HARRY BOLTMORE

There had been no sort of encouragement from little Wymar this time. He had polished the breastplate and backplate in silence, he had strapped them in silence, and he had fastened Harry’s scabbard to his waist in silence. It was not the dent, Harry knew, the dent would have made the boy talk, it was something else, and he wondered what it could possibly be so much, but he could not ask, the boy’s murky look made it impossible.

He got his answer when he was about to head in for the final bout though, that he did.

“Wish me luck,” Harry had said.

And little Wymar had scoffed. “Yer not even a knight,” he told Harry, “luck won’t be with yer out there,” he added, a little bit too harshly. “Did yer see wha’ happened with the other knight, a real knight? There’s no way yer can win against that M’Ser. None I see. None.”

Harry thought the same, but…

“Just yield,” little Wymar advised. “Just yield as soon as yer draw yer steel, just like the other knight, it’d save yer from damn broken and bloody noses. Yer said he helped yer at the city’s gate, right? Well he won’t help yer now, I trust. He’ll give yer pain. A’ot.”

Harry knew that better than anyone. He had watched what little fight had happened between his helper and the dragonfly knight, and it was no doubt so little. Ser Maurin had rid the smiling knight of his sword and sent him down to his knee with such a speed that he blinked and he almost missed it all. It was the same thing he had done to Drustan, only his had taken far much longer than this one had. It had not even been a fight, if he was allowed to say, he’d rather proclaim it dominance. The queen’s nephew, the man that had tossed him a pouch of riches, was too good a fighter to be clashing swords with the likes of him, but… but… “I will not yield,” Harry made sure little Wymar heard. “I will fight.” His mouth babbled confidently, but his hands said otherwise. They were sweaty and shivering, and the moss-haired boy saw it.

Little Wymar took himself out of Harry’s way. “Yer nose, yer choice.”

Harry had left without any other word then, and now he stood facing the knight, both with their swords and shields in hand, with little Wymar’s words continually ringing in his head. He would lose.

Ser Maurin’s visor was still up, and even though Harry had taken his stance, the knight held the hilt of his sword languidly point-faced to the ground. “I take it you will not yield,” the knight spoke, his voice as cool as the one he had that day when Harry had met him at the gate. “At the gate I saw only a knapsack with you, must have been my coins that got you all these armours then. And the sword? I’ve seen it before. That’s a Kingsknight’s sword, I suppose. How did you get it?” Ser Maurin Lockeheart’s green eyes peered at Harry as though they were before a table having a casual conversation. Harry felt the man was not seeing him as a worthy opponent, but he did not feel anger at that. The knight was right to feel that way. He’s not a worthy opponent.

Harry remained mute, almost to the point that you’ll think he actually was. His eyes kept darting about the knight’s armour in a wobbly shiver, watching it from the garnet engraved roaring tiger head on his dark-grey breastplate all the way to the same tiger head carved on his great shield. Harry knew as much as the knight that the shield was not needed, he had not used it against a real knight, it would not be needed against him.

“You talked more at the gate with the guards, why the silence now?” Ser Maurin spoke to him again.

Harry bit his lower lip softly then declared after a while, “Thank you for your help at the gate, I would never have made it here if not for you… but I will neither yield to you nor lose this fight.”

The call to begin flung through the grounds and with it came the bellows of the shouts of the throng. Ser Maurin picked up his sword then, changing his grip on its hilt and taking its point from the ground to the sky, all still languidly done. “Good,” he began talking to Harry, “it would have been a shame if all that investment went to waste.” He tossed his shield aside to the ground, the throng echoing their voices filled with jollity, it was so loud that Harry even had to look up at the gallery, he wondered if the whole realm could hear their screams. “Toss yours aside too,” the knight called Harry’s gaze back to him, “you fight better without one.”

This was stupid, Harry deemed, it was beginning to feel more like a training fight that he had heard knights had in the yards of their liege lord’s castle than an actual battle to become a Kingsknight. Toss yours aside too…? What was that, was he doing him a favour? Harry’s helmet had no visor, it was a barbute dented without remorse, and it made it ever so easy for the knight to see his frustration.

“We’ve not clashed swords yet, do not start to feel bittered before that.” The knight dropped his visor, then whipped his sword softly downwards, putting his right foot before his left as he took a low stance. His grip was perfect and his stance left no opening to be exploited, it was the stance of a knight honed in the act of swordsmanship. “Come, let’s give this crowd something to cheer about.”

