It felt good, familiar, like his old night work-and it made him a great deal lighter on his feet.
The archer was now fighting with one leg of his breeches soaked with blood and both feet burdened with mud. He also showed half a dozen minor wounds that Pirvan could not remember inflicting, but which had to be slowing him even further.
Pirvan knew that he had to end this fight before passions rose higher or the archer’s still considerable strength got a lucky stroke through the knight’s guard. He played the archer around in a circle until he had firm footing under him, then closed using speed he had saved until now.
Inside the man’s guard now, Pirvan locked dagger to dagger, immobilizing both weapons for a moment until the other’s greater strength would break the lock. He dropped the sword-and ignored the screams and howls all around him. Pirvan drew a dagger from its chest sheath, quickly, as the archer tried to get his sword around.
Then Pirvan thrust up-and felt the knife go through the windpipe, past the mouth, up into the brain-as the man fell away and backward.
Pirvan bent to retrieve his fallen sword-and a howl went up from inside the gate.
“Kill the knight! Kill the other traitor!”
Instantly Pedoon’s men turned from Pirvan’s possible enemies to his staunchest defenders. They had seen him avenge their fallen chief; they would fall beside him rather than let him down. They began striking wildly, though with not much vigor or skill, at the men in the gateway.
The men there struck back, more of Pedoon’s fighters went down, and the men in the gateway pressed forward. In that moment they would be out in the open and the great battle begun.
Pirvan had no breath left for curses. But he still saw clearly, and what he saw was that not all the men inside the camp were pushing forward. Some were drawing back, and dragging or trying to drag others with them.
The men inside the camp seemed of two minds about Pirvan and his men.
“Back from the gate!” he shouted. “Everyone back from the gate, out of bowshot, and form a square! Now, you triple-cursed fools!” He called the men quite a few other things as well, most of which he knew about only afterward, told by those who heard him in awe and admiration.
At least Pedoon’s men obeyed, breaking all at once in a desperate rush to get clear of the gateway. Apparently they felt their obligation to the knight avenger had been fulfilled, because Pirvan suddenly found himself standing as Pedoon’s men streamed past.
The next moment he was alone, facing a dozen men from the camp. The moment after that, Haimya was beside him, her face frozen in a battle mask that Pirvan feared was aimed as much at him as the enemy.
But Haimya’s blade was as quick as ever, and took down two opponents. Then out of nowhere whirled a bola, wrapping itself around her blade and pulling it out of line. She gave ground as her guard went down, and a lean, dark man leaped out of the crowd, wielding a short club.
Haimya drew her dagger as Pirvan closed to protect her, but something smashed him across the ankles and he staggered, knowing that his own guard was down and that the dark man could kill either him or Haimya or probably both-
But the dark man and his partner-a kender, of all things!-were stepping back. They seemed to be herding the rest of the men from the camp backward as well, so that suddenly Pirvan and Haimya were alone.
Alone, fifty paces from their nearest men-now all formed in a ragged but thick square, Pirvan noted with approval. Alone, with Haimya swordless and Pirvan barely able to walk, the fire in his legs adding to exhaustion until he knew he had about three more steps in him before he could be cut down like ripe wheat.
Yet not alone, either. Pirvan wanted to ask Haimya’s forgiveness for his sharp tongue, but knew that if it did not come in words, it would come in a few moments, when they went down together.
The few moments came and went, but no enemy advanced.
Pirvan turned to Haimya. “Forgive me, my love.” At least that was what he tried to say, or rather, croak.
Haimya turned toward him, blinked, and started to speak.
The words never came. From the right a howling war cry tore at Pirvan’s ears. He wanted to drop his sword again and clap his hands over them.
In another moment, from the left came the reply to the war cry. It was as wordless as the first, but it came from no human throat. Only one race on Krynn had that thundering bellow.
The Minotaur had come-and Pirvan would wager that his heir was not far away.
* * * * *
The first to arrive was a man leading one of the mounted patrols, on what seemed to be a raw-boned pony. It was only when the man dismounted that Pirvan realized he’d been riding a full-sized horse. It was the size of the man that had deceived Pirvan.
There was nothing awkward about the man’s movements, however, as he approached Pirvan and Haimya. “I am Darin, Heir to the Minotaur. It would be well if you explained how your coming to our camp brought such disorder.”
“Lord Darin-” Haimya began.
“Heir,” the man said firmly.
“Oh, be easy for the moment, Darin,” rumbled a voice from the left. Pirvan and Haimya could not have kept from turning to look if they’d been transformed into statues.
A form still more gigantic than the rider was walking steadily across the field toward them. He could not have been much less than eight feet tall and, like all minotaurs, was broad in proportion.
His progress was as much a march as a walk. He seemed to refuse to allow the mud the dignity of thinking itself able to impede his progress, as feet rose and fell as steadily as the rotation of a millwheel. He wore short breeches, a sleeveless tunic, and a shatang, the heavy minotaur throwing spear, slung across his back.
His hide showed patches of gray amid the red and the black, but his horns shone like the finest crystal. They were also the longest horns Pirvan had ever seen on a minotaur.
It took long enough for Waydol to cross the field for Pirvan to tear his gaze away and look elsewhere. All of his own men were also gaping, but they were holding their weapons and maintaining their square well.
The gateway of the camp was solid with men, and more had climbed atop the wall. Apparently for many of Waydol’s recruits, this was the first time they had laid eyes on their chief.
None of the men in the camp seemed to have a weapon raised, which was good. Less good was a number of bodies that were not Pedoon’s men or the archer. There would be a blood-price to pay, which was not Pirvan’s notion of the best way to begin negotiations with Waydol.
At last the Minotaur was close enough for a formal greeting. Though he had reproved his heir in public, there was nothing friendly about his demeanor as he approached Pirvan and Haimya.
Neither knelt. With minotaurs even more than with men, that yielded superiority before it was even asked.
They did not even bow their heads. Instead they stood, hands held out and fingers spread to show that they intended peace. As Waydol halted, Pirvan spoke.
“We greet you, Waydol.”
“Your first greeting was less than friendly,” Waydol said. Most minotaurs sounded as if they were angry or at least had a headache, even when they were speaking politely. Waydol did not sound angry. His voice sounded more like an avalanche-which is not angry with what it crushes, but does not admit to being stopped, either.
“We came, if not in friendship, then without any ill wish toward you,” Pirvan said. “Yet your greeting also did not speak of friendship. My comrade in leading our band, Pedoon Half-Ogre, whom I once spared in battle, was shot down like a mad dog by one sworn to you.”
“There is a blood-debt, indeed, on both sides,” Waydol said. Pirvan began to hope. Admitting that placed a considerable burden on an honorable minotaur, and it was never wise, safe, or even sane, to assume that a minotaur did not regard himself as honorable-even if he had chosen to dwell for twenty years as an outlaw chief among humans.