The Horsemen's Gambit

Chapter 1

First blood, the rules said. Beyond that, they didn't specify. A nick of the skin, the severing of a limb, a fatal strike to the breast; any of these would do. First blood. That was all a warrior needed to win.

Every person understood how Qalsyn's Harvest Tournament worked. From the youngest child, dreaming of the day when she might step into the ring and bow to His Lordship, to the oldest man, his memory of that first bow to the lord governor a fading memory, they all knew. A battle could turn with a single thrust, be it the desperate last lunge of a weary guard or the methodical advance of a skilled swordsman. The ring, it was said, was as unforgiving as steel, as merciless as the Growing sun. One mistake, one momentary lapse of concentration. First blood.

Even as she circled her opponent, watching for his next assault, Tirnya was conscious of the spectators shouting and stamping all around the arena. She had watched enough matches as a child to understand the rituals of those in the boxes: the wagers, the exchange of coin at the end of each match, the constant shifting of fortune among men and women hoping to profit from each new wound. But while the spectators made sport of the contests, there could be no doubt: the tournament was a matter deadly serious to all who watched.

And yet, the earnestness of those in the boxes was nothing compared with the gravity of those in the ring. Each contest began the same way. The two combatants entered through the doors at opposite sides of the ring, walked to the center, and turned to face His Lordship, who sat in the main box. Each warrior bowed to the lord governor, the flat of his or her blade pressed to the forehead in salute. Then they bowed to each other. And then they began to fight.

Tirnya had fought dozens of battles in the ring, and had watched more than she could count. Some began and ended with a single devastating assault or in a blindingly quick frenzy of metal and flesh and the obligatory spilling of blood. Other matches began slowly, as this one had, the warriors turning slow circles, eyeing each other, looking for any advantage. Attacks in such contests came in quick bursts; swords dancing suddenly, fitfully, bright blurs in the sunlight, chiming like sanctuary bells each time they clashed, whistling dully as they carved through air.

Standard Qalsyn army blades and Aelean bastard swords; Tordjanni broad blades and the famed shillads of Naqbae; silver dirks and bodkins; curved Qosantian daggers and narrow-bladed knives concealed in a sleeve or a boot: Tirnya had faced all sorts of steel in the ring. She herself might use three or four different swords and as many short blades in the course of a single tournament. But every warrior knew that the weapon itself meant nothing; it was the hand wielding the blade that mattered. There was a saying that was heard quite often this time of year, both in the arena itself and in the chambers beneath, where the combatants awaited their turn. "You can arm a fool with the finest Aelean steel, and at the end of the day he'll still end up bloodied."

Like all sayings of its sort, this one carried the weight of truth. Tirnya remembered a battle tournament from her tenth or eleventh year, when she still sat in the boxes with her mother and brothers, watching with the women and children and the men who had grown too old to fight. A warrior had appeared in the ring whom none could remember seeing before. His coat of mail, the only armor the combatants were allowed, was dull and fit poorly. The clothes he wore beneath the forged ringlets were tattered and travel-stained. And, most memorably, his sword was rusted and notched, a weapon barely adequate for a road brigand, much less someone who hoped to be the last man standing in Qalsyn's famed Harvest Tournament and take home the crystal blade and twenty gold sovereigns.

No one who saw him step into the ring for the first time thought the stranger would last more than a round or two.

"Even the Tordjanni army would turn away a man who looked like that," said one older gentleman who was sitting behind Tirnya and her family.

His companion agreed. "One round with a Qalsyn guard will send him back into the wilds, where he belongs."

But this unknown warrior surprised them all, defeating his first opponent with elegant ease. His swordwork was restrained and efficient, his winning strike a controlled blow to the neck that drew blood, but caused the vanquished man no serious injury.

"The first man was no one," the older man assured himself and his companion. "I'd never seen him before, either."

His companion might have nodded his agreement. Tirnya wasn't certain. She knew only that he said nothing.

When next the stranger entered the ring, it was to face a soldier from the Qalsyn army. Coaf Vantol wasn't the finest swordsman in His Lordship's force, but he was a good fighter, a big, strong, genial man, and a favorite among the city people. Surely the stranger would fall to Coaf. But no. With astonishing speed this man no one knew, this so-called warrior, who looked more like a troubadour desperate for coin than a fighter, had Coaf on his heels. In mere moments, the city's man was bleeding from a cut on his cheek. First blood; second victory. No one cheered, until at last His Lordship himself stood and began to clap his hands for the stranger. Slowly, the applause spread through the arena, growing louder and louder.

