Daughter of Blood (35 page)

Taly cleared her throat. “I've seen Lord Parannis fight. He'll take the offensive, coming in hard and fast to get you on the back foot. He's strong, too, and very fit, so you can't expect to wear him down easily.” She looked at Jad.

“The Son of Blood likes to display his virtuosity.” The honor guard spoke stiffly, as though his sworn duty to Blood and its ruling kin was warring with the command of Heir and Earl that he act as second. Yet since it was a second's duty to advise the duelist, honor and loyalty also required that he discharge it fully. “Defeat alone isn't sufficient, he wants to display mastery over his opponents.” Jad's eyes narrowed as though reviewing Parannis's duels. “His repertoire is considerable, and he's ambidextrous. Far more than with most opponents, you must expect the unexpected.”

“He also likes to wound first, so that his opponent's strength bleeds out.” Taly rubbed at the shield's gleaming face. “And he always maims before he kills.”

Jad hesitated, then spoke very quietly. “I've heard he may use poison on his blades; that some opponents have done well against him until he draws blood.”

Taly stared, her reserve banished by shock. “Surely that's because of the blood loss, otherwise—” Her voice trailed off. A duelist who used poison was considered lost to honor under the Derai Code, but when Kalan remembered Lady
Sarein's behavior in the stables, and the way Parannis had pursued his challenge, he was not prepared to dismiss Jad's warning.

“I don't say that it's true,” the honor guard said, “only that I've heard it whispered. Apparently the subsequent weakening always happens too fast for bleeding out, especially when the wound is shallow.” Jad met Kalan's eyes, shame in his own. “He still always wins, even when those he fights aren't wounded ahead of the killing blow.”

The shame, Kalan thought, could be at having to stand as second to a Blood outsider, or have its source in Parannis's dishonor—or arise because the honor guard had been ordered to pass on that last message, in hopes of unsettling him ahead of the duel. Taly's fist rapped against the shield, her expression grown hard. “There's always a first time.” She turned away from Jad's shrug, visibly rechecking that every detail of Kalan's weapons and armor was in order.

“Time,” Kalan said, “to go.”

The ensign hesitated, then drew herself up. “I would not have withdrawn from the contest except by the direct order of Earl and Battlemaster. Nonetheless, I am honored to serve as your second.” Surprise fleeted across her face, as though having spoken the words formality required, she realized that she meant them. “The Nine keep you, Storm Spear.”

“And you,” he replied. “I am honored to have you both as my seconds.”

The warriors nodded, acknowledging that, before Jad moved to open the door while Taly stepped back, waiting as Kalan retrieved the oriflamme and folded it across his arm. He looked toward the tapestry one last time, taking in the detail of the lovers and the crow, caught within the hounds' eternal circle. But the element that stayed with him was the trust in the hind's eyes as she watched him go.

K
alan and his seconds were as quiet on the walk to the Field of Blood as they had been during the initial arming, and the escort also kept silence. The surge of the crowd as they reached the muster ground reminded Kalan of the ocean, booming into the outer walls of the Sea Keep during his brief time there. “The beast is hungry,” Jad said, as they passed beneath the hydra gate.

“For blood and death,” Taly muttered.

Kalan clasped her mailed forearm, exactly as he would have done with any of his Normarch friends. “Whatever the circumstances, we all come to this in the end.” He had almost said that everyone came to Imuln in the end, but checked the Emerian reference in time.

Taly nodded, although her face remained set as they approached the heavy curtain that marked their designated entrance into the arena, with the Storm Spears' device worked in gold on the garnet cloth. Jad's gaze fixed on it, his expression hard to read. “If you give me the oriflamme,” he said finally, “I'll see it's raised above the field.” His voice, too, was unrevealing, but he folded the pennant carefully before turning away.

The escort took up position to either side of the entrance,
so only Taly followed Kalan inside. The crowd's noise increased immediately, because the body of the tent was pitched on the Field of Blood. At present, the entrance onto the arena was still tied shut, but Captain-Lady Hatha sat at a trestle table beside it, with Garan and Nerys standing to her right, and two dour-faced Blood warriors on her left. A black cloth covered two long narrow shapes placed in the center of the table—Asantir's swords, Kalan thought automatically—with a rolled scroll to one side, and food and drink set further down the board.

Outside, the crowd's background surge swelled into a roar. “That'll be Parannis's colors going up,” Hatha observed, “or your oriflamme.” She was seated at her ease, with one booted ankle crossed over the opposite knee. A lazy gesture invited Kalan to partake of the food and drink.

He contented himself with a cup of water, for courtesy's sake, and regarded Earl Sardon's eldest daughter across its rim. “Why are you here?” he asked, careful to keep his tone respectful.

Hatha grinned. “Don't hide your teeth, Storm Spear. What in the name of all the Nine am I doing here, is what you really mean.” She eyed him, her gaze shrewder than her reputation in the muster grounds would credit. “Anvin will be standing with Parannis on the other side of the field, and the Battlemaster and I felt the ruling kin must be seen to honor the Bride's champion as well. The House needs to see that we value such service, especially after the business in the stables.”

