“You’ve made a serious mistake,” Urdinger grated. “Trying to beat me to my prize up on the Highfells was one thing. The book was there for the taking, after all. But now you’re interfering in our business. My House paid well for our place in this wretched little town. If you think a few brave words and some elf-magic are going to make me surrender it, you’re dead wrong, Hulmaster.”
“It seems to me that your House’s place in this town consists of robbing Hulburg blind, threatening unarmed women, and dealing with the harmach’s enemies,” Geran retorted. “I’d suggest that you ought to change your ways, but somehow I doubt that would make much of an impression. So I suppose I’ll have to frame my point in terms you can understand: Every time a Veruna man hurts a Hulburgan or damages his property, I’ll make certain that he soon regrets it.”
“Fool,” the mercenary captain spat. “When you draw steel against a man in our colors, you draw steel against all of us. When we’re done with you, you’ll never hold a sword again.”
The other two mercenaries started to circle slowly around Geran. The swordmage shifted his stance a step but kept his eyes on Urdinger. The mercenary captain shrugged his cape over his shoulder, clearing his sword hilt, and then Geran saw something familiar: On the mercenary captain’s right hip rode an elven dagger with a pommel shaped like a sprig of holly.
Geran stopped and stood his ground, narrowing his eyes. “Where did you get that dagger, Urdinger?” he asked in a cold voice.
The mercenary glanced down at his hip with a frown, then he looked back up with a short rasp of cruel laughter. “What, this? I suppose I found it out on the Highfells. Why do you care?”
“I gave that dagger to Jarad Erstenwold three years ago.” Geran drew his sword in one easy motion, leveling the point at the Veruna captain. “I name you murderer, thief, and tomb-robber, Anfel Urdinger. And I name you a craven coward as well, since you seem to be unable to challenge a son of Hulburg without a three-to-one advantage in numbers.”
The Mulmasterite’s coarse amusement died in his throat, and an angry flush reddened his face. Geran had chosen his barb well; in Mulmaster, words such as Geran’s were words to kill over. With two of his own armsmen and a handful of Hulburgan bystanders close at hand, Urdinger could not let it pass. “No man calls me a coward and lives,” the mercenary hissed.
One of the Veruna armsmen spoke. “Captain Urdinger, he’s baiting you-”
“Shut your mouth!” Urdinger snarled. “And stand aside, both of you. This lies between me and him.” He drew his own blade, a well-made long sword engraved with the image of a serpentine dragon. The captain quickly moved the blade through several quick passes, slicing the air as he settled the sword in his grip, and then he advanced on Geran. “I’ll have satisfaction for your insults, my lord. You’d have been wiser to keep your accusations to yourself.”
With a sudden martial shout, the Mulmasterite sprang at Geran and attacked. He slashed high, recovered from Geran’s parry with a jab at the swordmage’s face, and then lunged quickly at Geran’s belt-buckle while Geran was still leaning back. Geran barely knocked Urdinger’s point aside. The mercenary was a fine swordsman, noticeably quicker and more skilled than Bann, and for a few moments Geran was hard pressed to keep up a defense, let alone riposte. Another vicious thrust at his midsection he only deflected, and the Mulmasterite’s point stopped only when the silversteel veil turned it away from piercing Geran under his right-side ribs.
“Elf witchery,” the Veruna man snarled. “And you accuse me of cowardice!”
“You wear steel plate,” Geran answered. “My spells are my armor.”
Urdinger attacked again, trying out Geran’s measure more deliberately, seeking an opening. Geran fell back, choosing to use his footwork more as he studied Urdinger in return. The Veruna man was a master of the Mulman style-hard strikes, hard parries, an emphasis on attack over defense. It was fairly common in the Moonsea lands. The cobblestones scuffed under his boots as he circled Urdinger, and the shrill ring of steel against steel filled the narrow street. Geran’s own style was much less formal. He’d spent his early years largely teaching himself, learning to fit his bladework to his own strengths instead of the other way around. He’d come by his formal schooling much later, in Myth Drannor, learning from elf blademasters who had studied their art for centuries.
A small scowl of frustration began to work its way across Urdinger’s face. He’d thrown himself into a sudden, fierce assault, but Geran had survived it, and in the space of three heartbeats, the initiative in the duel passed from the mercenary to the swordmage. Geran shifted from parries and ripostes to more deliberate and dangerous attacks, throwing Urdinger on the defensive. Steel flickered and darted in the fading daylight, and the two duelists exchanged places several times in a row as Geran’s passing attacks carried him to Urdinger’s right flank, and the Mulmasterite quickly reciprocated.
“Stand still, damn you!” the Mulmasterite growled.
Geran saw his chance. He feinted with his feet, bluffing at another passing attack, and Urdinger anticipated the move and gave way too soon. With the quickness of a striking serpent, Geran circled his point under the Mulmasterite’s parry and then up and around in a looping cut that found the juncture of helm and shoulder. The last four inches of Geran’s point slashed through Urdinger’s neck, flicking scarlet drops across the street, and then Geran gave back a couple of steps.
Urdinger grunted and recovered his guard, ignoring the blood coursing from his collar and bubbling between his bared teeth. He fixed his eyes on Geran and returned to the attack for two, then three swings, each growing wilder, and then he stumbled to all fours. His sword clattered to the cobblestones, and his eyes widened in shock.
“Not… like… this…” he rasped.
Geran lowered his point and gazed coldly at the Veruna captain. “I met you steel to steel, Urdinger,” he said. “You might be a murderer and a thief, but I must say it: You’re not a coward.”
The Veruna captain pitched forward to the street and fell still, blood pooling beneath him. Geran knelt and pulled the elf-dagger in its sheath from Urdinger’s sword belt. “This was Jarad’s,” he said to no one in particular, and then he straightened and looked around. The townsfolk stood watching him, not saying a word. The remaining two Veruna men stared at their fallen captain with astonishment. Geran ignored them. He shook the blood from his sword and sheathed it.
“Word’s on its way to Griffonwatch, Geran,” Mirya said. She stood on the steps of Erstenwold’s, her face set in a worried frown. She wouldn’t miss Anfel Urdinger, of course, but Mirya had sense enough to see that this wasn’t the end of the affair. “The Shieldsworn ought to be here soon enough. Are you wounded?”
He realized that his side hurt, and glanced down. A small round spot of blood stained his tunic on the right side of his torso, where Urdinger’s blade had pinked him. He was lucky. If his spells hadn’t held, that could have been a mortal thrust. Not all of Veruna’s blades are as slow or clumsy as Bann, he told himself. Urdinger might have beaten him on a different day, and there were likely other Verunas who could as well. “No, I’m fine,” he rasped.
“What do you aim to do now?” she asked.
Geran remembered standing on frosted grass beneath the last leaves of autumn under the towers of Myth Drannor, watching the blood drip from his elven steel. He could still taste the rich, wet scent of the fallen leaves. He remembered looking up from his maimed enemy and meeting Alliere’s stricken gaze, the cold sick shock that marked her perfect face, and the look of her turning away from him.
He raised his eyes to Mirya’s face. She didn’t flinch away from him; she was made of sterner stuff. But there’d be trouble from his duel with Veruna’s captain, and they both knew it. It was inevitable. Geran shrugged. “I’ll wait for the Shieldsworn,” he said.