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"I suppose you'll want to be starting," Emrys said, ignoring his son.
"No," Remo said quickly. "As a matter of fact-"
"You're not welcome to the hospitality of my home."
"Da, let him talk. Please."
"You hold your tongue, Griffith." He strode over to the door with large, thundering steps and threw it open. "We'll talk outside. You stay in and mind your silence." He locked the door behind him.
"Da . . ."
"I've chosen a place. You can see if it suits you," he told Remo as they walked toward a clearing in the glen.
Remo could hear the boy's voice calling frantically from inside the cottage. "You promised, Remo! Don't forget your promise. T'was made in blood!".
The big man removed the sheepskin vest he wore and draped it neatly over a rock. From inside the hollow of an oak he took a piece of bark covered with strange words. "A message for my son," he said, laying the scrap of wood on top of the vest. From his trousers pocket, he extracted the carved jade stone Chiun had given him and threw it at Remo's feet. "There's the rock. It's begun now."
Remo breathed deeply. "Emrys, I'm not going to fight you."
The man's mouth turned down into a bitter scowl. "What's Griffith been telling you?"
"That you have no more reason to go through with this farce than I do," Remo said. "Tradition or not, I've seen enough of the Master's Trial to know it's a crock. Let's end it here and now. For everybody's sake." He extended his hand.
Emrys shoved past him. "I won't have it," he growled. "If you don't have the guts to fight me in the Master's Trial, then fight me as a man."
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"What difference would that make?"
Emrys stared at him, his nostrils distended. "I might let you live," he said menacingly.
"Forget it. I've promised not to fight you."
"A promise to a babe."
"Who's got more sense than his father."
"Fight, damn you!"
"You'd lose, can't you see that?" Remo shouted. "You'd lose to a man half your size, let alone me. How far gone are your eyes? Just a little blurriness around the edges, or are shapes all you can make out?"
"Make your move, you spineless coward!"
"No. I said I wouldn't fight."
Emrys's face was contorted into a mask of rage and shame. "Then you'll die. I'll not be pitied by you."
He lunged for Remo and swung wildly, missing him by a foot. The missed blow sent him sprawling on the ground.
"Now look here," Remo said, going over to him and touching his shoulder. Just as he was about to speak, Emrys took him by surprise with a powerful roundhouse right to the jaw. Remo felt as if all his teeth had jarred loose at once.
"Who's blurry around the edges now, chopstick pecker?" He laughed, a big, hearty guffaw filled with pride.
Remo rubbed his jaw. "Very funny."
"Where'd you learn to fight, anyway, some Chinee opium den?"
Remo rolled his eyes. "My training comes from Sinanju. That's in Korea, peabrain. Not China."
He attacked. Remo ducked. "Son of a yellow whore."
"Oh, come off it."
"So that's how you fight over in Sin and Goo. With your mouth," Emrys taunted. "It's a big one, too. To make up for your lack of balls, I'll wager." He came at
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Remo in a flying tackle, clutching Remo's legs with a viselike grip.
"Hey-"
Emrys flipped him over and jabbed two knuckles at his eyeballs. Before they struck, Remo took hold of the big man's arms and threw him.
"That's more like it, dogmeat," Emrys said, grinning. He leaped at Remo. Remo caught him, and the two of them wrestled, unyielding, until they were both slathered in sweat.
Remo's wrists were aching. They'd been grappling, stuck to each other like Siamese twins, for twenty minutes or more. He should have known better than to underestimate Emrys, he realized. His opponent's eyes might be failing, but he was strong as a bull.
"I know . . . how you got here," Emrys grunted.
"Ng," Remo said.
"Your . . . friend . . . Chiun ..."
"Yeah?" He shook a bead of sweat off his nose. "What about him?"
"He shits white boys like you for turds."
Remo laughed. "You've got to be the grossest-"
Emrys used the opportunity to slam Remo in the belly, shooting him across the glen into a tree trunk.
Feeling his lungs collapse, Remo rolled out of the way of Emrys's oncoming body.
"Sorry, Griffith, but all bets are off," he mumbled, striking out with a left hook. It sliced the Welshman across the shoulder. With a howl, Emrys came at him again, throwing him into the center of the clearing like a sack of bricks.
Remo closed his eyes as he landed, grateful that Chiun wasn't around to see him fighting like a barroom brawler with a half-blind lunatic. And losing.
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"This is it," Remo said, stumbling to his feet. "I'm beginning to lose patience with you."
"Arggh," Emrys gurgled, staggering forward, his fists weaving in front of him. Remo stepped out of the way. Emrys tripped on a rock and fell face down with a thud.
"You're the one who wanted to fight," Remo said, trying to focus.
"So I do." The Welshman charged.
Remo charged.
And they both fell down.
"What was that?" Remo said, cranking himself upward into a sitting position.
Emrys brushed some dust off his bare chest. "I na ken it. Summat struck me fierce upon the head. And just when I was about to finish you off, too."
"Finish me off?" Remo objected. "That's a-wait a second." He crawled a few feet and retrieved a long slender pole tipped by an iron arrow wound around the stick by a strip of leather. "It's a spear. I think."
Emrys searched himself for wounds. "Am I hit?"
"No. Neither am I. But it knocked both of us off our feet."
"Oh, na," Emrys moaned, his voice quavering. "We done something wrong."
"Like what?" Remo said irritably. "What are you talking about?"
Emrys pointed. "A great white form yonder. 'Tis the gods, come to seek vengeance."
Remo looked in the direction where Emrys was pointing. Through the foliage of the forest, he could make out the shape of a white horse.
"I should have listened to Griffith," Emrys said, his voice filled with doom and wonder. "He talks to the wood spirits. I never believed they was for true, but the boy knew. Now it's too late."
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"It's only a horse, for crying out loud: Get yourself a pair of glasses."
"A horse that throws spears?"
Remo fingered the iron-tipped pole uncertainly "Somebody's standing behind the horse."
"You great Chinee lummox. You're blinder'n I am."
The horse galloped into the clearing, then slowed to a halt some fifty yards from the two men. The rider was a woman. She dismounted, the flowing robes she wore billowing gracefully. When she was on her feet, she gave the animal a sharp slap on the rump and sent him galloping into the wood. Then she walked forward purposefully toward the two men.
Remo looked, shook his head, looked again. "It can't be," he said slowly.
"Oh, gar," Emrys lamented.
She was the same woman Remo had spent the night with in London, but radically different. She was dressed in a loose gown of sea green, fastened at her shoulders by two large gold medallions. In her belt were a small ax and a knife. Her golden hair hung to below her waist and moved like water with each step she took. As she drew nearer, the sun caught the thin gold circlet around her forehead, making her look like a barbarian princess. Her eyes, green and gray and blue, regarded him somberly. She did not speak.
"It's you," Remo said.
She picked up the spear. Without a word, she hurled it into the forest and followed it.
"Is she real?" Emrys whispered, afraid to turn his head.
"Yeah," Remo said, then thought better of it. "Maybe."