Oath Breaker Part 1 by Kris Kramer
***
My chains were removed and my sword returned. Everyone in the hall fell back against the walls, tables and chairs were moved out of the way and two men took long, thin branches from outside and laid them out on the floor to delineate the boundaries of the challenge area, a large rectangle in the middle of the room. More men squeezed in from the courtyard to watch, as word of the trial had quickly spread throughout the palace. Aravon stood at one end of the rectangle with a few others who helped him take off his armor. This was to be a battle between two men and their swords, nothing else. I had halfway hoped he'd keep his armor on, to slow him down a bit, but that was a minor concern. Even slowed, he was still a formidable swordsman, who looked as comfortable holding a blade as any man possibly could.
Saras was brought to me as my second, although he had nothing to do other than to stand next to me with defeat already plain across his face.
“You can’t do this,” he said.
“I appreciate your confidence in me.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“No he won’t. He’s a swordsman, not a warrior. He’ll beat me, but he won’t kill me.”
Aravon’s Lieutenant, Haelis, stepped forward and shouted across the hall.
“In this trial, you are victorious by killing your opponent, forcing them to submit, or forcing them out of the boundaries of the challenge area." Aravon’s men cheered at that, positive that I would fail. I didn’t completely doubt them.
"You realize if he beats you, you still die?"
I swung my arms around, loosening my shoulders. "I'm working on that part."
Aravon stepped forward and stood in the middle of the square, practicing his sword strokes to the delight of his men. I let him wail away at the air for a few moments until the men lining the boundaries began to shout at me to fight. They called me a coward, among other things, but their words didn't affect me. I stepped slowly into the square, held out my sword, and prepared to defend my life against one of the best swordsman I've ever faced in my life.
Aravon started off slowly, feinting, then thrusting, so he could gauge my skills and my style. I did nothing to betray that at first, focusing only on moving and parrying his strikes so I could live long enough to figure a way out of this. He could tell I fought defensively, so he came at me faster, mixing lunges with more feints, trying to draw me out. He wanted me to attack, he waited for it, and I knew he had something planned for me when I did. So I attacked, but not the way he expected. He swung, and I parried the blade away then charged in, not with my sword, but with my body. He'd readied himself to deflect another blow, but he wasn't expecting me to rush him, and I managed to grab the sleeve of his arm and pull him in close. I wanted to grapple, because I was stronger than him, but he was faster and much wilier than I gave him credit for. I almost had my arms around him when he spun away. His sword came for my face, but I already had mine up, and the blades clanged loudly next to my ear. What I wasn't ready for, however, was his foot in my stomach, as he kicked me away, knocking the wind from my lungs, and eliciting a cheer from the onlookers. I staggered back, nearly falling to one knee, but I kept standing, and I kept my sword up, which wasn't necessary as Aravon backed away to let me catch my breath.
After a few moments of deep breathing, and enduring several dozen taunts from men in the crowd, I stood up straight and signaled that I was ready again. This time Aravon came at me fast, with a flurry of strikes that I wasn't prepared for. I ducked, parried, sidestepped, parried some more, and still he came at me like a whirlwind. A lesser man would have died then, mostly because they'd have been overwhelmed by Aravon's speed, and lost their composure. But I had a plan now, a very roughly formulated one, but a plan nonetheless, and I needed to be alive for it to work. So I used every trick I had to avoid that elf and somehow I managed to escape unscathed. Aravon himself seemed surprised by that, and he stepped back to reassess my skills, which thankfully gave me time to gather my breath. Truthfully, looking back on that fight now, if he'd been relentless, and pressed his advantage in speed against me early in that fight, I'd be dead now. But I was lucky that my opponent was an elf. Not only that, he was the worst kind of elf, the quiet, contemplative kind. That kind of caution and thoughtfulness may have served him well in duels, but it was no way to be a warrior. And that's why he would fail.
I learned how to fight from the soldiers in Raven's Crest, and they taught me a lesson more valuable than any other I've ever learned in the art of combat. Winning is about surviving, and surviving is about fighting dirty. Honor has no place in combat. Rules have no place in combat. When your life is on the line, you don't hold back, and you don't submit yourself to artificial boundaries, or to any notion of competition. The only result in combat that should be acceptable to a true warrior is you living and your opponent dying, any way possible. I've lived a long time, and I've been in more fights than I can even try to count, and I still live to this day because I fight dirty.
By now, the jeers were deafening, as men yelled at me to do something, anything interesting before Aravon killed me, but I had no intention of wasting my energy on futile attacks. Instead, I continued to move around the hall in a defensive posture, daring Aravon to come to me. I circled around towards the side of the hall where some of the tables and chairs had been pushed aside, and I stepped back a few paces, putting me dangerously close to the boundary line. A number of the spectators noticed that, and were shouting at Aravon to knock me out, but his cautious nature took over and he held back, trying to figure out my strategy, or if I even had one. Stupid elf. He would make this hard on me.
