The Fire Duke

by Joel Rosenberg

  One of the soldiers—from the shoulder tabs, Torrie decided that he was an officer—took a step forward. “Thorian the Traitor? You accept the parole of Thorian the Traitor?”

  Enough.

  Torrie took a step forward. “Pretty brave words while you hold the sword and we are unarmed.”

  Behind him, he heard Mom gasp, and Dad grunt.

  Standing by himself—none of the humans seemed to want to stand close to him—Herolf smiled, his teeth too sharp, too yellow to be human.

  “Ah, one with spine, or at least a simulation of it.” The officer smiled thinly, bowed stiffly. “I be Danar del Reginal, minor of the House of Flame, in service as a coadjutant. Lord Branden, might I have your leave to deal with a matter of honor this evening?”

  Branden looked like he had swallowed something sour. “To the first touch only,” he said. “I’ll not see more blood than that shed.” He turned to Torrie, all traces of laughter and merriment gone from his face, and particularly from his eyes. “You’ve not been raised among us, so I ask that you take no offense that I emphasize that this is to one touch only; I will serve as duelmaster, and see to the separation of the parties after that.”

  Torrie nodded, although his neck felt stiff. “I understand.”

  Branden’s lips pursed. “Well, then, with parole given, and a matter waiting, you had best retire and refresh yourselves.” He extended an arm. “Your tent waits; I’ll have your lady accompanied to the stream by Vestri.”

  The inside of the tent was lighted only by a flickering lantern that had been hung on the crosspiece above, just under a hooded vent in the silken fabric. It was floored in a thick rug laid directly on the soft grasses; over in the corner, a pair of bedrolls lay, each secured with a ribbon that had been tied in an overly elaborate knot.

  Dad’s lips were white. “Why did you do that?”

  Torrie could have slapped him. “Because I’m tired of just sitting back and taking it, even though you’re not.”

  Mom looked like he had slapped her. “You don’t think—”

  “He does.” Dad shook his head. “I had to have taught him better.”

  “Torrie,” Mom said, “do you really think your father is a coward?”

  “They do.”

  Dad smiled.

  Mom shook her head. “And why is that? Perhaps because from the moment he surrendered to save my life and Maggie’s he’s acted like he is?”

  “Yes, all the cowering, and—”

  “Which doesn’t make any of them less vulnerable to a knife in the neck,” Mom said, with a brave grin, “when the time comes.” She took his hand and squeezed it.

  “If the time comes. I waited too long to free Thorian and Maggie and you,” Dad said. “But I saw no good opportunity before.”

  Mom patted his arm. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll make the best of it.”

  It was the first time they’d had to talk without being overheard in a long time. “Mom? How much of this did you know?”

  Her smile was strange. “I had been … told much of it, over the years. I don’t know how much I believed; I didn’t like to think about it.” She licked her lips, once.

  Dad reached out a hand and squeezed hers, gently. “You think I didn’t know, Karin?” he said, quietly. “It’s been one of the few … ongoing frustrations in what has been a good life with you. A very good life, all things considered.”

  “Including this.” She pulled her hand away. “And you’re enjoying this, every moment of it.”

  “It’s what I was raised for, min alskling,” he said, quietly.

  She opened her mouth and closed it.

  Torrie could almost read her mind. Friends have died, and Torrie’s killed, and tried to kill more, and you’ve enjoyed this? How could you?

  But there was something about the way Dad was holding himself for the moment, something in his look that said, I can handle this, too, no matter what it is, something of the same look he’d had when he had looked out at the carnage on the front lawn.

  It said: I can handle it. It said: this is what I do.

  It wasn’t a pretty look, even if you had a strong stomach, but there was something to it that reminded Torrie of the way Doc Sherve looked when he squatted in front of a patient and opened his little black bag, or Uncle Hosea did when he picked up a screwdriver and took the cover off a motor, or even Mom, when she sat down with a sheaf of papers in front of her terminal.

  “The word for strategy and the one for fencing are the same in Bersmal,” Dad said, as though idly, although it wasn’t. His lips were pressed together for just a moment. Then he relaxed and shrugged. “Well, an‘ so be it,” he said. “What’s done is done; they’ve maneuvered you well enough.”