After that the man became the favored warrior in the tournament. And he didn't disappoint. Nine more times he stepped into the ring, and nine more times he raised his rusted blade in victory, bowing graciously, first to the central box and then to the rest. Even the old man began to cheer for him, cataloging in a loud voice the man's fine attributes as a fighter: his agile footwork, his skilled use of the long-handled dagger in his off hand, the fluid grace of his sword arm. One might have thought that the old man had instructed the stranger in swordplay, so extravagant was his praise.

Eventually the stranger did lose, to Tirnya's father, as it happened. Her father was a marshal in His Lordship's army, and one of the finest swordsmen in all of Stelpana. He was also well liked in many parts of the city; usually a victory for Jenoe Onjaef would have elicited a mighty roar. But on this day, the defeat of the stranger left the arena strangely quiet. The men and women in the boxes cheered for her father as he raised his blade, but even Tirnya could sense their disappointment. This once, they had been pulling not for Jenoe, but for the other man. Tirnya couldn't deny that even she had felt the briefest pang of regret at the stranger's loss.

Her father won the tournament that year, the last of his seven championships. He could have fought for several years more; there were some who said he could still fight in the ring to this day and compete for the crystal dagger. But his duties in His Lordship's army had begun to lie heavy on his shoulders and he had grown bored with the ring. Besides, a few years later Tirnya was ready to take her place in the tournament, and only one member of any family could enter the ring in a given year. Still, though that was Jenoe's last year as champion, forever after that tournament was remembered for Stri Balkett's appearance in Qalsyn. Stri had since become a captain in her father's battalion and one of the city's most renowned soldiers.

But for Tirnya, it was the warning inherent in Stri's success that remained freshest in her mind. Never again would she look at any warrior and underestimate his or her prowess in battle on the basis of a worn blade or tarnished armor. Nor would she assume that a man or woman couldn't fight simply because he or she didn't look the part of a warrior.

Others in the Qalsyn tournament had been slower to take this lesson to heart, and she had benefited from their carelessness. The first year she entered the Harvest Tournament, the year she came of age, the other combatants looked at her and saw the daughter of a great warrior, beautiful, graceful, but too weak and too lovely to be a swordswoman of any consequence. Like Stri, she proved them wrong, making it through seven rounds before finally being beaten. She still bore the scar from that tournament. In fact, she bore scars from every tournament she had entered, for though she had established herself as one of the best fighters in all the land, she had yet to win the crystal blade.

The last two years she had made it to the final match, only to be beaten on both occasions by Enly Tolm, son of Maisaak, the lord governor. Tirnya fully expected that they would meet again this year, though with a different result.

First, though, she had to defeat this giant of a man stalking her in the center of the ring. She had never learned his name; like most of the other fighters she knew him only as the Aelean. But she had seen him fight several times, and she knew that this was not a victory she could take for granted.

The Aelean was a full head taller than she, with huge shoulders and long, muscular arms. For a man of his size, he was fairly nimble: he moved his feet well and reacted quickly to his opponents' attacks. Usually, against so powerful an opponent, she would have circled continually toward his off hand and the smaller blade. But the Aelean had won more than a few of his matches with the dirk he carried in his left hand, which lashed out like a serpent at any foe too concerned with his great sword.

His greatest asset as a warrior, though, was his strength. One stroke of his bastard sword, it was said, could hew through an oak tree two hands wide. Tirnya wasn't certain that she believed this, but there could be no denying the power of the man's sword stroke. If she tried to parry more than one or two of his attacks, her arm would end up numb, or broken.

Best, then, to keep moving. Not toward his dirk, but to her left, his right. She took care to keep outside of his sword hand, so that any blow he landed with the bastard sword would be backhanded. He eyed her warily as they turned their slow circle in the dirt. He might have been twice her size, but he knew as well as she that Tirnya had her own advantages in the ring.

She was strong for one so little, though not nearly as powerful as the Aelean. But she was quicker and more skilled with her shillad, the long, thin blade used by the horsemen of Naqbae. It wasn't the weapon she used when leading her soldiers; it wasn't even the sword she usually carried into the ring. But she always brought it with her to the tournament, knowing that it would be the perfect weapon against an opponent like the Aelean. The blade was light and perfectly balanced, and its length allowed her to keep her distance, to dance at the edges of her opponent's reach. She was tall and long-armed. With the shillad she became elusive as well.

