“He’s not some giant of legend,” Gilrayan said mockingly. “And he’s older now than when he squired for you, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“With respect, m’lord Baron, the stories about the paladin have him ripping men in half with his bare hands,” Joeglan replied. “Yet that is not what I mean. It’s not a question of strength, but a question of how much of a beating a man will take. I’ve rarely known a man his age who’ll take less than he would’ve fifteen years before.”
“What is it between the two of you, anyway? All that nonsense about having wanted to kill you all these years.”
“He has his reasons, m’lord Baron,” Joeglan answered slowly. “It was before your time at Wind’s Jaw. I would not wish to burden you with a story.”
“Surely he isn’t all that you make of him,” Ethrik said dubiously. Having affixed his belt, he lifted his flanged mace and guided it slowly in the air with one thick arm, then another.
“Simply put, Winsar, if you wish to conduct this combat by getting close enough to hit him with that, he will be close enough to hit you in turn. That is always how Allystaire has fought man-to-man, and he is still here.”
To forestall their protest, Joeglan raised a palm. “However, he is not a flawless combatant. He was never more than an indifferent swordsman; he was not wearing one today. Blade to blade, a truly gifted swordsman could cut him apart at leisure, if he is forced to fight the same way.”
“I don’t wear a sword either,” Ethrik said, “and I would not call myself a gifted swordsman.”
“No,” Joeglan said, “but you are younger, and in lighter armor, may move faster. Put reach on your side, and you have a better chance.”
“Perhaps I ought to challenge him myself,” Gilrayan mused, “I favor the sword, after all.”
“Ah, m’lord Baron, the protocol must be followed,” Joeglan pointed out. “Allystaire issued the challenge, so the man he challenged has the right to name the weapons. If you were to issue a new challenge, he would be free to fight as he saw fit. Or, worse, to make it a joust.”
Some part of Joeglan Naswyn had to fight very hard not to smile when he saw the brief, panicked look that crossed his Lord Baron’s face when he said that. But neither could he help but respect the young man when he nodded slowly.
“For all that his exile has cost me,” Gilrayan said, “I must admit that no man I’ve known or seen could hit with a lance like he could.”
Joeglan nodded. “Aye. He was to the lance what his grandfather was to the sword. Uncanny.”
“Do you think perhaps,” Gilrayan suddenly mused, “he could be lured back to the Barony’s service? Not as Lord Coldbourne, of course, but some position could be found.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Ethrik said, almost plaintively, as if willing himself to believe it. “So do not go handing him another fiefdom yet.”
Joeglan looked long at the priest. “Even if he should survive, m’lord Baron, no. There is nothing you could do to persuade him. Regardless of what lay between you, he is not a man moved to change his mind.”
“Cold,” Gilrayan spat, “I am tired of hearing how much you admire a man who admits to wishing you dead, Joeglan. Someday you’ll have to explain it all to me. For now—”
The Baron’s words trailed off and he unbuckled his swordbelt, holding the scabbarded blade out towards Ethrik. “Here. Best take the advice of the Lord of the Horned Towers, since he knows the man so well. This is the longest blade available to us. Take what time you have to familiarize yourself with it.”
“I’ve not used a sword in some time, m’lord,” the priest admitted as he took the silver-inlaid scabbard, wrapping one hand cautiously around the hilt. “Are you certain this is the best course?”
“Yes,” Gilrayan said. “And besides, I rather like the idea of him dying on the end of my father’s sword. Allystaire was my father’s war hound for so long, let my father’s weapon send him to the Cold.”
“If I may say, m’lord, your father would have never wanted this. If we could avoid it, we should.”
Gilrayan cut Joeglan off with a wave of one hand. “Cold, man! Have done with it. You speak of him like a son. Go on, Winsar—go bring glory to Braech. We’ll be along.”
Almost, almost, Joeglan allowed himself to think the words, He should have been. But he banished the thought, buried them with memories of the daughter whose face he couldn’t recall, and followed the priest and the Baron out of the tent.
