wounds!”
He scowled at her, but he left the paint alone after that and turned his attention to the sword the Tarmaks had given him.
Across the square from the Knight, the Akkad-Ur had finished his preparations. He gave a curt command and strutted to the center of the space. He wore nothing but the blue paint and the feathers twisted into his long hair. His golden mask rested in the hands of one of his guards in the corner. He carried nothing but a sword.
Seeing the Akkad-Ur without his mask, Linsha guessed both man and Tarmak were close to the same age. However, the Akkad-Ur stood a good foot-and-a-half taller than Sir Remmik and had a healthy, muscular build. The Knight had lost weight the past few months and was certainly not in top physical condition. Nor had Linsha known him to participate in any of the training or conditioning sessions the arms master used to hold at the Citadel. She feared this duel would not last very long.
The Akkad-Ur must have thought so too, for he did not bother to look at Sir Remmik when the Knight Commander walked forward to meet him. Without any preliminary speeches, rattling of drums, or bowing to one’s opponent, the two foes lifted their swords and the battle began.
Sir Remmik struck first with a speed and a ferocity that took everyone by surprise, including the Akkad-Ur. He lunged forward, his blade swinging in a wicked arc that forced the Akkad-Ur to take several steps back and swing his sword in a defensive parry. The blades clashed and swung again. The Knight pressed his slim advantage and kept after the Tarmak with a solid barrage of thrusts and swings that allowed his opponent little opportunity for offensive moves. Even so the Akkad-Ur did not allow him past his guard. Back and forth across the square, they fought in a bitter struggle that looked surprisingly well matched.
For a while Linsha feared Sir Remmik would wear down from his grueling attack. He was sweating profusely and breathing hard, but the Knight showed remarkable stamina and more skill than she had known he possessed. He ducked and wove and lunged like a much younger man and did not seem to be tiring. Above the crash of the swords and the cheers of the watching Brutes, Linsha felt Lanther move close behind her. He stayed at her back and watched the fight avidly. He seemed to be strangely agitated, for he was breathing heavily and his hands jerked and swayed as if he was swinging a sword in his mind. His eyes were focused with brilliant intensity on the fighters in the square. When she put a hand on his arm, he started and stared at her as if she shouldn’t be there. A particularly loud cheer brought both of them around to look in the square.
Despite Sir Remmik’s powerful attack, the Akkad-Ur had drawn first blood. His blade flashed past Remmik’s and the Knight staggered hack with blood running down from a slash across his thigh. He regained his balance just in time to avoid a lunge by the Akkad-Ur, who came after him grinning like a wolf. Sir Remmik waded back into the fight, followed by the cheers and insults of the watching Tarmaks.
Soon Linsha noticed both combatants were sweating in the heat of the morning, and both looked like they were tiring. Their swings were slower and less controlled. Their tactics became more brutal. When their swords locked, they used fists and elbows to punch and hit. Sir Remmik lashed out his foot and kicked the big Tarmak in the back of the knee, bringing the warrior down. When he tried to follow through with a powerful swing meant to cut his foe in half, the Akkad-Ur locked both feet around the Knight’s and tripped him into the dust. They rolled away from each other, spitting dust and blood.
The Akkad-Ur sprang back to his feet, all arrogance forgotten, and brutally assaulted Sir Remmik with his sword, forcing the smaller man backward with sheer brute size and strength. Sir Remmik barely avoided slamming into the one of the guards and managed to duck under the Akkad-Ur’s arm long enough to cut him on the ribs. Now both foes were bleeding, and the excitement of the watching Tarmaks had reached a fever pitch.
The fight went on in a dust-stirring, swirling chaos of attacks and counterattacks until the Tarmak’s advantage began to show. Sir Remmik was on the defensive now and bleeding from several wounds. The fury and agility he had shown earlier was gone, and in its place was a second strength born of desperation. Pressing, he lunged again, but his aim was off and the Akkad-Ur slammed his blade aside. The Akkad-Ur moved in close and punched the hilt of his sword into Sir Remmik’s face. Blood spurted from the Knight’s nose and lip, his head snapped back, and he staggered. Stunned as he was, still he kept a grip on his sword. He jammed the point into the ground and used it to prop his weight while he twisted sideways and kicked the Akkad-Ur just below the breastbone. The Tarmak, already off balance and weary, did not have quite enough strength to force his body away from the blow. It landed solidly on his torso and drove the air from his lungs. He fell to the ground, gasping for air.
Sir Remmik summoned his last vestiges of his will, raised his sword, and rammed the point into the Tarmak’s chest, seating it between the ribs with his final strength.
A look of pained surprise contorted the Akkad-Ur’s face. He shuddered once and jerked in the throes approaching death. His breathing stilled; his muscles collapsed. His arms and legs sank down to the sand as his body relaxed into lifelessness.
Exhausted and trembling in every limb, the Knight Commander sank to his knees and leaned his weight on the upright sword. The Tarmaks stopped in mid-shout. A long and terrible silence enclosed the square.
The Akkad-Ur was dead.
24
Only a moment passed after Sir Remmik’s sword stabbed the Akkad-Ur before Linsha reacted. Darting from Lanther’s side, she shoved between two surprised guards and snatched up the Akkad-Ur’s large sword to defend her fellow Knight. The sword was so long for her that she had to use both hands to hold it, but she did not hesitate to stand over Sir Remmik and raise the sword between her and the Tarmaks. Sir Remmik and the warriors stared at her.
Horns blared a frantic call nearby, shattering the stunned silence. Tarmak voices exploded in fury and alarm, for the watching Tarmak warriors had hardly expected this man to defeat their general. Weapons in hand, they shouted in loud, brutal voices and charged Linsha and Sir Remmik.
A strange voice shot like the crack of a whip over the uproar and stopped the warriors in their tracks. They glared and stamped and grumbled their frustration, but they held their places and did not advance closer to the two humans.
Linsha gripped the sword harder. She could not see over the taller Brutes, so she did not know who had spoken the command, yet she had the oddest feeling she had heard that voice before-in the dark and the rain, echoing thunder and lanced with pain. Her skin prickled and the hairs raised on the back of her neck. Keeping her eyes on the bloodlusting warriors, she gave Sir Remmik a hand up and stood at his back while he pulled his sword free. Together they waited for the next move.
The voice snapped another order in the Tarmak language, and the guards reluctantly made way for a man to walk through. Not a Tarmak. A man. A very familiar man.
Linsha’s sword point fell, to the ground. She froze, pinned by disbelief. Like an animal caught in a trap, she watched Lanther walk into the cleared space. The limp was gone. The slouch vanished. With the agility of an actor changing costumes, he threw off the countenance of the quiet, crippled Legionnaire and became something very different, something very dangerous. She lifted her eyes to his and saw a strange cold glint in their blue depths, a light she had never seen before. It made her think of glaciers, of ice so cold and dense it hid most of its frozen bulk beneath the surface of the water. Linsha began to shake.
“You,” she groaned.
Sir Remmik drew himself up to his full height. “Now I see the truth,” he said in the tones of a man who knows he is about to die.
Lanther did not reply at first. He knelt by the head of the dead Akkad-Ur and cut off one the general’s braided lengths of hair. The warriors watched him avidly, ready to spring on the humans at the man’s least command. But he only bowed his head sadly for a moment in respect for the dead Akkad-Ur, then rose to his feet, his hand still clutching the braid of hair.
“It has taken you long enough, Remmik,” he said. “And still you only know half the truth.”
