Diamond Warriors

He flowed over and around the little bumps of the lawn almost like water.

Then something inside him suddenly tightened, as with the pull of a man's body on the rope of a grappling hook. He sprang at me in a whirl of bright and furious steel. I jumped back a few paces to avoid the slice of his sword. It was barely enough, for his long arms and legs gave him a great reach, and his sword's point streaked through the air only an inch from my face. Again, he cut at me, and again I moved out of the way, and then we met each other in a clash of his steel blade against Alkaladur's shimmering crystal. Middling old he might be, but the years hadn't robbed him of his strength. The shock of the blows that he struck against me ran through my sword with a terrible force and nearly shattered my arm bones. I struggled to turn my blade right or left and beat aside his ferocious attack. The sound our swords clanging against each other rang out into the morning air like bells.

'He is cut!' someone at the edge of the circle called out, pointing at me. 'The Elahad has been cut!'

'First blood to Lord Tomavar!'

As if a signal had been given, Lord Tomavar stood back from me, breathing hard. He stared at my face. I pressed my hand to my forehead, wet with blood. By wild chance, it seemed, his sword must have reopened the lightning bolt scar etched into my skin. So intent had I been on keeping myself from getting killed that I hadn't even felt the wound.

'Val!' Kane called out to me. 'Val!'

He didn't have to say anything other than my name for me to know what he meant: I could not go on fighting like this. In a way, I was not really fighting at all, but only fencing with Lord Tomavar. He certainly sensed this. He stared at the blood dripping down my forehead. And then, like a wolf incited to kill, he came at me again.

And again we cut and thrust and moved across the grass in a frenzy of whipping arms and straining legs. Once, twice, thrice, we came together in a clash of steel against silustria, sprang apart, then clashed again. My breath burst from my lungs and nearly caught in my throat. My arms ached with a smoldering flame. Ten times I avoided the edge of his blade by a hair; ten times its point burned past my neck, my chest, my eyes, by the whisper of a breath. Each time his muscles tightened and bunched to unleash his fury at me, I felt the pain of it in my own body a moment before he moved. But my gift of valarda would not save me forever. Sooner or later, as Kane had said. Lord Tomavar's sword would cut its way past the silvery arc of mine, and that would be that.

'Val!' Kane cried out again. I could feel Kane's savage soul calling for me to kill Lord Tomavar But even as Lord Tomavar's kalama nearly cleaved my head in two, I knew that I could not kill him. I could not even wound him and then break off fighting, as I had with Salmelu in King Hadaru's hall, for that unwanted mercy had only brought down upon me shame and King Hadaru's wrath. All duels were to the death — so said the ancient codes of the Valari. Only the life's blood could satisfy honor, unless of course the challenger had a change of heart and formally apologized to the challenged. But such miracles were as rare as the rising of the sun at midnight. 'Val!'

We battled on and on beneath the heat pouring down from the sky and the eyes of thousands of warriors. I could only hope to exhaust Lord Tomavar so that he collapsed and broke. But it seemed that I must break first. My sword, once so light, now grew as heavy as a mallet made of lead. Every muscle in my body burned with a terrible, deep fire. My belly knotted and spasmed as I fought for breath. I coughed, hard, against the dark thing choking my throat. Most duels lasted only seconds, but my desperate combat with Lord Tomavar had already gone on longer than any duel in living memory — so I heard someone cry out from afar.

'He is cut again! The Elahad is!' another knight shouted. 'Second blood as well to Lord Tomavar!'

I could barely feel the new wound where the edge of Lord Tomavar's blade, as we locked together face to face, pushing and sweating and straining, had bloodied me. Amazingly — unbeliev-ably — the steel had cut open my forehead again. Drops of blood flew out into the air as I twisted my head out of the way of one of Lord Tomavar's vicious thrusts; more blood found it way into my eye, stinging and half-blinding me. I knew that I could not go on this way much longer.

'Fight, Lord Elahad!' I head Joshu Kadar cry out, 'Kill Lord Tomavar, if you would be king!'

