"That is no longer necessary. I have returned," said Volrath.
"You've returned to your own death!" Crovax shouted.
The crowd cheered. "Volrath! Hail Volrath!"
Crovax spat out at the crowd. "The next mouth to hail this pretender will breathe its last!"
"You can slaughter them all, and it won't change the truth. I am Volrath. I am evincar."
"You're just a corpse that hasn't lain down yet!"
Crovax drew sword and dagger and advanced. Volrath, unarmed, reached out and drew Greven's oversized sword. As Belbe watched, Volrath enlarged himself to Greven's size.
"Stop it! Stop this at once!" she cried, charging between the would-be combatants.
Crovax tried to reach around her and cut at Volrath with his black-bladed sword. Belbe caught the blade with her hand. The sharp edge bit to her duralumin bone. Crovax tried to tug his sword free, but she held on.
Volrath whirled Greven's broadsword around his head as if it were a light stave. With Crovax encumbered by Belbe, he stepped sideways and thrust at the usurper. The emissary blocked his attack with her other hand. The blunt point of Greven's weapon bit deeply into her palm, but her metal hand closed tightly and would not let the sword go.
Volrath relaxed, letting go of his borrowed blade. Belbe tossed Greven's sword away. Crovax tried to wrench his weapon free, but Belbe turned and broke his sword blade in two with a single blow of her bleeding right hand.
"You're a formidable construction, but this intervention is ill-timed," said Volrath. "There can't be two evincars."
"I don't propose there be any more than one," Belbe said, throwing the end of Crovax's blade to the floor. The crowd pressed against the fence of flowstone spikes, trying to see what was happening.
Belbe, her hands bleeding copiously, mounted the steps and seated herself on the throne.
"This is my last act as emissary," she announced. "I will sit in judgment of a contest between Crovax and Volrath, and the winner shall be the sole, rightful governor of Rath."
Crovax hurled his sword hilt to the floor with a clang.
"Outrageous!" he roared. "I had your word I would be named evincar!"
"I also object," said Volrath more mildly. "I have been evincar for more years than this usurper has lived. Why should I submit to anyone's judgment or to some ridiculous contest?"
She addressed Volrath first. "It is true you were governor of this world, and during your reign the overlords were pleased with your rulership. However, when you abandoned your post to pursue a personal revenge against Weatherlight and her crew, you forfeited all credit with our Phyrexian masters. The Hidden One himself directed me to come here and find a replacement.
"Frankly, I am interpreting my orders liberally to even allow this contest, but I am sure our masters would approve," she said. Her head swam, and she tucked her bleeding, oil-streaked hands into her armpits. "Considerconsider it recognition of your past service that I allow you to clear your record of the stain of desertion."
It was impossible to read Volrath. His face was a living mask, alive, yet no more expressive than the statues in his private quarters.
Volrath pondered her words, then bowed. "Your Excellency is most generous. I accept your proposal."
Crovax was boiling with barely contained rage. The floor, the walls, the ceiling closest to him rippled and writhed under the force of his frustration. He turned his fearsome gaze from Belbe to Volrath, and his outward anger subsided.
"I see no problem," he said to Belbe. "This pathetic weakling presents no challenge to me. I will kill him, then I will kill you."
Greven, having already picked up his sword, stood at Belbe's right hand.
"For the duration of the contest, I will defend the emissary, so that no unfair advantage will be gained by threatening her," he said. So saying, he offered her a scrap of homespun bandanna. She regarded Greven's gift blankly until he tore the cloth in two and indicated she should use it to bind the wounds on her hands.
The doors of the convocation hall were opened, and the rearmost spectators were pushed out of the room by the Corps of
Sergeants. An open oval space was cleared of carpet, flags, and bystanders. Crovax's sergeants withdrew in a body to the right wall. The fence of flowstone spikes was dissolved, and those unlucky people slain by Crovax's initial fury were quickly removed.
Steel swords and shields of identical size and length were taken from two palace guards and provided to the combatants. Volrath pulled on a pair of scale-mail gauntlets. Seeing this, Crovax did the same. He dropped the gold-edged mantle from his shoulders. Neither man wore any other armor.
Volrath walked off a pace or two and started stretching and flexing his artfully carved muscles. Crovax called for wine and drank a goblet dry watching his opponent preen before the crowd.
Crovax dropped his goblet. "Time is short. Let's begin."
"I agree. What are the rules?" said Volrath.
Belbe folded her bandaged hands in her lap. "There's only one rule-win."
Crovax promptly lashed out with a wide sideways cut. Volrath threw himself back and brought up his shield. Sparks flew as the blade met the polished buckler. Crovax bored in, slashing and thrusting and using his shield to slam against Volrath's.
Volrath grew visibly taller even as Belbe watched. He moved so fast most people in the hall couldn't see his true motion, but Belbe's enhanced eyes followed every move. Volrath's arm elongated as he thrust it forward. The tip slid off the top of Crovax's shield and kept going. An ordinary fighter would have run out of arm by then, but Volrath's reach was preternatural. Crovax realized his danger and turned away just as the leading edge of Volrath's thrust clipped his left ear. He called on the floor to trip Volrath, but the flowstone waves broke over the former evincar's ankles like water and didn't impede him. In turn Volrath summoned another barrage of flowstone balls. Crovax was expecting them. Instead of liquefying them like his opponent, he batted them away with forceful commands. The skull-sized projectiles mowed down five onlookers.
Volrath retracted his arm to more normal proportions and advanced. He feigned an overhand attack, but again with amazing swiftness switched the line of his cut to an underhand thrust. Crovax blocked with his shield and struck out with his booted right foot. The hobnails connected with Volrath's leg below the knee.
"You're fast," Crovax said, grinning. "But you don't have a true killer's instinct."
"I've killed more people in one year as evincar than you have in your entire life, barbarian," Volrath retorted. "What you call 'killer instinct' is merely a lust for death. I am above such feelings."
They traded four hard cuts that left both their blades deeply nicked. For the first time, Belbe felt Volrath was concerned. He hadn't expected Crovax to last this long.
Emboldened, Crovax lowered his head and shouted sharply. He jabbed at his opponent's legs and stomach. Volrath gave ground grudgingly, backing up two steps, advancing one with a counter-thrust, then backing up two more.
Behind Crovax the floor humped up in a series of rounded semicircles. Crovax apparently didn't notice. Greven nodded approvingly.
Crovax's sword tip bounced off Volrath's shield. The latter executed a blinding pirouette, his blade coming edgeon at the side of Crovax's neck. He ducked, and his heel caught on the nearest hump. With an expression of utter surprise, Crovax fell. Volrath let out a triumphant laugh and leaped. He landed astride the fallen Crovax. Up went the bright sword Crovax vanished in a flare of white light. Volrath's blade went three inches into the floor. The flowstone softened, allowing him to recover, and his partisans in the crowd shouted warnings. He turned his head and saw Crovax materialize four feet in the air, directly behind him. There was no time to parry or dodge. Instead, Volrath shrank. He contracted his body by a fifth. Crovax's sword raked down Volrath's back, laying open his skin. Glistening oil spattered across the front of Crovax's white tunic.