“There’s the rub,” Moranden said. “Under you. How have you
managed on the throne of the mountain kings? Do you perch yourself on cushions
like a child allowed to sit at table? With a footstool, of course, to keep your
feet from dangling. I trust no one dares to laugh.”
“Oh, no,” said Mirain. “No one laughs at me.”
As they spoke they crouched, circling slowly. Mirain wore a
small tight smile. Moranden wore no expression at all. He was light on his feet
for a big man, and fast; when he struck, he struck with the suddenness of a
snake.
Mirain escaped the stroke, but only just. His smile slipped,
shifted.
Barred from Mirain’s mind by the oath the king had sworn—and
dear gods, after all this time and in spite of all his resistance it had become
second nature, so that its loss was cruel to endure—still Vadin could read
Mirain’s face and eyes and body as easily as that young scholar-king could read
a book. His mind had narrowed and focused, doubt and grief and terror blurred
into distance. There was no fear in him, only fierceness and the beginnings of
delight. He was strong and he was swift, and ah, how he loved a battle.
Mirain poised, waiting. Moranden’s hand came round: a long,
lazy, contemptuous blow, as a man will cuff his hound. Mirain eluded it with a
flicker of laughter.
He won no smile in return, but a grin like a snarl. “Aha!
They pit me against a dancing boy. Dance for me now, little priest. Awe me with
your art.”
“Better yet, uncle, let us dance together.” Mirain moved
close, tantalizing; and when Moranden made no move to strike or seize, closer
still, deathly close, as if his daring had overwhelmed his prudence.
Moranden struck.
Mirain stood just out of his reach, hand on hip. “Adjan is
faster than you,” he said.
“Adjan stoops to dance with slaves and children. You can
run, priestess’ bastard. Can you fight?”
“If you like,” said Mirain with the air of a king granting
his vassal a favor.
Moranden straightened from his wrestler’s crouch and stepped
back. Mirain waited. The prince flexed his wide shoulders, filled his lungs,
emptied them.
Easily, fluidly, he settled into a stance that made Obri,
close by Vadin, catch his breath. Vadin saw only that it was lethally graceful,
like a cat before it springs. It had a look of—
“The gentle killing,” Obri said. He was losing the coolness
he was so proud of, the detachment of the scholar. He was like everyone but
Moranden and the witch of Umijan. He had fallen in love with Mirain. “The rebel
has it. Of course he has it. He is a Marcher and a westerner.”
Mirain neither wavered nor retreated. If he saw that he
faced a master of his own art, he was too much the warrior to show it. His body
shifted toward its center and steadied, taking the posture of his defense.
“
Issan-ulin
,” Obri
murmured. “The Serpent-slayer. Pray your gods, Vadin alVadin, that the tale
your lord told Adjan was more than a vaunt. Pray your gods that it can save
him.”
Vadin’s prayer was wordless, nor had he eye or mind for
naming the movements of this subtle dance, but his will matched the
foreigner’s. Let Mirain be wise, let him be strong. Let him put up a good fight
before he died.
Moranden stalked his prey in silence the more deadly for all
his words before; Mirain watched him as the
issan-ulin
watches the
serpent, both fierce and wary, striking no blow.
Moranden’s hand lashed out and round; his foot followed it
in a smooth concerted motion, as graceful as it was deadly. Mirain caught the
hand on his forearm, deflected it, swayed beneath and away from the striking
foot.
There was a measured and measuring pause. Moranden feinted.
Mirain slid away.
Moranden sprang. Mirain grasped his shoulder, then his
surging thigh, and guided them up, back, headlong to the ground, whipping about
even as Moranden left his hands.
The prince had spun in the air, coming to earth on one knee,
bounding erect. Even as Mirain turned, Moranden seized him.
One arm caught his middle in a grip of iron. One hand
clamped on his throat. Moranden laughed, little more than a gasp, and raised
him higher, the better to break his body.
Mirain writhed, kicking, mouth gaping for air, eyes wide and
blind. With all his failing strength, he drove his head into Moranden’s jaw.
Moranden staggered. Mirain dropped. For a long count of
breaths he lay utterly helpless.
His enemy loomed above him, foot raised and pointed for a
bitter blow. Mirain snatched wildly at it. Held. Thrust it upward.
