Michael Flynn - On the Razor’s Edge

But Donovan waved him off. “It won’t be a long fight.”

Seventeen scowled. “Ya ain’t gonna throw it, are ya?”

Donovan watched from his high-seated siggy . The first challenger was Magpie Four Gidula, who stepped forward confidently and touched Eglay’s banner with a staff. Khembold Darling steered over beside him and extended a hand.

“I had no chance earlier,” he said. “I hight Khembold Darling. It is an honor to meet you at last, Deadly One.” Then, dropping his voice, he murmured, “My father was with you in the Rising.”

Donovan allowed as he was pleased to meet him, but he wondered quietly how, if Khmebold’s father had been a rebel, Khembold himself was still among the quick. But then it was not impossible for some to have escaped notice in the aftermath.

“Eglay is a good ’un,” the ship’s captain went on in a normal tone, and he settled his siggy to face the contestants. “Not much for him to do here but spar and practice. Staff does all the drudge. Two times in three, he’ll knock me down. Don’t underestimate his youth and vigor. You and I are both older men, and just off a long and wearying journey. And you have sparred with Ekadrina.”

“It was more than sparring. We should both be dead.”

“What a man should be and what a man is often depends on the man.”

Donovan grunted. “Well, Eglay may have youth and vigor on his side, but we have old age and treachery.”

Number Four was already down. The crowd cheered and Eglay strode in a circle with his arms stretched upward. Then he reached down and helped the magpie to his feet and they embraced briefly. A medic ran forth to tend to the magpie’s wounds. Number Two, as Queen of the pasdarm, graced Eglay and his opponent with an absent smile. Donovan wondered if the paraperceptic were even capable of giving her full attention to anything.

Gidula’s Number Three magpie had stepped forward. Khembold sighed. “My turn next. After months sitting in the pilothouse of a starslider.” They watched Three spar gracefully with the seneschal. He was fast and agile and landed a few good blows that in context could have been telling, but he was betrayed by the boundaries of the ring and the Judge blew him offsides. Cornered, he ran out of wiggle room and fell as if poleaxed. The medics carried him off on a floater.

Khembold sighed. “Eglay could be taken down a peg. Well, I can put on a decent show.” He siggied to the end of the bridge, touched the banner with his staff, and leapt off his scooter. He and his colleague bowed to each other and Khembold launched a whirling side-kick as they rose from the bow.

But Eglay had been ready for just such a play and danced away from it.

Donovan stopped watching. Silky, he thought, give us plenty of juice. Brute, are we up to this? Our body, I mean.

Ya want we should fight, or take a dive?

Donovan considered the matter. “Fudir?” he muttered.

The Fudir rubbed their hands on their pants. “I don’t think Gidula set this up so we could take a dive.”

Ya think Gidula set it up, then, not this Eglay?

Gidula’s conflicted, the young man said. He wants what he thinks we know, but he doesn’t want Geshler Padaborn hale and whole and idolized. He can’t have us killed. Too many people know we’re in his jurisdiction and some of his own magpies might turn on him. He wants to cripple and humiliate us without obvious assault, so a nice, friendly bout to lull us and an “accidental” rabbit punch that the other rebels can believe.

“Sir?” Pyati tugged his sleeve. “Are you all right?”

Donovan shrugged him off. “Any more senior magpies?”

Five tried to look modest and failed. “Eglay’s good. Last time, he beat Khembold and went through eight top magpies before he went down. He’s not unbeatable. Last year, Khembold and he wrangled for a good quarter clock before Khembold won, and another time Number One got him with a surprise move.”

“I’d wondered if there were a Magpie One Gidula.”

“Detached assignment, I was told,” Pyati said. “He’s about ready for his own name. I could soften Eglay up before you take him.”

“No. I’m hungry.”

Pyati looked at him. “Meaning…?”

“I have to get past Eglay to reach the buffet table.”

His magpie chuckled. “Oh, well said! Oop. You sooner get your chance than later. Khembold twisted a little too much on that right, and left himself open. Fare well, master.”

The last remark was called out as Donovan coasted forward on his siggy to the edge of the bridge, where he dismounted. The festive crowd gathered there cheered his appearance, though the Brute’s keen ear picked out a hubbub of questions about his identity and even more questions on the odds. Gidula sat upon his ebony throne, leaned forward with his arms resting on his knees and a look of curious indifference on his face. As King of the pasdarm, he could show no favoritism. Number Two, on a lesser throne beside him, was as usual preoccupied with a half-dozen different matters, but with one slice of her attention she watched him approach Eglay Portion.

Eglay was slightly the worse for wear. As good as he was in the arts martial, a certain amount of damage was inevitable. What sort of honor was it, Donovan wondered, that drove these people to make such gorgeous spectacles of themselves for no other purpose than to inflict mutual injury? Eglay’s right eye was puffed and he favored his left leg.

Gidula spoke. “You have not dressed to honor the occasion, Geshler Padaborn.”

“What?” Donovan replied. “These are my dining clothes. Is there no banquet following?”

Eglay sucked in his breath. “Bow the honors, then, so the Lady may wave her kerchief.”

“Let the gods wave the kerchief,” the Fudir told him. “When the breeze next snaps the pasdarm banner, that will be our signal.”

The idea was novel, but Donovan saw its immediate appeal in the brightening eye of Eglay Portion, and heard it in the sighs of the magpies gathered round. “Nobly said,” Donovan heard one comment. “Place it in Fate’s hand.”

Eglay nodded and faced the pasdarm banner, but Donovan watched the spruces on the side of Mount Lefn. The wind was from the south this day, and he awaited the ripple in the needles that signaled a breeze coming toward the bridge. With the other eye, he watched the banner.

“Hit the juice, Silky,” the Fudir murmured, and the Silky Voice, back in the hypothalamus, sent adrenaline coursing through him. The chattering crowd, the rippling river, the birds in flight seemed to slow. He caught a motion in the trees to the right, where the river made a slight bend and ancient and vine-grown stone pillars rose from the water. The shiver crawled through the trees and the Sleuth gauged its speed and said, Three, two, one, take it, Brute.

And Donovan lashed out just as the pasdarm banner snapped. When he completed his turn, he found Eglay prostrate on the ground.

The crowd fell momentarily silent, as if they too had been stunned by the move. Then the voices began. “Geshler struck prematurely.” But another said, “No, but it was on the very spur of the moment.” “I hardly saw the kick.” “Did his hand move?” And then a great roar of approval parted their lips. It was not that they enjoyed seeing Eglay brought down, but that he had been brought down so smartly. It had been, in its own way, a work of art.

Donovan stood over Eglay and extended a hand. “At a later time,” he told his opponent quietly, “we will meet when you have not been wearied beforehand by so many others.”

Eglay took the hand and Donovan pulled him to his feet. A very short moment then lasted a very long time as the seneschal evaluated the man who had beaten him.