His words seemed to enrage Lord Tomavar. And shame him, too, for he would gain little honor in slaying an opponent who refused to slay him. And his shame touched upon some deep guilt, whether of his failure to prevent Morjin from ravaging my father's castle or his betrayal of my father in trying claim his throne, I could not say. But I felt building inside him a guilt and grief so terrible that he desired death — and wanted to kill me in order to drive it back. Up to this point, he had fought with a cool and fluid fury, as flawless in execution as any Valari warrior could hope for. But now hate broke through his blood and poisoned his eyes. He swung his sword at me, again and again, as might a madman, in I shocking burst of anger and steel; he attacked with such recklessness and rage to kill that there could be no defense — other than to attack him back.

'Valashu!'

Then, in the slash and burn of Lord Tomavar's sword, his immense anguish cut me to the heart, and his hate became my hate — and something more. Deep beneath my throat built an immense, black storm, as within a small room and wholly contained by it. At its center raged a whirlwind.

'Strike, now!'

At last, when I opened the door to hate's brilliant reflection and its ultimate source, lightning flashed and drove away the dark thing choking me. As Kane had called for, I struck Alkaladur straight into Lord Tomavar's heart: but not the gleaming length of silustria that I gripped in my sweating hands, only the blade made of a finer and brighter substance that men called the Sword of Truth. I found my voice again, and shouted out to him words that rang out like thunder: 'I did not usurp my father! I did not betray the castle to Morjin! And I am sorry about your wife! You have my promise that I will do all that I can to help get her back!'

Lord Tomavar stood ten feet away from me across the blood-dewed grass. He gasped for breath, and pressed his free hand to his chest as if he might drop of a blood stroke. His sword dipped down toward the ground. The madness, I saw, had gone out of his eyes. Then he called back to me in amazement: 'You speak truly, Lord Elahad! I know you do!'

In the ring around us, the knights and warriors stared at him, stunned.

'I was wrong to say what I did to you!' he shouted. 'I should not have challenged you! I give you my apology, freely, that all should hear and know: I, Gorvan Tomavar, have wronged you, and am in your debt!'

Now Lord Vishand, Lord Avijan and Lord Harsha — and many others — looked at Lord Tomavar as if struck dumb with shock. Hundreds of warriors gathered around the square closest to us, as they finally understood what was happening, let loose cheers of relief and wonderment. I saw Maram choking back tears and Atara smiling mysteriously. Kane simply stood like one of the shining mountains to the east. Above all of us, the hot morning sun blazed down. 'And I should not have challenged you for your father's throne!' Lord Tomavar continued. 'Please forgive me!'

And with that, he cast his sword upon the grass. He stepped up to me. Then he knelt down, and bowed his head as he broke out sobbing. All standing around him stared at this extraordinary sight as if they could not believe what they saw.

'A challenge has been made, and a challenge has been withdrawn,' Lord Tanu finally cried out, stepping inside the ring. 'Honor has been defended and satisfied. The duel is over.'

As the knights surrounding us broke apart and regrouped into twos and threes and Master Juwain came up to bandage my cut head. Lord Tomavar looked up at me through his dark, moist eyes. And he asked me, 'Will you really help me find my wife?'

Before I could answer him, even as the warriors picked up his words and passed them back through the ranks edging the square, a tall figure dressed in a hooded traveling cloak stepped onto the field. A glint and jangle of metal hinted at steel mail concealed beneath woven wool. I wondered at the audacity of this person. By the agreement of the truce, only Lord Tanu's or Lord Tomavar's counselors, or my own, were to be allowed into the square. At the quick approach of this intruder, who might have been a rogue knight, Sar Jalval drew his sword and stepped in front of Lord Tomavar as if to protect his lord.

'Your wife needs no finding!' a high-pitched and angry voice cried out. Then the knight pulled back the hood of the traveling cloak — and the helmet of mail beneath that. 'At last I have found you!'

Before us, shaking out her long, raven hair, stood one of the loveliest women in the Morning Mountains. She was tall, with flawless skin the color of dark ivory and large, dark eyes that shone like twin moons. In her, I thought, gathered all that was best and brightest of the Valari people.

'Vareva!' Lord Tomavar shouted, pushing himself up to his feet. 'You are alive!'