  “Me? They maneuvered me? All they did was—”

  “Thorian.” He stood there for a moment, silently, then shook his head. “Thorian, Thorian—this isn’t Hardwood anymore. You only know about Tir Na Nog from Hosea’s stories, and while that might get you by in some minor city in Vandescard, it’s not the same thing as having grown up in the Middle Dominion. It is … different from what you’re used to. Less free, in most ways; more complicated, in most ways. I was born to it, and brought up with it; you were raised differently.”

  Torrie had never thought of Dad as somebody complicated, or somebody who liked things complicated. It was Mom who spent her days at the computer, trying to make some sense out of the complexity of the stocks and bonds marketplace, and Uncle Hosea who was happiest when fiddling with some obscure mechanism, trying to scry out its intent or flaw. Dad always seemed happiest, say, with his shirt off and a posthole digger in his hand, fixing a fence.

  Dad sat down on the burnt-umber carpet, perhaps too heavily. “Take this Danar del Reginal, for example. Do you think there’s no reason why he insulted me? Merely the bad manners that would have one taunt a prisoner? A coadjutant? No. He was trying to get a response out of me, get me to fight him if possible—and that means he’s at least good enough that he expects somebody will learn how my skills are by watching me fight him.” He shook his head. “Or yours, for that matter.”

  “I can take him,” Torrie said, hoping he sounded more certain than he felt.

  Dad snorted. “Brave words, but how could you possibly know that to be so? And even if you can, is it wise?” He seated himself tailor-fashion on the rug, his hands folded across his middle. “No. You do not win. You lose, and you lose in a specific way. Do you remember when you developed that irritating disengage habit?”

  Torrie didn’t like the way the conversation was going—and he didn’t much like criticism of his play, either—but he nodded. “Nothing wrong with a disengage,” he said, idly. “If the wrist is fast enough, and mine is.”

  “Except that when you disengage your blade, you free his blade too. So early—before he’s had time to test your eye and wrist—disengage and let your blade slide out of line outside—”

  “I might as well offer him my wrist.”

  “That’s the idea. Don’t step forward, just exaggerate what you’d usually do.” Dad thought about it for a moment. “That’s about right—you’re eager, but you’re too concerned about the other’s point to move closer to it.” He clapped a hand to Torrie’s shoulder. “He goes for your wrist—tentatively, if he’s ever fallen for the trap—and you bring your blade back just a little late. He gets a hit on your arm.” He nodded, agreeing with himself. “That should be about right.”

  Torrie thought about it. “I’ve never thrown a point.” It was common strategy to pretend to develop a habit—say, to stomp before a lunge, or to always riposte after a successful parry—and to wait until your opponent had caught on to that and then catch him expecting the wrong thing. But Torrie had never deliberately taken that to the extreme of losing even a point, and he knew he didn’t like it.

  But Dad sure sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Torrie looked him in the eye. “I will have a chance to do it as well as I can,” he said more th
an asked. “I will have a chance to fight my best, not simply take a hit.”

  Dad nodded. “I think that can be arranged. In the right place, at the right time.”

  Dinner had been light—slivers of smoked fish and pickled vegetables, washed down with cold water, no wine—and an icy bath in the mountain stream was an hour behind him, long enough to loosen his muscles with stretches and sheer force of will.

  Torrie had stripped down to a pair of knee-length dueling shorts, borrowed from Branden del Branden, but had declined Branden’s offer to have a Vestri servant bind his loins; Torrie settled for wearing his still-damp jockey shorts underneath.

  There was a taste of metal in his mouth, and Torrie found himself too conscious of his breathing, of the placement of his feet and what to do with his hands. Part of his mind was just retreating into a shell, the way his scrotum was so tight that his testicles hurt, but part of it had gone all analytical and almost mechanical, as though his body was some sort of distant machine being run by his own remote control, as though he was looking out through remote cameras instead of his own eyes.

  So this was what fear felt like. It felt distant. That wasn’t too bad. Worse was the way Herolf sat by himself, grinning: for a Son, a grin wasn’t a friendly expression. It was the way he freed his teeth for ripping, for rending.

