A Castrovel Adventure: Part 3, Chapter 33

In which Vaeol makes a dreadful wager with Kazos, the Korasha Clanhead of the Sholasa.

From the Daylog of Vaeol-Zheieveil u’Zhasaele Zolaemaue be’Son

10. Vealae, 24,542 - 8th Day at Elfring Dale [continued from Chapter 32...]
...Kazos did a kindliness by setting a tentfly for his headwives while we built a fire at the glade’s midst, which soon hissed under the drizzle. After all was done, both Kazos and I stood forth, weaponless but aharness, antennae still, the firestead between us, sizzling.
Kazos first asked whether we meant peace or war. I answered it outstayed sight, for I needed his answer on whether they would peacefully meet the Elves. I told the other clans had already yaysaid, and the Sholasa alone stood for war. He spoke he recked not other clans. I said back it was an ill thing he recked so little of his own clan. Haughtily he answered he knew best for them, but rather I should forelook to mine. I answered back my troop understands our purpose, the other clans and the Elves had almost reached peace, and all that outstayed was the Sholasa’s threat. One wise or another, that threat would end here.
While we spoke, I could read Kazos’s thoughts running. He understood he had forelost any warfare against the Elves, though maybe not with us. Still he reckoned he might gain behoof, sunderly to save worth before his headwives and warriors. So I was not forecaught when he said that no good mind should behold our warriors fighting each other. Instead, he put forth we should settle this thing doomworthily, in the old wise: he would dare to fight alone, against me if I wished, forwhy he had heard great tales of Outriders and their deeds. Yet in them he put little faith, for he rather reckoned Outriders are but slight cityborn maidens who ride well in pretty byrnies. If I would withhold, he added, he would let me name a champion in my stead, and moreover, as his goodwill’s show we should fight weaponless, but barehand.
I felt my warriors’ stir behind me, but unminded. I answered I would happily take his dare to settle this feud worthily.
Yet then Kazos added we must first set the bet's stakes. If I win, he foreyielded, his clan the Sholasa would stand down and make truce with the Elves. Yet if he win, he warned, then the clans must uphold his warfare against the Elves. Moreover, he added, as a huge grin split his face, since outriders are maiden, he dearly loved the thought of putting a babe in my slim belly.
The shock that smote after his foreword matched only the wrath from the minds behind me. Even the Clanheads, nevermind my flagmates, were shaken. Not only did this Korasha, this man, so boldly lead a clan, but would besmirch a Damaya, and even a besworn maiden, against my will. This shamelessness offthanked all couthness and all worth Lashunta endear. It so outstood that none could wordfully answer.
Kazos, however, recked not our shameful wrath but still stood forth, maddening grin bright. I minded the four Sholasa housewives, with two bechild, arear him. Their faces showed empty, but why? Had they paid this same dearth for their rank in the Sholasa’s clan? Had Kazos behooved his might and nameworth to slake his lust and beget their children? The wrongness jarred, and I thought of how Kaure my maidenmate had erstwhilely suffered.
I answered that, since I am the truce-broker, I could not speak for the Clanheads without their rede, and asked leave. Merrily he beckoned and showed his back, daringly, while his warriors gleed.
While I headed to the others, I foresaw Kazos’s plan: if I lose, he would take glory and bind his clan more tightly, even against the shameful sin he would wreak; if I yield stead to a champion who lose, I would lose nameworth before the clans, and our truce would fall; if I yield to a champion who win, my mightiness would stand unsure in the Sholasa's minds, and Kazos would underdelve me to unsure toward strife.
All these likelihoods foreguessed, however, that I would either lose or yield stead. He did not reckon that I might win.
Ere I headed back, my flagmates swarmed: Oshis, Krastaes, and Kaure all bade me withhold. It is madness, said Oshis wrathfully. I felt his fear and worry, springing from love, and also a little mindless jealousy, for I had forespoken him my bridetide as my First Man, a boon he would sorely lose. I knew he would stand as my champion and, reckoning his wrath, would likely slay Kazos.
So too would Krastaes readily stand, who read more coolly that, if this were game-trial and at weapons, he would back my match, and even bet wealth and freedom. Yet scowlingly the older champion warned this trial had no rules, and would behold sheer strength. ~Keamas sere foassere, a Ile, o’losassi ziniloni.~ - “He means to break you, Lady, and furthermore to shame you.” Then he begged me not to fight, and let him instead. He gave good thought, I beminded while I underlooked back at my foe, who strode before his side: big as any Korasha I have ever met, old with years to hone his fightcraft but not enough to lose strength, and bearingwise that hinted he had never lost, or at least not since early youth. A cunning man, and not one I could beat by strength alone. I reminded my newlinghood to become outrider and the trials we had undergone. They had made us fight Korasha, and to understand their strength’s true threat, even until a balled fist driven into our gut, and the sickening, lung-wrenching hurt.
