The long hot day had faded into the cool breezes of evening. Inside the Inn of the Cudgel, soldiers and tradesmen and travelers, laborers, hangers-on, servants with a free day, sat mingled together at age-darkened benches, drinking cool ales and wines.

  The Inn of the Cudgel dominated the outpost village of Bephan almost as much as did the outpost camp of the Free Company that guarded it. It was Konarr’s Free Company, and it guarded the Oulan Road from nomad marauders over the last forenoon’s journey on the road to proud Zetri, Queen City of Tarmisorn.

  For long afternoon hours in the drowsy warmth, Konarr had sat at his accustomed bench by one of the large windows, through which cool breezes wafted down from the grassy slopes of the Baragan Hills. The day before, he had begun a stretch of leave time, and he still had not decided what to do with his twentyday. Zetri? He didn’t seem to feel much interested in anything. Much better to sit in the peaceful harmony of the inn…

  As the sun set in the west beyond the distant spires and towers of Zetri, Konarr had called for food. Old Durrekal, the innkeeper, had presently brought him a large platter of fresh-roasted meat.

  It was as Konarr was raising the first hunk of meat to his mouth on the tip of his knife that the dusty, travel-stained stranger had entered.

  Scarcely had the lad set foot inside the portal when a drunken off-duty pikeman lurched up against him, propelled by a belligerent fellow pikeman. As the first pikeman turned after the collision, the stranger grasped the collar of the fellow’s short cloak and flung him casually around in a half-arc directly at the second pikeman, who had caused the incident.

  The stranger partly smiled, partly sneered, and continued on into the Inn of the Cudgel.

  Konarr took a deep breath, his lungs filling with air flavored with the smell of ale and wine, and woodsmoke aromas melded with rich satisfying smells of meat and fat and fresh bread and honey. Then he exhaled and chuckled. This lad might prove to be of excellent mettle indeed!…

  Much of his free time the captain spent chaffing and arguing here at the inn, laughing with friends and strangers alike, and sometimes fighting, all on politics and sword-metal alloys and soldiery, women, wizardry, warfare. He considered it both his recreation and his business, though, for he did not carouse and argue and brawl purely for the pleasures of conversation and fighting, wine and ale.

  Half of his forty years had been spent in soldiering. And though his hair had become sparse and grey, his heavyset frame had lost none of its toughness.

  Captain for ten years of the Free Company at Bephan he had joined at twenty, holding the Oulan Road free from petty thieves and nomad raiders, he was a man constantly wary for larger political developments. Over the years he had swollen the ranks of his company from the normal fifty to over double that number. It made the caravan tolls higher, but the Oulan Road was popular nonetheless—Konarr’s company kept the way safest of all those that entered Zetri.

  Now, shifting airs of trouble and turmoil had begun to spread throughout all the realm of Tarmisorn from Zetri at its center. Hence Konarr was more than ordinarily interested in likely youths and veterans; he knew there were never too many men in a proper Free Company, no matter what traditions said.

  The burly Free Captain smiled darkly; he had his own grimly humorous way of entering upon a possible recruitment. And here tonight had come a likely lad from clear across the New Lands, to judge by his clothes. The dust of the road on his once-brilliant crimson and black garments, however, did not mislead Konarr into judging him simply a defenseless, penniless wanderer. By the look of him, the spring in his feet and the poised attention of his manner, the lad was quite capable with the long narrow sword he carried slung at his left hip. Excellent!

  The youth had reached the rough oak counter, and was grinning cheerfully at Lysai, the young serving maid. She blushed as she drew a mug of ale for the man standing beside him, then smiled at him as old Durrekal came up to him and greeted him with the sign of friendliness and service.

  “I am called Tassoran,” the youth said in friendly answer to Durrekal, “and I carry good coinage of Periareth. Drink, food, and lodging I need, in that order!”

  Lysai brought a leathern jack of ale to him, which Tassoran drank off in three long swallows. Then he handed the empty jack back to the girl, asking for another, as the innkeeper indicated a large roast down the counter. Tassoran slapped down several coins, drew a short knife, and cut off a sizeable chunk of meat, which he then proceeded to eat while he stood there, washing down mouthfulls with more ale.

