David Drake - Tyrant

So, in the end — which took but three seconds — the only words which came out were: "Tomorrow, then. Dawn. I will kill you."

He turned on his heel, moving as easily as a direbeast, and strode out of the tent. Within seconds, all the chieftains had followed except one.

Adrian studied him. Prelotta was his name, and he was the chief of the Reedbottom tribe. The Reedbottoms held no great stature in the barbarians' informal but elaborate way of ranking the various tribes and clans, so Adrian had had no real contact with him previously. The land of the Reedbottoms was in the marshy lowlands of the northeast, where disease and parasites took too great a toll for velipads to be of much use. So the Reedbottoms, unlike any of the other Southron tribes, were mainly agriculturalists. They fought on foot, to the disdain of other tribes — even if, Adrian suspected from subtle signs he had detected, none of the other tribes was all that eager to wage war on them. Apparently the Reedbottoms were ferocious on their own chosen ground, where cavalry tactics were not well adapted. And Adrian had heard that they used some of the huge beasts they favored as draft animals quite effectively in battle.

Am I the only one thinking I've been an idiot? came Raj's soft "voice."

Center sounded almost sour; as close, at least, to having an emotion in his tone as Adrian could remember. i overlooked them also. we have been too preoccupied with diplomacy. they would make far better raw material than the normal run of Southrons. the probability is 79 % ± 4.

"You wish?" asked Adrian politely.

Prelotta was rather young for a tribal chieftain. Not more than forty, Adrian guessed. It was a bit hard to tell, however, because Reedbottom customs favored even heavier ceremonial cicatrices and tattoos than other tribes. Prelotta's face was like that of a carved wooden mask, the cheeks drawn tight by scars and the brow almost completely obscured by elaborate designs. The light brown hair atop his head was arranged in a wild and heavily pomaded style which not even the most decadent Vanbert noblewoman would have dared to show in public.

"I am curious," he said in his nasal northeastern dialect. "Slings are a weapon not favored much by the Sons of Assan. Although we Reedbottoms use them, often enough." His hideous disfigured face twisted a bit. "But, then, that is perhaps one of the reasons we are often called the Nephew of Assan."

The "Sons of Assan" was the term that the Southron tribes used to refer to themselves. Assan being not actually a member of their pantheon of gods, as Adrian could remember being told by Emerald scholars in the long ago, so much as a vague ancestral spirit. A bit similar, in a way, to one of the race of giants which the Emerald legends claimed had been the parents of the gods themselves.

"Nephew" of Assan, is it? Well, at least he seems to have a sense of humor. That's a start.

And not a small one.

Adrian's own face twisted into a wry smile. He spread his arms and looked down upon himself. Like Esmond, he too had yielded to the climate and was wearing a loincloth. "You've seen my brother. Would you match this body against his with hand weapons?"

Prelotta spent a moment examining him. Then: "Your shoulders are actually very wide for a man with your slender frame. And while your arms don't have your brother's muscle, they don't look weak either. A good body for a slinger, that — provided, of course, you have the skill."

Despite the heavy dialect, Adrian was impressed by the man's diction. That was another myth of northerners, he'd found since coming here. The Southrons were thought to speak almost like animals. But Adrian had found that, despite their barbarism, the Southrons were actually prone to verbal pyrotechnics and frequent poesy. In their own way, their speech was just as flowery as that of any effete Emerald scholar or pompous Confederate official — annoyingly so, if you had to listen to hours of speeches by tribal chieftains in council.

So he was struck by the clarity of Prelotta's words, even more than his easy use of them. Prelotta's native tongue, of course, was quite different from the lingua franca which all the tribes used when they conversed with each other.

There didn't seem to be any answer expected, however, so he said nothing. After a moment, Prelotta nodded politely and left.

* * *

The duel lasted less than two minutes. Esmond charged immediately, as Adrian had known he would. He evaded Adrian's first missile easily enough. Cast when Esmond was still over a hundred yards away, his athletic brother had enough time to see the blurring lead bullet and lunge aside.

No matter. Adrian had known Esmond would dodge it. He'd cast the missile simply to rattle his brother. It was one thing for Esmond to be aware that Adrian's skill with a sling seemed supernatural. It was another for him — even with his incredible reflexes — to barely manage to duck one of those lead bullets thrown at such a distance.

"Supernatural" was perhaps as good a word as any. Center's visual acuity gave Adrian a degree of accuracy which was far greater than that of any normal slinger, even an expert one. "Visual acuity" didn't adequately describe it, really. Center's inhuman capability to translate what Adrian saw through his own eyes gave Adrian the kind of near-perfect aim which the computer itself thought of in terms which Adrian barely understood. "Range finding" was obvious, but how such a term as azimuth applied was a mystery.

The rest came from Adrian himself. Prelotta had seen the truth of it, where most people — even Adrian himself, more often than not — saw only the reedy scholar's build. He was five and a half feet tall, true, and wiry rather than muscular. But brute strength was actually not necessary for the task of sending a lead bullet flying through the air at a speed which would break bones and shatter skulls. Good muscles and quick reflexes were enough for that — provided the bullets hit where you aimed them.

The second cast brought Esmond down, at seventy yards. Adrian's brother made the mistake of pausing for a moment to sling his own bullet, which went wild; Adrian's bullet hit Esmond's thigh like a sledgehammer.

A less muscular man than Esmond would have been taken out of the fight entirely by that hit. A small enough man would have suffered a broken bone. Esmond managed to lunge back on his feet, hobbling, frantically fitting another bullet to the sling pouch.

Don't kill him, cautioned Raj. We'll need him, for a time. Then, sensing Adrian's mute cry of hurt and protest: I'm sorry, lad. I'm just telling the truth.

Adrian said nothing. There was nothing to say. He fit another bullet to the sling, dodged easily the bullet his brother sent his way, and brought Esmond down for good.

Just as Raj had wanted — not killing him. With Adrian's accuracy, killing could be avoided. But not even a real demigod could have withstood the strike of that bullet on the chest.

A weaker and less powerful man than Esmond would have been killed outright. Esmond himself would spend weeks at rest, letting the broken sternum heal. Cursing all the while, as he discovered — every time he tried to do something as simple as lift a cup — that every bone in a human body above the waist is ultimately held together by spine and sternum.

* * *

The boy died the next day. Apparently he had suffered internal injuries from Esmond's beatings, after all. Or, perhaps, his spirit had simply no longer been able to face life's torture.

Adrian never knew his name.

* * *

It wasn't all for nothing, said Raj. Your status is phenomenal, now, especially among the Reedbottoms.