chapter twelve
Rever doesn't say a word. There isn't a wasted movement on his part, not one unnecessary breath. Only the blinding whirl of his blade and a dead calm in his dark eyes. Metal rings, scrapes, and whispers against metal repeatedly, a numbing chorus of my life's ending thwarted in endless repetition, a chorus growing weaker with each passing moment. I've been surrendering ground since this duel began. I am now being forced up the stairwell towards the main hall of the embassy. This is the second stairwell I've had to ascend while keeping myself alive. The last one seems like it was ages ago, when in truth it was only a few moments. I very nearly died a score or more times in that well, and would shudder now at the prospect of surviving another confining ascent under the Rider's unrelenting assault if I could spare the effort.
As it is, I can spare nothing. The clanging in my ears has grown faint, indeed, all senses that do not involve mastering Rever's offensive and searching beyond hope for an opening have been dimmed, cast to the utter fringes of my awareness. Here comes a thrust, just parried, and I rise and retreat another step. This stairwell winds tightly; one misstep and I will be dead before I can even fall. So I do not think about it. So many unexpected moves--here is an upward cut from his left, when I would have sworn it impossible for his blade to move thus, having just parried one of my waning counterstrokes high above his right shoulder. One might ask me how much longer I can sustain my defense, and I would beg one not to blink, lest they miss my valiant, outmatched end.
Rever's blade is a short, narrow sword, the class typically favored by General Graeme's Securion, his highest order of security forces. These men are trained to deal death in ways beyond all ken of common soldiers such as myself. They can and do survive deep in enemy territory without succor or supply for a score of days and more, relying only on their own skills with blade and bow to secure meat and secrecy.
Were it not for the hurt to Rever's left leg, which still keeps him somewhat halt of gait, the first heartbeats of our clash would have been my last. Again from below, when no blade should so travel! The throb in my right shoulder is unbearable, and I wince at the impact of his metal against mine. Even the most casual flick of the wrist from him elicits a jarring impact upon my sword-arm, a skill no doubt part and parcel of the secret prowess of the Riders of the Keep. And this Rider, a member of the Securion? I should just as well defend myself against General Graeme himself.
I am nearly up the steps and I am still alive, and there is that. I can feel the huge empty spanse of the main hall opening behind me, and sense rather than see the sunlight streaming through the tall, narrow windows on either side of the great door. I only have eyes for my tormentor this very moment.
While my eyes have scurried ever more frantic in the maddening--and futile--attempt to track the path of his blade, his own, when I have swept them by, seem to have remained locked squarely on mine. Early on, when we fought in the dankness of the torchlit subcellar, a forgotten hall where Magician's lights have yet to be installed, I essayed to mirror his technique, strange as it was to me, understanding immediately that to focus on one's enemy's eyes would surely reveal his weaknesses and doubts the moment they surfaced. I nearly died then, on bended knee, before I could remember the wisdom of keeping to my own training and experience. The heat of battle is no time to learn a new style of fighting.
Long gone is the candied yellow cloak by which the Rider gained entrance to the citadel, singing and charming his way hither amidst the unwitting Bardeenians. He is now dressed in the customary black of a Rider of the Keep, though he has no armor. Not that he requires it. Fresh blood stains are spattered in myriad patterns up both of his sleeves. So much blood, none of it his own. How could such a beautiful, enrapturing voice find itself slave to such an unrelenting, dangerous master--attend! That stroke could have cost my leg! I can ill afford wandering thoughts now. Each one might be my last, and I'd like to be here for my ending.
No! I will not end like this--and my defiant thrust is deftly slapped aside; the short blade comes unimpeded now. Duck, roll, bring up my blade just where I would be swinging if I were he--and he is not there. I open my eyes.
He is no Magician. He is panting, though not half so hard as I, and remains where I left him three long paces hence. For my part, I hear him from the near side of the heavy, black doors. Above my own, hoarse breathing, I fancy I can also hear a Courier's ride pass on the far side, calling ahead to every junction of the road. He has already passed. "You fight well, surprisingly so." Rever wipes his brow with the back of his sword-hand. "I do believe I'm perspiring. It has been a long time."