  Torches had been planted around a grassy spot against the fall of night, and Vestri servants, down on their hands and knees, had scoured the area for stones and roots, smoothing the turf with their hands as though they were massaging it, leaving it all flat and cool.

  His shiny face lit by a flickering torch, Danar del Reginal stood over a flat mahogany case, one hand on his hip, his chin propped up on his other fist, considering. His fingers reached out and stroked the hilt of first one sword and then another, finally selecting a third.

  He handed it hilt first to a dwarf, who shambled over, offering it hilt first to Torrie. Torrie couldn’t quite figure it, but there was something comforting in the homeliness of the dwarf, in the way he looked up at Torrie beneath his heavy brows.

  Torrie wrapped his fingers around the hilt. “I am to use this one?”

  The Vestri shook his heavy head. “No, honored one,” he said formally. “The coadjutant chose this as a sword to be used in this matter. You may select it, or permit him the choice between it and another two of your choosing, you to choose among the remaining ones.”

  Torrie handed the sword back to the dwarf, and raised his voice. “I’ll let you use this one, Danar del Reginal—I’ll use my own. Your dog servants captured it.”

  Danar del Reginal nodded his head, then held up a hand when Branden del Branden stepped out of the crowd for a quick whispered word. “You may choose it, of course. But you know there’s something … elfy about it; I’ll want it sniffed for charms, or offered for my use.”

  Torrie let his laugh be as offensive as he could; Danar del Reginal’s jaw clenched. “Very well, have it as you would—but if you choose my sword, I’ll choose my father’s, or the third sword we brought along; all were made by the same hands. Pick.”

  Maggie smiled in a way that Torrie thought was intended to be encouraging, and might indeed have been, if she didn’t twist her fingers together to make them stop trembling.

  Torrie twisted his own fingers together to make them stop trembling.

  Danar del Reginal caught the motion, and laughed as he picked up the sword the dwarf had offered Torrie. “As you will.”

  Torrie kept his face flat and passionless—he hoped—as he squared off against Danar del Reginal.

  The night grass chilled his feet, and scratched between his toes, and the wind whipped cold air across his naked chest. When he raised his arms and stretched, it cooled his clammy armpits almost painfully cold.

  He would have to watch the footing, he decided. This wasn’t like in the fencing studio or in the basement. There, even when Dad had spread some blocks or nails or toys on the floor behind him, Torrie could still count on there being a good, solid surface finally beneath his feet, even if it wasn’t the smooth, unslippery surface he was used to.

  That was okay with him, too. A fencing strip was supposed to be mopped free of sweat and water between rounds, but sometimes that didn’t happen, and Dad had long ago trained Torrie in keeping his feet—and his head—when on slippery or painful ground.

  Torrie had always thought Dad had gone too far with that. Too many hours barefoot out on the lawn behind the house, screened by the windbreak of trees while he and Torrie fought freestyle, sometimes leaping over lawn furniture or to the surface of the old oak stump or cedar picnic table. It may have sharpened Torrie’s sense of position, he had thought, but it was useless in a real bout—you couldn’t circle to the left or to the right on the narrow confines of a fencing strip.

  It was worth doing to keep Dad happy, he had long ago decided, but not useful. Fun when he had introduced freestyle to the college fencing set—the strip didn’t teach you the value of circling left or right, or of a running attack that threatened to pass rather than try for the immediate touch.

  But not useful.

  Wrong again, he thought. That was okay; Torrie had been wrong before. Felt kind of like this, in fact.

  Danar del Reginal raised his sword and spun it about in an elegant salute, first toward the flares surrounding them, and then to the mountains beyond, and then the sky above, and finally Torrie.

  Nice of him to include me, Torrie thought, realizing that joking with himself didn’t make him any less scared.

  Although there wasn’t much to be scared of, not really. A dueling injury was likely to be less painful than the time he had fallen out of the Thompson’s apple tree and broken his leg. This was only to the first blood, after all.

  He returned Danar del Reginal’s salute with one of his own—a fencer’s salute, not the broad gesture that Danar del Reginal had performed—and closed with three quick steps, his sword out in front of him along the ideal line, as though reaching for Danar del Reginal’s armpit.