Moranden went down like a mountain falling.
Mirain set his knee on his kinsman’s chest and closed his
hands around the heavy neck, setting his thumbs over the windpipe. Moranden
made no effort to cast him off. “Uncle,” Mirain said, his voice a croak, coming
hard from his bruised throat, “yield and I will pardon you.”
Moranden’s eyes opened wide. Mirain met them. He gasped and
froze like a man under a spell, or like a boy who cannot make his kill.
Vadin wanted to howl Ymin’s name. But his throat had locked,
and Mirain was lost. With a faint wordless protest, he hurled himself away.
His body struck the ground. Moranden’s full weight plunged
down upon it.
Desperately Mirain scrambled sidewise. A hammer-blow smote
him, driving his arm and shoulder deep into the yielding earth, wringing from
him a short sharp cry.
Moranden’s hands tore cruelly at his hair, freeing the braid
from its coil, twisting it, dragging him to his feet. He looked into Moranden’s
face. With brutal strength the prince wrenched his head back.
Mirain stood as one who waits to die. His left arm hung
useless; his body shook with tremors.
He smiled.
Moranden thrust him away. He staggered and fell.
He rose, though he bled from the stones that had stabbed his
cheek, though at first he could not stand. With excruciating slowness he raised
himself to his knees. More slowly still, he stood. His lips were grey with
pain.
Moranden watched him from a few strides’ distance, arms
folded, lip curled. For yet a while longer he would toy with his prey. Tease
it; torment it; teach it all the myriad degrees of pain. Then—only then—he
would slay it.
Mirain’s head came up. His eyes glittered. He seemed to
grow, to swell with newborn strength.
He raised his hands, the left but little less easily than
the right, and glided forward.
Issan-ulin
once more, but
issan-ulin
pricked to fury, closing in upon the Lord of Serpents.
Moranden’s contempt wavered.
“Yes,” Mirain said softly. “Yes, uncle. The game is past.
Now the battle begins in earnest.”
Moranden spat at him. “Fool and braggart! God’s son or very
god, you stand in a body reckoned puny even in the south that bred you; and you
have given up your magic. You can do no more than your flesh allows. And I,” he
said, spreading his arms wide, “am the Champion of Ianon.”
“Are you indeed?” Mirain beckoned. “Come, O champion.
Conquer me.”
Once and once again they circled. As smoothly as dancers in
a king’s hall, they closed.
Moranden was strong, but Mirain was swift to strike, swift
to spring away. Moranden’s blow swung wide as he reeled.
Mirain struck again. Moranden staggered, flailing. One fist
brushed Mirain’s brow, rocking but not felling him.
“Uncle, uncle,” he chided, “where is your strength?”
Moranden hissed and began to sway, serpent-supple. It was
beautiful, it was horrible, to see that great-muscled body turned suddenly
boneless. The lips drew back; the eyes glittered, flat and cold. Death coiled
within them.
For a bare instant Mirain faltered. His face twisted, as if
all his hurts had burst free at once from their bonds.
Moranden lashed out.
Mirain parried. Moranden advanced, hands a deadly blur, feet
flying.
This too had its name in the west: the Direwolf. Moranden
was the great wolf-chieftain, Mirain the tender prey, fleeing round the circle
of battle past the silent judges, the silent and helpless witnesses.
Moranden passed his mother, who had let her veil fall. Her
face was grey and old, furrowed deep with the pain of her wound.
She smiled. He did not or would not see her. Full before
her, Mirain turned at bay; the combatants closed, grappling near the circle’s
edge, almost upon it.
Metal flashed in Odiya’s hand. She held that weapon which
had dogged them all from Umijan: the black dagger of the goddess.
It licked toward the struggling figures, hesitated. They
were twined like lovers, flesh woven with flesh, no clear target for the blade.
And the herald watched, making no move to prevent her.
“Foul!” cried Vadin. “Treason! Stop her!” He flung himself
forward.
The dagger sang to its zenith.
And fell. No will and no hand guided it. Odiya’s eyes were
very wide, very surprised, and very, very angry.
Her eunuch stood beside her, still bearing her up with a
hand on her arm. In his other hand, a blade ran red.
“Treason indeed,” he said with perfect calm, in part to
Vadin, in part to her. “It is time the world was free of it.”
