Ch. 3…The Brawl

Cormick stalked over to us. It was a good moment to slip away but Lorne stood planted like a tree, his face set in stubborn lines. Cormick's eyes slid to Lorne but he came to stand in front of me. Amie and Bevil followed, both looking rather upset.

"You little thief," Cormick said furiously. "You took that feather out of my pocket." I smiled.

"I sure did." I gave him a provocative look. "If you want to keep something, you should hang onto it better." I thought about putting my arm around Lorne to rub it in but Cormick was already mad enough.

"You cheated," he said. I opened my eyes wide.

"I cheated? Whatever do you mean? This is the Knaves' Challenge, after all." I smiled again. "There was nothing keeping you from doing the same."

He grabbed me by the front of my tunic.

"There's nothing keeping me from knocking your teeth down your throat."

But there was and he stood right beside me. Lorne gave him a shove and I twisted out of Cormick's hold.

"Keep your hands off him," Lorne said in his deep growl. Cormick abandoned me for the moment and stared straight at Lorne.

"Karlas is no good," Cormick said in a low voice. "He's a thief and a liar. You know that. We all do. I can't believe you are taking up with him. I thought better of you, Lorne."

"It's no business of yours, is it, who I take up with?" Lorne said. Cormick's brows drew down and for a moment, I thought I saw more than anger in his expression. I thought there was pain as well. Then he shrugged.

"I suppose not," he said. Amie and Bevil, looking worried and embarrassed, urged him in whispers to come away. Cormick followed them, but turned and over his shoulder said, "You really are very much like your father, aren't you? I hadn't realized that before. It's a pity, Lorne. You could have done so much more with yourself."

Lorne reddened with anger. In one swift move, he grabbed Cormick's arm, spun him around and punched him in the face. Then the fight was on. Bevil tried to pull Cormick away and got knocked down for his trouble. Not being a total fool, I stayed out of the way. Only a few punches were exchanged before some of the older men—Orlen, Georg, Lazlo and even Daeghun—ran up and separated them.

"Save it for the Brawl, lads," Georg said sternly. Once he was sure the fight wasn't going to start up again, he turned and gave me a narrow-eyed look like everything was my fault. Well, that was the typical attitude in the village and from him in particular. At least I didn't get his well-worn lecture about the grim fate awaiting troublemakers.

Cormick pulled a cloth from his pocket and used it to stem the blood dripping from his nose. He and Lorne glared at each other another moment, ignoring the avid stares from the small crowd that had gathered around.

"You'd best watch yourself, Lorne," Cormick finally said. "Lest Karlas bring you the same luck he brought Daeghun and his own mother."

This drew some muttered comments from the spectators. Lorne surged forward but Orlen and Georg held him back. My eyes went to Daeghun. There was no change in his expression—there seldom was—but he had stiffened almost imperceptibly. I had no idea what Cormick was talking about but apparently just about everyone else did.

Daeghun turned and left without a word. Cormick looked slightly ashamed and let Bevil and Amie pull him back towards the tents.

"Come on," I told Lorne and led him off towards what was known in West Harbor as the river. This far south it was little more than an unnavigable stream. We walked along in silence, leaving the village behind. Many farms clustered along the banks but we saw no one working. Everyone was at the fair of course.

Once it looked like he had cooled down, I found a conveniently placed boulder for us to sit on.

"What was that all about?" I asked. I folded up my legs so I could rest my head against my knees.

"Cormick and I were pretty close once," Lorne said in his rumbling voice. "But there was bad blood between his family and mine. I got tired of Cormick always taking their side and believing everything they said about my dad." He shrugged. "It's all water under the bridge now." I tilted my head and let my expression show that I wasn't buying this tale. He gave me an unhappy frown.

"After my dad left, Cormick said some things… Well, it doesn't matter now, does it?"

"You're both still mad about it," I said. "Doesn't sound like water under the bridge to me."

"I don't care anything about Cormick."

"Yeah, sure."

"I don't."

He put his arm around me and then spent the next little while demonstrating that he wasn't thinking about anyone else but me. I wasn't totally convinced but I was certainly most satisfactorily distracted.

"So," I said afterwards, once my heart had steadied back to something approaching normal. "What did he mean about bad luck? My mother died in childbirth. That was bad luck for her and me too, I guess, but it happens often enough. What does that have to do with you? Or with Daeghun, for that matter?"

