When Therian and Gruum arrived at the hunting lodge, they found the gate standing open, but no one was there to greet them. Therian dismounted and removed a leather pouch from his saddlebags. He handed the pouch to Gruum.
Gruum almost dropped the pouch when he recognized it. He held on with trembling fingers.
“Milord, do not ask me to carry this shadow,” Gruum said.
“It will do no harm until you release it.”
“Release it? I have no intention—”
“You will know the moment. Remember the girl in the snow. Remember what it is we face. And remember the sun that should be shining and bright here, bringing life and good cheer to all.”
Gruum’s face hardened. He nodded once and followed his master into the courtyard. He carried the leather pouch carefully, as if it held a viper. In truth, he knew he carried something far worse.
The Duke stood just inside the open doorway that led into the Great Hall. He did not come forward to greet them, but instead stayed within the shadowy interior. Gruum wondered as to the Duke’s true nature, and whether he could leave his house at all in the light of day. Was that, perhaps, the true mission of these beings? To end the tyranny of sunlight completely, so they may walk the cold earth in everlasting darkness?
“Hyborean,” called the Duke from the dimly lit doorway. “You return early from your hunt. How was your luck?”
Therian stepped forward several more paces before answering. Each step was measured, unconcerned. He walked as if he were strolling in his own palace gardens back in Corium.
As Therian approached, the retainers of the house stirred themselves. Silently, glancing around, a handful of them filed out into the courtyard. Others stood behind their Duke in a knot. Gruum reached with his left hand and loosened his saber and dagger in their sheathes. He kept his right fist tightly wrapped around the mouth of the pouch. The pouch bulged with its strange contents, but felt as if it were weightless. It reminded him of carrying a blown up bladder full of nothing but air.
“My luck has failed me this day, Duke Strad,” Therian said, halting his advance. He took no notice of the men who gathered around.
The retainers squinted in the sunlight and rubbed their gear with their gloved thumbs. None of them smiled.
“How so?” asked the Duke.
“I took a man at his word, and he betrayed me.”
The Duke stared, all playfulness and jocularity gone from his face. “You dare insult me in my own house, standing before my own servants?”
“My apologies. It is rude of me to have hard words with a man in his own house. Come outside into the light of day. Let us set matters straight in the open air as two gentlemen should.”
The Duke attempted a smile, but failed. If anything, his pale, oval face looked longer and less pleased than before. “I would instead invite you inside. Let us discuss your grievances by the hearth.”
Therian made a broad gesture of dismissal, as if he had tired of the conversation. “I will let the matter pass. But there is another, greater thing I must ask of you.”
“Speak,” Strad said.
“I would ask you to release your physician from your service.”
“Vosh is a guest, as I’ve said.”
“Then expel him from your house.”
“And why would I do that?” Strad asked.
Therian looked surprised. “Is it not obvious? So I may slay him without breaking my pledge of peace.”
“Why would you want to do that? He is a strange one, but there is no better master of the healing arts.”
Therian laughed then, and the laughter had more than a hint of mockery in it. “Surely sir, you jest. Vosh is a monster. He cannot lodge with the living. He is an indescribable evil that needs to be erased from this world at all costs.”
The men-at-arms standing around them looked uneasy at these words. They shuffled from foot-to-foot and traded dark, uncertain glances between themselves. Gruum felt they clearly agreed with Therian.
The Duke took an angry step forward. His black boots were visible now in the gray light of the day. The bottom edge of his vermilion cloak swayed over the threshold and ruffled there in the cold breezes. Still, his body remained inside the doorway.
“I will not release you from your pledge. I would rather ask
you
to leave my house this day. You have overstayed your welcome here.”
Therian smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. “Very well. I swore not to harm your retainers or guests. However, I swore nothing concerning your own person. I would have satisfaction, Duke Strad of Kem. In fact, I demand it. Now.”
It was the Duke’s turn to laugh. It was a deep, sonorous sound. “Duel me? A mortal cannot kill that which is already dead.”
Gruum looked around at the retainers. Was the fiction finally unveiled? Surely, these men had to have known in their hearts that their lord was no longer a man. But to hear it said aloud in the cold light of day….
The men registered shock. Some licked their lips. Others looked this way and that, including over their shoulders. They appeared to be looking for an exit. All of them, Gruum knew, had sworn to protect their lord, to serve him with their hearts and souls. But did that include such circumstances as these? At what point might an honorable man quit his lord and run?
Therian continued smiling in the face of the Duke’s wrath. He utterly ignored everyone else. “Perhaps I cannot truly kill you. But I can relieve you of your vitality, and I can relieve this world of your foul presence. Twin deeds worthy of doing.”
The Duke stopped laughing and eyed Therian appraisingly. “You do not fear me?”
“Certainly not.”
“I have never before met one of the living who could stand at my door with such unflagging self-confidence.”
Therian stared at him flatly. “You have not yet answered my challenge.”
“Well then, a duel it must be,” the Duke said thoughtfully. “As the challenged, I will choose the time, place and weaponry.”
“As is your right,” said Therian.
“I choose now. We will duel here, inside my Great Hall. For weapons, we will use our bare hands.”
Therian stared at him for a moment. The Duke grinned. His flat, white teeth were like those of a nickering horse.
“Accepted!” Therian boomed.
Gruum watched the Duke’s eyes. They widened slightly. Had he perhaps expected Therian to quail upon hearing his terms?
Therian removed the black leather belt from which hung his twin blades, Seeker and Succor. He handed the belt to Gruum and asked that he keep the weapons safe. Gruum nodded.
