Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014 (5 page)

Teodorq slid easily off his mount and Kal, seeing his initial surprise attack had failed, did likewise. A slap on the rump sent both horses trotting off the field, and the two men faced one another on foot. Kal held his sword "shoulder arms," both hands gripping the handle, the flat resting against his right shoulder.

Shortly, the party from the Keep filed into the observers' benches. Someone laid down pillows for them to sit on and draped the Tiger banner over the banister. The kospathin sat in the center, flanked by his daughter and his Wisdom, with the other courtiers spread around them. The Wisdom scowled, whispered to his prince, but received a vigorous shake of the head. Teo suspected the advisor wanted to stop the fight.

Teodorq sighed. He had it to do, and that was for sure. He stood with his sword point down, resting on the ground in fool's guard. He was apparently not on-guard at all, but from this position, he could transition swiftly to any number of other stances. He expected a more straightforward attack from Kal, but hoped he would put on a show good enough to satisfy the First.

The argument between the prince and his Wisdom concluded and the princess waved a white banner to signal the start of the duel. Sometimes, Teo thought that she was the most bloodthirsty of the lot.

Kal, as expected, rushed forward with his sword held in the "batter's stance"—the hilt gripped in both hands with the blade over his right shoulder, ready to swing into a hack or a slice as opportunity presented. Teodorq waited unmoving until his foe was three arms-length's away, then he swung Lifesaver up into "the bull," holding the hilt beside his head with his left arm crossed over, ready to push the pommel. This aimed the point of the sword at Kal's face and blocked the downward motion of Rabbit-killer on the aft part of the blade. Kal, disinclined to impale himself, checked his rush, spun to Teodorq's left, and disengaged.

Kal held his sword in "plow," arm extended from the waist. Teodorq stepped forward, brushed the fore aside and thrust in long-point. Kal retreated again, but spun and threw an understrike, which Teo parried with an "iron pinwheel." Both he and Kal reset the combat.

"You ain't as easy as I thought you'd be," said Kal.

Teodorq grinned. "Hadn't planned to be."

Kal rushed him with several hacks from the left and right, but Teo voided them and shifted guards. He stepped out in the batter's stance, made a right passing step forward and settled the blade onto his upper right arm as he turned his body into a left "augur." From there, he lifted the hilt up, over, and behind his head to settle into a left-handed batter; then took a left passing step backwards, settling the blade on his left arm in a right augur as he turned. Kal blinked, unsure of how to attack, swung an overhand hack that Teo easily parried, then voided the battle space.

The two circled each other clockwise, swords held one-handed to the side in long-point. Teo waited his chance then dashed across the circle with a wide sweeping cut. Kal blocked it with a cross strike, as expected, but Teo spun about and stood on the high ground with his back to the sun and his sword held in "sky guard" beside his head. Kal faked a rush, but Teo did not strike and the Serp took a step back.

Each time Kal stepped into Teo's shadow, Teo shifted to put the sun back in his opponent's eyes. He wasted no time feeling sorry for the Serp. Kal had woken up that morning looking for trouble and had no complaints now that he had found it.

They danced a few more passages, their feet skating as if on water. They would close, exchange three or four blows, then void the battle space. Now and then, voices arose from those watching from the viewing benches, commenting on this stroke or that guard, but Teo paid them no mind. Something more dramatic was needed than the moves they had learned from the yar if they were going to impress the kospathin.

Teo swung in a horizontal slice and made a complete pirouette throwing a second stroke as he came around. Such moves were dramatic, but dangerous. One should never present one's back to a man with a long sharp sword.

But Kal had dropped into a three-point, like a runner poised for the signal, and the blade passed harmlessly over his head. He sprang, sword extended in longpoint, and Teo backed out barely in time.

Finally, Kal said, "Screw this shit," and charged with his sword to the sky. Teo had been waiting for this and took the blow on his aft with a Bull Guard. Kal went hard on the sword and Teo found himself in a bind. He swung Kal's fore out of line and twisted into a cut with the back edge of his sword, drawing first blood.

