Robert Adams - Champion of the Last Battle

“Will you swear as I ask, Sir Ahrthur?”

Bili had never really liked the lance or the common practice of one-on-one tilting—lance dueling—but he had long ago, perforce, mastered that and all of the other martial arts during his years of training at the court of the Iron King, Gilbuht of Harzburk. He had announced his intention of fighting this duel to settle the Kuhmbuhluhn-Skohshun conflict with axe and sword, ahorse or afoot. However, when the Skohshun champion had chosen to run the initial contact of the engagement with lances, Bili, the Kuhmbuhluhn champion, had had no option but to comply.

A party had ridden up to the city and returned laden with necessary weapons and gear from the well-stocked armories of the palace—a selection of battle lances, horse armor, several tilting shields of differing shapes and sizes, additional bits and pieces of plate for strengthening Bili’s own panoply to withstand the tremendous shock of the impact of a steel-tipped lance with the combined weights and strengths of a horse and a strong warrior behind it.

A swarm of men fitted the black stallion, Mahvros, with a combination of plate, mail and boiled-leather armor—a heavier chamfron, a segmented plate crinet to cover the lighter one of mail, peytral to protect chest and shoulders, flanchards on the flanks and the leather—and-plate crupper behind the high and flaring tilting kak to shield the hams and back—all covered with a thick, heavy, quilted bard of red-dyed doeskin. The warhorse was a good bit less than pleased by the additions, constituting as they did a confining and rather uncomfortable additional weight of upward of a hundred more pounds for him to bear even before his rider mounted him.

“Brother,” he mindspoke Bili ominously, “if these twolegs try to burden Mahvros with one more piece of metal or leather, Mahvros will show them how well his teeth tear manflesh, how easily manbones shatter under his hooves. Let them be warned!”

Bili, standing bathed in sweat while extra pieces were fitted to his own harness, beamed as soothingly as he could, “Mahvros, my dear brother, do not harm those men. What they are doing is for your protection, just as the extra armor they are buckling to me is to protect me. It is a hot day, yes, and this extra gear is stifling, but it gives us both a better chance to still be alive in the cool of the coming evening.

“Husband your strength and your proven ferocity for the fight which will shortly commence, dear brother. The man and your brother are about evenly matched, but Mahvros should have little to fear from the mount; for all that he is as big as are you, he is merely a gelding.”

With flaring nostrils, the black destrier snorted and stamped one big forehoof to indicate disgust, beaming, “Never has Mahvros been able to fathom why twolegs all call a sexless creature like that ‘he,’ as if it still had its stallion parts. Why not call it ‘she,’ instead?”

After carefully weighing the offerings, Bili chose a lance, then one of the long, narrow, tapering shields. But when his fitters made to buckle the shield firmly to his armor, he shook his head. “No, I’ll bear this thing only as long as I have to. Once the spear-running be done, I’ll need both hands for my axe, so I’ll need to quickly and easily shed the shield.”

He also refused to trade his battle helm for one of the huge, thick-walled, ornate tilting helms. “I’ve seen men swoon with lack of breathable air whilst wearing those things on far cooler days than is this scorcher. Too, I prefer to see what I’m axing, thank you.”

But he did allow them to cover a good part of his harness with a surcoat of white samite stitched thickly with red and gold traceries, thinking that it weighed little enough, was not at all confining and would at least keep the sun from beating directly upon some of the steel plates.

However, when the Skohshun officers inspected, the barding was ordered stripped from off Mahvros, for there was not one available for Sir Djaimz’s gelding, Jess, and the two champions were more or less expected to possess parity in defensive attire. For this same reason, Sir Djaimz was constrained to shed his oversize helm and redon his own battle helm.

Mahvros both beamed and exhibited great pleasure in being relieved of the weighty, stifling bard, which pleased Bili, especially since loss of the thing was no lessening of real protection for the great horse. Moreover, unaccustomed as the stallion had been to such a thing, there had existed the very real chance that Mahvros might step on the leading edge of the bard and lose his balance or even fall at a critical moment.

The shouting match and near cancellation of the duel came when the Skohshun officers, after all trying the weight and balance of Bili’s great double axe, announced that the champion of Kuhmbuhluhn either must forgo the use of any axe or make do with one of more average proportions and heft.

At length, Bili mindcalled the Moon Maiden, Lieutenant Kahndoot. “Little sister, these Skohshun bastards are determined to weight this contest firmly in the favor of their champion and have, therefore, refused flatly to allow me to use my own axe, obliquely endeavoring to limit the fight to only lance and sword. But I mean to outfox the sharp-eared creatures. Ride over here and trade axes with me for the length of time it takes me to put paid to the account of this Sir Djaimz.”

While the various armings and inspections and disarmings had been occurring, members of both armies had been engaged in the removals of corpses of man and of horse, dropped weapons and equipment and other battle debris from the narrowed space now separating the two armies, that space whereon the duel to decide the outcome of this affair of New Kuhmbuhluhners versus invading Skohshuns would shortly take place. A course of one hundred and fifty yards was decided upon for the tilt, and marker stakes were driven. Then all was declared to be in readiness.

Sir Djaimz, mounted on his big, battle-trained dark-chestnut gelding, took his place at the far western end of the course. Bili, on Mahvros, took the eastern end. Then both men waited for the bugle flourish that would announce the beginning of the bloodletting.

As they awaited the signal, Sir Djaimz seemed to be experiencing difficulty in controlling his gelding, to the point that finally a brother officer took a firm grip on the section of rein near the bit and lent his weight and strength to prevent the nervous beast from sidling.

Mahvros, on the other hand, stood stockstill, as Bili had telepathically instructed him to do, ready to charge at the first brazen notes of the trumpet.

Both riders had fully extended their stirrup leathers to the point where they actually stood in their stirrups, thighs tight-gripping the barrels of their respective mounts, their buttocks bunched up hard against the high cantles of the tilting saddles, bodies angled forward and shield held high so that it protected all of the torso, nearly the entire length of the left leg and the neck and head right up to the bars of the visors.

The mounted hornman, Gy Ynstyn, raised polished bugle to the lips hidden in his beard. Despite the deadly danger of the impending duel to his young lord, Duke Bili, still Gy could barely contain his joy. Though there had as yet been no chance to seek her out and exchange words, he had recognized among the Moon Maidens following the banner of Sir Geros his lover and battlemate, Meeree.

As his peripheral vision detected the flash of the sun on the brass horn, Bili lowered his lance, couching its butt end between right biceps and body and angling the steel-pointed and slightly tapering longer portion of the twelve-foot ash-wood shaft to the left over Mahvros’ thick, steel-sheathed neck.