They were like fighting dogs, he thought, taking the measure of one another. Round and round they circled, their eyes locked and almost unblinking, blades steady. Kanin brushed snow from the crown of his head.
Shraeve moved so completely without warning that he lost track of her for an instant, and only heard rather than saw the clatter of steel on shield, the flurry of quick feet advancing and retreating. Fiallic spun out of her path, cutting at her flank as he went. She blocked the blow with one sword, stabbed in over it with the other. But Fiallic was gone already, gliding over the snow. Neither of them was breathing hard, Kanin could see. Neither looked as though they were engaged in anything more serious or strenuous than a casual training exercise. Shraeve shook her arms, shifted her weight from one foot to another and back again, and rushed in once more.
They battled their way around that walled killing ground, and the patterns they described with bodies and blades were as intricate as any dance. There was, indeed, a certain intimacy, a certain isolation, to the intensity with which the two of them engaged. They were shaping something, together, alone, that belonged to them and to no one else.
Fiallic deflected an assault, then countered with the shield itself, slashing with its rim at Shraeve’s face. It was as smooth and fast a movement as Kanin had ever seen in combat, but not quite fast enough to catch Shraeve. She ducked aside. For just that one fraction of a heartbeat, her balance was less than perfect, and Fiallic’s sword came hacking down on her weight-bearing leg. Kanin broadened his shoulders, ready to cry out in acclamation of the victory. Shraeve sprang, drove herself up off that leg, twisting in the air to swing it out of the path of Fiallic’s blade. The blow still caught her, but it was only glancing, skidding off her calf. Still, it tumbled her. She landed on fists and knees in a spray of snow. There was blood on her leg.
Fiallic darted in. Shraeve spiralled up and away, like an acrobat, and was on her feet, flicking his attack aside. He has her, though, Kanin thought. He has the tiniest fragment of greater speed, the minutely sharper eye that is required of the victor. He will kill her. And then Aeglyss.
At the thought of the na’kyrim, Kanin tore his eyes away from the furious struggle within the enclosure, searching for him. Aeglyss was there, further down the slope, some way round the perimeter of the crowd. He was amongst his Kyrinin, thirty or forty of them. One of them was supporting him. Look at him, Kanin thought. Unable to even stand straight. Any eye can see the man’s sick; dying already, perhaps. Why would Shraeve sacrifice herself in such a perverse cause? What hold is it that this creature exerts?
The ringing of blades snapped his attention back to the sheep pen. Fiallic was rushing Shraeve, driving her backwards in a blindingly fast flurry of blows and blocks and feints. He forced her to the wall of their arena, pinning her against its rough stone surface. His shield pushed back one sword, he parried her second with his own blade, and butted her across the bridge of her nose. Kanin saw the blood bloom, and smear down her face, and once again he thought she must be finished now. But Shraeve ducked down, put her shoulder into Fiallic’s armpit and heaved him, by sheer strength, backwards and away from her. Blood dripped from her chin.
Kanin glanced back towards Aeglyss, wondering whether he would see fear there; whether the halfbreed could see his own death, coming down the track towards him. Instead, what he saw was Aeglyss swaying, his head twitching as if fending off flies. Even at this distance, Kanin could see a sheen of sweat on the halfbreed’s forehead. There was a faint ringing in Kanin’s ears, so faint he could not be sure he heard it.
He saw Fiallic falter, taking a hesitant half-step and giving his head a sharp shake. Shraeve closed on him. Kanin stared at Aeglyss, fury rising in him. The na’kyrim ’s lips were drawn back from his teeth in a coarse grin of pain or pleasure. His mouth slowly opened. His inhuman eyes were following Fiallic’s every movement. No, Kanin thought. No. His skin was tingling.
Fiallic blocked an attack, but he was slow. Shraeve got a cut in at his shoulder, putting a deep wound there. She had blood across her eyes. She should have been barely able to see. Fiallic staggered. He was blinking furiously. There was a look of strained surprise on his face. Inexplicably, he made no attempt to put his shield between himself and Shraeve. She squatted, bringing both blades flashing round in a flat sweep, one above the other, and a fraction behind. The first took Fiallic in the back of the knee, cutting one leg from under him. The second opened his hamstring.
He fell in the snow. Shraeve straightened, slow and considered now. She wiped one sleeve across her eyes, smudging a track through the blood. She walked towards Fiallic. He was rising unsteadily to his feet. Neither leg could take his full weight. He levered himself up with his sword, its point driven into the ground. Shraeve steadied both her blades, one low, one high, and ran at him.
Kanin was moving before Fiallic hit the ground. Intent and purpose had hold of him, and he was pushing his way through the crowd, elbowing people aside blindly. He could see Aeglyss, amongst his wight guards, could see his satisfaction. Kanin had his sword halfway from its scabbard. He heard Igris coming behind, shouting at people to move aside. They could reach the halfbreed, Kanin thought, surprised at the detached clarity of his mind. With his Shield at his side, he could cut through to Aeglyss. Kill him.
A firm hand on his arm twisted him aside. People were scattering, opening up a space of trampled, dirty snow. He was staring at Cannek, hearing the heavy breathing of one of the Inkallim’s great dogs. Kanin pulled his arm free, but Cannek reached out and seized it again.
“Not now, Thane,” he said softly. “Not now. He has his White Owls, and the Battle will defend him, if Shraeve commands it. And she will.”
“Release me,” Kanin hissed. The dog growled at the threat in his voice, but he did not care.
“How many swords do you have, Thane?” Cannek asked. He took his hand from Kanin’s arm, but did not release his eyes. “Not enough. Not today.”
Kanin stared at the Inkallim. The hard, insistent beat of anger was still there in his chest, but its mastery of him was broken for a moment. He looked down, over the heads of the crowd milling between them, and saw Aeglyss. The na’kyrim was watching him, a dead smile on his lips. Clouds of snowflakes swept between them.
“It was him,” Kanin said. “Fiallic should have won. Would have done, but for him.”
“There will be another time,” Cannek whispered. “He has mastered the Battle today, but not the Lore. Not the Hunt. Do you hear me? You are Thane of your Blood. If you die today there is none to follow you.”
Kanin let his blade slide back into its sheath. It was heavy on his hips, its presence still urging him to release it; use it. But Cannek was right. Fate favoured courage, but not always stupidity. He would die, with all his Shield, if he set himself against the White Owls and the Battle here and now. That did not matter in itself. What mattered was whether he could achieve the halfbreed’s death before his own. There would surely be another time, soon, when he could be more certain of that.
“The Haig army awaits us now. After that — if there is anything for us after that — we should talk, away from curious eyes and ears,” Cannek said. Kanin was no longer listening to him, though.
The crowd was dispersing. There was laughter, here and there; excited voices raised. The tramp of feet across the snow-clad hillside, clouds of breath pluming up. And from the Inkallim, only silence, and obedience. As the others drifted away, they closed in, like black birds thickening on carrion, around the killing pen. Shraeve, Banner-captain of the Battle, climbed out and limped towards Aeglyss. Two of the Inkallim who had ringed the stone enclosure vaulted in and moved towards Fiallic’s corpse. This was not how it was meant to be, Kanin was thinking. None of it. This is not fate, but ruin. The corruption of everything we desired. All our hopes. All shaking themselves to dust.