by Stefon Mears
His squire had dropped that big blue helmet. Fallen back covering his eyes.
The duke had fallen back a step himself. One arm drew his sword of war while the other raised up to shield his face.
Cavan closed. Sword raised like a lance. Ready to slip past the duke’s elbow and…
The duke may have been blinded, but his hearing was fine. He timed his kick perfectly. Caught Cavan in the chest. Shoved him back and bought time.
Sword of war raised in both hands now, weaving back and forth while the duke blinked against the aftereffects of Ehren’s sunburst. No focus to his eyes though. Still unseeing.
Cavan tried to bat the huge sword aside, but the duke was strong and his sword was heavy. The duke turned the attempt into a cut for Cavan’s head.
Cavan ducked the strike. The duke’s blade nicked the stone wall of the stairwell. He immediately swung it back the other way. Low. Cavan had to jump back to avoid the blade.
Still the duke was blinking against the spell. He was doing all this blind.
Cavan pulled mustard seeds from his spell pouch. He flung them toward the duke and shouted power across them. “Neelin akah!”
The seeds swarmed like hornets, stinging at the duke from a dozen angles at once. The duke fell back another step to a small landing, where the stairwell turned up to his right. He almost stumbled, shaking his head against seeds that harried him high. But most of the seeds bounced harmlessly off his armor.
“Shyla sata,” the duke said, spitting power into a ball of flame, but it was laboratory wizardry. Perfect in form and without any heart.
“Hass assan iikah,” Cavan whispered, breathing power at the fireball.
The spell turned and leapt at the duke, twice as big and twice as strong.
It slammed into his breastplate. The duke roared in pain, blinking his watering eyes.
Eyes that now focused on Cavan.
The duke was panting as he stood and took a step closer to Cavan. Sword in a sure grip now.
“Make room,” Amra called, over Cavan’s shoulder. “I can take him.”
“You wanted your challenge, boy,” the duke said. “Still have the courage for it?”
“Don’t!” Qalas called out. “There’s no way he can get back to help before we can stop him.”
“Move over, Cavan,” Amra said. “Let me through.”
“You don’t need to do this, Cavan,” Ehren said. “He’s right. It’s not about honor or tradition. It’s desperation.”
“Come back down here then,” Cavan said. “You and me. Right now.”
“To the death?” Amusement as much as curiosity in the duke’s confident eyes.
“There’s no need to be stupid about this. You’re still my uncle and a duke. I’m still a royal bastard and your nephew. We fight until one of us yields.”
“What happens then?”
“If I win, you release Kent and his family, and swear that you’ll leave them alone. Also, you’ll abandon any claim to my inheritance, whatever that turns out to be. Oh, and you’ll put your seal on a letter of admission I write to the king, about what you’ve done.”
“You, Kent and your inheritance are fine. I agree to those parts. Forget the letter.”
“What do you guys think?” Cavan said, not taking his eyes off the duke.
“Good enough,” Ehren said. “The king will listen when Kent tells the tale. That’ll accomplish what you want.”
“And if I win?” the duke asked.
“I will make a formal, written gift of my royal inheritance to you, whatever that inheritance turns out to be.”
“Witnessed and sealed?”
Cavan nodded. “Officially you’ll have won it from me in a game of cards.”
“People would believe that of you,” the duke said, thoughtfully. “I will also require your oath — and oaths from your compatriots — that you will be forever silent about any discoveries made in the land you stand to inherit.”
“I can’t promise for Kent.”
“If you sign over your inheritance, I’ll have no reason to harm him or his. I’ll even keep him on as steward, or offer him something more lucrative. He’s a gift for making money.”
The duke smiled, and sounding almost avuncular as he continued.
“We can avoid the bother of a fight, you know. There’s no real need for it. You could just agree to sign over your inheritance and swear the oaths. That will save Kent and his family, and isn’t that the reason you’re here? And, honestly, do you see yourself as a high lord? Handling the day-to-day tedium of running a barony? A man of action like yourself?”
