“You wear steel plate,” Geran answered. “My spells are my armor.”
Urdinger attacked again, trying out Geran’s measure more deliberately, seeking an opening. Geran fell back, choosing to use his footwork more as he studied Urdinger in return. The Veruna man was a master of the Mulman style-hard strikes, hard parries, an emphasis on attack over defense. It was fairly common in the Moonsea lands. The cobblestones scuffed under his boots as he circled Urdinger, and the shrill ring of steel against steel filled the narrow street. Geran’s own style was much less formal. He’d spent his early years largely teaching himself, learning to fit his bladework to his own strengths instead of the other way around. He’d come by his formal schooling much later, in Myth Drannor, learning from elf blademasters who had studied their art for centuries.
A small scowl of frustration began to work its way across Urdinger’s face. He’d thrown himself into a sudden, fierce assault, but Geran had survived it, and in the space of three heartbeats, the initiative in the duel passed from the mercenary to the swordmage. Geran shifted from parries and ripostes to more deliberate and dangerous attacks, throwing Urdinger on the defensive. Steel flickered and darted in the fading daylight, and the two duelists exchanged places several times in a row as Geran’s passing attacks carried him to Urdinger’s right flank, and the Mulmasterite quickly reciprocated.
“Stand still, damn you!” the Mulmasterite growled.
Geran saw his chance. He feinted with his feet, bluffing at another passing attack, and Urdinger anticipated the move and gave way too soon. With the quickness of a striking serpent, Geran circled his point under the Mulmasterite’s parry and then up and around in a looping cut that found the juncture of helm and shoulder. The last four inches of Geran’s point slashed through Urdinger’s neck, flicking scarlet drops across the street, and then Geran gave back a couple of steps.
Urdinger grunted and recovered his guard, ignoring the blood coursing from his collar and bubbling between his bared teeth. He fixed his eyes on Geran and returned to the attack for two, then three swings, each growing wilder, and then he stumbled to all fours. His sword clattered to the cobblestones, and his eyes widened in shock.
“Not… like… this…” he rasped.
Geran lowered his point and gazed coldly at the Veruna captain. “I met you steel to steel, Urdinger,” he said. “You might be a murderer and a thief, but I must say it: You’re not a coward.”
The Veruna captain pitched forward to the street and fell still, blood pooling beneath him. Geran knelt and pulled the elf-dagger in its sheath from Urdinger’s sword belt. “This was Jarad’s,” he said to no one in particular, and then he straightened and looked around. The townsfolk stood watching him, not saying a word. The remaining two Veruna men stared at their fallen captain with astonishment. Geran ignored them. He shook the blood from his sword and sheathed it.
“Word’s on its way to Griffonwatch, Geran,” Mirya said. She stood on the steps of Erstenwold’s, her face set in a worried frown. She wouldn’t miss Anfel Urdinger, of course, but Mirya had sense enough to see that this wasn’t the end of the affair. “The Shieldsworn ought to be here soon enough. Are you wounded?”
He realized that his side hurt, and glanced down. A small round spot of blood stained his tunic on the right side of his torso, where Urdinger’s blade had pinked him. He was lucky. If his spells hadn’t held, that could have been a mortal thrust. Not all of Veruna’s blades are as slow or clumsy as Bann, he told himself. Urdinger might have beaten him on a different day, and there were likely other Verunas who could as well. “No, I’m fine,” he rasped.
“What do you aim to do now?” she asked.
Geran remembered standing on frosted grass beneath the last leaves of autumn under the towers of Myth Drannor, watching the blood drip from his elven steel. He could still taste the rich, wet scent of the fallen leaves. He remembered looking up from his maimed enemy and meeting Alliere’s stricken gaze, the cold sick shock that marked her perfect face, and the look of her turning away from him.
He raised his eyes to Mirya’s face. She didn’t flinch away from him; she was made of sterner stuff. But there’d be trouble from his duel with Veruna’s captain, and they both knew it. It was inevitable. Geran shrugged. “I’ll wait for the Shieldsworn,” he said.
