Kingdom Of Royth

CHAPTER 15

Blade was uncomfortably aware that winter would not last forever, so he became increasingly impatient as he endured day after day of luxurious imprisonment in Larina's red-hung tower chamber. It was not until the eleventh day after his release from the dungeon that the countess appeared with two servants. They were apparently deaf mutes, and they brought a complete suit of Court attire, as well as Blade's own battered but familiar weapons.

She also brought him unwelcome news that made him even happier that the time to make his move had come. «My husband is determined to keep control of Alixa. Tonight he will petition the King to make her his ward. If this is granted, he will find it easy to kill her. Or he may merely plunder her fortune and turn the girl herself over to the pirates for their amusement when they have taken the Kingdom.» That probably meant Alixa would end up in Cayla's hands, Blade knew. So he was aggressively ready for fast and bloody action when the countess led him up the steps of the palace and through the high-arched entry hall into the Grand Court Chamber. The palace was a sprawling jumble of buildings of all eras and styles jammed together cheek-by-jowl, the whole ensemble coated with a fine patina of moss and age. It was at once magnificent and shabby. The air inside hung heavy in Blade's nostrils with the odors of mold and dampness and ancient filth lurking in remote corners.

«Remember,» she whispered in his ear before drifting away to join her husband in the line of notables flanking the throne, «no outbursts, whatever Indhios does. And no signals to Alixa. The count can still have you slain at any moment before you step forward and issue the challenge. So when you do do that, do it quickly, so that the law may be invoked before Indhios can react.»

Blade nodded and adjusted the scarf that concealed most of his face. He wore it because, as the countess had told the bewigged Chamberlain, it hid a healing battle wound which yet made his face a thing too unsightly for the eyes of gentlefolk. He would discard it of course when he issued his challenge. But for now it kept him concealed from prying eyes among the five hundred or so gorgeously dressed men and women that drifted about the vast domed chamber. Like the palace, their finery often seemed out of phase with itself and reeking of age.

The ceiling rose so high that the vaulting was almost lost in shadow, and the massive block of green marble that supported the twin thrones seemed shrunken and diminished. It was a room that seemed designed as a meeting place of elderly giants. There was no way for it to seem appropriate for the stout, gray-haired man in the fur-trimmed dark blue robe who suddenly stepped out of a shadowed doorway to quietly walk up onto the dais and sit down on the right-hand throne. It took the Chamberlain's bark and the clatter as the soldiers came to attention to make Blade realize that here at last was King Pelthros.

There was a great rustling of rich fabrics as the five hundred men and women suddenly froze in midstep and went down on one knee, heads turned toward the King. Pelthros spread his arms wide, and as the company rose, nodded to his Herald.

Blade, waiting with ever increasing impatience and watching the countess for her signal, saw one trivial person after another announced by the Herald, amble up, and present their even more trivial items of business. Most of them mumbled or stammered so that Blade could barely make out every third word. He doubted that he was missing a great deal.

But when he saw Indhios lead Alixa forward, pale and trembling and looking small beside the enormous swollen bulk of the count, his hand quietly drifted toward his sword hilt. It took a great deal of self-control for him to stand quietly and listen to Indhios presenting his petition and almost more than he had when he saw Pelthros nod and Indhios lead Alixa away and give her into the guard of one of his henchmen.

The girl had just vanished, and Blade had just turned his eyes back to the throne, when a flicker of motion caught his attention. He turned, saw the countess raising her white-gloved hand to her ear and patting the rich curls just behind it into position. He grinned savagely. It was time.

Blade loomed half a head over most of the men as he strode forward, the plain, battle-worn sword gleaming at his side a vivid contrast to the jeweled weapons of the courtiers. He kept straight on through the crowd until he was less than twenty feet from the throne, bowed, and with a theatrical sweep of one powerful arm tore away the red scarf.

Pelthros' eyes opened, and as Blade rose and turned, a general gasp arose from the crowd, accompanied by a rasp of drawn swords. The guards came to attention, but yet made no move to step between him and the King. Pelthros cleared his throat, keeping (Blade noticed) a firm grip on the hilt of his own sword, and said, «So Captain Blahyd, the pirate of Neral, has somehow contrived to come to our Court. What brings you before us?»

