Peril’s Gate: Third Book of The Alliance of Light. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ change in the match occurred without warning. In the space between heartbeats, the Shadow Master’s light-handed style ripped away, immolated by driving brilliance.

      Fionn Areth gasped. Scrambling to maintain a classic defense against an onslaught of innovative genius, he at last understood the prelude had been a bald sham all along. This was a master swordsman he faced. Anytime, even now, the dark blade could slice in and take him at will. He lived and moved on his enemy’s sufferance, with no prayer for reprieve if he faltered. Gone were the mocking phrases as well, vanished like silk over flame. Lashed by a whistling, furious offensive, Fionn Areth heard Dakar shouting.

      Then he shared the reason for his enemy’s unveiled form: the thunder of oncoming horsemen. An armed company of Jaelot’s guard charged the mill, drawn on by the belling notes of swordplay.

      Rushed to elation, that despite his failed skill the sorcerer would receive his due punishment, Fionn Areth took heart. He pressed on in fixed purpose to sustain his defense until the mayor’s pursuit overtook them.

      Just as obstinate, Arithon extended his will to bind up his steel and disarm him. The slide of rushed footfalls scuffed off the thinned snow. Locked now in true combat, the Shadow Master and his double circled and feinted and thrust across an arena of pebbled, gray ice. Panted breath and marred balance tore gaps in technique. The raging clang of each closure sang ragged where one or the other combatant scrambled to regain slipped footing.

      And still, two opportune openings came and went; even threatened with capture, Arithon abjured the disabling stroke.

      Dakar shoved both fists against his shut teeth to stifle a screamed exhortation. One trip, one distraction could precipitate a fatality. Too wise to stress Arithon’s rapt concentration, he recognized the moves that led into the wicked reverse stroke, and disarmament. The same sequence had once downed Lord Erlien of Alland, in a trial fought years past in Selkwood. Fionn Areth, still green, could only withstand the attacking diversion, without clue his defeat was self-evident.

      But this night, on the winter-cold banks of the millstream, Arithon’s skilled tactic went wrong. That stunning, last bind became slowed by a skid, then a misstep caught short of recovery. His dark steel jerked downward, unpartnered, while his left toe gave way underneath him.

      Fionn Areth’s missed thrust drove on, unhindered. Given no option to avoid a stabbed chest, Arithon guarded with the back of Alithiel’s quilloned grip. Dakar shouted as steel screamed and slid through. Yet no outcry could arrest the following force of Fionn Areth’s stripped hatred. The sword rang between Alithiel’s wrought rings, and impaled her s’Ffalenn bearer’s right hand.

      Footing recaptured, Arithon sprang backward. Blood slicked the grasp of fingers gone strengthless. As he switched grip and fell back on a left-handed style, he was going to miss the next parry.

      Yet Fionn Areth showed stubborn mettle and withheld the lunge that would have pressed the advantage. ‘You have a main gauche,’ he said, raging bitter. ‘Why haven’t you thought to use it?’

      Arithon stood, hard-breathing and stilled, while the blare of a horn clove the night. An officer’s bellow spurred the pounding hoofbeats on a converging course down the draw. ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘But let’s not spoil the odds, my two blades to your one.’ He flicked back his cloak, drew the evil, quilloned weapon from the sheath at his hip. ‘You take the main gauche,’ he invited Fionn Areth. ‘I prefer my small dagger.’

      As if no company of guardsmen closed in, a fast toss shied the weapon, grip first.

      Fionn Areth fielded the catch in astonishment.

      ‘Ath, no!’ pealed Dakar, wide-awake to fresh danger even before his tuned mage-sense seared warning across his overcranked nerves.

      This was the same main gauche that had struck Caolle down one wretched night seventeen years ago. Its steel still harbored the horrific stamp of past dissidence: the cruel death and bloodshed of a liegeman fallen for true loyalty, and a wounding of conscience that to this day stood unrequited. In an enemy’s hand, fed by hot temper and the high stakes of extremity, that grievous, dark imprint might refire. In lingering resonance, old grief could allow such raised dissonance the opening to cloud Arithon’s better judgment. Charged by s’Ffalenn guilt, a self-abnegating justice might complete that blade’s accursed history.

      But the fight disallowed any pause to broach reason. Fionn Areth bore in, sword leveled, the main gauche couched in a determinedly competent left hand.

      Arithon met him, his sword tip unsteady in his maimed clasp. The weapon he retained for his left-handed guard was a suicide’s choice, a slender poignard for eating. Its tanged blade had no cross guard, no length, and no leverage to outmatch the swung impetus of a sword stroke.

      Dakar’s rush to intervene was dragged short by four horses, planted by herdbound instinct. With raised heads and pricked ears, their curiosity had snagged upon Jaelot’s approaching destriers. Dakar snarled words concerning maggot-infested dog meat.

      While undaunted in the clearing, the Araethurian goatherd readied the stop thrust to murder the last s’Ffalenn prince. Restored to self-confidence, in strict tutored form, Fionn Areth held his unwavering focus. He tracked the raised sword that would fail to deflect him, and so missed the deft flick of Arithon’s left hand, that launched the flat, little dagger.

      The knife struck, sunk hilt deep in the goatherd’s extended shoulder. He cried out, hand gone nerveless. His sword cast free, falling, sliced a glancing gash in the high cuff of Arithon’s boot. Left the main gauche, but no space to react, Fionn Areth ended his thrust, still in balance, but unable to effect a timely recovery given the wretched footing.

      Arithon stepped close. Stripped to desperate efficiency, he struck one sharp blow. Alithiel’s jeweled pommel clubbed Fionn Areth’s exposed nape and felled him, unconscious.

      The horses gave way before Dakar’s goading. They sidled ahead in snorting excitement, while down the choked gash of the draw the charging lancers bore in on the ruined mill. Swearing in language to raise fire and storm, Dakar reached Arithon’s side.

      ‘You’ve made a right mess!’ he snapped, voice cracking as he stooped to assess the wound in the prostrate boy’s shoulder. ‘Ath on earth, man! Why did you have to choose now to indulge in a schoolboy’s folly?’

      Breathing too hard, his sword smartly sheathed, Arithon recovered the herder’s dropped weapons from the snow. He secured Fionn Areth’s bared blade through a pack strap, then reclaimed the cold burden of the main gauche. ‘No folly,’ he gasped, flat sober and strained. ‘My given promise to meet him in challenge was made in dire straits, to make him leave Jaelot without argument.’

      ‘Damn good that does, now!’ Dakar retorted, then caught his breath at the stony expression locked upon Arithon’s face. ‘Don’t mourn. He’s not dying. Just stuck like a pig at the butcher’s. He won’t bleed to death. That’s assuming our captors allow me the grace to set him in bandages before they drag us in chains to the dungeon.’

      Arithon’s relief was a palpable force. He caught the near gelding’s bridle and flung the reins over the animal’s plunging head. ‘We aren’t going to be taken.’ He reached again, snapped the packhorse’s lead out of the Mad Prophet’s stunned grasp, then vaulted into the saddle. ‘You’re to keep that boy safe! Promise me! Use every means necessary, breach my private trust as you must. Just teach him that I’m not his enemy.’

      Dakar СКАЧАТЬ