Knights of the Rose

Chapter 3

Pirvan and Haimya were close together under their blankets, and considering getting closer, when the shout of alarm roused the whole camp.

Pirvan’s rising lacked the dignity appropriate to a Knight of the Sword. He lurched rather than leapt upright, then caught a foot in the blankets and nearly sprawled on his face. He saved himself from a fall by clutching the tent pole, which promptly tore out of the ground, bringing the tent down atop both of them.

Haimya did not, on the whole, help matters by starting to giggle. She controlled herself before the giggles became open laughter, however.

Given that Pirvan had not yet removed his loincloth, he dressed and armed himself in the open. Haimya, being even less clad, remained under the tent as she passed garments and weapons out to him. Soon, she emerged in trousers and tunic, a shield slung across her back and sword and dagger in her belt.

Neither wasted time with footgear, but made their way swiftly toward the animals. They were not swift enough to reach the scene ahead of most of the rest of the camp, including Grimsoar One-Eye, who was holding Serafina in an embrace at once fierce and tender. It was as if he feared to have her snatched away the moment he loosened his grip, but also that her bones were of spun glass, easily crushed.

Tarothin held a lantern over his head, so that all its magical light was cast downward. He looked worse than could be explained by his suddenly being routed from bed.

In the center of the circle of light stood a young man, hardly more than a youth, wearing the loincloth and tattoos of a desert warrior. He was dusty, bruised, and grazed as if he had been climbing cliffs, or perhaps falling down them. A long sheathed dagger lay on the gravel at his feet.

He was not bound, but he was easily within Darin’s reach, which meant his chances of escape were hardly better than those of a prisoner locked in a cell.

Pirvan now looked at the people standing on the edge of the circle, and noted that Serafina was in much the same condition as the-visitor. Grimsoar’s face was twisted into a mask of fury that the knight had seldom seen in his old comrade.

“Torches,” Pirvan said.

Grimsoar glared. “And light up the camp for this little slug’s friends to come and rescue him?”

Haimya replied before Pirvan could recover from his surprise at Grimsoar’s defiance. “That was an order, not a suggestion, my friend. Now, may I see to Serafina’s hurts? At times like this a woman’s presence may do more-”

The desert warrior spat on the gravel and several hands slapped the hilts of weapons. “I did her no dishonor,” he said, in a voice that held as much menace as Grimsoar’s face. “It was a fair fight. Do not insult me by saying otherwise!” He spoke in the common tongue that had spread from Istar over the last few centuries, although with a strong accent in which Pirvan detecteed a trace of elven speech.

“You are our prisoner, and we can say what we-” Grimsoar began.

“Torches,” Pirvan repeated. “Also, silence. Sir Darin, kindly sit on the next person who speaks without permission.”

Darin was not quite as large as the minotaur who had raised him, but the late Waydol had been large even for that well-grown breed. At a mere six and a half feet, Darin was still capable of subduing anyone in the camp without using a weapon or working up a sweat.

Two guards ran up, having obeyed Pirvan’s first call for torches. Each had a bundle of them under one arm. A few moments of handing around torches and work with flint and steel, and a flickering yellow glow illuminated the scene.

Tarothin set down the magic lantern and looked ready to collapse on top of it. Serafina drew herself free of Grimsoar’s arms and went over to the Red Robe.

“Husband, let us help Tarothin to his tent. If he then finds that I need healing, I will not refuse it. But he must save his strength.”

Tarothin started to protest, but the other two each took one arm and pulled him to his feet; Grimsoar indeed nearly lifted the wizard free of the ground. They vanished toward the tents. Pirvan wondered if Serafina would wait until Tarothin was asleep before she wielded her tongue against her husband. This would not be their first quarrel arising from Grimsoar’s being overprotective.

His old friend had left it a bit late in life, Pirvan knew, to learn about women who insist on standing on their own feet-and kicking the shins of any man who disputes their right.

Pirvan turned to Hawkbrother. “Now, we have sworn honorable treatment-one knight’s oath binds all in a company-”

“Then you are Knights of Solamnia.”