* * *
The Barons and their advisors had gathered about an empty field, arranged more or less in a ring. The combatants would have yards of space to every side to conduct their business.
Hamadrian Innadan was conspicuous in his absence. Since the edict allowing the combat, and declaring the Winsar Ethrik to have come to the camp under a false banner and thus undeserving of hospitality or protection, no word had come from him.
Arontis stood in his place, armored and red-surcoated, at the top of the circle, facing south. Allystaire stood on the western side, and the Oyrwyn party emerged from the eastern.
Allystaire was resplendent once more in his armor, helm under his right arm, shield in his left hand, hammer on his belt. The mirrored steel seemed to gather all the light of the morning to it. The brightness of it seemed to cloud his face, blurring his features to all who stood more than a few paces away.
He walked to the center of the field, meeting Arontis and Ethrik there. If he was surprised to see the latter carrying a sword, or to hear him declare that he accepted the challenge, and that it would be fought with blades alone, neither could detect it; he had simply asked for the loan of a sword.
Arontis had unbuckled his belt and handed over his own blade, scabbarded.
Now, a few moments later, as Arontis spoke formal words that he did not hear, Allystaire looked at the sword in his hands, finely wrought. Three feet of straight, doubled-edged, well-hammered steel. No fancy etching, no ornate hilt or precious golden or silver wire, one deep red gem set on the pommel.
And for that, it cost more weight to make and to own than most men will ever command in a lifetime, Allystaire thought. His mind lingered on the value of the weapon after seeing the Baron Oyrwyn’s blade in Ethrik’s hands, with its new gems and a rich man’s weight of silver in the new hilt. The weight was odd; the weapon was made for a man taller than him, with a longer reach, to be used one-handed. If he had to use a sword, he preferred space for both hands on the hilt.
Finally, he heard someone calling his name, and looked up to Arontis.
“Sir Stillbright, what do you ask if you win? Winsar Ethrik has demanded your arms, armor, and the expulsion of your party from this congress,” the Innadan heir said. His tone was purely formal, his bearing sober, dignified.
“What do I ask?” Allystaire thought on the question as he looked again at the sword. “When I win,” he called out, “I demand a document of peace delivered by midday. I demand that all priests of Braech are expelled from the keep chapels of every Baron who is a signatory to it unless they repudiate Choiron Symod and all who follow him. I demand that one fifth of all value in weight, goods, and wealth of every said chapel, and every Temple to the Sea Dragon in the Baronies, be seized and redistributed as alms.”
Absolute silence reigned in the wake of his pronouncement. Even Arontis stared at him, his jaw hanging wide, if only for a moment. When he gathered his voice, he said, “I cannot promise all of that, Sir Stillbright. It is not up to me alone.”
“If I have to sack the chapels myself, I will not stop at one fifth,” Allystaire called out. “Now let us begin. The Winsar Ethrik needs to go meet his god.”
“The paladin is mad!” Winsar Ethrik seized on the moment to preach, throwing his arms up in supplication, exhorting the crowd. “What more proof do you need that his goddess is a fraud? He demands the wealth of Braech! The weak making demands of the strong i
s blasphemy itself!”
Allystaire stopped listening as he stared at the sword. He had spent turns with a blade in the winter, swinging one at a makeshift quintain, longer and heavier than the one he now held, and he found in the moment that he had no feel left for the weapon, no taste.
It was the weapon of a knight, or was supposed to be. No, he corrected himself. It is the weapon of a lord. The weapon of a knight is his own willingness to die. He nodded faintly, to himself, heard the priest of Braech’s voice trailing off, hoarse from his preaching.
Suddenly, Allystaire raised his head, narrowed his eyes to focus on the priest, and called out, “Make peace with your fish-rotten god.” Then, knowing that he’d drawn the crowd’s attention, he took the sword in his right hand, point downwards, and let it drop. The point stuck in the earth, the blade gave a ripple, and Allystaire stepped forward, away from it.
“Sir Stillbright, what are you doing?” Arontis paused with one hand lifted in the air, ready to signal the start of combat.
