Robert Asprin: Storm Season

Tempus, meanwhile, had been astonished, but certainly agreed to the training. He assigned Nikodemos called Stealth to the daily duty. And now it had gone on, and on, day after day of practice and sweating and cursing, and now Niko had told him that he was good, and a natural. Elated, Hanse had sunk a knife into the fellow's shield while of course pretending that it was a sneer become action. Then he had saluted and betaken himself around that building while Niko stood looking long-suffering and boyish, and on the way home Hanse had given away a silver coin. He had already spent another this day. And there were five remaining in his room, too.

He opened his eyes. He knew absolutely that a moment ago he had been sleeping soundly, and had come instantly awake. There was no time to wonder why; all he had to do was turn his head to see that it was still dark, the middle of the night, and that he had a visitor.

She was Mignureal, looking a bit older and truly beautiful, all in white and palest spring-yellow. And surrounded by a pale glow, a sort of all-body nimbus of twilight.

"Gird thyself, Hanse. It is time."

Weeks and weeks ago, when first he returned from that night up at Eaglenest, he would have shuddered at such words. Not now. Now Hanse was a trained fighter and he had given it plenty of thought and he was more than ready. He had not known it would come this way, but as he rose to obey he was glad that it had. This way he had no time to think about it, to worry about what might happen to him. It was time. He girded himself.

He donned tights and leathern pants; woolen footsers and a thief's soft, padded sole buskins. Next the new cotton tunic, long, and over that the padded one. The glow remained in his room; Mignureal remained, this Mignureal, from attractive moth into beauteous butterfly. The mail-coat jingled into place and he buckled on the sword. Not the practice sword; the sword of the Stepson, with which he had privately practiced.

The figure in his room stretched forth a hand. "Come, Hanse. We have to go now. It is time, Son of Shadow."

He picked up his helm. "Mignureal? Have you ... a brother? A twin?"

"You know that I have."

"And what do you call him?" He took her hand. It was cool, soft. Too soft, for Mignureal.

"You know what I call him, Hanse. I call him Shadow, for shadows he rules and births, Shadowspawn. Come Hanse, Godson."

He went, under the helmet. Surely there were some awake even at this hour, and surely some saw the strange couple. As surely, none recognized Hanse the thief in his warlike attire and under the helm, for anyone who knew him or knew of him would never expect to see him so accoutred and so accompanied.

Under a frowning parlous sky, in an eerie almost-silence kept alive and made bearable only by insects, they went away out of the Maze, and out of Sanctuary, and up to Eaglenest. And into Eaglenest they went, all dark and ancient now that place of ghosts and gods. Their way was lit by the nimbus of a goddess, whose hand remained soft in Hanse's.

A place of gods indeed, for they went through the manse and out the back and the world changed.

Here was an eerie sky shot through with ribbons of gold and pale yellow and citrine and marred by clouds whose underbellies were mauve. Here was a weird vista from the nightmares of poison. Stone formations rose in impossible shapes, bent and snaked along the ground to rise again; ugly rockshapes in red and burnt ochre and siena, imitating vines fighting their way through an invisible stone wall or plants tortured into convoluted shapes by alkali or lime.

The strange stone-shapes stretched out and out to become only shadows on a plain, a vista that stretched out gray to meet that nacreous sky. And there was no sound. Not the faintest hum of a single lonely insect; not the merest peep of a nightbird or the scuttle of tiny feet or of fronds whispering in a night breeze. Here was no sun and yet no night, and no flora or fauna either.

Here were only Hanse, armored and armed, and Mignureal, and here came Vashanka, at the charge.

Purple was his armor, hawk-beaked his helm and tall-spiked atop; black his shield and the blade of his sword so that there was no gleam to announce its onrush. Hanse drew, hurriedly shifted his buckler into place, thought of Mignureal and knew he had no time to glance aside. Here came a god, armed and armored, charging to end this now, right now.

The god did not, nor did Hanse. Sparks were struck by a blow parried, and feet shifted and Vashanka was past and Hanse turning, unharmed.

The god came in with the arrogant precipi-tousness of a god set to slay a snotty little mortal. In rushed his dark sword, to be caught and turned by a round shield so that he was jarred by the impact and the snotty human's return stroke nearly bit his leg. Still Vashanka did not leam, could not respect this wiry little foeman in its untested mail, and again he struck, his shield still down from protecting his leg, and this time Hanse jerked his shield on impact so that the god's blade was directed aside, drawing Vas-hanka's arm and thus his body that way, and only the projections of his unorthodox, twisted body-armor saved his neck from Hanse's edge. The god grunted as he was struck but un-wounded, and Hanse showed him teeth, sidestepping, back-stepping, feinting with sword and then with buckler and showing a preparedness that turned another godly attack into a feint.

Vashanka had been taught respect.

They circled, each with his shield-side to the other, each staring above the arcing rim of the shield. Pacing, watching. Each a moving target and moving menace. Arms slightly amove so that neither blade was still in that dead air.

Somewhere the moon moved in the sky and hourglasses were turned, while those two circled and stared, paced and glared, paced and feinted as fighting men with respect each for the other. Now and again steel hissed and sang and steel rang or wood boomed under the impact of swordblade on reinforced shield. Now and again a man grunted, or a god. One swift awful flurry of strokes traded left each bruised under armor still intact.

How could Hanse knew that they fought so for an hour? Staying alive meant staying alert; being alert meant having no time to think of time or of tiring. It was guard and parry, strike and cover, and pace to seek another opportunity. Silver twinkled as the sword-bitten winding on Hanse's sheath came loose and dangled.

How long was it, ere Vashanka was there no more but become a rock-leopard that snarled and sprang with awful talons extended-

-to be met by Hanse become bear; a big bear that caught the huge cat and squeezed it in mid-leap, staggering back, feeling its claws as he shook it and hurled it from him to hit the ground, hard, and roll, snarling with a whining note, twisting, becoming a cobra.

Both were blooded now, and blood marked the hissing serpent that reared, striking-

It struck neither man nor bear, for neither was there, but a small ferocious collection of teeth and fur and boneless speed that avoided the strike and pounced to clamp its teeth on a hated enemy-

But as soon as the mongoose had the cobra, the serpent swelled huge and then huger so that its tiny antagonist fell away. That still-growing cobra was blooded again, however, and when it became horse with Vashanka atop or part of it, it turned to canter away. And away, prancing easily over ugly shapes of stone . . . only to wheel and come back at the gallop. Charging, hooves pounding, striking sparks off stone, bounding over twisted rock-formations at the small shape who seemed gone all fearful, scurrying back and forth in its path, then whirling and racing away, fleeing on a straight line easily overtaken ...

The legs of that racing horse rushed into the long strip of leather Hanse had just bound in place for it, and it stumbled with a scream and flew through the air so that. Hanse, swerving, heard its mighty impact behuyd him. Then he whirled and rushed back, shiald ready and sword up and back, gathering velocity for the stroke to carry all.