“Knights of the Sword, both of us,” Pirvan said. “But hear me out before you speak again. You came among us like a thief or a cutthroat, and I wager that you had designs on our mounts.”

“Yes, but only to learn what business you had in the desert. And to remind you that this is the land of the Free Riders.”

“We need no such reminders, and we do need all our animals,” Pirvan said. “Therefore, we cannot simply let you run free. Neither, however, do we see any purpose in keeping you captive. No purpose, and indeed much danger. I would make a further wager, that you have comrades within bow shot, enough to give us a good fight if you seem to need rescuing.”

Hawkbrother merely nodded.

“Good. I propose a bout of honor, me against you. It will be here and now, by torchlight, until one of us cries ‘Hold!’ If you win-”

“Pirvan!” Haimya and Darin exclaimed together. It was a moment before the older knight realized that Darin had for the first time addressed him simply by his name.

“Excuse me,” Pirvan said. “I was not finished. Oath and Measure allow you to dispute me only when I am.”

Strictly speaking. Oath and Measure bound only Darin. Haimya was bound merely by twenty years’ love, which seldom kept her from speaking her mind.

This time, Pirvan was fortunate. Both allowed him to explain the terms of the fight.

“If you win, you go free with anything you have learned of us, as well as a message to your father. We may even add a horse, to assure your honor among your comrades.

“If I win, you remain with us, as an honored guest. You will have healing, food, drink, and shelter. I ask only that you lead us to your father, and persuade him to speak freely with us.

“You seek knowledge of those who march south to collect taxes in Silvanesti. So do we. When we have proved one to the other that we are honorable warriors, then perhaps we may quest for this knowledge together.”

Hawkbrother frowned. This gave Darin an opportunity.

“Is it not my place to fight Hawkbrother, Sir Pirvan?” he said. He was formal again, in both his manner of address and his tone of voice. “I was the first to swear honorable treatment for him. I was also the first to lay hands upon him.”

“In truth, Serafina, wife of the one-eyed man, was the first,” Hawkbrother said. “But I will fight her only if she wishes it.”

Pirvan smiled, not only at Hawkbrother’s courtesy but at Darin’s, in not mentioning Pirvan’s age. Had Pirvan wed young, he might have had a son Darin’s age.

“That is a separate matter,” Pirvan said. “I will claim the right of this bout, Darin, because it will be fairer to Hawkbrother. You are twice his size and doubtless nearly his equal in prowess with any weapon or even bare hands.

“If I fight him, it will be a man past his full strength fighting a man not yet come to his. My experience will be matched against his swiftness. All who watch will see something to remember all their days.”

Haimya’s look spoke eloquently of how entertaining she found the prospect of her husband’s risking and perhaps losing his life before her eyes. She seemed ready to hold her tongue, however-and holding honor as dear as any knight, would also stand with steel against any treachery.

“Let it be done, then,” Hawkbrother said. “My blood and oath upon it. Swords or knives?”

“Knives,” Pirvan said. “Otherwise you would be using a weapon strange to your hands, and that might force me to kill you to save myself.”

“Knives it will be,” Hawkbrother said. “But do not think to find me a green fledgling, either. You can hardly be worse than my brothers!”

Darin returned Hawkbrother’s dagger, and Pirvan drew his. The torchbearing guards shifted about, to form a square some forty paces on a side.

Before beginning his rounds to check the resolve of his troops, Pirvan lifted his weapon in salute to Hawkbrother, who returned the gesture with an easy grace.

There could be many worse opponents for one’s last fight, if this were to be it.

Sleep did not come to Gildas Aurhinius that night.

Many visitors did, however. He deemed it prudent not to have Nemyotes turn them away. Too many of his captains ignored the secretary’s scars and thought him a scribbling clerk playing at soldier. He was also from a family more outspoken than wise in its hostility to the kingpriest’s power. Only the mild disposition of the present kingpriest had kept some of Nemyote’s kin from arrest or exile.

