Lyan did not even bother answering, merely set to tossing things away. With the travois finished, the poles and cross-sticks lashed with leather straps, they loaded it with what remained of their gear: armour, wrapped dried meat, a sack of meal stuffed into a cooking pot, and the empty waterskins. Lyan hung a leather pouch around her neck and tucked it under her tunic. What remained of the lad’s royal inheritance, Kyle assumed. They set off, Kyle dragging the travois by the length of two leather belts. At noon they switched over.
In the late afternoon they came to the dried bed of a stream. Kyle clambered down among the exposed rocks and gravel and started digging with a hatchet. Lyan joined him. About an arm’s length down the mixed mud and sand became damp. Kyle pressed the cold wet sand to his face and sighed in delight.
A gasp from Dorrin brought Kyle and Lyan jumping to their feet, weapons drawn.
Across the dried stream bed five people faced them: two clan elders, male and female, and three of what must be their most senior warriors, two men and one woman. The warriors wore white face paint while their mostly naked bodies were smeared in ochre mud. The elders were draped in leather skins and furs.
‘Let me drink first,’ Kyle called.
The female elder smiled, revealing blunt nubs of teeth. ‘No pleading, Whiteblade? Good. That is as it should be.’
The old man jerked his head back towards the north. ‘You are truly headed north?’
‘I am.’
The two elders exchanged a glance that greatly troubled Kyle, for it was an uneasy one. Then the old woman stamped her staff to the ground and announced, ‘It is the Quest, then. Child of the Wind, you go to the great mountains, Joggenhome, to stand before our ancestors and prove our worth as our champion.’
‘It is not agreed,’ one of the male warriors, the most scarred one, snarled.
‘Quiet, Willow,’ the old man warned. ‘The clans have lost enough blades. He has proved his worth. And we are shamed by Neese and Niala. They were not chosen.’
‘It is only the blade he carries,’ Willow answered scornfully. ‘Let us see him fight with no advantage.’
Kyle raised his chin to the elders. ‘I am half dead of thirst, but if the elders wish it – I will face this one without the white blade.’
‘The Quest is a not a trifling matter,’ the old man muttered.
‘We must be certain,’ the woman agreed.
The old man gave a curt nod. ‘Very well. You have two nights and two days. Rest, drink, eat. We will meet again at the dusk.’ He gestured to the female warrior and she tossed something to Kyle. He caught it: a skin of water. The five climbed the slope up out of the stream bed and melted away.
‘You should not have agreed,’ Lyan said.
‘I had no choice. It was a test. It was all a test. If I had failed they would have killed all of us.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A test of honour. A test of bravery. A test of my resolve – they had been waiting to see whether I truly would turn north.’
‘And this last stupid duel?’
‘It is their … well, our, way. Formalized war. Some might call it a kind of game. Only we two need be wounded or killed. More humane, really.’
She was shaking her head. ‘Stupid. Damned stupid.’
‘Thank you for your faith in my abilities.’
She just waved an arm, dismissing him, and climbed the stream bed.
For two days they rested. They drank the water and boiled the last of their grain meal. As the afternoon of the second day slid into evening, Kyle began stretching. He decided to use his two hatchets and keep two knives tucked into his belt at the rear. Dorrin stood cradling the white blade in its sheath and leather wrap.
The Silent People appeared soon after. They approached in the open, out of the west.
‘Remember,’ Kyle again told Lyan, ‘follow the coast. It should curve to the east and you should come to some sort of estuary, an outlet to the Sea of Gold. There should be people there. A fortress named Mist.’
She had objections, plenty, he could tell. But she swallowed them. Instead, she slipped her hand behind his neck and pulled his lips to hers to kiss him.
He stood blinking, quite stunned.
‘There’s some motivation for you,’ she said, looking fierce. ‘Now slit him open and let’s get going.’
‘Yes, ma’am. You really are a shieldmaiden. Where is your shield anyway?’
‘Lost it in the shipwreck.’
