Peril’s Gate. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ fling a snatched snow clod. ‘So far, boy, you haven’t shown me the least little cause to feel threatened.’

      Struck square in the eye, Fionn Areth hissed a blasphemy. He charged up the streambank. Pressed to animal ferocity, he extended himself to deny his antagonist the chance to regain the high ground.

      He encountered instead the breathtaking-fast reflex that trademarked the s’Ffalenn prince’s offensive. ‘No gain without sweat,’ Arithon taunted. ‘You wanted to make an end quickly?’

      At each punitive step, through each phase of encounter, Fionn Areth’s convictions were made laughingstock. He was being mauled, mouse to Arithon’s cat, for sheer malice and flippant amusement. The insult struck home, fully and finally; Fionn Areth let fly the chokehold he kept on his temper.

      The screaming cry of steel locked to steel filled the draw like the language of vengeance. Theirs was no longer a battle in form, restrained by the dictates of prudence. In snow and darkness, the paired blades carved wild arcs. Dakar, by the mill, mopped sweat from his brow and endured the unbearable, drawn tension. He eschewed use of mage-sight. His weak stomach refused the exactitude of his refined perceptions, lest chance death or injury drag him into the entangling fabric of tragedy. In the absence of light, the duel’s progress became marked by the clangor of parries; of gasped breaths and the rasp as stiff boot soles scuffed over treacherous ground seeking purchase.

      Nor had Arithon surrendered his arrogant stance. On a grievous, missed step, in irretrievably marred balance, Fionn Areth’s guarding blade swung too wide. The Shadow Master jerked back his following lunge, and forwent lethal closure yet again.

      ‘Fight, damn you!’ gasped the enraged Araethurian.

      A glib jab in verse, then a love tap with the blade’s flat served him Arithon’s blistering rejection. ‘Kill me, or quit the field outright. You’re not Lysaer, stripling. Desh-thiere’s curse doesn’t bind me. Your blood on my hands would be a cheap thrill, and I don’t like hunting sparrows for sport!’

      Fionn Areth bore in, finesse abandoned. Though he felt the searing burn of each breath, the spelled wine blunted fatigue. He smashed his clamoring, brutal attack into Arithon’s graceful, quick parries. Weight and force would carry the contest in the end. Persistence must eventually wear down the blithe turn of speed that, time and again, bought evasion. The impact of steel striking steel numbed his ears. His eyes stung with running sweat. The featureless night and fine, veiling snowfall reduced his opponent to a light-footed shadow that went and came to the relentless demand of his swordplay.

      The 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. СКАЧАТЬ