TVisTV Book 4: Chapter 16 (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 16 - The Answer

Insults are the arguments employed by those who are wrong.

- Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

It took perhaps just under an hour for a space to be cleared. The ritual was an old one and, though rare, not entirely unheard of in this violent land. Civilization here was often little more than a cloak, clean enough at a distance, and too easily shrugged off when power demanded it. The barbarity beneath was always waiting beneath that thin, thin veneer.

And, well, this suited Seraphina just fine. The fact that Calden had chosen hammers instead of blades and first blood meant, in Seraphina’s considered opinion, that the boor had sought her life. It was almost cute in a way.

The duel would be fought to satisfaction, which in this case meant until one of the parties yielded. Seraphina decided to twist the situation a little further to a shape of her liking.

She turned toward Frest, now armored and standing with a poleaxe resting against one shoulder, and raised her voice just enough for those present to clearly hear.

“I am sure Mister Calden will yield soon enough after a few taps,” she said, her tone light and sweet. “A man who would challenge a lady to a duel would never die with honor. I am quite certain he will beg you to stop at the earliest opportunity.”

Frest had to stop himself from sighing. The former bandit knew his lady’s game well enough by now. He had seen that particular softness in her voice before, the pretty little ribbon she tied around a knife before handing it to someone else. Still, he was paid well enough, treated well enough, and perhaps foolishly fond enough of her and his position that he would answer his mistresses’ expectations to the letter. Her expectations being, of course, the delivery of violence without requiring her to inconvenience herself.

So he raised the visor of his helm and answered with a wry grin. “Of that, I have no doubt. I’ve seen his type before. They always have a habit of squealing at the first bruise and declaring honor satisfied.”

Calden’s face became a riot of red. “I’ll take my satisfaction with your death,” he snapped back.

Seraphina smiled wolfishly, glad that the tall man had taken the bait so willingly.

“You have all heard him,” she said, turning slightly so that her voice carried across the cleared space. “He wishes this duel to be to the death.”

The words settled over the courtyard like fresh snow. Several of the gathered lords exchanged glances. There were hurried whispers. A few of the household Knights shifted where they stood. Bern looked as if he might physically reach out and shove the words back into Calden’s mouth.

Duchess Adelaide, however, merely regarded the matter with the calm of a woman watching a trap close exactly as designed.

“So it shall be,” declared the Duchess.

And here, her word was law. She had answered an insult by the king with a small army, an upstart adventurer she would leave to her granddaughter's man.

Bern’s face tightened with something perilously close to apoplexy as Calden, stubborn, furious, and far too proud to understand the shape of the grave beneath his feet, stood there having dug it deeper with his own tongue.

***

Servants and soldiers had swept the snow off into a rough oval, though the work of many boots had churned it into dark mud and grey slush. The crowd had gathered in loose rings around the space. The cleared space was not a proper dueling ground, but it would serve.

Calden stood at one end with a warhammer in one hand and a shield in the other, his armor a strange compromise between practicality and his current means. His torso was covered by a coat of plates, leather and heavy cloth studded with the hidden metal beneath, while his arms, knees, shins, and hands bore mismatched but well-kept pieces of plate. It was not elegant, and certainly not new, but it had seen real use. There were dents along the edges, scratches where blades had failed to bite, and a dark stain near one hip that had never fully washed out.

Frest, by contrast, looked almost the knightly ideal.

He wore the cuirass and helm of the Royal Guard, the rest of his armor made from the finest steel laced with Mithril that money could buy. Unlike his armor, his weapon was a plain poleaxe that rested lightly in his armored hands. The weapon’s head carried a hammer face, a beak, and a thrusting spike, all of which looked terribly businesslike.

In this expression of violence, the man had finally found a vent for his ennui. A place to direct the frustrated feelings he knew that he should not have.

Seraphina stood now beside her grandmother beneath the edge of a hastily erected wooden canopy. Desdemona, no doubt sensing the excitement, had somehow found her to them, her expression caught between horror, fascination, and the grim delight of a girl who knew she would never be allowed to see anything like this at home. This of course was part of her deception, for the de Savant girl had seen much worse than this. Had participated in much worse than this. But, appearances needed to be kept.

“You seem very calm,” Desdemona murmured, hiding her mouth with her silken sleeves.

“I have every confidence in Frest beating that rude man to a pulp,” Seraphina replied, her eyes fixed forward.

The Duchess nodded once and the signal was given.

Calden came forward first, shield high, hammer drawn back but not foolishly raised over his head. He had some sense, then, which was mildly disappointing. The shield could close distance, the hammer could crush joints and make a man regret possessing bones. 

However, the poleaxe had the range and space, and Frest used that space immediately. He did not charge, he stepped back controlling the circle of his weapon.

The poleaxe’s spike darted out once with the quick, testing malice of a snake. Calden caught it on his shield and drove it aside, only for Frest to let the haft slide through his hands and bring the hammer face down toward the man’s elbow. Calden shifted back just in time, the blow cracking against the rim of his shield.

The tall Adventurer answered with a rush, boots skidding through slush as he tried to crowd past the poleaxe’s head. Frest gave ground with an ease that made the movement look lazy, though Seraphina could see the calculation in it. The butt of the poleaxe came around and jabbed into Calden’s arm, not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough to turn his shoulder and spoil the hammer blow that followed. The warhammer cut through the air where Frest’s helm had been a moment before.

“Ah,” Seraphina said softly. “He is getting faster.”

“Is that praise?” Desdemona asked lightly.

“It is what it is,” the blonde girl replied, not taking her eyes off the drama unfolding before her.

