The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [188]
But Sligyn had no idea of how useful cold fury can be to a man. He won his first round easily, since it was against the clumsy Lord Cinvan, then went on to win the second as well. For the third, in a state of controlled bloodlust he took the field against the formidable Lord Gwion, who had royal trophy daggers won in Dun Deverry itself hanging over his hearth. When Sligyn beat him handily, everyone, including Sligyn, assumed that Gwion had been stupidly overconfident. There was no such excuse in the fourth, when he beat an equally skilled lord who also happened to be a close friend of Gwarryc’s. At that point the crowd began to grow uneasy. When the next batch of fourth-round contestants took the field, many spectators made no pretense of watching them; little clots of men formed to mutter among themselves and look Sligyn’s way every now and then with troubled eyes.
As for Sligyn, he felt as if his whole body had become a weapon in the hands of his righteous rage. While he waited for his turn at the fifth round, he drank cold water instead of ale and glared at Gwarryc, standing a good fifty yards from him in a press of followers. Yet, in spite of the distance, it seemed that Gwarryc was aware of him, because at intervals he would look up, and his eyes would search out Sligyn the way a tongue searches out a chipped tooth. Sligyn also noticed the pair of silver daggers, one blond, one dark enough to have some Bardek blood in his veins, watching him, but from their hard and indifferent faces it was hard to tell what they might have thought. Peredyr, on the other hand, who was by then acting as Sligyn’s second, bringing him damp rags to wipe his face and water by the flagonful, was beside himself with holy joy.
“Keep it up, man! I’ll pray to any god you want, just keep it up! Look at that bastard-born traitor’s face, wondering what’s wrong with his little womanly scheme! Gods, the vanity of the man!”
The words were more inspiring than the praise-song of the finest bard in the kingdom. On their tide Sligyn won the fifth round, and the sixth, until only the seventh lay between him and Gwarryc himself, who had made his expected easy progress through his rounds. Unfortunately, Sligyn’s opponent for this penultimate trial was Lord Retyc of Gaddbrwn, known throughout Eldidd for his finely tuned skill with a sword. When Sligyn marched out to face him, he was consoling himself by thinking that at least he’d given Gwarryc a good scare before his inevitable defeat. Most of Gwarryc’s supporters seemed to agree; they had all relaxed and stood smiling on the sidelines while their champion limbered his enormous frame by twirling the blunt blade round and round his head. But then the gods took a hand, or so every man in Eldidd saw it. Nevyn would later say that Sligyn’s supernormal rage was affecting the men around him, troubling their auras as well as their minds, but at the time, every onlooker there saw it as an omen, and that’s how the story spread.
When the contest began, Retyc strode toward Sligyn in confidence, but not overconfidence—he’d profited from Gwion’s painful lesson earlier. For a few moments they sparred, the blunt blades striking the wicker shields with an odd, squishy thwack. Out of sheer fury Sligyn managed to score one touch; then Retyc feinted in from the side, drew back, danced to the front—and scored two touches in quick succession. Yet, as he grinned in triumph, he dropped his guard ever so slightly, and Sligyn got his second touch, too. Even now in the count, they circled, feinting caudously from one side or the other, drawing back a little, trying to draw their opponent in, then closing again ever so delicately when the other refused to be drawn. Around and around, back and forth they went, and the length of the fight was beginning to tell on Sligyn, who was a good twelve years Retyc’s senior. He was puffing a little as he made a sharp stab—and Retyc slipped. His left foot simply shot out from under him, and down he