"Not so very in sooth, Rever." I place my right hand, behind my back, on the door's great bronzed handle, as much for support as anything else. I hardly recognize the rasp that escapes my lips as my own voice. "I cannot imagine a man running for his life, leaving his fellow soldiers to die, fleeing selfishly" I pause and force a deep breath through my nostrils, "in fear from a Krysli unleashed, doing so without breaking a sweat." What's he doing with his left hand?
Trickery! I barely react in time, lurching to my right just in time to catch a hidden dagger from his boot... where exactly? In my neck? Pray, let this not be a mortal wound! Rever cries, "You weren't there!" and leaps for me. Blood is running down my neck, but does not spray before my eyes. I hope I can take that, and the fact that a highly-trained Rider may yet be so goaded, as good omen. Almost reflexively, I twist the handle, and the great wooden door, still vibrating from the dagger embedded in it, swings outward and I tumble back, with only a brief, agonizing rent before I am free of the dagger's grasp. Not too deep, not that deep. I throw a heavy, booted foot up to catch Rever by the belly and hurl him past me into the sunlight.
The Securion clatters down the steps behind me. I rise to my feet far too swiftly, turning only to fall back to one knee. I put a gauntleted hand to my neck to staunch the flow, like a child with a scraped knee on the playing grounds. My head goes light for a moment. In the next, I am facing Rever from the top of the wide steps above Hilael Street. Rever is grimacing, himself on one knee a few steps up from the wide dusty road. Blood, bright and unexpected, trickles down from his nose. His shoulders do not appear able to square up. Somebody cries out, a passerby, and then another, but neither of us takes our eyes off the other; I do not think we care anymore. We have tasted blood. One of us must die. For the first time since we began, I am no longer certain it must be me.
I start down the steps, the first I've taken moving forward in ages. "Rider. Securion. Jester." I spit redly on the polished tawn steps. "Traitor, I name you! Tormentor! Usurper of the law! Violant in brazen contempt of the People's Charter! We do not torture the innocent and the unarmed! We do not cravenly inflict hurt upon the helpless and bound! We," I pause and realize that people are beginning to gather some distance away. "We are better than that!"
Rever springs to his feet, landing on the street with a near flourish. Only a momentary wince as the weight hits his left leg belies his confidence. "Insubordinate. Defiant. Child. I am not bound by your People's Charter!" He spits in his turn. "I serve a higher law, I serve the very will of the High General himself, and will not be questioned or defied by a simple peasant such as you! But for your insolence, I would already have the name of the Magician, and be on my way to the fastness of The Keep with knowledge dire enough to wipe this country from the map." He steps back, ignoring the scattered chatter of onlookers, and spreads his arms wide. "Come closer and learn your fate, for I name you Dead Man!" He spits again, his exclamation point. My head aches. Confident that he has nothing further he can hurl across the distance between us, I do not at once accept his invitation. Instead I survey the street. A score or more persons--men, women, a few older children--are spaced variously in a loose half-circle focused on the entrance to the embassy. By the light the day is scarcely past mid-morn, and shadows from the surrounding buildings take the bulk of them. Across the street, production at the Foundry would seem to have stopped, as the workers fill the second story windows to take in the scene below. Certainly the thors will be along presently? I could hardly be blamed if I did little more than keep Rever where he is until they arrive. "The ambassador is dead!" Many in the crowd gasp at this. Rever half-turns to address them. "Yes, this man has blood on his hands. Even now the ambassador lies dead in a room deep below the embassy!"
Laen! "No!" Laen, you must preserve yourself! "No!" I raise my voice with a croak to the crowd, two score or more now. "The ambassador yet lives!" Lowering my eyes to meet Rever's, I begin my descent. "As do the Magicians. Blood has been spilled, but speak no lies about it. Do not deny your handiwork, Rider of the Keep."
