The Horse Lord (36 page)

Instead of ducking away from or under the stroke, Aldric threw his full armoured weight inside its arc, smashing one shoulder against cu Ruruc’s belly. All breath went out of the sorcerer’s lungs in a single throaty grunt and he staggered backwards, dodging the fingers which jabbed towards his eyes by pure luck and with mere inches to spare. Even then Aldric’s hand flattened out and its steel-sheathed edge slammed solidly below cu Ruruc’s ear, where the flexible mail-and-leather coif was no protection against percussive blows.

Kalarr was dazed and horrified. Grappling in armour was a skill he had disdained as being beneath his dignity, and the discovery that Aldric had no such dainty notions was a painful one. No man wearing
an-moyya-tsalaer
ever fought barehanded—its weight alone made the metal harness into an impressive bludgeon, and when its plates and scales were coupled to techniques such as the
eijo
was employing, even a clenched fist became as lethal as a mace or blunted axe.

The wizard struck out once more with his flail, in an effort to make his adversary back off rather than do damage, and Aldric blocked it by catching the weapon’s chains on his left arm—his shield having been lost when Duergar first attacked him. With that shield, or with any other weapon, the parry would have worked, but not with this one. The chains slapped hard against his vam-braced forearm, curled round it and sent their spiked and weighted tips lashing on towards his face. Had those chains been two links longer the Alban would have lost his sight, but he escaped with bloody grazes as they got just inside his war-mask and no further.

As he flinched aside, Aldric clamped his fist shut on the two chains which had wrapped around his palm and heaved with all his strength. The weapon’s haft wrenched from Kalarr’s grip, hesitated as its leather wrist-strap took the strain for almost two seconds before snapping, and then whirled with a clatter over the
eijo’s
head and out of sight.

“Now, Aldric!” barked Gemmel. “Draw now and finish him!”

“Let be,
altrou”
Aldric replied quietly. “Everything in good time.”

The softness in his foster-son’s voice made Gemmel’s skin crawl as his sorcery-trained senses read below the voice to what had caused it. What he saw there chilled him and made him take several long, slow steps backward, away from the spot where the inevitable clash would take place. And well away from Isileth Widow-maker, whose hunger had become as tangible as heat or cold. “Not too far!” It was more an order than a request, and Gemmel halted in his tracks. “Watch this one for magic,” Aldric continued, “and if he tries to cast a spell, you can obliterate him with my blessing. But otherwise, keep out of it.”

Kalarr’s eyes narrowed, wondering if this was all just hollow bravado… or something more. Then his thin lips writhed into a grin and he swept his
taiken
from the scabbard high across his back. “I need no spells, Talvalin,” he said, and laughed. It sounded slightly forced.

“Considering your past performance, you need something,
pestreyr
,” the
eijo
observed. “Feel free to try.”

The sorcerer flicked a glance at Gemmel, who Smiled pleasantly back at him. “Don’t interfere with this, old man,” cu Runic growled threateningly. The enchanter shook his head.

“I wouldn’t dream of doing so. But I hope that you know how to use your sword.”

“Know how… ?” Kalarr’s voice was incredulous. “I’ve forgotten more about the
taiken
than this whelp could know. He’s dead, old man. And so are you.”

“I doubt that very much.” returned Gemmel calmly. “For two reasons. I have the Echainon spellstone”—cu Ruruc’s slitted eyes dilated as they fell upon the glowing jewel—”and have you looked at Aldric’s
taiken
? I don’t think you have, somehow. Not carefully enough.”

Aldric unhooked the longsword’s scabbard from his weaponbelt and pulled its shoulderstrap across so that the sheath rose slantwise to his back, well clear of his legs. He was conscious that Kalarr was staring dubiously at him, and the knowledge provoked a thin and mirthless smile within the shadows of his war-mask. Then he gripped the long hilt rearing like an adder by his head, twisted it to loose the locking-collar and drew.

The faint slither of steel as Isileth slid free of her lacquered sheath was by far the loudest sound in the hall. Louder than the beat of Aldric’s heart, louder than the blood whose rushing filled his ears. And far, far louder than the tiny indrawn gasp as cu Ruruc saw what Gemmel meant at last.

“Isileth…” he whispered, feeling an old, long-forgotten pain begin to burn the knuckles of his sword-hand.

