“You’d be dead already if you weren’t dressed in that suit,” Mena said. “What sort of thing is that for Numrek to wear? I thought you were warriors not afraid to die.”
“Warriors enjoy slaughter. Warriors bring pain to others. Warriors find a war. I have done this. All this I will do, and bring joy to myself.”
“Fine. Please yourself.”
Calrach plucked the devil’s forks from his belt, a short, three-pronged metal weapon. Mena knew the weapons from her practice of the Third Form. Calrach was no Bethenri, though, and the King’s Trust no normal sword. He stepped forward, brushing back black hair as long and flowing as any Mein’s. He gestured casually that he would fight them both at once.
Mena could feel Elya in the air above her, watching, begging to come to her, but she held her back. “I killed Greduc, you know.”
“I have heard this but don’t believe it.”
“I enjoyed it. He and the other Numrek cried like girls.”
“I don’t think so. But anyway, that doesn’t matter. You killed Greduc, but I am not him. I’m Calrach. Calrraaacccchhhhh!” He bellowed the name, then added in a softer, matter-of-fact voice, “Come, let’s fight.”
Mena and Perrin moved without speaking. They circled to opposite sides of the giant. Calrach turned sideways to them, offering a weapon to each. The princess attacked first. She snapped her sword out. It was a quick motion, intended to catch him off guard, but her blade had hardly moved before he caught it with his devil’s forks. He twisted his wrist, pinching her blade between one of the tines and the main stem. He made it look casual, but Mena could feel the strength of his forearm. He released the tension a moment and slid the fork up her blade, testing it even as he looked the other way and parried Perrin’s flurry of swordplay.
Savagely, Mena yanked the King’s Trust free. She hated the touch of those metal fingers on her sword. She came in again. Calrach called out as he blocked her and Perrin, as he shifted and dodged, high and then low. He spoke Auldek, sounding like he was praising them or teasing them, commenting on their technique like an adult taunting a child. It was infuriating, but he was too fast, too aware of what she or Perrin was going to try next. Mena varied her attacks. She searched for weaknesses. She fought against her instincts and did things surprising even to her. None of it worked, save to amuse the warrior. So frustrated, she forgot that she and Perrin were still living along with him, fighting him-though it took two of them-a draw.
A glob of pitch landed near them. It broke their dance as they all jumped back. Its mother whoomped down a second later, far enough away that they were safe from the splash. The Numrek stepped over the edge of the flaming puddle with a disdainful glance at it, as if it were animal dung. He said something, gesturing with the fingers of his sword hand. He seemed to be explaining that the falling pitch was not his fault. Mena and Perrin circled, keeping him between them.
I’ve killed Numrek, she said to herself. Don’t forget that. “Perrin-I’ve killed Numrek. This is no Auldek. He has only one life.”
“Let’s take it, then,” Perrin replied.
Calrach did not make that easy for them. “I’m my clan leader!” he shouted. “You know what that means? It means I’m not Greduc. Not Crannog. Who am I?”
A smug bastard who needs to die, Mena thought. And then-why not-she repeated the answer out loud. This was all taking too long, the two of them stuck here fighting one man, when there were so many others. I want you dead, bastard. It should be possible. It should happen right now! So thinking, she swung low, hoping to take out his legs, at least to break them or injure them. Calrach jumped over her blade like a child over a rope. In midair, he caught Perrin’s sword in his forks. His toes touched down for a moment, but he leaped again, spinning and landing a kick on Mena’s head. Though the force of the blow sent her reeling, she watched Calrach bring his sword down on the flat of Perrin’s trapped blade. With a resonant crack, the tip of it twirled away.
Released, Perrin sprawled backward. He landed beside the puddle of burning pitch. He did not rise immediately, and Mena feinted to draw the Numrek’s attention. It worked, but it made her head swim. She tried not to show it, but she saw two Calrachs. One stepped out of the other and both of them spoke to her in Auldek. She heard that arrogant, boulder-grinding voice doubled. She watched him set two pairs of fists, weapons clenched in them, on his two waists. Two grins.
“Calrach,” she said. She had something else to follow it, but forgot it in effort not to stumble. “Calrach…”
Behind him two versions of Perrin rose. Calrach noticed them. Both of him turned and rushed toward them. Both of them dropped their devil’s forks and cocked their swords far back, two-handed.
“Cal…”
The two Perrins turned, both of them holding flaming swords. They snapped out their blades at exactly the same time, in a manner that sent two lines of pitch from the sword through the air, scorching a path right into both Calrachs’ faces. They howled, and in howling merged into one. Calrach dropped his sword and wiped at his face, but that only made his hand come away flaming as well. Perrin stared at him, horrified by what he had done, his sword still on fire.
Mena walked forward. She raised her sword and thrust it with both arms and the full weight of her body. The blade pierced Calrach’s flaming face, into his skull cavity, and beyond. His head flew back as the point hit the back of his skull. Mena, still dizzy, clamped her gloved hand over the naked blade just in front of his face. She yanked it back and forth, cutting whatever was inside his skull to scrambled ribbons. He toppled, arms thrashing. Mena went with him, riding his chest all the way to the ground.
She rolled away and lay for a moment on her back. Through panting breaths, she said what she had started to before, without knowing that she would finish it: “I killed Greduc. And… I killed… Calrach.”
“Are you hurt?” Perrin asked, as she rose. He still held his broken sword, smoking now and blackened. He looked strangely sheepish, considering the carnage they had just lived through.
Mena shook her head. Regretted it. Flexed her jaw instead. She wiped sweat from her forehead, and then realized too late that she had smeared her face with blood. “Perrin, we’re overrun. We must organize a retreat. We’ll have to get everyone to head for the stashes we left for the return. Everybody who can make it and all the wounded who…”
That was as far as she got before another Auldek strode into view. Mena recognized her immediately. She groaned inside.
Sabeer.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Once he drew near enough to see that something was amiss, Sire Lethel asked, “What, exactly, is going on here?”
Dariel had never met this particular leagueman, nor had he seen any leagueman in person since the massacre that Sire Neen had dragged him into. Lethel looked just as strange as any of them ever did. His cone-shaped head had been wrapped for this occasion with a silken red fabric. His shoulders were narrow, chest birdlike, and arms so thin it surprised Dariel they carried enough muscle to animate them. The two jagged lines of his eyebrows gave him an expression of almost explosive surprise. Quite a contrast to the grim pucker his lips made.
I know things about your kind that you may not even know yourself, Dariel thought. He had seen a vision of them up in the Sky Mount. Nearly dead. Diseased and insane. Did Lethel even know that it was the Lothan Aklun who had first bound his head and fed him a diet of mist? Probably not. Not with, surely, the clarity of vision that Dariel had: both from what Na Gamen had shown him and because he actually carried some of the Sky Watcher within him. Yes, he was tranquil enough that he let the heat of his resentment for the league roil up just that little bit more. Controlled, calm, satisfying.