Full-Blood Half-Breed (32 page)

The edges of existence went soft and fuzzy. The grayness of unconsciousness opened
wide its arms and beckoned. The pagan’s weight lifted from his chest. Even through looming oblivion, he realized the stinking infidel had gone for his staff. But Fox could not allow the pagan to beat him, not while there was breath left in his body. He tried to roll to his feet but his broken parts betrayed him. He collapsed face-first into the dirt. “Pía,” he managed to whisper.
“Verzeih mir.”

The pagan kicked him onto his back. He stared for a moment, blinking to be sure he saw clearly. He did. Clear enough anyway.

The pagan did not wield the bo staff, but held Fox’s own katana bokken. More irony.

The pagan raised the wooden sword, tip down, with both hands, and screamed, “WE SPEAK STEEL!”

Fox could muster but a feeble gasp when the wooden katana blasted into his coat of mail, crushing several of his ribs. More bitter, metallic-tasting liquid filled his mouth and spilled from his lips.

“Dead!” the Caller yelled. The shout seemed part of a dream he was already forgetting.

The Red Cloak grabbed the pagan—who looked as if he too were barely conscious—roughly by the wrist. Had he the strength, Fox would have shouted his objection when the Caller raised the pagan’s hand high and cried, “Winner!” But he had no strength. Oblivion claimed him.

The Caller raised Paladin’s hand, declaring him victorious, and it sounded like every spectator in the arena shrieked with disgust. A woman’s voice rose above all the rest, screaming, “Fox!
Mi querido!
No! My Fox!”

The kings and queens of the Thirteen Kingdoms descended from the Royal Box to honor all the champions and the Black Spear. Four clerics, each representing a different religion and carrying a black spear in the fashion of his or her martial discipline, also descended onto the field. Even through his hazy vision, Paladin recognized the clerics. Sister Elsa the Learned carried a pike of the Eisenfaust style. She smiled at him. She had been the only meister at the Schöpferite temple who had argued against his expulsion.

The Muumban
kasisi
, Oluwaseyi the Seventh-Arm, carried a long-bladed short spear. She refused even to look at him. It seemed her disgust for him and the blended system had not diminished since he had disciplined at the Muumban temple.

Padre Manuel the Steady was a young priest from Templo del Guerrero. He carried a long lance and wore a longer frown. He had not been a full priest when Paladin had disciplined at the Creadorian temple, but he had been zealous in his studies, and pious to a fault. Paladin had never liked him.

But he had liked Ren the Quicksteel.

Sensei Quicksteel, wearing an impassive expression, marched with the others toward Paladin. He carried a
naginata
, a spear with a curved blade better suited for the slashing attacks of Ashi-Kobushi.

Paladin would have greeted them clear-eyed, standing tall, head held high, but he was blacking out. The pain he had fed to the fires of his rage returned with a vengeance now that the battle frenzy had passed. Even his eyebrows hurt. His legs double-crossed him, dropping him to one knee. Only the Caller’s grip on his wrist kept him from collapsing altogether. But he was
victorious. He tried to smile but lacked the strength. He sensed the gravity of his wounds. He had fought on despite the rips and breaks inside him, aggravating his injuries. The hands of the Red Cloaks seized him and lowered him gently to the ground.

The venerable order of Healers wove the elements into a cocoon of mending and wrapped him in its curative power. It felt like being submerged into an icy pool. The chilly wetness soaked through his skin and infused his being with liquid cold and tiny, tingling pricks, as if from needles. The prickles were not unpleasant. They were tiny touches of relief.

He opened his eyes.

The Caller knelt over him, her long, angular face tangled in competing emotions. He could not be sure, but he thought one of them might be admiration. She shook her head slightly, as if with disapproval, disbelief, or condescension. Perhaps it was a bit of all. She was impossible to read. A wisp of a smile slipped across her lips, but even that seemed tainted with melancholy.

“You are a fool, chico,” she said. “A brilliant fool, and lucky to be alive, though I would not wager on you remaining so for very long. What you have done here today”—she nodded toward the folk in the stands—“well, they want to kill you. They think you the most heinous of blasphemers. Did you not know it would be heresy to these people?” To his surprise, the Caller sighed and touched his face gently, maternally. “Stupid, foolish, brilliant boy. Truly, your martial system is astounding, but if you are not murdered for flaunting it, you will surely become a pariah. I am sorry to say the words, but best you be prepared.”

“I have heard them before,” he rasped, his voice like brittle leaves. He was strong enough to stand without aid, barely. He got to his feet, struggling to bring moisture to his throat.

He felt small and naked under the scrutiny of the spectators.

The unforgiving reproach in those thousands of eyes became too much, the stares of condemnation too heavy to bear, and he looked away. His gaze fell upon the Runt, unconscious. His wounds were so severe Paladin gasped when he saw them. The Runt’s face looked like the bloody leavings on a butcher’s block. His nose especially was a mutilated mess, and probably always would be, no matter what the Red Cloaks did. Most of the Nordling’s teeth had been knocked out and would not be found in the gritty dirt carpet of the arena floor. Paladin had no looking glass, and so he couldn’t be sure what his own face looked like, but he would have bet his Torneo winnings he had fared better than the Runt.

“Here is one!” Simbadola’s Red Cloak called in a thick Kusini Watu accent. The tall dark-skinned Healer hurried the tooth to the others, and Paladin watched, entranced, as the Red Cloaks reattached it. Unfortunately for the Runt, the tooth would always sit crooked in his mouth.