Gildas Aurhinius wished to give his enemies a chance to strike at him themselves, rather than march the coward’s road against Nemyotes.

Those who came to Aurhinius during the night seemed divided into two factions. One was horror-struck at the temerity of insulting Zephros, a man chosen for his post by the vengeful and ambitious adherents of the late kingpriest. And all this on behalf of a dead kender!

Aurhinius was polite but firm with these, reminding them that the issue was not the vices of kender but the virtues of discipline. An army without it, or campaigning in the company of soldiers without it, was in danger from more than the enemy.

Did they wish him to turn a blind eye to brawls and disorders, until even their own women soldiers and female servants were not safe from the tax soldiers? (Captain Floria Desbarres had the grace to turn the same color as her hair when Aurhinius flung that challenge at her.)

The other faction, not much smaller than the first, came to praise Aurhinius and urge him to sterner measures. He spoke to these with more warmth, for they were of his own mind, but said much the same as to the others.

The fault of Zephros and others like him was not that they hated kender or loved-“certain factions” was what Aurhinius said, instead of “the kingpriest”-too much. It was that they did not understand the need for discipline, without which an army was a mob, and a mob this close to the desert was an array of dead men waiting for a place to fall down.

He would punish Zephros as much as the needs of discipline allowed, neither more nor less. They should take heed of this warning, and pass it on to their soldiers.

Neither faction left Aurhinius’s tent in any light spirits, which doubtless had something to do with the fact that it was now well on toward cockcrow. Also, the sky was growing clouded, with both moons and half the stars shrouded from sight.

Aurhinius had begun to longingly contemplate his cot when Nemyotes entered. The secretary wore a long clerk’s robe and a frown.

“Don’t tell me,” Aurhinius said. “You’ve come to tell me that I can’t arrest Zephros.”

“How did you guess, my lord?”

Aurhinius wished that he could doubt his ears. He did try to forestall the bad news by saying, “It is too late or too early for jests. Choose which one, then be silent.”

“Your pardon, my lord, but I do not jest. The warrant under which Zephros assembled his band and marched south is very specific. You do not have the right of high or middle justice over him or any of his sworn men, save in a case involving a crime against a man sworn into the regular service of the city.”

Aurhinius saw a leather pouch under Nemyotes’s arm. “Is that a copy of it?”

“Yes. It cost me-”

“Whatever you spent, take it from my strongbox. In the morning, please.”

The copy of Zephros’s Warrant of Captaincy over Tax Soldiers made quite as dismal reading as Aurhinius had feared. Nemyotes’s interpretation was correct, as it usually was. The man would have made a formidable law counselor.

“Very well,” Aurhinius said. He restrained an urge to tear the warrant into shreds. “I do not suppose that the kender Edelthirb was sworn into the regular service of Istar, by any interpretation?”

Nemyotes shook his head. “I inquired. He was not even listed as a servant to any of our sworn people.”

Aurhinius did not waste breath groaning. Truthfully, a kender was about as likely to be a registered servant in an Istarian army as Takhisis, the Dark Queen, was to be a virgin.

“Very well,” he said at last. “We must content ourselves with what we can do. Guard those two remaining kender as if they were high-ranking clerics.”

“We shall, when we find them,” Nemyotes said.

“When you-oh, to the Abyss with that!” Aurhinius snapped. “Also, if I cannot keep Zephros from moving about, I can at least keep watch on him. Guards will be posted where they can watch his tent at all times.”

“Ah-that may not be so easy,” Nemyotes said.

“The difficult I expect to be done. If you had said it was impossible-”

“It may be that, too, my lord. Zephros has pitched his camp well apart from the rest of us. All approaches are already watched by his sentries. They seem to be hand-picked men, and more seasoned soldiers than one would expect to find under such a captain.”

Not if the kingpriest helped him recruit them, Aurhinius thought. He wondered briefly if Zephros’s band was in truth the supposedly outlawed militia called the Servants of Silence, tricked out like an aging woman of pleasure in a fresh gown and new jewelry.