“I understand the rules,” Allystaire called back. “I simply do not need your sword, Lord Innadan.”
“You are forbidden other weapons.”
He settled his helm on his head, grimacing as the tightly fitted cheek and nose guards settled over his face. “You cannot forbid me my hands, Arontis. They are all I will need.”
What’re you doing, Allystaire? Idgen Marte’s voice came into his mind, angry and fearful.
Refusing their rules, he thought back. He shut out her angry replies and curled his hands into fists, started stalking forward over the grass.
He saw eagerness in the Winsar Ethrik’s face, too much of it, at first. Then again, a small part of Allystaire’s mind wondered, who would not be eager and confident facing a man who has discarded his only weapon?
Ethrik brought his hand-and-a-half sword up in a cross defense, but his left foot half-stepped forward, as if he were fighting his own impulses. They were twelve paces apart, then ten, then eight, Allystaire’s strides slow and confident, when Ethrik dispensed with caution and broke into a short, halting run. He lifted the sword up as he came, the blade a diagonal line over his right shoulder, held in both hands, poised for a mighty sweep.
Allystaire’s pace quickened. There wasn’t enough distance for him to reach a full run, or as much as he could manage in his plate, but even so, it was enough for him to raise his left arm to knock away Ethrik’s blow.
The priest was young and strong, but swinging with all the might he could bring to bear. He was no swordsman, though. Instead of paralleling the flat of the blade to the ground, he held it at an angle.
Allystaire’s vambrace intercepted the flat with a startlingly loud clash. He knocked the blade aside, but not without feeling the shock of impact up his arm and into his shoulder. His left arm numbed dangerously.
He had two arms. The other, his hand curled into a fist, drove straight into the other man’s unprotected face. Ethrik wore an iron-banded cap around his head, but it didn’t offer anything to his nose or cheeks. Allystaire had been hoping to smash his nose, hoping for the seconds of blindness that kind of pain brought, but the bull-necked priest had turned against the blow just enough to take it on his cheek.
His gauntleted fist tore open the skin and sent trickles of blood into the man’s thick black beard.
When his punch landed, Allystaire was already tightening the muscles of his neck and chest, rearing back, and striking with his helmeted forehead straight at Ethrik’s nose.
He hit, heard a solid crunch, the other man cry out and curse. He’d gone too high, though—the lowest band of iron around Ethrik’s head had clanged hard against his helmed and added to the impact, for a moment, Allystaire saw bright spots in his vision.
The priest flailed blindly with his sword, sending ringing but harmless blows glancing off Allystaire’s left pauldron, and staggered backwards. The paladin let him back away, blinking his eyes against the spots, willing away the ringing in his skull.
His vision cleared just in time to see a bleeding, broken-nose, enraged Ethrik charging straight at him, the sword straight out, like a spear meant to impale him. He waited as long as he dared, then half-stepped to his right, leaving his left leg thrown out far enough to tangle into his enemy’s. He felt the blade clatter against his cuirass, Ethrik having left himself no time to adjust. The Winsar was too strong on his feet to be thrown simply and quickly over a leg as Allystaire had hoped. They came together with a clatter, the paladin throwing his left hand towards the blade, trying to keep it out of play.
Ethrik still held it with both hands, refusing to free up even one of them. Effectively this trapped his left between his chest and Allystaire’s while they wrestled over the hilt, Ethrik trying to bring the blade back into play, Allystaire simply trying to keep it distant. Meanwhile, it left the paladin a free hand. He couldn’t deliver overhand blows towards Ethrik’s face, but he had free play against the man’s body.
Driving his fist into scale armor hurt exactly as much as he expected, and he noticed as much as he cared to, which was not at all. Inside his gauntlet he could feel his hand already swelling with the force of the blows, but smiled as each was rewarded by a louder grunt of pain.
Finally Ethrik twisted his hips and shoved the paladin away. The priest wasted no time now in bringing both hands to the sword hilt and sweeping the blade down in a sharp and savage arc.
