At noon, in a wide green meadow on the lush tableland that was the top of the impossibly-balanced Wyrmberg, the dragons and their riders formed a wide circle. There was room beyond them for a rabble of servants and slaves and others who scratched a living here on the roof of the world, and they were all watching the figures clustered in the centre of the grassy arena.
The group contained a number of senior dragon lords, and among them were Lio!rt and his brother Liartes. The former was still rubbing his legs, with Small grimaces of pain. Slightly to one side stood Liessa and Hrun, with some of the woman’s own followers. Between the two factions stood the Wyrmberg’s hereditary Loremaster.
“As you know,” he said uncertainly, “the not-fully-late Lord of the Wyrmberg, Greicha the First, has stipulated that there will be no succession until one of his children feels himself - or as it might be, herself - powerful enough to challenge and defeat his or her siblings in mortal combat.”
“Yes”, yes, we know all that. Get on with it,” said a thin peevish voice from the air beside him.
The loremaster swallowed. He had never come to terms with his former master’s failure to expire properly. Is the old buzzard dead or isn’t he? he wondered.
“It is not certain,” he quavered, “whether it is allowable to issue a challenge by proxy-“
“It is, it is,” snapped Greicha’s disembodied voice. “It shows intelligence. Don’t take all day about it.”
“I challenge you,” said Hrun, glaring at the brothers, “both at once.”
Lio!rt and Liartes exchanged looks.
“You’ll fight us both together?” said Liartes, a tall, wiry man with long black hair.
“Yah.”
“That’s pretty uneven odds, isn’t it?”
“Yah. I outnumber you one to two.”
Lio!rt scowled. “You arrogant barbarian-“
“That just about does it,” growled Hrun. “I’ll-“
The Loremaster put out a blue-veined hand to restrain him.
“It is forbidden to fight on the Killing Ground,” he said, and paused while he considered the sense of this. “You know what I mean, anyway,” he hazarded, giving up, and added “As the challenged parties my lords Lio!rt and Liartes have choice of weapons.”
“Dragons,” they said together. Liessa snorted.
“Dragons can be used offensively, therefore they are weapons,” said Lio!rt firmly. “if you disagree we can fight over it.”
“Yah,” said his brother, nodding at Hrun.
The Loremaster felt a ghostly finger prod him in the chest “Don’t stand there with your mouth open,” said Greicha’s graveyard voice.
“Just hurry up, will you?”
Hrun stepped back, shaking his head.
“Oh no,” he said. “Once was enough. I’d rather be dead than fight on one of those things.”
“Die, then,” said the Loremaster, as kindly as he could manage.
Lio!rt and Liartes were already striding back across the turf to where the servants stood waiting with their mounts. Hrun turned to Liessa. She shrugged.
“Don’t I even get a sword?” he pleaded. “A knife, even?”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t expect this.” She suddenly looked smaller, all defiance gone. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”