Her lips drew back from her teeth. Her hands came up. Black
fire filled them.
She spoke a word. The fire leaped forth, caught the withered
body, transfixed it.
But the eunuch laughed. “See, mistress! I win the cast;
revenge is mine. Do you not even know that you are dead?”
The fire leaped for his open mouth. Voice and laughter died.
But even as he fell, Odiya convulsed. She reared up, and her
face was the face of death, her power bleeding like black blood from her hands,
hopeless, helpless, unstoppable.
She clawed at the blind uncaring sky. She raged at it. She
cursed it and its deadly sun and the goddess whose realm lay beneath it.
Her power poured away. The poison filled her body. Her life
flamed and flared, guttered, rallied, and went out.
The eunuch was dead when he struck the ground. But Odiya was
dead before she began to fall.
Mirain and Moranden were up, apart, staring appalled. Vadin,
coming too late, dared the black mist of sorcery that hung even yet over the
dead; he knelt beside them and closed the staring eyes of slayer and slain,
each of whom was both.
The woman’s face raged even in death. The eunuch smiled with
terrible sweetness.
Moranden stooped over them. One eye was swelling shut, but
he bore no other wound.
“Beautiful, treacherous bitch.” He spat on her, and he bent
to kiss her brow. With a strangled roar he whirled.
Mirain, the madman, held out his hands. “Uncle.” He might
never have been wounded, never have come within a breath of dying with the
goddess’ blade in his back. “Uncle, it’s over. The one who would have
besmirched our honor is dead. Come. Swear peace. Rule with me.”
Moranden’s head sank between his shoulders. His fists
clenched and unclenched. A shudder racked him; he nearly fell.
“Uncle,” Mirain said, “it was she who drove you, she who
made a bitter pawn of you. You yourself, you alone, I can forgive. Will you not
share this kingdom with me?”
“Share! Forgive!” It was hardly human, that voice. Less human
still was the laughter that came behind it. “I hated her, little bastard. I
hated her and I loved her, and because of you she is dead. What have you left
me but revenge?”
Moranden leaped.
He took Mirain off guard. But not wholly. His assault drove
the king back but not down.
And Mirain, having offered peace at the utmost extremity,
having shown Moranden the forbearance of a very saint, now had no mercy left.
He had fought with passion and even with anger, in a red heat of battle. Now he
advanced in white-cold rage.
Moranden looked into the other’s eyes and saw his death
waiting there, as Mirain’s waited in his own. He laughed at the paradox of it
and made a hammer of his fist.
Mirain caught it, set his weight against it, swung all that
massive body about. Unbalancing it; wrenching the captive arm up and back.
Moranden howled and flailed left-handed. Mirain rocked with
the blows; his lip split and bled.
He tightened his grip. His jaw set beneath dirt and blood.
He twisted.
The bone snapped.
Moranden bellowed like a bull. The force of his struggle
flung Mirain’s light weight away. But his arm was still prisoner, his pain a
white agony.
He hurled himself through it; his good hand clawed, raking
breast and face, groping for eyes. He found the thick hair working free of its
plait. With a snarl of triumph he wound his fingers into it.
Mirain let go the useless wrist. His face was a terrible
thing, stretched out of all humanity by the grip on his hair, the bones
thrusting fierce and sharp through the skin.
Suddenly he went limp. Moranden loosened his hold a
fraction, shifting to peer into the slack face.
Two hands joined shot upward, smote his jaw with an audible
crack. His head snapped back. His body arched.
Once more Mirain bestrode his chest. He struggled beneath as
a fish struggles when hurled from water into the deadly air, and as vainly, and
as mindlessly.
Mirain’s cheeks were wet with more than blood, his breath
sobbing with more than pain. Again he raised the club of his knotted hands.
With all his strength he brought it down, full between the eyes.
oOo
There was a long silence. Ages long.
Mirain stumbled up, away from the body that had stilled at
last. His hands hung limp at his sides. His hair straggled about his face. He
was crying like a child.
Vadin damned the circle, damned the Law of Battle. He
crossed the line and reached for the trembling shoulders.
Mirain wheeled, poised to kill. But his strength was gone.
He wavered; his hands dropped. Sanity dawned in his eyes.