Read The Phoenix Guards Online
Authors: Steven Brust
The Phoenix Guards (35 page)
“But, the matter of the paint-brushes—”
”Paint-brushes?”
“In his eyes.”
“Bah. That never happened.”
“What, are you certain?”
“My dear Uttrik, I think I would know if I had stuck paint-brushes into someone’s eyes. Besides, I was presenting the painting, I had no paint-brushes with me.”
“But the story—”
“You know how stories grow with everyone who repeats it.”
“Well, that is true.”
“I am pleased you understand.”
“I understand entirely. And, should I kill you to-morrow, I assure you I will hold no more animosity toward you.”
“And if I kill you, the same.”
“Your hand?”
“Here it is.”
“Well, until to-morrow, then.”
“Until to-morrow.”
With this resolve, they closed their eyes and, one after the other, drifted off to sleep.
In Which Our Friends Realize
with Great Pleasure That the Situation
has Become Hopeless
with Great Pleasure That the Situation
has Become Hopeless
T
HE DOMAIN OF PEPPERFIELD, A large, fertile plateau nestled between Mount Kieron and the Ironwall, was named for scores of varieties of natural peppers which grow there unattended, and for the dozens more, which, owing to the suitability of the land, due to soil and climate, are so readily cultivated. On the northern side there is a sheer wall some five hundred feet high, upon which is built the Looming Fortress, where the Marquis of Pepperfield dwelt, and behind it the North Pinewood Hold which had, until recently, been Uttrik’s home. There is a steep, winding path from the Fortress down to the plateau, which is one of the four ways of reaching Pepperfield from the outside world; that is, if one is able to reach the Looming Fortress, which is unlikely, as it is inaccessible except through the Pepperfields themselves.
HE DOMAIN OF PEPPERFIELD, A large, fertile plateau nestled between Mount Kieron and the Ironwall, was named for scores of varieties of natural peppers which grow there unattended, and for the dozens more, which, owing to the suitability of the land, due to soil and climate, are so readily cultivated. On the northern side there is a sheer wall some five hundred feet high, upon which is built the Looming Fortress, where the Marquis of Pepperfield dwelt, and behind it the North Pinewood Hold which had, until recently, been Uttrik’s home. There is a steep, winding path from the Fortress down to the plateau, which is one of the four ways of reaching Pepperfield from the outside world; that is, if one is able to reach the Looming Fortress, which is unlikely, as it is inaccessible except through the Pepperfields themselves.
Another entrance is from the east, where a long, gentle slope rises from a gap in the Ironwall some four leagues to the north. Still another approach is from the south-east, a steep climb, and one unsuitable for horses, yet only a bow-shot away, as it were, from Redface. The final approach, that of the south-west, is the one our friends took, which was to follow a narrow but well-trodden path up from the valley of the Eastern River, only a few leagues below its source at the Thundering Falls in the Ironwall.
This last approach more closely resembles a road than the others, in that there are high stone ridges on either side, which end abruptly in a small grove of trees, after which one is standing on the seemingly endless plain upon which so much blood, human and Eastern, has been spilled since its discovery by the Dzurlord Brionn, who named the mountain after her hero, Kieron the Conqueror.
Early in the morning, then, the companions found themselves looking out at these gentle fields. Uttrik said, “My friends, we are now in the domain of Pepperfield; that is, we have left the holdings of Lord Adron.”
“Well,” said Kathana laconically.
Uttrik now took the lead, bringing them through the place where a few poplars had sprung up as if to celebrate the few score of years that had passed since the Easterners had been there—for it has always been the Easterners
who cultivated those fields, humans being content with those peppers nature chose to provide on her own.
who cultivated those fields, humans being content with those peppers nature chose to provide on her own.
“Here,” said Uttrik, “in this small depression, is where my ancestor, Ziver the Tall, made his last stand in the Tsalmoth reign in the eleventh Cycle. Over that hill we observe on our right is where Cli’dha’s cavalry lay concealed, their horses made to lie upon the ground, before the charge of the Sundered Trees, that won the Pepperfields back in the Dzur reign in the sixteenth Cycle.