  “What do you call this meat?” the lad asked of the innkeeper, chewing .on one mouthful as he started to cut off another. “It tastes something like venison, something like roast phradon. And it’s good.”

  “It is cut from the tchamber. Herds were brought down from the northern territories some twenty years ago. Most prefer its flesh to cattle; beef is no longer eaten here.”

  “It is said,” said Tassoran, chewing for some moments on a piece of tchambar-meat before he went on, “that one who visits strange and distant lands will learn of strange matters. These cattle and tchambar, we have nothing like them in the eastern lands, and indeed I wondered not to see phradon grazing by the roads I’ve traveled lately…no matter.” Konarr grinned at the outlander manners that showed in so many ways, and decided on a rougher game to test whether they paralleled his abilities.

  Tassoran finished his meat, picked up his half-empty jack of chill brown ale, and started for a table near the Free Captain.

  “Well, young fellow,” Konarr addressed him, giving his own name as custom required, “and what tales from distant Periareth will you give us, for our hospitality, eh?”

  He signaled to old Durrekal for more ale, who brought a pitcher from which to refill his jack.

  He drank heartily of the ale, trying to scowl and then giving it up to once more grin at Tassoran, who all the while stood in perplexity at Konarr’s words.

  “Come, come,” said Konarr, “perhaps a story, eh, of the latest antics of Hariri, your beloved, drunken lunatic ruler. Hariri the Stupid! Eh?”

  And Konarr roared along with the laughter of his onlookers, playing broadly to the tradespeople and soldiers, who had watched such games of his before. Why, even that squat, ugly-looking stranger with the bald head was allowing himself a thin, cruel smile.

  Konarr swallowed another draft of his ale, then returned to his quarry.

  Tassoran of Periareth scowled at the laughter, and fingered the engraved hilt of his sword.

  There was a pause, as the youth allowed the laughter rippling around the inn to die away.

  “Master Konarr,” he said then, plainly but with a hint of private relish, “I tell stories with poor art. But perhaps you know a few to regale us with.”

  It was Konarr’s turn to be taken back a moment.

  Tassoran continued, savoring the bite of his words: “I mind me of one told of the former Lady Tza, the illustrious mother and predecessor of your present ruler, or so they say. Refresh us With details, if you will be so kind. Something …I do not clearly recall…something about the seven days and seven nights she spent in a pig sty, granting her favors to the poor farmers of the countryside? Ah, Master Konarr, the ways of Tarmisorn are legend even in the eastern lands…”

  Konarr’s slow slight smile kept the onlookers from speaking though there was plainly a look of approval on the face of the bald, powerful man. “Very well,” he said, “we have traded insults handsomely, lad. Perhaps you would not mind, then, if I make up another story here, on the spot?

  Tassoran looked about him. The Inn of the Cudgel was silent.

  He could see the anticipation, save with Durrekal and Lysai, on the faces of the dozen or two onlookers, even that squat bald sneering one who sat drinking alone. They were all following the confrontation intently.

  The youth shrugged. “How, then, do you begin your tale?”

  Anticipating the answer he got, he casually began undoing the points of his cloak.

  And Konarr stood up and told him, removing his jacket as he spoke.

  Konarr laughed at the youth’s quick answer. “Boldly spoken! Draw, Tassoran; 1 shall end this quickly!” He laughed again and wrapped his jacket round his forearm. “Ah, so young you are, and to taste wine no more, and to learn no more manners after today…”

  The other’s blade was drawn, and his faded cloak was already wound around his right forearm.

  Before Konarr had more than closed his hand around the hilt of his own sword, Tassoran whipped his blade at him in a vicious sidewise swipe at the knee.

  “Good stroke!” shouted Konarr, moving backward with the practiced grace of the professional swordsman and evading the whistling steel with ease. Instantly his sword was out.