“Very well. Have a few trusted men ready to move, nonetheless. It looks to be coming on to storm. The best sentry in the world finds it hard to halt an intruder when rain or sand is blowing in his face.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Aurhinius nodded in dismissal. As Nemyotes left the tent, Aurhinius realized he was still nodding. Indeed, his head seemed too heavy for his neck. He pushed himself up and away from his camp desk, stumbled over the chair, but reached his cot before his legs gave way under him.

He did not awaken as Nemyotes reentered with two servants, to undress their commander and see him snugly abed.

Pirvan reckoned Hawkbrother had already tested the footing while standing captive under Darin’s gaze. It was what he would have done in the younger man’s place, and he would not assume that a desert chief’s son was any less shrewd that a Knight of the Sword.

From chronicles of battles the knights had fought for Istar against the “barbarians,” none of them had been despicable opponents. The knights had won, but they and Istar had paid a fair price in blood and treasure.

Tonight at least no one would be spending treasure, and neither side could readily lose honor-as the knights had sometimes done as Istar’s hirelings. Blood might be lost, but, the gods willing, not even much of that.

Pirvan made his rounds of the square, studying each man’s face as he passed. Good. No one looked to be harboring plans for treachery or folly. He hoped no one would dishonor him, even if he appeared in mortal danger.

More than his own honor was at stake here. The trust men placed in the Knights of Solamnia still stood between the kingpriest and absolute power. Any knight’s loss of honor weakened that barrier. If tonight ended with Haimya and the children weeping over his corpse, it would still be a fair price for keeping that barrier strong.

He gripped shoulders with Darin while standing on a patch of ground that felt like a hard crust over something softer below. They could even embrace now, he and the younger knight, without him standing on tiptoe or Darin stooping like a hunchback, although it had taken some years of practice.

Then Pirvan was face to face with his family. Their weeping over his body suddenly seemed not so small a price to pay, even for the honor of the knights or the downfall of the kingpriest.

He remembered a warning, from one of his oldest and shrewdest instructors.

When you are in love with honor or reputation, death may seem light. For you, perhaps it will be. Unless you’ve been an utter fool, you’ll be given to the skies or the earth, with Huma and the old heroes.

It is those you leave behind who will weep. To them, your death will be heavier than a mountain, and your honor may seem lighter than a feather when they think of how much they miss you.

Pay for honor in your own coin, not by borrowing from others.

If I die tonight, Pirvan thought, I will not join with Haimya when she is a grandmother. I will not see Gerik either a knight or embarked on some other honorable course of life. I will not see Eskaia growing into her full beauty, and wed to some man I am sure I will consider not at all worthy of her. I shall remember all of this, and not be careless of either life or honor.

Pirvan finished his round and stepped into the center of the square, not more than a bow’s length from Hawkbrother. The young warrior might have been cast in bronze.

“It is time, I think, friend,” Pirvan said.

“Time indeed, and friend if the gods will it,” Hawkbrother said.

No need to fear this one’s being foolish about life or honor, either, thought Pirvan. This is a son any father might be proud to claim.

Pirvan raised his voice. “Sir Darin, will you give us the command?”

For a moment Pirvan thought the younger knight would balk. Then he drew his sword, tossed it, caught it by the hilt, and held it upright.

In a great arc, Darin swept the blade downward, until the point touched the ground. As it did, he cried, in a great voice: “Begin!”

Two kender had been crouching behind a boulder, one peering out from either side. Now rain spattered the boulder, driven on a harsh wind that made them both wish to be in a forest or in some other civilized place. They scampered back to the rough shelter of another boulder that overhung a dry streambed.

They had had enough of camp, and it held nothing worth getting drenched for. Besides, there was no true friend in any human camp, and little in the way of dry clothes.

“We could build a fire,” one kender said. His name was Horimpsot Elderdrake, and in spite of his name, he was barely old enough to be traveling.

