The Eternal Champion

I unsheathed the blade and again a sort of exultation filled me. Immediately I forgot my qualms and scruples and laughed as the sword whistled around my head and my muscles flexed with the weight of it.

I feinted with the sword and it seemed that it was part of my very body, that it was another limb whose presence I had been unaware of until now. I thrust it out at full reach, pulled it back, swung it down. It filled me with joy to wield it!

It made me into something greater than I had ever felt I was before. It made me into a man. A warrior. A champion.

And yet, as John Daker, I had handled swords perhaps twice in my life-and handled them most clumsily, according to those friends of mine who had considered themselves experts.

At last I reluctantly sheathed the sword as I saw a slave hovering some distance away. I remembered that only I, Erekose', could hold the sword and live.

'What is it?' I said.

'The Lord Katorn, master. He would speak with you.' I put the sword back on its peg. 'Bid him enter,' I told the slave.

Katorn came in rapidly. He appeared to have been waiting some time and was in no better a mood than when I had first encountered him. His boots, which seemed to be shod with metal, clattered on the flagstones of the weapons room.

'Good morning to you, Lord Erekose,' he said.

I bowed. 'Good morning, Lord Katorn. I apologise if you were made to wait. I was trying out that sword…'

'The Sword Kanajana…' Katorn looked at it speculatively.

'The Sword Kanajana,' I said. 'Would you have some refreshment, Lord Katorn?' I was making a great effort to please him-not only because it would not do to have so experienced a warrior as an enemy when plans of battle were being prepared, but because I had, as I said, come to sympathise with his situation.

But Katorn refused to be mollified. 'I broke my fast at dawn,' he said. 'I have come to discuss more pressing matters than eating, Lord Erekose.'

'And what are those?' Manfully, I restrained my own temper.

'Matters of war, Lord Erekose. What else?'

'Indeed. And what specific matters would you wish to discuss with me, Lord Katorn?

'It seems to me that we should attack the Eldren before they come against us.'

'Attack being the best form of defence, eh?'

He looked surprised at this. He had plainly not heard the phrase before. 'Eloquently put, my lord. One would think you an Eldren yourself, with such a way with words…' He was deliberately trying my temper. But I swallowed the insinuation.

'So,' I said, 'we attack them. Where?'

'That is what we shall have to discuss with all those concerned in planning this war. But it seems there is one obvious point.'

'And that is?'

He wheeled and strode into another chamber, returning with a map which he spread on a bench. It was a map of the third continent, the one entirely controlled by the Eldren, Mernadin.

With his dagger he stabbed at a spot I had seen indicated the night before.

'Paphanaal,' I said.

'While it is the logical point of an initial attack in a campaign of the sort we plan, it seems to me unlikely that the Eldren will expect us to make so bold a move, knowing that we are weary and under strength…'

'But if we are weary and weak,' I said, 'would it not seem a good idea to attack some less important city first?'

'You are forgetting, my lord, that our warriors have been heartened by your coming,' Katorn said dryly.

I could not help grinning at this cut. But Katorn scowled, angry that I had not taken offence.

I said quietly: 'We must learn to work together, my lord Katorn. I bow to your great experience as a warrior leader. I acknowledge that you have had much more recent knowledge of the Eldren than have I. I need your help surely as much as King Rigenos believes he needs mine.'

Katorn seemed slightly comforted by this. He cleared his throat and continued.

'Once Paphanaal, province and city, are taken, we shall have a beachhead from which other attacks inland can be made. With Paphanaal again in our hands, we can decide our own strategy-initiate action rather than react to the Eldren's strategy. Only once we have pushed them back into the mountains will we have the wearying task of clearing them all out. It will take years. But it is what we should have done in the first place. That, however, will be a matter for ordinary military administration and will not concern us directly.'

'And what kind of defences has Paphanaal?' I asked.

Katorn smiled. 'She relies almost entirely on her warships. If we can destroy her fleet, then Paphanaal is as good as taken.' He bared his teeth in what I gathered was a grin. And he looked at me, his expression changing to one of sudden suspicion, as if he had revealed too much to me.

I could not ignore the expression. 'What is on your mind, Lord Katorn?' I asked. 'Do you not trust me?'

He controlled his features. 'I must trust you,' he said flatly. 'We all must trust you, Lord Erekose. Have you not returned to fulfil your ancient promise?'

I gazed searchingly into his face. 'Do you believe that?'

'I must believe it.'

'Do you believe that I am Erekose the Champion returned?'

'I must believe that also.'

'You believe it because you surmise that if I am not Erekose-the Erekose of the legends-then the human race is doomed?'

He lowered his head as if in assent.

'And what if I am not Erekose, my lord?'

Katorn looked up. 'You must be Erekose-my lord. If it were not for one thing, I would suspect…'

'What would you suspect?'

'Nothing.'

'You would suspect that I were an Eldren in disguise. Is that it, Lord Katorn? Some cunning unhuman who had assumed the outer appearance of a man? Do I read your thoughts correctly, my lord?'

'Too correctly.' Katorn's thick brows came together and his mouth was thin and white. 'The Eldren are said to have the power to probe minds-but not human beings…'

'And are you, then, afraid, Lord Katorn?'

'Of an Eldren? By the Good One, I'll show you…' and Katorn's heavy hand rushed to the hilt of his sword.

I raised my own hand and then pointed at the sword that hung sheathed on the peg on the wall. 'But that is the one fact that does not fit your theory, isn't it? If I am not Erekose, then how is it that I can handle Erekose's blade?'

He did not draw his sword, but his grip remained on the hilt.

'It is true, is it not, that no living creature-human or Eldren-can touch that blade and live?' I said quietly.

'That is the legend,' he agreed.

'Legend?'

'I have never seen an Eldren try to handle the Sword Kanajana…'

'But you must assume that it is true. Otherwise…'

'Otherwise, there is little hope for humanity.' The words were dragged from his lips.

'Very well, Lord Katorn. You will assume that I am Erekose, summoned by King Rigenos to lead humanity to victory.'

'I have no choice but to assume that.'

'Good. And there is something that I, too, must assume, for my part, Lord Katorn.'

'You? What?'

'I must assume that you will work with me in this enterprise. That there will be no plots behind my back, that there will be no information withheld from me that might prove vital, that you will not seek to make allies against me within our own ranks. You see, Lord Katorn, it could be your suspicions that might wreck our plans. A man jealous and resentful of his leader is capable of doing more harm than any enemy…'

He nodded his head and straightened his shoulders, the hand falling away from his sword. 'I had considered that question, my lord. I am not a fool.'

'I know you are not a fool, Lord Katorn. If you were a fool, I should not have bothered to have had this conversation.'