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Vaijon panted for breath, too astonished by the boundless power of Bahzell's attack to feel fear even now, but it was obvious to every watcher that he was totally at the hradani's mercy. Bahzell was toying with him as he drove him back in a staggering, lurching parody of his normal, tigerish grace. The hradani battered the younger man back until Vaijon's heel caught on the hearth at the southern end of salle. The golden-haired knight staggered for balance, half-falling, and a deep, rustling sigh went up from the audience as he faltered, exposing himself for Bahzell's coup-de-grace.
But Bahzell didn't deliver it. Instead the hradani stepped back with a deep, booming laugh. The mockery in it cut like a lash, and Vaijon's half-strangled gasp for breath was also a sob of rage and shame as he hurled himself forward once more behind his shattered shield. The tip of his blade came up, thrusting murderously for Bahzell's exposed face, but the hradani's shield slammed the sword—and swordsman—aside. Vaijon bounced back from the blow and went half-way to one knee, and this time Bahzell was on him in an instant.
The hradani wasted no more time driving his enemy about the salle. He had only one purpose now, and Sir Charrow felt himself frozen motionless in his chair as Bahzell Bahnakson of the Horse Stealer hradani gave the Belhadan chapter of the Order of Tomanāk a merciless lesson in who and what he was. A single savage blow smashed what remained of Vaijon's shield into dangling wreckage, hanging from his shield arm to entangle and hinder without affording the least protection. Vaijon fought to interpose his longsword, but Bahzell's blade crashed down upon it, and steel rang like an anvil. The younger man went all the way down on his right knee, and Bahzell struck again, twisting in with brutal, side-armed power. Steel belled and clangored again, like harsh, explosive music ugly with hate, and Vaijon's sword flew through the air, spi
Yet the knight-captain's shout of protest died unspoken. Vaijon was defenseless, and the hradani would have been completely within his rights to finish him once and for all. But instead, the massive sword came in from the side, the flat of the blade striking Vaijon's shield arm like a blacksmith's sledge, and the knight-probationer cried out. His mail sleeve could blunt that blow; it couldn't stop it, and his forearm snapped like a dry branch. And then Bahzell struck yet again, and Vaijon cried out once more as his sword arm broke as well. He slumped fully to his knees, both arms broken, crouching at Bahzell's feet, and the hradani stretched out his sword once more—gently this time, with the precision of a surgeon—until its lancet tip rested precisely against his plate gorget.
"Well now, Sir Vaijon of Almerhas," a voice rumbled. It was deep and steady, unwinded and coldly mocking. "I'm thinking I promised to show you what hradani truly are, but it's in my mind as how you're not overpleased with the lesson. Still, there's little need for me to be after showing you, for you already know, don't you now? Aye, it's a rare, bloodthirsty lot my people are, so I'm thinking there no reason at all, at all, why I shouldn't be pushing this —" metal grated with a small, tooth-clenching squeal as he twisted his wrist, grinding the tip of his blade against Vaijon's gorget "—right through your arrogant throat, now is there?"
Vaijon stifled a whimper—of pain, not for mercy—and gazed up along the glittering edge of the five-foot blade resting against his throat. Absolute silence hovered in the salle, and fear flickered in his blue eyes at last. That fear was made only sharper and deeper by the fact that he'd never truly expected to feel it, yet he refused to beg, and Bahzell smiled. It was a grim smile, but there was a hint of approval in it, and he eased the pressure on his sword.
"Still and all," he said quietly, "it might just be you've a thing or two to learn yet, Vaijon of Almerhas, and not about hradani alone. I'm thinking himself can't be feeling any too pleased with you just now, for I've yet to meet a more conceited, miserable excuse for one of his knights."
Vaijon felt his face go scarlet within the concealment of his helm, despite the shock and pain of his broken arms, as that deep, rumbling voice hammered spikes of shame into him. They hurt even more than shattered bone, those spikes, for they were completely deserved, and he knew it.
