524 - Let him strike me down

They closed again. Through the far-lookers I looked at Kall’s face, saw no sign of pain. What Iliakaj had taught me about fighting wounded, I’d shared with Kall, of course; now, whether from remembering or by knowing just through his brilliant fighting instinct, he seemed to be doing it. I fixed my eyes through the lookers on him, to see how affected he was in how he moved.

My attention was in the wrong place. It was Idiesas I should have been watching eagle-eyed, because what he was doing decided it. Whether out of compassion for his old sparring partner, or a misplaced wish to avoid being seen as taking advantage of weakness—though Kallijas had not slipped on a stone—or perhaps even his own tiredness, he was, ever so subtly, holding back.

I was mid-thought, Kall do as—when he did, doing a low sword-side feint to draw Idiesas’s shield down, then swinging his sword on the backhand up so fast he got in a shield-side blow on the temple before Idiesas could get his shield back up. —I did to you get him while he’s slow “Yes, yes, YES!” and I was jumping up and down screeching with joy like everyone else, as Idiesas fell boneless, even as another part of me was merely calmly nodding, having never doubted this would be.

Kall put his sword-tip to Idiesas’s throat, waited for him to wake and took his concession when he did. He cut his hair Arkan-style, too, but only the very end, as I had done to him. Feeding him whack-weed—so familiar that was, too—he helped him up slowly, they embraced, and Idiesas headed gingerly back to his side, several other solas coming out to aid him. Then Kall straightened, and bellowed something I knew must be “Toras Meneken!” gesturing come with his sword.

“Kall!” I called him in my battlefield voice, then whistled down to the daryal at the tower’s base since he had not heard me. “Call him here, I have orders.” I mostly slid down the tower’s ladders, calling for Kaninjer, as Kallijas came. “You mad fool, making to go right on!” I said, as I flung my arms around him. “That’s most of why I called you here, to give you a breather and get water into you and let Kan do what he can—are you taking whack-weed?” He laughed, sheepishly. Kan salved the wound with marigold and did a fast but tight bandage, while I upended a water-flask into Kall’s mouth in several draughts, whack-weeding him in between. “I do have an order, though; you’re planning to kill Toras, aren’t you… assuming he doesn’t run like a bunny, or hasn’t already?” He didn’t deny it. “Don’t. Take him prisoner.”

He nodded, then saluted more formally. “I obey, Imperator… Sheng. You want to scrape him and give him a proper treason trial, I can see that.”

That wasn’t it, actually, but what exactly it was, I was at a bit of a loss to explain. I should do those things anyway, so I just signed chalk. I kissed him and invoked Aras for him again, and we went back to our posts, him out onto the dueling ground, me up onto the tower.

Toras did not run like a bunny, nor did he even simply concede before they could start fighting, though anyone on either side who counted, I think, would have understood. Even with Kall wounded, he didn’t stand a chance, not when Kall wounded had beaten Idiesas, and he had to know that. But he smacked on his helmet, drew his sword and marched to his certain fate, like a good solas given a suicide order. His army, futilely, roared in exhortation for him, which mine answered with whoops and jeers. That didn’t even check his step. I found myself admiring him again.

It went as you’d expect, two or three exchanges and then Toras fell in his turn to the peerless Kallijas head-blow, then duly suffered the shortening of his hair. Kall didn’t help him up though, but left it to two others of the Blessed of the Sun to truss him. He himself sheathed his sword, which had hit only helmet metal and thus had not a drop of blood on it, laid his shield down, which must have been a relief, and stepped forward, to get into easier hearing-range of at least the centre of Toras’s army. They all knew what the agreement was. They quieted, to hear him, and when he started with “My brother solas of Arko!” it was properly relayed.

From the heart… solas to solas. He’d purposely not rehearsed it, to me or anyone else, worried that doing so would turn it false, like a bad actor’s lines. “I don’t have a fibre of an actor in me,” he told me. Thus sometimes he had to search for words, and once or twice his tongue tripped over itself. But his oratory was perfect, for it was precisely what would touch his audience. He hit all the right points: his own service, the weakening of Arko’s armies by corruption, what Abatzas did to him—he spared himself nothing, and they listened in bitter silence—and that the source was ultimately Kurkas, the truths about me that had been concealed from them. It ended with him adjuring them, who were now leaderless, to do what he had done and come over.

They’re in your hands, my love, I thought, seeing some move to come across, hesitate, glance at each other, come as close as Arkans get to waving arms. As if he hadn’t done enough, he threw up his arms for silence again. “If anyone doubts the truth of what I say, or that I come here with any feeling but brotherhood in my heart—let him strike me down!” And he took off his armour, starting with the cuirass, down to the gauntlets, and stepped towards them in his under-linens.

All-Spirit… Gods of Arko… Tears threatened to blind me. Of course he’d been there, when Setaforas had made his suggestion. I love you… All-Spirit, how I love you… Something in among the ranks of Toras’s army, which was surging back and forth now, some of them definitely coming over, caught my eye; I grabbed up the far-lookers. At their edge was a row of about twenty archers, all nocking arrows.

“Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllll!”

My own scream sounded, to the part of me that was suddenly cleaved off, separate, like the screams from the Mahid section, that retain only shreds of voice, and shreds of mind, sounding not even human. There was not even as much thought in it as an intent to warn; he was way out in the open, so it wouldn’t work anyway. It was from my soul. At the same time I screamed, I saw the bows drawn, then jerking open, loosed, and him jolt almost at the same time, freezing mid-step.