  The tips of their blades crossed a few times, tentatively.

  If Dad was right, that the purpose of the match was to feel Torrie out, to find his limits, the sooner it was over, the better. When Danar del Reginal tentatively extended in sixte, Torrie parried, then disengaged his blade, stepping back, ever so slightly out of line.

  Danar del Reginal closed, and lunged for his midsection, and—

  Later, it was all clear. He had offered a typical epée target: his wrist. But Danar del Reginal was not trying for a simple blooding; he wasn’t going to settle for anything less than running Torrie through.

  Most epée points, like most duels, were won with attacks on the arm or leg. It wasn’t a matter of gentleness; it was just that the extremities were the most vulnerable to a touch. That was how epée had become popular, originally: a foil fencer, trained to score only on the rough triangle from shoulders to crotch as though the only way to win a duel was with a deadly wound, was too often vulnerable to a quick touch on the wrist or arm, or knee or toe. In a real first-blood duel, an epée-trained fencer had the same advantage over a foil player that a black belt karate fighter had over a boxer.

  But a light touch wasn’t what Danar del Reginal was after.

  Torrie caught the point of Danar del Reginal’s blade high on his own blade, almost at the guard, the needle point inches at best from his chest. His wrist spun, maintaining contact as he brought his blade over, around and down, pushing Danar del Reginal’s sword far out of line, bringing Torrie’s own point into line.

  Torrie extended his sword as he stepped forward. To hell with losing by a touch—this bastard meant to kill him. A touch high on the arm would win the bout, and then Torrie would beat the other’s blade aside again on the retreat.

  But Danar del Reginal’s blade never quite got back into line as his full lunge combined with Torrie’s forward motion to bring the tip of Torrie’s blade past Danar del Reginal’s guard; it only stopped when the hilt sla
mmed into Danar del Reginal’s chest, and the larger man took a step backward, pulling the hilt from Torrie’s now limp grip.

  Somebody screamed.

  Danar del Reginal looked more shocked than in pain as his now clumsy fingers dropped his sword and reached up to claw at the hilt of Torrie’s sword, as though pulling it out would make a difference. His mouth opened, and worked, but the only sounds that came out were horribly burbling gasps, and grunts.

  His eyes, lit almost demonically in the flickering firelight, met Torrie’s, and held his gaze.

  And then they went flat and dead, and Danar del Reginal fell, twisting, landing on his side on the turf, accompanied by a loud flatulence and awful stink that robbed his death of any semblance of dignity.

  Branden del Branden stood in front of Torrie, his own blade out to the side, his lips white. “Stop,” he said, although Torrie wasn’t doing anything at all, just standing there. “Cease,” he went on. “Thorian del Thorian has … drawn first blood; this matter is ended.” He turned and tossed his blade to a Vestri servant, who neatly snagged it out of the air and scurried away with it.

  “Well done, young killer,” he said with a sneer.

  Torrie shook his head. “I didn’t mean, I mean he was trying to—”

  “Of course,” Branden del Branden said, not bothering to conceal his sarcasm, “he was trying to kill you, and the only way you could defend yourself against so obviously inferior a swordsman was to run him through. You couldn’t, after all, merely take the touch on his arm and defend yourself if he committed an error of honor, no, no, that would be too difficult.”

  “You don’t understand,” Torrie said. “He was trying to kill me. I was just trying …” He couldn’t go on. Would Branden del Branden possibly accept that Torrie was trying to lose? No. “I was just trying not to get killed,” he said.

  Branden del Branden visibly fought for self-control, and found it. “I see,” he said, quietly. “Should I ever challenge you, Thorian del Thorian the Younger, I’ll be sure that it’s to the death and not just to the first blooding.” His lip pulled back in a sneer. “I would wish to save you the trouble of having to toy with me, play with me, until you can find a master single stroke to kill me.” He turned to Dad and bowed stiffly. “Thorian del Thorian the Elder,” he said, “I congratulate you on your son’s skills, although I do not congratulate you on the rest of his training.” He turned to the guards. “Their parole holds until the dawn. Have him chained again just before.”