Chapter 6 - Presented Arms

In a rustic offshoot of the muiric tongue - a dialect employed only rarely beyond the island chain of Sziklia, south of The Kingdom of Ahn - Ostok Horksog asked, “Tell me, poor mell, did your brother work in the siltstacks of Aster-Szem? So many of our kin whom I have already spoken with in town seem taken with that trade.”

Natalia Sipeth, sister of Zalan Sipeth, and now elder to the Sipeth hearth since her brother’s death, ran her oilcloth once more over the razor edge of the hewer in her hand. She held it up to the light of a multicandle build into the wall. “All muira are stackworkers and fieldhands in Aster-Szem,” she said. She spoke in a sootblack voice, the Voice of the Household Gods, it was called among the muira. She spoke with no ostentation of grief, no flood of tears; but sorrow had gouged fixed wrinkles at the corners of her blue eyes, and rubbed grey into the roots of her hair, and left her forever tired.

“What did your brother do specifically?”

Natalia held the hewer out handle-first toward Ostok. “Hold this while I pull the other down,” she said. Ostok took the weapon tentatively in his hands. The muira sister turned around to face the gleaming wall of weapons - spears, arbalests, puncture mauls, zippers, reaping flails - and took down a second hewer from a cross-rack. As she began running her oilcloth over this second weapon she said, “Zalan pulled weeds from the siltbeds. He liked to joke that it was a good thing the weeds somehow found their way into the enclosed stack from the wild outside; elsewise he’d have no labor to feed his hearth.”

“Did your employer here at the manor - this royal cousin of the Teironian Tyrant - did he ever meet your brother?”

Natalia glanced at Hearn, standing with his arms folded behind his back, leaning against a long felt-lined table at the center of the armory. “I have only gratitude for Kleiton of Teiron. He has always treated with me fairly. I am paid well.”

“Dear mell,” Ostok went on in Sziklian muiric, “‘Share both your joys and sorrows’ as the ancestors say. Let’s you and I speak as cousins ourselves. Fear not how any person who has neglected their own gods may perceive our words.”

“Mell,” said Hearn in the regular muiric tongue. Ostok and the muira sister glanced his way. “I’m sitting on my heels here. What aid can I render?”

Natalia said, “Kleiton has asked that I have the implements of battle gleaming by the time he returns with his guests. If you two have further questions, make your hands of use. Bring the weapons down from the walls. Set them on the table.”

Hearn marched at once to a huge stacked-glass maul, set below a hanging rug depicting that same weapon in the hands of a Teironian Soldier in the Battle of Ops River, 3550 DA. He raised the weapon carefully off its two hooks. The threads of the rug had faded with time, and the stacked glass maul woven within them seemed blunted and dull from the process. But as Hearn carried the genuine article across the room and laid it upon the felt of the table, the jagged, packed, broken surface of thick glass covering the head of the mallet seemed gleaming, sharp; as if it were fresh-forged and fresh-stacked.

Ostok took a saber from the same wall. He raised it high for a moment, admiring the basket guard wrapping his pale hand. He said, back in the Sziklian dialect, “When I served - long ago this was - I used to dream of being in the royal army Cavalry. But I was never any use on elkback. They kept me in Fort Guard.”

Natalia wiped down the flat of the second hewer. “Which war?” she asked.

“The Katamas in ninety-eight. Under Queen Anastasia’s mother, Mirella.”

“Our father, who was elder of our hearth before my brother, fought there. Also in the Fort Guard. He said the food was the worst part.”

Ostok laughed, an airy sound that came mostly from his nose. “Almost exclusively sea bulbs. No silt, no soft bread for sure. It certainly passed through the stomach in a lugubrious and awkward way. We used to say that it would be quicker just to fall to the Kataman spears than to keep poisoning ourselves on the daily rations.”

Natalia placed the second hewer back on the cross rack with the first. “Setter Horksog,” she said, “you seem good natured.”

