Richard Knaak - Kaz the Minotaur

“I know you could easily defeat me, Scurn, but I would consider myself a coward if I did not speak the truth! You know what Kaz has done this time!”

“It changes nothing!”

Helati stepped up and joined her brother. “It means everything! I find it difficult to condemn one who has proven his courage and strength as Kaz has done! The Grand Master’s own nephew calls him one of the most honorable comrades he has fought with. I question more the myriad tangles in our code of honor that make us slave-soldiers to his kind!”

The ogre stiffened, knowing that Helati was speaking of him, but he stayed in the background nonetheless. It was surprising, Kaz thought, that his accuser was even here.

“Present deeds do not make up for past crimes, Helati! You would also do well to remember your place!” Scurn waved a huge, clawed hand, as if wiping the conversation away. “We waste enough time! Either accept your fate, Kaz, and return with us, or we will settle things now!”

“Then let’s settle it now.” Kaz threw his battle-axe to the earth. “I’ve no time to make a weapon with my own hands, as custom dictates, so I’ll make do with my hands alone.”

Kaz heard footfalls behind him and knew that the others had followed him out of the tent. The humans wouldn’t understand what was going on. Kaz had chosen to face his fate, and that meant a trial by combat, with the odds greatly slanted against him. Under other circumstances, he would have been allowed a few days to prepare himself and to fashion a weapon from the land around him; only a self-made weapon was allowed to the condemned. Although technically Kaz was not sentenced to death, the odds were so great that few facing such a trial ever survived. It was intended that way. Dying in a battle against incredible odds was one of few accepted ways for a minotaur to regain his honor in the eyes of his people.

After five years, Kaz was only now understanding the extent of his race’s madness and hypocrisy. Little good it would do him.

“He’s going to fight all of them?” Tesela asked someone unbelievingly. “He’ll be slaughtered!”

“This is minotaur law, cleric,” Bennett replied, though it was evident from his tone that he liked the situation as little as she did. “I cannot interfere. His honor is at stake.”

“His life is at stake!” she muttered, but quieted after that.

Kaz was relieved. He was afraid that someone would try to interfere. Vastly outnumbered as they were, the minotaurs would cut a bloody swath through his companions if they were forced to defend themselves. He wanted no one else to be injured, much less killed. This was his battle alone.

By rights, the minotaurs should have spread out, encircling Kaz. One at a time or in groups, they were then to attack until either he was dead or triumphant.

Scurn looked at the others in open frustration. “Take your places!”

Hecar, who had still not recovered his weapon, stepped away. “I withdraw from this group. I find the murder of which Kaz stands accused questionable despite the evidence. I came because honor was at stake, but I see nothing here to make me believe that Kaz has shamed our clan and our race. He is no coward, and after the trials he has faced-whose outcome has undoubtedly affected the future of our people as well as the lesser races-I believe he has redeemed himself, if he ever truly needed to.”

Helati joined her brother. “I will not take part in this travesty, either. Kaz broke a sacred oath of loyalty, yes, but I question whether those he swore it to were ever worthy of that oath in the first place. Honor has many faces, but I never saw one that resembled an ogre.”

With mounting rage, Scurn looked left and right as others of his companions abandoned him. Of the entire party, only two minotaurs stayed with the disfigured leader. He looked at them and roared, “Get back with the rest of theml I’ll fight him alone! You heard me!”

Hesitantly, the two stepped back. Scurn, smiling nastily, moved within an arm’s length of Kaz. The scarred minotaur was an inch or two taller than he and carried a battle-axe, a monstrous weapon far larger than Honor’s Face, a true minotaur’s axe. Still staring at Kaz, Scurn threw the axe aside.

“I’ve no need of weapons to defeat you!”

Kaz snorted in wry amusement. “This is what you want, is it?”

“Pray to the ancestors while you still have time.”

“I’ll give thanks to them that any blood they shared between our lines is so far in the past that I don’t even have to consider you one of my kin.”

Scurn bared his teeth. “Whenever you are ready…”

There was no signal to begin. The two combatants merely tensed and, in unspoken agreement, threw themselves at each other. Scurn caught hold of Kaz’s left arm with his right and tried to drive a stiff hand below Kaz’s rib cage. Kaz caught the hand just in time and forced it to one side. With his free hand, Kaz shoved his opponent back.

The two minotaurs separated. Again they came together. Kaz tried to put a foot around the back of one of Scum’s legs, but the other minotaur would have none of it. Instead of catching his opponent’s leg and tripping him backward to the ground, Kaz suddenly found himself balancing on one foot as Scum caught the other with his hand and pulled it up. Only a quick twist by Kaz prevented him from falling, but the scarred minotaur now had an advantage in balance and took it, charging into Kaz’s side headfirst.

Kaz grunted in pain as the tip of one of Scum’s horns caught him in his midsection. He put a restraining hand against the other’s head and kept him at bay. Blood trickled down his legs.

While Scurn sought to impale him, Kaz reached up with his other hand and chopped downward as hard as possible. His first blow hit Scum on the head, a fairly hard spot on a minotaur. His second blow, however, landed on the softest part of the back of his opponent’s neck.

Scum cursed and pulled himself away with amazing strength. Kaz refused to let up and charged, one hand held high in front of him. He took hold of one of Scum’s horns while the other minotaur was still backing away, and he turned. The motion pulled his adversary forward to the ground, muzzle first.

Kaz leapt down, but Scurn was already rolling away, and all the former got for his efforts was a faceful of dirt and a sharp rattle through every bone in his body. Both minotaurs moved away, quickly rising to their feet. Scurn was breathing heavily, but not because of exhaustion. He was caught up in the feverish excitement of the fight. He was one of those who lived for battle. Kaz, an older veteran, eyed him with distaste and a little shame; he, too, had once been like the disfigured minotaur.

Again and again they struggled, neither gaining much advantage. After ten long minutes of constant engagement, both were battered and bleeding, but ready for the next round. The other minotaurs and several of the knights cheered them on.

One who did not share the mood of those around him was the ogre, Molok. In the beginning, he had watched eagerly, hoping for a quick humiliation and death for Kaz. That no longer appeared possible. Scum might even lose, and then Kaz would see Molok and know him for who he was.

The ogre rubbed the side of his head, thinking of where Kaz had struck his brother down all those years ago. Most races believed ogres had almost as little love for one another as they did for outsiders, but such was not true. Like the minotaurs, ogres had some belief in clan, and Molok’s brother had been all he had in the way of blood family. With the dragons gone and Takhisis exiled from Krynn, it was all the ogres could do to keep from being overrun by their enemies and former slaves. They had no time for a single ogre’s vengeance. But vengeance was an ogre trait, and Molok, devious and determined even for one of his kind, at last hit upon a plan that would not only end in the death of Kaz, but also reveal the minotaur’s complete dishonor in the eyes of the minotaur race. Honor meant little to Molok, but he knew that Kaz’s people lived and died for it. To kill and shame his brother’s murderer was the best revenge he could ask. The mage he had paid to create a false truthcrystal had done his work well. The minotaurs, both condescending and ignorant concerning magic, had taken the bait.