Nice try . . . Kalkor twisted and they rebounded apart, neither injured. Wary and panting, the two circled . . .
Flicker!
“Stop that!” Rap gasped. He wasn’t certain, but it had probably been foresight—this close even a sight in use would be detectable to a sorcerer. ”Once more and I blast you! I swear!” He remembered Andor remarking that foresight made a deadly fighter.
Kalkor bared his teeth and said nothing. His eyes were wilder than before, even. Not quite the pushover he had expected? Keeping sorcery suppressed when you had cheated with it for years must be a very big distraction.
Rap would tire first, though. His shoulders were coming apart already. His fingers were freezing and cramped, slipping on the smooth metal.
Clang! Clang! Mostly they just avoided each other’s cumbersome strokes, but some connected. Clang! Rap was doing most of the retreating, but they were dancing around each other so much that they had drawn no nearer the crowd. Rap’s speed would fail before Kalkor’s strength did. The thane’s face was a rictus . . . could he look as bad? . . . His heart was going to burst. Killhimkillhimkillhim . . .
And then Kalkor tried a straight rapier thrust as if wielding a pike and Rap fended with a downward counter as Sergeant Thosolin had taught him. It was an error—the thane dodged and Rap could not stop his stroke before he had buried his blade in the turf. He hurled himself flat beside it as a murderous return slice hissed above him. But while he was there, Kalkor’s foot slipped on the slick grass; he staggered and stepped too close, so Rap swung a fist and caught the back of the jotunn’s knee.
Kalkor went down also.
Then Rap could leap up with a yell of triumph and jerk his ax free.
For a brief instant that seemed to last an hour, the men’s eyes met—Rap swinging the great ax high overhead with what he suddenly knew to be the last of his mundane strength . . . Kalkor on his knees and facing death, his face a mask of horror and shock as he tried to twist out of the way. Then Rap had both feet planted and his ax descending.
Glory! Gathmor! With a wordless scream he brought the dread blade down, giving it every scrap of muscle he had left, but Kalkor reached into the clouds and hauled down the lightning.
3
“Cheat! Yellow cheating coward!” Rap could barely hear his own howls through the ringing in his ears. He danced on the puddles in his fury.
That had been very close, though. He had healed his hands, but his ax was still glowing red; charred grass steamed and hissed around it. Half the spectators were still trying to find out what had happened, and most of the rest were on their knees in the mud, madly praying. The bone-chilling downpour roared unceasing.
“Rotten cheating sneak! Man to man?”
But Kalkor could not answer. Kalkor was dead, cooked. He stank of roast pork. What had happened, anyway? It had all been so sudden! Rap reached back with hindsight—and that was a trick he hadn’t known he had—and saw himself ablaze in violet fire . . . No wonder the crowd was wailing! He had felt the ripple of sorcery coming and thrown a shield around himself. Then he had blazed like a God within the lightning, but he did not understand why then it had left him and melted his ax and struck the thane who had summoned it—that cowardly turd, who had used sorcery after swearing not to . . .
Very close! In hindsight, it looked as if Kalkor would have escaped by a hairsbreadth and Rap’s ax would have buried itself in the ground and left him to Kalkor’s nonexistent mercy . . .
So who had killed Kalkor?—Rap, or the Gods, or Kalkor himself? Rap didn’t know. What mattered was that Kalkor had died thinking the faun had beaten him.
Well, good!
Gathmor would have approved. Gathmor was avenged.
Hollow victory, which didn’t bring Gathmor back. Kalkor had been the one to use sorcery, not Rap. Would the wardens accept that, though? It might not have seemed like that.
The two old jotnar in their red robes and horned helmets were creeping forward, drenched and timorous, coming to inspect the outcome. Rap turned on his heel and walked away.
Now what? Of course he might just try to disappear from Hub, but he didn’t think he could evade the wardens if they really wanted to catch him. The mysterious destiny of the white flame was waiting for him, wasn’t it? He still felt a premonition. He tried a tiny sliver of foresight and recoiled at once. Yes, it was still there, implacable and very imminent. Shudder!
He thought about running away, and his premonition hardly eased at all, so flight would merely delay it a little. It seemed to be inevitable. Besides, he had a belated wedding present to give Inos. He headed for the royal enclosure.
The two old jotnar shouted after him, wanting him to do ritual butchery on the corpse, and he ignored them.
He certainly wasn’t going to turn up in front of Inos with just a furry skin around him and even furrier faun legs showing below it. He detested his legs. As a child he had hated his squashy nose and his impossible hair, which the others had all laughed at. He had grown used to those eventually, but then his legs had sprouted like hayfields and given him something much worse to dislike. He wished that when the Gods had stirred up his mixed heritage, They had given him jotunn legs.
Still, sorcerers could solve such problems. He did not even need to retrieve the garments he had left in the tent, nor hunt out a private place to change. As he walked through the rain he clothed himself in a whole new outfit. He made good practical garments, of comfortable soft leather, like the work clothes Factor Foronod wore in the field. He made them in a plain, serviceable brown. They were sorcerous, not magical, and therefore permanent. The difference was quite obvious to him now.
Splashing along in his new boots, then, he brooded. Kalkor’s death had solved nothing. It had not brought Gathmor back, and it left Krasnegar without a monarch. It had certainly not soothed Rap’s jotunn temper. Left to itself, that terrible anger might last for days. If anything, it was worse than before, because now there was no relief in sight, no one to strike at. He could feel it rampaging inside him, seeking a victim to destroy. It might not matter very much, because he was going to die very soon.
Why? He didn’t want to die in burning agony! He didn’t want to die at all, and knowing it was coming made it even worse.
The cordon of legionaries opened a gap for him grudgingly. Today’s canopy was much larger than the previous day’s, and most of the royal party had managed to huddle in below it, leaving their guards out in the rain with the servants. Were they frightened of catching colds?
Rap stalked up the bank to the smarmy little regent on his stupid wooden throne. He used the smallest bow he thought would not be an open insult.
That had been noticed—he detected the hidden smiles and frowns from the various political factions represented. The Imperial court would always be a creel of lobsters, all slithering and biting to get on top. He despised them, these wealthy parasites in their embroidered cloaks and fancy gowns, in their elaborate ruffles and padded tights. He had not thought much of them yesterday, and today he could read them like posters with his sorcerer’s insight. The contempt was mutual; he could see their curled lips and cocked eyebrows as they scorned the yokel sorcerer, their little shared glances of nervous mirth.
In the open at the very back of the crowd Little Chicken was smirking as he thought of all the barbarous things he was going to do to Rap. Dream away, little green monster! Poor wee goblin, doomed to be cheated of his victim! When Rap had left him in the shed, he had been busy crushing firewood with his bare hands to see how much strength he had given away. Well, he would get it all back soon.
Near him the burly old Nordland ambassador was trying to seem impassive, but his satisfaction was perfectly clear to a sorcerer. Obviously he hadn’t enjoyed having Kalkor sniffing around his private peeing tree. No mourning there, Kalkor. No mourning anywhere.
The big chunky djinn stood swathed in his despicable curse, and rigid with fear and guilt. He was hiding them well beneath an arrogant sneer, but not well enough. He had tried to kill Rap most foully, and now his victim was a sorcerer. Bladder feeling a little tight, Sultan? Bowels a little shaky? The giant was not unlike the dwarf, Zinixo. Why must such distrustful men always assume that others were as vindictive as themselves? Did he think Rap would now make Inos a widow? Yes, he did, because that’s what he would do in Rap’s place. Murdering savage! How could Inos have ever . . . but that was her business.