The oar was not as well balanced as a shatang, but it did its work. Zeskuk heard the man's teeth slam together as the oar hit him in the back of the head. The oar struck so hard that the man skidded into the churned sand at the base of the shield, with his head facedown and half buried in the sand.
In that position he doubtless could not breathe. Zeskuk doubted that the man would breathe again anyway. The minotaur turned back to Darin and saw the human finish binding the leader's arm and sit down beside him.
"He'll do for a prisoner," Darin panted, "if we can find healing for him."
"There are healers aplenty outside the shield, if they can make up their minds to take it down," Zeskuk said. He would not name Lujimar to Darin, for all that he doubted minotaur priest and human warrior had that many secrets from each other.
"Then let them," Darin said. "I would not care to sit for long tonight, and you need both arms."
"True, but we did swear challenge, and we are still in the arena," the minotaur reminded the knight. "Should we not fulfill our oaths?"
"Of course," Darin said. He limped over to Zeskuk, knotted both fists into a single weapon, and tapped the minotaur at the base of his left horn.
The token blow alone made Zeskuk's head spin. He replied by punching Darin in the small of the back with his good hand.
"I declare that Zeskuk meant no dishonor in anything he planned," Darin said.
"I declare that Darin proved courage in all he did within the arena," Zeskuk replied.
Then both of them had to sit down again, so as not to fall senseless. They were trying not to do so anyway when the shield went down, letting cool sea air and a wall of sound from voices, human and minotaur, burst over them.
For moments after the shield-spell ended, Lujimar swayed, seemingly about to fall even more helpless than those he had saved.
Pirvan resolved to protect the minotaur priest, by standing over him with a drawn sword if necessary, and to the Abyss with scandal. Lujimar might have made any number of enemies tonight. If one of them reached him with steel, all the good done so far might yet be undone.
But Lujimar steadied himself, and walked into the arena, past where humans and minotaurs were busily relighting blown-out torches. The crowd that had rushed toward the fighters and the fallen Servants gave way before the minotaur's presence, and the size of the fists he held up before him also eased his passage.
Lady Revella was now standing again, turning red eyes toward the arena. "I wonder if Lujimar has a place for me in his household," she said softly. "As a kitchen slave, if no more. I hardly deserve better."
"That is for the gods to judge, and perhaps men if they know what you have done," Pirvan said. "Can you tell me a little of it, so that I may seem as if I knew what was happening?"
"Gladly-no, not gladly," Revella answered. "Never gladly. This has cost too much blood. But I will tell you. Someplace quieter, though, and after you tell me how you knew Rubina was my daughter."
"You were prepared to go against the kingpriest to befriend those who saved Rubina," Pirvan said. "I would do many things to repay those who helped a friend or distant kin. But something like that-something against Oath and Measure-only for Haimya or my children."
"I thank you," Haimya said, in a tone half tart and half tender. "But look closely at Revella, and see if she does not remind you of Rubina."
"Tarothin also saw the blood tie," Revella said. "But he chose to respect a fellow wizard's secret."
"At the wrong time, I fear," Pirvan said. "I judge that Rubina favored her father more than you?"
"Yes, but one who seeks can find the resemblance."
There was no place to be truly private, not without going dangerously far from light and protection, and Pirvan could not go far even were it safe. Until Sir Niebar and Tarothin landed, he was as close to a leader as there could be on this shore.
He listened intently as Lady Revella explained how she had helped certain men who wished to test a spell allowing them to travel inland undetected. It might not work, and if so they were lost. If they succeeded, it was a step toward victory.
But she had not spoken to these men directly. She had dealt with them through an intermediary, who, it appeared, had also taken Lujimar into his confidence. The intermediary also knew or guessed that the men's plans went far beyond what they wished him to admit to Lady Revella.
"So he told Lujimar, but not you, and you were surprised but Lujimar was not?" Pirvan asked.
"That seems as good a way to put it as any," Revella said.
Pirvan muttered curses. "I should like to speak to this-person. It will be useful for all to know that the kingpriest's Servants of Silence are not only thriving again, but taking into their confidence minotaur spies and trying to corrupt high wizards."
"The name is not my secret to-"
This time Pirvan's curses were not muttered. "There has been too much thinking of others' secrets, and not enough thinking that our honor also lies in keeping them safe!" he snapped. He pointed at the boat, where Lujimar was now untying Torvik and Mirraleen-snapping the ropes with his bare hands, and twisting the chains off the oarlocks.
"If Torvik had said just a trifle more, would he and Mirraleen have suffered tonight's ordeal?" Pirvan continued. "Would Zeskuk and Darin have put themselves at risk in the arena? Would I have had to threaten to break a wizard's staff, which makes a man look foolish if he can't and dead if he can?"
Torvik and Mirraleen were now staggering to their feet, each holding on to one of Lujimar's arms. Even from a distance, Mirraleen showed a ghastly array of cuts and bruises. Torvik's pain seemed more within, judging from his face, and he clutched Mirraleen's hand as if by so doing he could take her wounds on himself.
Revella looked ready to weep again, and Pirvan wondered if he had dealt too harshly with her. He would still learn the spy's name, even if he had to ask Sir Niebar to devote the secret matters office entirely to that purpose. When one finds the vital spot in a hitherto mysterious opponent, one does not humbly petition for the right to drive in the knife.
But there was Sir Niebar coming up the beach, surrounded by guards, and with Tarothin dropping away from the rear of the procession to join Lujimar in healing the two fighters and keeping the prisoner alive. Pirvan sent some of his own guards to guard the healers' backs. There had to be many in the crowd ready to use steel on the Servants, for vengeance or to silence them.
Then came a long, weary time of reporting to Sir Niebar just what had happened, dividing the report into what Pirvan had seen and what he suspected. Sir Niebar was full of praise and also of questions, and asked some of them of Haimya and even of Fulvura.
By the time Sir Niebar was done, Torvik was on a litter, bound on the shoulders of Red Elf's folk to a boat and his own cabin. The dead Servants had been removed with the rest of the offal and the prisoners healed and bound. Rynthala had taken command of Darin's care, and Zeskuk was deep in a conversation with Lujimar that Pirvan would have given ten years off his life to overhear, if he'd thought there was any hope at all.
Mirraleen, however, seemed to have utterly vanished.
Wilthur the Brown raged.
Certain highly-placed servants of the kingpriest did the same. There was no silence anywhere near them, that night off Suivinari.
Out to sea, five Dimernesti crouched low on a rock, waiting for a sixth to swim into view. They knew that she was alive; they could wish that they knew when she was coming.
Deep within the waters, Zeboim's thoughts moved like the currents. The goddess was everywhere, except when she was nowhere, or (as very rarely) in her turtle form.