several inches, the barbed end of his lance careening wildly off the Wolf’s angled shield.
On each successive pass the crowd cheered louder. Each crash of horseflesh, steel, and raw power sent ribbons of silk waving madly over heads and pale, trembling hands clutching over hearts. The Wolf warded off devastating blows to his chest and shoulders; the Dragon shook off crushing thrusts to ribs, shoulders, and thighs. Neither rode as straight or as steady as they had during the first run, but neither showed signs of conceding. They were tiring, however, and weakening. Even their horses were taking longer strides to turn and recoup for the next charge.
Three … five … seven passes! Unbelievable! The crowd was on its feet, stunned by the display of courage and strength.
The horses converged again, their mouths flecked with foam and blood, their eyes round and wild with fighting madness. When the clash came, the lances locked again and the knights were driven together, neither one willing to give ground, not even when the animals beneath them reared and thrashed and pounded the dividing palisade into a heap of split kindling. Shields hammered into one another and the two knights abandoned their saddles, eager to bring the fight to closer contact.
Into the choking dust and flying debris was added the deadly glitter of longswords. Within a grinding maelstrom of screaming, pawing horses, their blades hacked and slashed at vulnerable areas of back, neck, shoulder, arm, and thigh. Links were shattered and rivets torn apart; plates of armour were dented, loosened and sliced away by the fury of killing thrusts. Splashes of sweat and blood began to spatter the ground; a thigh was sliced, an arm cut, shields were thrown away and swords gripped in both hands as an end drew inevitably nearer.
The Dragon took a staggering blow to the side of his helm and felt himself reel sideways into a shifting mass of horseflesh. The Wolf pursued and was on him in the next instant, throwing the full brunt of his weight into the effort needed to bring his adversary to the ground. With the roar of the crowd’s bloodlust in his ears, he succeeded. He heard the Dragon’s breath wrenched from his lungs on a curse of agony as the two landed solidly on the torn earth, then a further curse of outraged disbelief as the Wolf drove the point of his sword into the narrow gap between the Dragon’s helm and gorget.
His chest heaving and his lungs scalded from lack of air, the Wolf exerted enough pressure on his sword to convince his brother to freeze where he lay. His wounds stung and his muscles screamed in pain; the scarred flesh of his shoulder, back, and ribs demanded vengeance, swift and sure. Etienne’s visor had been jolted loose in the fall, and the wild, pale blue eyes that stared up at him in disbelieving terror were the same cold blue eyes that had once stared down in triumph at the broken and bleeding body he had left to rot in the desert sun.
“Why?” Lucien demanded. “Just tell me why you did it, Etienne!”
The Dragon’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “Forgive me, Lucien. I beg you, forgive me.”
“What? What did you say?”
The Dragon gasped, braced for death. “Forgive me. The truth is … I am relieved to finally be free of the guilt I have carried with me all these years. Carried it, hated it, loathed the envy and jealousy that drove me to commit such a heinous act. You were my brother, Lucien, and I killed you. I do not blame you for doing this—”
“Blame me?” the Wolf snarled. “Blame me? I will die a happy man knowing you do not blame me, you soulless bastard!”
The sword moved forward and Etienne sucked a last breath through his teeth. Their eyes were locked together, blue merging with gray, gray with blue until each became a part of the other. Memories, unbidden and unwanted, struck with the swiftness of a second blade—memories of a lifetime ago, of happy times and shared laughter. For one unsettling moment, the Wolf suffered an image of the two of them practicing at a quintain, their youthful arms barely strong enough to lift a lance let alone aim it at the centre of the fixed target.
“You were my brother and I loved you!” the Wolf cried. “I would have shared it all willingly with you!”
“All but the name, Lucien,” the Dragon whispered. “Mine would always have been bastard.”