and he had to let go of his sword arm to take what she gave him. He felt his own arm fall and thud against him lifelessly. He received what felt like a rolled cylinder of leaves, tucked them into his mouth, bit down on them. Acridity flooded his mouth and his body responded with a wave of saliva. He swallowed with difficulty, tongued the package of herbs down between his cheek and gums. His eyes suddenly watered, and his vision cleared. He looked down to find Willow still kneeling beside him. The cloth she held to his hip was heavy with blood.
'Stabbed in the ass. How humiliating.' The herbs in his cheek made him mumble.
'Worse for Blume, I imagine,' she replied coldly.
'If he'd fought decently, I wouldn't have had to do it. Nor the other one. They were making a bloody farce of your plot.'
'But you would have, anyway.' 'Probably. For Ki.'
She looked up at him curiously. 'How did you know?'
'I just knew.'
She refolded the pad, held a fresh spot to the gash on his hip. The bleeding was slowing. 'It wasn't my idea,' she said slowly. 'I really meant to let her go, alive. But when I went out there with food, she was... gone. One of the others did it, Vandien. I swear. They were the only ones who knew where she was. I'm ... I'm sorry. I know what she meant to you.'
'No, you don't.' He stepped clear of her, no longer able to abide her touch. Her lie rang too clearly in his ears. He remembered her curse when Kellich died: 'May you know loss such as mine.' He felt the now familiar tingling in his arm, flexed his fingers, rotated the wrist. A wave of euphoria and incredible energy washed through him, and he felt the tempo of his heart pick up. He took a deep breath, felt his head clear even more. He rolled his shoulders, felt no more than the heaviness of having fenced all afternoon. His spirits lifted, and he felt strong, skilled and arrogant. A tiny voice within him suddenly wondered if this were his true feelings, or only an effect of the Thwartspite. He pushed the question aside, and instead asked Willow, 'How much longer do I have?'
She got slowly to her feet. She didn't ask what he meant. 'I don't know. It depends on too many things. And you've taken so much Thwartspite, it changes everything ...'
'What do you guess, then?'
She looked aside from him. 'Late tonight. Early tomorrow.'
'Before noon tomorrow, though?'
She nodded stiffly. 'I'm sorry. If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn't.'
He shrugged, winced at the pull against his hip. Damn, that was going to hurt. But not for long.
'You'll still kill the Duke for us?' He couldn't tell if she was begging him to do it, or begging to know why he'd do it. He shrugged carefully. 'Why not? I don't have anything else planned for the rest of my life. May as well keep busy.'
He turned away from her before she could say anything more. As she left the threshing floor, he was surprised to notice that the red-sashes were ending all the bouts, were clearing all the contestants from the floor. Had the Duke already reached his decision? He glanced up to find the man watching him. For a few moments they regarded one another in silence. Vandien felt himself being measured, and held himself steady under the Duke's scrutiny. Then, with the slightest nod of his head, the Duke indicated another man standing quietly at the other end of the threshing floor. As they began the long walk toward one another, Vandien measured him.
Farrick. Mature. Good reason for wanting this fight, but not filled with anger or ideological passion. A cool man, a conservative man. Beautiful balance. A dangerous man. For a moment, Vandien tried to become his opponent. What did he want? Not to win, not to face the Duke's sword. Would he fence sloppily in this bout, deliberately lose to Vandien? Not likely, after he had seen Vandien killing and maiming today. No, Farrick must still fight his best if he wished to emerge from this bout unscathed. He'dhave to fight his best, and still not try to win. For a moment Vandien pondered the man's dilemma, visualized what he would do in Farrick's place. And what does he think of me? Vandien speculated. Probably judges from what he's seen so far. I've been fighting like a tavern brawler, up against these culls from the hack-and-slash school of fencing. So Farrick would be expecting wild aggression and crude attacks. Vandien permitted himself a small smile. But Farrick did not know Vandien was already a dying man. Farrick would not be expecting Vandien to fight to win. So. Farrick might be in for a small surprise.
They saluted the Duke and then one another. Silence lowered itself over the throng. No one doubted that this match would decide; for one a purse, for one a medallion of death. They assumed the stance, and a red-sash said softly, 'Begin.'
