The Lightstone Page 16

  For few moments no one moved So quiet was the ring of knights and nobles around us that it seemed no one even breathed. Some duels lasted no longer than this. A quick rush, a lightning stroke of steal flashing through the air, and as often as not, one of the combatant heads would be sent rolling across the floor.

  But Salmeiu and I faced each other across a few feet of a blood - red circle of wood, taking our time. Asaru had once observed that a true duel between Valari knights resembled nothing so much as a catfight without the hideous screeching and yowling. As If our two bodies were connected by a terrible tension, we began circling each other with an excruciating slowness. After a few moments, we paused to stand utterly still. And then we were moving again, measuring distances, looking for any weakness or hesitation in the other's eyes. I felt sweat running down my sides and my heart heating like a hammer up through my head; I breathed deeply, trying to keep my muscles relaxed yet ready to explode into motion at the slightest impulse. I circled slowly around Salmelu with my sword held lightly in my hands, waiting, waiting, waiting. . .

  And then there was no time. As if a signal had been given, we suddenly sprang at each other in a flurry of flashing swords. Steel rang against steel, and then we locked for a moment pushing and straining with all our might against each other, trying to free our blades for a deadly cut. We grunted and gasped, and Salmelu's hot breath broke in quick bursts against my face. And then we leapt back from each other and whirled

  about before suddenly closing again. Steel met steel, once, twice, thrice, and than I aimed a blow downward that might have split him in two. But it missed, and his sword burned the air scarcely an inch above my head.

  And then I heard Salmelu cry out as if in pain; I cried out myself to feel a sudden sharp agony cut through my leg almost down to the bone

  'Look!' Lord Mestivan called out in his high, nervous voice. 'He's cut! Salmelu has been cut!'

  As Salmelu and I stood away from each other for a moment to look for another opening, I noticed a long, red gash splitting the blue silk of his trousers along his thigh. It seemed that my blow hadn't altogether missed him after all. The gash ran with fresh blood, but it didn't spurt, so most likely he wasn't fatally wounded, it was a miracle, I thought, that I had wounded him at all. Asaru had always said that I was very good with the sword if I didn't let myself become distracted, but I had never believed him.

  And clearly the Ishkans suffered from the same disbelief. Gasps of astonishment broke from knights and lords in the ring around me. I heard Lord Nadhru call out,

  'He's drawn first blood! The Elahad has!' Standing across the circle from him, Maram let out a sudden, bellowing cheer. He might have hoped that Salmelu and I would put away our swords then, but the duel wouldn't end until one of us yielded.

  Salmelu was determined that this would not be him. The steel I had put in his leg had sent a thrill of fear through him, and his whole body trembled with a panic to destroy me. I felt this dreadful emotion working at me like ice rubbed along my limbs, paralyzing my will to fight I remembered my vow never to kill again, and I felt the strength bleed away from me. And in my moment of hesitation, Salmelu struck He sprang off his good leg straight at me, whirling his sword at my head, all the while snarling and spitting out his malice like a cat Once again, his hate became my hate, and the madness of it was like a fire burning my eyes. As he cut at me, I barely managed to get my sword up to parry his. Again and again he swung his sword against mine, and the sound of steel against steel rang out into the hall like the beating of a blacksmith's hammer. Somehow I managed to lock swords with him to forestall this furious onslaught In breaking free, however, he lunged straight toward my heart. It was only by the miracle of my gift that I felt the point pushing through my breast - and then pulled frantically aside a moment before it actually did so. But the point took me in my side beneath my arm. His sword drove clean through the knotted muscle there and out my back. I cried out for all to hear as he wrenched his sword free; I jumped backwards and held my sword in my good hand as I waited for him to come for me again.

  'Second blood to lshka!' someone near me called out. ' The third blood will tell!'

  I stood gasping for breath as I watched Salmelu watching me. He took his time circling nearer to me; he moved as if in great pain, careful of his wounded leg. My left arm hung useless by my side; in my right hand, I gripped my long, heavy kalama, the bright blade that my father had given me. Experience should have told me that our respective wounds hampered each of us almost equally. But my fear told me something else. I was almost certain that Salmelu would soon find a way to cut through my feeble defenses. I felt myself almost ready to give up. But the combat, I reminded myself, wouldn't end until one of us yielded -yielded in death.