I lunged at him, and he stepped away and returned the favor but I stepped back again, trying to draw him closer. He moved a half step closer, and I swung. Again, he sidestepped and swung back, and again I backed up, trying to lure him in. He suspected that I might try and knock him out, but that wasn't the case. I just needed him one step closer for this work, so I lunged again, and left myself dangerously unprotected in the hope that he'd take the bait, and he very nearly did, knocking my blade away and lunging back at me. His blade came low, and I saw it coming for my thigh, realizing that I couldn't do much to avoid it. I was able to swing my leg to the side enough that the sword cut alongside my left hip, and even though it wasn't as deep as I feared I grimaced at the pain, and the crowd roared at the fact that someone had finally drawn blood. I took advantage of the moment, though, to grab Aravon's sleeve again, and this time I pulled him close. He tried to spin again, and I let him, readying to parry the inevitable sword strike coming for my head. It came, I blocked it, and then I let him kick me in the stomach again.
I stumbled back awkwardly, which wasn't hard because he'd very nearly knocked the breath from me. I'd managed to turn enough to keep that from happening, but I let the impact carry me across the boundary lines, and I fell to the floor amongst the chairs, and the crowd roared because they had a victor. Aravon looked at me curiously, and in that moment we both knew what had happened. I'd let him knock me out of bounds. He watched, trying to understand why I'd consigned myself to death, but in the end he either didn't know or didn't care. He turned back to his Lord and bowed, accepting his victory.
And that's when I made my move.
I grabbed one of the chairs next to me by the leg, leaped back up to my feet, and swung it wildly at Aravon's back. He saw me coming out of the corner of his eye, and he turned and held up his arm to deflect the chair but it was too late. The chair crashed into him, breaking in two, and he staggered back. I charged forward with my sword still in my hand, and I could see soldiers now coming for me, but it was too late for them. I moved in low and swung at Aravon's feet with the flat of my blade, knocking him to the ground. As he hit the ground, I kicked at his wrist and dislodged his sword from his hand, then quickly stood over him with my sword jabbed into his neck, not piercing the skin, but dangerously close.
“Stop!” I shouted at the soldiers, and they all stopped, watching me carefully. Brecon jumped from his c
“You have no right!” he yelled. “You've lost your trial, and killing him will only make your death even more excruciating.”
“I didn't lose.”
“You fell out! You've lost! You are condemned to death!” Hafnard shouted, but I suspect he was also busy thinking of about fourteen different ways to make me suffer during my execution.
I looked down at Aravon, who face belied the fact that he was finally afraid. Part of me was insanely happy to see that, to reduce him to such a base human emotion, but I needed him calm and rational now. “You made a mistake, elf. You expected me to fight within the rules of your little challenge when my life was on the line, and that made you careless. You thought those lines on the floor over there gave you victory, but that's not how combat works. In a real fight, you win when your opponent is dead. The sign of a true warrior is that he leaves no enemies behind to stab him in the back, and that's what you just did. Your belief in those lines on the floor very nearly got you killed.”
I leaned in a little closer. “You're a great swordsman, Aravon, but there's a reason no one around here calls you a great warrior. Your skill is with your blade, not with destroying your enemies. You're an elf, you don't have the good sense to hate your opponent. That's why you're lying on the floor with a sword lodged in your neck, and I'm standing over you as the victor. You're a swordsman, I'm a warrior, and that's why I won.”
“You're a treacherous, lying, mad man!” Hafnard was red with rage, now, and I hoped it was because he knew what was about to happen. I looked down at Aravon, and I'll admit that I briefly considered killing him, just out of spite for how wasted his talent was, but if I planned on living beyond today, I would need him. So I watched him, and waited, as did the entire room. Finally, he closed his eyes and nodded, and I pulled the sword away. He stood up slowly, watching me, but not really fearing me. He straightened his back and dusted himself off a bit before turning back to Lord Brecon.
“He's right. He defeated me because we were fighting two different battles today. I fought for sport. He fought for his life.”
“And he lost!” Hafnard yelled.
“Did he?” Aravon asked him. “I was the one who should have died, not him. The lords of Dralasia did not guide my sword to strike him down. In fact, very nearly the opposite happened.” Aravon looked back at Brecon, but he gave the priests nearby a quick glance. “It looks to me as if the dragon lords favored my opponent today.”
That was it, and Hafnard knew it, because his mouth jammed shut in spectacular fashion. Lord Brecon looked to Strom, who reluctantly nodded, and I finally let myself breathe because I'd somehow survived this ordeal. Brecon gathered himself for a moment, deciding what to say, and he finally looked at me and spoke. “Even though I am inclined to agree with my champion, I cannot let your transgressions simply pass with no regard to the laws of this land. I will spare your life, Basileus Ondraedon, and that of your men, but you are henceforth exiled from Aberweyn, on penalty of death.” He gave a quick glance to Meranna, who was not happy with the decision, but he continued on. “You will be escorted to the docks of Thorn, where a ship will take you and your men anywhere but here.”
“You will leave immediately.”