Sir Frest pressed in then, using the poleaxe less as a weapon than as a lever. The beak caught the upper rim of Calden’s shield and pulled. Calden snarled and yanked back, using the motion to drive his hammer toward Frest’s shoulder. Rather than resist the blow outright, Frest loosened his grip just enough to let the haft slide and accepted the strike on his pauldron with a ringing crash of steel. Then, as Calden’s balance committed itself to another swing, Frest pulled down again, dragging the shield low as he stepped off line and sent the top spike of the poleaxe darting toward Calden’s face. The point skipped across the brow of the helm and rang like a struck bell. 

Calden staggered half a step, more angered than hurt. “Is that all, southerner?” he goaded.

Frest’s answer was to strike him in the side of the helmet with the hammer face of the poleaxe.

It was not a beautiful blow. It did not split the helm or send teeth and blood flying dramatically through the snow. Instead, it landed with a deep, ugly clang that made Calden’s knees soften for one brief instant before stubbornness, hatred, and perhaps the indignity of being watched by the nobles pushed him upright again.

Much to the blonde girl’s delight, she saw Bern swear in shock and anger.

Calden came forward more carefully after that, shield tucked tight, hammer working in short, vicious arcs. Twice he struck the haft of the poleaxe, trying to beat it aside, and once the hammer’s beak caught against the wood and nearly tore the weapon from Frest’s grip. Frest gave with it rather than resisting, turning the pull into a step, then brought the butt end low and hard against Calden’s ankle.

This time Calden did stumble.

Frest, for all his failings and shady background, was a man who knew blood and battle as tailor knew cloth. By his own might he had taken down an elite of the Royal Guard in single combat. An upstart Adventurer, no matter how famed a monster hunter he might be, was no real challenge.

He recovered before he fell, but the movement left a dark smear of mud across one armored knee and a spray of slush across his coat of plates. They stood still for a moment, taking the measure of one another again. With their faces hidden behind the visor of their helmets, they were allowed to pretend to be statues when they were only meat sweating in metal.

But only for a few breaths.

Calden must have realized that the distance was killing him, suddenly hurling himself forward behind his shield.

The shield slammed into the haft of the poleaxe, driving it up and aside, and Calden crashed into Frest with enough force to make both men stagger. The warhammer struck once, glancing from Frest’s pauldron. The Knight tried to bring the poleaxe back into line, but Calden was too close now, crowding him, hammering at him, using shield, shoulder, and body weight in a way that turned a clean duel into a raw competition of labor.

They lurched together across the churned snow.

Sir Frest hooked a sabaton behind Calden’s heel and shoved it to make him fall. But, Calden, to his credit, did not go down alone. He grabbed Frest, dragged him with him, and in the next moment both men crashed into the mud and snow beneath. The poleaxe slid half from Frest’s grasp. Calden’s shield was trapped awkwardly between them, his hammer arm pinned for the space of a heartbeat, and then everything became wrestling.

This, Seraphina thought, was where pretty notions of honor went to die.

There was nothing elegant about two armored men struggling in the mud. Steel scraped against steel. Calden tried to get a knee beneath him, failed, and drove his shield edge into Frest’s throat. Frest answered by ramming his gauntleted fist into the side of Calden’s helm.

Calden bucked like an animal and Frest rolled with him.

For a few moments it was difficult to tell who had the advantage. The poleaxe was gone from immediate use, lying half a yard away. Calden still had the hammer, but at this range in the scrum it was almost useless. His shield too was more a liability than an asset. That left both men clawing for grips, for leverage, for anything that could become a future wound.

Calden found Frest’s visor and tried to wrench it upward and failed. The Adventurer snarled something that might have been a curse or a prayer and tried to smash his forehead into Frest’s faceplate. It accomplished very little beyond noise. Frest shifted his hips, and with his free hand drew a knife from the narrow sheath at his belt.

It was long, thin and narrow. A mean weapon, the sort of thing meant for close work like this. Calden saw it and fought harder and real panic entered the movement of his body.

He tried to roll, but the shield betrayed him, pinned partly beneath Frest’s weight. Frest ignored the gaps at the helm for the moment; the taller man’s chin was tucked too low, his shoulder too hunched, and his free hand too frantic. Instead, Frest went lower, to the side of the coat of plates where one of the straps helped hold the armored garment tight across the body.

He sawed at it, pressing the blade against the leather and worked it back and forth while his opponent writhed beneath him, the knife edge biting, slipping, catching again. Calden managed to get his hammer arm half-free and struck Frest once in the ribs, but there was no room to build force.

The strap parted, the armor loosening just enough to create a gap near his pauldron. It was a small thing, but Frest seemed to feel the change through his hands. One side of Calden’s armor gaped when the man twisted, exposing the the thick cloth of his gambeson.

Frest put his weight down and the subtle knife went in and Calden convulsed beneath him. Then he pulled the knife back, adjusted his grip, and drove it in again, deeper this time, his helm bent close to Calden’s as if he were whispering a secret into the other man’s ear.

The courtyard fell strangely quiet as the Adventurer’s hammer slipped from his fingers and landed in the slush with a soft, final sound.

Frest remained over him for another moment, one gauntlet pressed against Calden’s shoulder, the knife held ready, waiting to see whether pride would defy death.

It did not.

At last, the Knight pushed himself upright, mud and ice sliding from his plate in ugly clumps. He retrieved his poleaxe with the same care a master artisan had for his tools, then turned toward Seraphina and lowered his head.

“My lady,” he said simply, voice muffled and face hidden by the helm.

Seraphina looked at the body in the churned snow, then at the watching nobles, then finally at Bern, whose face had gone grey.

“How unfortunate,” she drawled, with perfect softness. “It seems Mister Calden did not yield soon enough.”