One showed himself, immediately, to be more skilled. Duwan concentrated on that one, while holding off the other with his parrying shortsword. This one had a dangerous straight lunge that followed a feint with the shortsword, and Duwan was forced backward as metal clashed on metal. He gained a new respect for the Enemy. He knew that he was going to be hard pressed, for the pass was opening, and soon the last two could pin him between them. He had to make a move. He lunged and parried and spun away from the more skilled swordsman and in his spinning sent his longsword hissing horizontally to decapitate the lesser of his two enemies, continued the whirling spin just in time to parry a lunge with his shortsword. Then he gained ground, looked upon his foe with his orange eyes full of fire.
'Come,' he said, 'come to me, Enemy.'
'Who are you?' the other gasped.
'Your death,' Duwan said, leaping, feeling a great shock in his right hand as his mighty blow was parried, but with quick, instinctive movement, half falling, thrusting his shortsword to its hilt into his opponent's stomach. He narrowly avoided a downswing of the fighter's dying, last stroke, and then all was quiet.
'Duwan, behind you,' he heard Jai scream, and he spun, bringing up both swords to the ready, to see so many others that, at first, his heart quailed, then rallied as he lifted both his swords high.
'Du,' he roared, using his full voice. The sound echoed and reechoed from the hillsides. 'Du, be with me.'
'Peace, warrior,' a male cried, holding up both of his hands, empty.
'Peace.'
Duwan's chest was heaving. His orange eyes lanced fire.
'We are not the Enemy, warrior,' the man said, his hands still exposed in a plea for friendship. 'Who kills the Devourer is not our enemy.' Duwan panted, his eyes took in the ragged, scarecrow ranks of the males who faced him, more than twenty of them, crude bows on their shoulders and, in some cases, in hand, but no arrows pointed toward him.
'Who are you, warrior?' the spokesman asked.
He was full of elation, his heart still pounding with the heady joy of the fight. They had called him warrior, and warrior he was. In the back of his mind he called out to his trainer, to Belran the Leader, a great, unspoken shout of thanks, and then, because he, at last, had discovered the reason for all those long, long hours of drudgery in training, he lifted his face to catch the last red rays of a sinking Du and roared, 'Duwan! Duwan! I am Duwan the Drinker.'
His roar echoed, became a loud, slowly diminishing growl of sound that reverberated, then sank into a murmur and then silence.
A small, emaciated male stepped forth from the ranks of the newcomers, fell to his knees.
'Lord,' he said. 'Master.'
And then, one by one, the others followed suit.
The ragged, emaciated group of males shifted uneasily in the face of Duwan's triumphant roar. Only one stood, a bit taller than the others, thin but with stringy, powerful muscles in his arms and legs. When the others fell to their knees he was the last to kneel, and even then his face was up, his dull gray eyes wide.
'Rise,' Duwan ordered. 'There is no need to kneel to me.' The tall one rose, stepped forward. 'Master, we wish no harm to you, nor to anyone.'
The newcomers had no weapons other than the obviously inferior bows.
'Who are you?' Duwan asked.
'We are free runners. I am Tambol, called The Hunter, for the accuracy and strength of my bow.'
'Let me see the bottom of your foot.' Duwan said, stepping closer, both hands still filled with his bloodied weapons.
Tambol did not look surprised. He stood on one leg and lifted his left foot. Duwan saw the telltale pores. 'Are the others like this?'
'How, Lord?'