“To the left, up ahead, upon that small hill,” Uttrik continued, “is where the Defense of the Running Circle was first developed, which came about accidentally in the fourteenth Issola reign as a desperate measure to save Taalini the Three-Fisted, who had been wounded up ahead there, behind the rock shaped like a mushroom, and was pulled back to the hilllock by his esquire, whose name escapes me just at the moment. And here,” he added, stopping his horse by the least movement of his knees, “is where my father made me swear the Oath of Protection, and, moreover, where he first belted my sword upon me. You perceive,” he added, “that the ground is flat and smooth, with only a few pepper plants just beginning to emerge to greet the summer, bearing only the potentialities of their fruit, which I believe to be of the curving white variety, pungent, sweet, with few seeds and an agreeable tang upon the tongue.”
He dismounted and gave his horse to the care of Mica, indicating a lone cherry tree some eighty meters distant where the horses might be tied. He said, “Tazendra, will you stand for me?”
“I will,” said Tazendra, “though I must add that this means I hold no animosity toward Kathana, which I beg she will do me the honor to believe.”
“I understand,” said Kathana, whose throat seemed to have become dry during Uttrik’s recital. She then dismounted, handed her horse in turn to Mica, and, turning to Pel, said, “Will you stand for me?”
“I should be honored,” said the cavalier, “with the same understanding with respect to Uttrik.”
“Well, I agree,” said Uttrik.
“And the judge?” said Tazendra.
“Aerich, of course,” said Pel.
The Lyorn bowed over his horse’s neck, and he, too, dismounted. “For the witness,” said Tazendra, “we have Khaavren.”
“I will do it,” said Khaavren, who felt himself nearly choking with emotion. “I will witness the more willingly because I have no preference for a victor, but the less willingly because I would see neither of you die. The gods know that I love you both.”
Uttrik and Kathana hung their heads at this speech, so frank and full of such heartfelt tenderness. Tazendra, Pel, Aerich, and Khaavren then dismounted and gave their horses into the care of Mica, who brought them to the cherry tree and tethered them there. Khaavren murmured, “It is likely
that we will need one fewer on the return; my only prayer is that our requirements are not diminished by two.”
that we will need one fewer on the return; my only prayer is that our requirements are not diminished by two.”
“Draw the circle, Khaavren,” said Aerich.
Khaavren, with a look at the Lyorn that is impossible to describe, drew his poniard, and, his heart nearly breaking, bent over and walked the rectangle, his knife inscribing it with cut grasses, making a circle which was, if difficult to see, at least sufficient for a duel in which it was unlikely either combatant would retreat very often or very far.
Aerich said softly, “The terms?”
Tazendra looked at Uttrik, who returned her a brief nod, as if to say, “You know very well what the terms must be.” Tazendra bowed to Pel and said, “Plain steel only, to the death.”
Pel looked at Kathana who nodded to him as if to say, “It must be so.” He then returned Tazendra’s bow and said, “We accept these terms.”
“Then,” said Aerich, “let us be about it.”
Khaavren came to stand near to the Lyorn, his head hanging down. Mica, in his turn, standing next to Khaavren, shook his head sadly and murmured, “If this is what it means to be a gentleman, well, I’m glad that I, at least, am fortunate enough not to be one.”
The combatants took their positions, and Aerich said, “Will you not be reconciled?”
Uttrik, looking at the ground, signed that he would not. Kathana shrugged.
“I ask again,” said Aerich, his voice trembling with emotion. “Will you not be reconciled?”
The assembled party looked at him in amazement; such a breach of propriety being ten times as amazing, coming as it did from the Lyorn. Once again, they each signed that the duel was necessary.
Aerich sighed audibly. “Inspect the weapons,” he said in a voice so low it could only be heard because of the awful stillness of the fields, where even the wind seemed to have stopped out of respect for the tragedy that was brewing on its lap.
Tazendra gave a cursory glance at Uttrik’s longswords, while Pel made a brief examination of Kathana’s longsword and poniard. They returned the weapons and signed to Aerich that all was in order.
“Take your weapons,” said Aerich.
Tazendra gave Kathana her steel, while Uttrik took his from Pel.
“Place yourselves within the circle,” said Aerich, whose voice was now barely above a whisper. The combatants did so, the Lyorn taking his place between them. He indicated by signs, apparently unable to speak, where each should stand. Then, with an effort, he said, “Have either of you anything to say before we commence?”
“For my part,” said Uttrik, “I declare to you that it is only duty which forces me to attempt to take your life, and, at this moment, I say if you kill me, you will be rendering me the greatest service.”
“And I say,” said Kathana, “that you are one of the finest gentleman I have ever met, and I now so bitterly regret killing your father, which was a low act and one unworthy of a Dragon, that I say that if I am so unfortunate as to kill you, I will place myself at once in the hands of the Empire.”