Harry inhaled sharply in forbearance, and finally tossed his own shield aside as well and took his own stance, a middle stance that he knew was as amateurish as his swordsplay was, but even though he knew he had little chance of defeating this man before him—if there was even any at all—he would still do anything to win, he would.

He dashed forward at Ser Maurin, his mind taking leave from all the fear he had, while his hands gripped the hilt of crescent moon tightly as he took it over his head and began to send it down towards the neck of the knight with a swing askew from the left. Ser Maurin was not moving, Harry could see. With every second, the glimmering steel in his hand slashed through the air and moved closer and closer towards the gorget of the knight, but he did not move an inch, not a step backward, not to his left to run away from the blow, and his sword, he did not even lift it to parry. Harry was not sure what was happening but he kept bringing his sword down nevertheless, whatever the knight was thinking mattered not to him, what mattered to him was to make this slash hit… but not enough to be deadly.

Harry’s sword had almost made its bite on Ser Maurin’s neck when his hands began to vibrate and his ears began to ring from the clash of steel on steel. Just seconds ago, his blade was almost upon this knight’s gorget, but now that same blade had been sent back the way it had come, pulling him groggily beneath its weight in a stumble. “Too slow…” Harry had heard the knight say, but that was not it. He clenched his teeth, No, you’re just too fast…

Harry planted his feets strongly to stop himself from stumbling any further, and then the cheers came as usual. Shut up… he wanted to say, he wanted to scream at them, but it mattered not. He saw Ser Maurin return back to his stance, and he knew that if it had been a fight to the death, he would have been done already. That parry Ser Maurin had done to him had left him without protection of his neck down to his feets, the knight could have slashed him and easily be done with it, but it was not a fight to the death, for that he was glad.

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“You plant your feets lightly,” the knight echoed across from him. “Plant them better and firmly to the ground and you will lose no balance. Not likely to help you on this day, but a tip for later if you care.” What was this? Harry wondered, was he seriously tipping him right now, at this moment?

Harry spared no words of reply to the queen’s nephew, the only reply he spared was another lunge towards him, his body instinctively taking note of what he had just heard. He planted his feets better this time as he feinted to his left, feinted to his right, went with another feint to his left, then returned to his right with a low swing aiming for Ser Maurin’s knee. The knight deftly handled his sword to be put in the way of the swing and it undoubtedly stopped it, Harry left his sword there, his mind replaying the scenes of his fight with Drustan, as he scurried towards Ser Maurin’s left with a grapple in thought, one that he planned would send the knight back-first to the ground and rid him of his sword and balance, the balance he was so proud of that he could think to lecture his opponent, but it did not go the way Harry thought, he was met with a deafening backhand blow from the knight’s gauntlet to his helmed-head, which sent him pig-diving into the sand for the second time today.

He sprang up to a one knee crouch. Tears slowly came upon his eyes in little amounts, and his tongue filled up with the taste of his blood while his ears rang with a song ugly to anyone who might have been in his position, muffling out all the sounds around him, that was until his sword came before his eyes again where he was crouching.

“Pick it up,” Ser Maurin told him, and it was the first sound he had heard since the blow that busted his lips. It was as though it had been ages since he had heard any sound. “Pick it up, or do you plan to yield?” the knight said again, unkindly Harry would have said it was, but in truth it wasn’t.

Harry logily took hold of crescent moon’s hilt as he gnashed his teeth together in a fit of pique. He spat blood out of his mouth and then he jumped to his feet. His hand stung and his head had begun to hurt again, thick red was flowing down his forehead. The cuts he had sustained from his fight with Drustan had come to be reopened, but still… he would never yield. He carefully took his stance again and began to sidle about, studying the Lockeheart knight like a predator waiting for the right time to pounce on its prey, only he was the prey and the predator was the one that stood still watching him with eyes hidden beneath a roaring tiger helm.

Harry dashed forward again, he had skulked enough, that one would take him nowhere, he needed a hit, he needed one. He neither went left or right this time, he struck straight towards Ser Maurin, thrusting a pierce through the air and charging head on towards the small space between the knight’s left rondel, with a thought to incapacitate one of his arms from functioning. The knight skewed his grip to his left and swung his steel up with a mind to deflect Harry’s sword from making a successful thrust, but Harry was no fool, the thrust was never something that would have proved fruitful, he knew, it was all a decoy.