“Isileth,” echoed Aldric. He said nothing more. The time for words was past. Instead, moving with as much care as if under instruction from his swordmaster, he assumed the ready posture of high guard centre and waited for Kalarr to make his move.

After pulling down his helmet and lacing its war-mask tightly into place, the sorcerer adopted a counter-position and slowly circled his opponent. Then he screamed hoarsely as he sprang and cut.

The blades met in a series of blurred strokes before they shrilled apart as both men glided backwards, each analysing the other’s fighting style. They met again, more cautiously now, a tentative stroking of steel on steel before the single explosive clangour of cut, parry and stop-thrust which drew threads of glistening scarlet from Aldric’s left wrist. Kalarr was good. Very good. But the
eijo
could still use his injured hand, so he was not quite good enough…

Or so Aldric hoped. The initial flare of agony had faded from the wound, leaving in its wake a sullen throb of pain which indicated no real harm was done. Though when he took up the waiting attitude of low guard left, it was imperfect, suggesting that there was a weakness in his bloodied wrist. A lesser swordsman than Kalarr would not have seen the error, and a better one would never have been drawn by the potential trap. Cu Ruruc fell between the two.

Darting forward two quick paces, he slashed viciously towards the proffered opening—only to find that opening no longer there and Widowmaker stabbing at his throat. With neither time nor room in which to dodge, he charged right on to the waiting point and jolted to a stop as it took him squarely underneath the chin. Clawing at the blade, Kalarr went lurching sideways as it withdrew.

Then he regained his balance and lunged in turn, so fast and so ferociously that Aldric did not block the stroke in time. Gritting his teeth against the wave of black and crimson anguish threatening to swamp his senses, the
eijo
jerked himself away from Kalarr’s sword. It had jabbed between the joints of his
tsalaer
and gouged a long groove in his hipbone. Had it not skidded there, he knew the blade would have transfixed him— small comfort in that knowledge, true, but comfort of a kind. He was not dead yet, at least…

As for cu Ruruc’s mangled throat, Aldric could see it closing up before his eyes, ripped flesh running like hot wax until in seconds there was only the torn coif to show a thrust had ever been received. Some healing-spell at work, he guessed: made by Kalarr himself. Did you really expect a sorcerer to rely on armour by itself? Not in your heart, no. So start to think, man! Quickly!

Kalarr laughed harshly at the shock on Aldric’s pain-blanched face, then pressed home his attack. More blood spurted onto the black-lacquered armour and smeared the tiled floor underfoot. It came from small cuts, wounds without importance in themselves—but the very fact that Aldric suffered them was like a premonition of the end.

It seemed to Gemmel that his foster-son was fighting in a dream, his reactions automatic and often far too slow. Spells began to fight for precedence within the old enchanter’s mind, but none were selective enough; all required at least some space between the duellists if both were not to share the same fate. Then abruptly Gemmel realised what it was he had to do. “Ykraith, Aldric!” he yelled above the clamour. “Use the Dragonwand!”

Aldric twitched as if he had been stung, and the fog of pain cleared somewhat from his eyes. That was the knowledge he had been seeking, the reason why his mind had not been on the fight. Breaking ground, he enveloped yet another thrust in a sweeping circular parry, trapped cu Ruruc’s blade in Widowmaker’s deep, forked quillons and twisted it from the sorcerer’s hand. He sent the weapon skidding out of reach with a kick from one booted foot, then as Kalarr dived after his
taiken
, Aldric ran the other way. “Here,
altrou
” he cried. “Throw it!”

The Dragonwand flashed across the hall as Gemmel hurled it like a javelin, but it landed in the palm of Aldric’s hand more like a falcon settling on a trusted perch. If he had expected his several wounds to heal at once, the
eijo
was mistaken—but if he had expected Kalarr to be dismayed, his wish was more than granted. As the Alban swivelled on one heel and lashed out with the talisman, cu Ruruc flung himself out of its path so hastily that he almost fell.

“Now, warlock… shall we try again?” gasped Aldric, levelling Ykraith’s carved dragon-head at Kalarr’s face. “With the odds not quite so stacked against me this time, eh?” He assumed, a
dyutayn
position, handling the Dragonwand as he would a second
taiken
. “Well, come on, you scarlet bastard,” the
eijo
hissed, teeth bared in a tight-lipped feline snarl. “Or must I go after you? Come on!”