They moved with the grace of dancers as they tested one another, and Vandien saw Farrick's eyes widen briefly as he reappraised him. And Vandien, too, was having to do some re-evaluating of his man. Improbably, almost impossibly, this man fought in the classic Harperian style, and somewhere, sometime, he had been instructed by a master. For an instant the room wavered around Vandien, and he was a skinny youth again, this same blade in his hand, and Fol was propelling him backward, his training foil making clean tick, tick, ticks against Vandien's defending rapier. No screaming of sawing metal, no wild parries, not a degree of motion more than was necessary in wrist or elbow. Vandien found himself smiling and responding to that memory, saw an answering twitch at the corner of Farrick's mouth.
So let them see, these stick-swingers and scythe-fencers, how a gentleman did it. Let them see the root from which the other schools of fencing had sprung. The rhythm was set, point control was absolute, and they moved through their opening challenges like two dancers in perfect grace and counterpoint. Vandien felt he was getting the man's measure; he would rely on finesse and maturity, would wait for Vandien to become over-eager and make some childish error. Fol. How many times had he tried the youthful Vandien that way? Yes, and won that way, too, he reminded himself. He leashed his eagerness.
The Duke was watching. He could not spare a glance, but did not need to. He could feel the man on the edge of his seat, almost hear him muttering to himself. He had never seen the like of this before, and never will again. The old Harperian masters are dead and their students scattered to the winds. Yet here, in this most unlikely of places, two have come together, and blades move as they were meant to, in rhythm and timing, passing by no more than a whisper, the clean tick, tick, tick of their metal as they touch in conservative parries, the honest thrusts that are swiftly turned and pass their targets by no more than the wingspan of a fly. It is beauty, and his heart sings with it, living only in this now to perpetuate this pattern.
But it cannot last forever. Vandien's shoulder is burning, his arm is leaden, his blade has the weight of a pitchfork, and he feels the tiny twitching trembles of muscles forced to work too long. He sets his teeth, firming up his arm, and begins to continually press Farrick. The man is older, he must tire soon. But Farrick smiles a small smile and lies back, accepting everything that Vandien offers, forcing Vandien to initiate all attacks. Just like Fol, damn him, and for a moment he knows the same outraged frustration of his childhood. His hip hurts suddenly, almost blindingly, and he knows he has little time left, that he must force something. He begins to increase the tempo of his attacks, and Farrick's small smile widens as he reads Vandien. But Vandien can also see the sweat beading on Farrick's face, the strain that drags at his mouth, and his ripostes are wider of the mark. There is something ... it itches in Vandien's mind. Something Fol showed him once, a long time ago, something he has not tried in ages, has never had to try ...
Vandien lunges full out, continues to fence. The new posture briefly confuses Farrick, but he adapts to it, and the exchanges continue. And every moment Vandien is testing, feeling, waiting - and there it is, a slight weakening of his opponent's wrist. Vandien lunges to his full extent, and Farrick replies, thinking he has him, but Vandien is no longer there. His free hand drops to the floor and braces him, carrying his body off to the side, and at the same time he lifts his weapon and his blade rises up, the tip to Farrick's throat, not entering the skin but dimpling it, and there is plenty of thrust left in Vandien's arm to put it through if he desires. If he wants to kill.
There is a silence. They are frozen at the center of the universe, in this moment, in this place. Their eyes are locked. Farrick stands still, the tip of Vandien's rapier pressing his throat, and Vandien is motionless, his body suspended just off the floor, supported by one hand, one knee bent and the other leg straight as he looks up at him. Then Farrick speaks. 'Fol's Thrust. My old master spoke of it, but I've never seen it done before.' A slow smile splits his beard. 'Damn me, I'm dead!' He puts his head back and laughs aloud.
And time began to have meaning once more. The tip of Farrick's blade slowly drooped to touch the floor. He stamped once, then drew himself erect. He stepped back, and gave Vandien time to stand, to step back. And then he accorded him the salute one gives to the victor, the meticulous lifting of the sword and the grave smile of acknowledgement. Farrick sheathed his blade, turned and began to walk away.
