[canon] in which martel dies.

[apostatised]

And then at last, Sparhawk looked at Martel.

"Ah, Sparhawk," the white-haired man drawled urbanely, "so good of you to drop by. We've been expecting you." The words seemed almost casual, but there was the faintest hint of an edge to Martel's voice. He had not expected them to arrive so soon, and he had certainly not expected their sudden rush. He stood with Annias, Arissa and Lycheas within the safety of the ring of spears while Adus encouraged the spearmen with kicks and curses.

"We were in the neighbourhood anyway," Sparhawk shrugged. "How've you been, old boy? You look a bit travel-worn. Was it a difficult journey?"

"Nothing unbearable." Martel inclined his head towards Sephrenia. "Little mother," he said, sounding once again oddly regretful. Sephrenia sighed, but said nothing.

"I see we're all here," Sparhawk continued. "I do so enjoy these little get-togethers, don't you? They give us the chance to reminisce." He looked at Annias, whose subordinate position to Martel was now clearly evident. "You should have stayed in Chyrellos, Your Grace," he said. "You missed all the excitement of the election. Would you believe that the Hierocracy actually put Dolmant on the Archprelate's throne?"

A look of sudden anguish crossed the face of the Primate of Cimmura. "Dolmant?" he choked in a stricken voice. In later years Sparhawk was to conclude that his revenge upon the Primate had been totally complete in that instant. The pain his simple statement had caused his enemy was beyond his ability to comprehend. The life of the Primate of Cimmura crumbled and turned to ashes in that single moment.

"Astonishing, isn't it?" Sparhawk continued relentlessly. "Absolutely the last man anyone would have expected. Many in Chyrellos feel that the hand of God was involved. My wife, the Queen of Elenia - you remember her, don't you? Blonde girl, rather pretty, the one you poisoned made a speech to the Patriarchs just as they were beginning their deliberations. It was she who suggested him. She was amazingly eloquent, but it's generally believed that her speech was inspired by God Himself - particularly in view of the fact that Dolmant was elected unanimously."

"That's impossible!" Annias gasped. "You're lying, Sparhawk!"

"You can verify it for yourself, Annias. When I take you back to Chyrellos, I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to examine the records of the meeting. There's quite a dispute in the works about who's going to have the pleasure of putting you on trial and executing you. It may drag on for years. Somehow you've managed to offend just about everybody west of the Zemoch border. They all want to kill you for some reason."

"You're being just a bit childish, Sparhawk," Martel sneered.

"Of course I am. We all do that sometimes. It's really a shame the sunset was so uninspiring this evening, Martel, since it was the last one you're ever going to see."

"That's true of one of us at any rate."

"Sephrenia." It was a rumbling, deep-toned gurgle more than a voice.

"Yes, Otha?" she replied calmly.

"Bid thy witless little Goddess farewell," the slug-like man on the throne rumbled in antique Elene. His pig-like little eyes were focused now, though his hands still trembled. "Thine unnatural kinship with the Younger Gods draws to its close. Azash awaits thee."

"I rather doubt that, Otha, for I bring the unknown one with me. I found him long before he was born, and I have brought him here with Bhelliom in his fist. Azash fears him, Otha, and you would be wise to fear him too."

Otha sank lower on his throne, his head seeming to retract turtle-like into the folds of his fat neck. His hand moved with surprising speed, and a beam of greenish light shot from it, a light levelled at the small Styric woman. Sparhawk, however, had been waiting for that. He had been holding his shield in both bare hands in a negligent-appearing posture. The blood-red stones of the rings were quite firmly pressed against the shields's steel rim. With practised speed he thrust the shield in front of his tutor. The beam of green light struck the shield and reflected back from its polished surface. One of the armoured guards was suddenly obliterated in a soundless blast that sprayed the throne-room with white-hot fragments of his chain-mail.

Sparhawk drew his sword. "Have we just about finished with all this nonsense, Martel?" he asked bleakly.

"Wish I could oblige, old boy," Martel replied, "but Azash is waiting for us. You know how that goes."

The hammering on the heavy door Tynian and Ulath were guarding grew louder.

"Is that someone knocking?" Martel said mildly. "Be a good fellow, Sparhawk, and see who it is. All that banging sets my teeth on edge."

Sparhawk started forward.

"Take the emperor to safety." Annias barked to the barely-clad brutes squatting near the throne. With practised haste, the men inserted stout steel poles into recesses in the jewelled seat, set their shoulders under the poles and lifted the vast weight of their master from the pedestal-like base of the throne. Then they wheeled with the litter and trotted ponderously towards the arched opening behind the throne.

