by D Mickleson
Silence reigned on Magog’s Rise. Somewhere in the forest below, an owl was hooting itself into wakefulness. Across the way from Triston, a group of teenage boys began cat-calling and daring each other to enter. A nearby huddle of girls rolled their eyes and giggled.
“Will no man brave the arena?” called Gorbald, his tone as one who recites a ceremonial duty.
Triston’s arms and legs seemed to have turned to liquid. Each heartbeat came quicker than the last, the blood pounding in his ears like a war-drum. He checked his sword was free in the scabbard, his sweat-soaked hands slipping a little on the leather-bound hilt. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Gorbald was doubled over, whispering with two elders bent with age. A fat, middle-aged man called Lumpens, whose chief achievement in life thus far was acquiring the epithet “village drunk” over steep competition, blundered over the rope with a roar and landed on his face. Rising groggily and staring in bewilderment as the villagers erupted with laughter, he caught Gorwain’s eye, let out a sobered squeal, then stumbled back into the crowd toward the nearest keg.
Once more, Gorbald raised his hands for silence. The spectators, however, now had a taste of real entertainment and wanted more. All around the circle, men were reenacting Lumpens’ blunder, or trying to push each other over the rope in like fashion. “As Chieftain of our fair village, Wyrmskull of the Dragon’s Hill, it is my duty and great pleasure to name my son, Gorwain Hammerhill—”
The Chief suddenly ceased. All around, the unruly onlookers grew still. Triston had clambered over the rope, and was now pacing into the arena with feet like lead. Thirty feet away, Gorwain turned sharply and eyed him in blank astonishment. This incredulity eased into an expression of pure pleasure by the time Triston stopped in front of him.
“Slendrake.” The greeting came in a voice like crunching gravel. Not trusting his own voice to hold steady, Triston attempted a hasty nod, but thought he’d only succeeded in twitching his head.
“You got this, Trist.” Alden’s voice, down by Magog’s Tooth.
Triston couldn’t peel his eyes off the leather-clad behemoth before him to acknowledge his friend. This close, the hulking figure blocked the light from the nearest three Fighters’ upraised torches, creating an otherworldly orange glow around his shadowed silhouette. Triston was reminded of sunrise behind the Catspine Mountains. At that moment, his stomach churned threateningly, and he realized he was flexing his pelvic muscle to hold his bladder in check.
He became aware of wild cheering from the encircling throng, realized it had been crashing over him for some time. Somewhere in that crowd, he knew, Winchie was seething. The thought brought him no cheer. If only his mother could have lived to see him now . . . but no. Perhaps it was better this way, better to spare her the anguish . . . .
He slowly drew his sword, feeling lost in someone else’s dream. It didn’t catch. Forcing himself to breathe, he turned toward the Chief, who had stilled the crowd and was excitedly shouting something at the pair of them.
“ . . . will end when one man is downed and cannot rise. Otherwise, an offer of a yield may be honorably accepted.” A glance up at Gorwain’s hard, close-set eyes confirmed for Triston that no such offer would be forthcoming from the mace-wielding giant should he gain an upper-hand. This battle would end with one of them lying broken on the grass. The Chief took a deep breath, gazing down at his son with something like rapture in his eyes.
“Gorwain Hammerhill and Triston Slendrake,” he thundered with sonorous gravity, “Stand back-to-back and pace three steps in front of you. Now, hear me. The doom of each man lies sealed in the Halls of Fate. I charge you before men below and heaven above, play out your doom with honor. Begin!”
Triston spun around in time to see an avalanche of studded-leather careening toward him. Snarling like a wolf chieftain ripping the throat from a challenger, Gorwain swung his mace down at Triston’s unprotected face with force to fell an armored troll. Triston leapt backward, at the same time striking out instinctively with a thrusting parry, the proper move against a charging swordsman.
It was the wrong move now.
A flash of sparks burst between them as steel struck steel. Triston felt the hilt wrenched from his grip as he stumbled backward. With a sinking heart, he watched his only hope spin wildly past Gorwain’s shoulder and disappear into the darkness behind him. The duel was less than three seconds old, and it appeared to be finished. Along with Triston’s life.