In her off hand she carried a second sword-short-bladed, but longer than the dagger she usually used. Anything to keep her distance. Some of the more powerful combatants in the tournament could fight the Aelean on his terms; she didn't dare. "A clever warrior guards against his opponent's strengths," her father had once told her, "and watches for his weaknesses. More often than not, the clever ones live to fight another day."

The Aelean struck at her and she parried with the short blade. It wasn't a particularly hard blow, but still it made her arm sting from her wrist to her shoulder. She swiped back at him with the shillad, but he jumped away and she missed. Once more they began to circle. The crowd had been loud a moment before, but with the man's attack they had grown quiet and restive. Even His Lordship seemed intent on their battle. He leaned forward in his chair, his chin resting in his hand, his eyes narrowed.

Perhaps sensing that she had allowed herself to be distracted for the briefest instant, the man suddenly lunged at her, leveling another backhanded blow at her head. She parried this one as well, but nearly left herself open to the dirk, which flicked out at her side, like silver lightning. The crowd gasped. Tirnya spun away, unmarked. Two blows she had parried, and already her arm was beginning to ache.

The Aelean began to stalk her once more, and again Tirnya circled, trying to stay outside his sword arm. She waved her blade at him, trying to reach the side of his neck, but he knocked it away disdainfully with the bastard sword.

"Fight him!" someone shouted from behind her. Others murmured their agreement. She was losing them.

Early in one of her first tournaments, several years before, she had won a contest against a larger opponent by drawing blood at the knee. Whistles and shouts of "coward" chased her from the ring that day, and she never did such a thing again. Nor did she have any intention of doing so today. She wondered, though, if those shouting at her now remembered that day as clearly as she did.

"I hope you learned something," her father had said to her that evening, after the tournament was over.

She had been dejected and humiliated, stung far more by the reaction from the boxes than by her loss in the next round. "I won't go for someone's leg again, if that's what you mean."

"It's not."

She looked at him.

"People often liken the ring to a real battlefield," he said. "What you experienced today should make it clear to you that they actually have very little in common."

Tirnya frowned. "I don't understand."

"When you're fighting in a war, your object is to win. It's that simple. You win for your sovereign, you win for your people, you win for the soldiers under your command. Nothing else matters. But here, in the ring, there are times when the cost of victory is higher than that of defeat. You lost the respect of a good many people today. You'll have to earn that back, even if it means losing contests that trickery might let you win."

It was another lesson she'd never forgotten. If she couldn't defeat the Aelean fairly, warrior to warrior, she would take pride in the manner of her losing. She smiled to herself. But I have no intention of losing.

He aimed another blow at her head and for the third time she parried. This time, however, she didn't dance away, nor did she circle to the outside of his sword hand. Instead she remained in front of him. The man's eyes widened and he raised his bastard sword again to deliver a chopping strike that might well have sundered her short blade. Before he could hammer at her, however, she delivered a sideways blow of her own with the shillad. The Aelean blocked it with his dirk, but by then Tirnya had struck at him with her short blade, coming in under his raised sword to cut him just below the ear.

The Aelean winced, closing his eyes, knowing that she had baited him, and that he had fallen for the ruse. But it all happened so quickly that the people in the boxes didn't seem to understand until the Aelean lowered his blades and turned to face the center box. Seeing the blood on his neck, the spectators began to cry out Tirnya's name again and again, the timidity of her earlier attacks now forgotten.

Over the years many in the city had grown to love her. She was, after all, the daughter ofJenoe, the Eagle of the Ring, as he had once been known, for his long reach and the swiftness with which he pounced when seeing a weakness in his foe. In recent years, as she had become more skilled with her blades and more successful in the tournaments, they had given her a name as well: the Falcon. Not as formidable as her father, but faster, more agile.

She heard that name now, amid the cries of her given name. They would be pulling for her to win the final match.

She turned to the lord governor, bowed with the Aelean, and then left the ring, though not before glancing up at her father, who smiled at her as he applauded with the others.

Once in the chambers beneath the boxes, Tirnya didn't wander far from the doorway. She assumed that Enly would make short work of his next opponent. Instead, she checked her shillad for notches, and exchanged her short sword for a dagger. Enly was not nearly as big as the Aelean, nor was his reach as long, but he was as quick as she, perhaps quicker. The short sword would slow her down.

Satisfied that she had the right weapons for the final match, she sat on the floor a short distance from the entrance to the ring, closed her eyes, and cleared her mind of thoughts of her match with the Aelean. Instead, she reflected on her past encounters with His Lordship's son, scouring her memory for any pattern in his attacks, any tendencies on his part that she might use against him this time.