"If the ambassador persists, it will not be long." He turns my glare back upon me twofold. He lowers his voice now, speaking directly to me. "Whose orders do you think the guards will follow? Yours? I expect to return and find the ambassador long dead. But this much we may agree upon. Victorious is quite dead! And by whose hand?"
I look down at the rivulets of blood coursing down my breastplate. My shield was abandoned long ago, being as much a hindrance as anything in the closed spaces of the halls of the sub-cellar, much to my regret. I know I am bleeding from more places than my neck. The Securion had already penetrated my armor a handful of times, if not enough to bring me to my knees at once, at least enough to bring me to my knees now. I feel I cannot rise. And it is indeed by my own hand, crossing swords in sudden anger in defense of Laen and poor Sir Vencher with a soldier thrice my skill.
"How will you escape this, Rever? You are surrounded, with blood on your hands, in the very city of your enemies. Your doom is at least as certain as my own."
Rever laughs and begins to mount the stairs. He is still limping. "I entered this city with honor, food, and drink, indeed, all the comforts any visiting dignitary might crave. If I but leave it half so well, I'll be faring far better than you, Victorious."
I stare blankly at nothing in particular as my executioner draws near. I can think of no words, nothing my various wounds will allow, to gainsay his sure intent. Reflexively I sniff. Laen always hated that. Hates! Hates! Laen hates because Laen is still alive! Gorgos and the rest were just as horrified as I at what we found in that deep chamber this morn. He heard me! They will abide! Laen yet lives! I yet live! There is hope for the captives... as long as I live!
Rever's death-stroke clangs dully off of my blade, even though the impact nearly knocks it from my grasp. Stand now, stand! Good! I take his second stroke with my mailed forearm, and the broken chains bite deep. He parries my lumbering, answering blow easily, but he is no longer smiling. Neither am I, but then, I never was. We clash and I grasp his wrist, leaning close. "The thors and soldiery of Siguard come, Rever. Surrender and your life at least will be spared."
Rever either grins or grimaces--a momentary flash of ruddy sunlight makes it difficult to tell which. "This is a post route. A Courier will come at least as quickly." He throws me back and lunges, but it only scrapes my breastplate with a screech as I retreat a step. A Courier? He wouldn't dare. Then I think of Garth Vencher as I last saw him. Then again, he might. With a steed and--ironically--again, a yellow cloak to protect his identity, if only briefly, he may indeed gain the city's walls before the deception fails. My head goes light again, and with an expert twist of my opponent's blade, my sword finally leaves my grasp to clatter off the stone bannister and down to the street. Pray, let this not be true! Let this not be a world where such as Rever can maim and kill as is their wont with impunity, and ride untouched from the scene to further their ill intent! That is not my country, this is not my world! It cannot be!
Rever wastes no time on speeches or pageantry as he levels an even swing at my neck. I will not let such a world be! Rising just in time to catch his sword in my shoulder, I lunge forward and tackle my tormentor and hurl us both from the steps into the dust below. Even taken aback with his outstretched arms behind me, in midair, I feel his blade cut into my lower back. I do not care.
I will not let such a world be! Landing heavily upon him, certain his sword is lodged half into my armor and half into my flesh, I drive myself back with a great wrenching and hear myself scream as his blade escapes his grasp and remains in my back. Fortunately I can reach it, and scream again as I tear it loose. Rever is already on one knee but it is too late. My blow tears his head clean from his shoulders. His swagger and sneer are instantly replaced by a bloody shower, his arms flailing madly as he pitches forward in one last, sickeningly hopeless assault to bathe me in his blood. I try to evade but his dying body clings to me and empties out its entire store of lifeblood into my face. I turn my head and wretch as everything I've ever eaten comes out of me in a rush.
