"You guarantee the lives of my men if I lose?" he said.
Esmond nodded, and went on at the beginnings of a rumble behind him: "I can't guarantee the lives or estates of your nobles," he said. "That is in the hand of my lord, King Casull of the Isles — of all the Isles." The rumble turned to a purr. "But for your common soldiers, yes. Amnesty, and employment for those who'll swear allegiance. They fought quite well, all things considered."
"And if I win, we get safe passage to the harbor."
"Yes," Esmond said. "I so order my underofficers, in the sight of the Gray-Eyed Lady and by my own honor." That would be a hard promise for Casull to break; the regiment would be seriously pissed off if he did. The rumble was back, but he ignored it as he strode out.
"May I see your face?" Franzois said.
Esmond pushed his helmet back, letting the light fall on his features. The Islander smiled.
"Very much the Emerald hero," he said, taking a quick swig from a leather bottle one of his companions handed him. "My great-great — no matter — one of my ancestors fought against the Solingians at the Narrow Straits. He recorded that it wasn't a very good idea."
"My ancestors fought in the League Wars too," Esmond said politely. He took the time to lean his sword against his hip and carefully dry hand and hilt. "Both sides came off with credit, but the Fates spin the thread of every war."
He pulled the helmet back down and brought up sword and buckler, the small shield under his chin and sword advanced. Franzois nodded and took his own stance, slashing-sword up and back, leading with his shield. Esmond watched the way he held his weapons, the movements of his feet, the set of the thick blocky shoulders.
Fast heavy man, he thought; that was rare, and dangerous. Sword's seen a lot of use.
* * *
"Watch out, for Allfather's sake!" Helga shouted to Adrian.
The billhook crashed across the surface of her buckler. There was vicious weight and an urgent desire to kill behind the blow from the darkened alcove ahead, nothing like training back on the estate. Her left arm went numb for an instant, then gave a burning throb of pain that agonized from wrist and elbow right up into the shoulder. The weapon — a big straight razor on a six-foot pole, with a spike on top and a hook behind — slammed into the stucco of the courtyard wall, raining lime plaster and brick chips on her, leaving the billman bent over with the staggering surprise of not having his momentum stopped by his target. She stepped forward in a passing lunge, drilled reflex, sword out, her whole body taking off from the left foot and slamming forward behind point and arm, right foot coming down and knee flexing to add distance to the stroke. The soft heavy resistance as the point went in over the Vasean's collarbone was still an unpleasant surprise; so was the grating of steel on bone somewhere in the man's body.
So was the backstroke with the butt of the weapon, the iron ferrule thumping painfully into her thigh.
"Ow! Pigfucker!" she yelped, twisting and yanking to get her own weapon free.
The blood that splashed over her simply added to the drying, sticky mat that covered her from throat to shins; she'd learned to ignore the smell. . mostly. With a grunt she braced a foot on the still-twitching body and pulled. There were ugly popping, rending sounds as she did, more felt through the hilt than heard through the ears.
"Don't you ever look where you're going?" she snapped at. . Adrian Gellert, she remembered.
Confed folk wisdom had it that Emeralds had no bottom, no real guts; she'd seen enough today to make her seriously doubt that. It also held that Emerald wisdom lovers would step into a well while looking at the stars, and if Adrian was typical, that was pretty much true, at least. Her mouth twisted wryly as she fought to get her breath back. She'd had fantasies of rescue, of course; usually her father, or some handsome well-born young tribune in a crested helmet and figured back-and-breast. This slender young Emerald with the dreamy blue eyes and his air of listening to voices nobody else heard was a bit of a contrast, with his rumpled hair showing around his open-face helmet and bits of the iron plates wearing through the leather of his jack.
Well, he's certainly good to have around, she thought, looking out of the corner of her eye at the mercenary troopers crowding forward for the rush into the next courtyard.
Although they mostly weren't looking at her like a dog at a porkchop anymore. A couple of them crowed laughter at the sight of her tugging her blade out of the Islander.
"Good work, missy," one grinned. "The lord here needs someone to look after him."
She flushed and turned away at the laughter. "What is that stuff?" she asked, nodding at the satchel of round jarlike things at his side, each with its little tail of cord.
"I call them grenades," Adrian said absently — that seemed to be his usual manner of speech — and patted them. "They've got a powder inside that I found in certain. . ancient records, very ancient. It has a number of uses."
"Like those thunder sounds we heard earlier?" she asked.
He looked at her, the absent-mindedness blinking away, and passed her the canteen someone had handed to him. She accepted it and took a pull; the wine that cut the water was nearly vinegar, but it was welcome in the gummy dryness of her mouth.
