The Wyrmling Horde (27 page)

The axes whirled and sang. The two of them danced away from blows and took them head-on.

Some old graybeards began to murmur in astonishment, “In seventy years, never have I seen two such worthy opponents!”

Within moments, the entire crowd began to take up chants, some cheering for the emir, some calling, “Talon, Talon, Talon!”

The emir felt grateful. He suddenly realized what Talon had done. Whoever won this battle would truly gain the support of the people, enough support to take endowments.

But he could not let her win.

This is Aaath Ulber's daughter, he thought. We fought side by side. Dare I betray a friend so? Dare I kill his child?

Suddenly he realized that he had been holding back, making a show of it. He hadn't truly committed to a killing blow.

If she lives through this next one, he decided, she will have earned a victory. If she can beat me, she truly deserves the honor of saving her brother.

He swung mightily, giving it all that he had.

It was dangerous for her to try to block such a blow, for her ax handle could easily break. But among the warrior clans, a warrior needed to demonstrate the strength to take a blow in order to win her people's approval. Talon lunged in, forcing the emir to try to shorten his lop in midswing.

She brought up her ax handle and braced herself for a crushing blow. It landed with such a jolt that the emir's joints ached and his bones seemed to shiver.

The audience cheered.

To the emir's astonishment, she not only managed to block the blow, she smiled through it.

Then Talon pushed her weight back and leapt in the air, doing a complete somersault. Two more leaps and she was at the edge of the circle.

The emir charged, his ax spinning, though with one blade shattered it was a bit wobbly. He tried to swing with his own version of the “Circle of Steel,” but had never had to practice with such an unwieldy blade.

Talon committed to a lop, a downward stroke that could split a man in two. He halted a hairsbreadth before the blow landed and had brought his own ax handle up to block.

It will be a simple matter to kick her from the ring, he thought.

Her blow landed, and immediately the emir prepared to kick her in the chest, pushing her from the ring, but quicker than thought Talon grabbed his ax and somersaulted over his head. She held on to the handle as she flew, so that it rose in the air.

Instantly she was over his head, and she jerked the handle tightly, so that she and the emir were standing back-to-back, with her gripping the handle while it rested against his throat.

Her momentum gave her the advantage, and when she hit the ground she merely arched her back, tipping the emir up onto her shoulders, so that she had him in a stranglehold.

The emir's back was upon hers, and though he kicked, he could find no place to land his feet. She had the ax handle to his throat, and he could not break her grip. She was strangling him. He kicked and twisted, struggling to break free.

Where did she learn this move? he wondered.

Not on this world, he realized. I've seen hundreds of ax fights. This tactic is not from this world.

The crowd gasped and broke into applause for Talon.

The emir struggled, strangling, as she balanced him on her back. It would have been a small matter for her to jerk the handle forward while shrugging at the same moment,
and thus break his neck, or at the very least, crush his esophagus.

The crowd was wild with anticipation, watching their finest warrior struggle, at the mercy of a mere woman.

She has them, the emir thought. She has won.

Talon turned a half-circle and lifted up a bit. The emir gasped, and then got a fresh grasp on the handle of his ax. He planned to renew the fight—just as Talon dropped her shoulder and threw him—out of the ring!

Amid the cheers and the applause, the emir sat among the pine needles for a moment, gasping.

Talon picked up her ax, then offered him a hand up.

The emir waved her away; he was still struggling for air. When he was able, he climbed to his feet and stood beside her, raising her hand in sign of victory. There was no anger in his heart, only well-earned respect.

“Aaath Ulber has trained his daughter well,” the emir said, as the people cheered. “For my part, I believe that she has won the right to fight in Rugassa to free her foster brother, Fallion Orden. If anyone here would like to argue the point—well, then you try fighting her.”

There was a good deal of clapping from the crowd. No one challenged her.

The emir added, “And if there are any who are willing to grant her their endowments before she goes into battle, I encourage you to do so.”