‘Have to get you another.’ And he walked away, swinging his arms to loosen them and kicking at the dry dusty earth.
The Silent People’s warrior, Willow, stepped forward. He drew two fighting knives. Kyle was surprised to see that both blades were of chipped black stone, obsidian. The warrior saw him eyeing the blades and held them up. ‘You have set aside your white blade, and so will I face you in the old way, with the traditional weapons.’
So the man hadn’t been seeking his own advantage when he demanded that Kyle set aside his sword. He’d given up quite a lot in choosing those brittle blades. A solid blow from his hatchet should shatter one. But then, even a fragment from such a weapon would be deadly sharp.
The warrior twisted the blades before him as he circled. Sometimes he reversed them, spinning and jumping. Kyle saw that the grips were wound in leather. As they circled, he glimpsed Lyan standing aside, Dorrin before her, her hands on his shoulders. She wore her sword.
‘Do you know why I challenged you, Son of the Wind?’ Willow called.
‘No.’
‘Because when I defeat you I will take your place in the Quest.
I
will stand before our ancestors and it will be
my
name they will know.’
‘Then you are a fool,’ Kyle answered simply. He put all the tired contempt he could muster into the observation.
The man jerked, stunned, then snarled and charged in. The charge was a feint as the man slid aside at the last moment, slashing, but Kyle was prepared, as he had learned the hard way from Ruthen’el – these people were deadly knife-fighters. The deadliest he’d ever faced. But he had been taught by the best as well, by veterans of the Crimson Guard, and by Greymane himself. Grey had been a legendary brawler. ‘Just win,’ his friend had always berated him. ‘Never mind the fancy shit – just win.’
Kyle parried and countered lazily, disguising his own speed. Willow returned to circling.
And so the duel slid into a pattern. The two circling, darting in to test one another, sometimes counter-attacking, sometimes feinting a move, always watching their opponent’s reactions, searching for openings.
Twilight thickened. Their shuffling feet raised clouds of dust that wafted heavily off to the east. The man was quick, Kyle realized. Probably faster than him. Yet he seemed to be losing patience. Most of his duels must have been long over before this. Even weakened, Kyle believed he could probably outlast him. And so he pulled back, circling more, parrying, holding himself loose and relaxed, conserving his energy.
Just win
, Greymane’s words returned.
The only ugly fight is the one you lose
.
Willow streamed with sweat now, his arms quivering with suspended energy. He glared, enraged. ‘You are frightened, yes?’ he taunted. ‘You would run away if you could.’
Kyle decided that silence would frustrate the man further and so he didn’t answer.
Willow darted in with breathtaking speed, weapons reversed, slashing low. Kyle slid backwards, parrying. He managed to kick one knee, bringing Willow to the ground, and came down hard with one hatchet, but the man rolled aside. A flame of pain erupted across Kyle’s shoulder.
Sharp!
A voice screamed in Kyle’s mind. So sharp! Already a warm wetness was spreading down his back. From behind he heard a suppressed gasp from Dorrin.
Not even thinking consciously through the mist of pain, he allowed the left arm to hang loose. He circled, even warier.
Willow was panting, sheathed in sweat, but grinning now. He nodded to himself. Kyle kept his right side to him, hatchet extended. The warrior darted in, batted the hatchet aside; Kyle shifted backwards without bringing his left arm up. Willow slashed with both weapons but chose not press the attack, easing back instead, watching. It looked to Kyle as though the man was ready to let him bleed out.
He loosened his left hand and let the hatchet fall free to thump into the dust.
Willow suddenly changed direction, hunched, weaving the obsidian blades before him. Kyle followed, shuffling slowly. He still had his reserves and he meant to expend them all in one burst.
The warrior’s feet shifted, his weight easing forward. He held one blade high, the other low. Kyle knew the danger lay with the raised blade. He faked his own falling back, as he had done so often already. Willow lunged in, the high blade ready to dart for neck or chest.
