The next few exchanges were feints, each man testing the other for blind spots, bad habits and good ones, lack of imagination. If this had been a test bout at Dargaard Keep, and the two men training for the Knights of Solamnia, their instructors would have praised both highly. Neither man was predictable, neither easy to catch off guard (Pirvan, after his first lapse, was impossible), and both had worked up a good sweat without losing speed or temper.
The last thought made Pirvan grin. It would not unman him to kill Hawkbrother, if the gods willed it. But he firmly refused to contemplate being angry with the young warrior.
Hawkbrother saw the grin and laughed. “You find my work amusing? Perhaps I can change your mind.”
He sprang at Pirvan, jumping so that he altered his course in midair to land within easy striking distance of the knight.
Or rather, what would have been easy striking distance, if Pirvan’s eyes had not taken in Hawkbrother’s legs as well as his knife hand. Pirvan had moved while Hawkbrother was still in midair, and came down a finger’s breadth out of his opponent’s reach.…
An opponent who was, for a moment, off balance.
It was Pirvan’s turn now to make a low pass, and his steel went home. Not deeply, only scoring the callused flesh over Hawkbrother’s left knee, but blood flowed.
“I claim first blood!” Pirvan called, with the most knightly formality he could muster when short of breath. Then he repeated it, realizing that his first effort must have come out more a gasp than words.
“I heard you the first time,” Hawkbrother said. “So, I’ll be bound, did the elven rangers in the forests of Silvanesti. I may be bleeding, but I’m not deaf.”
“Your pardon,” Pirvan said, bowing. “I meant no insult.”
“If you mean no insult, then do not bother asking me if I yield,” Hawkbrother replied. “Shall we continue the dance?”
“As you wish,” Pirvan said, with another bow. He did not take his eyes off Hawkbrother as he bowed, which was just as well. The warrior came in fast, stamping to raise dust and confuse Pirvan about his direction.
Perhaps also, thought Pirvan, to prove that he could endure the pain of his bloody knee.
The knight wanted to tell Hawkbrother that he took his opponent’s courage and endurance for granted; that he need not put himself to pain and trouble to prove either. But he was too busy evading or parrying Hawkbrother’s darting blade, to have time or breath for polite conversation.
That lack of breath was reason for concern, Pirvan decided. Best take the next good chance to end this quickly, before he had to risk a mortal wound to one or both of them.
By good fortune, he’d moved toward the patch of hard crust over soft sand, which he’d marked earlier. He judged that Hawkbrother had also noticed it and could not be led across it.
That did not matter. It was not Hawkbrother who had to step through the crust.
The desert warrior seemed to have briefly lost his sense of direction during the last quick exchange. This made it easier for Pirvan to lead the fight toward the patch. It still took time, breath, and strength, and also allowed Hawkbrother to get home one quick slash at Pirvan’s left arm.
“I suppose you will not yield either?” Hawkbrother asked. He spoke with a grin that made it plain he asked foolish questions only to preserve custom and honor.
“You suppose correctly,” Pirvan said, returning the grin. To his left, he saw the patch only a few steps away. To his right, he saw Hawkbrother beginning to realize where the fight was leading them.
Then Hawkbrother came in fast again, trying to drive Pirvan onto the patch. There was nothing for the knight to do but let himself be driven. That, or take a serious wound. This might make Hawkbrother doubt Pirvan’s courage, but it should ease any suspicion.
Pirvan’s bare left foot touched the pebbly crust. Now he had to move as fast as he ever had in his night work, and against an opponent more dangerous than most folk who ever served in a city watch.
Instead of tilting left as his foot crunched through the crust, Pirvan tilted right. He turned the tilt into a cartwheel. Hawkbrother lunged at a momentarily helpless opponent-and it was the desert warrior’s foot that crunched through the crust, to be held fast.
Pirvan spun out of the cartwheel on to his feet, tossed his knife, caught it by the blade, and slammed the weighted hilt up under Hawkbrother’s jaw. The younger man had turned by then, so willpower and reflex together let him slash Pirvan across the ribs.
Then Hawkbrother crumpled. The fight was over, with the bloodier of the two opponents still on his feet.
Pirvan knelt and listened for Hawkbrother’s breath and pulse. Both seemed in reasonable order, for a man who probably had a broken jaw.
“Pirvan, stop dripping blood all over the poor man,” Serafina said sharply. “Eskaia, we need to wake Tarothin. If he hasn’t slept off his illness, he can always go back to his blankets after he heals these two bulls.”
“Best I come with you,” Darin said. “My judging is no longer needed, and Tarothin may have to be carried.” Unspoken, except in his glance at Pirvan, was the notion that he might awaken the Red Robe a trifle more gently than the two women.
“Well and good,” Haimya said. “Now, if somebody will bring me herb water and bandages, I can at least stop the bleeding while we wait for Tarothin.”
When Gildas Aurhinius awoke, the sun was too high for him to believe he had slept only a few minutes, though he felt as if he had.
When Nemyotes brought him the news, however, he very much wished he could go back to sleep.
“Zephros deserted during the night, during the rain,” the secretary said. “Most of his men went with him. We found several bodies. One man was still alive. Before he died, he said that those who refused to follow Zephros were murdered.”
Aurhinius could not think of anything to utter except a groan, which would be unmanly, so he held his peace; also his head.
“I fear there is more,” Nemyotes said.
“How fearsome?”
“Enough. The other tax soldier bands have held muster. Most of them count a score or more of deserters. Even Floria Desbarres’s company has lost a few.”
“Gone with Zephros?”
“Most likely. The rain washed out tracks for miles. The captain of scouts has men hunting Zephros’s trail.”
“Bid him report to me the moment his men find anything,” Aurhinius said. Then, as a realistic afterthought, he added, “or when they decide Zephros has too much of a head start.”
Aurhinius drank from a goblet of watered wine Nemyotes held out. It took the sourness from his mouth, if not from his spirit.
“Did the dying man say where Zephros might be going?”
“If anyone besides Zephros knew, he held his peace,” Nemyotes said. “Or perhaps Zephros himself did not know more than that he and his men were not safe here.”
“He was quite right, kingpriest or no kingpriest,” Aurhinius said. “But I do not like to think that he has such a hold over his men, and others’ men, that they will hare off into the desert with him, the gods alone know where.”
“Evil men have won followers before,” Nemyotes said. Aurhinius’s glare said what he thought of that pedantry. “Also,” the secretary added, “Zephros may have been playing on the ambitions of some men to be in the favor of the kingpriest or his followers. Ambition can often do the work of gold or honor.”
Aurhinius said nothing, as there was no denying that plain truth, and drank again. His thirst quenched, he stood and began peering about the already oven-hot tent for his clothes.
“Call a meeting of all the captains for noon,” Aurhinius said as he struggled into his undertunic. “I cannot order the tax soldiers’ captains to come, but remind them that I can perhaps help them prevent more desertions if they do. Some of them at least must hope to return to Istar with more than arrow-wounds and sunburn.”