The applause faded, and one woman shouted, “Speed, I can give her my speed.”

“Grace,” a second woman said. And others called out their offers—all women, offering to gift their champion. A young man, a boy of perhaps seventeen, called out soberly, “She'll need a man's strength. I'll give mine.”

Then the offers began in earnest.

The emir patted her shoulder, and headed back under the base of the tree. He felt like a failure, like a whipped dog slinking away from a fight. He'd felt this way far too often before—but only after battling wyrmlings.

“Where are you going, Tuul Ra?” one old warlord called.
It was grandfather Mallock, a scarred old graybeard who had survived many campaigns but was so crippled by arthritis that he had been forced into retirement.

The emir wasn't certain where he was going. “I want a drink, something strong, though I doubt that much can be found in camp.”

Old warlord Mallock laughed and reached down under his breastplate and pulled out a glass flask with honey-colored liquid. “Will whiskey do?”

The emir took the proffered bottle, downed a swig.

He thought his old friend would offer condolences. Instead Mallock was studying the emir's face with reverence. “I saw Bannur Crell fight with a wyrmling's ax back in my youth. He was a legend in his own lifetime, but you could have bested him easily.”

A couple of other graybeards stood at Mallock's back, and they grunted agreement.

“I haven't got much time left on this earth,” Mallock said. “The wyrmlings took my home, my family, my country. But I've got my wits still. Will you carry them into battle one last time for me? Perhaps they'll do you some good.”

The Emir Tuul Ra merely stood for a moment, too surprised and too overcome with emotion to answer. “Wit!” Mallock shouted. “I offer my wit to the Emir Tuul Ra!”

“Brawn!” another graybeard called. “I'm still as strong as any man in this camp. I offer my brawn.”

The emir saw what they were doing. These were old men, venerable. They were showing him more support than he had dared dream.

A young woman called out, “Grace. I'll give you my grace. You both fought as if you had harvester spikes in your necks. I'd like to see the wyrmlings try to stand against the pair of you.”

So the folk stood out in the gloom for fifteen minutes, while night fell upon the meadows around them and a facilitator registered the offers of endowments.

When the offers were done, the emir had been promised
nine to Talon's ninety. He would not be her equal in combat, far from it, but then, he told himself, I was a fool to think that I ever was her equal.

The crowd filed off, back down into the cavern beneath the pine. For some reason, the emir did not want to go back. The battle fury was still upon him, making his hands tremble. Apparently Talon felt the same. She too lingered outside and leaned with her back against the tree. Behind her was one of the huge carven faces of the Wode King. It was taller than she, so that her back arched against its chin.

Daylan Hammer hesitated before heading for cover, and warned, “Do not stay out long, and do not leave the shelter of the tree. Night is coming, and with it the Darkling Glories begin their hunt.” He cast a glance out into the gloom, “Though I daresay with this rain, not many will be about.” Daylan rushed down the hole, beneath the tree.

The emir smiled at Talon. “Congratulations,” he said. “You won your endowments. And you gave me mine. Was that your plan? Are you really such a clever girl?”

The two of them still stood in the gloom while out beyond the shelter of the tree the rain sizzled amid the open fields, and overhead the great pines creaked and sighed softly in the wind.

She grinned. “I had hoped that they would give you more. Is it enough, do you think—nine endowments?”

“I've fought the wyrmlings all of my life with only the strength of my own two arms. So I will go. I had hoped to lead this expedition, but now I'll be satisfied if I can only keep up with you.”

He came and stood close to her, only an arm's breadth away, and smiled in satisfaction. He had never been in the presence of a woman as powerful as Talon, a woman that he respected so much. He found himself attracted to her.

A lovely girl, he thought. It is a shame that she is not older.