“Thank you!”

“But my brother showed not the least interest in battle, weapons, war, chanting; the things you’ve asked about. He complained sometimes about migration from the southern continents. He said often that the migrant forts would be our ruin. He said the muira of Ahn shouldn’t have to take food from their own hearths to put it into the mouths of foreign humans, that the volon counties of Leeges should support their foreign cousins, that- I shouldn’t rant. We all feel the added burden, setter Horksog. But it doesn’t mean my brother would- would harm the Migrant Elder.”

“Of course not,” said Ostok. He passed the saber for her to clean. “Every man needs an outlet for his thoughts. No one would drag your hearth into the ditch just because your brother spoke as many muira think. I’ve heard the Gorvoid - Vilniver Varadi himself - has said as much.”

“Gorvoid Varadi.” Natalia scoffed. “The least-inhibited tongue in Leeges. Not a favorable comparison.”

“To give you my own opinion: I think these horrible murders of your brother and Srik Tillich were carried out by someone with some other vendetta.”

“Teironians killing muira.” Natalia glanced at Hearn though she continued to speak in Sziklian muiric. Hearn continued to pay the two muira little regard; he had moved beside a wide window overlooking an inner garden of the manor, to where a Corner Clock ticked quietly. He began dusting off the sill.

“That may be. Tell me this now; did your brother ever speak of his disappointment in the Elder Migrant’s policies with anyone outside his family? Any frequented smokehouses?”

“No.”

“Then did he ever meet with any chanters? Or how about this; anyone you know who wore a distinctive green cloak with a silver tassel on the back?”

“No. My brother stuck to the stacks and the hearth. The only people he spoke to, beyond road hellos, were me and my husband and my children. And our ancestors. Please setter, I must finish cleaning.”

Hearn shifted. He suddenly spoke from beside the clock; in clear, unaccented Sziklian muiric. “Has his spirit told you anything through the bones and The Wind, Mell Sipeth?”

Ostok’s eyebrows rose. He coughed, as if to clear his throat, but Natalia spoke first. “He has not,” she said with a hard glare at Hearn.

Hearn stared back. “‘Time changes neither Gods nor Justice’. So say the gods, yes?”

Natalia blew a sigh. She pinched the bridge of her nose as if in thought. Finally she said, “I was bringing his bones home from the burner yesterday. The one on the Szuts Road.”

“I know it.”

“My brother’s smallbones chuckled within his bag, just as we were passing by a drear house at the end of that road. A corner, where the road meets the ditch of the old city wall.”

“I know that house,” Hearn answered on a look from Ostok.

“That is truly all. My brother has spoken little since his spirit joined the Wind. Only that one instance can I recall.”

Natalia shrugged. She turned around and drew a prodigious censer-flail from the wall, the chain clinking link by link as she slid it off the hooks. She glanced back at Ostok, with a look clearly expressive of impatience.

“My good mell Natalia,” Ostok said, “Would you allow my border guide and me a short corner discussion?”

Natalia pursed her lips. “At least wipe the links of this down while you’re talking.” She held the censer-flail out to Ostok. The bountyman took it, along with thee oilcloth she passed him. He joined Hearn beside the Corner Clock.

“Hearn, I must give you the apologies of hearth Horksog,” said Ostok.

“There’s no need,” said Hearn, dusting the face of the clock.

“Oh, but there is. I should have expected your acuity of language. More than that, you show sharpness; asking what her brother might have said to her after parting from his flesh. You have natural talent for investigation.”

“I hope not, setter.”

Ostok paused as he rubbed the links of the flail. “Enough with the ‘Setter Horksog’. Call me Ostok.”

“Be it so- Ostok.”

“Now what’s this about hoping not? You don’t want to be sharp?”

Hearn met Ostok eye. He clasped his lips in a fist, seemingly struggling with a thought, before saying, “Just not ‘naturally talented’.”