It had inevitably occurred to me that the reason Daeghun had taken responsibility for me was because he was actually my father or had been involved in some way with my mother. Since I showed no traces of elven blood and Daeghun showed no traces of caring for anyone, I had given up on that theory long ago.

"I don't know," he said. "Just superstition, I guess."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Don't worry about it, Karlas," he said, getting up and straightening his clothes. "Let's get back before the Brawl starts."

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why go back? Let's just skip it, okay? It's my last day in West Harbor, let's just enjoy it together."

"Karlas, if we don't show up for our matches, we will forfeit them," he said patiently, as if I had somehow managed to not understand that little rule.

"So? I don't care anything about this Brawl or who wins it."

"I do."

He didn't want Cormick to think he wouldn't face him. His bullheaded look could not be argued with so I sighed and followed him back to the village square.

We got back just in time. Teams were chosen by lot to face each other, with the winners of the first two matches facing each other in the final match. And as it happened, luck favored us. Cormick had to face the Mossfelds in the first match, while we had to face the team from the outlying farms.

There were four on their team, and all related by the looks of them. It turned out they were cousins. We only had to fight three of them, since one of the cousins was only twelve and too young to enter the ring. When the numbers are uneven, it's the larger team's choice if they want to drop a member and even things up. They would get an extra point for dropping a teammate but they took one look at Lorne and decided not to do so. I could hardly blame them.

Lazlo Buckman was officiating this year, so that meant the rules—no kicking, biting, eye gouging, or blows to the genital area—would be at least nominally enforced. Folks still grumbled about the year Pitney Lannon was in charge of the Brawl and it had to be cancelled in the third round due to the priest running out of healing spells.

Our match came first. We were all handed padded clubs and shoved into the ring. Lorne's eyes gleamed with anticipation and there was a chipper little smile on his face. He was practically humming with happiness.

I could have kicked him.

I didn't see Daeghun in the crowd but everyone else was there, as far as I could tell. And most everyone seemed to be rooting for the strangers—or more accurately, rooting against us.

Something changed in Lorne when he finally realized that most of the people he had grown up with and worked beside and had known all his life were hoping to see him get beat. Part of the problem was that he was just so darned big. Even though we were outnumbered and even though I certainly could not be counted as much of an asset in the Brawl, it almost didn't seem fair, the way Lorne towered over the others. In itself that was enough to cause sympathy for the other team but of course there was more.

The little drama just enacted with Cormick hadn't helped. Cormick was popular and Lorne tended to keep to himself. Although people respected Retta, Lorne was too much like Blane, her despised husband—moody, ill-tempered and unpredictable. And then there was me. There were always plenty of folks eager to see someone beat the crap out of me. I was used to drawing the villagers' scorn but the experience was new to Lorne and he did not care for it at all.

The happiness faded out of his eyes to be replaced with something grimmer yet every bit as anticipatory.

I wouldn't say I'm useless in a straight-up fight but I'm better at avoiding getting hurt than I am at dishing out a lot of pain. It didn't matter. All I had to do was guard Lorne's back. He mowed them down in a matter of moments.

There were no cheers and no congratulations when we won, just a low muttering as Brother Merring rushed into the ring to tend to the three farmers. Lorne brushed past everyone and went straight to the mead table and helped himself to a mug while Lazlo watched anxiously over the priest's shoulder as he healed their wounds. I stuck with Lorne and didn't say a word. No one approached us; no one had anything to say.

I followed him silently to the ring, where we watched Cormick's match with the Mossfelds. Ward and Webb tried to keep Cormick busy while Wyl, with one unchivalrous blow, dropped Amie and then concentrated on Bevil. Bevil fought furiously after he saw Amie hit the dirt. This was a side of him I hadn't seen before. I knew he had recently started training with the militia but I hadn't really thought of him as a fighter. Lorne overshadowed him but I was wrong to underestimate Bevil. That was the mistake that Wyl made and it cost the brothers the match.

Cormick was a wily fighter. He held back and waited for the Mossfeld boys to make a mistake and then he quickly moved in and punished them for it. Like Lorne, he was five years older than the rest of us, and that made a difference—a big difference. Those extra years had been spent in the militia, and say what you like about Georg, he seemed to be able to pass on some skills.

