The Saint of Swords and the Knight-Commander of Aramor stared at each other across a patch of muddy grass. They were no further apart than if they had been standing at opposite ends of a Lord’s bathtub. If one man were to draw his sword and attack and the other hesitated for the blink of an eye, a head would fall to the ground.
“I seem to recall,” Shuran said casually, “that when we first met you numbered the moves it would require to defeat me.”
“Ten,” Kest said.
“And do you stand by that assessment?”
Neither man moved an inch, but Kest’s gaze slid briefly over Shuran’s shoulder to the path in the dirt he had made when he approached. “Your footsteps are even now. You walked more heavily on your left before. You were favoring your right side when we first met. Was that from a wound, or were you pretending?”
Shuran smiled. “If I told you it was from a wound I sustained when my horse was shot with an arrow, how would you judge our fight now?”
“Seventeen moves,” Kest said without hesitation.
“Really? So I’ve gained seven more strikes in which to savor life. And how many if I were to tell you that even then I was pretending, so as to hide my abilities?”
Nothing about Kest moved and yet I could tell his mind was working. “Twenty-two,” he said finally.
“Prodigious,” Shuran said. “Now since you’ve been so kind in indulging me thus far, let me press further upon your patience.”
Shuran began moving his left hand lightly, smoothly, in the air, making no effort to threaten or surprise. He looked like a man listening to beautiful music, the motion of his hand matching the rhythm of the instruments as his fingers pretended to play the melody. For an instant I thought it might be some trick or spell, but then I saw Kest’s eyes as he followed the movements and only then did I glean that Shuran was revealing himself.
“Thirty-one,” Kest said. “No. Thirty-nine.”
Shuran kept moving his hand gently in the air, changing direction and tempo. It looked like empty posturing—except that I knew I could never move so smoothly, so accurately, with such perfect control.
“Fifty-four,” Kest said.
“Really? Is that all?” Shuran asked.
Kest stared at Shuran’s smile, which hadn’t affected the perfection of his movements in the slightest.
“Seventy,” Kest said.
Shuran laughed. It was a surprisingly beautiful sound, and perfectly controlled. His laughter did not affect any other part of his body.
“Ninety-four,” Kest said.
“Careful now,” Shuran said. “If we keep this up you’ll soon tell me you can’t defeat me at all.”
“Ninety-four,” Kest repeated.
“Who taught you the sword?” Shuran asked.
“My father. My friends. My enemies,” Kest replied.
“Elegantly put,” Shuran said. “I think it’s important to learn from the best, don’t you?”
Something in the small twist of Shuran’s smile bothered me: it wasn’t that it was crazed or even menacing, but it was familiar—not in the way that made me think I’d seen it before; rather, that I felt as if I’d seen its mate somewhere. It was like seeing a beautiful woman and being absolutely sure you’d met her before, only to learn that you hadn’t, but you once met a man who’d described the love of his life while spinning a wild tale in a tavern over drinks and now you realize you’ve found her.
“Kest, something’s wrong,” I said.
“Come now,” Shuran said, “are we still stuck on ninety-four? Can I do no better than that?”
“Who taught you?” Kest asked.
“Hmm?”
“You asked who my teachers were. Who were yours?”
“Ah, well, I really had only one of note. My father—he was quite good, though, or so I’m told. Frankly, I’m surprised he agreed to teach me at all, as he had little use for children. I was something of an embarrassment to him, at least from his point of view. He beat me with the flat of his sword, quite badly, the first seven times I begged him to teach me.”
“I take it he eventually took pity on you?” Kest asked.
“Pity? I suppose. I think he found it entertaining at first. He was a cold man, really. He liked to watch me bleed. It upset my mother no end.”
The motion of Shuran’s hand, the tone of his voice, his smile . . .
The pieces fell together. “Gods, Kest! I know who taught him—I know who his father was—”
“Saints,” Shuran said as his smile broadened and his hand finally came to rest. “The correct oath in this instance is ‘Saints’.”
It had never occurred to me, the one time I’d met the man who must have been Shuran’s father, that he might have a family. I had been so sure that our lives were about to end that all that had mattered to me was that my best friend in the entire world was about to throw away his life to give Aline, Valiana, Brasti, and me a head start—just a few minutes—so we could try to escape. Who would have thought that such a creature as that, so focused on the singular enterprise of perfecting the art of the sword, would ever bother with such a mundane thing as making love to a woman—or having a son?
“Caveil,” I said out loud. I felt as if I had to say the name to prove it didn’t fill me with fear. “Your father was Caveil-whose-sword-cuts-water.”
Shuran’s eyes drifted to mine. “I always prefer to think of him as my teacher. He was never very good at being my father.”
“But how . . . ?” My voice sounded weak and strained to my ears.
“Even a Saint as—well, shall we say limited in his interests? Even one such as Caveil beds a woman once in a while.”