Allystaire had no choice but to bring his arm up, to try and turn the blade with his vambrace and send it skirling up and off his pauldron with his left side.
Instead, the edge of the Winsar’s borrowed blade found a seam in the paladin’s armor, and bit deep. The wound ran red channels along the blade, but where Allystaire’s blood touched his armor, it left no trace on the mirrored surface.
Allystaire half-swallowed the scream that came from feeling the sword lodged in his arm. Already he was losing strength in his left hand.
He felt a horrible, painful tug, realized it was Ethrik trying to free his blade. It had lodged, stuck in the seam in his armor and the bone it had cleaved into.
The paladin gritted his teeth, swallowed the pain, pushed it down to meet the cold anger swirling in his stomach. He used it to bank those fires, to build up the rage he’d felt that morning.
If Ethrik couldn’t get his sword free, then Ethrik couldn’t get out of his reach.
His right hand shot out, another punch delivered straight over an eye. The struggling priest was too focused, or perhaps too surprised that Allystaire was indeed still coming for him with a sword stuck in his arm, to stop it.
He tried to stagger away but the blade was stuck and he wouldn’t let it go. Allystaire howled in pain as Ethrik tugged again.
Again he shot his right hand forward, but not balled into a fist. He dug his fingers into the cut, swollen, bleeding flesh of the priest and squeezed, digging in, dragging the man’s face closer to his.
By the time Ethrik abandoned his quest to free his bonestuck sword—the feeling of it dangling from his arm was an all-new and horrible kind of pain—Allystaire had an armored thumb wedged inside his mouth, and had just felt the pop of the priest’s left eye as his index finger had pushed through it.
Ethrik screamed, a horrible wet and muffled sound, ground his teeth against Allystaire’s armored hand.
He threw himself backwards. Allystaire let him go. He reached to the blade that dangled from his arm and took a deep breath, wrapping his fully armored right hand around the blade and giving a sharp, short pull.
He came very near to passing out when he dropped the blade to the grass; he did fall to one knee.
Allystaire reached up with his right hand and tugged his helmet free, tossing it aside. Ethrik writhed, babbled, screamed upon the grass a few feet away. Wrapping his right hand around his left wrist, he pulled the unarmored palm of his left against to the side of his neck, and called upo
n the Mother’s Healing Gift.
He felt the warmth of healing flow into his own skin, screamed as the fractured, nearly-rent-in-two bone of his left arm snapped back into place.
Then he stood, his armor still gleaming in the sunlight, and advanced on the priest of Braech who was crawling away, his hands covering his broken eye.
He seized the back of his armor and rolled him over to his front.
“Once again I wonder how proud Braech must be of his warriors and priests,” Allystaire shouted. “You are not the first of your faith to try and crawl away from me.”
The paladin knelt down, placing a hand around Ethrik’s neck. The priest flailed his arms, beating his fists ineffectually against the armor that threw blinding sunlight into his remaining eye.
“Is there any man here who will seek blood gold of this man? Any who will speak as to why he should not die?”
“HOLD!” A voice rang over the crowd, one that Allystaire was surprised to hear.
Gideon’s.
He looked up and saw the boy pointing, saw every eye following him.
“A rider from the Vineyards, and not sparing his horse,” the boy yelled.
The crowd stirred, unsure of where to focus its attention: Allystaire and the flailing, gibbering Ethrik, or the man that was now pulling up on the outskirts of the share Baronial camp, slipping off a lathered horse.
Arontis pushed his way out of the circle and rushed to meet the livery-rider. As it tended to wherever the Innadan heir went, attention followed him.
The brief pause cooled Allystaire’s blood by some small measure. He looked at the beaten man before him, bleeding on the grass, struggling to escape him.
This is not knightly.
Allystaire couldn’t have said where that thought came from. The Goddess, his own confused rage, his conscience, his memories of his father or Gerard Oyrwyn or the man he’d tried to be to scores of Oyrwyn boys for ten years and more.
But it was like a bucket of icy water dumped on the furnace in his stomach and roaring in his ears.
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