"I'd thought better of you, Gerin. We don't get along, but I know you're no fool. You have no excuse for being stone blind."
"Go on," Gerin said again, wishing Wolfar would come to a point.
"All right. On this stretch of the border, we have the only two major holdings that didn't fall. Now tell me, what aid did we get from the Marchwarden of the North or our lord Emperor Hildor?" Wolfar tried to put mockery in his voice, but managed only a growl.
"Less than nothing, as well I know."
"How right you are. Fox, you can see as well as I-better, I suppose, if you've really read all these books-the Empire hasn't done a damned thing for us the past hundred years. Enough, by all the gods! With the confusion on the border-and deep inside, too, from some of the things you've said-the two of us could be princes so well established that, by the time Elabon moved its fat arse against us, we'd be impossible to throw out, you and I!"
No wonder Wolfar had changed, Gerin thought, whistling softly. Anyone carrying that big an idea on his shoulders would change, and might buckle under the strain of it. Something else bothered the Fox too, but he could not place it. "What would you have us be princes of?" he asked. "Our side of the border is so weak the Trokmoi can come down as they wish, with or without their wizard. For now, we can't hope to hold them."
"Think, though. We can channel their force into whatever shape pleases us. Save for them, we're the only powers on the border now, and we can use them against whoever stands against us."
That idea Gerin liked not at all. He wanted to drive every woodsrunner back across the Niffet, not import more as mercenaries. He said, "After a while, they'd decided they'd sooner not be used, and act for their own benefit, not ours."
"With their sorcerer gone, they could never hurt us, so long as we kept up enough properly manned and alert keeps," Wolfar argued. His elaborate calm worried Gerin more than any bluster or nervousness.
But at last he had it, the thing Wolfar was trying to hide. The blank look Schild had given his overlord, a few odd remarks from Wolfar's men… everything fell together. "Wolfar," he asked, "what were you doing on my land, away from your properly manned and alert keep, when you ran into me just before the werenight?"
"What do you mean?" Wolfar's deep-set eyes were intent on Gerin.
"Just this: you've tried to bury me in a haystack without my noticing. It almost worked, I grant you-you're more subtle than I thought."
"You'll have to make yourself plainer, Fox. I can't follow your riddles."
"Very well, I'll be perfectly clear. You, sir, are a liar of the first water, and staking everything on your lie not being found out. Your keep must have been sacked, and almost at once, or you'd still be in it, not trotting over the landscape like a frog with itchy breeches. In fact, you're as homeless as a cur without a master."
Wolfar took a long, slow breath. "Reasoned like a schoolmaster, Fox. But your logic fails you at the end."
"Oh? How so?"
Heavy muscles rippled under Wolfar's tunic. "I do have a home keep, you see: this one." He hurled himself at Gerin.
The Fox sprang from his seat and threw a footstool at Wolfar's head. Wolfar knocked it aside with a massive forearm. Like a crushing snake, he reached out for the Fox. In the first moment of fighting, neither man thought to draw sword. Their hatred, suppressed these past few days, blazed up out of control, too hot for anything but flesh against flesh, Gerin mad as Wolfar.
Then Wolfar kicked the Fox in the knee. He staggered back, hearing someone shriek and realizing it was himself. The bright pain cut through his bloodlust. When Wolfar roared forward to finish him, he almost spitted himself on Gerin's blade.
His own was out the next instant. Sparks flew as bronze struck bronze. Wolfar used his sword as if it were an axe, hacking and chopping, but he was so quick and strong Gerin had no time for a telling riposte. His movement hampered by his knee, he stayed on the defensive, awaiting opportunity.
It came, finally: a clever thrust, a twist of the wrist, and Wolfar's blade and one finger went flying across the room. But before the Fox could pierce him, Wolfar kicked the sword from his hand and seized him in a pythonic embrace.
Gerin felt his ribs creak. He slammed the heel of his hand against Wolfar's nose, snapping his head back. In the capital they claimed that was often a fatal blow, but Wolfar merely grunted under it. Still, his grip loosened for an instant, and Gerin jerked free.
He wondered briefly what was keeping everyone from bursting into the library and pulling the two of them apart. They were making enough noise to scare the Trokmoi in the woods, let alone the men in the castle. But no one came.
Wolfar leaped for a sword. Gerin tackled him before he could reach it. They crashed to the floor in a rolling, cursing heap. Then, like a trap, two horn-edged hands were at the Fox's throat. Almost of their own accord, his reached through Wolfar's thick beard to find a similar grip. He felt Wolfar tense under it.
Gerin tightened his neck muscles as he had learned in the wrestling schools of the capital, tried to force breath after precious breath into his lungs. The world eddied toward blackness. In one of his last clear moments, he wondered again why no one was breaking up the fight. Then there was only the struggle to get the tiniest whisper of air and… keep… his… grip… tight…
After that, all he knew was the uprushing welcoming dark.
The first thing he realized when his senses returned was that he was no longer locked in that death embrace. His throat was on fire. Van and Schild Stoutstaff bent over him, concern on their faces. He tried to speak. Nothing came from his mouth but a croak and a trickle of blood.
He signed for pen and parchment. After a moment's incomprehension, Van fetched them. Quill scratching, Gerin wrote, "What happened?"
As reading was not one of his many skills, Van held the scrap of parchment in some embarrassment. Seeing his plight, Schild took it from him. "'What happened?' " he read. "My lord Gerin, you are the only man who knows that."
Gerin looked a question at Van.
"Aye, Wolfar's dead." The outlander took up the tale. "When he and you went up to have your talk, the rest of us sat around the great hall wondering what would come of it. Then the racket started. We all looked at each other, hoping it was something simple, say a demon from one of the hells or Balamung back from the fire.
"But no, sure as sure, it was you two going at each other. We could have had a fight down there to match the one up here. If anybody had tried going up the stairs, that's just what would have happened. So, though nobody said much, we figured whoever came out would rule here, and anyone who didn't like it or couldn't stand it would be free to go, no hard feelings. And we waited.
"And nobody came out.
"Finally we couldn't stand it any longer. Schild and I came up together. When we saw you, we thought you were both dead. But you breathed when we pried Wolfar's hands off your neck, and he'll never breathe again-you're stronger than I gave you credit for, captain."
Gerin sat up, rubbing his bruised throat. Looking at Schild, he managed a thin whisper. "You knew Wolfar was tricking me with his talk of a keep he could go home to, and you helped him do it."
Van barked a startled oath, but Schild only nodded. "Of course I did. He was my overlord; he always treated me fairly, harsh though he was. He was not altogether wrong, either-it's long past time for us to break away from the Empire's worthless rule, and I cannot blame him for wanting the power he saw here for the taking."
Schild looked Gerin in the eye. "I would not have called you 'my lord,' though, did I not think you would do a better job with it." Slowly and deliberately, he went to one knee before the Fox. Van followed, though his grin showed how little he thought of such ceremonies.