“But I thought the Saints could produce no offspring—”
Shuran laughed. “Really? Falcio, you must learn to be more discriminating in which old stories you choose to believe. Although I suppose that might be true if they’re bedding normal people. Fortunately for me, the issue was moot: apparently two Saints can do just fine together where producing children is concerned.”
Birgid: his mother was Saint Birgid-who-weeps-rivers. The union of mercy and violence is only more violence. She’d tried to temper Caveil’s violence with her own mercy and instead their offspring was Shuran, a man of pure violence. His whole life he’d trained to become the Saint of Swords, and he would have been, except that Kest, against all probability, had managed to defeat Caveil to save our lives.
But Shuran had been born for this.
“So,” Shuran said, turning his gaze back to Kest, “how many moves do you think it will take to defeat me now?”
I’ve been a swordsman since I was a child. I’ve practiced nearly every day since I first picked up a rapier. I’ve read every book on fencing, no matter how old or obscure or esoteric, ever written. I’ve fought with swords, been bruised by swords, cut by swords, and on many occasions, nearly died by the sword. When you spend your life in this manner, you become accustomed to the fact that you can’t hope to see an experienced opponent’s blade move; it’s simply too fast for the eye to catch. So you watch other things: the bend in their elbows, the stance of their feet, the tension in their shoulders. It’s these things that tell you where they’ll move next. And if you’re a real expert you can simply watch your opponent’s eyes. That’s what Kest and Shuran were doing.
Their swords flashed briefly in the air, only to return to a guard position before my ears had even heard the tink of the blades in contact. When they attacked it was like a mockingbird swooping in for a red berry; not much, just a tiny cut here, a few drops of blood shed there: enough to slow the other down, if only by a fraction of a second.
“Do you find it makes you faster?” Shuran asked as their blades settled after what I’d counted to be five exchanges but might as easily have been fifty.
“Does what make me faster?” Kest asked.
“Your Sainthood: you’ve started to glow red. Does it give you greater speed?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Shuran tilted his head—a natural act, but not a wise one, for Kest’s blade spun in and the tip reached for the big Knight-Commander’s throat. Shuran whirled his blade to knock Kest’s away, but by then it was no longer there.
“Does it make you stronger?” Shuran asked, as if nothing had happened.
“I haven’t noticed any increase in the strength of my sword arm.”
“Well then—?”
“To be honest with you, I haven’t noticed that Sainthood makes much difference one way or another. Perhaps it’s because I’m still new to it . . . but I didn’t get the impression it did all that much good for Caveil either.”
A flicker of anger crossed Shuran’s face, and he launched his attack, delivering a flurry of blows that, despite the force behind them, were surprisingly graceful. He shifted effortlessly—or at least that’s how it looked—between a diagonal slash that would have severed Kest’s jaw from his head to a powerful thrust to his kneecap. His blade swept high, then low, at one moment flicking for a small cut and at the next coming down from on high with enough force to cut his opponent’s body in half. Kest evaded each blow, sometimes parrying, sometimes neatly sidestepping the strike, letting the blade pass a hair’s-breadth from his face.
“That won’t work, you know,” Kest said.
“What’s that?” Shuran’s reply didn’t betray even the slightest bit of strain, let alone the exhaustion most men would feel after so much effort.
“You won’t trick me into giving you the extra two inches of ground you want.”
Though both men were fighting with broadswords, Shuran’s was the longer, by three inches. If he could widen the distance between them, just slightly, he would have the advantage.
Shuran smiled. “Well then, we’ll just have to try something else, won’t we?” He feinted toward Kest’s exposed left side and I knew it was a feint because it was far too obvious a move. Kest parried the attack anyway, because an expert swordsman can turn a feint into a genuine attack if he senses at the last instant that his opponent isn’t going to block the strike. In this instance Kest thrust his blade toward Shuran’s right hip, forcing him to step back, then Shuran brought his sword back into guard just a little too stiffly; tightening his grip he exposed his own left side, just a fraction—all Kest needed to do was advance half a step and strike him down—
“That won’t work either,” Kest said, remaining exactly where he was.
“What was I doing now?” Shuran asked innocently.
“The pebble on the ground, balanced on top of that stone? You think by pushing to get me to step there, I will lose my balance.”
“I am just full of devious ploys today, apparently.”
Now Kest began his own attacks, each one varying not only in target and tempo but in style as well, and he slid seamlessly from classical fencing styles to the harsher forms used by warriors on the battlefield. Sometimes he even threw in one of those back-alley brawler moves that works not because of its efficiency but because of its sudden and unexpected ferocity—but Shuran evaded and parried and anticipated and counterattacked, and all in all, the exchange lasted barely twenty seconds and at the end of it they had moved less than two feet in the dirt.
