Chapter-1-4

⁠—⁠—⁠— IV ⁠—⁠—⁠—

“You are prepared?”

The low voice of Kah the Wise carried clearly across the silent amphitheater, drifting over the heads of the assembled crowd.

“Dodok is ready,” the massive Lagon chieftain replied, nodding slowly.

“As am I,” Guin asserted.

One thousand or more Lagon sat around the giants’ gathering-place—warriors, women, children, elders—all with eyes fixed on the two combatants. It was well past midnight, yet even mothers clutching small infants to their breasts were present. The Lagon loved battle—so much that they used one-on-one combat to determine who led them—and even at this improbable hour, the eagerness of the spectators was palpable. No one wanted to miss the event.

In Middle Country terms Guin was a man of legendary proportions. Yet to the mighty Lagon, who averaged two taal in height and one hundred skones in weight, the leopard-headed warrior appeared rather puny, standing eye to eye with young boys and the shorter womenfolk.

And if Guin was a runt among the Lagon, Dodok the Brave was a giant among giants. He stood like an animate mountain in the midst of the clearing, arms crossed upon his chest, waiting for Kah the Wise to give the signal to begin. Naked save for a loincloth of ragged hide, he stood a full taal taller and weighed half again as much as his challenger.

Though most of the Lagon were slender for their height, Dodok was proportioned much the same as Guin. The hair swirled down his back in a great mane, and bristled in clumps of yellow and brown on his stomach, chest, and arms, barely concealing the powerful sheets of muscle beneath.

Yet his sheer mass did not mean he lacked agility. Though tall, the Lagon were neither heavy-boned nor clumsy. Even those who towered over two taal moved swiftly, their reflexes honed over years of hunting wolves and lizards through the rocky hills they called home.

The gaze of the packed crowd flamed with hostility as it looked upon the intruder, the blasphemer, the upstart challenger Guin. Most did not watch to see whether Dodok or Guin would emerge victorious; rather, they waited breathlessly to see how Dodok the Brave, their indomitable chieftain, would take this brazen, foolish creature and toy with him, break him, and then rend him limb from limb. This was the source of the excitement that stirred the air with rank sweat and seething blood. Guin understood this well, perhaps better than any other. Yet his glinting yellow eyes and the leopard mask through which they shone revealed no trace of fear.

“To me, childling!” Dodok taunted, and his eyes said: it is beneath me to make the first move. Grinning with calm confidence, he lifted a terrifyingly large fist and pounded his rippling chest.

Guin kept his distance, his cool gaze marking their positions, his toes finding purchase in the light, rocky sand. It was apparently a custom of the Lagon to fight unarmed. Normally, this might ensure fair combat, yet in the current situation, it seemed a bad jest. Dodok’s long arms, giant frame, and fearful strength were a far more lethal assortment of weapons than any set of blades would have been.

Despite Guin’s own considerable strength, he knew that if the giant’s hands should grab him, it would be no simple feat to break free. He could writhe and twist all he wanted, yet those powerful arms would drag him into a killing embrace, bending his neck back until it touched his spine.

There would be little chance of victory in close-quarters wrestling, Guin decided, his feet dancing across the sand as he dexterously began circling around his opponent’s right side. He would wait for the Lagon’s charge, duck aside, and attempt to leap on Dodok’s back.

Dodok made a sound like a growling laugh from deep within his throat, and almost carelessly took a step forward. He moved with all the confidence of one who has read his enemy’s thoughts and knows the outcome of the match before even the first blow has landed.

As Guin continued his move to the side, Dodok’s long arm thrust out swiftly, blocking his path. Then the giant turned, hands apart, fingers hooked inward like claws, and slashed at the leopard-man’s head.

Swiftly Guin pivoted and lunged back to the left.

Again, Dodok was there before he could slip past, and Guin was forced to retreat.

“What’s wrong?” Dodok chided. “I thought you were stronger than Dodok! All you do is run. How will you prove your strength?”

A chorus of cheers rose up from the Lagon. Guin bared his fangs at them in reply. All the while, his feet kept up their dance, slowly shifting his position.

Finally, Dodok lost his patience. Done with caution, he lunged with both arms extended toward his diminutive prey. For all his bulk, the Lagon chief moved impossibly fast.

Guin jumped lightly backward. Dodok closed the distance. Guin darted to one side, but Dodok regained his balance too quickly, and Guin was unable to flank him and they were facing again. Dodok sneered and lunged again, but this time Guin thrust out his leg to trip him. It nearly worked, but after three unsteady steps, Dodok was balanced again, and Guin was forced to jump back, maintaining his calculated range.

“You intend to run until dawn, demon?” Dodok roared, his irritation unconcealed. He spread his long arms, inviting Guin to grapple with him. The leopard-headed warrior kept his distance.