Kalarr whirled his sword down in a blow to shatter armour and go cleaving on through flesh and bone, but the great cut never landed. Aldric sidestepped, warding off the blow with Isileth as he began a gliding turn. Both blades met amid a shower of sparks and a steely screech before Kalarr came charging past, carried by the momentum of his fully-harnessed body.

Ignoring what it did to his torn hip, Aldric slewed his upper body round and stabbed out with Ykraith. Its crystal flame drove between cu Ruruc’s shoulders, punching through lamellar scales as if they were thick parchment, and the Echainon stone flared so blue and vivid that for just an instant it cast shadows. Then its light went out.

Cu Ruruc chuckled thickly as he reached behind him to pluck the Dragonwand out of his flesh as if it was the sting of some small, irritating insect. There was no blood either on its point or on his back.

Aldric said something under his breath as the sorcerer turned once more to face him, this time with both sword and talisman outstretched. When he saw the young man’s startled, disappointed face, cu Ruruc laughed aloud.

He was still laughing when Widowmaker scythed down onto his helmet, splitting its vermeil metal and the coif beneath, silencing his laughter, dazing him. Echoes of the impact rang down the pillared hall. Kalarr reeled, and the weapons slithered from his nerveless fingers to clash against the floor. A thin, bright crimson trickle wandered down his face, as if the battered helmet bled.

Aldric looked at the blood, the pallid skin, the dark, unfocused eyes, and drew a long breath deep into his lungs. His armoured fingers clenched the braided leather of Isileth’s long hilt, double-handed, tighter, tighter, the blade beginning to tremble as his energy came boiling up as it had done against Duergar. Except that this way was the
kailin’s
way,
taiken-ulleth
, and clean.

“No… my son… !” The
eijo
winced as a daggerlike feeling of memory and loss bored into him, and stared again at Kalarr’s face. It was… changing. Shifting even as he watched to a blue-eyed, white-bearded, lovingly remembered outline. A face that had been dust and ashes these four long years, and yet…Something hot and painful swelled up in the Alban’s chest; his throat grew dry and choked so that the name he spoke was just a muted whisper:

“Haranil-arluth… ?” Aldric whispered, wanting to believe. “Oh, father…” The wise, dignified face smiled benignly from inside its vermeil war-mask, then the figure leaned forward slightly to lift something from the floor. There was a faint sound of steel.

And the charm broke. Haranil’s face crumpled, became again cu Ruruc’s visage grinning past an upraised longsword—and collapsed again into a smear of oozing ruptured tissue. Kalarr’s spell had not been illusion but true Shaping, an enchantment of High Magic that his weakened body was unable to maintain. And for which he paid the price.

Widowmaker blurred out in a single thrust that had four years of grief and hatred riding on her blade. “
Hail”
Aldric shouted as the
taiken
hammered home, an unstructured, formless cry that unleashed power from deep inside him to drive the longsword half her length in armoured bone and muscle.

Isileth burst between the
tsalaer’s
lacquered scales, snapped two ribs below and sliced the vessels leading from the wizard’s heart, then slowly, slowly twisted one half-turn before she wrenched free. This time blood spewed from the wound as if from any ordinary man and spattered on the floor with a sound like rain, laying ruby droplets over Baiart’s shrouded face and on the once-more softly glowing stone of Echainon. Aldric backed away, his features immobile, wondering why he had not taken off the suppurating head. To leave it on was to invite a dying curse… although cu Ruruc should have been beyond the power of speech.

Yet he was not. Slumping to his knees, Kalarr stared upwards at his slayer’s face, lips fumbling to shape the words that refused to come. “It seems that… all along… I have underestimated you, Talvalin,” he croaked at last. His mouth twisted briefly as a spasm of pain ripped through him; then it relaxed and even tried to form a smile. “Sh-should have known… a better k-killer than myself.” He coughed and pink froth dribbled down his chin. “Foolish, I… I’ll not make… that m-mistake… ah—! again…”

The smile remained fixed as all life left his face, and he slumped forward into a final First Obeisance at Aldric’s feet. The
venjens-eijo
stared down at the corpse for several seconds, oblivious to the gore that puddled boot-sole deep. His oath was fulfilled, his vengeance now complete. Was it sweet? Aldric did not know; all he could taste was blood and fear and sourness in his gullet. With a single double-handed sweep he lopped off Kalarr’s once handsome head, but did not bend to pick it up. The thing repelled him.