  Again, Salmelu came at me. His little jaw worked up and down as if he were already chewing open my entrails. He now seemed supremely confident of cutting me open there - or in some other vital place. He had the strength and quickness of wielding his sword with two practiced arms, while my best advantage was in being able to dance about and leap out of his way. But the circle was small, and it seemed inevitable that he would soon catch me up near the edge of it. If I tried to break free from the ring of honor, angry Ishkan hands would push me back, into his sword. If I stood my ground, sword against sword, he would surely kill me. The seeming certainty of my approaching death unnerved me. Despite the fury of the battle, I began sweating and shivering. So badly did my body tremble that I could hardly hold my sword.

  It was my gift, I believe, that saved me. It let me feel the intended devastation of his flashing sword and avoid it by a feather's edge, by a breath. And more, it opened me to much else. I sensed the deep calm of Master Juwain meditating at the edge of the circle, and my hate for Salmelu began dying away.I remembered my mother's love for me and her plea that I should someday return to Mesh; I remembered my father's last words to me: that I must always remember who I was. And who was I, really? I suddenly knew that I was not only Valashu Elahad who held a heavy sword in a tired hand, but the one who walked always beside me and would remain standing when I died: watching, waiting, whispering, shining. To this one who watched, the world and all things within it moved with an exquisite slowness: a scything sword no less than an Ishkan lord named Salmelu. I saw his kalama's steel flash at me then in a long, sweeping arc. There came an immense stillness and clarity. In that timeless moment, I leaned back to avoid the point, which ripped a ragged tear across my tunic. And then, quick as a lightning bolt, I slashed my sword in a counterstroke. As I had intended, it cut through the muscles of both of Saimelu's arms and across his chest. Blood leapt into the air, and his sword went flying out of his hands. It clanged against the floor even as Salmelu screamed out that I had killed him.

  But of course, I hadn't. The wound wasn't fatal, although it was terrible enough, and he would never hold a sword so easily again.

  'Damn you, Elahad!' he snarled at me. He gazed down in disbelief at his bloody sword and the gashes it had torn in the wood of the floor. And then he looked at me in hatred as he waited for me to take his life away.

  'Finish him!' King Had am commanded in a voice stricken with grief. 'What are you waiting for?'

  As the blood flowed in streams from Salmelu's useless arms, his hateful eyes drilled into me. 1 felt his malice eating at my eyes like red, twisting worms. I wanted nothing more than to kill him so that 1 could keep this dreadful thing from devouring me or anyone else.

  'Send him back to the stars!' Maram cried out.

  The Brotherhoods teach that death is but a door that opens upon another world. The Valari believe that it is only a short journey not to be feared. I knew differently. Death was the end of everything and the beginning of the great nothingness. It was the dying of the light and a terrible cold. I looked at Salmelu almost ready to collapse in terror into the pool of his own blood, and I was even more afraid to kill him than I was to be killed.

  'No,' I said to King Hadaru, 'I can't'

&nb
sp; 'All duels are to the death,' he reminded me. 'If you stay your sword, you do my son a grave dishonor and bring no honor to yourself.'

  I gripped my sword hard in my trembling hand. I watched as Salmelu's strength finally gave way and he collapsed to the floor. From the blood-soaked boards there, he stared up at me fearfully, all the while waiting, waiting, waiting ...

  'No, there will be no killing,' I finally said. 'No more killing-'

  I walked over to Maram, who handed me a cloth to dean the blood from my sword.

  Then, with a loud ringing sound, I slid it back into its sheath.

  'So be it,' King Hadaru said to me.

  At that moment the swords of Lord Issur and Lord Nadhru - and two dozen others -

  whipped out and pointed at me. By denying Salmelu his honorable death, I had shamed him even more seriously than he had me. And now his brother and friends meant to avenge my deadly insult

  'I challenge you !' Lord issur shouted at me.

  'I challenge you, too !' Lord Nadhru snarled out. 'If Lord Issur falls, then you will fight me!'

  And so it went, various knights and lords around the ring of honor calling out their challenges to me.

