‘I’m serious, as well.’ Arithon’s green eyes stayed imperious, their hard brilliance as faceted emerald. To the young man who ranged opposite, drawn steel in hand, plying the rag over and over his weapon’s honed edge, Rathain’s sovereign prince minced no niceties at all. ‘Shall we cross swords? Very good.
That should settle all differences. Let’s please set the stakes very clearly beforehand.’
‘No stakes,’ Fionn Areth rebutted. ‘I just want you dead. That’s what drew me from Araethura in the first place.’
‘I took that as given,’ said Arithon s’Ffalenn. ‘Now hear out my terms.’ Against Dakar’s furious, clashing reproof, his challenge continued, implacable. ‘I say you’re on our side, whether you like my morals or not. The Koriathain are to blame for your trial of misfortune, but their meddling left you with my face. Despite my list of disreputable habits, I won’t stand aside and see you gutted as my namesake. Neither will I drag my close friends into jeopardy by saving you from the faggots again. The only men I trust with your safety are my own. To change that, you’ll have to defeat me.’
For answer, Fionn Areth stripped off cloak and jacket and jerked up his chin. ‘We’ll take this outside?’
Arithon arose, all trim grace, to meet him. The blanket slipped off his squared shoulders, unnoticed, while the smoke-dusky steel in his hand flashed with a predator’s confidence. ‘Kill me, and the townsmen will heap you with praise. No doubt Dakar will be amazed to see how you go about claiming the hero’s honors while wearing my royal likeness.’
‘You can’t do this.’ A contrast of lumbering corpulence, the Mad Prophet shoved upright and attempted to thrust in between.
Arithon drove him back with a glance, then faced Fionn Areth, the furious temper of his bloodline a welded, unyielding presence. ‘Seize the opportunity,’ he goaded. ‘Take me down! Cast me bleeding in the mud. For the murdered children at Tal Quorin, seize the moment to claim retribution.’
Fixated, Fionn Areth stalked past the fire. ‘Shall we start?’ He tested the edge on his blade, prepared to cut down that light, silken voice, the withdrawn countenance and cat-footed poise of the spiteful creature who opposed him. Who wore frayed wool and linen with the arrogance of fine velvet, and whose contempt seemed to scald every private, inner wound and gall-broken dream with bright viciousness.
Dakar watched, stunned breathless, as the goatherd arose to take the thrown gauntlet. Like a moth’s suicidal plunge to the flame, he resumed his plea for intervention. ‘Arithon, damn you! Have you gone mad? The wards I’ve set weren’t made to mask sound! Fight with steel, and the noise will draw guardsmen.’ The Mad Prophet snatched at Arithon’s sleeve and found himself shaken off.
‘I want this,’ said the Master of Shadow, unequivocal. His most scalding nod encompassed Fionn Areth, who paced back and forth with impatience. ‘He holds my given word I would answer to justice. Since we’re not going to stop, show the good sense to back off.’
‘Good sense?’ Dakar cried in shrill disbelief. ‘You’re the one who intends to cross steel in the dark, over glare ice and slippery footing! Not since you tried tienelle before Dier Kenton Vale have I seen you act this irresponsible.’
‘Then you’ll just have to trust that I have my sound reasons.’ Arithon brushed past, committed.
As he rounded the fire, Dakar glimpsed the stained bandage showing beneath his left shirt cuff. Concern fanned his anger. ‘Then get yourself killed! I don’t want to watch.’ While the prince and his look-alike stepped into the storm, the Mad Prophet turned to the thankless task of breaking camp and saddling the horses.
In the millyard outside, the raking east wind swept the snow to a thinned, brittle sheet. The pristine layer silenced footfalls as Fionn Areth and the man he pledged to destroy lined up to cross killing steel. A gust hissed down the cleared gash of the tailrace. Its funneled fury lashed at exposed hands and faces and moaned unchecked through the fir thickets. Darkness choked the impaired visibility down to an unreliable few yards.
If the man of experience now held second thoughts, no sign of hesitancy showed in the angle of the sword he raised up to guard point.
Nor did Fionn Areth shrink at the crux. Heedless that spelled wine had bolstered his resources, he stood braced to reclaim willful charge of the prophecy the Araethurian seeress had made at his birth. ‘Begin,’ he rang out. ‘In the name of the Light, start the trial whenever you’re ready.’
Arithon s’Ffalenn remained stilled, his held steel a motionless line scribed against felted darkness. ‘Oh, no boy. You have your priorities dead wrong. For Alliance principles or for Morriel Prime, I won’t play. If you would aspire to become Lysaer’s puppet, you’ll close on the same terms that he has. Just as at Tal Quorin and Vastmark, you’ll have to be first to attack.’
‘You think I lack courage?’ Fionn Areth launched into an immediate lunge, gratified by the belling clang as his blade met his enemy’s firm parry.
The slick footing demanded exacting balance. Arithon engaged the classic defense, his style and form letter-perfect. Despite adverse conditions, Fionn Areth flushed with self-confidence. His years of hard training rose to the occasion. He moved to heightened focus, prepared to carve out his own ebullient brilliance.
He blocked Arithon’s strong but predictable counterthrust, and answered. Steel chimed. Like dancers engaged in partnered combat, the duelists circled, their swords a glancing point of contact between them. Fionn Areth took no chances. Deliberate in technique, he held down his hot nerves, gratified as he measured Arithon’s offensive, and content to await the clear-cut opportunity to close with a lethal stroke.
Through the back-and-forth, testing exchange of first blows, he matched his antagonist’s form. Not a large man, the Master of Shadow countered weight and force with neat footwork. The polished execution of each thrust and parry displayed the temper of unruffled experience. Fionn Areth gave that spare style his reasoned analysis. He had heard the exalted heights to which this man, as Masterbard, had carried his gift of music. Time demanded limitation: few men might support the same brilliance in two different arenas at once.
Engage and spring back, then sideslip; the locked patterns of combat stamped overlapped prints in the draw. Each parry cast the ring of sheared steel through the cloaking mantle of darkness. Between whining gusts, the high banks of the millrace funneled the din of each passage. Nor did the muffling snowfall do aught to mask tortured dissonance, as blade locked to blade, then screamed edge to flat upon parting.
Emerged from the ruin with the horses on lead reins, the Mad Prophet watched the exchange with worried eyes and five centuries of jaded outlook. He had seen Rathain’s liege through stresses and hardship, and the bitter immediacy of forced slaughter. This unfolding encounter was a bald-faced farce. Each contemptuous movement was delivered in the snapping, crisp sarcasm that marked Arithon’s inimical mockery. Nor was Dakar surprised when the moment arrived to pair action with needling satire.
‘Very good, boy.’ Arithon effected a lightning-fast disengage. Fionn Areth lurched through an embarrassing stagger as the expected resistance melted away and left him overextended. ‘We’ve practiced each one of the basic attack patterns. Does your repertoire extend to intermediate skill? Go on. Come ahead. Shall we see?’
Backed off, breathing through tight concentration, the younger man threw off distraction. ‘You won’t bait me into losing my temper.’
‘Bait you?’ Tap! Tap! Arithon’s sword struck, controlled to precision that mocked. ‘Shall we pick up the pace?’
Fionn Areth met the devastating rush of the next lunge, wary, not yet thrown on the defensive. ‘You haven’t been fighting,’ he accused through the clamor as his response hammered Arithon’s brisk parry.
‘Oh, I’m fighting,’ assured the Prince of Rathain, his statement a ribbon of provocation. ‘The ground’s not ideal. What’s the point,