When Therian handed his weapons to Gruum, the two exchanged glances. Therian tilted his head slightly, indicating the knot of retainers. Gruum dipped his head to inform his master he had gotten the message. After Gruum took Seeker and Succor into his hands, he went to stand among the retainers. At first, they looked at him in surprise, but then they seemed to accept him. He was, after all, a man-at-arms in service of another strange lord. The armsmen could sympathize with his status.
Therian then turned back to the Duke and addressed him. “I would ask a moment to convene with the gods of my homeland.”
Duke Strad snorted softly. “Be my guest.”
Therian threw back his cloak from his shoulders so that it hung behind him. He raised his arms overhead and closed his eyes. “I call upon thee, Anduin the Black, Lady of the night winds, to give me strength of limb and mind.”
Everyone fell silent. A full minute passed, during which the retainers shuffled their boots in the snow. During this period, nothing unusual occurred. A few smiled at one another and shook their heads.
Then a breeze rose up. It came in the form of a rushing sound that first touched the treetops outside the walls. Then it howled down with sudden force into the courtyard and picked up the finest granules of frost from the ground. The frost swirled around Therian’s feet and looped about his body in a manner that appeared—unnatural.
All sneers and smirks died. The men standing in the gray daylight looked down in concern. Little swirls of white frost circled their boots as well.
As the winds rose in volume, Therian began to chant. His words filled the volume of space around everyone within earshot. They tumbled forth from his lips, and became visible upon exit into the open air. Dark bubbles of vapor puffed from his mouth as he formed each alien syllable. The retainers clapped their hands over their ears and hunched as if they were turtles trying to suck their heads down into their shells. They staggered backward, away from Therian, widening the cleared circle around him.
All the while these strange events played out, Strad stood in his doorway. He watched silently. His mouth was a grim line of determination.
When the spell was done, Therian advanced toward the Duke. He removed his cloak with a flourish and tossed it in Gruum’s direction, who hurried to scoop it up.
Therian bounded up the stone steps to the doorway, taking three at a time. The Duke backed up at his approach and let him pass within.
Therian paused to stare into the Duke’s cold face. He dared put a hand on his host’s shoulder. The scene was an odd one, as the Duke appeared to be a head taller and possibly twice the weight of the Hyborean. Still, the smaller man showed nothing resembling fear. Instead, he appeared eager to get to the contest.
“Come!” boomed Therian, his voice sounding louder than Gruum could recall it ever having sounded before. “Let us grapple then, Strad!”
Therian pushed past his host and headed for the fire that burned high and brightly on the open hearth. Gruum, Strad and the retainers followed him.
Grunting, Therian made a show of pushing aside the huge tables, shoving them toward the walls. The oaken tables were made of thick posts and planks. Each must have weighed as much as a horse. The furnishings scraped and groaned as they were forced over the flagstones.
“So, you are a sorcerer,” said Duke Strad, pulling off his own gloves and stepping toward the open space before the fire. “Just as rumor has had it. I had not put much credit to the whispers about you, King Therian.”
Therian did not seem surprised at the Duke’s mention his true identity. “As I did not put much stock in tales of your strange ways,” Therian replied, finished with the task of shoving tables about.
“What tales?” asked Strad sharply.
Therian shrugged. “The usual. Stories of drunken groping fingers, young children and whores found dead on the bed sheets when the light of morning comes.”
Strad had finally had enough. He came at Therian then in a headlong charge. His thick fingers were extended like claws. A gurgling, growling sound came out of his throat.
Therian reared up to meet the charge, his hands clasping Strad’s. The two locked fingers and strained for a moment. Neither seemed to gain instant advantage. The Duke threw himself free. They separated, sides heaving. The Duke snaked out a fist, which whistled past Therian’s dodging head. Therian returned a sharp blow of his own, which caught the Duke full in the face. There was the crunching sound of broken bone. Strangely, the Strad’s nose did not bleed much, even though it was clearly misshapen.
The retainers standing around the combatants did not cheer or roar. They did not bet, nor call for jacks of ale. They watched this fight as they had never watched another. They mumbled and gave hissing, nervous intakes of breath. They cringed when unnaturally hard blows were delivered and received stoically by the combatants. It was clear to everyone present that both were supernaturally imbued. Knowing this made the fight unwholesome and even frightening to witness.
Duke Strad fell, cracking his skull on the flagstones, but never lost a moment’s ferocity. While down, he plucked a thick, oak leg from a stool and held it like a truncheon. He leapt back to his feet and beat Therian’s shoulder with it.
Therian took the blow, which sent him reeling backward. He took the opportunity to snatch up a metal candlestick from a table and hurl it into the Duke, who caught it in his midsection with a heavy grunt.
Gruum dared to clear his throat, when none of the others spoke up. “Lords, let us recall our terms, please. Bare hands.”
Therian straightened and laughed. “Right you are, Gruum. We should not forget ourselves and brawl as if we were two louts in a tavern.”
The Duke nodded and reluctantly dropped the rest of the oak stool. The contest went on, and certain relationships became clear. Strad was stronger, but Therian was faster. Strad could be injured, but his body seemed to continue to function no matter what injury he withstood. Therian’s body was as tough as cordwood, but an injury sustained slowed him as it would a normal man. Therian bashed the Duke down, again and again, but always the other arose. Each time the Duke landed a good strike upon Therian, the King weakened slightly, whereas the larger man seemed to be unstoppable.
Gruum stood among the thickest knot of retainers. He thought of emptying the pouch there, of spilling its contents amongst the pushed-aside tables. But he did not. He felt that if anything, these armsmen deserved his loyalty more than either of the two combatants. Compared to the Duke or Therian, these men were relative innocents.
Therian lunged and feinted several times, each time sidestepping away without completing his attack. Sensing that perhaps victory was near, the Duke matched his sidesteps, grinning.