  'Hold!' King Hadaru commanded. He pointed his long finger at the blood still flowing from my side. 'Have you forgotten he's wounded?'

  Valari codes forbade the issue of challenges to wounded warriors. And so Lord Nadhru and the others very angrily put away their swords.

  'You have dishonored my house,' King Hadaru said, gazing at me. 'And so you are no longer welcome in it.'

  He turned to look at Lord Nadhru, Lord Issur and other knights, and finally at his gravely wounded son. Then, in a trembling voice, he said, 'Valashu Elahad, you are no longer welcome in my kingdom. No one is to give you fire, bread or salt. My son has promised you safe passage through Ishka, and that you shall have. No knight or warrior shall harm you or delay your journey. But what happens after you cross our borders to another land is only justice and your fate.'

  The sudden gleam in Lord Nadhru's eyes gave me to understand that he and his friends would pursue me into other kingdoms to exact vengeance - perhaps they would pursue me to the ends of the earth.

  'So be it,' I said to King Hadaru.

  Master Juwain stepped forward then and said, 'Your son is bleed-ing and should be tended immediately. I would like to offer my help and -'

  'Do you think we don't have healers here?' King Hadaru snapped at him. 'Go with Sar Valashu and tend his wound. Go now before I forget the law of our land and make a challenge of my own!'

  At this insult to his master, Maram shook his thick head like a bull. He cast a long look at Irisha standing across the circle from us. And then he called out, 'King Hadaru! Things shouldn't end this way! If I may speak, then I would hope to -'

  'No, you may not speak, Maram Marshayk,' the King rudely told him. 'Men who covet other men's wives are not welcome in Ishka, either. Go with your friends unless you'd like a taste of Ishkan steel.'

  Maram licked his lips as he looked at the kalama that King Hadaru wore. Then he turned to me and said, 'Come on, Val, we'd better go.'

  There was nothing else do to. When a king ordered you to leave his kingdom, it was foolish to remain and argue.

  And so I turned to lead the way back into the anteroom where I had left my armor.

  The Ishkan lords and ladies only reluctantly broke the ring of honor to allow me to pass from the circle. It was something of a miracle that no one drew his sword. But as we made our way through the long, cold Hall, I felt dozens of pairs of eyes stabbing into me like so many kalamas. The pain of it was almost worse than that of the wound Salmelu had opened in my side.

  Chapter 8

  The Ishkans let us alone while Master Juwain dressed my wound in that cold little room off the main hall. It was a strange coincidence, he remarked, that Salmelu had cut me so near the scratch that the arrow had made in my side. He told me that I was lucky that Salmelu's sword had cut the muscle lengthwise, along the grain. Such wounds usually healed of their own with no more treatment than being sown shut.

  That is, they healed if given the chance to heal, which I would not now have.

  It hurt as Master Juwain punctured my flesh with a sharp, little needle and piece of thread. Working on my armor and surcoat hurt even more. Master Juwain fashioned a sling for my dangling arm, and then it was time to go.

  We left King Hadaru's palace as we had entered it. Outside, at the bottom of the stairs beneath the front door, we found the grooms waiting for us with our horses.

  Lord Nadhru and Lord Issur - and an entire squadron of Ishkan knights mounted on their stamping horses - were waiting for us there, too.

  'Oh, my Lord!' Maram called out when he saw them. 'It seems we have an escort.'

  Master Juwain smiled grimly as he looked from the knights to me. Then he asked,

  'Can you ride?'

  'Yes,' I said. With a sharp gasp, I used my good arm to pull myself onto Altaru's back. The great beast's glossy coat was like black jade in the moonlight; he angrily shook his head at the Ishkan knights and to their horses. 'Let's go,' I said.

  We made our way slowly down the tree-lined road leading away from King Hadaru's palace. The sound of the horses' iron-shod hooves striking the paving stones seemed very loud against the stillness of the quiet grounds. It was now fall night and falling cold. In the sky there were many stars. They rained their silver light upon the tinkling fountains and the rows of flowers that perfumed the air. Even though I vowed not to do so, I turned in my saddle to see this bright starlight glinting off the points of the Ishkans' lances and armor. Like me, they wore steel mail and not their diamond battle armor. They followed us at a distance of perhaps a hundred yards; as we turned onto the road leading to the bridge that crossed the Tushur, I was afraid that they intended to follow us all the way to Anjo.

