Guy Kay - The Last Light of the Sun

She saw her father look at the grey-haired cleric, in his pale yellow robe of the god. The brightness of the robe hurt her eyes. "They are fighting?" her father said, turning back to her. "Someone is. I see swords and… and another sword." "Close your eyes," said Ceinion. "You are loved here and will be guarded. Do not hide from what you are being given. I do not believe there is evil in it. Trust to Jad."

"To Jad? But how? How can I—"

"Trust. Do not hide."

His voice held the music of the Cyngael. Kendra closed her eyes. Dizziness, disorientation, unrelenting pain. Do not hide. She was trying not to. She saw the sword again, the one she'd asked the cleric about before, small, silver, shining in darkness, though there were no moons.

She saw green again, green, didn't understand, and then she remembered something, though she still did not understand.

Green was wrapped around this, as a forest wrapped a glade. She cried out then, real pain, grief, in a bright room in Esferth. And on a slope in Arberth above where two men were fighting to the death, someone heard her cry, in his mind, and saw what she saw, what she gave him, and knew more than she knew.

She heard him say her name, in fear, and wonder, then another name. And then, with exquisite courtesy, given what she'd just done to him and what he had understood from it, he paused long enough to offer clearly to her, mind to mind, across river and valley and forest, what she surely needed to be told, so far away.

Who can know, who can ever know for certain, how the instruments are chosen?

Kendra opened her eyes. Looked at her father's hand which was holding hers the way he hadn't done since she was small, and she gazed up at him, crying, first time that day, and said, "Athelbert is there. He came alive through the wood."

"Oh, Jad," said her father. "Oh, my children."

+

If you wanted to defeat a man like this you had a narrow path to tread (and you kept your feet moving). Brand Leofson wasn't going to fall to some reckless thrust or slash and he was too big to overpower. You needed enough time to mark him, discover inclinations, the way he responded to what you tried, how he initiated his own attacks, what he said. (Some men talked too much.) But the time passing cut both ways as it slashed by: the Jormsviking was fast, and younger than you were. You'd be lying to yourself, fatally, if you thought you could linger to sort things out, or wear him down.

You had to do your watching quickly, draw conclusions, if there were any to be drawn, set him up for whatever it was you found. Such as, for example, a habit—clearly never pointed out to him—of turning his head to the left before he slashed on the backhand, to let the good right eye follow his blade. And he liked to slash low, sea-raider's attack: a man with a wounded leg was out of a fight, you could move right past him.

So you knew two things, quite soon in fact, and if you wanted to defeat a man like this you had an idea what needed to be done. You were also, a quarter-century past your own best years, still more than good enough to do it.

And no lying to the self in that. Thorkell Einarson hadn't been prone to that vice for a long time. There was a hard expression on his face as he retreated again and read the backhand cut one more time. He blocked it, didn't let it seem too easy. Circled right around again, below and then back to level, denying the other man the upslope he wanted. Not hard, not really hard yet. Knew what he was doing still. Could be worn down, would grow tired, but not too soon if Leofson kept signalling half his blows like that. There was a sequence you could use when you knew the other man had committed to a backhand slash.

The light was really very bright, an element in this combat, the westering sun shining along their slope, striking the two of them, the trees, the grass, the watchers above and below. No clouds west, dark ones piled up east—and those, underlit, made the late-day sky seem even more intense. He'd known evenings like this among the Cyngael, perhaps more valued because of the rain and mist that usually wrapped these hills and silent valleys.

A land some men could grow accustomed to, but he didn't think he was the sort, unless in Llywerth by the sea. He needed the sea, always had; salt in the blood didn't leave you. He parried a downward blow (heavy, that one) then feinted a first low, forehand blow to see what Leofson would do. Overreacted—he would worry more on that side because of his eye. Hard on the hip, though, slashing that way. Ap Hywll's wife had named her husband's ailments. It might have been amusing, somewhere else. Thorkell's could have done the same with his. He briefly wondered where Frigga was now, how the two girls were faring, the grandsons he hadn't seen. Bern was here. His son was here.

It had been, thought Thorkell Einarson, a long-enough life.

Not without its share of rewards. Jad—or Ingavin and Thünir, whatever was waiting for him—hadn't been unkind to him. He wouldn't say it. You made your own fortune, and your own mistakes.

If you wanted to defeat a man like this… He smiled then, and began. It was time.

The raider facing him would remember that smile. Thorkell feinted again, as before, to draw the too-wide response. Followed, quickly, with a downward blow that Brand blocked, jarringly.

Then he let himself seem to hesitate, as if tired, unsure, his right leg still forward, exposed.

("Watch!" said ap Hywll sharply, higher up the slope.) (Bern, below them, caught his breath.)

Brand Leofson went for the deception, signalling his backhand again with a turned head. And once he'd committed himself—Thorkell's blade moved high, to his own backhand.

Too soon.

Before Leofson had fully shifted his weight. A terrible mistake. Right side and chest wide open to a man still balanced. A fighting man with time (It was time) to change from a sweeping backhand slash to a short, straight-ahead thrust with a heavy sword. Heavy enough to pierce leather and flesh to the beating, offered heart.

Watching, Bern sank to his knees, a roaring in his ears. A sound like the surf on stones, so far inland.

Leofson pulled free his blade, not easily. It had gone a long way in. He had an odd expression on his face, as though he wasn't sure what had just happened. Thorkell Einarson was still standing, and smiling at him. "Watch the backhand," the red-haired man said to him, very low, no one else in the world to hear it. "You're giving it away, every time."

Brand lowered his bloodied sword, brow furrowing. You weren't supposed to… you didn't say things like that.

Thorkell swayed another moment, as if held up by the light, in the light. Then he turned his head. Not towards ap Hywll, for whom he'd taken this fight, or the two young princes with whom he'd gone through a wood and out of time, but to the Erlings on the slope below them, led here to what would have been their dying.

Or to one of them, really, at the end.

And he had enough strength left, before he toppled like a tree cut down, to speak, not very clearly, a single word.

"Champieres," he seemed to say, though it could have been something else. Then he fell into the green grass, face to the far sky, and whichever god or gods might be looking down, or might not be.

A long-enough life. Not without gifts. Taken, and given. All mistakes his own. Ingavin knew.

Kendra had been keeping her eyes closed. The light entering the room was still too bright, making the pain in her head worse, and when she looked around, the sense of disorientation—of being in two different places—only grew. With eyes closed, the inner sight, vision, whatever it was, didn't have to fight against anything.