Megan Lindholm - Luck Of The Wheels

'None at all,' the Duke replied.

Vandien startled, surprised to find he had spoken his question aloud. 'It has to be,' he insisted, but couldn't think of any arguments to support it. A less honorable man would have let Kellich kill Goat. A little less honor would have kept Ki alive.

'Honor's of no use at all,' the Duke was saying. 'In fact, it's a handicap. Tonight, for instance. Keep your honor and I kill you. Or renounce it, take a slash down the face, and live on as my retainer. You can ask my Brurjans; I'm a generous man with those who work for me.'

'I don't know,' Vandien said, but he was not answering the Duke, but himself.

'You don't have to decide right now,' the Duke told him. 'Even in the middle of the bout, you can change your mind.' The man was standing, gesturing to Halikira to bring his weapon. It was a lovely blade. Another time Vandien would have itched to examine it. Its swept hilt glistened with a myriad of tiny sparkling stones set into it. A true swordsman would have disdained them, lest others say he used them to distract his opponents. But there, again, that was the thought of a man concerned with his honor. TheDuke disdained honor. And Vandien had none left. He couldn't bring down the rebellion that had killed Ki. He'd die on the Duke's sword, and it would all have been for nothing.

'I've fought all day. I've taken a sword-slash on my hip. I've had a hot bath, a heavy meal, and wine, and I've sat still long enough to stiffen up. Will you call this a fair match?'

'Fair is like honor. Of no real value. But take a moment or two to limber up if you must.'

Vandien was silent as he drew his rapier, made a vain attempt to stretch out his muscles. They felt liked dried-up twisted leather strips. At his first tentative lunge, he felt the wound on his hip open up. The blood seemed hot enough to scald as it soaked through the bandages. Ironic, when his sword arm felt so cold. He knew he gripped his rapier's hilt, but he could not actually feel his fingers. He glanced over to where the Duke was limbering up. He stared for a moment, then suddenly saw. The fancy shirt with the lace at collar and cuffs was camouflage for chain mail. Light and fine as it must be, he could still see its betraying outline when the Duke lunged. Vandien's sparse chances suddenly shrank.

He would have been better off not to have eaten at all. His whole body felt heavy, and his mind was muzzy. He tried to consider his options. There didn't seem to be very many. He could fight the Duke and die on his sword. He could accept the Duke's offer of a position as fencing master, and take a slash down the face and die of the poison. He could refuse to fight the Duke ... and the Duke, a man without honor, would kill him anyway. Funny. It all seemed to end with his death. Well, if all he could do was die, he'd die well. He wondered how high up the Duke's throat his mail went. Probably a good leather collar under the one of lace. Halikira was watching him with unreadable dark eyes. Brurjans. Whatever else you might say about them, they died well. He grinned at her, offered her a sketchy salute with his blade. Her black lips writhed up slightly, a shadow of the Brurjan smile-snarl. And inspiration struck Vandien.

His hand and sword arm were cold, his hip stiff. He slammed his mind shut to pain, forced his body to respond as he limbered it up, rapidly and roughly. He turned to face the Duke. Two other Brurjans were lifting the laden table, setting it up against the wall. 'Rules for this bout?' Vandien asked quietly.

'None,' the Duke said in an equally soft voice. 'What do rules mean to men without honor?'

'Nothing. Nothing at all,' Vandien conceded.

Vandien drew himself up straight. The Duke matched him. Their blades were down. Then slowly the salute began, the guards brought up chin high, tips up, blades vertical. The jeweled hilt glinted into Vandien's eyes, but his face never changed expression. Then, as the Duke began to bring his blade down and around, out to the side in a standard salute, Vandien extended in a lightning thrust. The tip of his rapier leaped precisely into the Duke's eye socket, sank a good four inches. It was out again before the Duke even began to fall.

'Lesson one in Harperian fencing,' Vandien heard himself say. 'Precise point control is everything.'

The Duke's body hit the carpet.

Vandien swayed where he stood. The chill was spreading. He caught the rapier in his off hand as his sword arm died and fell numb to his side. He turned to the Brurjan guards, lifted the rapier to guard position. He'd show them a Human could die well, too.

Halikira was making a peculiar sound, almost like a dog panting. Her great jaws were wide, baring her gleaming battle fangs and blue-spotted tongue. She clutched suddenly at her belly, and leaned against oneof her companions, who abruptly joined her in panting noisily. Suddenly she raised her crest, the spiky swath of semi-hair that crowned a Brurjan and was usually erect only during battle or moments of great emotion. Vandien braced himself.

The third Brurjan guard crossed the room slowly. Vandien turned, keeping his rapier up and threatening. This one was an older male, grey mottling his black pelt. He squatted by the Duke, and he, too, began panting noisily. He leaned forward suddenly, and with a thumb gouged out the Duke's pierced eye. He held it up, dangling tissue clinging to his black-nailed thumb. 'Pig's eye, anyone?' he offered raspily. Halikira yelped suddenly and slid to floor, her panting increasing in tempo as the black male popped the eyeball into his mouth and gravely crunched it.

The strength went suddenly out of Vandien's body. He staggered to a chair, sat. 'I never heard a Brurjan laugh before,' he admitted bewilderedly to no one in particular.

'Then it's even. I never saw a Human do anything funny before,' Halikira replied.

This comment further convulsed all three Brurjans. Vandien sat in his chair, feeling the cold seeping from his arm into his chest. Strange, he thought, to die hearing the sound of Brurjan laughter. His own smile dawned as the room darkened around him. He clutched at the chair to keep from falling.

When his vision returned, the Brurjans were already stripping the body. 'His stuff ought to fit you pretty well,' Halikira observed. 'Korioko! Get that fancy helm out of the chest; the one with the crest on it. Hurry up. In fact, get out the whole battle harness. Bet it looks better on this one than it did on old Pig-eyes.' More of the dog-pant laughter. Halikira tossed the fine chain mail into Vandien's lap. With difficulty he sheathed his rapier, ran appreciative fingers over the fine intermeshed links. The metal was still warm from the Duke's body.

'Get it on!' Halikira ordered him impatiently. Then, peering at Vandien more closely, 'What's wrong with your arm? Your hand's turning blue.'

'Poison,' he said absently, fingering the chain mail. 'Kellich's blade was poisoned. I'm dying.'

'Coward's weapon. No fighter should ever have to die of poison. Here, I'll help you,' she said matter-of-factly, and Vandien sat quietly, expecting a quick knife slice across the throat. LastFriend, the Brurjans translated knife, and were rumored to carry special ones to dispatch their own wounded. But instead she hauled him to his feet and began wrestling him into the chain mail. The cold was squeezing his chest now. He had neither the strength to resist her, nor to help her. In a moment more Korioko was setting a crested helm crookedly atop his head, and the other Brurjan, addressed only as Tiyo, was buckling the Duke's jeweled sword onto his other hip. Their hot meaty breath enveloped him as they laughed their way through the task of arraying him in the Duke's personal battle dress, right down to the heavy purse the Duke had been carrying. Then Halikira stood back and nodded her satisfaction.