The other kender gave him a sour look. He was more than old enough to be traveling, and had indeed traveled more than most kender. One journey had taken him to the camp of a minotaur named Waydol, whom he had served loyally for the remainder of the minotaur’s life.

His name was Imsaffor Whistletrot.

“With what?” Whistletrot asked. “And how to light? And where to put it so that none of the humans see it before we’re warm?” All he got by way of an answer was a blank stare. “Oh,” Whistletrot added. “You are a wizard who can ignore all these questions?”

“Now you are being nastier than you ought to be,” Elderdrake complained. It was not quite a whine, and Whistletrot realized that perhaps he had gone a trifle far. Seeing a comrade killed in front of your eyes not halfway through your first journey was an experience the older kender had been spared, but Elderdrake had not. The young fellow had a right to be upset, as long as he didn’t do anything dangerous.

That covered more ground than usual, for a kender. Whistletrot was no more cautious than most of his people, but knew that sometimes even a kender ought to be careful to stay alive.

For one thing, they owed Zephros a debt for Edelthirb’s death.

For another, they needed to warn someone who would listen that people like Zephros were roaming the desert. Everyone in the camp already knew, so they had to get away to spread the warning.

But who would listen? Dwarves usually retreated to their caves to wait out human follies. Silvanesti elves did the same with their forests. Other kender were sparse in this land.

“We’re going to strike out for the citadel of Belkuthas,” Whistletrot said. “Starting now. Krythis and Tulia talk to everyone. That means they must listen to everyone, or nobody would talk to them. We’ll take the warning to them.”

“We will? What about Edelthirb? He hasn’t had any rites, and he won’t have them from the humans, so our duty-”

“Oh, be quiet. Only living kender can give rites to a dead one. We’ll be needing rites ourselves if we don’t travel fast.”

Elderdrake still looked dubious. “Shouldn’t we at least warn the other humans that Zephros will desert?”

Whistletrot laughed. It was a laugh that would have chilled to the bone anyone who believed kender were merry, lighthearted, light-headed little folk. It was a laugh that sounded more like fire tongs scraping together.

“Why should we? The farther Zephros goes from the other humans, the easier it is for us to catch him.

Elderdrake pondered that for a moment, then nodded and began counting his pouches.

It must have been this way among the first humans when two men had a quarrel. Knives (perhaps chipped from stone) in hand, naked save for loincloths, and friends looking on to cheer or jeer as the mood took them.

But this battle was different, too. There were rules, the knives were fine tempered steel (dwarven work, in Hawkbrother’s hand), and one of the fighters had no real friends in the square around him.

That spoke well of Hawkbrother’s courage, to place such faith in the honor of his enemies. Briefly, Pirvan held the thought that he had never before fought a man he would be so reluctant to kill.

Then he forced those fancies away. One did not go armorless into a fight with live steel while harboring kind thoughts of one’s opponent. He might not return such thoughts, and yours might slow you for one vital moment.…

It would be shameful to kill Hawkbrother without cause. It would be even worse to be killed by him through carelessness.

The two men spent the first minutes of the fight testing the ground and each other. Each walked cat-footed, alert for the least opportunity to launch a damaging attack. Both knew that knife fights were as often as not settled in moments, by the first slash or thrust that cost one fighter blood, speed, or strength.

Neither man gave his opponent an opening for such a stroke, however, or at least no opening safe from a deadly riposte.

Some knife strokes left no chance for a riposte. The victim was dead before the steel withdrew, even if he still stood on his legs. But these strokes were few, and much about them hung on sheer luck.

Without such luck, you could kill your opponent without taking from him the strength of desperation and the power to kill you before he died. That outcome Pirvan wished to avoid at all costs. Honor, Oath, and Measure required him to accomplish his mission in the south, which could be done with either him or Hawkbrother alive. It could not be done with both of them dead, barring a miracle. Pirvan had lived too long to put that kind of trust in miracles.

Twenty years before, when his night work in Istar was done with no weapon save a dagger, Pirvan could have ended the bout in minutes. Even those who lived by the bloody knife walked wide of him, knowing how many folk survived because Pirvan would not kill, rather than because he could not.