«Your Majesty, I claim a right according to the ancient law of your mighty Kingdom. To fight in equal battle against your Champion, and if victorious, to swear fealty to you and stand in his place until another come and prove himself superior in the same way.» Blade had rehearsed getting his request out in a brief but formal speech over and over again. It was just as well, because Indhios lumbered forward wasting no time in spluttering indignantly, his voice rising to a roar.

«Your Majesty!» he bellowed. «This man is the leader of a band of Neraler pirates of the worst sort. They were shipwrecked on the coast of Grand Ayesh, which Your Majesty had most graciously given into my-«

«Silence!» thundered Pelthros, rising from the throne and to Blade's surprise easily out-bellowing his Chancellor. «The law says that if a man steps forward and offers challenge to the King's Champion, that challenge must be accepted. It is indeed an ancient law of this Realm, as the Captain says, nor shall it be abridged while we sit upon the throne of Royth.» Blade had to admit that in spite of all that he had heard against the man, Pelthros could at least act like a king when necessary. In fact, Indhios was backing away like a bear backing away from a hunter.

The silence the King had demanded had fallen like a foot of snow over the gathering, chilling and stifling conversation. All eyes were on Blade now, until the King raised his voice again and called, «Herald, summon the King's Champion!»

But Baron Maltravos was already pushing his way forward through the crowd of notables flanking the thrones. Blade took the chance to size up the man as he strode out into the clear space in front of the throne and bowed with a graceful arrogance that was almost contemptuous of both the King and the whole Court. Shorter than Blade by half a head, but with long arms and legs supporting a squat, broad torso, there was something apelike about him. But there was no apish deviltry in the gray eyes staring out of a face half swallowed up in bristling beard, only a cold sizing up of Blade in return. Blade's trained judgment made its assessment and passed him its opinion: this was a dangerous man. He would be fast, he would have great endurance, and he would have against him only Blade's great size and his own over-confidence. The baron's words confirmed the judgment:

«Well, Your Majesty, do we need to waste your gracious time and that of your loyal subjects any further? I see that the Neraler wretch comes armed. I say, let me kill him now, and have done with it.» And he whipped from their scabbards a broadsword and a shortsword and made both of them blur and whistle in the air.

«I will fight as the baron wishes,» said Blade. «But might I ask for a shield?» The King nodded and beckoned to one of the guards, who ran forward and handed Blade his own shield, a circle of leather over wood about two and a half feet across, with a bronze rim and a bronze boss at the center. Blade hefted it a few times to judge its weight and carefully flexed his muscles to loosen them. The baron watched with an open sneer twisting his faced visible even through the beard.

The Herald raised his hand, trumpets blared from the alcoves, and the crowd of courtiers and their ladies gave back hastily, leaving free a circle some thirty feet in diameter in front of the throne. That, Blade recalled, was exactly the same size as the arena in which Cayla had slaughtered Dynera. But instead of ropes tied to oars, this arena was marked off by a ring of royal guards, glowering impartially outward at the courtiers and inward at the two fighters standing in the middle.

The audience was silent. Blade could not read their expressions clearly enough to guess if they were going to prove partisan, and if so, for whom. Nor was it important. A cheering section will not revive a corpse.

Blade had never fought before against the formal two-swords style that Maltravos was apparently planning to use, except in the Medieval Club at Oxford. But that little experience had taught him that it was deadly for a man with the speed and coordination to use it. A weapon in either hand gave the fighter an extra offensive punch, and if he chose to use both for defense, he could raise an almost unbreakable wall of steel between him and the opponent.

The baron moved forward, shortsword held out in the guard position and broadsword raised for an overhand stroke. Blade moved in himself, saw the broadsword whirl toward his head, jerked his shield up in time to catch the stroke, then pulled it down as the shortsword stabbed toward his groin. He braced his feet apart, swung his own sword, and saw the baron whip both of his weapons up into an X-pattern that caught Blade's descending stroke neatly in the upper fork of the X. Blade nearly had his sword wrenched out of his hand as the baron sidestepped, disengaged, and came in again.

In a matter of the few seconds it took for half a dozen more exchanges of blows, Blade realized he was going to have to fight for his life and worry about victory later, if at all. The baron's broadsword whistled over his head and past his ear by hair-thin margins or crashed deafeningly against the top and edge of his shield. The shortsword flickered like a striking snake toward belly, groin, and thigh. His own slashes clanged off the baron's guard, and his own thrusts were always beaten down by one of the baron's whistling strokes. The man was every bit as fast as he was, Blade realized. And unlike Oshawal, he might have equal or greater endurance.