  The onlookers scrambled hastily out of their way, first in this direction, then in that, seeking safe spots from which to watch. Half a dozen had with forethought already grabbed their jacks of ale and were standing on a raised platform along the far wall of the inn. Over their shoulders loomed the great kegs wherein Durrekal the innkeeper stored his wines and excellent brews.

  Konarr stepped back in with a backhand blow at Tassoran's right arm, catching instead Tassoran’s own blade in its return stroke.

  Sparks flew as the dull clang of metal sounded through the low-roofed tavern, over and over again, as Konarr and Tassoran slashed and parried through it from one side to the other, customers scattering from each new area. Once Konarr stepped backward, accidentally kicking a large black-and-white tomcat. Screeching in protest, the cat climbed up an age-black oaken pillar, disturbing a young devlet sleeping on the rafter. Thereafter the fight was continued to the occasional battle moans of the cat and the whistling snuffles of the devlet.

  Durrekal himself was strangely calm as he stood to one side. Konarr had hesitated before starting this fight inside the venerable inn. There was a time when the aged Durrekal would have stepped forward at the first whisper of blade on scabbard, wielding the huge cudgel that gave the inn its name —and which now hung uselessly to the old man’s arm, tied to his wrist by a thong.

  Tassoran circled Konarr rapidly, his swordarm flicking out in intricate patterns, wielding the heavy blade as if it weighted no more than a short sword.

  Konarr was content to stand in one spot, as much as possible, turning with the circling youth, handling his own heavier blade with even greater skill and ease.

  They were splendedly matched fighters—the swift young Tassoran, his blade a lightning argument, and the older and slower Konarr, whose bull-strength and experience served time and again to save him from otherwise certain death.

  For Tassoran was fast, surprisingly fast; and he marveled at the older man’s uncanny foreknowledge of his moves.

  Then Tassoran lashed in quickly with what proved to be a feint, but Konarr’s unhesitating parry of the real blow caused the younger man to stagger back momentarily, slipping to one knee and grunting with the impact.

  There was an involuntary groan from the audience, and the bald man in the corner paused with ale mug poised before his open lips, his eyes now following the fight with unconcealed glittering intensity.

  Not wishing to kill the lad, or to end the fight so quickly either, Konarr made it look as if his swift attack at the fallen figure was impeded momentarily by a low heavy bench, toppled over between them in an earlier pass between the two.

  Thus it was that Tassoran fended off two apparently deadly blows while still on his knee—but before he could arise with renewed swiftness, he found the overhanging edge of another table at his own back, this one upright and roofing him away from getting up straight.

  Instantly he ducked under the wide tabletop and kicked his way to the other side, his back sliding along the rough wooden floor. Sawdust was caught down the back of his neck; sawdust speckled his sweating arms. He cursed at the distracting discomfort, then ignored it.

  Once on the other side of the table, he quickly rose to his feet and, in a mighty exertion, toppled over the heavy structure, almost catching Konarr’s sword under it into the bargain.

  It gave Tassoran the time he needed to collect his wits, and prepare to defend himself again. This Konarr, with the balding head and the beard already growing grey, was no mean opponent. Was it going to be necessary to kill him? And how well might he fare after that, in a strange land…?

  On the other side of the second overturned table, Konarr was happy for a chance to catch his breath. He was astonished, in his stolid way, not that the lad had managed to stay alive—for Konarr had no intention of killing him—but that he had even remained unwounded as yet. And Konarr’s rough recruitment invariably included a little blooding for the prospective Free Soldier.

  He was already certain that Tassoran had the mettle and the skill to make a valiant addition to his command; still, Konarr preferred to instill a valuable lesson in a man’s soul about his captain’s skills, before the man became his direct responsibility.

  “Ha!” muttered Konarr under his breath, “and there are some tricks this faded youth has yet to learn!”

  And, holding his blade low, he vaulted easily over the low edge of the overturned table.

  As Konarr had expected, Tassoran took this for mistaken eagerness, and whipped his sword overhand at Konarr’s unprotected skull.

  But to Tassoran’s surprise, as Konarr landed on his side of the table, his own sword was already slashing swiftly upward!