In truth, though, Enly was too good to be predictable. He never fought the same way twice. He was as creative as he was skilled, as clever as he was swift of hand. The first time they fought he overwhelmed her with the speed and intensity of his attacks, defeating her in mere moments. Their second battle, in last year's final match, he fought more cautiously, confounding her with feints and counterassaults. It was a longer fight, but it ended the same way.

Not this year

Tirnya heard the roar of the crowd and then sustained applause, and she knew that Enly's match had ended. She stood and made her way back toward the door. She glanced down to make certain that her coat of mail hung correctly, though of course it did. She examined her blades yet again, though both were polished and honed. She looked at her boots, her belt, and her gloves to see that they were properly fastened, though she had no doubt that they were. Habits, all; they calmed her, steadied her breathing, slowed her pulse.

"Onjaef!" called the old guard by the doorway.

She stepped forward, stopping just beside the man, waiting for the door to open. Padar, the guard, said nothing to her, as was proper. He had once served under her father, and for the past six years he had stood by these doors and ushered her into the ring. But he was bound by the rules of the tournament to treat all combatants the same way.

She stood for several moments, listening to the cheers of the crowd, waiting. At last, the door opened, flooding the chamber with brilliant sunlight, so that Tirnya had to shield her eyes. A tall Qosantian soldier stepped past her, scowling bitterly, blood running from a cut along his jawline. Enly had won, as if there had ever been any doubt. The warrior paused and glanced back at her.

"Ya'd do us all a favor if ya beat 'im, ya know. Jest this once."

"I'll try," she said mildly.

He stared at her another moment before shaking his head and walking away. "Ya'll lose," he muttered. "Jest as ya did last year. No one can beat 'im."

Tirnya smiled faintly. The Qosantian wasn't alone. Those looking to wager on this last match would have a hard time; there couldn't have been more than a few dozen people in the entire arena who gave her much chance of bloodying the lord governor's son. A far smaller number than that would have been willing to risk their hard-earned gold and silver on her.

Because Enly had just finished his match, the rules of the tournament allowed him to take as much time as he needed to rest and prepare for this final contest. Tirnya knew, however, that he'd want to fight her immediately. A delay of any length would have been an admission of weakness. It would have given her cause to think that he was concerned about their encounter. Even had he needed some time, he never would have taken it. And chances were he didn't need the rest.

"They want t' know if ya're ready," the guard said, his voice level.

"I am."

He nodded, held his arm up high, and gave a short, single wave to the guard across the ring. A moment later, the second guard waved back. "Time to go, then," Padar said.

She started past him, and as she did he winked at her once and offered a barely perceptible nod.

"Thanks, Padar," she whispered, and entered the ring.

Enly hadn't yet stepped out of the other doorway. That was his way, and though she generally thought him arrogant and full of himself, she could hardly begrudge him this small extravagance. He was, after all, the champion for two years running. Still, Tirnya slowed her gait. She had no intention of standing in the middle of the ring looking like a fool as he sauntered toward her with the crowd cheering.

As it was, the cheers that greeted her entrance were loud and sustained. While few thought she could defeat Maisaak's heir, a good many of the people watching the match would have given up gold if they thought it would help her win. Enly was better thought of than was his father, but he was still a Tolm.

Perhaps hearing how she was greeted and fearing that his own entrance would be met with less enthusiasm if he waited too long, Enly entered the ring from his doorway. Immediately, the sound coming from the spectators changed. Taken together, the cheers didn't grow quieter or louder, but some who had been cheering for her fell silent, and others who had offered little response to her appearance cried out seeing the lord's son.

Tirnya chanced a quick glance at the lord governor, and saw that he was scowling, his gaze wandering the crowd, as if he might remember the face of each person who cheered more enthusiastically for her than for his son. She looked toward her father, who was merely staring back at her, his expression deadly serious. "Stop worrying about the rest of us," he seemed to be telling her. "You should only be thinking about Enly."

Right.

They met in the center of the ring, turned to face the center box, and bowed to Maisaak.

"They'd cheer more for me if you were uglier," Enly said under his breath. "You know that, don't you?"

"They'd cheer more for you if you weren't such an ass," she answered in a whisper.

"Well, that's obvious."

She couldn't help but giggle.

"But I was speaking of you," he went on, still not looking at her. "You look beautiful today, your cheeks still flushed from your last battle, your hair tied back the way I like it. Just lovely."

"Shut up," she said.

He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more. Maisaak nodded to them, a smug smile on his handsome face. Clearly he assumed that his son would win again.