Back and forth across the circle they sprang in a continuous fury of exchanges, broken only by momentary pauses when by mutual if unspoken consent they drew apart to wipe their faces free of the sweat now flooding down their bodies and darkening their tunics and breeches. Then they would return to the battle.

Blade was conscious of mutterings and murmurings among the crowd now, as people noted the fine points of each fighter's techniques or gasped at some particularly hairbreadth escape-usually one of his. The baron might as well have been a machine, for all the strain he was showing. Blade, however, was becoming conscious of rasping breath and rubbery legs and arms as his prison-weakened frame began to rebel against the burden falling on it. But he at least could see in his opponent's eyes the dying of the former arrogant confidence and the beginning of-not fear, but at least strain and uncertainty. The baron began to use strokes designed to kill, not merely to show off his prowess in handling his swords.

A moment came, twenty minutes (though feeling more like twenty years) into the fight. The baron sprang out of a resting guard, feinting with the broadsword and thrusting with the shortsword in the same split second. Blade half-crouched, feeling the wind of the broadsword above his head-and feeling the point of the shortsword wedge itself for a moment in one of the gashes that scarred the surface of his shield. In the extra fraction of a second the baron needed to jerk his shortsword free and begin to back away, Blade drove his own sword forward in a lightning thrust and saw the point rake along Maltravos' left forearm and sink deep into his bicep. The blood welled up fast.

Blade felt an inner surge of new strength as the baron sprang clear, staring at his arm. And he felt the mood of the crowd swing in his favor-or was it just in favor of blood and victory, no matter whose? No time to think that over now, only time to press his advantage. He stepped up his own pace to a level he knew he could not maintain for long, and pressed his attack.

In another minute the baron showed blood on the side of his neck and a moment after that on his left thigh. But although he had abandoned the furious offensive of the first stages of the fight, he was still maintaining a solid defense. Blade heard the crowd, for a few moments perhaps his partisans, subside once again into rumblings and occasional remarks. And he knew he was pouring the last of his strength into an offense that had yet to break decisively through to the baron. He would have to draw the baron out, and soon.

As he stepped back for a moment's break, his opponent did not let him move away unmolested. Instead Maltravos sprang out of his defensive stance with both swords slicing the air. Blade gave way before the attack, put his left foot into a slick smear of blood on the floor, and felt himself going over backward.

Instantly the reflexes developed by his unarmed combat training took over. Before he hit the ground he had whipped his left arm forward to hurl the shield at the baron and lashed out with his right foot at the baron's kneecap: Both strokes connected. It was the baron's turn to reel back so violently that he lost his balance. Blade continued his backward fall, kicked himself over into a complete backward somersault, and came up still clutching his sword before the baron had regained his feet. For a moment the solid defense was shattered. Blade thrust with every ounce of strength and speed he had left, saw his point drive through Maltravos' chest, heard it scrape on the floor as it came out Maltravos' back. Blood came out of the baron's mouth, he coughed twice, then his grip on his swords relaxed and they clattered to the floor on either side of their dead master.

Blade felt like falling forward and lying face down on the stone until his head stopped whirling. Instead, he pulled his sword free, laid it down beside his shield, and turned to the King.

«Is it Your Majesty's judgment that I defeated Baron Maltravos in equal and fair combat?»

There was a moment's silence while the King pulled at his beard and another, deeper silence fell over the crowd. Then he looked at Blade, smiled, and said:

«You have, Captain Blahyd. And so be it. Herald, proclaim the new Champion of the King of Royth!»

As the trumpets blared again and the crowd swept the guards aside to cluster round him and congratulate him, Blade's legs finally gave under him and he sank to the floor not far from the baron's body. Part of his mind was hurling sharp remarks at him for this weakness, reminding him that his crew still needed protection and much else had to be done. The other part was informing him that he was not far from collapse and that if he had in truth any influence as Champion, it would not vanish in the few minutes it took to restore a small fraction of his energy. Eventually, he got his legs moving again and, half-walking, half-stumbling, he made his way out of the Court chamber in the wake of two guards assigned to lead him to his new quarters. The last things he saw before passing through the high-arched door with its bronze grill folded back were the faces of Alixa and the countess. They were staring at him from opposite sides of the room, and both had a combination of awe and hope in their eyes.