At last I pry him loose, and everything left of Rever spills out of him with gory permanence onto the packed dirt. His body twitches and writhes grotesquely with great fits and starts, and that is most disturbing of all to witness. Searching for something, anything else to look upon, I do not immediately find his head. I fairly swim up from one throbbing knee to see what is now quite a crowded street fairly swimming in the mid-morning light. I recognize the Master of the Foundry, Higgin, a good man, among the swirling faces, and fall upon my backside, blinking vacantly. I sniff once and the world departs.
Higgins is a good man, but he drinks too much.
As it is, I can spare nothing. The clanging in my ears has grown faint, indeed, all senses that do not involve mastering Rever's offensive and searching beyond hope for an opening have been dimmed, cast to the utter fringes of my awareness. Here comes a thrust, just parried, and I rise and retreat another step. This stairwell winds tightly; one misstep and I will be dead before I can even fall. So I do not think about it. So many unexpected moves--here is an upward cut from his left, when I would have sworn it impossible for his blade to move thus, having just parried one of my waning counterstrokes high above his right shoulder. One might ask me how much longer I can sustain my defense, and I would beg one not to blink, lest they miss my valiant, outmatched end.
Rever's blade is a short, narrow sword, the class typically favored by General Graeme's Securion, his highest order of security forces. These men are trained to deal death in ways beyond all ken of common soldiers such as myself. They can and do survive deep in enemy territory without succor or supply for a score of days and more, relying only on their own skills with blade and bow to secure meat and secrecy.
Were it not for the hurt to Rever's left leg, which still keeps him somewhat halt of gait, the first heartbeats of our clash would have been my last. Again from below, when no blade should so travel! The throb in my right shoulder is unbearable, and I wince at the impact of his metal against mine. Even the most casual flick of the wrist from him elicits a jarring impact upon my sword-arm, a skill no doubt part and parcel of the secret prowess of the Riders of the Keep. And this Rider, a member of the Securion? I should just as well defend myself against General Graeme himself.
I am nearly up the steps and I am still alive, and there is that. I can feel the huge empty spanse of the main hall opening behind me, and sense rather than see the sunlight streaming through the tall, narrow windows on either side of the great door. I only have eyes for my tormentor this very moment.
While my eyes have scurried ever more frantic in the maddening--and futile--attempt to track the path of his blade, his own, when I have swept them by, seem to have remained locked squarely on mine. Early on, when we fought in the dankness of the torchlit subcellar, a forgotten hall where Magician's lights have yet to be installed, I essayed to mirror his technique, strange as it was to me, understanding immediately that to focus on one's enemy's eyes would surely reveal his weaknesses and doubts the moment they surfaced. I nearly died then, on bended knee, before I could remember the wisdom of keeping to my own training and experience. The heat of battle is no time to learn a new style of fighting.
Long gone is the candied yellow cloak by which the Rider gained entrance to the citadel, singing and charming his way hither amidst the unwitting Bardeenians. He is now dressed in the customary black of a Rider of the Keep, though he has no armor. Not that he requires it. Fresh blood stains are spattered in myriad patterns up both of his sleeves. So much blood, none of it his own. How could such a beautiful, enrapturing voice find itself slave to such an unrelenting, dangerous master--attend! That stroke could have cost my leg! I can ill afford wandering thoughts now. Each one might be my last, and I'd like to be here for my ending.
No! I will not end like this--and my defiant thrust is deftly slapped aside; the short blade comes unimpeded now. Duck, roll, bring up my blade just where I would be swinging if I were he--and he is not there. I open my eyes.
He is no Magician. He is panting, though not half so hard as I, and remains where I left him three long paces hence. For my part, I hear him from the near side of the heavy, black doors. Above my own, hoarse breathing, I fancy I can also hear a Courier's ride pass on the far side, calling ahead to every junction of the road. He has already passed. "You fight well, surprisingly so." Rever wipes his brow with the back of his sword-hand. "I do believe I'm perspiring. It has been a long time."