Khaavren, who was shaking with emotion, said, “You may do so if you wish, but it will not be me who brings you to the Issola Wing, and for my part, you will be free if you win, and mourned if you die. And you, Uttrik, I say again that I love you like a brother, and I hope you bear me no malice if I say I will betray my oath to my Captain and to the Emperor if it should happen that it is Kathana who walks away from this hated combat.”
“I bear you no malice for that,” said Uttrik. “In fact, I assure you that I will die happier, if I should die, in thinking that Kathana, whom I esteem as a sister, will, hereafter, be free from all effects of her actions, even remorse.”
“The only way I should be free of remorse,” said Kathana, “is if you will do me the honor to take my life.”
“Well,” said Uttrik, “I will try to do so, but, I beg you to believe, not happily.”
“Then,” said Kathana, “let us begin.”
“I am ready,” said Uttrik.
“Be on your guards,” whispered Aerich.
Kathana stood with her sword-arm, that is, her right, to the front, but her right leg behind. The point of her sword was directed at Uttrik’s eye, while her poniard was placed to strike at his midsection. Uttrik, meanwhile, had positioned himself with his left leg forward, one longsword held back and over his head, in order to strike down and across at the first opportunity presented, the other pointing at Kathana’s eye.
Khaavren, though the Imperial Witness, could not, at first, watch the dreadful scene, and, telling himself that he would look again at the first sound of steel, cast his eyes eastward over the fecundity of the Pepperfields, where one more death, insignificant compared to the thousands that had preceded it in this place, would soon be added to the tally of that beautiful, horrible, fate-filled plateau.
“Hullo,” said Khaavren, suddenly.
Aerich, who had gone so far as to take in the very breath which would have exhaled the word, “Begin,” stopped, and looked at Khaavren, whose eyes were now fixed upon some point out in the distance. He, Aerich, very slowly let his breath out and followed the imaginary line penciled by the intensity of Khaavren’s gaze.
Seeing this, Pel, Tazendra and Mica looked, then Uttrik, who stood facing the east, and, last of all, Kathana turned around and stared herself.
After a few moments, Pel murmured, “Easterners, if I am not mistaken. See how they sit bent over their horses?”
“Thousands of them,” said Khaavren.
“The invasion has begun,” said Uttrik, as if he could not believe it himself.
“Then,” said Tazendra, “instead of having to watch one of our friends die, we shall all die together. How splendid!”
“Splendid, mistress?” said Mica, amazed that she should be positively glowing with pleasure at the thought of her imminent demise.
“Compared to the alternative,” said Khaavren, drawing his sword, “a pleasure indeed.”
Pel said, “I admit that it pleases me also.”
“It is just the sort of thing I had been hoping for,” said Aerich.
“For my part,” said Kathana, “I quite agree.”
“As do I,” said Uttrik.
Mica looked at the lot of them and shook his head, then looking back at the growing line of Easterners, he said, “There is time to reach the horses and escape, if we hurry.”
The others stared at him. “How,” said Tazendra. “And miss a battle of six against thousands? When will such a chance come again?”
“Not to mention,” said Uttrik, “that, if we escape, Kathana and I will simply have to fight, and I assure you that I haven’t the heart to experience once more what I felt just now as I prepared to try my best to slay her.”
“Far better to die in battle with honest foes,” said Kathana, “than to be forced to kill a friend. Ah! It is not Easterners out there, it is expiation!”
“Well,” said Uttrik. “Let us spread out in a good line, and see what they can do.”
Mica, trembling, took into his hand the poniard Tazendra had given him, but kept his trusty bar-stool in the other. Aerich looked at him and said, “Tazendra, I fully share your desire to fight this battle, but, is it not true that we must give some thought to warning Lord Adron?”
“Ah,” said Tazendra, “I had not thought of that. You are right. What must we do?”
“Why,” said Uttrik, “we shall order Mica back to Castle Redface, by the fastest route, which, if I am not mistaken, is the footpath that begins between a pair of watch-stations which are called Nilk’arf’s Tower and which are built upon a tall pair of rocks. To reach it, you must only follow this brook, which is called the Slipknot, and which flows over the ridge very near to the towers.”
“Well, Mica?” said Tazendra.
Mica drew himself up and shook his head. “Oh, mistress, leave your side, now, in such a circumstance? I cannot.”
“Your courage does you honor,” said Tazendra, “but you must, for there is no one else.”
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