it bubbled out. I hobbled over to where he stood.
He held his side, shuddering. I looked at him up close, the yellow of his eyes shining bright against the blood and mud he was slick with. His brew was making its claim, he was fighting to control it as he dropped. He shook his head at me. I wasn’t sure if it was a warning or him just saying he didn’t want to kill me. He tried to raise his sword but had no strength; it quavered before the tip dropped to the ground. I tried to swing for him, but the pain of it caught me, and he ducked out of the way of it and hit me back, knocking me over.
Without my sword, almost too faint to stand, I could only watch him leave us, limping out of the alley over to the butchers and the town square beyond.
I got to my knees to look at Shale. He wasn’t right; his face, the muscles maybe, were misshapen, still a fever on him, like he was about to start burning from inside out. I took his hand, hot enough it somehow made it worse. Though dead, he was still warmer than me.
How do words in a few lines like this go over a life with any force or true reckoning? A whole other life we had outside of what I’ve managed to write in this journal, beginning as it does at the end for us both.
To say a good friend and brother he was for forty summers would be the lip of it. Anyone who knew anyone they loved for forty summers, kneeling with them as I was now, would know the recalling of what bound them, how swift and subtle those memories rushed in and by. I remembered us as fifteen summers first meeting as we shared mats in the Academy. He was of a dry humour then, we both were, somehow brighter and happier I guess before the fightbrews changed us. I remembered us holding each other while the first fightbrew we took give us such terrors and agony in our bodies we thought we’d die. All those years since I can see him in those moments when I stood at the end of a battle hoping he didn’t fall, and the joy to catch sight of him stood over the wrecked and steaming bodies on the field, raising
his sword to me each time, to which I’d reply. I remembers too being stood at his side at Tharos as that horde come at us, all my brothers with me and the one I loved most, ready to work through them with me, a calm on him like he was watching some sunset, not the end of the world. He give me the belief we would see it through the crossroad. I find it hard to remember a time when he wasn’t with me, making us a pipe or a fire when on the trails, or mending my wamba, for he was fine with a needle.
I can’t get at these feelings with this quill. I just wish he was here now that’s all, holding my hand in my dying days.
Buildings had caught all around the alleys and a cluster what belonged to the guilds along the edge of the town square were also burning. It was an amber smoke, lit by the burning town, that hid me as I passed through some chicken runs and some grain stores to the square. A hundred or so people were gathered there, some militia among them. It was hard to make Kigan out, a shadow flickering, walking unchallenged between two of the militia stood at the town hall itself. He had dropped his fieldbelt before them.
As it got clearer on my approach I saw the town hall was still unharmed, a building after the Citadels style, plainly cut from large and fine blocks of stone, some rough-hewn pillars supporting the roof that reached out to cover a raised platform at the entrance, steps up to it on all sides. The doors were grand enough, fifteen feet tall, one partly open. The militia stepped forward as I approached. It was clear to them I wasn’t trouble.
“I know Mirisham,” I said, “Kailen’s Twenty.”
The lad there, soot covered and face streaked with the tears of some tragedy he’d just seen, nodded at me. He was about to indicate Kigan in respect of the Twenty but I gestured it was unnecessary.
“Have my knife and my belt,” I said. “I means him no harm.” I struggled not to slur, I couldn’t feel my face, tongue was stinging and it was hard to swallow. I dropped my belt on the ground.