The Runt stirred, and Paladin relaxed, exhaling a pent-up breath of worry. He was surprised by his gladness. For true, he had ached to kill him. It was only now, after they had both
spilled blood and broken bones, that he began to regret their enmity. The Runt had more than earned Paladin’s retribution, but revenge was not quite as sweet as he had imagined it would be.

Still, whatever hurts or humiliations the Runt had suffered this day were a direct result of his own actions. Paladin stood a little straighter. The bloodthirsty show had been unfortunate, but in the end, necessary, and yes, honorable. He had done nothing to be ashamed of today. He would not behave as if he had.

He had proven himself the youngling paladín of Prosperidad and winner of the Black Spear, but he doubted he would ever have the stomach for Torneo again. Rebelde had been right. There was no honor in killing—or pretending to—for mere sport.

The Runt coughed violently as he regained his wits. He cursed in Nordzunge. “Foul! Foul, I say! I have been wronged and the honor of Torneo sullied!”

The Nordling limped toward the center of the game field, leaning on the Winterewiger Red Cloak for support. A rumble of excited conversation rolled across the arena.

The Caller shrieked at the big blond Healer standing with the Runt, “What is the meaning of this, Magier Jürgen?”

“The boy has legitimate grievance,” Magier Jürgen said in a thick Nordzunge accent. “Hear him out.”

The Caller studied the Runt, her eyes on fire with disdain. He returned the glare without flinching.

“Speak, then, Nordling!” she commanded. “What is your grievance?”

The voices around the arena quieted enough for the Runt to be heard. “Torneo is not just a game to test a warrior’s skill, it is a tribute to the tradition of Blackspear and the thirteen paladíns! What this … this
blasphemer
has done is a perversion of that tradition!”

The arena shook from the cheers of approval.

“He spits in the face of every religion!” the Runt went on. “He is a profaner! An infidel! And a cheat! Award him a Black Spear and you award treachery.”

If Paladin had not been so stunned by the Runt’s accusation, he might have Hammerheaded him once more. The dog-faced hypocrite was accusing him of treachery! The Runt’s audacity was astonishing. But tens of thousands of folk from all over the Thirteen came to their feet, cheering the claims.

The Caller summoned the other Red Cloaks into a huddle, and they exchanged fierce whispers. Finally the Caller broke away and held up her hand, calling an end to the impromptu meeting. She turned to Paladin, worry on her face. “We find merit to his claims. What do you say on your behalf?”

Paladin heaved a sigh and looked toward the stands where he found his family watching. Walküre nodded to him and smiled, and even from the floor of the game field, he could see the
pride in his mamá’s eyes. Jambiax and Rebelde saluted him, fist over heart. But Suki wouldn’t meet his gaze. He could feel her disgust for his blended martial system all the way from the game field. Her reaction pained him but did not surprise him. He put her out of his mind and faced the Caller. “I admit that I do not strictly follow any one discipline.…” The angry murmurs of disgruntled spectators grew louder, and Paladin raised his voice to be heard. “…  but it is in the spirit of King Blackspear’s wisdom that I have blended the forms.”

“How so?” demanded Magier Jürgen. His cold blue eyes were a blizzard of contempt.

Paladin shifted uncomfortably under that frigid stare, but he was convinced of his righteousness. “For many years the Thirteen Kingdoms fought the banes independent of each other, and the histories tell us this was disaster. It wasn’t until Blackspear brought all the folk together, employing the gifts of all the gods, that the folk were triumphant. El Combatedanza, Ngoma ya Kifo, Eisenfaust, and Ashi-Kobushi defeated Creador’s Bastard Sons. I am blended—”

“Stinking half-breed!” a drunken heckler screamed. Others echoed the slur, until half the folk in the arena chanted, “Half-breed! Half-breed! Half-breed!”

It took the Red Cloaks almost a full minute to restore order. It was the Caller’s threat to rule in Paladin’s favor, allowing him to keep the Black Spear with no further debate, that shut the mouths of the hateful fools. She turned to Paladin and bade him continue.

He nodded. “It is true, my blood is the blood of all the peoples—”

“He’s a full-blood half-breed!” the heckler shouted. The arena erupted with cruel laughter.

Except Paladin didn’t take offense. He liked the idea that he, as a blend of all four people, was perhaps the only full-blood in the world. He waited for the spectators to quiet once more. “I have united the martial gifts to honor all the gods, just as King Blackspear did.”

The Caller gave him a slight nod and a slighter smile. She called all the Red Cloaks together once more and they debated, even as the spectators argued in the stands.

Finally the Red Cloaks broke from their huddle. The Caller turned to the spectators and the arena grew still to hear her words, spoken in a voice of calm sagacity. “This blended Oesteling has shown great ingenuity and resourcefulness in combining the disciplines, truly, giving us all new understanding of the wisdom that was Blackspear’s.”

Now the hisses and catcalls were directed at the Caller. She spoke louder. “However, tradition dictates strict adherence to a single combat discipline.”

Paladin’s heart sank. He could feel the Runt’s newly mangled sneer burning into the back of his head. The Caller continued, lifting the Runt’s hand into the air, “Winner and Youngling Black Spear, the paladín of Eisesland, Zwergfuchs Großemänner Von Hammerhead!”

Tears slid down Paladin’s face. His sorrow, his soul-crushing disappointment, almost left
him paralyzed. All his life he had looked forward to his first Torneo, when he might bring a sixth Black Spear into House Kamau. He had failed. The Runt glanced at him, triumph sparkling in his eyes like sunlight reflected off icicles. Through sheer willpower, Paladin stopped weeping. The Runt might win Paladin’s Black Spear, but he would never win his tears.