  'Shouldn't we return to Mesh?' Maram asked as rode his tired sorrel beside me. 'If we go on to Anjo, the Ishkans will kill us as soon as we cross the border.'

  'If we return to Mesh,' I told him, 'they'll likely attack us as soon as we enter the Telemesh Gate.'

  I went on to say that my death there, on Meshian soil at the hands of the Ishkans, would make war between our two kingdoms almost certain.

  'Perhaps you should return to Mesh,' I said to Maram. I looked at Master Juwain riding his sorrel to my right. 'And you, too, sir. It's not you that the Ishkans want.'

  'No, it is not,' Master Juwain agreed. 'But if you journey without us, who will tend you if you fall to fever? And we can't just leave you alone to the Ishkans' lances, can we, Brother Maram?'

  Maram, casting a glance back at Lord Nadhru and the other knights, let out a little moan of distress and said, 'Ah, no, I suppose we can't. But if we can't go back to Mesh, what are we to do?'

  That, it seemed, was the question of the moment. Four points there are to the world, and one of these we could not follow. And as for the other three, each had its perils.

  To the west rose a wall of almost impassable mountains; beyond it were the warriors of the fierce Adirii tribe of the Sarni who patrolled the vast gray plains of the Wendrush. To the east, just beyond theTushur, we would meet the King's Road which might take us into the kingdom of Taron. We could follow this road to Nar, where we would intersect the ancient Nar Road leading all the way to Tria. But the Taroners, while no friends of Ishka, were neither friendly with Mesh. In our war with Waas, Taron had sent knights to aid their ancient ally, and many of these my brothers had killed. Then too, the road to Nar led east, while if we were to make our quest we must eventually turn around and journey northwest toward Tria.

  'It's only sixty miles to Anjo,' I said, looking across the dark landscape toward the bright north star. 'In that direction lies our best hope.'

  'How so?' Master Juwain asked me. 'Brother Mdaram is right. With the Duke of Adar under King Hadaru's fist the Ishkans will feel free to attack us as soon as we cross the Aru-Adar Bridge.'

  '
That's true,' I said. 'But there are other dukedoms in Anjo where the Ishkans might fear to ride. And other ways to cross into them. '

  Without explaining too much, I told them that it was my intention to cross the border into Anjo much to the west of the bridge where the waters of the Aru River did not flow so fiercely. Under the cover of night we would simply ride into the mountains and lose the Ishkans somewhere in the thick, sloping forests.

  'And that is your plan?' Maram said to me.

  'Can you think of a better one?'

  Maram waved his hand toward the lights of Loviisa glowing at the foot of the hill beneath us. 'King Hadaru's knights won't touch us so long as we remain in Ishka.

  Why not find an inn for the night and hope that morning will find his heart has softened?'

  'His heart won't soften that soon,' I said. 'And besides, have you forgotten that he's denied us fire, bread and salt? So long as we remain in Ishka, we'll have only our supplies to eat, and after they're gone, we'll starve.'

  Since Maram liked little in the world more than his evening meal, he rubbed his empty belly and agreed that we should leave Ishka as soon as possible. Neither he nor Master Juwain could think of a better course than the one I had suggested. And so we rode on into the night.

  Loviisa, although not a large city, was spread out on both sides of the Tushur. We quickly found our way through its streets back to the North Road and the bridge that spanned the river. This great archway, with its stone pylons sunk down into the river's gurgling, black waters, was lit by torches along its rails. Lord Issur and his knights followed us across it. They kept a good hundred yards to our rear, not so close that they would have to suffer our presence, but not so far that we might lose them in the maze of streets winding through the northern half of the city.

  Soon the buildings thinned out and gave way to the rolling farmland surrounding Loviisa. The moon shone upon fields of barley and wheat whose new leaves glistened in the soft light. More than once, Maram cast a longing glance toward one of the little houses in the fields off the side of the road. We all listened to the lowing of cows and smelled the maddening aroma of roasting meat that wafted on the wind.