Chapter 22 Duel against a Duelist #2
“Is this because I beat you up in the bathhouse?” Morfran asked, because Gueldefore wasn’t wrong, and if he didn’t start casting away doubts, there was a chance Brim and the others would begin to suspect something.
His deflection worked, slightly. A few of the men snickered, which lessened the tension in the air.
Gueldefore did not like that. His nostrils flared even wider.
“You dare accuse me, a knight, of lying, to avenge some superfluous act that may or may not have happened in the past? You would dare spit in the face of decorum and honor and claim that these concerns I bring earnestly to my friends’ ears are simple lies? ”
Morfran rubbed his jaw and shrugged. “Yes.”
Gueldefore whipped off his gauntlet and chucked it. It landed and bounced right at Morfran’s feet. Everyone looked at it, then at Gueldefore, then at Morfran, then back at it, as if expecting it to explode.
It didn’t explode. But this wasn’t a tantrum any longer. It was a demand for a duel. A duel that Morfran didn’t want to have, because Gueldefore knew exactly what he was doing. Morfran was in a standstill position where he’d lose no matter what he did.
He couldn’t back down from a duel with a knight.
He’d lose the respect he’d fought so hard to earn.
He couldn’t beat Gueldefore fairly and win, because as Morfran had claimed, he was simply a lowly general, while Gueldefore was a knight in glorious armor.
If Morfran had the skill and strength to beat him, that would indicate that Gueldefore spoke some semblance of the truth, and distrust might sow back into the rebels’ minds.
He could throw the duel. Intentionally lose. Let Gueldefore win so the stupid knight would regain his confidence and walk away with the satisfaction that he’d bested Morfran in front of everyone who mattered.
Morfran sighed and bent down to pick up the gauntlet. “Where and when?”
Gueldefore inhaled, as if he could already smell the victory, and it was sweet. Morfran wanted to tell him it was just the strudel. “The barracks courtyard. Fifteen minutes.”
Morfran irritably tipped his chin down in confirmation, swiped his tankard, and took a long draw.
This wasn’t going to be fun.
“You don’t have to do this.” Bronwen followed at his heels as he strode through Redmoth’s streets, fastening on a new sword he pilfered from the village armory.
His last one was too heavy. This one felt too light.
“We all know Gueldefore is prone to episodes like this. This isn’t the first time he’s flung the gauntlet.
He even flung it at Hugh one time, even though Hugh clearly doesn’t know a hilt from a blade. ”
He wished she were right. But Gueldefore was quickly becoming less of a nuisance and more of a real concern.
The fact that he was starting to snoop around regarding Morfran’s identity was alarming.
If he could settle the man’s nerves he’d do it, even if by doing so he’d take some damage to his budding reputation.
“Your brother knows his way around a sword, Bronwen,” he replied. “He just acts like he doesn’t so he doesn’t have to fight in battle.”
She halted. “He does?”
“Yes.” He finished with the straps and turned to face her. “How’s my armor?”
She scanned him over with a pinched, worried expression.
He’d decided to forgo the bulky armor that knights wore.
He wasn’t skilled in fighting in it. In fact, the leathers of the forest dwellers had quickly become his favorite attire to fight in, as it was lightweight, allowed for better movement, and made his butt look good.
Perhaps he could ditch his black pants after all.
“You’re ready.” She passed him a fretful smile, and before he could turn, added, “Bernard? I don’t believe him one bit—about you not being who you say you are.
I just think he’s only ever tried to see the bad.
But I’ve seen the good in you. You’re brave to be fighting against your previous master, and I know you’re doing this now to genuinely help us, and that has meant the world to m— to us. ”
He looked down at her, the way she was staring up at him making his stomach involuntarily flutter.
Oh, no. No. Don’t do that. Last time he fell for a pair of pretty eyes, he corrupted their owner into a monster who ate live kittens. He wouldn’t be doing that again.
Ahead of them was the courtyard. He forced himself to focus on that and not her. “I’ve seen Gueldefore fight in battle. But how is he in a duel?”
Her expression went serious. “I’ve never seen him lose.” She caught his grimace and quickly corrected, “But there’s no shame in losing. You’ve already proven you’re a wonderful battle strategist.”
She said it like she expected him to lose.
Well, then.
He scowled and stalked forward.
Gueldefore was doing jumping jacks in the lawn of the courtyard. He punched the air near Morfran as he walked by, his expression twisted in utmost hostility.