"Adus!" Martel commanded, "keep them off me!" Then he too turned and herded Annias and his family along in Otha's wake as the brutish Adus pushed forward, flogging at Otha's spear-armed guards with the flat of his sword and bellowing unintelligible orders.

[ ... ]

"Just be careful," he told them, "and I don't want any interference when I go after Martel. All right, let's go." They went to the head of the stairs, paused a moment, then drew in a collective deep breath and marched down with drawn weapons.

"Ah, there you are, old boy," Sparhawk drawled to Martel, deliberately imitating the white-haired renegade's nonchalance, "I've been looking all over for you."

"I was right here, Sparhawk," Martel replied, drawing his sword.

"So I see. I must have been turned around somehow. I hope I didn't keep you waiting."

"Not at all."

"Splendid. I hate being tardy." He looked them over. "Good. I see that we're all here." He looked a bit more closely at the Primate of Cimmura. "Really, Annias, you should try to get more sun. You're as white as a sheet."

"Oh, before you two get started, Martel," Kalten said, "I brought you a present - a little memento of our visit. I'm sure you'll cherish it always." He bent slightly and gave the cloak he was carrying a little flip, holding one edge firmly in his gauntleted fist. The cloak unfurled on the onyx floor. Adus's head rolled out and bounced across to stop at Martel's feet, where it lay staring up at him.

"How very kind of you, Sir Kalten," Martel said from between clenched teeth. Seemingly indifferent, he kicked the head off to one side. "I'm sure that obtaining this gift for me cost you a great deal."

Sparhawk's fist tightened about his sword-hilt, and his brain seethed with hatred. "It cost me Kurik, Martel," he said in a flat voice, "and now it's time to settle accounts."

Martel's eyes widened briefly. "Kurik?" he said in a stunned voice. "I didn't expect that. I'm truly sorry, Sparhawk. I liked him. If you ever get back to Demos, give Aslade my sincerest apologies."

"I don't think so, Martel. I won't insult Aslade by mentioning your name to her. Shall we get on with this?" Sparhawk began to move forward, his shield braced and his sword-point moving slowly back and forth like the head of a snake. Kalten and the others grounded their weapons and stood watching grimly.

"A gentleman to the end, I see," Martel said, putting on his helmet and moving away from Otha's litter to give himself fighting room. "Your good manners and your sense of fair play will be the death of you yet, Sparhawk. You had the advantage. You should have used it."

"I'm not going to need it, Martel. You still have a moment or two for repentance. I'd advise you to use the time well."

Martel smiled thinly. "I don't think so, Sparhawk," he said. "I made my choice. I won't demean myself by changing it now." He clapped down his visor.

They struck simultaneously, their swords ringing on each other's shields. They had trained together under Kurik's instruction as boys, so there was no possibility of some trick or feint giving either of them an opening. They were so evenly matched that there was no way to predict the outcome of this duel which had been a decade and more in the preparation.

Their first strokes were tentative as they- carefully felt each other out, looking for alterations in technique or changes in their relative strength. To the untrained onlooker their hammering at each other might have seemed frenzied and without thought, but that was not the case. Neither of them was so enraged as to overextend himself and leave himself open. Great dents appeared in their shields, and showers of sparks cascaded down over them each time their sword-edges clashed against each other. Back and forth they struggled, moving slowly away from the spot where Otha's jewelled litter sat and where Annias, Arissa and Lycheas stood watching, wide-eyed and breathless. That too was a part of Sparhawk's strategy. He needed to draw Martel away from Otha so that Kalten and the others could menace the bloated emperor. To gain that end, he retreated a few paces now and then when it was not actually necessary, drawing Martel step by step away from his friends.

"You must be getting old, Sparhawk," Martel panted, hammering at his former brother's shield.

"No more than you are, Martel." Sparhawk delivered a massive blow that staggered his opponent.

Kalten, Ulath and Tynian, followed by Berit, who swung Sir Bevier's hideous lochaber, fanned out to advance on Otha and Annias. Slug-like Otha waved one arm, and a shimmering barrier appeared around his litter and Martel's companions. Sparhawk felt the faintest of tingles along the back of his neck, and he knew that Sephrenia was weaving the spell which would block the stairs. He rushed at Martel, swinging his sword as rapidly as he could to so distract the white-haired man that he would not feel that faint familiar sensation which always accompanied the release Of a friend's spell. Sephrenia had trained Martel, and he would know her touch.

