Kingfisher(42)
Pierce’s heart pounded suddenly at the thought, which had been, until that second, only a marvelous possibility. “Will he—I mean, he doesn’t even know I exist. And I’m not a knight; I can’t just—”
“Yes, you can. You walked onto this field in a kitchen uniform and challenged every knight here. I accepted your challenge, and you won before we even began to fight.”
“I haven’t got a clue—”
“There is that,” Val agreed, with his quick, charming smile. “We live in enlightened times. Not every knight chooses to fight or carries a weapon. There are other ways to serve. Come and choose a knife for me. I want to learn more of your Deli Style. And if that’s all you know about fighting, so should you.”
12
On another part of the field, Daimon faced an unknown knight.
Like a shadow, the knight matched Daimon’s height and reach. He wore black from head to foot; his head was rendered invisible by an acorn-shaped helm with a finger’s breadth of a slit across it for sight. Nothing on the mantle flowing from his shoulders indicated, by ancient beast or heraldic device, who he might be. Daimon was similarly hidden in red, his body sheathed in metal, his helm densely padded against the mighty heave and thrust of the black knight’s broadsword. The helm smelled of oil, copper, and old sweat; the air he breathed was thick and hot and merciless.
He was battling, it seemed, something maddeningly unnameable, as old as time and as elusive as mist. This dark, faceless knight was a manifestation of the idea he had been struggling with since the moment his mother had appeared out of nowhere and offered him a realm of enchantment and a consort’s place beside the young woman who already ruled him. That offer was weighted with implications heavier than the shield he raised against the dark knight’s sword hammering away at it. He could not decide which was more incredible: the intriguing, compelling, and even justifiable offer itself, or the faceless, nameless stranger Daimon saw in himself who might accept it.
He got tired of the endlessly battering blade and shifted his bulky, ponderous weight out from under his shield. He let the shield drop. The knight’s sword met air instead of metal and kept going, dragging the dark knight after it. He drove his blade into earth and clung to it, maintaining a perilous balance.
Sun leaped off Daimon’s blade and into his eyes as he lifted it. Somehow, the black knight pulled his own sword out of the ground and angled it upward to block the fall of Daimon’s. Metal sheared against metal. The two knights pushed against one another’s weight, lumbering around the crossed blades. The muscles in Daimon’s arms and back, wrung to the utmost, could only maintain their thrust against the dark knight’s strength; the knight seemed equally unable to change the equilibrium of their power.
Then the black knight let his own blade shift, yield, just enough, as he twisted to one side, that the weight of Daimon’s body armor pulled him off-balance. The step he tried to take to catch himself was blocked by the knight’s blade, run into ground against Daimon’s foot.
He fell facedown with a grunt of breath. The black knight rolled him onto his back, not without some difficulty. The tip of his blade found a delicate, defenseless line of skin between helm and breastplate. Daimon gazed at the hard, expressionless, inhuman head looming over him. The knight’s shadow fell into his eyes; he heard the harsh, weary rasp of his breath within his helm. Who are you? he demanded silently, urgently of the shadow-knight, of himself. Who are you?
“I yield,” he said to the exasperating uncertainty, and the cold metal left his throat. He heard the thud of the massive hilt hitting the ground. The black knight raised both hands, wrestled off the helm, and Daimon saw the elegant, broad-boned, smiling face beneath it.
His breath stopped. Field squires swarmed around them both. Hands hoisted him upright, drew off his helm. The distant whistling and cheers from the onlookers grew suddenly loud; he sucked in fresh, sweet air, and heard Jeremy Barleycorn’s amused voice from the announcer’s stand.
“Dame Scotia Malory has defeated Prince Daimon Wyvernbourne in knightly combat with armor and broadsword. Beware, House Wyvernbourne, the powers of the north.”
He looked for her as the squires helped him rise. But he only saw the back of her head, the severe braid of honey-colored hair suddenly fall out of its coil and down the black mantle, as she was escorted off the field.
Later, Daimon sat among the wyverns in the huge, ancient hall named after them. The great, winged, long-necked, barb-tailed beasts swarmed across the stone walls and the ceiling, shadowy with age, memories of themselves. The throne built for the first Wyvernbourne king stood on a simple dais against a backdrop of the great stone caves and peaks where the wyverns lived. When the king arrived, he would sit there, as his ancestors had done, surrounded by wyverns’ faces rearing out of the black wood of the back and the armrests, their wild, staring eyes golden lumps of amber forged long before Wyvernhold existed. A podium with a microphone, looking bizarre among the wyverns, had been placed on each side of the dais.
Knights who had spent the earlier hours on the practice field crowded into the rows of black-and-gilt chairs. Their faces were sunburned; they smelled of soap and shampoo. Daimon, adrift in his thoughts, barely heard their greetings. A lovely scent of lavender beguiled him out of himself as someone took a seat near him. He straightened, glancing around for the source of the lavender, and saw his half siblings, the two princes Roarke and Ingram, and the sister born between them, Princess Isolde. They scattered themselves around Daimon; as knights shifted to let them pass, he caught again the faint, elusive fragrance.