Trellane returned the courtesy, as did Fitz and his men. Only Dugan stood unmoving, his head covered by his silly, musty, fur hat. Tilda moved her right hand slowly under her half cloak toward the dagger at the small of her back.
“Commoner,” Procost growled.
“He is with me, knight!” Block shouted.
“He is no Miilarkian.”
Trellane and the others had begun to look at Dugan as if noticing him for the first time. For his part, Dugan only met the knight’s gaze. His demeanor was at peace, and there was no retreat in it.
Block was still shouting.
“It matters not if he be a Miilarkian born, or a Cobra Bay barmaid! He is in my employ, and I am an Islander in good standing in my House…”
“Uncover, foot soldier!” Procost boomed, and instantly Dugan did, tearing the sorry hat from his head and tossing it aside, revealing his close-shorn black hair.
No one said anything for a goodly long time. When Procost finally broke the silence, there was a smile in his voice that did not show on his face.
“You are out of uniform, legionnaire.”
“I am at that.”
“Show me your shoulder.”
“Sir Procost!” Block bawled, now standing directly in front of the knight. The dwarf held one hand up in warding but his other was somewhere under his cloak. Tilda had a fairly good idea what that meant. She also had a finger on either side of a slim dagger pommel, just enough to slip it from its sheath and cast it underhand.
The knight ignored the dwarf. He had eyes only for Dugan, and no more semblance of politeness.
“Show me your insignia, dog! I would know from whence it is you run.”
“Does it matter?” Dugan asked, so quietly Tilda was surprised Procost heard him as the two were still separated by the length of the cottage. But the knight plainly did.
“It does, for if you are a deserter from some local force than you are under arrest.” The knight’s teeth appeared as a white line within his beard. “But if you are renegade from the damnable 34 ^, the burners of the Round Hall at Trabon, then before these witnesses you will meet justice here and now.”
At the mention of the 34 ^ and the Round Hall, everyone but Tilda and Block stared at Dugan. The renegade gave a slight smile.
“That is the Fighting Three-Four to you, tin can.”
Procost’s teeth bared wider and his nostrils flared as he drew his great, strong-bladed broadsword over his shoulder and held it forward with both hands on the long hilt. He began to speak some formal words of challenge, but Dugan rolled his eyes and shook the blanket he still wore as a wrap off his shoulders. He fetched his Legion short sword from under his tunic.
“Nine Gods, spare me the dither!” he called, holding his sword almost absently in his left hand while swinging his right arm to loosen the shoulder. “Will no nobleman ever just die without a lot of pointless talk first?”
“Dugan, sheath your weapon!” Block ordered, giving Tilda one meaningful glance. She edged closer and just a step in front of the renegade. Across the way, Procost’s face was turning crimson.
“Not bloody likely,” Dugan sneered at Block, then he put his sword in his right hand and beckoned at Procost with the blade. The knight shouted.
“Then blood it is!”
Suddenly both men were moving. Fast.
Before Block’s hamstringing dagger was out from under his cloak the knight lunged forward like a bounding charger, one high knee slamming into Block’s head and spinning the dwarf to the ground. Dugan grabbed Tilda’s arm behind her back through her cloak, kicked out one of her feet and shoved her hard to the side. She blundered two hopping steps and failed to fully brace herself with one arm against the back of the cottage. Her forehead hit the wall with a fat, wooden smack.
Tilda’s knees wobbled and she slid to them, then rolled to a crouch and whipped free her throwing dagger as she turned around. She was just in time to see the beginning and end of Dugan and Procost’s very short duel.
The men barreled at each other with their swords held high, both shouting in the manner all Codian soldiers are taught. The cooling campfire was closer to Dugan as they began their charges and at the last moment the renegade veered toward it. He kicked the coffeepot off its braces and sent the carafe bouncing into the running knight’s path.
The top popped as the pot hit the ground and the last hot dregs splashed up onto Procost’s boots. It was hardly enough to slow the big man but the surprise of it made him pull up short. Dugan darted forward and ducked inside the long reach of the great broadsword. That was enough.
The knight was trained to fight mainly on horseback, fully armored and swinging heavy weapons in wide, devastating arcs. Legionnaires fought in a clinch, only their eyes peeking over the rims of tower shields while their fat, ugly swords poked hungrily around the sides, feeling for anything soft and yielding.
The point of Dugan’s sword sparked against Procost’s breastplate. Dugan raised one hand to catch the knight’s arms over his head, then he reversed his own grip with a twist of wrist. The two men strained and the short sword slid down plate mail until it bit. Dugan leaned in with all his weight on his blade, driving it deep into the knight’s thigh through his groin.
Tilda did not bother to throw her dagger, and neither did Block who was back on his feet with a blade of his own in his hand. Procost screamed and fell to the ground, broadsword falling uselessly into the grass at his side, clutching himself. Dugan fell on top of him but quickly pushed off and wrenched his sword free, eliciting more screams. He backed away a step with his blade, hands, trousers, everything now a charnel swath of wetly-shining gore. All around men stood slack-jawed and staring. Banner Trellane lost his legs and fell to all fours. The young nobleman regurgitated coffee and eggs while still unable to take his eyes of the man, a man he knew, lying butchered like a hog.
Dugan knelt and said, “Knight,” until Procost’s wild eyes focused on him.
“You are ruined,” Dugan said quietly. “It is a mortal wound.”
Breaths ending in sobbing gasps issued from the huge, helpless man.
“End it,” he said through clenched teeth.
Dugan stood, cast away his filthy short sword, and took up the knight’s. Procost squirmed uncontrollably and Dugan had to put a foot on his breast plate to pin him still. Dugan raised the blade, Procost shouted that it was the sword of his father, and Dugan brought it down on his head.
Most of the others closed their eyes or looked away, but not Tilda. She sat with her back to the cottage and crossed her arms over her knees, one hand still holding her unused dagger. Dugan left the knight’s sword where it was and slowly bent to pick up his own. All eyes followed him as he walked back to where he had dropped his blanket. He reached for it, and only then seemed to notice his red hands. The only sound was the dying fire, and the dry wheezing of Banner Trellane.
Dugan looked up at Tilda. Sir Procost’s blood was spattered across his face.
“That,” he said, “is the sort of kind man that I am.”
Chapter Eight
Banner de Trellane was too shaken to even try and stop the Miilarkians from leaving. He made some feeble protests that his Uncle the Baron should be informed immediately of Sir Procost’s end, but Captain Block was adamant. Without direct orders to the contrary the gnome Fitzyear could only shrug. His men helped Tilda with the baggage as Dugan was too covered in gore to carry anything without soiling it, and the gnome led the way into the woods and the hills leaving the sorry scene at the cottage behind.
Within half an hour they reached a stream where they paused while Dugan did a more thorough job of washing up. He had to strip off his tunic, soak and wring it, and as he did so Tilda was reminded of cleaning out the stirge remains from her own cloak some days before. She shuddered. She could have gotten Dugan a brick of soap, but it was in a pack now carried by one of Fitz’s men and she did not want to go through the rigmarole of fetching it. Not with a headache already throbbing between her ears from her skull-bounce off the cottage.