Cavan smiled. “I’d do it just to keep the land out of your hands.”
“Fine then,” the duke said with a sigh. “Men like you always claim you don’t want blood, but your hands are never clean, are they?”
Cavan started to retort, but the duke waved it off. “As soon as your compatriots agree that they will swear their oaths to silence when I beat you, we can get on with this.”
“I’ll swear,” Qalas said.
“Of course I’ll swear,” Ehren said.
“If Cavan manages to lose to a pompous windbag like you,” Amra said, “I’ll swear your oath out of pure disgust. Just so I never have to talk about you, or such a pathetic loss, ever again.”
“Good enough,” the duke said. “I swear to uphold my end of this bargain if I lose.”
“And I swear to uphold mine,” Cavan said.
“Very well, then.” The duke’s eyes tracked the area behind Cavan. “Davan! My helm.”
“What happened to ‘I wouldn’t even bother with my helm?’” Ehren asked.
“Easy to talk big behind a wall of spearmen,” Amra said.
“Cavan’s not wearing any armor at all,” Qalas said.
“Fair points. I’ll forgo the helm.” The duke smiled at Cavan. “Shall we?”
Cavan didn’t like the look in those nearly golden eyes.
“The fight is to begin once we’re both back in the chamber behind me, standing six strides apart. Any strikes or spells before then shall be treated as cheating.”
The duke smiled, lowered his sword, and gestured for Cavan to precede him.
Cavan backed down the steps anyway.
* * *
Cavan had known that a battle was going on behind him while he pursued the duke, but he hadn’t quite been ready for the scene of carnage that awaited him when he returned to the round, stone room.
Blood everywhere. The room smelled of copper and death. Worse, underneath it remained that greasy roast pork smell. It seemed somehow wrong now.
A score of dead guards, cut open in various ways. And not a mark on Amra or Qalas for their efforts. None of those dead men had recovered from Ehren’s dazzling brilliance in time to mount a real defense.
Cavan might have felt sorry for them, if they hadn’t been about to kill him and his friends. It wasn’t as though there had been some quick and easy way to render them all unconscious. If there had been, Ehren would have found it.
“Efficient,” the duke said, finding a clean spot on the floor and taking up a stance, his sword raised and on guard. “If either of you are ever looking for work…”
“I did work for you,” Qalas said. “I was a huntsman.”
The duke pursed his lips as he looked at the left shoulder of Qalas’ leather armor, where the duke’s sigil had been torn away, then shrugged. “Never mind you then.” He looked at Amra. “You, though—”
“I’d sooner hang up my sword.”
“What is that thing?” Now that the duke was paying more attention, he must have sensed something about the blade.
“None of your business, is what it is.” She smiled. “Unless you’d rather fight me. I’ll tell you all about it if you win.”
The duke looked at his dead soldiers, especially the ones where cuts had shorn cleanly through their armor. “I think not.”
Cavan took up his position, six strides from the duke. That left him standing in blood, wh
ich he had no doubt was deliberate on the duke’s part. Wouldn’t matter for long.
Amra stepped up, ostensibly to check Cavan’s sword. “Blue enameling on his armor,” she muttered while checking it over.
“Spells in it. I know. Already checked them. Nothing too impressive. Make him a little stronger. Harder to cut.”
“Figures,” she said with a smile, handing Cavan back Kent’s sword. “So widen that sneering mouth for him.”
Amra stepped aside, and Cavan took a stance, sword high and free hand near his spell pouch. Rolled his shoulders and neck, relieving just a little of his tension.
Groaning. A voice … no … more than one groaning voice. Surely those guards were…
A guard sat up. Not one of the twenty with spears. One of the original four. And he wasn’t alone. The other two who’d survived that initial furious attack were all coming around at the same time.
“Stand down,” ordered the duke, without looking away from Cavan, as though those men had been about to grab weapons and leap to his defense. “This is between me and your king’s bastard.”
The dazed guards all sat there as though they couldn’t understand anything that was happening around them. Then one of them turned and retched.