Kalan interpreted that as meaning that the unease caused by the wyr pack's howling must have been widespread, but inclined his head as Hatha nodded toward the Night guards. “The Commander of Night also honors you. And you have worthy seconds.” She paused, studying Taly's rigid, straight-ahead expression, before the broad mailed shoulders shrugged. “Although you,” she added, addressing Jad as he ducked inside, “
have
been unlucky.”

Jad saluted, conveying irony without a noticeable change
in expression. The Captain-Lady chuckled and waved Garan forward. “Discharge your duty, Honor Guard.”

Garan bowed, first to her, then to Kalan, before lifting the black cloth clear of Asantir's blades. “Asantir, Commander of Night, pledged you the use of her swords.” The Night guard spoke as formally as if he had not spent hours training with Kalan the day before. “She asked me to say that she is honored to fulfill her commitment today.”

Soberly, Kalan took up the blades, clicking each sword clear of its sheath in turn. As expected, both had been honed to the same killing edge as his own weapons. His bow to Garan was deep, acknowledging the magnitude of the gift. “Thank the Commander of Night in my name, and tell her that I am proud to bear her swords and champion her honor.”

The noise from the crowd intensified again, and Kalan guessed that the serjeants must have completed preparing the duelists' circle. Hatha cocked her head, listening too, but pushed the scroll forward. “This is from the Sea envoy.”

Twinned cords of indigo and sea green bound the parchment, their ends weighted with silver seals. One seal was stamped with a ship, the other with a mer-dragon. Once unrolled, the scroll depicted another mer-dragon, this time curled around a shrine that Kalan recognized as the Great Gate memorial within the Sea Keep. Characters were brushed down the left and right sides of the page in flowing curves of sea green and charcoal, indigo and silver. Only the final character looked blotched, as though the hand that drew it had wavered, or the ink had run.

Kalan's gaze lingered on it before he let the scroll roll closed. Beyond the enclosed world of the pavilion, the crowd's ocean voice swelled again, and he could visualize the provosts moving to their places across the swept-smooth sands. Setting the scroll down, Kalan drew the black-pearl ring from his finger and threaded it onto the cord with the ship seal. He took care over retying the cords into their original, intricate knot, then placed both the scroll and ring inside
his jupon. His heart was beating out his pulse in hammerstrokes, as it had since he unrolled the parchment, but he took care to keep his face as steady as his hands.

“What is it?” Taly asked finally. “Could you read those strange characters?”

As it happened, Kalan could, because Brother Belan had taught him the rune-script once learned by all those born with the Derai powers. “I know what it is,” he temporized. “The Sea mariners carry such scrolls with them when they venture the deep ocean.” He paused, then added quietly, “It will contain my death name.”

Hatha's brows rose almost to her hairline, and both Taly and Jad looked shocked. Garan and Nerys also exchanged a look, although it was harder to interpret. “It's a gift,” Kalan reassured them all. Che'Ryl-g-Raham had explained the practice when she showed him the Great Gate memorial, saying it had begun with the navigators the shrine commemorated. Now the Sea mariners regularly carried either scrolls or cloth banners, inscribed with a rune name that connected their essence to the memorial, so if a ship foundered or a mariner's body was lost, the soul would still find its way to Hurulth. So, too, if Kalan died today and Blood discarded his body without even their new observance of Kharalth, as they well might, his name would appear on the Sea Keep memorial and his spirit pass to the Silent God.

A great gift, Kalan thought—but outside, the voice of the crowd had subsided. The provosts would all be in their places, and the beast in the galleries waiting to have its thirst for blood sated. Employing the same deliberation with which he had retied the scroll, Kalan unbuckled his belt and set his own sword down on the table, before replacing it with Asantir's blades. Only then did he meet Hatha's speculative stare. “I'm ready,” he told her.

L
ord Parannis's visor was shaped into a smiling mask of his own face, cast in crimson and black. He came in hard as soon as the provost's baton fell, shifting fluidly through a series of attacks that moved from high to low, left to right, with a
speed many opponents would have found overwhelming. The Son of Blood was also as strong as Taly had suggested, his battery of blows designed to break Kalan's guard from the outset, pushing him onto the back foot.

But Kalan, too, was strong, his physique hardened from years training for war in the heavy armor of the Emerian knights, and Asantir's longsword gleamed as he answered Parannis's whirlwind assault with a blur of counter and riposte. The fine sand the serjeants had laid down was even beneath his boots, the crowd's roar banished to a background murmur by the surge of his blood and the cut and thrust of the weapon in his hand. His vision was narrow, concentrated on the lethal figure in crimson and black, the smiling visor, and the blade that rang against his own and drove forward, seeking an opening.