“You’re a liar,” he whispered only to him. “I will prove to everyone that truth and justice always prevail in the end.”
Morfran heaved a sigh and unsheathed his blade. “Does it, though?” He had twenty years of experience to prove otherwise.
A crowd had already collected and formed a circle for their duel.
Brim stood near the front, his massive arms folded over his chest, looking irritable and impatient.
Behind him the rebels had shed their red robes and painted letters on their exposed torsos, standing in a single line so that the letters read B-E-R-N-E-R-D-!
They’d spelled his false name wrong, but at least they were being supportive.
Gueldefore faced him, raising a majestic sword, his eyes peeking out from the narrow cavern of his helmet. It covered his entire face and was complete with a butt-chin indent. “Prepare for death,” he seethed.
Morfran blinked, more than a little alarmed. “I thought this was a duel to the first blood.”
“Not if I accidentally stab you in the head.”
Now who was being dishonest? Morfran squeezed the hilt of his sword as the referee blew the whistle.
Gueldefore didn’t wait. He slashed forward, clattering in his shining armor like a thousand dinner plates hitting a tile floor. Though he was bulky, he was fast, and Morfran had to quickly leap back to avoid getting his chest split open by Gueldefore’s blade.
But the knight didn’t let up. He attacked like an armor-clad bull with aggression issues, slashing and stabbing and pirouetting on the offense at Morfran, who could do nothing else but backtrack, duck, dodge, and pivot out of range for the first few minutes.
All right, Morfran had to acknowledge. Gueldefore was a good duelist. A great one, in fact.
All knights in the kingdom had been battle hardened by the time they lost all their baby teeth, and they were the elite of the elite, with skill that could easily surpass some of his generals.
It was reason number one hundred and four why Morfran had sought to kill all knights in the kingdom—they were so good they posed a threat to his rule.
Gueldefore was so good that when he landed the first two cuts on Morfran’s upper arm and back, Morfran didn’t feel so bad for throwing the match. He didn’t think there was anyone else even in the rebellion with skills to match Gueldefore’s.
It’s no wonder he hates me, Morfran thought as he took a quick glance at the crowd, all of whom were wincing and whooping at each stab and slash. I’ve deprived him of countless moments when he can shine like he is now.
“First blood!” someone shouted after the first two cuts, when Hugh countered, “No, the first to yield! Which one of you bastards will be the biggest loser today?”
Morfran exhaled an irritated pant before catching Gueldefore’s upper-hand swing with his blade.
“It won’t be me.” Gueldefore’s voice oozed out from the slit in his helmet as he pressed down harder on Morfran’s blade.
“I can do push-ups in my sleep. I can bench-press a cow. I have killed forty-eight of Morfran’s men, and I’m more than happy to make it forty-nine.
” Morfran’s muscles began to burn. His opponent’s voice dipped lower.
“But is that what you are, one of his soldiers? Or are you someone higher up? An ex–chief general? One of his corrupted black knights?”
His guesses were starting to get warmer. Morfran jerked his blade back and pivoted, allowing Gueldefore to surge forward and downward with his sword. For just a moment the knight’s back was to him. He could get a decent strike in.
Oh, how he wanted to.
Then Gueldefore spun, and the moment was gone. Gueldefore was back to hammering down on him, swiping snips and cuts into Morfran’s leathers and skin, all the while Morfran landed just a few measly hits that bounced off the knight’s armor like paper wads against rock.
Jeers arose from the crowd. Drezella was covering her eyes. Brim looked like a disappointed father whose son continued to miss kicking the ball even after he’d practiced with him Sunday nights. Bronwen was silent, watchful, morose.
She’d secretly hoped he’d win, he realized. They all did.
“It serves you right,” Gueldefore muttered when he swung his sword down and caught Morfran once more in a standstill.
“Thinking you could come in here after all you’ve done.
You don’t deserve their friendship. You don’t deserve their gratitude.
” He pushed his body into his sword, and it scraped down Morfran’s blade, nearing his neck. “You don’t deserve their love.”
This guy—Morfran’s muscles were shaking once more, though not just from strain—is an asshat.
With a burst of anger, he shoved Gueldefore, sending the man in armor staggering back like a runaway tea cart service going over bumpy gravel.
He didn’t give Gueldefore a moment to recover before he was on him, swinging into him, again, and again, and again, the third time of which he managed to strike his head, which certainly seemed to rattle the knight’s brain momentarily, if his gurgling was any indication.