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shield! Holding the heavy shield high to cover his head as well as his upper
body, he angled the face of it to the left.
There was a sickening impact, and the point of the knight s lance shot past
him on his left. Gorp collided with the other horse and knocked the lighter
animal to the ground, with its rider still in the saddle.
The knight pulled himself loose from his steed just in time to avoid being
pinned as it fell, staggered to his feet looking dazed, and pulled his sword
by what must have been more reflex than anything else.
The collision had brought Gorp to a standstill, however, and Jim had profited
by the time that gave him to get his own sword out first. From the advantage
of the height of Gorp s saddle, he hesitated for only a fraction of a second
before, wincing but desperate, he brought the edge of it down with all his
strength-again as Brian had taught him-on the side of the knight s simple,
old-fashioned helm, which had only a steel nasal bar to protect his face.
The steel head covering was proof against the edge of Jim s sword; but the
padding between helm and head in the era this armor came from was nothing to
write home about. The knight dropped.
He came to within seconds. But Jim was already off Gorp s back and had the
point of his weapon at the other s throat.
 Yield, damn you! he panted, without stopping to think that this was hardly
the chivalrous way to ask a fellow knight to surrender.
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The knight made a sudden, convulsive move to squirm sideways from under the
sword point, but by that time, Jim was on his knees, this time with the sword
edge against his opponent s throat.
 I yield me, gentle knight, said the other.  Never in all my life have I
been bested-nor thought I could be-so swiftly. You are one of great prowess.
Though, if my steed had not fallen, perhaps-but such talk is idle. I pray your
mercy; which I have never given the knight in no such work of arms, myself,
and which you will refuse, of course.
 That need not be, said Jim, now remembering the proper way to talk in such
situations,  for you on your part are better than anyone else I have ever met
in such a wayside bicker as this. I grant you your life-on one condition only.
That is that you swear upon your honor to immediately take to wife that maiden
I see yonder, if indeed she it is whom you love.
 That will I, and gladly, said the knight.  For this day sees the hope
fulfilled which I had given up long since. Yet do I repent me that fought so
poorly as to be defeated.
 Don t blame yourself, said Jim.  It just chances that of all knights now
alive, I happen to be the only one who was not born on this earth.
 And is this so? The knight leaped up. His sword was still in his hand, but
he threw it from him and clasped Jim in a rib-threatening embrace.  Then my
curse is broken and I will be a happy man all the rest of my days. Ye are my
savior and I and my family-to-be will never cease from blessing your name.
Pray tell it me.
Jim felt the cold hand of a reasonless caution on the back of his neck.
Certainly it ought to do no harm to mention his name. Still, he hesitated.
 Alas, he said,  I m forbidden to tell anyone that. But you can think of me
as the Knight-Dragon-and now I ve got to keep going.
 Farewell and Godspeed, then, Sir Knight-Dragon, said the knight, turning to
hurry to the maiden, who-seeing him come-began to hurry to him. Jim picked up
his own lance and remounted Gorp, and felt a sudden small pressure at his
back.
 I am with you again, my Lord, Hob said.
 Welcome back, said Jim. He looked over his shoulder as he rode off with the
sumpter horse nodding along behind him at the end of the lead rope again. The
knight and the maiden were entwined in each other s arms; and it looked to Jim
as if both of them were now weeping-happily, he trusted.
It was not until they were lost to sight behind him in the forest that it
occurred to Jim why he had been right in avoiding the telling of his name. Any
magic-maker gained a certain amount of power over another simply by
discovering that one s right name; and Morgan le Fay, who could be watching
him in the Lyonesse equivalent of a scrying glass, right now, was most
certainly a magic-maker who, by simply knowing he was in Lyonesse and a
beginning magician, knew too much about him already.
His thoughts moved to different possible dangers.
 Hob, he said,  you mentioned other people we d meet on our way out of this
wood. How many more of them do we still have to run into; and what are they
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like?
 Oh, just two, my Lord. That is, only two important people. One will be a
great black horse; and he will have a bad-tempered little man with him. The
other is a poor little bird tied to the limb of a tree; and with her a plant
that squeaks and squawks so loudly you can hear it a long way before you see
it. It says it knows you, m Lord. It has big, drooping green leaves; and it
said it had told you its name, but you were impolite and didn t tell it yours.
It wanted me to tell it what your name was; but it commanded me to tell,
instead of just asking, so I wouldn t.
 Good, said Jim. He realized that he should have thought of this before.
 Don t tell anyone my name, Hob, while we re here. Will you remember not to do
that?
 Oh, yes, my Lord. I never forget anything.
They rode on. That is to say, Jim rode on, Hob flew on, Gorp and the sumpter
horse paced forward. Jim, however, was not thinking of those with him. His
mind was occupied with the fact that he had been extraordinarily lucky to come
out safe and sound from his combat with the knight-to say nothing of winning.
It had been that one piece of advice from Brian on fourteenth-century
weapon-handling, plus the advantage of Gorp s size and weight, that had
brought him through it unharmed.
He must do some thinking, he told himself, about how to avoid such fights
from now on. This Forest Dedale seemed to be a place of adventures right out
of the original legends about King Arthur and his Knights. Almost anyone else
he encountered most likely would not only be thoroughly trained in using
weapons, but powerful with them, as a result of frequent use. In a fair and
even combat with an opponent like that, he probably wouldn t stand a chance of
coming out alive.
If he could only stay alive long enough to find Brian, he might stand more of
a chance. Meanwhile, what he was going to need was an all-purpose good excuse
for not fighting...
 There they are, m Lord! chirped Hob at his right ear.
 Already? They had just reached the open fringe of trees bordering a clear
area on the side of what could be called either a large stream or a small
river. The remarkable thing about this stream, however, was that its waters
seemed to be racing along at a speed Jim guessed to be around thirty miles an
hour. In level country, how could it have built up such a speed-the race of a
high mountain stream throwing itself down a precipitous slope?
Magic again! thought Jim, with immediate suspicion-but a second thought
reminded him that the magic energy required to move such a volume of water
continuously had to be mind-boggling. One way would be to remodel the
countryside to create a high altitude farther up the river; but for such a
speed, that higher ground would have to be very high, and very near. But he
could see no sign of a hill or mountain upstream, looming over the treetops
there.
Something else was at work here besides magic-figure that out later. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]