“Why?”

Hearn dropped his hand from his face. “Because nothing is as detrimental to success in an enterprise - no matter what that enterprise may be - as Natural Talent. Or, Luck. Nothing hobbles a man so surely. Nothing throws up quite as solid a barrier between a man and what he wishes to achieve. Natural Talent. Luck. Those train a man to expect no taste but honey from that in which he is lucky or talented. It teaches him to expect a straight and easy path. It teaches that he need fear nothing from chance. When circumstances change - and circumstances are always changing - he will blame it on Lack of Natural Talent, on Bad Luck. He will say to himself: ‘These are things beyond my control. There is no way to overcome them.’”

“Then what, Hearn?”

“Give me Hard Work. Give me Effort. Focus. Diligence. Endurance. Those too may falter at the barriers of circumstance; but at least Diligence will thrash for a time, just as a test, just to see if a barrier might be overcome. Away with Luck and Talent. Give me Work.”

“In that case you’ve ‘worked’ on sharpening your mind, Hearn. Ah, but we are taken awkwardly. Here is Kleiton of Teiron himself.”

The cousin of the Teironian Tyrant entered the room, and carried in with him the atmosphere of the manor itself; an air not quite mildewy, but as if it had once carried that stench (those spores) and - although everything had now been made dry - still recalled some distant past of dampness. By age he looked perhaps forty. By bearing, fifty. By the cut and color of his summer tunic, wealthy beyond measure.

Hearn saw the peril and began to say, “Ostok wait-” He spoke too late. The bounty spun full around to face the cousin, smiling slightly and awkwardly. He held the chain of the flail in one hand and the oilcloth in the other.

“Greeting setter…” Ostok’s words fell dead in his throat. The expression on the cousin’s face, placid enough at sight of them, turned sharply grave. He looked from Ostok’s small and black eyes to the flail in his hands. By the weapons rack, the servant held her breath.

“Accepted,” said Kleiton of Teiron curtly. He turned to Natalia. “Write for me his information later, mell Sipeth. And show these two out through the servant’s gate. My guests will be arriving through the front.”

“Setter,” Ostok began to say. But the noble Teironian threw up a hand for silence. He turned stiffly to the door. He exited. The whole event had lasted less than two moments. Ostok stared at Hearn. “What happened?”

Hearn gestured to the weapon in Ostok’s hands. “You presented the lord with his own arms. In his house no less.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ve challenged him to a duel.”

---

“I will use Teironian instructions for this combat. I will say ‘Ark’ to begin, and ‘Stask’ to end. It is necessary that you are in good health to fight. The akrion has examined you. He has found your blood hot enough and your limbs limber enough for a combat today. He will stand by to look after your health in the case that you are severely wounded. You understand that even with a chanter trained to stitch surface wounds and help your tissues recover, you may come to lasting injury or even death. You were given a tablet representing the laws of duel, which are unchanged since they were set down in the reign of Tyrant Liora. Do you have questions about these laws?”

“No,” answered Hearn. He stretched his left quad by pulling his foot up behind him with a hand, keeping balance on the other foot. The Barthan Army officer, having executed his charge to Hearn, stepped back across the huge, empty chamber where they were to duel. His footsteps echoed in the painted dome of the ceiling.

“What did he just tell you?” asked Ostok.

“He explained how the duel will begin and end.” Hearn untucked his tunic and unlaced the lowest ties. He twisted his torso left and right, ensuring freedom of movement.

“This whole affair should be called off. Explain to me again why we don’t simply forfeit?”

“A former member of the royal army of Ahn was seen publicly to demand proof of honor from a cousin of the Teironian Tyrant. To back out now would be taken by the Teironian Governing council - the army staff especially - as doubting the honor of their agent.”

Ostok thumped a fist against the table on which the dueling hewers were laid. “Well we certainly can’t add any enmity between the volon counties and the muira nation. Sky’s spots. Hearn, I insist you let me fight the duel myself.”