When they both returned to guard positions there was a tiny bead of blood, just above Shuran’s brow. “Bravo,” he said.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the drop of blood enlarged and began to move down Shuran’s forehead. In a matter of moments it would drip into his right eye, and he would be forced to blink. In that instant he would die.
“I was close that time,” Shuran said conversationally. “In the fourth movement? I nearly had you. Just for a second your weight shifted.”
“There was a patch of loose dirt. I expect you knew that.”
“And yet you noted it and adjusted for it,” Shuran said. “You’re remarkable.”
“You’re good yourself,” Kest acknowledged. “But you’re no Saint.”
The Knight-Commander smiled. “That’s for certain. I could never beat you fairly. I know that now.”
The word fairly set me off. I looked around to see if this was some trap—if one of Shuran’s men might be hiding out of sight, readying a crossbow, but I could see nothing. Perhaps this was simply the final, magnanimous admission of a man who has truly met his better.
A drop of blood was resting on Shuran’s eyebrow. In a second it would be over.
The talk of pebbles and loose dirt made my gaze drift down to the ground, just to see if there might be anything else that might impede Kest finishing Shuran, but I saw nothing. Despite Shuran’s manipulations, Kest had always moved carefully, ensuring he stayed on solid ground—every time he had tried to lead Kest onto poor footing, Kest had worked around the hazard. My brain started itching. Why then had Shuran kept following a failed strategy? And for that matter, how had he known so well where every single rock and pebble was sitting? It was as if—
Of course he’d placed them all there himself, I realized. The sneaky bastard had studied every miniscule pebble, every mote of dust on the ground before the duel so he’d know exactly where to move. But Kest was too smart—and too observant—for Shuran; he’d moved between and over everything the Knight-Commander had set in his path, and now he stood on . . .
Oh, Hells . . .
“Kest,” I said, “move back—”
“Too late,” Shuran said. He shook his head, just slightly, and beads of blood sprayed from his forehead. Kest brought up his sword to strike Shuran’s head free from his neck. Blood droplets hit the ground—and Kest’s blade stopped where it was.
Kest tried to move but couldn’t. His legs were shaking as if a giant hand were trying to push him down to the ground.
“I had a cleric consecrate the ground.” The Knight-Commander scuffed away the dirt in front of him to reveal a carefully drawn circle. Kest was standing in the middle of it. “It needed only a drop of blood to complete the magic. I would have preferred for it to have been yours, of course, but mine will work just as well. You should probably bow down: that’s what the Gods expect from a Saint standing on consecrated earth.”
I raced toward them, intent on knocking Kest out of the circle, but Shuran’s sword was up and out. I only just managed to stop myself from impaling myself on the sharp end.
“I think not,” Shuran said, his attention still focused on Kest. “If it makes you feel better, I can’t kill you while you’re in the consecrated circle, Kest.” He took an idle swing at Kest’s head and his blade bounced back as if it had hit a stone wall. “All this religion is so bothersome, don’t you think?”
Kest fell to his knees, his head involuntarily bowed. “You couldn’t beat me before, Shuran. Whatever you do now, I’ll kill you when this is done. You will never be the Saint of Swords.”
“Of course I will.” Shuran flicked his sword toward me and I lurched back, but not quite far enough: I felt a slight sting on my cheek and when I pressed my hand to it, my fingers came back with a trace of blood.
With great difficulty, Kest managed to turn his head toward me and I saw the fear and concern in his eyes.
“You’re so controlled, Kest,” Shuran said. “You’re so very logical. You think everything through, every move. I don’t think anyone can beat you when your mind’s on the game.” At last he turned his gaze to me. “That’s why I’m going to kill your friend Falcio here, right in front of you, and quite horribly.”
“If you really wanted to shock Kest then you probably should have tried this plan before the Dashini tortured me for nine days,” I said.
Shuran ignored me. People were doing that a lot lately. “And after I’m done with him I’ll have my men go and retrieve the others. I’ll kill Valiana first. I think she’s a lovely girl, so that will be a great pity. I’m not sure how much you care about Dariana—if at all; she doesn’t appear to be all that likable, does she?—but whatever your opinion of her, I’m going to do the same to her.”
He stepped forward and looked down the line of his blade, which was still aimed at me. “Then I’m going to bring little Aline over here and Trin and I are going to—Well, to be honest, she’s only a young girl and I would really rather not have to do such things, but needs must.”
“You would commit such acts of useless cruelty,” Kest said, struggling against the unseen weight holding him down, “and yet none of this will make you a Saint.”
Shuran smiled. “And that’s where you’re wrong, because after destroying your friends and letting Trin desecrate innocent little Aline right in front of you I’m going to get my cleric to deconsecrate the circle. And do you know what’s going to happen then, Kest? You’re going to come at me with black rage in your heart. You’re not used to fighting with anger, are you? So that’s how I’m going to beat you; that’s how I’m going to kill you—that’s how I’m going to become the Saint of Swords.”