Though twenty years may be an eye blink in the life of an elf, it is a long time in the life of a man. Eyes and nerves, muscle and sinew, will none of them be what they were. Pirvan had kept in practice with knives as much as work allowed, which was much less than when he would no more have touched a sword than robbed an old woman.

Hawkbrother, despite his youth, was clearly a finished knife fighter-not at the height of his powers, but certainly Pirvan’s match. Though shorter than Pirvan, he equalled the knight’s reach, thanks to long arms.

Indeed, a wise man would not bet either way on this fight.

None of the onlookers seemed in a wagering mood. They stared at the fighters as if the sheer intensity of their gaze could bring the fight to a swift and bloodless conclusion. Haimya was pale under her tan. Eskaia kept her countenance better than either her mother or brother.

Most likely, she had not seen enough bloodshed to imagine all the horrors that might come to one or both of us tonight, thought Pirvan.

That thought was ill-timed. It passed through Pirvan’s mind as Hawkbrother moved in for his first attack. He came low, striking for Pirvan’s leg, to slow or disable him.

Pirvan saw the steel flash toward flesh and tendons. With an eye blink to spare, he pivoted on the other leg and came out of the spin, thrusting at Hawkbrother’s thigh. It was the desert warrior’s turn to spin away with equal agility.

Equal, but no more, in spite of his thirty years’ advantage in age. That gave Pirvan a useful hint. Hawkbrother might not be his opponent’s equal in fast footwork. If he had not learned tumbling, jumping, and climbing as thoroughly as Pirvan, the knight might have a surprise or two for his opponent. Now, how not to waste the surprises …

Hawkbrother had a mature head on his broad young shoulders. He would not be overconfident. Most likely, he could be surprised only once.

And that had best be soon, thought Pirvan, before those thirty years slow me enough that the surprise will go the other way.

Fit and trained as he was, the knight had no illusions he could match the endurance of an opponent amply young enough to be his son.

The next few exchanges were feints, each man testing the other for blind spots, bad habits and good ones, lack of imagination. If this had been a test bout at Dargaard Keep, and the two men training for the Knights of Solamnia, their instructors would have praised both highly. Neither man was predictable, neither easy to catch off guard (Pirvan, after his first lapse, was impossible), and both had worked up a good sweat without losing speed or temper.

The last thought made Pirvan grin. It would not unman him to kill Hawkbrother, if the gods willed it. But he firmly refused to contemplate being angry with the young warrior.

Hawkbrother saw the grin and laughed. “You find my work amusing? Perhaps I can change your mind.”

He sprang at Pirvan, jumping so that he altered his course in midair to land within easy striking distance of the knight.

Or rather, what would have been easy striking distance, if Pirvan’s eyes had not taken in Hawkbrother’s legs as well as his knife hand. Pirvan had moved while Hawkbrother was still in midair, and came down a finger’s breadth out of his opponent’s reach.…

An opponent who was, for a moment, off balance.

It was Pirvan’s turn now to make a low pass, and his steel went home. Not deeply, only scoring the callused flesh over Hawkbrother’s left knee, but blood flowed.

“I claim first blood!” Pirvan called, with the most knightly formality he could muster when short of breath. Then he repeated it, realizing that his first effort must have come out more a gasp than words.

“I heard you the first time,” Hawkbrother said. “So, I’ll be bound, did the elven rangers in the forests of Silvanesti. I may be bleeding, but I’m not deaf.”

“Your pardon,” Pirvan said, bowing. “I meant no insult.”

“If you mean no insult, then do not bother asking me if I yield,” Hawkbrother replied. “Shall we continue the dance?”

“As you wish,” Pirvan said, with another bow. He did not take his eyes off Hawkbrother as he bowed, which was just as well. The warrior came in fast, stamping to raise dust and confuse Pirvan about his direction.

Perhaps also, thought Pirvan, to prove that he could endure the pain of his bloody knee.