By now the crowd had gone from making occasional cat-calls to openly berating Guin, angry at the interloper’s refusal to fight. Some whispered that this wasn’t combat at all, but some sort of demon dance. Others wondered if Guin was trying to wear Dodok out—and shook their heads at the runt’s foolishness.

When the leopard-man moved, he moved as fast as lightning. For a moment, it looked as if he were charging headlong into Dodok’s embrace, yet at the last possible second he ducked beneath the Lagon’s outstretched arms, going for his legs. The tactic worked. Guin hooked his left foot behind Dodok’s right shin and swept out the giant’s leg, sending his towering opponent heavily onto his back. By the time the cursing Lagon had regained his feet, Guin was already out of reach, across the clearing.

The Lagon chief stood, his face a red mask of rage. “Enough, demon!” he howled. Stretching out his arms to their full length once again, he charged with fearsome speed. Guin did not dodge this time. As Dodok’s long arms came down to grab his shoulders, he hunched down low, using his body as a fulcrum to throw his opponent completely over him.

“Yarr!”

As one, the crowd gasped in surprise.

“He threw Dodok!”

“The little demon lifted him!”

Dodok did not fall gracefully. He slammed into hard, rocky ground headfirst, then toppled over onto his back. Staggering quickly back to his feet, he turned to fix Guin with a glare so filled with menace it would have frozen a lesser man cold in his tracks. Gone was the taunting, jeering Dodok of moments before. Now he stared with bloodshot eyes, insane in his rage. The war-chief of the Lagon was chosen by tournament; the moment his strength came into question was the moment he began to lose his mandate. The smaller Guin had now thrown him twice, making him crawl on the ground in front of the entire village. Even if he went on to rip Guin to pieces, this poor beginning meant that, over the next few days, he would surely have to face several more upstarts from the tribe to secure his standing.

Dodok roared with frustration. Yet the last toss had taught him caution. He gave up lunging with both hands, pausing instead to study Guin’s every motion. The leopard-man let his arms hang at his sides in apparent carelessness, inviting an attack.

To each warrior, the other’s position was clear: Guin, overpowered, needed to use his enemy’s strength against him. Dodok needed to watch Guin closely to avoid losing his advantages to a well-timed feint.

The giant bared his teeth defiantly, clenching his fists and glowering at the leopard warrior. Slowly but surely, the massive Lagon began to close the distance with his prey.

Guin dodged to the side. Dodok followed. Guin circled to the left, and Dodok whirled to meet him; Guin shifted to the right, and Dodok was there. So the two combatants traded move and counter-move in a silent killing dance, their positions ever changing, neither gaining a clear advantage for long.

“Dodok! Dodok!” came impatient shouts from the blood-thirsty crowd. They couldn’t understand why their towering chieftain didn’t just pick up his tiny opponent and be done with it, and the wait was beginning to cool their excitement.

“Fight! Fight!”

“Grab him, Dodok!”

“Dawn is coming! Fight!”

“Dodok!”

Dodok stood impassively, seemingly heedless of the cheers and cries for blood. He was no fool, and he would not enter combat at a disadvantage just to please the eager throng. Hands crooked like claws, legs spaced apart, he circled around the center of the arena slowly, patiently.

This time, it was Guin’s eyes that sparked with a faint color of irritation.

Again and again, Dodok the Brave warily closed the distance between them, then sprang suddenly forward; again and again, Guin leapt safely aside, and the circling resumed. It was just after one such maneuver that the leopard-man let his eyes wander for an instant, glancing up over the mountains that surrounded the village.

Above the stone chair placed among the row of spectators, where sat the white-haired, many-fingered Kah the Wise, his eyes half-lidded in seeming disinterest; above the stone steps circling the place of combat, filled with shouting warriors, cheering women, and sleepy-eyed children; above the soaring black silhouette of the mountains, jagged as a broken crown, there stretched the wide dreamlike sky, brilliant yet ephemeral in the delicate light of pre-dawn. It was a sight that no painter could have duplicated, not even in a lifetime of the highest skill. So divine was its hue, so filled with the limitless meaning and delicacy of which only nature was capable, that even in the midst of the battle a bolt of recognition flashed through Guin’s brain.

As the two warriors fought, dawn was slipping out of the darkness.

The fire chariot of the sun god Ruah had not yet appeared in all its magnificence over the edge of the mountains. Nor were the clouds blushed with the first traces of pinkish light that heralded Ruah’s coming. Yet, as sure as Aeris wheeled through the sky toward the horizon, the night was drawing to an end. Above the combatants and the spectators, all focused single-mindedly on the struggle playing out upon the patch of empty ground at the bottom of the town-basin, the air had begun to fill with an almost audible premonition of the day, and the sky was slowly shifting from indigo to blue.

