Private The Bride's Gift Is Blood

The light was slanting. The afternoon sun bronze and thick, heavy as whiskey. The sun was beginning to dip behind the high hill where the High Lord's pavilion sat fat and gilded like a wedding cake, its banners snapping in the breeze; gold on ivy. Dust curled in the still air of the tournament field. Somewhere in the north part of the encampment, beneath the silver-and-wisteria banners of House Springdale, a small bard troupe plucked out a tune on strings gone slack in the heat. Somewhere on the field, a herald was rehearsing the full weight of the names he would be shouting soon, mumbling through the tongue-twisting surnames. Farther down the lane, servants carried platters of cut fruit and watered wine to lords who would only watch, not bleed.

The air was ripe with the scent of horses, oiled leather, pine pitch, and the heavy sweetness of the mead being boiled in cauldrons by the beer stands. From somewhere nearby came the muffled grunt and clatter of steel meeting steel, squires sparring, too eager or too nervous to wait.

Etain’s pavilion stood near the edge of the grounds. The breeze tugged gently at the corners of her pavilion, striped white and blue canvas trimmed in pale thread. The knightess sat just outside her pavilion, elbows on her knees, sharpening the edge of her sword with slow, even strokes. Not because it needed it, but the rhythm steadied her. Polished steel glinted in her lap.One knight to her right was vomiting behind a barrel, his squire patiently holding back his black hair. Her squire Banric was in the tent behind her. He was sorting through the laces of her gambeson, shaking out the sleeves where the wool had clumped. The boy’s cheeks were red with the heat. “I think they’ll call for formation soon, Syr.” he said.

“Well... then let’s make ready to disappoint a few drunk wagers.” she said. Etain leaned back slightly in her chair, stretching one leg out, heel pressed into the dry soil. She rose to her feet, and Banric moved at once. First, he lifted the padded gambeson from its hook and held it out for her. She slipped her arms through the sleeves without a word. Then came the chainmail, heavy, cold, and familiar. Thus began the ritual of fastening her armor piece by piece.

The last buckle was fastened. Banric stepped back, hands smudged with oil and leather balm. His eyes fixed on her with the anxious reverence of a boy who believed armor made one invincible. Etain rolled one shoulder, testing the weight. The steel sat well. Tight where it needed to be, light where they could afford. She gave her gauntlets a testing flex, felt the joints hold. All was ready.

Banric stepped forward and held out the sword, its edge blunted and dull for the crowd’s sake. She took it without ceremony, fingers closing around the hilt like it weighed less than nothing. She glanced down at it and muttered. “Blunted swords. What a bloody joke... Like fighting with sticks."

Branric swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbed nervously on his slender neck. "Yes, Syr."

Etain stepped out from beneath the shadow of her pavilion. Her helm she carried in the crook of one arm, fingers drumming once along the vizor. The plume atop her helmet was a simple spray of ostrich feathers; half deep cobalt, half white. The ground was warm beneath her boots, the grass trampled flat into the earth. Around her, other knights had begun their approach from their own tents. Some flanked by banners and retainers, others alone.

Colors moved like bruises in the wind. Silver and jade. Ochre and crimson. Blue veined with gold. And there, just ahead, cutting a path toward the waiting marshals, was a figure clad in black. No sigils, no colors. Etain watched them for a moment. “Black’s a bold choice. Not the colors of any house I know...” she smirked. “What’s your name, shadow?”

Etain slowed her steps, just enough to shift her weight and give the speaker a proper look. Her eyes flicked over the trio without ceremony. First the woman introducing herself as Agatha, then the two others flanking her. “Tourney’s a poor place to stay nameless.” Though people tend to forgot everyone but the winner and the fool.

At the word “peacock,” her brow lifted. “Peacock?” She huffed a short laugh. “That’s a new one." She adjusted the helm under her arm, the blue and white plume twitching in the wind.

“Etain” she said plainly. “And yeah. D’Aramond. Most bannerless don’t know a bloodline from a couple of feathers. Good eye." The crowd had swelled. The spectators gathered like flies to honey, pressing against the wooden rails, eager for a good spot. Banners snapped in the rising wind. The field spread before them wide, flat, and uneven. The hoofprints from the joust had been raked. Only a few broken stubs of torn grass were left swaying. There were its and bits to find from the joust earlier, a couple of broken lance heads, torn leather straps, bloodstains and maybe even a tooth or two?

Everything looked glorious from a distance. Up close, it stank of horseshit and sweat.

