The Reformer

around it. In the grenades, that pushes fragments of the casing out much faster than an arrow or a sling-bullet. If you put some in a bronze tube sealed at one end, it'll push out a big metal or stone bullet-big enough to smash ships or knock down gates and walls.'

Helga whistled silently. 'Now, won't that be useful,' she said. 'My father's men. . men of my father's company, that is. . would call it cheating, though. Not fighting fair.'

Adrian shrugged. 'I don't like fighting,' he said simply. That made her blink again; not many men she knew would admit that-actual men, that is. The Emerald went on: 'When I do have to fight, I fight to win. Fair fights are for idiots and Con- I mean, for those who are strong enough to be sure they'll win anyway.'

Helga nodded slowly. 'You know, that makes a lot of sense,' she said, and felt herself obscurely pleased at the look in the Emerald's hazel eyes. 'Of course, I'm a woman, and we can't afford some of the idiocies men get involved with.'

'I see your point,' Adrian said, and heaved himself away from the wall he'd been leaning against. 'Now, I think there's a fight we-or I, at least-do have to engage in calling out.'

The noise of combat had died down ahead; she cocked her head. 'That's two men fighting,' she said. 'Odd, almost like a duel.' With a quick urchin grin at the Emerald. 'And you saved my life, but it looks to me like you need someone by you to return the favor-often.'

'That's right, missy,' one of the troops said.

'Hear her, lord,' another chimed in.

Adrian straightened. 'Let's get moving,' he said. 'Your munificent pay doesn't come for propping up walls.' His eyes scanned around, and took on a hint of that distant look again. 'This way leads to the throne room. Up one more flight, left, and that's the anteroom-they were probably going to try and get out right this way.'

'How does he know that?' Helga whispered aside to a man with another satchel of grenades as the commander turned and walked briskly towards the landing at the base of a flight of stairs.

'You'll find Lord Adrian knows most anything he wants,' the man said with unshakeable confidence. 'The Gray-Eyed Lady speaks to him, y'see.'

Helga felt her eyes go wide.

Esmond went into a stop-thrust, then recovered smoothly, turning it into a feint as Franzois beat it aside with his buckler and cut, backhand, forehand, boring in with a stamp-stamp-stamp and a whirling pattern that made a silver X of his sword.

Right, let's see you keep that up, the Emerald thought grimly as he backed. Normally he didn't think much of the Islander school of swordplay; all edge and dash and no science. Director-for-a-couple-of-hours Franzois was as good a master of that style as he'd come across, though, and thoroughly accustomed to using it against the more point-oriented Emerald blade-way.

He waited, point hovering, backing with an economical shuffle and his feet at right angles. Clang-ting- clang, and the saber knocked against his buckler, rang on his blade, shed itself from that with a long scring sound and deflected off his helmet and a shoulder piece with bruising force and there was the sting of a slight cut on his upper shoulder.

Good steel, he thought absently-to be that shaving-sharp after a long day's work. They had good smiths here in the Isles.

Franzois' face was a deeper purple now, his mouth open below the splayed nasal of his helmet. Esmond waited, backed once more. . then lunged, with all the dense muscle of his weight behind it, the springing power of his rear leg, and a wrist locked to put it all behind the punching tip of the sword.

The Islander stopped, blade still raised for another slash. It came down and faltered weakly as Esmond's point ripped free of his inner thigh. From the sudden arterial rush of blood, he'd cut the big vein there. The Emerald stepped back and raised his sword again in salute.

'That was a brave man,' he murmured as the body kicked and voided, the usual undignified business of dying.

'Esmond! Esmond!'

He jerked his head up suddenly. The chant had begun during the fight, but there was no room for it in the diamond-hard focus of a death duel. The men were yelling it, pumping fists and weapons in the air.

'Esmond! Esmond!'

The roar echoed back from the walls of the great room, bouncing back in confused waves of sound as the last of the defenders were disarmed and marched off. Not only his own Strikers were shouting it, but the Royal troops as well-only the knot of noblemen around King Casull weren't, and many of them were waving swords in salute as well. Even the King was, and smiling; there was a cut on his face, and blood on his sword-Casull was a fighting man whose praise you'd respect, and Esmond felt a sudden lurch as the truth of it rammed home.

Well, dip me in shit! he thought. I not only won, I won big with the big boss looking on. The news would be all over the Royal army and fleet by sundown, too.

Esmond bent, pulling off Franzois' helm. There was a purple-gold circlet around the dead man's brow; he paused a minute to hold the eyelids shut and close the staring gaze, then rose with the symbol of Vase's sovereignty raised high. The chanting gradually slowed, stopped, left a silence full of rustles and creaks and clanks as armed men shifted their feet and murmured to each other.

With sword and buckler in his right hand and the circlet in his left, Esmond paced across the throne room to where Casull stood. He went to one knee and held both forward.

'My lord King,' he said, in slow, clear, carrying tones. 'Vase is yours!'

Another roaring cheer. Cries of 'Casull!' and 'Esmond!' were mixed, together with 'Hot damn!' and 'Loot! Loot!'

Casull took the circlet, a wry smile on his face; he winked slightly as their eyes met.

'Well, you're a showman, as well as a fighting man,' he murmured as he accepted the symbol of sovereignty. 'Maybe you'll find a realm of your own someday; a man who's actor and fighter both is born to rule.'

He straightened, took Esmond's sword and rapped him sharply on each armored shoulder.

'With swords such as yours, my throne is secure!' he cried. From everyone but the people carrying those swords, went unspoken between them-warning and mutual recognition at once. 'Let the farmer-clods of the Confederation interfere if they dare-let all men take note that what we have, we hold, we and our valorous nobles and troops. Rise, Excellent Esmond Gellert!'

Esmond's eyes widened slightly, and his men redoubled their cheers. Well, there's a step up, he thought; he'd just gone from outland mercenary captain to the lowest level of Islander nobility. Mind you, what the King gave, the King could take away; and from the smolderingly jealous looks of the courtiers gathered about him, he'd also acquired a set of instant enemies. Casull's wry smile as Esmond rose-for an instant, until he noticed the added pain of the stiffening face cut-told the Emerald that the King was perfectly aware of that, too.

Casull paced across the room and up the dais to the Throne of Vase, turning to take the salute from the warriors who filled the great room to overflowing now.

'Hail to our lord King-King of all the Isles!' Esmond cried.

* * *

Helga Demansk watched the end of the duel wide-eyed, especially when Esmond Gellert pulled off his helmet after his victory. Oh, momma! she thought, glancing aside at Adrian. Yes, there was a family resemblance there, but. . Well, if the old stories about Emerald philosophers are true, I suppose the ones about the Five Year Games winners can be too. Maybe even stories about god-fathered heroes, although like anyone with a modern education she tended to believe-consciously, at least-that the old gods were aspects of the One, Who needed only to Be, not to do.

Looking at Esmond Gellert, it was easy to remember things her nurse had told her, and old tales in books. The other Emerald was a big man, but with none of the beefy solidity she was used to in soldiers, or athletes, for that matter. He moved like a big golden cat, and his features might have been chiseled by a Solingian sculptor of the lost golden age right after the League Wars.

But there was something. . something missing there. A liveliness that was in his brother's eyes, even when they were abstracted. It grew as the flush of combat faded from his face, leaving it even more like a statue-painted marble, with a deadness behind. Except that marble did not conceal an ocean of pain.