The torchlight was blood-red in Gorwain’s eyes as he strode forward, and his smile was wide. “Lost something, princess?”
Move or die. His head was clear, his fear gone. A plan formed of its own accord, springing to life naturally out of everything he knew. Only one thing to do. The universal impulse of a weaponless man against an armed foe is to turn and run. Triston knew this, trusted Gorwain to count on it.
Suddenly abandoning his easy stride, the big man lunged forward with a sweeping sideswipe, the accepted attack for a defenseless foe. The cruel spikes would maul Triston should he flee backwards, and crush his ribs should he leap to either side.
Triston dove forward into a head-over-heels roll, heard the air throb as the mace swept by overhead, and came to his feet at a run. Gorwain spun with a reverse swipe, missed Triston’s back by a solid foot, then stumbled forward three steps before righting himself.
Still running, Triston plucked his sword from the tussock it had lodged into, then wheeled around and came at the befuddled giant with an overhead swipe. The blade sliced across Gorwain’s shoulder, cutting deep into the leather plates but failing to penetrate them. Triston leapt back in time to avoid a vicious upward mace thrust. At that moment, he saw the borrowed sword reflected clearly in the torchlight, and cursed inwardly. The blade, already nicked and battered, had sustained a shiny new notch a foot from the tip, a big one. He was lucky it hadn’t broken off completely.
The two men circled each other warily, Gorwain’s chest heaving with rapid breath, his face flushed like wine. A buzzing filled the air. The crowd, Triston realized. Men were shouting themselves hoarse all around. He gave them no heed. He had eyes only for the behemoth pacing not ten feet away. Gorwain’s strength would not give out while the night lasted, and a direct hit from the mace-head would surely prove fatal. But the giant’s speed—he had lost his breath after one swift engagement. Best not to let this foe rest for long.
Armistand was waiting.
“I offer you a chance to yield,” Triston shouted at the top of his lungs. A torrent of laughter. He was giving the villagers a show, and they loved him for it.
Gorwain ceased pacing, staring around at the onlookers with a face contorted by fury. “Silence!” he roared, but the laughter grew. He turned to Triston.
“A pity.” Crunching gravel.
“What? That you’re too fat and slow to catch me?”
He spat. “A pity to have to turn you into pig dung.”
“Isn’t that what you say to your bacon and eggs every morning?”
The giant charged. Four thunderous steps and an overhead swipe with strength to turn a small tree to powder. Too easy. Triston dodged aside with half a second to spare, lashing out at the massive, leather-plated backside with a stinging swipe as he danced out of range.
Wild laughter.
Wild rage. Gorwain charged again, growling his frustration. Again Triston leapt aside as the overhead blow went wide.
“Curse you for a coward. Stand and f—”
Triston dove in with a forward thrust, piercing the jerkin above the man’s prodigious belly with the tip of his blade and drawing a trickle of blood as he beat a hasty retreat.
An ear-splitting bellow. Gorwain swung his weapon wildly, an injured bear flailing at empty air. Then the giant was stampeding forward, his wrathful gaze locked on Triston. Lesson learned, he now poised the mace over his right shoulder, readying a nearly unavoidable sideswipe. Facing him, drawing him on, Triston fled backward to the outer perimeter, forcing t
he big man to pursue up the slope.
Space ran out all too soon. He wanted more time to wear this bull down, but his time was out. The spectators leaning on the rope-fence nearby broke away screaming, their thrill turned to terror, but Triston had nowhere to go. To jump the fence meant shame and disqualification, to stand still meant a crushing death.
Gorwain’s face was plum purple as he galumphed upward, and his breath came in ragged gasps. But the glow in his eyes was lusty and fierce, for his insolent little enemy was trapped. Those eyes spoke clearly. He would crush Triston, whether he leapt the fence or not.
Two hundred years earlier, a legendary swordsman stood between a charging troll and a huddle of terrified women. In a flash of inspiration, he had performed the daring move remembered ever after by his name. The terrain had been perfect that day.
The terrain was perfect now.
Gorwain was ten feet, maybe three strides distant. The mace was already inching around for the kill. Move or die.