"If I were wanting your life, my lad, I'd already have had it," Bahzell told him almost compassionately, "but for all you've worked yourself into a right sorry position just now with me and with himself, as well, you've some steel in your spine and some gravel in your gullet. Aye, and I doubt you've ever had a co
"I—" Vaijon bit his lip until he tasted blood, then sucked in a huge lungful of air and made himself nod. "Yes, Milord Champion," he said, his voice loud and clear enough to carry to every corner of the salle despite his shame and the waves of pain flooding through his arms.
"Your skill at arms has vanquished me, yet your mercy has spared my life," the young knight forced himself to go on, "proving both your prowess and your right to the honor to which the God has called you." He paused, and then continued levelly. "More, you have reminded me of what I chose in my arrogance to forget or ignore, Milord. Tomanāk alone judges who among His servants are fit to be His champions, not we who serve Him. Sir Charrow sought to teach me that. To my shame, I refused to learn it of his gentleness, but even the most vain and foolish knight can learn when the lesson is tailored properly to his needs, Milord Champion."
His pain-tightened mouth quirked a wry smile within his helm, and Bahzell withdrew his sword entirely.
"Aye, well as to that, lad," he said with a ghost of a laugh, "you'd not believe what it took for my father to hammer a lesson into my own head when I'd the bit between my teeth. I'd not want to say I was stubborn , you understand, but—"
"But I would," another voice interrupted, and Vaijon of Almerhas' eyes went huge and round as another armed and armored figure flicked suddenly into existence behind Bahzell. The newcomer stood at least ten feet tall, brown haired and brown eyed, with a sword on his back and a mace at his belt, and the deep, bass thunder of his words made even Bahzell's powerful voice sound light as a child's.
Sir Charrow went instantly to one knee, followed just as quickly by every other person in the salle. All but one, for as the others knelt before the power and majesty of Tomanāk Orfro, Sword of Light and Judge of Princes, Bahzell turned to face him with a quizzical expression and cocked ears.
"Would you, now?" he said, and more than one witness quailed in terror as he stood square-shouldered to face his god.
"I would," Tomanāk told him with a smile, "and I feel quite confident your father would agree with me. Shall we ask him?"
"I'm thinking I'd just as soon not be bothering him, if it's all the same to you," Bahzell replied with dignity, and Tomanāk laughed. The sound shook the salle with its power and pressed against those who heard it like a storm, and he shook his head.
"I see you've learned some discretion," he said, and looked down at Vaijon. "The question, my knight," he said more softly, "is whether or not you have."
"I... I hope so, Lord." Vaijon had no idea where he'd found the strength to whisper those words, for as his god's brown eyes burned into him, they completed the destruction of the arrogance Bahzell had humbled at last. He was naked before those eyes, his soul exposed to the terrible power of their knowledge, for they belonged to the God of Justice and of Truth, and their power unmasked all the petty conceits and pompous self-importance which had once seemed so important for what they truly were.
Yet there was a strange mercy in that searing moment of self-revelation. He didn't even feel shame, for there was too vast a gulf between himself and the power of the being behind those eyes, and if no secret cra
And as that awareness flowed through him, Vaijon of Almerhas saw at last the link between Tomanāk and Bahzell Bahnakson. They were akin, the champion and his god, joined on some deep, profound level which Vaijon glimpsed only faintly even now. It was as if a flicker of Tomanāk was inextricably bound up with Bahzell's soul, an indivisible part of him, muted and filtered through the hradani into something mere mortals could trust and follow. Someone in whom they could see a standard to which they might actually aspire, a mirror and an inspiration which shared their own mortality. And that, Vaijon realized suddenly, was what truly made a champion. The dauntless will and stubborn determination which stopped short of his own shallow arrogance—which was almost humble in admitting its limitations yet had the tempered-steel courage of its convictions within those limitations—and the strength to endure an intimacy with the power of godhood few mortals could even imagine. It wasn't anything Bahzell did ; it was who and what he was. In that moment Vaijon knew he saw the myriad co