"Yes, as a matter of fact," he said; it was a second before she noticed he'd switched from his Solingian-accented Scholar's Emerald to a pellucidly pure dialect of patrician-class Vanbert Confed. "It explodes—that is, generates a lot of rapidly expanding gas — and pushes away whatever's around it. In the grenades, that pushes fragments of the casing out much faster than an arrow or a sling-bullet. If you put some in a bronze tube sealed at one end, it'll push out a big metal or stone bullet — big enough to smash ships or knock down gates and walls."
Helga whistled silently. "Now, won't that be useful," she said. "My father's men. . men of my father's company, that is. . would call it cheating, though. Not fighting fair."
Adrian shrugged. "I don't like fighting," he said simply. That made her blink again; not many men she knew would admit that — actual men, that is. The Emerald went on: "When I do have to fight, I fight to win. Fair fights are for idiots and Con— I mean, for those who are strong enough to be sure they'll win anyway."
Helga nodded slowly. "You know, that makes a lot of sense," she said, and felt herself obscurely pleased at the look in the Emerald's hazel eyes. "Of course, I'm a woman, and we can't afford some of the idiocies men get involved with."
"I see your point," Adrian said, and heaved himself away from the wall he'd been leaning against. "Now, I think there's a fight we — or I, at least—do have to engage in calling out."
The noise of combat had died down ahead; she cocked her head. "That's two men fighting," she said. "Odd, almost like a duel." With a quick urchin grin at the Emerald. "And you saved my life, but it looks to me like you need someone by you to return the favor — often."
"That's right, missy," one of the troops said.
"Hear her, lord," another chimed in.
Adrian straightened. "Let's get moving," he said. "Your munificent pay doesn't come for propping up walls." His eyes scanned around, and took on a hint of that distant look again. "This way leads to the throne room. Up one more flight, left, and that's the anteroom — they were probably going to try and get out right this way."
"How does he know that?" Helga whispered aside to a man with another satchel of grenades as the commander turned and walked briskly towards the landing at the base of a flight of stairs.
"You'll find Lord Adrian knows most anything he wants," the man said with unshakeable confidence. "The Gray-Eyed Lady speaks to him, y'see."
Helga felt her eyes go wide.
Esmond went into a stop-thrust, then recovered smoothly, turning it into a feint as Franzois beat it aside with his buckler and cut, backhand, forehand, boring in with a stamp-stamp-stamp and a whirling pattern that made a silver X of his sword.
Right, let's see you keep that up, the Emerald thought grimly as he backed. Normally he didn't think much of the Islander school of swordplay; all edge and dash and no science. Director-for-a-couple-of-hours Franzois was as good a master of that style as he'd come across, though, and thoroughly accustomed to using it against the more point-oriented Emerald blade-way.
He waited, point hovering, backing with an economical shuffle and his feet at right angles. Clang-ting-clang, and the saber knocked against his buckler, rang on his blade, shed itself from that with a long scring sound and deflected off his helmet and a shoulder piece with bruising force and there was the sting of a slight cut on his upper shoulder.
Good steel, he thought absently — to be that shaving-sharp after a long day's work. They had good smiths here in the Isles.
Franzois' face was a deeper purple now, his mouth open below the splayed nasal of his helmet. Esmond waited, backed once more. . then lunged, with all the dense muscle of his weight behind it, the springing power of his rear leg, and a wrist locked to put it all behind the punching tip of the sword.
The Islander stopped, blade still raised for another slash. It came down and faltered weakly as Esmond's point ripped free of his inner thigh. From the sudden arterial rush of blood, he'd cut the big vein there. The Emerald stepped back and raised his sword again in salute.
"That was a brave man," he murmured as the body kicked and voided, the usual undignified business of dying.
"Esmond! Esmond!"
He jerked his head up suddenly. The chant had begun during the fight, but there was no room for it in the diamond-hard focus of a death duel. The men were yelling it, pumping fists and weapons in the air.
"Esmond! Esmond!"
The roar echoed back from the walls of the great room, bouncing back in confused waves of sound as the last of the defenders were disarmed and marched off. Not only his own Strikers were shouting it, but the Royal troops as well — only the knot of noblemen around King Casull weren't, and many of them were waving swords in salute as well. Even the King was, and smiling; there was a cut on his face, and blood on his sword — Casull was a fighting man whose praise you'd respect, and Esmond felt a sudden lurch as the truth of it rammed home.
Well, dip me in shit! he thought. I not only won, I won big with the big boss looking on. The news would be all over the Royal army and fleet by sundown, too.