“See you on the field then, Agatha.” Etain strode toward the line forming near the southern edge of the melee grounds. Branric kept close behind, his breath quick. They passed under the marshal’s banner. A man with a scroll called names.

Etain’s head turned slightly when Agatha spoke, just enough to let her know she’d been heard. The proposal made sense. At least for the opening rounds, could keep a few blades out of her back. “Fine by me,” she said.

Banric was weaving his way through the mass of armor and nerves. The squire approached, face flushed from the heat, the stress from all his errands this morning and the excitement of the tournament. He held the shield out like a relic, blue and white coat painted, the crest of d’Aramond crisp on the wood. Without a word, he buckled the shield tight to Etain’s arm. His hands fumbled slightly, either from nerves or adrenaline. Etain gave him a grunt of thanks. Good enough. The squire grabbed the helmet from her while Etain dipped her upper body slightly so he could slip it on her head.

When her name rang out across the field, she stepped forward into the sun, sword in hand, and raised it high above her head. The steel caught the light of the sinking sun. She met the cheers with blade to sky. Then she lowered it. Slow and precise. And with a hard pivot of her arm, she pointed the blade across the field directly at Ser Albrecht of Venhold. Come and try me, pretender. The crowd roared, some in shock, some in glee. Coins were quickly tossed into bets.

"Captain Agatha, of the Blackshield Company!"

Etain’s head turned slightly and smirked behind the visor. The knight raised her shield, gave it a few thunks with the flat of her blade to fill the voids in the applause. Soon after the herald had introduced Agatha the pair of buisine sounded. A heartbeat later, the field cracked open like a nest of hornets. Fighters surged forward, steel ringing, boots churning up the sand. Cheers rolled down the gallery like thunder.

Etain caught the first blow on her shield, the jolt running down her arm like a hammer strike. Blunt steel sparked like the hit flint. She knew him. “Ser Silvain!” she barked from inside the helm. “Still swinging like your arms are tied to your arse!” She twisted, deflected the second with the flat of her blade, but the third was too fast and too close. It glanced off her pauldron and forced her to give ground.

Three on one.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t honorable. It was typical.

She snarled behind her visor, teeth bared as she shoved one attacker back with a grunt and a hard slam of steel to steel. They kept coming. She’d fought in worse odds. One of the knights slammed into her side. She turned with the hit, barely staying on her feet, vision narrowing behind the slit of her helm. Another blade rang off her backplate, then the edge of her helm. Her heel caught in a rut, and the two of them went down in a crash of armor and dust.

They hit hard, shoulder, back, hip. Her shield arm wedged awkwardly between their bodies, and his gauntlet went for her throat, uselessly skidding off the forget. It turned into a grapple. She growled and slammed her forehead into the side of his helm, hard enough to ring both their bells. Etain twisted, heaved, and they rolled through the dirt. She dropped her sword. She ended up atop the other knight for a heartbeat, half-blinded by her own helmet and sweat. The knight twisted beneath her, trying to buck her off.

She braced a knee on his belly, grabbed the rim of his helm, and slammed her gauntleted fist into the side of it. Once. Twice.
The third strike dented the cheek plate. He groaned, head lolling. The fourth drove the fight out of him entirely. He twitched. Etain grabbed her blade and surged to her feet, then the second knight came in silent. She twisted, caught the edge of it with her shield just in time. Steel shrieked past her shoulder. Too close for comfort. "Fuck!" She turned with the momentum and met him face-to-face.

His sword came down again, wild and hard, and she caught it on the rim of her shield. The force drove her back a step. Her boots churned the trampled grass. He was faster than the first. Smarter too... waited until she was busy, until she was tired.

Didn’t matter.

She baited a high strike, twisted inside his guard, and slammed the edge of her shield into his throat. He choked and half-stepped back. Dizzy and tired, she turned, slow and stiff, scanning the chaos after the third one, the yellow-green asshole. Her sword half-lowered.

'Still standing, I see!'
Etain snorted under her helmet. "Barely." Her pulse still thudding.

The crowd around them surged with noise, drunk on spectacle. Men and women roared at every crash of steel. Somewhere, a boy had lost three teeth. Which sent two greedy jesters out onto the field to try to steal the teeth. They weren’t fools. Not exactly. This was tradition. Sport. The crowd loved it. That kind of memorabilia usually sold for a good price afterwards. Bells jingled like broken wind chimes.

She turned slightly, giving the field a glance, not to admire banners. No, she was measuring the flow of the chaos, the gaps in the line. A twitch of movement in her periphery that meant danger. A shadow shifted.