Triston thrust forward with all his speed, speed he had deliberately held back until now, speed boosted by a downward slope against a weary, upward-struggling foe. He reached Gorwain fully seven feet before the giant had anticipated, making straight for the swinging mace. He’d been forced to use this ploy in the opening move of the duel, but then he’d been weaponless.
Time changed. In that moment, as Triston’s eyes fell on the mace, a phalanx of spikes inches from turning his face to jelly tart, a split second seemed to hold endless room for thought. A silver strand hung between him and certain death, a glimmer of metallic light. The sword he’d borrowed from the Fighter’s Hold, with Gorbald’s indulgent permission, now fell merciless against his son’s uplifted arm.
And snapped in two.
Triston watched in disbelieving horror. The notched blade struck home just below the wrist, precisely as he intended. Gorwain’s leather gauntlet, supple for flexibility, yielded to the rigid steel edge. Like Armistand’s troll, the hand seemed doomed to separate from the body, rendering useless the deadly blow. But this time, it was the steel blade which cracked and broke free. Blood spurted from the injured wrist and glistened on the shattered tip as it fell harmlessly to the grass.
Gorwain’s damaged wrist had lost its grip on the mace, but his swinging attack had scarcely slowed. A massive arm, like a horizontal tree-trunk, overwhelmed Triston’s vision. For one wild moment, the starry sky was beneath him, the grassy slope above.
Then all was night.
“Disqualified. Aye, beaten. But what a show, eh?”
Bildad’s voice. He was standing out of sight, but a warted nose hovered overhead. A trembling hand was wiping his face with a cool, wet cloth.
“Winchie, I . . . thanks. That’s . . . kind. I’m fine, though, really. How long was I out?”
Bildad grunted. “Long enough for the elders to rule in Gorwain’s favor. Oaf wanted to smash you when he’d given up mewling over his bloody wrist. Fetched his mace and stood over ya. Thought you was a goner, I did, but his dad wouldn’t let him. Blew a note on that damn-blasted ram-blaster o’ his and that’s the end of it. You woke in time to see the dubbing.”
The innkeeper stooped and helped Triston to his feet. A roar of applause erupted all around, nearly causing Triston to fall again in surprise.
“They love ya, boy.” Bildad slapped him hard on the shoulder while Winchie reached up to caress his hair, her face a hundred beaming wrinkles. “Pluck. That’s what they love. An underdog.”
Standing on either side of him, the innkeeper and his wife both wrapped one of his arms over a shoulder and headed toward the gap in the fence. “Really you two, I think I can walk on my own.” They ignored him. The onlookers continued to clap and holler, and Winchie smiled serenely all around. Grinning more broadly with each step, she lifted cracked and withered lips to whisper in Triston’s ear.
“Know it was you, boy.”
“What?”
“My Brigand.” Her voice quavered. “Gone like a fart in a blizzard.”
“Winchie, I never—”
“This fuss won’t last. Believe me, they’ll forget you.” Still grinning, she squeezed his arm, her nails digging into the skin. “Then I’ll make you crawl like the dog you are.”
They had reached the gap. Almost at once a raucous throng enclosed them, pressing in from all directions. Triston stopped, firmly removing himself from the innkeepers’ greedy grasps. “Thank you again,” he told Bildad. Turning his back on them, he paused to say I’m sorry about your cat, but the words stuck in his throat.
He made for the Chief’s platform, a hundred Well done’s and dozens of Nearly had him, you did! following him all the way. Owain’s ecstatic shouting directly in his ear overwhelmed all the others.
“Trist! Amazing! You led that brute right at us. Spilled Trolljuice on my mom’s back as we ran for it, but it’s OK. She has no idea who did it.”
Triston halted before the Chief, who acknowledged him with a cold nod. Gorwain loomed over his father, blood seeping through a woolen bandage on his wrist. Gorbald raised a hand for silence, and the rowdy band of hangers-on grew still. Twelve elders and twelve Fighters flanked them, twenty-four torches held aloft to gutter in the night breeze.
Gorbald recited the ritual words dubbing his son into the Wyrmskull Fighters with solemn gravity, and Gorwain dully repeated the vows after his father.