EIGHTEEN
28 Ches, the Year of the Ageless One
Five severed heads stared sightlessly at Mhurren, arranged in a gore-spattered line across the steps of Bloodskull Keep. The half-orc chieftain sat next to the head of Morag, fuming with a black fury as wild and deadly as anything that had ever come over him on the field of battle. Two Bloodskull warriors lay dead by his own hand not ten feet behind him, killed because they had somehow failed to notice the appearance of the gruesome tokens on Mhurren’s very doorstep. When he thought about it rationally, he had to admit that it was a feat of no little stealth and daring to deliver such a message to the Bloody Skulls. But at the moment, Mhurren was strongly disinclined to think about anything rationally. He wanted to kill and kill again, to find someone to serve as the object of his wrath and beat the life out of him with his bare hands, to bludgeon and hammer until bone broke and flesh pulped under his naked fists. And until he knew that he could master his rage sufficiently to keep himself from falling on his own warriors or tribesfolk, he simply sat motionless on the steps and stared out at the cold, cloudwracked dusk dying out over the barren hills of Thar.
It was the sheer insult of the thing that truly enraged him. Not only did the Hulburgans refuse to accord him the least measure of respect, they dared him to come try their strength. To kill the messengers was not entirely unexpected; it was always a possibility, one reason why Morag had asked to go and speak for the Bloody Skulls. It was a fine way to demonstrate a fitting indifference to death. Granted, it was a little unusual for humans-normally so fearful and cautious-to provide such a clear and unmistakable answer to Mhurren’s demands, instead of hours of empty, wandering words. But to send the severed heads back and so scornfully display them on the steps of his own keep showed such contempt for Mhurren that at first he’d wondered if perhaps the Red Claws or the Skullsmashers had captured Morag and his band and killed them to declare their rebellion against his rule.
The message Mhurren’s warriors had found with the heads answered any such suspicions. It was written on a piece of parchment, rolled in a small leather tube, and jammed into Morag’s mouth. The Red Claws would have carved their words into the dead faces of his warriors. The Skullsmashers couldn’t have managed any words at all. Mhurren looked down at the scrap of parchment in his hand and scowled. He could read well enough, having learned the skill from a human thrall who’d survived a few seasons in bondage. The harmach’s response was simple and to the point:
I will not pay a single copper piece to a beast-man brigand. Any orc I catch within thirty miles of Hulburg will be treated exactly as these were.
— Harmach Grigor Hulmaster
Mhurren crumpled the parchment and slowly stood. He took a deep breath and decided that he was the master of his anger. Then he turned around to face the Skull Guards who watched him silently, the warriors who stood at their posts by the gate-two newly summoned to the task, of course-and Sutha and Yevelda, who also waited for him to speak.
“Send for the keepers of the skulls,” Mhurren said. “Morag was a mighty warrior and a wise subchief. His skull should rest in honor. Let the skulls of the others be treated honorably. They were good warriors all, and it was no fault of theirs that the humans acted with such treachery.”
“I will see to it,” Sutha said. She was intelligent enough not to ask about the two guards Mhurren had killed. Whether they had really earned their deaths through a lack of vigilance, Mhurren could not say. But he had said it and killed them for it, so now he must act as if it were the judgment of Gruumsh himself. Sutha understood that without being told. The two gate guards would be discarded with the keep’s rubbish, to be gnawed upon by whatever scavenger came along.
Mhurren’s eye fell on one of the orcs who had been summoned to replace the previous guards. “Buurthar, come here,” he commanded. “You are a skillful tracker. Tell me, how could someone bring five heads to our doorstep without being caught at it?”
The warrior nodded and came down the steps. He squatted by the first of the heads, frowning as he studied the nearby ground, and slowly moved along the whole line. Then he dabbed his fingertips in one of the blood-
