«Your Majesty!» he bellowed. «This man is the leader of a band of Neraler pirates of the worst sort. They were shipwrecked on the coast of Grand Ayesh, which Your Majesty had most graciously given into my-«
«Silence!» thundered Pelthros, rising from the throne and to Blade's surprise easily out-bellowing his Chancellor. «The law says that if a man steps forward and offers challenge to the King's Champion, that challenge must be accepted. It is indeed an ancient law of this Realm, as the Captain says, nor shall it be abridged while we sit upon the throne of Royth.» Blade had to admit that in spite of all that he had heard against the man, Pelthros could at least act like a king when necessary. In fact, Indhios was backing away like a bear backing away from a hunter.
The silence the King had demanded had fallen like a foot of snow over the gathering, chilling and stifling conversation. All eyes were on Blade now, until the King raised his voice again and called, «Herald, summon the King's Champion!»
But Baron Maltravos was already pushing his way forward through the crowd of notables flanking the thrones. Blade took the chance to size up the man as he strode out into the clear space in front of the throne and bowed with a graceful arrogance that was almost contemptuous of both the King and the whole Court. Shorter than Blade by half a head, but with long arms and legs supporting a squat, broad torso, there was something apelike about him. But there was no apish deviltry in the gray eyes staring out of a face half swallowed up in bristling beard, only a cold sizing up of Blade in return. Blade's trained judgment made its assessment and passed him its opinion: this was a dangerous man. He would be fast, he would have great endurance, and he would have against him only Blade's great size and his own over-confidence. The baron's words confirmed the judgment:
«Well, Your Majesty, do we need to waste your gracious time and that of your loyal subjects any further? I see that the Neraler wretch comes armed. I say, let me kill him now, and have done with it.» And he whipped from their scabbards a broadsword and a shortsword and made both of them blur and whistle in the air.
«I will fight as the baron wishes,» said Blade. «But might I ask for a shield?» The King nodded and beckoned to one of the guards, who ran forward and handed Blade his own shield, a circle of leather over wood about two and a half feet across, with a bronze rim and a bronze boss at the center. Blade hefted it a few times to judge its weight and carefully flexed his muscles to loosen them. The baron watched with an open sneer twisting his faced visible even through the beard.
The Herald raised his hand, trumpets blared from the alcoves, and the crowd of courtiers and their ladies gave back hastily, leaving free a circle some thirty feet in diameter in front of the throne. That, Blade recalled, was exactly the same size as the arena in which Cayla had slaughtered Dynera. But instead of ropes tied to oars, this arena was marked off by a ring of royal guards, glowering impartially outward at the courtiers and inward at the two fighters standing in the middle.
The audience was silent. Blade could not read their expressions clearly enough to guess if they were going to prove partisan, and if so, for whom. Nor was it important. A cheering section will not revive a corpse.
Blade had never fought before against the formal two-swords style that Maltravos was apparently planning to use, except in the Medieval Club at Oxford. But that little experience had taught him that it was deadly for a man with the speed and coordination to use it. A weapon in either hand gave the fighter an extra offensive punch, and if he chose to use both for defense, he could raise an almost unbreakable wall of steel between him and the opponent.
The baron moved forward, shortsword held out in the guard position and broadsword raised for an overhand stroke. Blade moved in himself, saw the broadsword whirl toward his head, jerked his shield up in time to catch the stroke, then pulled it down as the shortsword stabbed toward his groin. He braced his feet apart, swung his own sword, and saw the baron whip both of his weapons up into an X-pattern that caught Blade's descending stroke neatly in the upper fork of the X. Blade nearly had his sword wrenched out of his hand as the baron sidestepped, disengaged, and came in again.
In a matter of the few seconds it took for half a dozen more exchanges of blows, Blade realized he was going to have to fight for his life and worry about victory later, if at all. The baron's broadsword whistled over his head and past his ear by hair-thin margins or crashed deafeningly against the top and edge of his shield. The shortsword flickered like a striking snake toward belly, groin, and thigh. His own slashes clanged off the baron's guard, and his own thrusts were always beaten down by one of the baron's whistling strokes. The man was every bit as fast as he was, Blade realized. And unlike Oshawal, he might have equal or greater endurance.
Back and forth across the circle they sprang in a continuous fury of exchanges, broken only by momentary pauses when by mutual if unspoken consent they drew apart to wipe their faces free of the sweat now flooding down their bodies and darkening their tunics and breeches. Then they would return to the battle.
Blade was conscious of mutterings and murmurings among the crowd now, as people noted the fine points of each fighter's techniques or gasped at some particularly hairbreadth escape-usually one of his. The baron might as well have been a machine, for all the strain he was showing. Blade, however, was becoming conscious of rasping breath and rubbery legs and arms as his prison-weakened frame began to rebel against the burden falling on it. But he at least could see in his opponent's eyes the dying of the former arrogant confidence and the beginning of-not fear, but at least strain and uncertainty. The baron began to use strokes designed to kill, not merely to show off his prowess in handling his swords.
A moment came, twenty minutes (though feeling more like twenty years) into the fight. The baron sprang out of a resting guard, feinting with the broadsword and thrusting with the shortsword in the same split second. Blade half-crouched, feeling the wind of the broadsword above his head-and feeling the point of the shortsword wedge itself for a moment in one of the gashes that scarred the surface of his shield. In the extra fraction of a second the baron needed to jerk his shortsword free and begin to back away, Blade drove his own sword forward in a lightning thrust and saw the point rake along Maltravos' left forearm and sink deep into his bicep. The blood welled up fast.
Blade felt an inner surge of new strength as the baron sprang clear, staring at his arm. And he felt the mood of the crowd swing in his favor-or was it just in favor of blood and victory, no matter whose? No time to think that over now, only time to press his advantage. He stepped up his own pace to a level he knew he could not maintain for long, and pressed his attack.
In another minute the baron showed blood on the side of his neck and a moment after that on his left thigh. But although he had abandoned the furious offensive of the first stages of the fight, he was still maintaining a solid defense. Blade heard the crowd, for a few moments perhaps his partisans, subside once again into rumblings and occasional remarks. And he knew he was pouring the last of his strength into an offense that had yet to break decisively through to the baron. He would have to draw the baron out, and soon.