“On your left.”
Two new figures pushed through the melee dust. One bore a longsword in both hands, his tabard in the colors of House Springdale, the other carried a mace and shield. Colors half-lost beneath the grime but clearly some lesser house.
“Those bastards don’t look chatty.”

The mace came down, and Etain met it with her shield. The shock sang through her bones, boots skidding a half-step in the churned earth. She shifted, blade rising again to guard. Her shoulder still ached from the last clash. Another exchange, brutal and fast. Axe caught on her shoulder-plate. She returned with a slash across the man’s thigh that cracked metal and made him hiss.

One red-faced jester, bald beneath his jester’s cap, found the boy’s teeth. Three small, white trophies nestled in a smear of blood and muck. He grinned, dropped to a knee, and reached out...

And never saw the knight coming. A knight in black and silver crashed past in a sideways stumble, locked in vicious combat. His opponent’s blow missed its mark and caught the jester instead. A downward stroke, blunted but still moving fast enough to split a helm.

It did.

The jester’s cap burst like a rotten fruit. A wet crack, a flap of scalp flinging free in a sudden arc of red. The jester slumped like a rag doll among splinters of broken lances and trampled banners, one bloodstained tooth still clutched in his hand. The crowd howled louder.

'Those bastards don't look chatty.'
Agatha hummed in not-quite-agreement. 'How can you tell?'

The duo struck before she garnered a response; longswords clashed and the dance began anew. House Springdale. Old sponsor. Once upon a time, not too long ago, in fact, they had stood in the same battleline, shared the same enemy. How quickly things change, thought the Captain, deflecting a downward strike with her gauntlet as she punched out with the other. Metal screeched as it was scored. Agatha's fist found its mark.

Pressing in, she slashed and struck, parrying where applicable. Even blunted, her blade tore through the fabric of her opponent's tabard, snagging momentarily in the folds. Her helm rang from a blow she hadn't seen coming, and they parted, swords levelled, sweat stinging their eyes.

A fool's blood joined the scatter of sundered rings and sodden grass. Bits of bone fragment mixed with teeth. The second jester, cowed by his fellow's demise, still found the time to scoop them up as he scarpered, head down and hunting for a way out.

The knights paid the new-made corpse no never mind. What was one more body amongst several yet to crawl their way off the field? One more dead fool yet to be buried?

The crowd crowed, and the ground shook with their excitement, dozens upon dozens jumping or stomping their feet, each as frenzied as the next. They did not hear the tubicen sounding, and neither did the combatants. Not until the persistent braying brought them all back to their senses.

Breathing hard, Agatha separated from her foe, pulse pounding in her ears. A nod passed between the two warriors, and she glanced around, hoping to take stock of the situation. Her blade wavered as her gaze found Etain, settling there a moment as Banric, Mender and Callous rushed over to tend to them, albeit briefly.

'Knew I made the right call bettin' on you, Cap'n!' Callous remarked, passing Agatha a waterskin as Mender ran a few checks on her armour. The she-orc smiled, took a swig to wash the blood from her mouth. 'Top five, you said.' Her smile twisted, turned to a grin. 'You should know better than to bet against the Company, Cal. And if you do so happen to forget, at least make sure to put your money on this one here,' she said, pointing her sword at Etain.

'Fights like a Blackshield, so she does!' Agatha winked. 'It'll be a shame when we finally go toe-to-toe. Real shame.'

At last, with the horn’s final blare echoing in her ears, she froze where she stood, breath heaving inside her helm, sword still held ready. She let the sword drop and lifted both gauntleted hands and unlatched her helmet. She pulled it free and let out a long breath, though the air wasn’t much cooler out of it.

“About fucking time.” Her voice rasped from a dry throat. A familiar shape broke through the edge of the field, Banric, boots skidding, hair wild, waterskin in hand. The padded arming cap clung to her scalp, darkened with sweat. She paused, then yanked that off too. Her hair plastered to her face, strands clinging along her jaw and neck.

He reached her, panting, and held up the waterskin like an offering. Etain didn’t make the squire wait. At last, she shook out her hair, tossing the soaked arming cap into the squire's hands without looking. She drained the waterskin half in three long pulls, and then poured the rest straight over her head, letting the cold water sluice down her face and neck.

“That all you brought?” Banric blinked and stammered. “N-no, Ser. I...I have a flask...”

Then, blinking water from her lashes, she looked out over the field. Etain raised her helmet faintly in one hand as acknowledgment to Agatha.

