I watched the eagle fold its wings and dive below the cliff face. Beautiful. “Just get it over with,” I said, turning and walking back to my seat without a backward glance.
There was a curious expression on Al Sorna’s face as I returned to my seat. Perhaps he was amused by my refusal to play along with this travesty. Later, in my more deluded moments, I wondered if there might have been some admiration there, some small measure of respect. But that, of course, is absurd.
“The combatants will take their place!” Carval Nurin announced.
Al Sorna stood, hefting his hateful sword. There was a brief hesitation as he placed his hand on the hilt, I noted the flex of his fingers before he drew the blade from the scabbard. His face was devoid of amusement now, dark eyes seeming to drink in the sight of the steel shining in the sun, his expression unreadable. After a second he placed the scabbard next to me and walked to the centre of the arena.
The Shield came forward, his sabre bared, blond hair tied back with a leather thong, clad simply in sailors garb of plain cotton shirt, buckskin trews and sturdy leather boots. His clothes may have been simple but he wore them like a prince, easily outshining the finery of the assembled Ship Lords, exuding grave nobility and physical prowess, a lion in search of justice for its murdered pride. The good humour he had displayed at the harbour was gone now and he regarded Al Sorna with a cold, predatory judgement.
Al Sorna took his place opposite, meeting the Shield's gaze without demur, showing the same effortless inability to be outshone. He stood with his sword held low, legs parted in line with his shoulders, a slight crouch to his back.
Carval Nurin raised his voice again. “Begin!”
It happened almost before Nurin’s command had ended, so fast it was a moment before I, and the crowd, realised what had occurred. Al Sorna moved. He moved in a way I had never seen a man move before, like the eagle diving below the cliff edge, or the orcas swooping on the salmon when we left Linesh, a fluid blur of speed and a single flickering slash of metal.
The Shield’s sabre must have been fashioned of quality steel judging by the rich ringing sound it made as it skittered away across the arena, leaving him standing there unarmed and defenceless.
The silence was total.
Al Sorna straightened, offering the Shield a grim smile. “You were holding it wrong.”
The Shield’s face showed a brief spasm of either rage or fear, but he mastered it quickly. Saying nothing, awaiting death and refusing to beg.
“There was much laughter in your house,” Al Sorna told him. “When your father returned from distant shores with presents and tales of adventure, you would gather around with your brothers and listen, hungering for manhood and rejoicing in his love. But he never told you of the murders he committed, honest sailors pitched to the sharks from the decks of their own ships, nor the women he raped when they raided the Realm’s southern shore. You loved your father, but you loved a lie.”
The Shield bared his teeth in a feral grimace of hate. “Just finish it!”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Al Sorna went on. “You were just a boy. There was nothing you could do. You were right to run…”
The Shield’s composure shattered, an enraged roar erupting from his lips, charging forward, hands reaching for Al Sorna’s throat. The northman side-stepped the charge and slammed the palm of his hand into the Shield’s temple, felling him to the arena floor where he lay still and immobile.
Al Sorna turned and walked back to his seat, retrieving the scabbard and sheathing his sword. The crowd were beginning to react now, mostly in shock, but with a tinge of anger that I knew would only grow.
“This challenge is not concluded, Lord Vaelin!” Carval Nurin called above the rising tumult.
Al Sorna turned, walking to where Lady Emeren sat, shocked and staring at him in rigid frustration. “My Lady, are you ready to depart this place?”
“This contest is to the death!” Nurin shouted. “If you leave this man alive you dishonour him in the eyes of the Isles for all time.”
Al Sorna turned away from the Lady Emeren with a gracious bow. “Honour?” he asked Nurin. “Honour is just a word. You can’t eat it or drink it and yet everywhere I go men talk of it endlessly, and they all tell a different tale of what it actually means. For the Alpirans it’s all about duty, the Renfaelins think it’s the same as courage. In these islands it appears it means killing a son for a crime committed by his father then slaughtering a helpless man when the pantomime fails to go to plan.”