It was the morning of the fourth day of Guin’s quest—his last day. His last chance.

The leopard-headed warrior gritted his teeth to stem a rising tide of irritation and rage. For a fraction of a moment, his guard was down.

“Gwarh!”

Everything around him went black as Dodok’s battle cry rent through the half-lit quiet. Iron limbs, more powerful even than those of the grey ape of Gabul, seized the leopard-man’s shoulders and drew him into a vise-like embrace.

Guin howled, twisting his body in a vain attempt to throw off that iron grip. His upper body blushed crimson, the muscles rising in taut bands over his shoulders, chest, neck, and arms.

Dodok let his full one-hundred-fifty skones of weight do the work for him. No matter how Guin struggled, the Lagon was irresistible. It was as though Guin grappled with a massive boulder, grown in the place of his flesh-and-bone adversary. All Dodok’s strength went into his arms, slowly dragging Guin closer.

Then, inexplicably, the giant’s grip loosened. Guin began to swing his arms upward to knock away the claw-like fingers digging into his shoulders—but he had fallen into a trap. The instant the leopard-man shifted his hands from their position braced against the Lagon’s chest, Dodok brought his own hands down, pinning Guin’s arms to his sides in a crushing bear hug.

A great cheer went up from the crowd. In one swift move, Dodok had made his victory almost certain. With a low growl he tightened his hold on Guin, squeezing until it seemed that his adversary’s backbone would surely snap in half.

A beast-like roar escaped from Guin’s mouth. He arched his torso backward, scraping with his fingers at whatever he could reach. Yet still the grip tightened, threatening to fold him in two.

Dodok’s eyes bulged widely, staring at Guin. The leopard warrior, his head cast backward, scrabbled with his fingers against his enemy, trying to dig into the iron muscles. For the first time, Dodok the Brave allowed himself a howl of victory.

The howl cut off halfway. Guin, his arms a deep purple from the strain, had worked his hands up Dodok’s torso until he found the Lagon’s arms. Now he grabbed those iron-like pincers and began pushing against the giant’s grip.

Dodok’s face went pale. For the briefest of moments—one that seemed to last for an eternity—the two became like statues, strength enough to crush rocks pushing inward against a similar strength pushing out. So evenly matched they were that, from a distance, they seemed poised in perfect calm. Only the hot sweat dripping from their faces and bodies revealed how desperately they fought their deadly contest.

The crowd was suddenly silent. Not a single cheer, or cry of “Dodok!” could be heard in the clearing. The mass of spectators held their breath, swallowed, and watched to see which way the scales would tip.

Suddenly, the balance broke. With a dull sound, Dodok’s vice-like grip on Guin’s body gave out.

Guin took his chance. Bending backward like a bow, he snapped his torso forward, slamming into his foe. Dodok spun once around like a top, and fell on his back, sprawling across the ground. Guin fell atop the giant. With the last of his strength, Guin slid out of Dodok’s limp embrace and sprang away, only to fall to one knee, his back bent, exhausted.

For some time Dodok did not move. A murmur ran through the crowd. Is he unconscious? Is he dead? A breath that was part shock, part fear passed through the crowd. Just as quickly it became a cheer, as Dodok the Brave sat up.

A trickle of blood ran from the giant’s mouth, and his left arm hung limp. Yet his eyes burned with unquenched rage: You may fight me, but you will lose! I am Dodok. Dodok the Brave!

Through a haze of pain, Guin saw his opponent charging, off kilter, his good right arm stretched out in front of him. There was no sound, no howl of rage. Dodok hurtled forward in utter silence. All hatred and derision were gone from his eyes. All that was left was his warrior spirit, stronger than any anger.

Guin stood to meet the charge. A bolt of pain jabbed down his spine, and he clenched his teeth to stifle a cry of pain. As he flexed his back he knew that he did not have strength enough remaining to finish this opponent, even injured as the Lagon was.

Surrender, however, was not an option. The warrior spirit that rose in Dodok’s blood shone too in Guin’s leopard-yellow eyes, blazing as he stared forward. Unthinkingly, he dropped to one knee again and groped at his belt—an unconscious, instinctive motion to seek something he could use as a weapon.

His fingers found something hard and cold. Instantly Guin whipped it out, though his blurry eyes had trouble focusing on it. He thrust the object at the careening Lagon chief in blind self-preservation. Blade or no blade, whatever the object was, he would make it hurt Dodok, or he would pay with his life.

But the charge never came. In the utter silence that had fallen, Guin forced his aching eyes to focus on the cold object in his hand.

The leopard-man had needed a miracle to win, and he had got one.