In his native Dalharristan, it was the custom of old lords to marry young women, in hopes of siring one last extraordinary
child. But it was not a custom that he ever hoped to engage in. The very thought sickened him. For him, marriage was a lifelong commitment. He believed that men and women should be of equal age when they married, so that they might mature, grow old, and die together. In an ideal world, the two might stand together at the last, holding hands, and die in one another's arms.

But men who married young girls in the hope of siring children upon them were selfish. He could not imagine feeling any kind of peace as he died in old age, knowing that he had left his children only half-grown.

So he held back from Talon, as a gentleman should, determined to conceal his attraction.

But there is a closeness that two people share when they have faced death together—even when they have faced death at each other's hands.

The passion that the battle had aroused in Talon came swiftly.

She grasped him by the shoulder, then pulled him close. As if reading his mind, she said, “I'm old enough to know what I want.”

She kissed him then, and he was surprised at the ferocity of it—and at his own passion.

They stood for a long moment thus, holding one another, hearts beating as lips met. It felt good to be in her arms. It felt like coming home after a hard day's labor. He had never felt so . . . honored to have the love of a woman. He had known love before, but in his society, a wife was rarely considered a man's equal.

“What would your father say of this?” the emir asked softly.

“Which father? Aaath Ulber loves you like no other. He would leap for joy to have such a match. You've saved his hide more than once.

“But Sir Borenson, I fear, would be incensed to find that I love the shadow of Raj Ahten. He killed you once. And if he knew that you kissed me, he'd try to kill you again.”

“Well then,” the emir said, “let us break the news gently.”

He held her, and suddenly became worried that in the coming battle he might lose her.

After long minutes, Tuul Ra pulled out of her embrace and prepared to go back down into the cavern.

“One question,” he asked last of all. “On that shadow world, how was I, the mightiest of all flameweavers, killed?”

“Raj Ahten's limbs were lopped off with axes,” Talon said. “Then he was wrapped in chains and thrown in a lake to drown. My father had as much to do with it as anyone.”

“So I was killed by good men?”

“Yes.”

The emir absorbed the news. “It was an act worthy of a hero. I must thank him, when next we meet.”

It was with a heavy heart that the emir ducked beneath the hanging roots of the great pine, shoved the door securely closed behind him, then descended the stone stairs with Talon at his side.

At the foot of the stairs the great room opened up; once again the emir was struck by the magical atmosphere of the place.

Crowds of folk were settling in for the night against the walls, having laid their bedrolls upon rafts of dry moss. No cooking fires burned. Crickets chirped merrily, while out among the crowd a trio of musicians played softly on wood-winds. The air was thick with the scent of water and clean soil. Stars seemed to hang in the air above them, and it seemed lighter now than before. But that had to be an illusion, he decided. When first he had entered the shelter, he'd come in from the harsh light of day, and all had seemed dim. Now he had come in from the gloom of dusk and storm, and the same room seemed bright.

In a far chamber, the emir could hear the facilitator Thull-turock chanting. He was already preparing to start the endowment ceremony.

“How soon shall we leave?” Talon asked the emir.

“A couple of hours at most,” he said.

“That is not much time to say good-bye.” Talon had probably
been thinking of her own mother, Gatunyea, but the emir drew a sharp breath of pain. His daughter, Siyaddah, had offered her own endowment to him, and once the endowment was transferred, he would never be able to speak with her again. It was a terrible sacrifice, and the emir spotted Siyaddah down in the crowd, waiting near the foot of the stairs for him.

Alun stood at her side, and as the emir approached his daughter, Talon withdrew a few paces to offer some privacy. Siyaddah strode forward, her eyes glistening from tears in the light of the false stars.

“Father” was all that she managed to say.

He stood before her, admiring her, but could not speak.

“Tell her not to do it,” Alun suggested. “I will give you one of my dogs. You won't need her.”

“And if I back out,” Siyaddah said, “won't the others who have offered their endowments feel deceived? They made their gestures in part because of my sacrifice.”

The emir did not answer. She was right. He just held her eyes, admiring her.

Such strength, such goodness, he thought.