"Not so very in sooth, Rever." I place my right hand, behind my back, on the door's great bronzed handle, as much for support as anything else. I hardly recognize the rasp that escapes my lips as my own voice. "I cannot imagine a man running for his life, leaving his fellow soldiers to die, fleeing selfishly" I pause and force a deep breath through my nostrils, "in fear from a Krysli unleashed, doing so without breaking a sweat." What's he doing with his left hand?
Trickery! I barely react in time, lurching to my right just in time to catch a hidden dagger from his boot... where exactly? In my neck? Pray, let this not be a mortal wound! Rever cries, "You weren't there!" and leaps for me. Blood is running down my neck, but does not spray before my eyes. I hope I can take that, and the fact that a highly-trained Rider may yet be so goaded, as good omen. Almost reflexively, I twist the handle, and the great wooden door, still vibrating from the dagger embedded in it, swings outward and I tumble back, with only a brief, agonizing rent before I am free of the dagger's grasp. Not too deep, not that deep. I throw a heavy, booted foot up to catch Rever by the belly and hurl him past me into the sunlight.
The Securion clatters down the steps behind me. I rise to my feet far too swiftly, turning only to fall back to one knee. I put a gauntleted hand to my neck to staunch the flow, like a child with a scraped knee on the playing grounds. My head goes light for a moment. In the next, I am facing Rever from the top of the wide steps above Hilael Street. Rever is grimacing, himself on one knee a few steps up from the wide dusty road. Blood, bright and unexpected, trickles down from his nose. His shoulders do not appear able to square up. Somebody cries out, a passerby, and then another, but neither of us takes our eyes off the other; I do not think we care anymore. We have tasted blood. One of us must die. For the first time since we began, I am no longer certain it must be me.
I start down the steps, the first I've taken moving forward in ages. "Rider. Securion. Jester." I spit redly on the polished tawn steps. "Traitor, I name you! Tormentor! Usurper of the law! Violant in brazen contempt of the People's Charter! We do not torture the innocent and the unarmed! We do not cravenly inflict hurt upon the helpless and bound! We," I pause and realize that people are beginning to gather some distance away. "We are better than that!"
Rever springs to his feet, landing on the street with a near flourish. Only a momentary wince as the weight hits his left leg belies his confidence. "Insubordinate. Defiant. Child. I am not bound by your People's Charter!" He spits in his turn. "I serve a higher law, I serve the very will of the High General himself, and will not be questioned or defied by a simple peasant such as you! But for your insolence, I would already have the name of the Magician, and be on my way to the fastness of The Keep with knowledge dire enough to wipe this country from the map." He steps back, ignoring the scattered chatter of onlookers, and spreads his arms wide. "Come closer and learn your fate, for I name you Dead Man!" He spits again, his exclamation point. My head aches. Confident that he has nothing further he can hurl across the distance between us, I do not at once accept his invitation. Instead I survey the street. A score or more persons--men, women, a few older children--are spaced variously in a loose half-circle focused on the entrance to the embassy. By the light the day is scarcely past mid-morn, and shadows from the surrounding buildings take the bulk of them. Across the street, production at the Foundry would seem to have stopped, as the workers fill the second story windows to take in the scene below. Certainly the thors will be along presently? I could hardly be blamed if I did little more than keep Rever where he is until they arrive. "The ambassador is dead!" Many in the crowd gasp at this. Rever half-turns to address them. "Yes, this man has blood on his hands. Even now the ambassador lies dead in a room deep below the embassy!"
Laen! "No!" Laen, you must preserve yourself! "No!" I raise my voice with a croak to the crowd, two score or more now. "The ambassador yet lives!" Lowering my eyes to meet Rever's, I begin my descent. "As do the Magicians. Blood has been spilled, but speak no lies about it. Do not deny your handiwork, Rider of the Keep."
"If the ambassador persists, it will not be long." He turns my glare back upon me twofold. He lowers his voice now, speaking directly to me. "Whose orders do you think the guards will follow? Yours? I expect to return and find the ambassador long dead. But this much we may agree upon. Victorious is quite dead! And by whose hand?"