Hearn turned and examined the hewers, though he knew better than to touch or handle one. “Not a chance,” he said. “Kleiton of Teiron would spill your golden blood across the tiles.”

“I don’t need you fighting on my behalf, setter. I did serve in my own nation’s army.”

Hearn took one long scan of his muira counterpart from toe to crown. “You’re too fat.”

Ostok seemed to ponder this a moment, then sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance the royal cousin would forfeit.” Hearn snorted at the suggestion. “At least let him win. Just open yourself up enough for him to draw quick blood. These akrions work marvels with their chants. A little cut on your arm, and his words of power will have your skin put back in order so finely that you won’t even notice a scar.”

Hearn cracked a knuckle on his hand and opened his mouth to speak when their conversation was interrupted. The multicandles guttered in their wall sconces as a draft blew into the vaulted chamber. Hearn and Ostok turned toward the only door of this inner chamber as one of the Barthan servants pulled it open.

Four men, all dressed in the crimson and gold leather of the Teironian Cavalry Officer Corp, strode into the room. Three of the men wore nasal helmets, polished steel with wool padding and straps, and the distinctive Teironian horizontal crest running over the crown. The last man in the line, Royal Cousin Kleiton of Teiron himself, had no helmet. Instead he wore a brocaded cloak over his military leathers, with studded steel epaulets to mark his station. None of the men so much as glanced toward Hearn and Ostok’s half of the circular chamber. They stepped briskly to their own drawing table. The Barthan akrion stood waiting in a long-sleeved robe of plain grey, ready to examine the cousin for fitness.

“Should you have brought your own leathers and helmet?” asked Ostok.

Hearn drummed his fingers on the table. “It won’t matter.”

“I saw armor save the life of many in the Kataman war.”

“They sharpen the hewers to a razor-edge. Soldiers’ leather won’t make much difference, and it’s illegal to aim for the head.”

“Will he have a better choice of weapons?”

Hearn shrugged. “They’ll all be the same weight and length. If he’s brought a hewer of the Thigan style, the tip will curve concavely, and the guard will cover the whole front of the hand. It might matter if we lock blades.”

They heard a scrape, scrape, scrape noise; one of the Teironian party had begun sharpening their weapons at that moment. Hearn and Ostok saw the akrion testing the cousin’s flexibility, then pulling down the upper lids of his eyes. “-dry and chafing-” Hearn caught a few words of the akrion’s assessment, for whispers carried in the basilica. Nevertheless the healer seemed satisfied with the other man’s health. He gave the officiating Barthan arbiter a nod of approval.

Hearn shook his head as Ostok ran an oilcloth over the edge of a hewer with a hexagonal pommel. “The royal cousins have only two or three actual thoughts between them,” said Hearn. “They swap them back and forth whenever they’re asked to think.”

“Quietly, Hearn,” said Ostok.

“Brains so depthless they’re all exterior.”

“Quiet. The arbiter’s coming.”

The arbiter stepped briskly up to Hearn and Ostok’s table, throwing his fists across his chest in an X as an official greeting. He turned to face Ostok. “Partner, will you please present the hewer of your warrior’s choice.”

Ostok turned to Hearn. “What did he say?”

Hearn turned to the arbiter. “Will you instruct him in muiric?”

The arbiter shook his head and said, “I am not permitted to instruct in any language but Teironian. If you think it is wise to share words with one of Ahn’s muira, you may choose to do so, setter Hearn.”

“He wants you to hand me the hewer we choose,” said Hearn in muiric.

Ostok glanced down at the four on the table. “I’ve sharpened and oiled them all. Here. This one’s a good weight. The others are too light.”

Taking the shining steel flat in one hand, with the guard balanced in the crook of his thumb, Ostok raised the selected weapon from the table and presented it to Hearn. Hearn glanced at the arbiter who gave his nod of approval. Hearn paused for a moment with his hand stretched toward the long handle of the weapon. Then he took the hewer suddenly in a firm grasp.