This time, Kal did not back off, but swung from the opposite quarter and again put Teo in a bind. This time, Teo reached out and grabbed both swords by the blade at the point where they crossed, pulling hard and prying Rabbit-killer from an astonished Kal's hand. Because they had bound swords at the aft, the blades did not cut through Teo's thick leather gloves.

Kal dropped to his knee and pulled a quillon dagger from his boot scabbard. He used the crossguard to catch Teo's stroke—and paused.

For Teodorq had pulled his stroke.

"So," Kal said. "Ya want it like that?"

Teo smiled. "There's one song better than the two heroes who meet. Why can't we let them sing it?"

"You ready to take that chance?"

In answer, Teo tossed both swords aside and pulled his own dagger from his boot.

"That's more like it," Kal said with a grin. "This is how two plainsmen fight. Face to face, close quarters." He paused again, then said, "I mean to avenge Chelwy. Blood for blood."

Teo spread his arms. "He came on me too sudden. He had cast aside his scabbard."

"Yeah, Chelwy was an obnoxious little twerp, but he was my kid brother. You know how that goes. Did he die well?"

Teo remembered that Chelwy had died screaming and soiling himself. When he had tried to ambush Teo, he had never imagined himself as the slain. The last look on his face when the knife slid in had been one of vast surprise.

"He fought well for a man so young," Teo lied. "Had he not pressed me so hard, I might not have had to kill him." In truth it had been Teo's own surprise and anger at being attacked and his own loss of control that had led to the slaying; but there was no point in confusing Kal with such details.

"He never knew how to listen," Kal said. "Now he ain't listening to anyone anymore." Kal charged suddenly and Teo crouched into a dancer's crouch, spinning on his left leg and scything with his right. Kal fell and Teo leapt atop him. They seized each other's knife hand by the wrists.

Kal threw a leg straddle and the two rolled across the grass flailing. The watching legionnaires gathered round in a circle shouting encouragement to both fighters until a call from the herald bade them open up for the First's view.

"Blood for blood," whispered Kal. "Ya know what I gotta do."

Teo had entwined his legs with Kal's so that the two of them seemed almost a single organism. He nodded and relaxed his grip on Kal's knife arm slightly. The blade touched his shoulder and ran like a line of fire down his arm. The blood ran hot.

"Break," he said to Kal; but Kal hesitated. A deeper slice would cut Teo's bicep, maiming him. It was a sore temptation to a weak man.

Teo led him not into temptation by executing a shrug-and-roll, escaping from the hold and whipping his knife to Kal's throat simultaneously with Kal's mirror move.

"Well, now, Rabbit," said the Serp. "Looks like a tie."

The next day, Teodorq and Kal, along with Sammi o' th' Eagles, were brought into the great hall before the kospathin. The prince spoke in the ironman
yashiq
and the Wisdom translated not only into
plavver
but also into a passable
sprock.

"He's pretty sharp for an old man," Kal said under his breath. "Still gripes me how he was picking up the
sprock
while he was teaching me
bo-yashiq."

A tall yellow-haired man with pale eyes struck the floor with his staff and said something Wisdom Sharèe Mikahali translated as, "Hear now the justice of Aya Herpstone, kospathin of Cliffside Keep."

"Proverbial is his justice," cried the sidemen lining the hall. Teodorq suspected that anyone disagreeing with that proverb had long-since ceased to line the hall, but the cry had a ceremonial sound to it, like when the shamans sang upon the ancestors and the Folk responded with ancient lines.

"Be it known that in a display of skill and bravery, the Men of the West have engaged in a fight to the death..."

"Hey," muttered Sammi. "Leave me out of it."