The fight raged on. Sparhawk was panting and sweating now, and his sword-arm ached with weariness. He stepped back, lowering his sword slightly in the traditional wordless suggestion that they pause for long enough to get their breath. That suggestion was never considered a sign of weakness.

Martel also lowered his sword in agreement. "Almost like old times, Sparhawk," he panted, pushing open his visor.

"Close," Sparhawk agreed. "You've picked up some new tricks, I see." He also opened his visor.

"I spent too much time in Lamorkand. Lamork swordsmanship is clumsy, though. Your technique seems to be a little Rendorish."

"Ten years of exile there," Sparhawk shrugged, breathing deeply as he tried to regain his wind.

"Vanion would skin both of us if he saw us railing at each other this way."

"He probably would. Vanion's a perfectionist."

"That's God's own truth."

They stood panting and staring intently into each other's eyes, watching for that minuscule narrowing that would preface a surprise blow. Sparhawk could feel the ache slowly draining from his right shoulder. "Are you ready?" he asked finally.

"Any time you are."

They clanged their visors shut again and resumed the fight.

Martel launched a complicated and extended series of sword-strokes. The series was familiar, since it was one of the oldest, and its conclusion was inevitable. Sparhawk moved his shield and his sword in the prescribed defence, but he had known as soon as Martel swung the first stroke that he was going to receive a near-stunning blow to the head. Kurik, however, had devised a modification to the Pandion helmet not long after Martel's expulsion from the order, and when the renegade swung his heavy blow at Sparhawk's head, Sparhawk ducked his chin slightly to take the stroke full on the crest of his helmet - a crest which was now heavily reinforced. His ears rang nonetheless, and his knees buckled slightly. He was, however, able to parry the follow-up stroke which might well have disabled him.

Martel's reactions seemed somehow slower than Sparhawk remembered them as having been. His own blows, he conceded, probably no longer had the crisp snap of youth. They were both older, and an extended duel with a man of equal strength and skill ages one rapidly. Then he suddenly understood, and the action came simultaneously with understanding. He unleashed a series of overhand strokes at Martel's head, and the renegade was forced to protect himself with both sword and shield. Then Sparhawk followed that flurry to the head with the traditional body-thrust. Martel knew it was coming, of course, but he simply could not move his shield rapidly enough to protect himself. The point of Sparhawk's sword crunched into his armour low on the right side of his chest and drove deeply into his body. Martel stiffened, and coughed a great spray of blood out through the slots of his visor. He tried weakly to keep his shield and sword up, but his hands were trembling violently. His legs began to shake. His sword fell from his hand, and his shield dropped to his side. He coughed again, a wet, tearing sound. Blood poured from his visor once more, and he slowly collapsed in a heap, face down. "Finish it, Sparhawk," he gasped. Sparhawk pushed him over onto his back with one foot.

He raised his sword, then lowered it again. He knelt beside the dying man. "There's no need," he said quietly, opening Martel's visor.

"How did you manage that?" Martel asked.

"It's that new armour of yours. It's too heavy. You got tired and started to slow down."

"There's a certain justice there," Martel said, trying to breathe shallowly so that the blood rapidly filling his lungs would not choke him again. "Killed by my own vanity."

"That's probably what kills us all - eventually."

"It was a good fight, though."

"Yes. It was."

"And we finally found out which of us is the best. Perhaps it's the time for truth. I never had any real doubts, you know."

"I did."

Sparhawk knelt quietly, listening to Martel's breathing growing shallower and shallower. "Lakus died, you know," he said quietly, "and Olven."

"Lakus and Olven? I didn't know that. Was I in any way responsible?"

"No. It was something else."

"That's some small comfort anyway. Could you call Sephrenia for me, Sparhawk? I'd like to say goodbye to her."

Sparhawk raised his arm and motioned to the woman who had trained them both.

Her eyes were full of tears as she knelt across Martel's body from Sparhawk. "Yes, dear one?" she said to the dying man.

"You always said I'd come to a bad end, little mother," Martel said wryly, his voice no more than a whisper now, "but you were wrong. This isn't so bad at all. It's almost like a formal deathbed. I get to depart in the presence of the only two people I've ever really loved. Will you bless me, little mother?"

She put her hands to his face and spoke gently in Styric. Then, weeping, she bent and kissed his pallid forehead.

When she raised her face again, he was dead.