The weapon was the standard hewer length, an arm-long handle with an additional half-meter of blade stretching out beyond. Hearn tested its weight. He took a few easy swings and a couple of jabs one-handed. Then he took it up in both hands and brought it swiftly down in a hard diagonal chop. He held the weapon out straight before him, slid his right hand up a little closer to the guard, slid his left so that it held about halfway down the handle. He brought the weapon in close, tucked the handle up against his side in a bracing motion, and breathed deeply. Then he nodded, and passed the hewer into the grip of the arbiter.

After inspecting the weapon the arbiter walked to the center of the room. He slid it point first into a sack stuffed with wool, standing upright on a pole in the center of the room. He then performed the same ceremony with the Tyrant’s cousin and his chosen partner.

The arbiter returned to Hearn’s side of the chamber. “Your partner must remain here while you accompany me to the circle,” he said.

Ostok had not understood the exact words, but seemed to grasp the arbiter’s intent from his gestures. “Good luck,” the bountyman said with affected cheer. He clapped Hearn once on the arm.

Hearn returned the gesture with a nod, then followed the arbiter to the center of the room. A ring formed out of chain had been laid out on the floor, about five arms in diameter. The sack with the two hewers implanted in it stood just outside the ring at one side. The arbiter positioned Hearn within the circle formed by the chains, went and retrieved the royal cousin, and positioned him opposite Hearn.

“I will now recite the rules of engagement,” said the arbiter. “You two warriors will begin only when I have given the command, ‘Ark’. You will stop if at any point you hear the command, ‘Stask’, from me or from any other man present. If either of you feels wounded beyond the ability to remain fighting, you will say, ‘Stask’. The other shall then retreat to his initial place in the circle, being declared the victor, and the defeated man’s injuries shall be addressed. Neither of you shall grapple with either hand any part of your opponent, neither his dress, nor his hewer, nor his body. Neither shall you spit, nor bite, nor step outside of the circle of chain. To do any of these things is to forfeit the battle… I shall now present to you your weapons of choice.”

The arbiter marched around the circle - not through it - clockwise. He drew Hearn’s hewer from the upright sack-stand first, carried it by the blade, and presented it to Hearn. Hearn took it. He found the grip of his left hand under the pommel once more. He tested its swing. He held it out before him and balanced the weapon on his thumb, before bringing it back in close, and holding it, blade-out, across his face. Meanwhile the arbiter circled back to the target. He retrieved Kleiton’s hewer and brought it to the royal cousin. Kleiton took his weapon. He found his grip. He swung it once in a stiff, military arc. Each opponent had observed the other closely. Hearn thought the royal cousin had looked rigid and stiff, but the moment the hewer was in his hand the man seemed looser, relaxed, more dangerous. Kleiton of Teiron brought his own hewer to match Hearn’s position.

“Step forward one pace,” said the arbiter. The two men did so.

“Hold your weapons in fighting position,” he instructed. Hearn and Kleiton each extended their blades, so that there was a hand’s space between the two points.

The arbiter stepped up, took both blades by their edges, and lined them up before his eyes. Hearn took a long, slow breath.

“Ark!”

Kleiton of Teiron stepped swiftly closer and came in with a high swing. Hearn deflected it. The cousin brought his handle in close and stabbed forward with the blade at Hearn’s ribs. Hearn stepped sideways, then came in with a backhand cut of his own toward the cousin’s bicep. But metal rang against metal as Kleiton’s hewer intercepted the strike in just the same way Hearn’s had. The royal cousin stepped back out of immediate reach.

Hearn kept his eyes and almost all his energy focused on watching Kleiton’s body. Especially his eyes. But one thought slipped through the adrenaline of battle; ‘he blocks too high.’ Hearn noticed that Kleiton had his body held tense - his eyes narrow and fixed on the opponent - in just the same way as Hearn himself.

