Crown of Vengeance

trained destrier. His first blow should shear through her armor between cullet and helm. Varagil would do the rest.

I will make this quick, for your lady mother’s sake.

At the last moment, just before he reached striking range, Varagil shied.

There was laughter from the dais as Varagil crabbed sideways and back. Rithdeliel dug his spurs into the stallion’s flanks, forcing him to settle. He trotted the destrier around the circumference of the ring to settle him further: this was a strange situation, and Varagil had always been high-strung. As Varagil moved in a wide circle around Vieliessar, she turned so she was always facing her enemy. Rithdeliel pressed his heels into the stallion’s sides and shifted his weight forward. Varagil answered the command easily, cantering forward. Once again Rithdeliel raised his sword to deliver the fatal blow.

Once again Varagil plunged sideways, carrying Rithdeliel out of reach.

Exasperated, he snatched at the reins and hauled back savagely. Varagil reared, shaking his head, kicking out harmlessly with his fore hooves as he staggered a few steps backward.

This cannot be Magery! Eiron stands beside Lord Thoromarth—he would sense it! This time Rithdeliel kept a tight hand on the rein, hauling the destrier’s head down as he spurred him forward.

The outcome was the same.

“Are we to sit here all day watching you show off, Lord Rithdeliel?” Princess Mialvialla called down.

Without answering, Rithdeliel turned Varagil back toward the opening in the barrier. He swung down from the saddle, leaving the reins hanging: Varagil would be quiet enough if no stranger approached him.

When he walked back into the arena, Vieliessar waited for him in silence: the Lightsister who wished to become a knight, who had struck the spark to kindle the tinder of his resentment of Farcarinon’s destruction. Rithdeliel had believed in Amrethion’s Prophecy because Nataranweiya had, and had always believed that when the day and the enemy came—if they did—the Hundred Houses would band together to face it.

And now it did not matter. When the day came, if it came, he would not see it.

War was the art, the duty, and the recreation of every child of the Hundred Houses. Their artificers forged unbreakable swords, crafted armor as pliant as heavy silk. A knight who wore it could run in it—as long as his strength held out—could even dance in it.

Today’s dance would be brief.

He expected to strike the first blow. Not to wait for the enemy to strike was the hardest lesson to teach to the young trainees. Whatever advantage you gained from learning how the enemy fought was negated by the fact that you’d taken the first hit.

Vieliessar did not wait. As he was still walking toward her, she sprang forward. She did not bring her blade down from above as if she were chopping wood—an attack which would have given Rithdeliel precious seconds of warning—but swept it up from below as he was still registering the movement.

He caught the blow on his shield. The force of the impact jarred down his spine. He turned the parry into an attack, aiming a midline strike at her ribs, where dozens of narrow plates gave the armor flexibility at the cost of strength. Anywhere your body flexes is where you should attack your opponent. The lecture he had delivered to thousands of children of Caerthalien, Farcarinon, and Oronviel played through his mind as his blade rang and slid over hers—parry, disengage—and each of them sprang back. Fighting mounted, the blade’s length was an advantage. On foot, it meant they could not close with one another.

The next exchanges came punishingly fast, blade meeting blade, meeting armor, the blows ringing out like the hammer of the smith at the forge. A part of his mind registered the noise of the crowd ebbing away to silence. They had expected a swift butchery. He was Rithdeliel of Oronviel, Warlord to Thoromarth Oronviel. Bruised vanity made him redouble the speed and fury of his attacks.

He would not think of what he had learned in these scant minutes in the arena. He was a master of war, his skills honed for centuries, honed by a thousand battles.

She was his match.

There are things I have not taught you yet!

He turned to catch her blade, not on the face of his lower shield, but behind it, trapping it between the lip of the shield and his metal gauntlet. Such a maneuver was risky: the sword would shear through the bolts holding the shield in place if they took the full force of the blow. This move was nothing one would use in battle, but a duelist’s maneuver. A trick for entertaining one’s comrades. I remember Serenthon, bright as a new blade, conceding his defeat at Nataranweiya’s hands.…

Rithdeliel had spent his life assembling miracles. Only one time had he failed. Now he caught Vieliessar’s blade, let it slip behind his shield to catch and hold, let it slide past him as he swept forward. He flung his sword into the air, and the moment it left his free hand, he struck her on the side of her helm with all the power in his clenched fist, then seized his weapon as it fell.

She staggered backward, stunned, and her fouled blade grated free. He moved forward to press his advantage as she lowered her guard—

Her sword whipped up. If she’d tried any conventional attack, Rithdeliel’s strike would have slammed home, but she set the point of her blade against his chestplate and shoved. There was a moment’s ear-hurting squeal as the sword’s point skated harmlessly over the surface of his armor as he staggered back. Then she was on the attack once more, her blade moving so fast—a dozen attacks, a dozen feints, a dozen counters—that it was impossible to see and assess each one. Instinct—the bone-bred knowledge of every strike that could be delivered by an armored warrior—let Rithdeliel meet each attack. But his advantage was gone now—if it had ever truly existed. She was forcing him inexorably backward across the soft loose earth of the arena. He tried to shift her, to turn her, without success. She directed her attacks to his sword-hand, so he must meet them with his blade rather than prepare a counter.

She was magnificent. He wanted to shout to the watching crowd that this, this was how Farcarinon offered battle.

He wanted to tell her to disengage, to flee while she could save herself, for Thoromarth had sworn no binding oath to spare her life.

Rithdeliel must kill her. He no longer thought it would be easy.

He dropped his blade and grabbed her sword between his metal-banded palms, keeping his hands flat, for to clasp the blade as one clasped a swordhilt was to lose fingers. He twisted the weapon as he pulled her toward him; she released her grip abruptly and Rithdeliel staggered back a half-step as she dived for his abandoned blade. It took him only a heartbeat to get his hands around the hilt of the sword he held. By then Vieliessar was on the attack again.

In just these few moments the engagement had changed from an execution to a battle. Now it became a contest of endurance and strength. The time for flamboyant attacks and risky counters was over. She struck with the flat of her blade, not from any desire to spare him, but because the flat would deliver more force without bouncing away. Even now she did not attempt any of the conventional strikes—she struck at hip, at thigh, at shin until his body ached and his legs became treacherous. Each time he attacked, she moved inside his guard, robbing his blows of their power.

But her success could not last forever. With his last strength, Rithdeliel sprang backward and aimed a lethal, two-handed swing at her shoulder. She could not get her blade up to counter in time—she spun, turning her back to him for a vital moment in order to catch the blow on her shoulder-shield. Off balance when the blow landed, she was knocked from her feet and fell to the earth.

He stepped forward as she rolled to her back. She would not be able to rise before he delivered the killing blow.

She didn’t try to escape. Instead, she swept her blade sideways and struck him between greave and sabaton with all the force she could. It was a blow that could not be struck on the field, for in war, knights did not fight afoot. And so the join between leg and foot was but lightly armored, meant to be defended by the sheltering metal of the stirrup.

Here, on the field below Oronviel Great Keep, it was a crippling blow. White-hot pain in his shattered ankle made him check his strike. Vieliessar drew her knees up to her chest and kicked out powerfully, knocking him away. The damaged ankle would not bear his weight and Rithdeliel went sprawling.

Up, you fool—get up!

On her feet by then, Vieliessar stamped on his wrist with all her weight, then kicked his sword away. She