Mercedes Lackey: Magic's Pawn

Radevel swung - but instead of meeting the blow with his shield as Jervis would have done, Vanyel just moved out of the way of the blow, and on his way past Radevel, made a stab of his own. Jervis never cared much for point-work, but Vanyel had discovered it could be really effective if you timed things right. Radevel made a startled sound and got up his own shield, but only just in time, and left himself open to a cut.

Vanyel felt his spirits rising as he saw this second opening in as many breaths, and chanced another attack of his own. This one actually managed to connect, though it was too light to call a disabling hit.

"Light!" Vanyel shouted as he danced away, before his cousin had a chance to disqualify the blow.

"Almost enough, peacock," Radevel replied, reluctant admiration in his voice. "You land another like that with your weight behind it and I'll be out. Try this for size - "

He charged, his practice blade a blur beside his shield.

Vanyel just stepped aside at the last moment, while Radevel staggered halfway to the boundary under his own momentum.

It was working! Radevel couldn't get near him - and Vanyel was pecking away at him whenever he got an opportunity. He wasn't hitting even close to killing strength - but that was mostly from lack of practice. If -

' 'Hold, damn your eyes!''

Long habit froze them both in position, and the armsmaster of Forst Reach stalked onto the field, fire in his bloodshot glare.

Jervis looked the two of them up and down while Vanyel sweated from more than exertion. The blond, crag-faced mercenary frowned, and Vanyel's mouth went dry. Jervis looked angry - and when Jervis was angry, it was generally Vanyel who suffered.

"Well - " the man croaked after long enough for Vanyel's dread of him to build up to full force, " - learning a new discipline, are we? And whose idea was this? "

"Mine, sir," Vanyel whispered.

"Might have guessed sneak-and-run would be more suited to you than an honest fight," the armsmaster sneered. "Well, and how did you do, my bright young lord?"

"He did all right, Jervis." To Vanyel's complete amazement Radevel spoke up for him. "I couldn't get a blow on 'im. An' if he'd put his weight behind it, he'd have laid me out a time or two."

"So you're a real hero against a half-grown boy. I'll just bet you feel like another Veth Krethen, don't you?" Jervis spat. Vanyel held his temper, counting to ten, and did not protest that Radevel was nearly double his size and certainly no "half-grown boy." Jervis glared at him, waiting for a retort that never came - and strangely, that seemed to anger Jervis even more.

"All right, hero ," he snarled, taking Radevel's blade away and jamming the boy's helm down over his own head. "Let's see just how good you really are - "

Jervis charged without any warning, and Vanyel had to scramble to get out of the way of the whirling blade. He realized then that Jervis was coming for him all-out - as if Vanyel was wearing full armor.

Which he wasn't.

He pivoted desperately as Jervis came at him again; ducked, wove, and spun - and saw an opening. This time desperation gave him the strength he hadn't used against Radevel - and he scored a chest-stab that actually rocked Jervis back for a moment, and followed it with a good solid blow to the head.

He waited, heart in mouth, while the armsmaster staggered backward two or three steps, then shook his head to clear it. There was an awful silence -

Then Jervis yanked off the helm, and there was nothing but rage on his face.

"Radevel, get the boys, then bring me Lordling Vanyel's arms and armor," the armsmaster said, in a voice that was deadly calm.

Radevel backed off the field, then turned and ran for the keep. Jervis paced slowly to within a few feet of Vanyel, and Vanyel nearly died of fear on the spot.

"So you like striking from behind, hmm?" he said in that same, deadly quiet voice. "I think maybe I've been a bit lax in teaching you about honor, young milord." A thin smile briefly sliced across his face. "But I think we can remedy that quickly enough."

Radevel approached with feet dragging, his arms loaded with the rest of Vanyel's equipment.

"Arm up," Jervis ordered, and Vanyel did not dare to disobey.

Exactly what Jervis said, then - other than dressing Vanyel down in front of the whole lot of them, calling him a coward and a cheat, an assassin who wouldn't stand still to face his opponent's blade with honor - Vanyel could never afterward remember. Only a haze of mingled fear and anger that made the words meaningless.

But then Jervis took Vanyel on. His way, his style.

It was a hopeless fight from the beginning, even if Vanyel had been good at this particular mode of combat. In moments Vanyel found himself flat on his back, trying to see around spots in front of his eyes, with his ears still ringing from a blow he hadn't even seen coming.

"Get up," Jervis said-

Five more times Vanyel got up, each time more slowly. Each time, he tried to yield. By the fourth time he was wit-wandering, dazed and groveling. And Jervis refused to accept his surrender even when he could barely gasp out the words.

Radevel had gotten a really bad feeling in his stomach from the moment he saw Jervis' face when Van scored on him. He'd never seen the old bastard that angry in all the time he'd been fostered here.

But he'd figured that Vanyel was just going to get a bit of a thrashing. He'd never figured on being an unwilling witness to a deliberate -

- massacre. That was all he could think it. Van was no match for Jervis, and Jervis was coming at him all out - like he was a trained, adult fighter. Even Radevel could see that.

He heaved a sigh of relief when Vanyel was knocked flat on his back, and mumbled out his surrender as soon as he could speak. The worst the poor little snot had gotten was a few bruises.

But when Jervis had refused to accept that surrender - when he beat at Van with the flat of his blade until the boy had to pick up sword and shield just to get the beating to stop - Radevel got that bad feeling again.

And it got worse. Five times more Jervis knocked him flat, and each time with what looked like an even more vicious strike.

But the sixth time Vanyel was laid out, he couldn't get up.

Jervis let fly with a blow that broke the wood and copper shield right in the middle - and to Radevel's horror, he saw when the boy fell back that Vanyel's shield arm had been broken in half; the lower arm was bent in the middle, and that could only mean that both bones had snapped. It was pure miracle that they hadn't gone through muscle and skin -

And Jervis' eyes were still not what Radevel would call sane.

Radevel added up all the factors and came up with one answer: get Lissa. She was adult-rank, she was Van's protector, and no matter what the armsmaster said in justification for beating the crud out of Van, if Jervis laid one finger in anger on Lissa, he'd get thrown out of the Keep with both his arms broken. If Withen didn't do it, there were others who liked Liss a lot who would.

Radevel backed off the field and took to his heels as soon as he was out of sight.

Vanyel lay flat on his back again, breath knocked out of him, in a kind of shock in which he couldn't feel much of anything except - except that something was wrong, somewhere. Then he tried to get up - and pain shooting along his left arm sent him screaming into darkness.

When he came to, Lissa was bending over him, her horsey face tight with worry. She was pale, and the nostrils of that prominent Ashkevron nose flared like a frightened filly's.

"Don't move - Van, no - both the bones of your arm are broken." She was kneeling next to him, he realized, with one knee gently but firmly holding his left arm down so that he couldn't move it.