I look down at the rivulets of blood coursing down my breastplate. My shield was abandoned long ago, being as much a hindrance as anything in the closed spaces of the halls of the sub-cellar, much to my regret. I know I am bleeding from more places than my neck. The Securion had already penetrated my armor a handful of times, if not enough to bring me to my knees at once, at least enough to bring me to my knees now. I feel I cannot rise. And it is indeed by my own hand, crossing swords in sudden anger in defense of Laen and poor Sir Vencher with a soldier thrice my skill.
"How will you escape this, Rever? You are surrounded, with blood on your hands, in the very city of your enemies. Your doom is at least as certain as my own."
Rever laughs and begins to mount the stairs. He is still limping. "I entered this city with honor, food, and drink, indeed, all the comforts any visiting dignitary might crave. If I but leave it half so well, I'll be faring far better than you, Victorious."
I stare blankly at nothing in particular as my executioner draws near. I can think of no words, nothing my various wounds will allow, to gainsay his sure intent. Reflexively I sniff. Laen always hated that. Hates! Hates! Laen hates because Laen is still alive! Gorgos and the rest were just as horrified as I at what we found in that deep chamber this morn. He heard me! They will abide! Laen yet lives! I yet live! There is hope for the captives... as long as I live!
Rever's death-stroke clangs dully off of my blade, even though the impact nearly knocks it from my grasp. Stand now, stand! Good! I take his second stroke with my mailed forearm, and the broken chains bite deep. He parries my lumbering, answering blow easily, but he is no longer smiling. Neither am I, but then, I never was. We clash and I grasp his wrist, leaning close. "The thors and soldiery of Siguard come, Rever. Surrender and your life at least will be spared."
Rever either grins or grimaces--a momentary flash of ruddy sunlight makes it difficult to tell which. "This is a post route. A Courier will come at least as quickly." He throws me back and lunges, but it only scrapes my breastplate with a screech as I retreat a step. A Courier? He wouldn't dare. Then I think of Garth Vencher as I last saw him. Then again, he might. With a steed and--ironically--again, a yellow cloak to protect his identity, if only briefly, he may indeed gain the city's walls before the deception fails. My head goes light again, and with an expert twist of my opponent's blade, my sword finally leaves my grasp to clatter off the stone bannister and down to the street. Pray, let this not be true! Let this not be a world where such as Rever can maim and kill as is their wont with impunity, and ride untouched from the scene to further their ill intent! That is not my country, this is not my world! It cannot be!
Rever wastes no time on speeches or pageantry as he levels an even swing at my neck. I will not let such a world be! Rising just in time to catch his sword in my shoulder, I lunge forward and tackle my tormentor and hurl us both from the steps into the dust below. Even taken aback with his outstretched arms behind me, in midair, I feel his blade cut into my lower back. I do not care.
I will not let such a world be! Landing heavily upon him, certain his sword is lodged half into my armor and half into my flesh, I drive myself back with a great wrenching and hear myself scream as his blade escapes his grasp and remains in my back. Fortunately I can reach it, and scream again as I tear it loose. Rever is already on one knee but it is too late. My blow tears his head clean from his shoulders. His swagger and sneer are instantly replaced by a bloody shower, his arms flailing madly as he pitches forward in one last, sickeningly hopeless assault to bathe me in his blood. I try to evade but his dying body clings to me and empties out its entire store of lifeblood into my face. I turn my head and wretch as everything I've ever eaten comes out of me in a rush.
At last I pry him loose, and everything left of Rever spills out of him with gory permanence onto the packed dirt. His body twitches and writhes grotesquely with great fits and starts, and that is most disturbing of all to witness. Searching for something, anything else to look upon, I do not immediately find his head. I fairly swim up from one throbbing knee to see what is now quite a crowded street fairly swimming in the mid-morning light. I recognize the Master of the Foundry, Higgin, a good man, among the swirling faces, and fall upon my backside, blinking vacantly. I sniff once and the world departs.
Higgins is a good man, but he drinks too much.
<< Home