Parannis's eyes were little more than gleams seen through his visor's eye slot, but Kalan could read the story his body told, particularly the telltale carriage of head and neck that heralded intention as surely as an opponent's eyes. He caught the minute change that signaled the Son of Blood's feint to his right, ahead of a two-handed sweep toward the knees. The blow would have broken Kalan's stance if not his armor, if he had not blocked hard and forced the blade away. His reverse cut drove toward Parannis's neck—and now it was the Son of Blood who leapt clear, before recovering and prowling around to Kalan's left.

Kalan steadied his breathing, his concentration stretched tight as he and Parannis revolved about each other. Friction burned along the edge of his wards, and when Parannis sprang forward, assailing him with another succession of lightning-fast strikes, a torrent of fear surged behind every blow, battering at Kalan's will to resist.

The Son of Blood was using the old Derai power. Kalan could sense the spate of terror building every time their blades crossed. Parannis's blows also felt increasingly powerful, as though he were drawing strength out of the earth underfoot—exactly as Kalan had reinforced Audin's failing strength in Emer, when Orth came close to killing him in
the sword ring. Now he retreated before the barrage, parrying for time as he absorbed the true source of the Son of Blood's undefeated record. The battery of old power matched the accounts of Parannis sapping his opponents' strength—although Kalan, retreating again, remained wary of poison on swordtip or blade's edge.

Despite the wards muting Kalan's psychic sense, Parannis's onslaught screamed of an instinctive use of old power, rather than a conscious one. The Son of Blood, raised amid the Red Keep's prevailing ignorance, probably considered the power a reserve of natural strength, one he drew on automatically when challenged by another's forcefulness or skill. And no one the wiser, Kalan's pulse hammered: no one the wiser, despite the swathe of power he unleashes. Kalan might have appreciated the irony, given Sarein's revelations, if every reserve of sinew and will had not been deployed, fending off a renewed assault.

Parannis's blade blurred, cleaving to sheer through armor and neck. Kalan twisted aside just in time, deflecting the strike off the rim of his buckler. If the blade had hit square, the sheer force behind it could have split the shield; as it was, the impetus drove him back. The Son of Blood's laugh was euphoric with power and anticipation of the kill. The enhanced strength of his attacks was already an ache up Kalan's arms and into his shoulders, and together with the psychic offensive's drag on his physical strength, he was tiring fast. Grimly, he fought down panic and beat aside another strike, his own blow designed to jar—then whipped his swordtip back toward the eye slot in the smiling visor.

Parannis's recoil was slight, but allowed Kalan to break off and circle again. The roar of blood and breath thundered at him to abandon his wards and shield out Parannis's psychic offensive—but if he ripped out the interwoven layers of suppression and concealment, he might not be able to control the ensuing spike of released power. And he would betray himself to his enemies.

Kalan evaded again as the Son of Blood sought to close,
and Parannis reversed direction, aiming a strike that could have scored either throat or eye if Kalan had not managed to spin clear. But his whole body was pain now, and darkness flecked his vision.

“Black blades.”
The moth's spiral from his vigil was a phantom whisper as Parannis stalked forward, power and terror billowing ahead of him like a Wall storm. Kalan drew a deep, tearing breath and prepared to cut his wards loose—but the moth flutter brushed his mind again:
“Black blades; paired blades. Darkness draws darkness, Kalan-hamar-khar.”

Darkness draws darkness
.
Parannis laughed a second time as he lifted his blade, intent on making an end.

Black blades; paired blades
. Kalan hurled his shield into the face of Parannis's advance, drew Asantir's second sword and closed again with the Son of Blood.

M
yr gasped with everyone else as Khar of the Storm Spears cast his shield at Parannis and drew his second sword. He fought Bajan's glaive with a sword and dagger, she reminded herself, and a glaive has far greater reach than a sword. So Khar dispensing with his shield was not necessarily the act of desperation it might appear at face value, although Myr was as aware as any of the surrounding warriors that after an initially promising start, the Storm Spear had been giving way before her brother's assault.

However much she might know that Parannis always won, it did not make watching her champion's defeat any easier to bear. She could not look away, though, not even to glance to her right where she knew Sarein would be wearing the same sleek, satisfied look as her twin when he made a kill. Myr did not want to look left either, to the next gallery along where Faro sat, white faced and rigid, among the Sea emissaries. They should not have brought him: that had been her immediate reaction when the Sea contingent entered—only to ask herself how she would feel, knowing someone she cared about was fighting for his life on the
Field of Blood. She would want to bear witness, too, not pace and wait, caught between dread and hope until someone else, whether friend or stranger, finally brought word of the outcome.

Now, as the spectacle unfolded, Myr was forced to admit that someone she cared about
was
fighting for his life in the arena below—and so gasped with the rest as Khar's shield went spinning into Parannis's path and a second, shorter blade flashed in his left hand. Rather than evading again, as Myr felt sure Parannis must have expected after their recent encounters, the Storm Spear was taking the fight to her brother.

“Two swords, eh,” Kharalthor said, very much at his ease. “Now we shall find out if there's more to him than we've seen so far.”