On one occasion when we’d lost the trail and were resting, we talked for a long time about archery, court politics, Shadow and the weather. He had been much more civil to me of late, which I took for a good sign. He’d let his hair grow in such a fashion as to cover the area of his missing left ear. Ears are hard to regenerate. We did not speak of our duel, or of the argument that had led up to it. Because I would soon be out of his life, I felt perhaps he wished to close this chapter of his existence in a relatively friendly fashion, with both of us going our ways with a memory we could feel good about. I was half right, anyway.
Later, when we had halted for a cold hail lunch, he asked me, “So, what does it feel like?”
“What?” I said.
“The power,” he answered. “The Logrus power-to walk in Shadow, to work with a higher order of magic than the mundane.”
I didn’t really want to go into detail, because I knew he’d prepared himself to traverse the Logrus on three different occasions and had backed down at the last moment each time, when he’d looked into it. Perhaps the skeletons of failures that Suhuy keeps around had troubled him also. I don’t think Jurt was aware that I knew about the last two times he’d changed his mind. So I decided to downplay my accomplishment.
“Oh, you don’t really feel any different,” I said, “until you’re actually using it. Then it’s hard to describe.”
“I’m thinking of doing it soon myself,” he said. “It would be good to see something of Shadow, maybe even find a kingdom for myself somewhere. Can you give me any advice?”
I nodded. “Don’t look back,” I said. “Don’t stop to think. Just keep going.”
He laughed. “Sounds like orders to an army,” he said.
“I suppose there is a similarity.”
He laughed again. “Let’s go kill us a zhind,” he said.
That afternoon, we lost a trail in a thicket full of fallen branches.
We’d heard the zhind crash through it, but it was not immediately apparent which way it had gone. I had my back to Jurt and was facing the forward edge of the place, searching for some sign, when F’rakir constricted tightly about my wrist, then came loose and fell to the ground.
I bent over to retrieve her, wondering what had happened, when I heard a thank from overhead. Glancing upward, I saw an arrow protruding from the bole of the tree before me. Its height above the ground was such that had I remained standing it would have entered my back.
I tamed quickly toward Jurt, not even straightening from my crouch. He was fitting another arrow to his bow.
He said, “Don’t look back. Don’t stop to think. Just keep going,” and he laughed.
I dove toward him as he raised the weapon. A better archer would probably have killed me. I think when I moved he panicked and released the arrow prematurely, though, because it caught in the side of my leather vest and I didn’t feel any pain.
I clipped him above the knees, and he dropped the bow as he fell over backward. He drew his hunting knife, rolled to the side and swung the a weapon toward my throat. I caught his wrist with my left hand and was cast onto my back by the force of his momentum. I struck at his face with my right fist while holding the blade away from me. He blocked the punch and kneed me in the balls.
The point of the blade dropped to within inches of my throat as this blow collapsed a big piece of my resistance. Still aching, I was able to turn my hip to prevent another ball-buster, simultaneous with casting my right forearm beneath his wrist and cutting my hand in the process. Then I pushed with my right, pulled with my left and rolled to the left with the force of the turn. His arm was jerked free from my still-weakened grasp, and he rolled off to the side and I tried to recover-and then I heard him scream.