  When the two swords struck, there was a loud discordant dang—and both blades fell to the floor from hands stung past endurance with the shock of that meeting.

  This was not in Konarr’s plan.

  He had expected to disarm Tassoran with his trick but certainly not to be disarmed himself.

  There was no time to scrabble on the floor for the fallen weapons. The youth in faded scarlet had instantly blocked his downseeking arm and was wrestling close in toward his throat.

  For some moments the two fighters stood locked together in deadly combat, hand to hand, looking grotesquely like a pair of lovers.

  Then, slowly, the immense physical strength of the older man began to bend the younger backward…backward till at last Tassoran broke away with a strangled cry and retched up on the floor among the sawdust, with his back against the wall.

  Determined now to teach the upstart a real lesson, the angered Konarr strode forward swiftly toward the apparently stunned figure.

  —And the youth was not there! Darting upward and forward from the floor, he grabbed Konarr’s right foot as the older man approached, and deftly threw him off his feet…

  Konarr twisted away desperately, trying to remain upright, but stumbled heavily forward against the wall and himself fell, momentarily dazed, to the floor.

  His vision cloudy and his senses numb, Konarr staggered to his feet and looked about him groggily, knowing something was wrong but unable, just at that moment, to remember what.

  He felt a sharp pain at the back of his neck; memory returned.

  And he stood very still.

  “Old captain,” said Tassoran from behind him, very softly, “you are a dead man where you stand.”

  “Strike, then, and send me to the armies of the Gods,” muttered Konarr stolidly.

  There was a pause; he awaited the stroke.

  “Never!” shouted the young man gaily, with a laugh. “Bend over, old captain, and retrieve your blade! We are engaged in matters of honor, not of tricks and slaughters and cowards’ artifices!”

  The point of Tassoran’s sword was withdrawn from the nape of Konarr’s neck, and he felt a hand propelling him gently forward.

  His foot kicked against his sword, and, his vision clearing, he reached for it eagerly, turning to face his laughing foe.

  The sight he saw when he turned was a strange one indeed.

  Old Durrekal had come near Tassoran during the course of the fight, and now had grasped the youth from behind, reaching out with an effortless motion and disarming him.

  Then, with a gesture almost a caress, Durrekal touched the back of the lad’s neck and he slumped soundlessly to the age-blackened floor.

  But battle lust was surging in Konarr now, and he stroke toward the silent figure standing above the motionless body of his opponent.

  “Stand aside, tapster,” he growled, fully enraged. “This wretched felon has shamed me, in front of members of my own company to boot! Dash some ale in his face, and let us return to it!”

  He looked about him, searching for familiar faces among the gloom of the low-ceilinged inn. The tomcat on the rafter spat at him as he looked up to locate the snuffling sound he had noticed for the first time; the devlet, upset by the commotion, and the cat upset because the devlet was upset

  He looked round the room once more. No eyes seemed eager to face his—except for the bald stranger, on his feet now and at the front of the crowd of onlookers.

  The bald man stared piercingly at Konarr for a moment, smiled a wintry smile, and fixed his eye on the youth lying on the floor.

  Konarr shook his head in pain, irritation, puzzlement, then—“Stand aside, I say!” he shouted at Durrekal. “This lout is mine!”

  Durrekal did not move.

  Howling inarticulately, Konarr charged the figure before him, intending to sweep the aged innkeeper aside and get to Tassoran…

  CHAPTER TWO: Sorcery at the Inn

  Even as Konarr attacked, blood lust faded from his mind. Durrekal stood calmly before him, an unarmed, white-haired old man.

  He stopped half a stride from the motionless figure standing there so quietly tall. Presently he heard the low thuck of the tip of his sword as it slipped from his hand tip-down and embedded itself in the floor.

  There came a low groan from the crumpled dusty figure on the sawdust. Konarr passed a hand over his eyes then. Curious, he thought, how soon the fight was over. But he didn’t really feel curious about it, not just then with his head spinning slightly.

  “Innkeeper,” came a harsh raspy voice like an amplified whisper, “you did well to stop the fight when you did.”

 

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