Garth Rogar smacked the metal shield away and came in, slowing only to dodge a short thrust from Luthien’s sword. A second thrust turned him to the side, to Luthien’s left, and Luthien’s free hand was waiting, snapping a punch into the barbarian’s already broken nose.
Garth Rogar tried to fake a smile, but he had to shake his head to clear away the dizziness.
“Do you yield?” Luthien politely asked, and they both heard Elenia’s protesting scream from the stands, and Avonese’s howls of victory.
Predictably, Garth Rogar charged. At the last instant, Luthien tossed his sword up into the air, right in the barbarian’s face. Garth flinched, then jolted to a stop, his own momentum used against him, by a left-right punch combination that would have felled a small bull.
Luthien caught the sword in his left hand, moved it to Garth’s neck to force a yield. Ferocious Garth caught its tip, tossed it out wide and clamped his hand on Luthien’s forearm.
“Rip his arm off!” Elenia cried. Avonese leaned right across Gahris’s lap to hiss at her.
Luthien’s muscles flexed as he fell into a clinch with the larger and stronger man. Wilmon, and even Aubrey, scowled a bit at the ensuing sighs of their obviously enchanted consorts.
Luthien held well against Rogar, but knew that the man’s sheer weight would soon overwhelm him. He pushed forward with all his might, then took a quick step backward, breaking one hand free, though Garth stubbornly held his sword arm. The combatants exchanged punches; Garth Rogar took a second, and a third, willingly, as he bent to clamp a hand under Luthien’s crotch. A moment later, the young Bedwyr was rising helplessly into the air, the angle all wrong for him to get any weight behind a punch—and Garth Rogar’s grip on his sword arm remained unrelenting.
Luthien head-butted the barbarian instead, forehead to face. The stunned Garth Rogar heaved him ten feet away, then focused on just keeping his balance. For the barbarian, the world would not stop spinning.
Luthien pulled himself up from the ground and cautiously stalked back in, looking for a clean opening between Garth’s wild swings. Luthien was on the verge of exhaustion and feared that a single hit from his powerful enemy would send him spinning to the ground.
He waved his sword all about as he came in slowly, forcing the dizzy barbarian to keep up with its tantalizing movements. The thrust was a feint—Garth Rogar knew that—but so was the following right cross. Luthien pulled up short and fell to the ground, his legs sweeping across, kicking out both of Garth Rogar’s knees. Down went the barbarian hard on his back, his breath coming out in one profound blast.
Luthien was up, quick as a cat, but Garth had not the strength to follow. Luthien planted a foot on the fallen man’s chest, and his sword tip came to rest on the bridge of Garth Rogar’s nose, right between his unfocused eyes.
The screams of Elenia and Avonese were surprisingly similar, but the expressions that each wore after the initial outburst certainly were not.
Gahris was truly pleased by the appreciation, even admiration, stamped upon Aubrey’s face, but the eorl’s smile disappeared as Avonese again leaned heavily across his lap, looking at the pouting Elenia with sparkling, wicked eyes.
“Pray offer the down-pointing thumb, Eorl Bedwyr,” Avonese purred.
Gahris nearly choked. A down-pointing thumb meant that the loser should be killed. That was not the way on the islands: the fights were for sport and training alone!
Elenia cried out in outrage, which only spurred on the evil Avonese.
“Thumb down,” she said again, evenly, looking to protesting Elenia all the while. It wasn’t hard for Avonese to figure out what Elenia had in mind for the barbarian, and stealing her younger rival’s pleasure felt wonderful indeed. “Your son was my champion, he wears my offered pennant, and thus, I am granted the decision of victory.”
“But . . .” was all that stammering Gahris managed to get out before Aubrey reached across and put a hand on the eorl’s shoulder.
“It is her right, by ancient tradition,” the viscount insisted, not daring to displease his vicious companion.
“Garth Rogar fought valiantly,” Gahris protested.
“Thumb down,” Avonese said slowly, emphasizing each word as she shifted her gaze to look right into Gahris’s cinnamon-colored eyes.
Gahris looked past her to see the viscount nodding. He tried to weigh the consequences of his actions at that moment. Avonese’s claim was true enough—by the ancient rules, since Luthien had unwittingly agreed to be her champion, she had the right to decide the fate of the defeated man. If he refused now, Gahris could expect serious trouble from Montfort, perhaps even an invading fleet that would take his eorldom from him. Ever was Morkney looking for reasons to replace the often troublesome island eorls.
Gahris gently pushed Avonese aside and looked out to the arena, where Luthien was still poised above the fallen Garth Rogar, waiting for the signal to break and the applause both he and the barbarian so richly deserved. Great was Luthien’s astonishment when he saw his father extend his hand, thumb pointing down.
Luthien stood confused for a long while, hardly hearing Avonese’s calls for him to finish the task. He looked down at his friend; he could not comprehend the notion of killing the man.
“Eorl Gahris,” prompted an increasingly impatient Aubrey.
Gahris called to the arena marshal, but the man seemed as transfixed as Luthien.
“Do it!” vicious Avonese snapped. “Aubrey?”
The viscount snapped his fingers at one of his cyclopian guardsman behind him, the one with the curious crossbow.
Luthien had stepped back by this point and extended his hand to his friend. Garth Rogar had reached up and taken that grasp, starting to rise, when there came the click of a firing crossbow. The barbarian jerked suddenly, clamping tightly on Luthien’s hand.
Luthien did not at first understand what had just transpired. Then Garth Rogar’s grip loosened, and time seemed to move in slow motion as the proud barbarian slowly slipped back to the dirt.
3
Farewell, My Brother
Luthien stared at Garth Rogar in shocked silence, stared at the surprised expression on the flaxen-haired barbarian’s rugged and bruised face. Surprised even in death or, perhaps, because of his death.
“Fly, Death!” Luthien wailed, throwing his sword aside and diving down to kneel beside the man. “Be gone from this place, for here you do not belong! Seek an aged man, or an infant with not the strength to survive in this cruel world, but take not this man, this boy, younger than I.” Luthien grabbed up Garth Rogar’s hand in his own and propped the barbarian’s head with his other arm. He could feel the heat leaving Rogar’s body, the sweat the barbarian had worked up in the fight becoming clammy. Luthien tried to stammer more protests, but found his tongue caught in his mouth. What might he say to Death, that most callous of spirits which does not care to hear? What use were words when the heat was fast leaving Garth Rogar’s young and strong body?
Luthien looked back helplessly to the box, his expression a mixture of confusion and boiling rage. But Aubrey’s party, Gahris included, was already gone from sight; further up the stands, Ethan, too, had fled the scene. Luthien’s gaze darted all about. Many of the spectators had departed, but some remained, whispering and pointing incredulously to the man lying in the dirt, and the son of Bedwyr leaning over him.
Luthien turned back to Garth Rogar. He saw the back tip of the crossbow quarrel protruding from the man’s side, between two ribs, and reached for it tentatively, as if he thought that pulling it free would give Garth Rogar back his breath. Luthien tried to touch the metal shaft, but found that his fingers would not close about it.