“Hardly a moment from the sonnets, eh?” the duke said with a smile. “Nevertheless, we’ve both agreed to the stakes, so let’s get—”
“One moment,” Ehren said stepping between them and raising his staff high.
“There’s no need for—” tried the duke, but Ehren called in a loud voice, “Zatafa, witness this battle, and bind both men to its outcome, and the words of promise they’ve uttered.”
Cavan felt a warm glow settle around him, then fade.
The duke grimaced. “I did not agree to that.”
“But of course you’re a man of your word anyway,” Ehren said with a smile, “so what difference could it make?”
Ehren then stepped aside, whistling.
“Ready?” the duke asked. “Or would one of your other friends like to do a song and dance?”
Cavan couldn’t help glancing over at Amra and Qalas. “I’d pay to see that.”
“Enough!” One word, but Cavan heard regal command in the duke’s voice. “You wanted this, boy. Let’s get it over with.”
Cavan leapt forward out of the blood, sliding his boots to try to scrape them clean.
The duke muttered something and his gauntlets glowed with a dark blue light that spread up his sword of war as he continued to mutter.
Cavan threw a dagger. Clanged it off that dark blue breastplate.
The spell fizzled.
Cavan leapt forward, swinging through a series of rapid cuts while digging through his spell pouch with his free hand. The duke had his sword in place to block each, but only just. Powerful blade in powerful arms, but not so fast as Cavan.
“The problem with hiding your studies,” Cavan said, pressing his flurry of attacks, each ringing out as it met the sword of war, “is that you get no real field practice, do you?”
The duke turned a parry into an elbow strike at Cavan’s head.
Cavan had to duck, slip back a step. Lost his momentum.
The duke swung high. Cavan parried. A feint. The duke kicked at Cavan’s gut. Forced him to jump back a step.
“I’ll get it when I need it,” the duke said, pushing Cavan on the defense now. Striking as often with the great pommel of that sword of war as with the blade. Made it seem like two faster weapons, instead of one slow weapon.
Cavan timed a long right-to-left swipe from the duke. Spun away from it toward the unguarded right side.
The duke’s mighty wrists yanked his sword back to protect his neck…
But the attack wasn’t there.
Cavan slapped a lodestone to the back of the duke’s armor, breathing power across it as he whispered, “Multa fasah.”
The duke turned his attempted parry into a stab. Cavan needed both hands to parry the strike and still took a cut across his shoulder.
“That’s your sword arm,” the duke said. “Surrender now before something … unfortunate happens.”
Cavan smiled through the pain and cut at the duke’s head. Parried, but the duke had a puzzled expression now. Sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Getting hot in here?” Cavan said, launching a triple-cut at the duke’s exposed head. The duke interposed his sword twice, but the last cut came too fast. Too fast the way the duke was sweating. The way building heat through his metal armor warned of incoming pain.
The duke parried that third cut, but with his right vambrace. Taking one hand off the grip of that sword for a key moment.
Cavan swung to disarm. Both hands gripping his sword. Everything into the strike. Blow aimed at the dark blue gauntlet holding the weapon.
The other dark blue gauntlet smashed Cavan in the face. Broke his nose.
Blood down his face now. Aim spoiled. His swing missed. He spun with the force of the blow. Such strength…
Sword coming at his head.
Cavan dove. Tried to roll. Slipped in blood. On his back now. His nose throbbed. His shoulder began burning from the effort of fighting through his pain. Cavan shunted both pains away in a corner of his mind.
The duke. Coming. Drenched in sweat. Teeth clenched against pain. Hacking for Cavan’s gut.
Cavan rolled aside. The duke struck stone. Cavan managed to get his boots under him. Came up swinging. Blocked by that giant sword. Quick cut at Cavan’s head. Missed, but still coming.
The duke grunted nonstop through gritted teeth now. Blinked against a downpour of sweat. Something frantic to his strikes. Fast cuts.
Cavan jumped back and back from the blade’s tip. Studying his foe.