Harry smiled and altered his grip as well, taking his sword with a deft abruptness from the thrust he had charged with, and into a steep wind away from the force of the parrying blow Ser Maurin was bringing up, forcing the knight’s sword to cut through air instead rather than clash with steel, and leaving his lower half exposed as Harry had wanted. Harry took heed of the knight’s earlier instruction and planted his feet firmly onto the ground, setting it so firm that it dug beneath the sand. He tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword, the crescent moon, ducked slightly, and sent a slash, swift and forebodingly, towards the roaring tiger on Ser Maurin’s breast plate.

The knight calmly dug his heel into the sand and kicked back away from the slash, Harry retreating a notable distance as well as the gasp that had come from the crowd during the slash faded away and left behind total silence.

Harry grinned, his teeth smeared all bloody. “Told you.” His left eye kept twitching at the blood that rolled down his forehead, while his sword-hand ached badly. The gash was worsening, it was opening more and more, but still… He raised the point of his sword at Ser Maurin, and that was when the knight noticed. Ser Maurin glanced down at his breastplate and the mouth of his roaring tiger had been slashed in half. “I will neither yield nor lose.” The crowd roared again and again, each time louder than the last, but rather than bullying his ringing ear to a further ache, it filled him with a surge of elation. He had not won, but it sure felt like he had.

Mother… He began to think to himself. I think I can win… I might be able to do it, I might…

The sparks and quiver resulting from the clash of steel on his, woke him back from his reverie. It had not worked. Ser Maurin had dropped down his sword swiftly with a stupendous speed that Harry could not begin to make sense of to block his slash. He was not able to cut the roaring tiger, he looked at it now, it was still there unscathed. All he had seen had just been his mind. He gnashed his teeth together in a crunching rage, no doubt a bad choice as it came again, from his left this time, another blow that deafened him again, forcing an outpour of red from his mouth as he rolled through the sand. His face was all bloodied now. There was no way he could win.

Crescent moon came surfing through the sand before him again. “Pick it up,” he heard the knight say. “You do not plan to yield, do you?”

Harry spat blood, grit his teeth and picked his sword up again, anger, the one he never thought he would have, and frustration evident all over his face, but it did not matter. He lunged again and he found himself rolling back onto the sand, tinting the pale yellow with his blood over and over again. But he kept standing at the knight’s question of “You do not plan to yield, do you?” and he would dash forward, but like the first and the second all up to the fifth time, he would also find himself falling back onto the ground again, each time more bloodied and bruised than the last.

Out of frustration he removed his helm and flung it to the ground, maybe he was getting more bloodied because of it, but that was the worst decision he had ever made since the bout began. For removing the helm, he was now given a broken nose, a reward for such a foolish decision. No matter what he did, he could not seem to land a hit on this knight. He went low, high, to the left, to the right, to his back, he had tried it all, but it was as though the knight had eyes everywhere, but still… still… he could not yield. Not today, not ever.

Another blow sent him crashing to the ground. At this point he might have embraced this sand more than he had embraced his pallet at home. The throng could have it no more. It was boring. This was no fight, and they began to leave him with boos and shouts for him to yield. Some still motioned him to keep fighting, but they said it with laughs… they were jesting. It did not matter what they thought of him though, he could not yield, he could not go back to his father like this. What of the promise he had made to his mother, he could not fail her, he could not…

If you choose to fight, then you must have the will to fight… Ser Gale’s words echoed through his ears, but it was not Ser Gale’s voice he heard, it was another, a more tender voice. He looked up slightly from where he lay on the ground, and he saw her in the dazzling brightness of the sun. He saw her ginger frizzy hair, her pale eyes and her thin lips. It was all hazy, but it was her, he knew it was her, he could never forget her. She knelt before him and took his bruised cheeks in her palms and told him, “I know you can do it Harry, I know you can, my little wild boy…”

Yes, he could. He blinked and she was no more, but her voice still echoed in his head, so strongly that he felt the strength to take a hold of his sword return. The crescent moon will not see defeat today… he told himself. Not today. Not…

“Enough!” A voice echoed through the tourney grounds, sending silence to everywhere that clamour once existed. Harry turned to look up at where the voice had come from, and it had come from where he did not want it to, it came from the terrace, and… it was the voice of the king.

No… Harry shivered.

“Call the tourney to a close. I have my Kingsknight…”

Harry’s chest tightened, and even though he wanted to shout in disagreement, his voice had grown as weak as his body. His shout came forth as a whisper instead, “No…”