"... And while We of Cliffside Keep admire such pointless bravery, the offense over which they quarrel touches not on the honor of Cliffside Keep, House Tiger, or the Little Father of the North, and therefore We declare it null, void, and of no merit within Our holdings or those of the Little Father and his other children. We take all such offense on Our own head in mercy, and will regard any further attempt by Karakalan Vikeramof or Theodore Nagaramof to strike at one another, either directly or through such an intermediary as Sam Iggleson, as an offense against Our Mercy and against Our Own Person, to be punished as dogs are, at one grade above the Spike."

Teodorq wondered if that was one grade better or worse than being impaled and decided that it was better not to ask. The lord evidently had other fates in mind for them than mere entertainment. He regarded Kal and Sammi from the corners of his eyes. The Serp glowered; Sammi seemed thoughtful.

"Further, given that they have revealed themselves as fell fighters, it is Our desire that these three men be enrolled in our Foreign Legion and sent to scout Our enemies."

It was a subtle move, a mere flick of the eyes, but the First glanced toward the Wisdom when he said that, and that was when Teodorq decided who the real chieftain of Cliffside Keep was. The kospathin was to all appearance himself a fell fighter. His muscles came from swinging that long sword from horseback; and his scars proved he did it well, for they were bold enough that anyone less expert would have died in the fight that won them. But the clever mind rules the hale body and, as the bowmaster calls the shots on a hunt, the chief minister aimed his lord at targets that he chose.

After the speech, they were walked through a fearsome oath calling upon numerous gods whose natures were unclear but whose threatened retributions were not. Even Kal went a little pale at the penalties foretold. They were, after all, on these gods' turf.

Teodorq compared the oath to the one Jamly-the-ghost had given them in the name of the Commonwealth of Suns. There had been a threat behind them too, given that he and Sammi had been "unauthorized personnel," but the words had been higher and prouder and had not been stuffed with such dire warnings as to suggest mistrust. This alone told him much of the ways of the ironmen. Despite their talk of honor, oathbreakers must be common enough among them to warrant such sureties.

Sammi grumbled. "Too many oath," he said. "Soon one oath break another."

"Dontcha worry, Rabbit," Kal told Teodorq that night in barracks. "I given my word, and a Serp keeps his words. But I gotta worse problem now."

"What's that?" asked Sammi o' th' Eagles as he stashed his kit under his bed and pulled the blankets off, for he preferred to lie on the floor.
Soft bed make soft man,
he had explained.

"The First took Rabbit's crime on his own head. You heard it. Now I gotta kill the First. Ain't that a kick in the butt."

Sammi grinned. "You get more in butt than kick, you try it."

Teodorq told Sammi it would be hard to search out Iabran and Varucciyamen if they were stuck at Cliffside Keep. But he was pretty sure the starfolk's encampments did not lie back west and, while he did not doubt his ability to escape his captors even on unfamiliar ground, a good scout knew better than to dash headlong into unknown territory. There were other ways to learn how the land lay.

Kal said, "So they're sending us to fight greens? I heard they fight with thunder and lightning."

Teodorq sat on the edge of his bunk.
"That
can't be good."

Sammi said, "We no hear of greens on the short grass."

Teodorq smiled and crossed his legs at the ankles, coupled his hands behind his head. "Which means they're somewhere east of here. So it's just as well. We was going that way anyhow."

Teodorq sunna Nagarajan did not believe that there was any longer a Commonwealth of Suns or that their commission meant anything; but he continued to paint the stripes across his biceps and would ask after the two starman towns whenever he encountered other men.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand and Sammi o' th' Eagles have appeared previously in"The Journeyman: On the Short-Grass Prairie"[October 2012].)

Illustrated by Abby Boeh

The observation deck of the Mazabashi Inn was spacious, commanded a splendid view of the sea, and—to judge by the arrangement of the furniture—was a gathering place for antisocial solitaries. All of the chairs faced the same direction. They were deployed like the seats in a theater—not in conversational groupings but arrayed to accommodate an audience. The people who sat in them weren't primarily interested in each other. They were spectators who had come to see a show.