Lorne had dropped out of the militia when his father left. I suddenly wondered if that was going to make a difference. Lorne was stronger than anyone I had ever met but I had never seen him fight like I was seeing Cormick fight now.

The match was finally over. Cormick watched while Brother Merring bent over Amie. After a few moments, when Amie sat up and gave him a weak smile, he hopped out of the ring and headed for the well. He pulled up a bucket of water and took a great drink from the dipper chained nearby.

"Wait here," Lorne told me and he strode over to Cormick. I couldn't hear what they said but I saw Lorne speak earnestly for a moment. Cormick looked straight at me, unsmiling, and he said something to Lorne. There was more talking and Cormick stopped to take another big drink. Then he nodded to Lorne and the two of them walked over to Lazlo. Whatever they had to say seemed to surprise Lazlo quite a bit.

Then Lorne joined me. I lifted my brows.

"We've agreed that the final match will be just Cormick and me," he said.

Cowardly relief flooded me.

"But Lorne, are you sure?"

"It is better this way," he said. "I don't want to have to fight Bevil, or Amie, for that matter. It's just not right. You understand, don't you, Karlas?" He was almost apologetic, as if he was snatching some great treat from me and thought I would be miffed. I gave him a big hug and that took him by surprise. He smiled down at me. That was the last smile I saw from him for quite some time.

The fight was a disaster.

The crowd was restless but quiet while Brother Merring said a few words to dedicate the final match to Chauntea. When he stepped out of the ring and the two competitors entered, the catcalls began. Bevil, Amie and I stood together to watch. In a loud voice, Wyl Mossfeld urged Cormick to knock Lorne down, and then added a suggestion so lewd and vulgar that Amie opened her eyes wide in shock and Bevil clenched his fists. Some of the villagers gave Wyl disapproving looks but there were some who actually laughed.

That set the tone for the rest of the match. I promised myself then and there that if I ever found myself in the position to serve Wyl Mossfeld an ill turn, I would take it without hesitation.

Lorne went immediately on the offensive, attacking with savage sweeps of his club, blows that, if they had hit, even with the padding, promised broken bones. Cormick dodged or blocked each one. It was glaringly obvious that Cormick meant to exhaust him. Lorne should have hung back and forced Cormick to move against him. The roars of the spectators, the derisive comments of the Mossfelds, and most of all, whatever quiet words Cormick used to taunt him (for I could see his mouth move and read the expressions on both their faces) cast all thoughts of strategy out of Lorne's head.

Lorne was the bull, lost in mindless rage, and Cormick was the bulldog dancing in to harass and bait him. I could scarcely bear to watch the inevitable end.

Later I wondered if things might have turned out differently if I had been in the ring with him. Could I have deflected that anger, could I have called him back to himself? That was one of those questions that could never be answered.

Lorne never yielded. I was not certain the words were even within him to do so. Cormick drove him to his knees and stood over him, ready to crack him again with the club. Lazlo stepped into the ring and declared the match over and Cormick the winner. I brushed past Brother Merring, who had hurried into the ring, greatly distressed. I took Lorne by the arm and pulled him to his feet. There was commotion all around, a vague roaring in the background that I had no interest in. Lorne didn't seem badly hurt, only dazed and exhausted.

Lorne said nothing as I dragged him off to our house. I knew Daeghun would be gone; he invariably spent the evening of the Harvest Fair out in the woods somewhere. I sat him at the kitchen table, pulled off his tunic and cleaned his wounds, using Daeghun's healing salve lavishly. He still didn't speak when I led him up the stairs to my room but he was aware of my presence. As soon as I undressed, he pushed me onto the bed and took me savagely, with all of the unexpressed anger and frustration and humiliation burning within him. Yet when he was spent, the anger still remained. He left me at last with no words of farewell. Just like Daeghun. I thought I would never see either one of them again.

But in the predawn glimmer, as I shouldered my pack and the awkward bundle of Daeghun's furs and started down the path to Orlen's farm to catch my ride to High Cliff on his wagon, someone moved in the shadows. It was Lorne. I thought he had come to say goodbye until I saw the pack at his feet. My face and my heart both lifted in sudden exhilaration.

"I'm coming with you," was all he said.