that particular danger. The man’s face was reddening and Kyle stopped tossing the baton.
Too early; far too early for any exertion to be showing. ‘They’re using knives,’ he observed conversationally.
Orjin shot him a glare, his cheeks puffing. The three danced around him while he shifted slowly, knees bent, stave cocked. ‘Now, normally,’ he began, ‘none of you would have occasion to meet an opponent using a two- handed weapon…’ One lunged in, and Orjin’s stave smacked his face, sending him tottering aside. Orjin returned his guard on the remaining two. ‘Normally, it is too slow and awkward to move from side to side across the body. A nimble opponent should-’ The same one charged, slashing. Orjin’s stave parried, dipped, and came up into the fellow’s groin. The man fell like a string-cut puppet. Kyle winced in empathetic pain.
Sweat now sheathing his face, Orjin faced their spokesman, who smiled, acknowledging the lesson, and immediately attacked. Parrying, Orjin dipped his head, shouting his encouragement. ‘Yes, yes! That’s right — draw the point aside, prepare the gauche for the hidden thrust!’
A warning shout from Kyle died in his throat as the hand-slapped fellow re-entered the fray to grip Orjin from behind. Kyle was amazed by the foolhardiness of the move; the bhederin-like Orjin was half again as broad as any man he’d ever met.
Shrugging, Orjin wrenched an arm around to get the man in a headlock and threw him over his shoulder stomach up like a sack of grain. Stave in one hand, he faced the spokesman. ‘Now you have the advantage — a one-handed opponent!’
The spokesman did not hesitate. His booted feet shushed and thumped the sand as he dodged, feinting, circling the ponderously shifting Orjin. Kyle kicked himself from the wall. Shit! He’s really gonna try it! The longsword scraped up the shaft of the stave, holding it aside, and he stepped in the gauche, thrusting, but Orjin spun, the blade sawing shallowly across his side as the legs and boots of the man across his shoulder smashed into his assistant, sending him flying aside. Orjin tossed the man on to his sprawled fellow and stood panting. He touched his side gingerly and flinched. ‘The lesson is…’ he drew a heavy breath, ‘that you all should’ve attacked at once, regardless.’
Kyle watched the big man’s chest rising and falling. Out of breath already? Not good. No, not good at all. He replaced the baton.
As the spokesman struggled to rise Orjin put a booted foot to his backside and sent him tumbling to the tunnel. ‘I’d charge you. But I suspect you’re all incapable of learning anything.’
Gathering up their fallen weapons, they backed off to the exit. Kyle bowed as they passed. ‘Honoured sirs!’ They merely glared and mouthed curses. Kyle ambled out to Orjin, who was cleaning up. ‘Winded already…’
The man shot him a glare. ‘Been a while.’ He found a rag, wiped his jowls.
‘A little dust-up like that shouldn’t-’
‘Drop it.’
Kyle’s brows rose. Short-tempered too. ‘So I’ll be by tomorrow afternoon then for that sword and shield work. What do you say? Full armour too?’
Orjin made a face. ‘Very funny. Now get out of here. I have to get cleaned up.’
Kyle saluted and backed away.
But he’d been serious.
*
In a shaded narrow alleyway a few streets down, the young tough, his green felt hat in one hand, dabbed a silk handkerchief to his bleeding nose and mouth and faced the richly dressed Delanss noble in his furred robes and thick silver chains. With a ringed hand the noble edged the young man’s head aside to examine one cheek, tsked beneath his breath. ‘So he did manage to handle you…’
‘Father!’
‘So, what do you think? Is he the one?’
‘He must be. He lifted Donas like a child.’
‘Very well. I’ll send word. Until then, hire men to keep an eye on the school.’
The young man bowed.
‘And no retribution! No crossbows in the night, or knives in the market. They want him alive.’
The young man rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, father.’
The noble stroked his grey-shot goatee, studied the young man. ‘I must say I am impressed by the man’s control. He put you down without breaking any bones at all. He showed great restraint in the face of almost intolerable insult.’
‘Father!’
First year of the rule of Emperor Mallick Rel ‘The Merciful’
(Year 1167 Burn’s Sleep)
Stratem Subcontinent
At dawn, Kuhn Eshen, called Kuhn ‘The Nose’, master of Rich Tidings, a Katakan freetrader, dropped anchor offshore from the town of Thickton and spent an anxious morning waiting to see whether the stories of the lands of Stratem being open once more to the outside world were true.
As the hours passed the usual small boats made their way out, offering fresh fruit, bread, fish and pigs. Boys and girls swam the cold waters, offering to lead the crew to boarding houses or brothels, or to act as general guides about town. All good signs of a growing openness to trade. By noon the larger open launches were oaring out, bearing merchant agents. These men and women Kuhn greeted. He offered a taste of the Styggian liqueur he’d brought, and showed bolts of Jass broadcloth. They listened with barely concealed eagerness to his talk of Korel; news only a few weeks old rather than the two or three months it usually took for any word to reach this stretch of the isolated Sea of Chimes.
One woman among them, however, mystified Kuhn and he kept a wary eye on her. She stood leaning self- contained against the side. Dressed in dark leathers, with a sword belted at her side, her long auburn hair pulled back and fixed with a bright green tortoiseshell clip, she almost looked to be a military officer of some sort. She took no interest in his wares; instead she watched his crew as they in turn eyed the thickly treed shore. Some few garbled stories had reached Korel lands concerning events on their southern neighbour. Word of a band of hireswords carving out a private kingdom. But all that had been long ago. Still, he wondered: could she be one of them?
After expressing an interest in board feet of the local hardwoods, in tanned hides, and furs, Kuhn spent a time doling out news of Korel lands. The crowded circle of locals hung on every scrap — true or not. He was talking of the Stormwall when his audience went silent and all eyes edged aside, glancing past him. He turned.
The woman in dark leathers had come up behind him. She was watching him expectantly, her sharp chin raised. ‘I’m sorry…?’ he stammered.
‘I said what was that… what you were just talking of.’
‘Just the latest news from the Stormwall, honoured lady. And you are…?’
‘I represent the governor of this province — Haven Province, of Stratem.’
‘Truly? A governor?’ Kuhn looked to a nearby agent who was nodding seriously, his thick neck bulging. Intriguing. This news could be worth much in certain ports of Korel. ‘And this governor — does he have a name?’ Closer now, he saw that she wore a single piece of jewellery high on the left of her chest — what looked like a dragon or snake wrought in silver.
The woman’s thin lips edged sideways in an almost cruel knowing smile. ‘You first.’
Ah. Going to be that way, is it? Kuhn shrugged, and rested his forearms on the ship’s gunwale. ‘Certainly, m’lady. My news is always free. It’s half the reason we traders are welcome wherever we go. I was just speaking of the Stormwall. The ranks of the Chosen have thinned, you know. But this last season a new champion has arisen on the wall. The Korelri are full of his exploits. They call him Bars — odd name, that.’
The woman’s reaction made Kuhn flinch. She fairly paled; a hand rose as if to shake him by the throat but to his relief merely clutched air. ‘Bars,’ she hissed aloud in an almost awed whisper. She threw herself over the side, slipping down the rope ladder by her hands alone. Landing jarringly in a launch, she immediately ordered it away. She even lent a hand at an oar herself and it was all the rest of the burly crew could do to keep up. All this Kuhn watched bemusedly, scratching his scalp. ‘Who in the name of the Blessed Lady was that?’
