(A sample chapter from the Arthurian tale The Killing Sword.)
© 2011 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
XVII. The Last Trial
THEN BEFORE HIM Balyn saw come riding out of a stone tower a knight and his horse all of red trappings, and himself in the same color. And the red knight seemed twice Balyn’s height, and his horse twice the stature of Balyn’s horse. For that was the weird of that island.
The Red Knight hailed him and Balyn answered.
‘Will you fight,’ asked the Red Knight. ‘For I know of no knight that comes to this Island but to fight.’
And Balyn answered him courteously and said, ‘Sir, it seems that you have done a great wrong to the lady that bides in the castle. So I am here as the lady of the castle has bidden me, as her defender and avenger.’
‘Your voice is hoarse, and I may hardly tell what you say,’ said the Red Knight. ‘But I know that lady is the foulest and lewdest lady in the land, and if you are her slave then I will gladly fight you to the death.’
And so they braced their spears and came marvelously fast together, and they smote each other’s shields. But their onset was so great that it bore down horse and man, and both lay senseless on the ground.
Balyn was weary of travail, and he held still to let the other come at him and slay him if he could.
So the Red Knight was the first that rose on foot. He drew his sword and went toward Balyn. And Balyn stood to face him, and the Red Knight struck at him.
Balyn put up his shield, but the stroke crashed through his shield and helm.
Then Balyn’s wrath woke in him, and he struck back with that unhappy Sword and well nigh had felled the Red Knight.
And so they fought there together till their breath failed.
Then Balyn looked up to the castle and saw the stand full of ladies. The lord of the castle walked not up there, but the lady and her gentlewomen leaned over the stones and gaped at the battle. And Balyn was minded of his old vow to her, when he had won the enchanted Sword from her, that he would do all he could to right her wrong.
So he went to battle again with the Red Knight, and they wounded each other dolefully.
And then they breathed at times, and went back into battle, and breathed again, so that all the ground where they fought was blood red.
And in the end they had smitten each other seven great wounds so that the least of them might have been the death of the mightiest giant in this world.
‘Yield you,’ said the Red Knight.
‘While the lady of the castle watches,’ answered Balyn, ‘I will not yield. And yet I hope for no life after this.’ But more he couldn’t say, for his throat was raw from the bitter milk of the breasts of the Naked Damsel, that was the lady of the castle.
So they went to battle again and fought so marvelously that the gentlewomen on the castle walls withdrew from sight of all that blood shedding. But the lady of the castle abided, and watched each wound and cut. By then their hauberks were burst and broken open, so that they were naked on every side.
At last the Red Knight withdrew him a little and laid him down.
Then said Balyn the Wild, ‘What knight are you? For before now I never found a knight that matched me.’
‘My name is,’ said the Red Knight, ‘Balan, brother unto the good knight Balyn.’
‘Alas,’ said Balyn, ‘that ever I should see this day. I am that same knight.’ He knew at last his brother’s voice and stance in battle. And therewith he fell back in a swoon.
Then Balan went on all four feet and hands and put off the helm of his brother. Even so he might not know him by the visage, it was so hewn and bloody.
‘Are you my brother indeed?’ he asked.
But Balyn opened his eyes and said, ‘O Balan my brother, you have slain me and I you, wherefore all the wide world shall speak of us both.’
‘Alas,’ said Balan, ‘that ever I saw this day that through mishap I might not know you. For I saw well your two swords, but because you had another shield I deemed you had been another knight.’
‘Alas,’ said Balyn, ‘all that was put upon me by an unhappy knight in the castle. For he caused me to leave my own shield to both our destructions. And if I might live I would destroy that castle for ill customs.’
‘That were well done,’ said Balan. ‘For I had never grace to depart from them since that I came hither. For here it happened that I slew the knight that kept this Island, and since then I might never depart; and no more should you brother, and you might have slain me as you have and escaped yourself with life.’
Then the lady of the castle with four knights and six ladies and six yeomen came unto them and there she heard how they made their moan either to other and said, ‘We came both out of one tomb: that is to say one mother’s belly. And so shall we lie both in one pit.’
So Balyn prayed the Naked Damsel of her gentleness that she would bury them both in that same place where the battle was done.
And she granted it with weeping. ‘It should be done richly in the best manner, Knight of Two Swords. Did I not tell you Balyn,’ she said, ‘that this sword would prove your death and cause you to slay your best friend in the world? And yet this same man was my worst enemy. And he was as well my brother.’