Hearn took two brisk steps forward and curled his body and arm in as if to strike. At the last moment he broadened himself out. The razor edge of his hewer sawed the air toward Kleiton’s arm. The same spot as before. Kleiton anticipated the feint, stepped back, and deflected Hearn’s swing with a light twist of his forearm. Hearn had expected this. At the last moment he reeled back the weight of the blow so that Kleiton’s deflection did not throw his arm wide and open across his body. Instead his hewer only twisted in his grip. Hearn corrected it by bringing it in close to his center. He followed the planned parry instantly with a swift stab, aimed low at the very edge of Kleiton’s leg, just below his hip - a strike calculated to cause no life-threatening injury but to bring about a swift close to the fight.

Kleiton however whipped his own hewer back down. He swung savagely and more quickly than Hearn had anticipated. Ringing steel. Hearn’s weapon cut air wide of the mark. Worse. Kleiton followed the momentum of his blow with a twist of the wrist that brought the pommel of his hewer cracking hard into Hearn’s exposed ribs. Hearn bent and gasped. Kleiton had already caught his balance - he was far quicker than his stiff bearing and his age had led Hearn to believe. He brought his weapon whipping across high towards Hearn’s chest and face. Hearn couldn’t bring his weapon up in time to block.

Hearn followed the only open avenue. He threw himself backwards. He tripped over his own feet, smelling the oil of Kleiton’s hewer as it passed just under his nose. Hearn stumbled. He felt his heel touch down on some uneven surface and heard the rattle of the sliding chain. The arbiter called out some warning. Hearn didn’t care, it wasn’t the word ‘Stask’.

Kleiton had not stopped as Hearn retreated but followed in after his swipe. The royal cousin brought his hewer up and around in another downward chop. He aimed for Hearn’s collarbone. Hearn brought his hewer up in a diagonal, two-handed grip. He caught the descending blow on his crossguard. The force made the bones of his arms rattle.

Their weapons scraped against one another for just a minute, locked up at the guards. Both it turned out had selected the same Teironian style of hewer, a safe choice for Dueling, where the blades were of the standard convex shape, and the hilts were generally thin and rectangular. Now, for a brief moment, both Hearn and Kleiton pressed their weight and muscle into the handles, each trying to force their opponents weapon back against his face. Both men were breathing heavily.

Hearn shifted his foot in preparation to sidestep and break the lock. But Kleiton anticipated him in the maneuver. The royal cousin threw his left foot back and swung it around to twist his body. Hearn caught his momentum to prevent losing his balance and stumbling. It came at the cost of keeping both hands fixed on the handle of his hewer to control the weapon.

Kleiton, conversely, released his own right arm. He flashed the free hand back and struck. He aimed true, the knuckles of his fist smashed hard into Hearn’s left eye socket. Hearn’s head reeled sideways. He heard and felt a crunch of bone. He saw flashes before both his eyes. Someone - several people - shouted or spoke at the blow. None of them, however, gave the order: ‘Stask’.

The crunch and exclamation must have given the royal cousin pause. Only a moment, but it was enough for Hearn to stumble in an arc, find open space in the circle of chain, and shake off the stars in his eyes. Blood and swelling were already closing Hearn’s left eye. Kleiton, conscious of this, tried to circle onto Hearn’s left. Hearn swiveled to keep the royal cousin in view. He brought his hewer up in a strong guard. He took a heavy breath and tried to think through the adrenaline. His opponent looked a little fatigued, but of course he was yet unharmed.

“Hearn just give-” Ostok began shouting at him in muiric from outside the ring of chain. The arbiter and several others hissed for silence. At the same moment Kleiton came striding in, reeling his hewer back over the left shoulder for a two-handed sideways cut.

