“Maybe! But they will have a good laugh first.” The raider was no coward. He had worn out his fear of death long ago, and now he seemed to master his fear of mockery. “And so you will avenge your sailor friend?” he demanded.
“Yes!” Rap shivered with anticipation. “Oh, yes!”
“Will you indeed?” The thane shook his head with a disbelieving smile. “Gathmor . . . if that was his name . . . how would he feel about that?”
Rap’s joy faltered. Gathmor had hated sorcery and despised it.
“And yourself ?” Kalkor persisted, blue eyes shining inhumanly bright. “There is very little satisfaction in slaying a man with sorcery—believe me, I know! Will it feel better than just leaving me to die of old age? I should enjoy that less, you know!”
“I will have justice!” Rap yelled.
“Not with sorcery, you won’t, little faun. I grant you are a stronger sorcerer than I, but I am a Nordland thane, and to use your powers against me will be an infraction of that Protocol you quote so glibly. The witch of the north must avenge me. We both die, then? Is that justice? Why not just strike us both dead now?”
Kalkor chuckled as he measured Rap’s dismay. Visions of fire and bleeding flesh . . .
“Well, Master Rap? What is it to be? Do we both die by foul sorcery, or do we strive as men together, you seeking vengeance and I immortal fame? Shall we not agree to leave one of us alive afterward? There is a kingdom at stake also, remember! Battle of sorcerers, Master Rap? Or man to man?”
Gathmor!
Rap was doomed either way . . . but he thought of Gathmor, and his jotunn self raged against faunish common sense telling him he was about to do something crazy. However frail his chances against the monster thane in mundane battle, there lay his only chance of real satisfaction.
Kalkor saw his hesitation and sneered, again the arrogant, confident master of Blood Wave. “Coward!”
Even a half jotunn could not take that.
“Man to man, then, you bastard!” Rap leaped to his feet and ripped off his doublet.
He had spoken aloud—his red-robed companion looked up in surprise. At the far side of the field, Kalkor’s equally ancient second lurched to his feet and reeled out through the tent flap into the rain, grabbing up his bugle and helmet in passing.
He staggered, then, bewildered by his own unexpected move, for it had been Rap’s doing.
An explosion of thunder made him jump and look up nervously, as if expecting Gods to appear in wrath. When nothing more happened, he raised the mouthpiece to his lips rather shakily and began the ceremony.
Fanfare of challenge.
“Ah!” Rap’s supporter laid down the ax, took up his own trumpet and headgear, and tottered outside to sound the response.
Rap girt himself in the fur and followed.
Rain wrapped him in a clammy shroud, but the cold could not quench the fire of his rage. He fidgeted angrily from foot to foot while ancient ritual was mumbled at him in some long-forgotten dialect.
Kill Kalkor!
Kalkor’s tent was barely visible as a blur of blue on the far side of the arena, but the jotnar performing the ceremony there were invisible to mundane sight. Kill Kalkor!
Rap’s heart was racing, throbbing, every beat saying “Kill him.” Killhimkillhimkillhim . . . Every muscle twitched with eagerness. He wanted to shout at the old priest or whatever he was to hurry up; but at last the gaffer ended his mumbling and raised the axholding it vertical, straining. Rap knew from the casement’s vision that Kalkor would be accepting his ax one-handed, in formal ritual. He had no such pretensions. Snatching the weapon with both hands, he . . . he very nearly dropped it. It was appallingly heavy, a flared blade as wide as his chest and a polished metal shaft longer than his leg and too thick to close his fingers around. He had no idea how to fight with such an idiocy.
Kalkor did.
Heaving the monstrous thing onto his shoulder, Rap began to trudge forward over the wet grass. Rain blew in his eyes and dribbled icily over his bare skin. His legs ached, he was groggy from lack of sleep, but he had agreed not to use sorcery in this Reckoning. He would fight Kalkor on his own terms, man to man with axes.
Thunder roared directly overhead, stunningly loud, its echoes rolling away into the distance and merging with the underground rumble of the vast audience. Among the thousands of spectators who had come to watch this duel, very few would see the outcome in such a downpour.
Directly ahead, Kalkor appeared dimly ahead from the mist, as nearly nude as he was, bearing an identical ax. One of them was going to die very shortly, and very bloodily. This was what the magic casement had foretold.
But it had not said which one.
No farsight . . . no sorcery . . . Wholly mundane, Rap advanced; more cautiously now. Kalkor moved his ax from his shoulder, gripping it with both hands like a quarterstaff, holding it almost upright. He was the expert—Rap copied the move. They came to a halt about three paces apart, standing in a puddle.
The crowd had fallen silent. Rain hissed on the grass.
Kalkor was smiling, white teeth in a bronzed demon face. He wore an icy calm, but the crazed jotunn bloodlust showed in that smile. One of the great killers. Sooner slay a man than bed a woman . . . Gathmor!
“Ready to die, halfman?”
Rap made no answer, watching the bright sapphire eyes, keeping a wary guard also on the ambience, alert for sorcery. Thunder rumbled far away.
Kalkor advanced a step. Rap did the same.
The thane raised a quizzical, mocking eyebrow. “It will be quick,” he promised, trying an experimental wave of his ax, a high sweeping motion, not close enough to connect.
Rap ignored the move. Watching. Waiting. It had better be quick, for the jotunn had twice the muscle he did and could outlast him. His arms and wrists ached already . . . one battered finger could be fatal in this game.
Kalkor frowned and came a half step closer. They were within range now.
“Go ahead! You first. You need the practice!”
Rap had given his word. He wasn’t using sorcery, not farsight, not even insight . . . but he felt a sudden hunch that Kalkor was not quite as confident as he should be, or was trying to seem. Could there be something bothering him?
“How long have you known your words of power, Thane?” His dry mouth made the query a whisper. Kalkor just smiled . . . slowly raising his ax and sliding his right hand lower, nearer the end of the long shaft. Muscles were tensing in his right leg. Rain dribbled unattended into Rap’s eyes. “How long?” he persisted. “How long since you fought anyone without sorcery to help you, Kalkor?”
The thane struck, ax still almost vertical, foot following for balance, a chop more than an arc, aimed at Rap’s chest . . . that was how it was done? . . . Rap countered shaft to shaft, arms straight to withstand the jotunn’s bearlike strength. The impact rang over the arena, but it also jarred every bone Rap possessed and sent him dancing wildly backward, while a leering Kalkor followed with another stroke.
This time Rap sidestepped and parried with his blade along the massive handle, a long screeching slice trying for Kalkor’s fingers. The thane deflected it in time, but now he was the one to leap off balance.
Wild joy surged up in Rap. Kalkor was stronger; but he was faster. And he still suspected that the man had forgotten how to fight without the aid of sorcery. That had been a clumsy retreat.
The axes were too heavy to swing like sticks. The men could move themselves faster than they could turn their weapons. That was worth knowing.
Now Rap was pursuing, lowering his ax under his opponent’s guard. Kalkor had the advantage of height, but his legs were as vulnerable as the rest of him. Unexpectedly, the thane countered by swinging even lower, aiming at Rap’s shins in the sort of clumsy wide stroke that Rap had already ruled out.
He was certainly supposed to jump over this one, and Kalkor would have twisted the handle to raise the blade and catch his feet, but fortunately the night’s running had left Rap so stiff that he rejected the move on instinct, leaping back and ducking his ax to catch Kalkor’s, hoping to hook the blades and jerk the slippery handle from the thane’s grasp. Clang! He had underestimated the inertia . . . Kalkor thrust, and almost sliced through Rap’s leg, but not quite, and he was within the thane’s guard then, so he rammed a knee at his groin.