“Like a Blackshield, hm?" Etain rolled her shoulder. "Suppose there are worse things to be called.”

"It'll be a shame when we finally go toe-to-toe. Real shame."
“Shame? Maybe. Depends if you’re worth the bruises.” Etain said with a wry pull at the corner of her mouth.

The jest landed, and the Blackshields chuckled in response. 'Speaks like one, too,' said Mender, sparing the maid a cursory glance before turning back to Agatha. Callous was less hasty. 'I like 'er already,' he said it loud, so there was no doubting his word. As if he actually meant them. 'Wearin' the wrong colours, mind,' he continued, palming his chin thoughtfully as he looked Etain up and down, eyes flitting briefly to the nervous Banric.

'Ain't no wrong colours when they share the same enemy.' Agatha interjected, quenching her thirst with a raised waterskin. The dulled longsword in her hand called to her, and she anointed the blade, too.

A droplet broke upon her muddied boot as she passed the skin back to Mender, glanced around.

Fourteen down, ten to go. Medics and squires tended to downed knights; some hobbled from the field whilst others were borne away on stretchers. Besides the capering fool who'd had his skull dashed, there had been only one other fatality: a hedge knight wearing a halved blue-and-yellow tabard, throat crushed, aventail split by the bite of a blunted axe.

The man who had killed him stood not a dozen yards away. He watched as hedge knight's squire helped carry the body away. Agatha saw the way he smiled to himself, like no-one else was watching. Figures hers wasn't the only score to settle.

'They'll be recommencing soon,' said Mender, drawing Agatha back into the moment. 'Ser Albrecht still stands, as do his sycophants.'

'I'd best do something about it, then.' Fingers flexing, the Blackshield glanced towards where her enemy waited. At least we have the sun to our backs, she thought, bumping fists with her friends as they hurried from the field. Sweat trickled down her back. Muscles she didn't know she had ached as she worked some life into her feet.

'Eight left,' she told Etain, meeting the taller woman's gaze with her own. 'Plus you and I, that's ten. Figure once we're down to the last five, we go our separate ways, and see how things pan out.' For all her light-hearted banter, Agatha did not wish to cross swords with her. Of all the combatants, Etain was the only one who'd given her the time of day, let alone deigned to fight alongside her.

A mercenary and a D'Aramond. Who woulda thought?

'Does that work for you, friend?'

Etain gave no sign she’d heard the comment from Mender. The blunted sword balanced lazily against her hip, she was watching the field as if the Blackshields weren’t even there. Banric, though, wasn’t half as made of iron. His gaze flicked nervously toward Mender, then down to the dirt, then back again, throat bobbing as he swallowed.

Etain wiped a knuckle across her brow, smearing sweat and dust across her forehead. Her gaze flicked over the field, then back to Agatha. Her gaze slid toward Ser Albrecht standing smug and untouched beyond the tangle of bodies and scattered steel. The sweat dripped from her jaw as she waited, the battered weight of her sword hanging idle in one hand.

“What’s he done?” Her voice was low, curious. “To you. Or yours?” Etain let the waterskin dangle loose in her grip, while Banric uncorked a wine bottle. “Or should I just assume he’s breathing, and that’s reason enough?” She turned slightly to Agatha, enough to meet her eye. Just a well-founded question: Why do you want to do damage?

“I’ll loosen him up for you." She shifted her weight with a faint clatter of mail under plate, glancing back toward Albrecht. “No charge.” She looked back at the sell-swords smirking.

“Deal works for me.”
And that was that.

The squire stood waiting like a dog at heel, the bottle uncorked and held up in both hands without a word. Etain took it without a glance. She grabbed it, tipped it back. Two quick gulps. Dry, thin wine washed the dust from her throat. Barely touched the thirst. Then the horn sounded. She lowered the bottle, breath sharp through her nose. Banric’s eyes darted stressed between her and the field as she drank, waiting. “Ser...!” He knew what it meant. Around them, the other squires were already scrambling from the field.

The second horn sounded.

“Fuck.”
No time.

Banric thrust her helmet down at her feet in a panicked half-bow, then bolted after the others. Etain kept drinking. Red wine spilling down her chin as she drained what she could. She glanced sideways, just in time to see a knight charging. With no better option, she hurled the wine bottle. It spun end over end, and struck the poor bastard knight dead on the helmet. Wine and glass scattered, crimson staining the trampled earth. He stumbled, flinching, momentarily blind.

Etain grabbed her helmet from the dirt, slammed it down over her head with a clatter of metal.