This time Hearn recognized the feint. He shifted his guard slightly right as if to meet the blow and slid his feet back as if bracing for the impact. But when the royal cousin twisted his elbow at the last moment and brought the hewer down under his armpit for a jab, Hearn expected it.

Rather than block or parry, Hearn stepped to the left. Kleiton overextended past Hearn with the thrust, and Hearn in turn kept Kleiton in his direct eyesight. But his position before the dodge left him unable to bring his hewer in for a strong cut or stab of his own. Instead Hearn could only slide the weapon down along with his course of movement.

The sliding maneuver connected. The razor edge of Hearn’s hewer cut across the extended forearm of the royal cousin, where the latter’s leather armor did not reach. Soundlessly the steel cut through fabric; soundlessly Hearn felt the satisfying bite into skin.

In a flash Hearn stood out of reach and had his hewer back in near his chest, guarding. Kleiton of Teiron stood opposite, similarly posed. Hearn saw a crimson stain forming on the royal cousin’s long sleeve. Not a deep wound, it looked like, but a cut nonetheless. Hearn glanced up at Kleiton’s face. He saw nothing in the other man’s eyes; only the same, rigid, political discipline.

Hearn released his hewer with his right hand, reached up, and felt the edge of his bruising, broken eyesocket. It hurt. The royal cousin watched Hearn closely, but did not use the moment to leap or strike.

Hearn held his hewer out to his side. “Stask,” he said. He had no difficulty making his voice sound worn, gasping as he was for breath.

Instantly the arbiter and the akrion stepped into the ring toward Hearn. The three men in Kleiton of Teiron’s train entered to grab at his shoulders and pull him away. There was no need. The moment Hearn had spoken, a slight but perceptible nod had sprung from the unemotive royal cousin’s face. He had at once stepped back.

As the arbiter formally pronounced Kleiton of Teiron’s victory and collected the spoken proof of honor from all witnesses, Ostok dragged a chair over to the chain ring. Hearn sat down. The akrion had already pulled a jar of some butter-like ointment with leaves in it from his medical pouch. Hearn tried to stop from squirming while the man lathered ointment over his swollen eye and chanted in metronomic Teironian language. After a moment, his swollen lid opened wide enough to where he could see.

“Started to feel dizzy?” asked Ostok in muiric.

“Yep,” said Hearn.

“You showed yourself decently, I thought. The Teironian Royal Cousin’s win is probably the best result. Politically.”

“Yep.”

Hearn winced suddenly as the akrion pressed the side of his face. He heard a popping sound, then blinked back tears. He could at least see from both eyes. “All done,” said the akrion, stepping back.

Hearn reached up and touched his face. He felt no tenderness around his eye. “How bad is it?” he asked.

“The swelling’s down. I’ve rubbed and whispered your bones back together.” The akrion shrugged. He rummaged in his bag for a moment - Hearn and Ostok heard the soft clinking of jars and bottles - before drawing for a small palm mirror. He held it for Hearn, who tilted his chin down to get an angle. The reflection showed a deep purple bruise beneath and on the outside of his left eye, and the white was shot with blood.

“I personally never thought a black eye was a mark of shame,” said Ostok in muiric. “It displays a certain, enduring character.”

“Thanks,” said Hearn, both to Ostok and to the akrion. “I think I’d rather have the cut on my arm.”

“Speaking of,” said the akrion. He put his mirror away. “I must attend to Setter Kleiton’s injury. You’re free to go.”

As the akrion stepped away from the pair, Ostok said in a low voice, “Is there anything else, Hearn?”

Hearn looked at Ostok. “Blood,” he said, pointing at Ostok’s arm. Ostok looked down. He must have been leaning in close to the ring when either Hearn or the tyrant’s cousin were struck. Some small droplets of blood spackled his ivory forearm.

“Better yours than mine,” said the bountyman cheerily. Hearn held out a cloth from his pocket, which Ostok took and wiped his arm down. “So, anything else?”

“We still have to find a killer.”