At the conclusion of the interminable talking, a horn sounded, the marshal dropped his kerchief, and the duel was begun.
Despite the fire in his veins, Murtagh felt as if he were trapped in quicksand, barely able to move his legs or swing his arms. Yet he dodged and parried and beat his opponent’s blade as he should. They used no shields, as the contest was to be a test of pure bladesmanship, and Murtagh had forgone vambraces that he might move all the faster. He trusted his mail shirt to protect his arms from cuts.
Most times it would have. But the tip of Goreth’s sword found the cuff of Murtagh’s left sleeve, and the length of sharpened steel slid up under the gambeson he wore beneath the mail. A shivering line, hot and cold and agonizing, ran along the outside of his forearm.
Out of instinct, he yanked his arm back. He cried out as the sword cut him again on the return.
The fingers of his left hand spasmed and curled into a useless knot. If not for the onlookers, he would have conceded the duel, but pride, fear, and sheer stubborn anger forbade.
Goreth seized the advantage and stabbed again, quick. Retreating, Murtagh beat aside the attack. Goreth pressed him hard with several more strikes, and then he lunged, and Murtagh took a glancing blow to his hip, upon the skirt of mail. In a desperate attempt to recover, he replied with a swing of his own and caught Goreth’s elbow with the tip of his sword.
Goreth dropped his blade.
It was a lucky strike. Murtagh could not have hoped to duplicate it in a week of sparring. He did not hesitate and followed through as Tornac had taught him and slipped the point of his sword under Goreth’s arm and pricked him in the armpit, where the armor did not cover.
It was a narrow wound, but deep enough to cause Goreth to cry out and fall to the ground and to mark the end of the duel.
Or so Murtagh thought.
With blood dripping from his limp left arm, he looked to the king for the final verdict. It was tradition for Galbatorix to declare the winner of any contest he sat in witness of; the king’s word was final, and until he spoke, no outcome—no truth—was official.
The shadow leaned forward on the throne, and glints of light appeared on the tips of his crown, but the king’s face remained too dark to see his expression.
“Make an end of him, son of Morzan.”
At first Murtagh did not believe what he heard, but Galbatorix’s voice carried with unnatural force, and there was no mistaking his words. The crowd grew tense, and several gasps and cries sounded among the rows of seating, but no one spoke out against the king’s command. No one was so foolish.
Goreth had not their restraint. He began to beg in a high-pitched voice. In an instant the image of the famous warrior vanished, replaced by yet another frightened soldier crawling on the battlefield, pleading for mercy from the approaching enemy.
Murtagh hesitated. He frantically searched the edge of the arena, searched for any means of escape. Then he saw Tornac standing inside the entrance tunnel to the arena, out of sight from the audience, but in plain view of Murtagh. The swordmaster’s face was pale and pinched, and he looked as if he wanted to speak, but his lips remained pressed together, and his expression was severe. He shook his head, a single, short movement, and Murtagh understood. There was no escape to be had. And no help either.
“End him, son of Morzan.”
Then Murtagh did as he had to, though it made him sick to bear it. He went to Goreth and attempted to give the man a quick death with a cut to the neck. But Goreth raised his arm, and Murtagh’s blade skated off Goreth’s iron vambrace. The man wasn’t about to give up and die. Murtagh hated him for it as much as he pitied him. He lost all sense of control then, and began to rain blows upon Goreth even as the man continued to attempt to fend him off. All the while Goreth kept screaming and pleading, and Murtagh was shouting as well, nonsense sounds to drown out the man’s voice.
When it was over, blood stained the packed sand for yards around them, and Goreth’s horribly cut and disfigured body was finally still.
Murtagh fell to one knee and used his sword as a crutch to keep from collapsing. It was a terrible abuse of the weapon, but right then he didn’t care how badly Tornac might thrash him for wrecking the edge on the blade.
A lone clapping sounded from the throne, and Galbatorix stood. The rest of the onlookers rose in response. “Well done, Murtagh.” He gestured with a finger, and Murtagh gasped and clutched his wounded forearm as skin and muscles squirmed like snakes and knit themselves whole. Then the king said, as an aside to the marshaclass="underline" “Bring him to my chambers once he is washed and changed.”
“My liege.”
The king departed, along with his followers, and the arena quickly emptied, leaving Murtagh alone with the corpse of his first kill. The marshal approached, but before he could speak, Tornac appeared by Murtagh’s side. “I’ll see that he gets to the king,” Tornac said in a harsh voice, and the marshal did not argue.
As Tornac guided him out of the arena, Murtagh said, “I…I…He wouldn’t—”
“You did what was necessary. Don’t think about it.”
But of course Murtagh did. And it was after meeting with Galbatorix in his chambers—where the king set him the task of destroying a village he believed was harboring traitors of the Varden—that Murtagh, with Tornac’s wholehearted agreement, decided to flee the capital and Galbatorix himself.
He never spoke of the duel again.
Some days after the cultists began their preparations for the festival, a small group of visitors arrived at Nal Gorgoth. The men came riding on proud horses, and they blew a horn to announce their arrival. They were richly appointed, and they carried pennants with colorful designs, and they were well armed and well armored.
In the temple’s inner sanctum, Murtagh sat upon a stone chair next to Bachel’s throne. More chairs had been set up in a double row extending from the dais with the throne, and on them reclined the visitors. The men looked to be a mix of nobles and, as evidenced by their fine garb, merchants. Their faces seemed to swim before Murtagh; he found it difficult to concentrate on their features, and remembering them was next to impossible. But there was something familiar about—
“Why, Murtagh! To think I would find you here, of all places. Whatever are you doing in Nal Gorgoth?”
The words came from a youngish man at the head of the left-hand row of chairs. Murtagh frowned as he struggled to focus. The man’s features sharpened for a moment, and a name drifted to the top of Murtagh’s mind: Lyreth.
Murtagh opened his mouth, closed it.
The young man burst out laughing. “My dear fellow, you look like a fish that’s been struck with an oar.” He moved his mouth to demonstrate.
The rest of the visitors laughed as well.
With a supreme effort, Murtagh found his voice. “I don’t know why I am here.”
“You must forgive him,” said Bachel. Above her bronze goblet, her offset mouth lifted in the smallest of smiles. “The Kingkiller is not himself these days.”