Kyle reached behind to his belt with his left hand to pull free a knife and snap throw from his waist all in one motion. The Silent warrior was so fast he managed to shift so that the blade only grazed his side. But in that moment of distraction Kyle swung his hatchet up and the raised obsidian blade exploded in a burst of fragments. The low blade thrust for him but Kyle deflected it with his left forearm.
Willow stabbed Kyle’s side with the remains of the shattered blade still gripped in his hand even as Kyle brought his hatchet up between them to thrust the killing spike up behind the man’s jaws, piercing his palate and entering his brain.
They stood locked together. Held in each other’s arms. A moment that seemed frozen to Kyle. Long enough to watch the man’s gaze fade from bewilderment to unfocused emptiness. Still, they held one another’s arms. Then Willow slid down to slump to the ground. Kyle stood panting, his blood roaring so loud in his ears as to drown out all other sounds, his vision blurry with lancing agony. Hands took him, arms, and he relaxed into them.
He awoke to glaring sunlight and he winced, hissing in pain. ‘It’s all right,’ Lyan said from nearby. A shadow occluded the glaring light; a hand pressed his chest. ‘We’re safe. We have food and water. Thirsty?’
He nodded. Turning his head he could just make out that his torso was wrapped, as was his shoulder. Lyan held the spout of a waterskin to his lips, gently squeezed the skin. He drank.
‘What happened?’
‘You won. Barely. It was stupid, but impressive. He was fast, that one. Damned fast. You have all the time you need to recover. We’re guests of the Silent People now.’
‘I see. Well, if you don’t mind I’ll pass out again.’
‘Go ahead.’
It was night when he opened his eyes once more. He tried to rise and failed when agony shot up his side. He relaxed back on to the blankets. In the morning Lyan spooned him a mush of boiled vegetables and grains. ‘I need to get up,’ he told her.
‘Why?’
‘I need to … you know.’
Her brows rose. ‘Ah. You shouldn’t, really. But … all right.’ She took hold of him under the arms and gently lifted him so that he could draw his legs beneath himself. He snarled and hissed in suppressed pain but managed to stand. ‘Help me walk a bit.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve nursed a lot of men – no need for shyness.’
‘Humour me.’
Tsking, she took his weight so that he could limp off a few steps.
‘Good,’ he said, his voice taut. ‘Thank you.’
‘Fine. Call if you fall down.’ She walked away.
‘I most certainly will.’ He unlaced the front of his pants and eased his bladder. How embarrassing that when you were wounded you couldn’t even get up to see to the most basic of things. He resolved not to be wounded again.
Slowly, very slowly, he tottered back to camp. Lyan came and took his arm. ‘I should lie down,’ he gasped. He’d broken into a cold sweat. She eased him back down.
‘I will call for their healers,’ he heard her say as through a roaring waterfall.
When he next awoke he felt much better. The stabbing pain was gone from his side. It was late afternoon. Dorrin dozed in the shade nearby. ‘Hey, lad. How are you?’
Dorrin jerked awake, sat up. ‘I’ll get Lyan.’ And he ran off.
After a moment Lyan jogged up, wearing only a sweat-soaked shift and trousers, her sheathed sword in one hand. ‘You are awake.’
‘Yes. What happened?’
Her face grew serious. ‘A needle of obsidian was left behind in your side. It was digging in, slicing you up. They found it and drew it out. The old lady used her teeth for that, by the way.’
‘I’ll have to thank her.’
‘Better?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ She cleared her throat, then motioned to his throat. ‘That necklace you wear. A remembrance, perhaps? From a girl?’
He raised a hand to touch the smooth amber stone at his neck. ‘From a friend. He was of the Thel Akai. An ancient race. Giants, some name them. You have heard of them?’
‘You mean a Toblakai? We know them in the north.’
‘Related.’
‘Ah.’
‘What were you doing?’
Lyan peered down at herself, jerked. ‘Oh, yes. Practising.’
He nodded. ‘Good.’ He thought the view from down here looking up at her was wonderful and she seemed to see something of this in his expression.