As Triston watched, a dull ache crept over his chest and he found breathing burdensome. His face was throbbing where the giant had struck him, but the growing pain in his chest was of another sort. He had lost. Winchie was right. In a few days he would be a nobody again, scouring chamber pots in the inn for a few cold scraps.
He realized Gorwain was kneeling. The Chief was straining with both hands to hold aloft a longsword like no other. Bloodprice. Dragonbane. The millennium-old blade gleamed crimson in the torchlight, fresh oil glistening from four feet of razor-sharp steel. The hilt was black like obsidian and intricately traced with gold filigree. An egg-sized ruby centered above the pommel threw back the firelight in hundreds of sparkling facets. All eyes marveled at the precious heirloom.
Except—the Lord Sarconius. Seated behind the Chief, the stranger had watched with sharp intensity until Gorbald lifted the blade. Now he sat slumped back, an expression of fierce disappointment flickering on his face just long enough for Her Grace the Seer to notice and smirk. This exchange passed in a flash. Both guests masked polite interest a second later as they witnessed Gorbald carefully dub his son on both shoulders.
When all was over, Alden tossed his torch onto the grass and hurried over to Triston. “Bad luck mate. Worst ever. That should have been you up there.”
Triston tried to grin. “It could have been worse.” At that moment Winchie sauntered up to them, unnoticed by Alden. “Or not.”
“Come with me to the Fire Hall. We’ll drown this night in a bucket of ale, eh? My treat.”
Winchie laughed, making Alden jumped. “He’s going to The Dragon all right. I’m thinking it’s been too long since the privy shafts have had a good scrubbing.” She eyed Triston triumphantly. “Need somebody lanky enough to shimmy through the shit-holes to give the grimy stones a good once-over.” She turned to Alden. “You know anybody real skinny-like and desperate for work?”
“Ah, so you work at the inn?” said a musical voice behind him. This time it was Triston’s turn to jump. He turned and found himself face to face with the Seer.
“Your Grace!” he managed after a shocked pause, bowing painfully.
Her sweet laughter was like the ringing of many bells. “Stand tall, dear one. You’ve earned the right. I believe your Chieftain called you Slendrake. Is that right?”
“Y-yes. Triston Slendrake, ma’am.”
“Well, Triston Slendrake, many years ago I had the very great pleasure of knowing your father for a short time. I never knew he had a son.”
“Y-yes ma’am. Me. That is, I am his son. My father’s. Trinian.”
�
��Yes, Trinian,” she laughed. “A great man in his way. Well, I look forward to seeing more of you at the inn.” She walked on, looking back with a small smile as her Guardians closed ranks around her.
Triston looked back at Alden and Winchie, their open-mouthed astonishment a perfect reflection of his own.
THREE
PUZZLES
What persuades? For man, his gain. For woman, her heart.
For a horse, the whip. For a mob? The stomach.
— Roland the Venerable, Aphorisms,
“Boy’s cheap as scraps, Winchifred, and sharp as a wasp’s ass. Can’t afford to lose him.”
“A lazy thief, if I ever saw one. Probably lolling about right now devouring one of my pies.”
Not pies, Winchie. That was last week.
Triston peered through the wooden slats of the wardrobe door. As he’d suspected, they were standing front-to-front, wrapped in each other’s arms, their faces an inch apart. It was creepy when they talked about him while embracing. To drive the image from his mind, he took another bite from the remains of a cheese wedge he’d stolen hours earlier in the pre-dawn stillness. Why hadn’t he chosen the furnace room for a breakfast nook over this spare bedroom? When he’d heard their footsteps a minute earlier, he only just managed to conceal himself among the musty woolen garments as they burst into the room.
This is my life. I’m hiding in a moldy closet munching moldy cheese.
Yesterday’s hopes of glory and a fresh start already seemed like a stupid fantasy. Still, the summit duel hadn’t been a total loss. The whole village had turned out at the Fire Hall, and Triston’s company was in high demand. Affixing a wooden smile, Bildad had thrust a frothy mug at him and ordered him to keep his patrons company all night, so long as they kept slapping down more silver. The tremble in Winchie’s hands as she refilled his drink promised future suffering, but at that moment Triston had found himself more than compensated for his throbbing face.