The Knight

“Half.”

“Fine. I don’t want it. I never did. I don’t want to kill you, either.” I stood up and held out my hand. “Put that sword away. I don’t think we can ever be friends, but we don’t have to be enemies either.”

He stood there looking at us for maybe half a minute. Then he laid the sword down on his bed and sat down beside it. “You don’t object to my sitting in my own cabin?”

“It’s my cabin,” I told him, “but only until I get off at Forcetti.”

“I’m sitting, so you can sit down again. Go ahead. Your wound can’t have healed already.”

I did. “I want my bow and I want my money. Somebody told me you had them, but he was too scared of you to come in here and get them for me. So I’m here to get them myself. You’ve got that sword, which is yours, and you’ll have some money of your own. Go get it, and give me mine. All I want is what belongs to me. Give it to me, with my bow, the case, and my quiver, and you can go away without fighting.”

He shook his head.

“I didn’t think you would. All right, here’s my last offer. Gylf and I will go out on deck. Before the next watch, you clear out of this cabin, leaving all my stuff—money, bowcase, armor, and so forth—where I can find it. Twenty-two gold ceptres, most of them new and all real gold, plus my other stuff. Will you do that?”

He stood up and Gylf growled. I was afraid he was going to grow into the black thing that had killed the outlaws, and I told him not to.

“You’ll return my ship and its cargo to me when we reach port?”

“Sure,” I said. “But I don’t want them in the first place. I don’t—” He was grabbing his sword. I got the mace out just in time to block the cut.

It sounded like a big hammer hitting an anvil. The next cut would have lopped off my head, but I blocked it too. I never had stood up. I was on one knee in front of the chair. The third cut came very fast and broke his sword blade. That was when I decided to call my mace Sword Breaker. Gylf jumped on the captain as soon as his sword broke and pulled him down, and I hit him with Sword Breaker thinking I would knock him out. I hit him too hard, though, and the diamond-shaped blade went deep into his head instead. It came out with blood and brains all over it. I just stood there looking at it, and thinking of Disira and saying, “Good lord, good lord,” about twenty times. Then Gylf said, “Shall I eat him?” and I knew he was right and we had to get rid of the captain. So I wiped Sword Breaker on his coat and pushed him out a window, and we cleaned up. After that I went out on deck and talked to Kerl. I told him he was captain now, and Nur was the first mate. I said that the captain had jumped me, and told him what had happened after that. I said if he wanted to tell somebody when we got to Forcetti, that was all right, but they would probably keep the Western Trader there a long time for the trial and so on.

He said it might be better if everybody just said the captain had died on the voyage, and we had buried him at sea. I said that was fine with me, and it really was the truth or pretty close. So he got the crew together and told them, and nobody seemed to mind very much.

After that I thought maybe Head Breaker or something, but somebody was sure to ask whose head it had been, so I stuck with Sword Breaker. Later I gave Sword Breaker to Toug and he called her that too, because that was what I told him.

Chapter 21. Seeing Them

That night Gylf and I talked things over in our cabin. He did not say much, not then and not ever, but he was a good listener and when he did say something it was a real good idea to listen close and think about it afterward. The thing was, I was afraid my wound was not getting any better, and I thought it might be getting worse. It felt as hot as fire, and when I pressed it blood came out, mixed with other stuff.

I was scared. I know I have not said a lot about being scared, but I was scared pretty often the whole time I was in Mythgarthr. I am not going to go back now and tell you about all the times, there would be no point in it. And besides, some of the worst times were times I have not told anything about, like when I was out hunting just after Bold Berthold took me in and I shot the bear and it chased me up a tree. I had not thought a big bear like that could climb trees, and it was brown anyway and not black. I guess the bears in the Forest of Celidon are different from the bears we have at home, because it could climb quicker than I could. When it got really close I stuck an arrow down its throat and it fell out of the tree and went away. I was so scared I could not climb down. I just held on and shook for a long time. I had dropped my bow when I ran, and the bear had just about bitten my hand off when it snapped down on the shaft.

Anyway, I was scared and Gylf and I talked about my being wounded and what might happen. He said those deep wounds were the worst because you could not lick them clean. I laughed because I could not have licked there. I would have washed it. Only I thought about the kind of water we had on the ship, and he was right. Licking would have been better.

After a while I remembered Bold Berthold’s telling me that the Bodachan would fix up sick animals sometimes, and they had helped him as much as they could. Then too, Disiri was an Aelf, and I was sure she would help me if she knew I was hurt. So I said what we needed to do was get in touch with some Aelf that might help us, and were there some on this boat?

Gylf put his head down between his paws, and I could see he was holding something back. So I said, “Well, if you know where some are, how about if you try to get them to help me? If they won’t I won’t be any worse off than I am right now.”

He just looked at me for a while, then he went to the door and scratched it so I would let him out. I did. It was dark by then, and the moon and the stars were out, and we had just enough wind to fill the sails; that was my favorite time on the ship, every time I was on it.

Then Gylf pushed past me, because the door was pretty small, and ran across the deck and jumped over the rail. When he came back and we had talked, I went out on deck again and asked Kerl if he was afraid of the Aelf.

He scratched his head the way I do sometimes. “I du

“You will,” I said. I pointed to the sailors who were on that watch. They were asleep on deck except for the helmsman and the lookout. I told Kerl to wake them up and send them below, and said he could give them any reason he wanted to.

He looked kind of surprised. “Do I have to give them a reason, Sir Able?”

I said no, and he started yelling at them to wake them up. I told one to find Pouk when he went below and send him to me. We had him steer and sent the helmsman below. The way that wind and that sea were, I could have steered the ship myself, or we could have tied the wheel. Pouk had no idea what was going on then, and neither did Kerl.

Once the watch had gone below, Gylf jumped over the side again. After that there was nothing to do but wait, so I sat down in one of the crenels. Kerl was scared. He came up to me, very quiet. “He’s no ordinary dog, is he, sir?”

I said no.

“He’s comin’ up to breathe, mebbe, where we don’t see him, sir?”

I said yes, and pretty soon he went away. The moon was a narrow crescent, just beautiful. After a while I could see it was really a bow, and see the Lady holding it. I did not know a thing about her then, but I saw her anyway; she is the Valfather’s daughter, the most important one. Bold Berthold had always said Skai was the third world, and the people up there were the Overcyns. Seeing her like that I wondered about Number Two and Number One. I had asked him about those one time, but he only said nobody knew very much.