The knight wanted to tell Hawkbrother that he took his opponent’s courage and endurance for granted; that he need not put himself to pain and trouble to prove either. But he was too busy evading or parrying Hawkbrother’s darting blade, to have time or breath for polite conversation.

That lack of breath was reason for concern, Pirvan decided. Best take the next good chance to end this quickly, before he had to risk a mortal wound to one or both of them.

By good fortune, he’d moved toward the patch of hard crust over soft sand, which he’d marked earlier. He judged that Hawkbrother had also noticed it and could not be led across it.

That did not matter. It was not Hawkbrother who had to step through the crust.

The desert warrior seemed to have briefly lost his sense of direction during the last quick exchange. This made it easier for Pirvan to lead the fight toward the patch. It still took time, breath, and strength, and also allowed Hawkbrother to get home one quick slash at Pirvan’s left arm.

“I suppose you will not yield either?” Hawkbrother asked. He spoke with a grin that made it plain he asked foolish questions only to preserve custom and honor.

“You suppose correctly,” Pirvan said, returning the grin. To his left, he saw the patch only a few steps away. To his right, he saw Hawkbrother beginning to realize where the fight was leading them.

Then Hawkbrother came in fast again, trying to drive Pirvan onto the patch. There was nothing for the knight to do but let himself be driven. That, or take a serious wound. This might make Hawkbrother doubt Pirvan’s courage, but it should ease any suspicion.

Pirvan’s bare left foot touched the pebbly crust. Now he had to move as fast as he ever had in his night work, and against an opponent more dangerous than most folk who ever served in a city watch.

Instead of tilting left as his foot crunched through the crust, Pirvan tilted right. He turned the tilt into a cartwheel. Hawkbrother lunged at a momentarily helpless opponent-and it was the desert warrior’s foot that crunched through the crust, to be held fast.

Pirvan spun out of the cartwheel on to his feet, tossed his knife, caught it by the blade, and slammed the weighted hilt up under Hawkbrother’s jaw. The younger man had turned by then, so willpower and reflex together let him slash Pirvan across the ribs.

Then Hawkbrother crumpled. The fight was over, with the bloodier of the two opponents still on his feet.

Pirvan knelt and listened for Hawkbrother’s breath and pulse. Both seemed in reasonable order, for a man who probably had a broken jaw.

“Pirvan, stop dripping blood all over the poor man,” Serafina said sharply. “Eskaia, we need to wake Tarothin. If he hasn’t slept off his illness, he can always go back to his blankets after he heals these two bulls.”

“Best I come with you,” Darin said. “My judging is no longer needed, and Tarothin may have to be carried.” Unspoken, except in his glance at Pirvan, was the notion that he might awaken the Red Robe a trifle more gently than the two women.

“Well and good,” Haimya said. “Now, if somebody will bring me herb water and bandages, I can at least stop the bleeding while we wait for Tarothin.”

When Gildas Aurhinius awoke, the sun was too high for him to believe he had slept only a few minutes, though he felt as if he had.

When Nemyotes brought him the news, however, he very much wished he could go back to sleep.

“Zephros deserted during the night, during the rain,” the secretary said. “Most of his men went with him. We found several bodies. One man was still alive. Before he died, he said that those who refused to follow Zephros were murdered.”

Aurhinius could not think of anything to utter except a groan, which would be unmanly, so he held his peace; also his head.

“I fear there is more,” Nemyotes said.

“How fearsome?”

“Enough. The other tax soldier bands have held muster. Most of them count a score or more of deserters. Even Floria Desbarres’s company has lost a few.”

“Gone with Zephros?”

“Most likely. The rain washed out tracks for miles. The captain of scouts has men hunting Zephros’s trail.”

“Bid him report to me the moment his men find anything,” Aurhinius said. Then, as a realistic afterthought, he added, “or when they decide Zephros has too much of a head start.”

Aurhinius drank from a goblet of watered wine Nemyotes held out. It took the sourness from his mouth, if not from his spirit.

“Did the dying man say where Zephros might be going?”