She and Enly turned to face one another, bowed, and raised their swords. In their previous meetings, Tirnya had fought carefully, even tentatively, knowing how dangerous Enly could be with either hand. This time, she immediately launched into a ferocious assault, her blade flashing like sorcerers' fire. Enly tried to counter with his dagger as he parried her blows, but she struck at him with both blades, making it impossible for him to do anything more than defend himself. He gave ground slowly, grudgingly, but give ground he did.

The boxes seemed to be quaking, so loudly were the people there shouting at what they saw, but Tirnya concentrated solely on Enly. He tried to pivot to throw her off balance and then attack her from the side, but she had seen him do this before, and she spun as well, still pressing him.

Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and ran down his temples. He wasn't breathing hard yet, but his face was reddening. Tirnya was sweating, too. The muscles in her arms were starting to burn. But she had him on the defensive, and she refused to relent.

He tried to strike at her again, using the momentum of his retreat to carry him into a spin and an assault of his own. Again, she was ready, parrying with the shillad and lunging at him with her dagger. He jumped away, and she was on him once more, her steel a glittering beast, like something called forth by the gods.

Enly tried his spin maneuver a second time, stumbled, and sprawled on the ground. Tirnya leaped forward, putting one foot on his sword and the other on his dagger, and laying the edge of her blade against his neck.

She could have won then. First blood.

A few people shouted for her to end the match, to take the crystal dagger as her own. But she didn't want to win like this. She took a step back, and then another.

"Get up," she said.

She heard someone groan in the boxes, but then people began to call her name again. "Tirnya!" they called. "Falcon!"

Enly climbed to his feet slowly, and picked up his weapons. He stared at her for a moment, his grey eyes ghostly pale in the sunlight. Then he bowed to her.

Tirnya started forward, intending to renew her assault, but Enly wasn't willing to let her gain that advantage again. He attacked as well, and for long moments they stood face-to-face, their blades lashing out, clashing loudly. And then Enly began to advance on her, forcing her back.

She tried to parry and strike, to find once more the energy she'd had when they began. But she was tired, her arms and legs heavy. Enly must have sensed her weariness, but his expression didn't change, nor did the speed of his attacks. He had been known to talk to some of his opponents. It was said that he often taunted them, hoping to provoke them into mistakes. But he had never done anything of the sort to her, nor did he now. He merely kept after her. And when she tried to spin to the side and strike over his off hand, he was ready.

Tirnya saw both attacks, the chopping blow with his sword and the thrust with his dagger. But the pivot had left her off balance; not much, but enough. She managed to parry the sword strike, but she could do nothing about the dagger as it darted out at her cheek. An instant later, she felt the sting on her flesh and the hot trickle of blood running down her face like tears.

Enly stepped back and looked at her, his brow creased, as if he had surprised himself with the assault.

"I'm sorry," he mouthed. Then he raised the dagger over his head and turned a slow circle so that all could see, stopping when he was facing her once more.

At first there was silence. No one seemed to believe that he had won. The fierce smile on the lord governor's face began to fade as he looked around the arena. After a few moments, those sitting in the boxes seemed to realize that they ought to be cheering, and they began to call out Enly's name. But His Lordship still didn't look pleased. And Tirnya heard her name being shouted as well.

She turned to face the center box.

"We have to bow," she said under her breath.

Enly turned smartly toward his father and made himself smile. They bowed in unison and then they walked their separate ways back toward the doors.

As she walked, not bothering to wipe the blood from her face, Tirnya looked up at her father. He was staring back at her, looking both proud and concerned. She smiled, and he did as well. But she felt her eyes starting to well. She'd come so close to beating him. And then she'd let him win. She shook her head. That wasn't quite how it had happened, but it felt that way.

Padar was waiting for her at the door.

"Ya had him," he said grimly.

She'd hear a lot of this in the next few days. "Yes."

"Ya did th' right thing."

"There are those who will disagree."

The old guard shrugged. "Wha' d' they know? Ya don' bloody a man when he's down, even if i' 'tis fer th' crystal blade."

Tirnya nodded, fearing that she might weep. The crystal blade! She'd come so close! "Thank you, Padar." She started to walk away.

"Captain, wait," the guard said.

She halted. He crossed to where she stood and looked at her cheek.

"I' doesn' look too bad," he said after a moment. "Probably feels worse than i' 'tis. It'll heal before ya know it."

Tirnya smiled bravely, though a tear slipped from her eye. "Right," she agreed. "Just another scar." Just another tournament; just another year.

But this time, she had come so close.