Uther was in no hurry. He was quite content to give Meradoc all the time he needed to collect himself and prepare to die. The others moved to form a wide ring about the two, and as they did so the rain stopped falling, so suddenly that the absence of its noise seemed louder than the noise had been, and the sound of squelching feet was loud.
Meradoc hefted his sword in his right hand and pulled his long, one-edged dirk with his left, then began circling too, his narrowed eyes fixed on Uther's. Both men were renowned warriors, both champions, and none of the watchers made any attempt to wager on the outcome of this fight.
Meradoc made the first move, darting forward and swinging his sword upwards in a backhanded, lethal slash that Uther blocked easily. But in the moment of the block Meradoc changed his thrust, pulling his sword away and twisting his body to the right as he brought the dirk in his left hand up in an underhand thrust that should have disembowelled the Pendragon. Uther, however, had been waiting for him to do precisely that. He had seen Meradoc fight before, and as the wicked, stabbing thrust arched towards him, Uther rose to tiptoe and bent sharply at the waist, twisting away and sucking in his gut so that the blade slid by him, catching its point in his tunic. His left hand dropped to catch Llewellyn's left wrist and he pulled sharply, swinging his weight and dragging the other man across in front of him, then smashing him savagely on the back of the head with the pommel of his sword as he passed by.
The Llewellyn Chief went to his knees again, his hands in the mud, his grip on the dirk lost as he fell, and Uther moved quickly, stepping sideways again until he stood alongside Meradoc's left shoulder. The desire for this man's blood, the blood of his father's murderer, was a hammering urgency that threatened to overwhelm him, and he came close to ending it then and there, raising his long sword to plunge its point between the other's shoulder blades and into his heart. But that would have been too easy, too swift. He screamed his hatred and kicked Meradoc hard in the side of the head instead, knocking him over onto his side in the mud, and then he stepped away again, grounding his sword, and waited for him to get up.
Behind his back, someone in the circle muttered something indistinct, and suddenly Uther was facing the onlookers, ignoring Meradoc as he searched their faces in the strengthening morning light, his sword point weaving in front of him as he silently challenged any of them, all of them, to come against him. But no one moved, and nothing else was said, and so he turned back towards his enemy. The Llewellyn was up on his knees again, shaking his head, trying to clear it. He had lost his sword as well as his dagger. Uther saw both weapons, the dagger lying close to his own feet. He stooped and picked it up with his left hand, then threw it gently so that it landed with a clank across the blade of the sword. When he spoke, his voice was calm and quiet, betraying no hint of the rage in him, and because of that his words were more chilling than they might otherwise have seemed.
"Two weapons, Meradoc. There they are. Yours to use on me, although from the way you keep losing them, I begin to think you've lost the knack of how to employ them. Too many others have been doing your killing for you recently. Pick them up, whoreson, and clean them, so they won't slip in your grasp. Take your time and gel your wind. I want you to be well aware of what is happening when I kill you. My father's blood demands more punishment than a swift stab in the back. Get up and fight, for you have no other choice. Owain of the Caves now stands with me, and all your other creatures are dead, so there's no hope of further treachery saving you."
The taunts brought Meradoc to his feet, where he stood swaying, blood and spittle drooling from his broken mouth. He wiped his face roughly with a sleeve and then bent slowly to retrieve his weapons, never taking his eyes off Uther, expecting to be attacked when he was most vulnerable. But Uther merely stood waiting, making no attempt to close the distance between them. Meradoc cleaned the hilts of both weapons on his outer tunic, then grasped them firmly, hefting them, testing their weight and breathing deeply until he had regained his wind. Then, crouched and silent, he moved forward.
The fight went savagely after that, neither man taking the slightest risk of losing his footing on the treacherous ground. The sound of clanging blades seemed to go on forever as they dodged and weaved, each seeking the advantage and neither seeming able to gain sufficient momentum for a clean killing stroke. The watchers made no sound, aware that they were witnessing an epic struggle, their eyes constantly shifting from one to the other of the two superb fighters. Meradoc was grim-faced, frowning in concentration, calling up every vestige of his renowned skills in what he knew was his only opportunity to salvage anything of honour, or even life. He cursed monotonously under his breath as he sought, time after time, to win the advantage promised to him by having two blades against Uther's one. Uther, on the other hand, showed no emotion at all. His face was impassive, the planes of his cheekbones and forehead almost polished in their smoothness. Only his tight, seemingly lipless mouth and glittering eyes betrayed the implacable anger that consumed him. He moved on his toes, with the confidence and strength of the great red dragon that was his emblem, his every movement precise and dangerous, wary and murderous.
And then, after one breathtaking display of stroke and counter- stroke, Uther jumped back, blood streaming from his left arm, where the edge of his opponent's blade had nicked him deeply above the elbow.
He held his arm up, showing the blood to all of them but speaking to the Llewellyn. "Feast your eyes on it, whoreson. It is the last Pendragon blood you will ever see."
He leaped forward and the angry clangour of iron began again. This time, however, it ended quickly when Uther's scything blade struck Meradoc's sword arm, cleaving it above the wrist and almost severing the hand completely. With a strangled cry, Meradoc dropped his other weapon and clutched at the upraised stump that was already jetting bright life blood, and as he strained there, mouth agape, Uther stepped in and stabbed hard, thrusting with his entire weight, his blade plunging into the soft flesh beneath the other's sternum. The Llewellyn Chief screamed, choking, and Uther raised one foot high, placed it on Meradoc's chest, pulled his weapon free and then stepped back. Meradoc hung there, gaping and gasping, unable to utter a sound, then fell to his knees, head down, staring at the hole in his chest.
Calmly, his face expressionless, Uther stepped forward again and took a position by the kneeling man's side. His sword swept up once more, high over his head, then hissed down with all his strength behind it. The blade sliced cleanly through the Llewellyn's outstretched neck, severing his head, and a fierce jet of blood gouted three times before the headless body fell to earth.
Uther had turned away before the corpse collapsed, crossing directly to where the other Llewellyn chiefs, Cunbelyn and Hod, stood stunned by the swiftness of their kinsman's death. The Pendragon came close to them, facing them directly, his right arm extended slightly to hold the tip of his red-dripping blade above the wet earth, not threatening anyone directly but visibly in evidence. More blood dripped from his other arm, this his own, but he ignored it completely.
"Cunbelyn," he said, "Hod, do I yet have living enemies among Llewellyn? Does either you feel any need to avenge your kinsman's death as I have avenged my father's?"
Cunbelyn merely shook his head, unable to find words, but Hod the Strong lived up to his name. He drew himself erect and looked the Pendragon Chief straight in the eye. "No," he growled. "I see no need to fight with you. You challenged him on what you had been told. He drew his blade on you and we all witnessed it. The fight was fair, and more than fair. You won. And if the information that you threw at him was true, he deserved what befell him."