“Oh, please do,” Lenare bade him, clapping her hands in delight. “Don’t be afraid. He won’t kill you. Father doesn’t like them to actually hurt anyone.”
With an evil smirk directed toward Royce, Hadrian turned to face Mauvin. This time he made no attempt to defend himself. He stood perfectly still, holding his blade low. His gaze was cool and he stared directly into Mauvin’s eyes.
“Put up a guard, you fool,” Mauvin told him. “At least try to defend yourself.”
Hadrian raised his sword slowly, more in response to Mauvin’s request than as a move to defend. Mauvin stepped in with a quick flick of his blade designed to set Hadrian off his footing. He then pivoted around behind the larger man and sought to trip him up once more. Hadrian, however, also pivoted and, swinging a leg, caught Mauvin behind the knees, dropping him to the dirt.
Mauvin looked curiously at Hadrian as he helped him to his feet. “Our street thug has some surprises, I see,” Mauvin muttered with a smile.
This time, Mauvin struck at Hadrian in a fast set of sweeping attacks, most of which never caught anything but air as Hadrian avoided the strokes. Mauvin moved in a flurry, his blade traveling faster than the eye could follow. The steel rang now as Hadrian caught the strokes with his blade, parrying them aside.
“Mauvin, be careful!” Lenare shouted.
The battle rapidly escalated from friendly sparring to serious combat. The strokes moved faster, harder, and closer. The shrill ring of the blades began to echo off the courtyard walls. The grunts and curses became grimmer. The match went on for some time, the two fighting toe to toe. Suddenly Mauvin executed a brilliant maneuver. Feinting left, he swung right, following through the stroke and spinning fully around, exposing his back to Hadrian. Seeing his opponent vulnerable, Hadrian made the obvious riposte, but Mauvin miraculously caught his blade instinctively without seeing it. Pivoting again, Mauvin brought his own sword to Hadrian’s undefended side. Before he could finish the blow, however, Hadrian closed the distance between them and Mauvin’s swing ran behind the larger man’s back. Hadrian trapped the boy’s sword arm under his own and raised his sword to the boy’s throat. There was a gasp from Mauvin’s siblings. Royce simply chuckled with sinister relish. Releasing his grip, Hadrian set Mauvin free.
“How did you do that?” Mauvin asked. “I performed a flawless Vi’shin Flurry against you. It’s one of the most advanced maneuvers of the Tek’chin. No one has ever countered it before.”
Hadrian shrugged. “First time for everything.” He threw the sword back toward Fanen. It pierced the earth between the boy’s feet. Unlike the previous time, it dove in edge first, so the hilt did not swing.
With his eyes on Hadrian and an expression of awe on his face, Denek turned to Royce and said, “That must have been an awfully wicked old lady and a big butter churn.”
“Alric?”
The prince had wandered into one of the castle storerooms and was sitting on the thick sill of a barrel-vaulted window, looking out at the western hills. The sound of his friend’s voice roused him from deep thoughts, and it was not until then that he realized he was crying.
“Sorry,” Mauvin said, “but Father’s been looking for you. The local nobles have started to arrive, and I think he wants you to talk to them.”
“It’s okay,” Alric said, wiping his cheeks and glancing longingly once more out the window at the setting sun. “I’ve been here longer than I thought. I guess I lost track of the time.”
“It’s easy to do in here.” Mauvin walked around the room and took a bottle of wine out of a crate. “Remember the night we snuck down here and drank three of these?”
Alric nodded. “I was really sick.”
“So was I, and yet we still managed to make the stag hunt the next day.”
“We couldn’t let anyone know we were drinking.”
“I thought I was going to die, and when we got back, it turned out Arista, Lenare, and Fanen had already turned us in the night before.”
“I remember.”
Mauvin studied his friend carefully. “You’ll make a good king, Alric. And I’m sure your father would be proud.”
Alric did not say anything for a moment. He picked up a bottle from the crate and felt its weight in his hand. “I’d better get back. I have responsibilities now. I can’t hide down here drinking wine like the old days.”
“I suppose we could if you really wanted to.” Mauvin grinned devilishly.
Alric smiled and threw his arms around him. “You’re a good friend. I’m sorry we’ll never get to Percepliquis now.”
“It’s all right; besides, you never know. We might get there someday.”
As they left the storeroom, Alric dusted off his hands dirt that he had picked up from Mauvin’s back during their embrace. “Is Fanen getting so good now that he was able to put you in the dirt?”