“If anyone besides Zephros knew, he held his peace,” Nemyotes said. “Or perhaps Zephros himself did not know more than that he and his men were not safe here.”

“He was quite right, kingpriest or no kingpriest,” Aurhinius said. “But I do not like to think that he has such a hold over his men, and others’ men, that they will hare off into the desert with him, the gods alone know where.”

“Evil men have won followers before,” Nemyotes said. Aurhinius’s glare said what he thought of that pedantry. “Also,” the secretary added, “Zephros may have been playing on the ambitions of some men to be in the favor of the kingpriest or his followers. Ambition can often do the work of gold or honor.”

Aurhinius said nothing, as there was no denying that plain truth, and drank again. His thirst quenched, he stood and began peering about the already oven-hot tent for his clothes.

“Call a meeting of all the captains for noon,” Aurhinius said as he struggled into his undertunic. “I cannot order the tax soldiers’ captains to come, but remind them that I can perhaps help them prevent more desertions if they do. Some of them at least must hope to return to Istar with more than arrow-wounds and sunburn.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Tarothin had less sleep that night than Gildas Aurhinius, but at least did not wake to dire news. His healing of Pirvan and Hawkbrother left him weak, but it was thoroughly done, and both men were fit to ride at dawn.

The Red Robe was not, however. He slept through the day, which the men he had healed put to good use.

Hawkbrother called in his men, and they refilled their waterskins using the spring in Dead Ogre Canyon and Pirvan’s sledge. The Free Riders and knights traded sour looks at first, but Pirvan and Hawkbrother were each eloquent in praising the other’s skill and honor.

“If any doubt that Pirvan and those sworn to him are friends to the Free Riders and likely to aid us in this time of troubles, let him challenge me in the matter,” was the way Hawkbrother put it.

Where others could hear, Pirvan was quite as firm. “The Free Riders are fierce but honorable. We have nothing and can have nothing to fear from them, bound as they are by Hawkbrother’s oaths.”

This, Haimya pointed out when they were alone, applied only to the Gryphon clan. The last time she had studied the matter, there were at least nine other great clans and some fifteen lesser ones among the Free Riders.

“I also do not care for the narrowness of your victory,” she said. “Gerik and Eskaia say little, but their eyes speak plainly. None of us can quite bring ourselves to say-”

“That I am too old for contending in this sort of bout?” Pirvan said. He smiled to take some of the sting from the words, not wishing to make an enemy of his lady and love after making a friend of Hawkbrother. The gods themselves would fall down laughing if that happened.

Haimya flushed. Pirvan laughed aloud and kissed her. “Well, you have heard me say it myself.”

“Yes, but-oh, how to say it? Does your heart accept your years, or must I wait for mine to break when you go into one too many battles?”

Pirvan wanted to praise her warrior’s courage by doubting that her heart would do any such thing. But her love for him-and his for her-was quite as real as their courage. He vowed not to ask her lightly to bear what he himself might not be able to endure.

In silence, they stood arm in arm until the unease passed, and the dawn breeze began to blow dust in their eyes. From the canyon came the shouts of both Free Riders and guards urging the sledge up the slope. From the vast sky came only the distant cry of some bird still hunting a meal after a night spent in vain.

“When do we ride?” Haimya asked.

“I had thought to break camp as soon as we were watered,” Pirvan said. “Anyone who has followed us is less likely to ambush us by day than by night.

“But there is Tarothin, who must have sleep and may need healing, himself. I hope the Gryphons can supply it. Also, Hawkbrother says that his friend One-Ear knows ways out of this land that none but the Free Riders know.”

“That serves well enough against the tax soldiers,” Haimya said. “What of other clans, the Hawks and their ilk?”

Pirvan shrugged. “A little in every guess, and much in some, always rests with the gods. They have so far sent us safety, water, friends, and knowledge we did not have before. I think we can trust them to keep away hostile clans-and can trust our own steel if the gods turn their attention elsewhere.”

This met with no argument from Haimya, and they returned to the camp hand in hand.