Too fast. Trying to press for victory. The duke overbalanced on each swing. Just a little.
Maybe enough.
Cavan waited for the next attack. Charged. Slammed his unwounded shoulder into the duke’s breastplate. Hot pain in Cavan’s shoulder, but the duke went down. One hand came away from his sword.
“Finally!” Amra called, the first sound out of any of Cavan’s companions.
Cavan kicked the duke’s sword away. Knelt on the hot breastplate and brought the edge of Kent’s family sword to the duke’s throat.
“Do you yield?”
“Yes!” the duke yelled. “Yes! I yield. Make it stop. It burns!”
Cavan flipped the duke over and knocked the lodestone away with the pommel of his sword. The duke shuddered in relief when the source of the heat vanished. He’d feel even better in a few moments, when his armor cooled down again.
Cavan stood and gave him that time. Panting for breath himself, and wiping away more than a little sweat and blood.
Amra stepped in front of him. Cavan was ready to smile and accept congratulations — or maybe an apology for the “Finally!” — but all she did was grab his nose and yank it into place.
“Ow!” Cavan cried, and the sudden, unexpected shock snapped the barrier that held back the rest of his pain. His hand dropped his sword, his right arm twitching from the cut shoulder on down. His nose throbbed and complained, dripping more blood toward his mouth.
“He should never have gotten that shot in,” Amra said. “But we’ll go over your mistakes later.”
“No doubt,” he said, while Ehren looked over his wounds and began pulling some healing herbs from his brown leather pack.
“Hey,” Qalas said with a big smile. “You won. Any fight you win, is—”
“A fight you could lose next time,” Amra said, “if you don’t learn from your mistakes.”
“If you’re all quite finished,” the duke said. He sat, then stood, with quiet dignity, despite the fact that Cavan was sure he’d suffered painful burns.
Apparently Ehren agreed.
“Don’t move too much,” Ehren said. “You have burns that will need salve, and—”
“I have healers of my own thank you.”
“Please,” Ehren said
. “When the sun next rises, Zatafa can take those burns away. Don’t suffer them out of spite.”
The duke nodded, then said, “Thank you.” He drew a deep breath, let it out. But if he was trying for ease, Cavan wasn’t fooled. The duke’s brow was still crinkled against the pain.
“That heat spell,” he said. “Can you teach it to me?”
“Will you admit to your training?”
“Never mind then.” The duke turned to his guards, the three who were still recovering from being knocked unconscious. “You three, I want a list of names of the fallen, and tell their sergeant I ordered their families be given twice the normal compensation for their loss. Then get the bodies cleaned up and prepared for their families.”
He looked about for a moment, sighed, and called, “Devan!”
The squire poked his head out of one of the dirt tunnels.
“We’ll have words later about the helmet, but for now fetch Uli and tell him to bring soap, water and a towel.” The duke cast a sour eye over Cavan’s bloody clothing. “Oh, and clothes for someone as tall as my brother.”
He turned to Cavan. “We have some details to attend to, but you will not walk around my castle filthy and covered in blood.”
“Don’t worry,” said Ehren with a smile. “I’ve got this.”
19
The duke’s whole castle appeared to be organized in sections. As though it were actually several smaller buildings that all just happened to share common walls. The cells were below the castle barracks, which were just about the most ascetic place Cavan had seen in a long time. Maybe ever.
Then again, maybe not. He’d been inside the temple of some very philosophical dwarves, who had shaved their heads and beards and committed to wearing only kilts of undyed roughspun as part of their dedication to a world without gold. Incredible stonemasons.
These barracks weren’t much more comfortable than that dwarvish temple had been though. Gray walls, gray floors, straw-stuffed pallets, and that dirt and sweat smell that Cavan associated with men-at-arms.
From there they passed briefly through luxury. Rich, thick red-and-gold carpets. Tapestries covering whitewashed walls. Enchanted, smokeless torches for light. The smell of fresh melons in the air. Guards in crisp uniforms, carrying halberds that looked as though they’d never struck an enemy in anger.