Michael Williams - Before the Mask

Verminaard blocked the weapon with the mace, and black fire raced over his arm and shoulder as the spear splintered in the air. Steady, the Voice urged. Steady. Oh, is this not a lovely thing?

Then Verminaard closed with the knight, who lifted his shield as he groped for the hilt of his sword. Verminaard rose in the saddle and brought down the mace with all of his weight and strength. The ornate silver kingfisher exploded in the heart of the shield, and the man rocked violently in the saddle. With a cry of triumph, Verminaard raised the weapon to strike again, but the knight's head lolled and his hand fell slack on the hilt of his half-drawn sword. The ropes that held him in the saddle snapped with his full weight, and he toppled from the horse, slain by the sheer force of the blow.

Two remaining, the Voice coaxed, high and thin with excitement and delight. And you are coming to love this, my love, my love…

And he was. Exultantly Verminaard galloped toward the last surviving Solamnics. One of them-the larger one-dismounted, suddenly and surprisingly, and motioned for Verminaard to do the same.

"He wants it hand to hand and man to man!" Verminaard muttered, pulling up Orlog not a spear's cast from the valiant, honorable knight. "And if he is brave enough to offer the challenge, then so be it!"

As he moved to dismount, the Voice resounded from the mace, dazing him, banishing his thoughts. You fool! There are two of them. When he has you afoot, then the other But they don't fight that way, Verminaard thought. They're Solamnics! They don't…

Unless things have changed.

He leaned forward in the saddle, peering mistrustfully at the masked knight who awaited him. It would be just like the deceptive Solamnic Order to call him forth on a pretext of honor, then ambush him when he had given up the advantage. And yet something about this man…

The Voice returned immediately, taking away the thought before it formed. Now! it urged. The sun is behind you! Now!

Verminaard looked over his shoulder into the blinding, blood-red sunrise.

Now!

With a shout, he launched the stallion toward the knight, who blinked, dazzled by the sun, then leapt away just as Verminaard drove the mace by his head.

"Midnight!" cried Verminaard, and the black light in Nightbringer's wake engulfed the man. He cried out once, struggled to his knees, and clutched his face.

"I can't see!" he shouted, groping through the dry grass for his dropped weapon.

Now! the Voice urged again. The mace has blinded him. Now!

As he steered the horse toward the helpless man, his mace raised high for the killing blow, Verminaard saw something flash in the corner of his eye.

The last of the knights swooped by, a silver blur as rider and horse crossed in front of him. With a shrill whistle, the man leaned out of the saddle, stretching his sinewy arm toward his blinded companion. In one graceful, incredibly powerful movement, he caught up the injured man, lifting him onto the horse, and together they rode toward the open castle gates. Verminaard, astonished, pressed his horse hard behind them.

The Solamnic horse was now overburdened, but in the mile's gallop across the flatlands, Orlog's weariness made it hard for Verminaard to make up the distance. At last, sweeping wide around the hapless riders, Verminaard cut off the path to the castle bridge, and the Solamnic was forced to rein in his horse scarcely a hundred yards from the bailey walls. Resolutely the rider lowered his wounded companion and, rising in the saddle, faced Verminaard fearlessly.

"Good adversary," the Knight called out, raising his sword in the traditional Solamnic salute, "you have shown yourself strong in arms and enduring in battle. I give you the chance to show honor as well."

Listen to him! the Voice whispered as Nightbringer pulsed in Verminaard's hand. The Solamnic prattle of honor and code and oath is about to begin. Beware, my child: He will entangle you in honor.

Verminaard nodded. The Voice was right. He had seen the honor-mongers before, and he knew that their words carried poison and knives.

"My friend is injured," the knight continued. "He is blind and helpless. Allow him to pass over the drawbridge and into the bailey. Whatever quarrels you have with our country, our lord, and our Order, you and I can settle here on the plains, in full sight of my countrymen."

"Damn your country! Your lord and your Order be damned!" Verminaard roared, whirling the mace above his head until a dark spiral formed in the morning air, widening and widening until it covered the horses and riders, veiling the view of the garrison on the bailey walls like a thick, gloomy cloud. "As I see it, you've no grounds to bargain. Your companion stays where he is."

"So be it," the knight replied tersely. "Before these walls and the men assembled there, I say that you are a base, ignoble coward, and should the gods grant me the power to defeat you, you will be shown no mercy."

Verminaard sneered. "Oh, but I'll show mercy to you, Sir Knight. I shall prolong your miserable time of breath until the lord of the castle himself begs that I finish the job."

"Villain!" someone shouted from the castle walls, and from farther away, the shout was answered by another, the words indistinguishable, muffled by distance.

The raised hand of the knight stilled further outcry. "The lord of the castle begs to no brigand. If it must come again to sword and mace, then let it come, by Paladine and by Huma!"

"And let it come on foot," Verminaard declared, dismounting in a rustle of robes and a creak of black leather armor. "For I yearn to face you man to man and arm to arm, so that none will credit my victory to the stallion beneath me, nor your defeat to poor horse-mastery."

The knight dismounted as well, removing his shield from the back of the saddle and uncovering it so that the risen sun danced fitfully on the embossed white lance and black dragon that adorned its polished center.

Nightbringer shivered and hummed in Verminaard's hand.

Do not spare him, the Voice murmured with a new, frenzied urgency. Oh, do not spare him, Lord Verminaard, for he is the worst of our enemies and the fount of our suffering. Because of his line, we lie in darkness, and at the end of his descendants, we will breathe again!

"He will not be spared," Verminaard muttered, "for he stands between me and the lord of the castle."

As he approached the veiled knight, Verminaard knew that he faced the strongest fighter yet.

The man dropped into a swordsman's crouch, sidling gracefully to high ground, away from his wounded companion. Verminard lumbered after him, noisy and awkward afoot, but confident in his strength and his weapon and in the mysterious power that ran through the pulsing mace.

Their paths met on a little rise not fifty yards from the castle bridge. There, under the sight of Laca's archers, they circled each other twice and closed for the first attack.

The knight struck first, his saber switching and flashing like the tail of a snake. A quick backhand slash brought the blade across Verminaard's chest, furrowing effortlessly through the leather armor. Had the larger man not stepped back quickly, he would have been slain before the fight had really begun.

Backing away, gasping, Verminaard staggered down the rise, the knight in calm, relentless pursuit. The blade whistled by his ear once, twice, and he could barely stifle a whimper as he blocked a thrust with the handle of Nightbringer.

It was then, at the bottom of the rise, that sword locked with mace, steel with ancient stone. The knight pushed against Verminaard, his mailed face only inches from Verminaard's own, so that the young man could see the color of his enemy's eyes.

Blue. Pale blue like his own. Like Aglaca's.