A strong and cunning man, and yet not the wisest. I headed to the Clanheads.
Lady Karami, Lavi, and Avaere met me grimly and bade beware. I fully read their fear. If Kazos wins, it would mean our truce’s end with the Elves, Karami warned. Even if we offstand from the war, we can hardly not become ensnared, beread Avaere, to which Lady Lavi added yaysaith. I answered back that if I win, we all would have peace. Did not that goal make it worthy? ~Dei ahi inyaese?~ - “Can you win?” they asked back. I answered I so believed.
A last hindrance knelt before and clutched my hand: Kaure. Her stout face’s fear threatened witlessness, though whether anyone else understood its root I was unsure. She begged me not to fight. ~Halaeme o sere yazassere losassere dunyelm.~ - “It would kill me to see you lose and shamed,” she told. I kissed her and said I would do this not forwhy I could be shamed, but forwhy I would behold such an evil man brought low. 
Then I loosened my straps and let my byrnie slide off. I doffed kilt, greaves, armbands, and harness-shirt, and handed them to Kaure. I stood in but a halter and loincloth, thin golden skin wettening under the rain while from our warriors - both ours and theirs - upwent a thrillsome buzz and roar.
Kazos had likewise doffed harness and stood bare under the rain. He made much show of shifting his loincloth and letting its load tighten heftily, doubtlessly trying to put fear in my mind. I unminded, and instead swayed to the rings’ midst, bare hips wallowing so broadly as I could. The Sholasa’s Korasha howled gleefully that I yearned loss, so that I could begladden of Kazos’s manliness. I even began a dance-step and let them bewonder at my body.
Kazos happily let me dance, though he sidled near. I unminded him not, for I full-wared our fight was already begun, but let him think me idle. I used the dance's breathtide to set a foretelling-ward on myself. When he reached, I was already waiting.
While he leapt, I kicked. My leg flew smoothly along his arm and smashed his already squashed nose. I felt boneshards, some already loose, scrape within his face. So many times as Kazos’s nose was broken, I little forelooked it would slow him. Yet I wanted him angry, and so outwon as i read his roar. Also, the swell spreading out to his eyes would not lose, and the blood running down his face showed a telling mark to our watchers, who bewitted I won the first stroke. Selfsomely, he grabbed for my leg. Yet athanks to my witch-ward, I was already twisting away and downward. I landed, overwallowed afoot, and whirled back, in time to see him reckoning how I had slipped through his fingers.
Forsoothness glared from his eyes. ~A ralaze!~ - “Witch!” he yelled. I asked back that he had forewished a dandy, withdrawing Damaya for his lust-play, which drew laughter from the throng, and even from his warriors, which deed went unlost. He full-soothed I was fighting not only to beat him, but to overwin them, too.
Such thought outlaid his next deed. He rushed, doubtlessly to grasp and overbear me with his greater weight and strength, and thence to claim his prize all the swifter. I gave him no such hap, but leaped backward right beyond reach. So I led him along the watchers’ ring, almost within their reach. At last he grew wise to my gambit, halted, and strode inward, taking a tighter path within the ring than mine, which meant that if I akept my flight, he needed fewer strides. Bewared the gambit up, I sidled inward as well. I witted his shoulders heaving for breath. He was wearying, though not enough for my thought. Neither could I let him rest.
He sneered and beckoned. ~Hafis zhefuali-sya ralazeya o’hiadeni.~ - “Try that witch’s trick again,” he dared.
I saw fit to let his boon. With a strike-truth shapen in mind, again I kicked, this time not at his nose, but instead at midriff, right below the breastbone and where the belly lies. In fulsomeness, breath whooshed from his lungs, making him stagger. Yet I had barely begun, for Kazos’s breathlessness gave me but a short hap to strike. I leaped to his side, locked his arm, and then swept his legs out from underneath. When he crashed to ground, I heaved his arm to wallow him on his side, and then knelt over his head with my knee wrapped on his neck. When he twisted back, I let him wallow and overwhelm me, thereby brooking his back’s bulk to shield me from his strokes while I squeezed.
Already wheezing breath after my kick, Kazos bewared my neck-lock. Along with choking the throat, the neck’s side holds a spot where the great vein runs between heart and head, and one may fell a wretch, either to swoon or even death if one overheaves the spot long enough, on which now I was grinding my calf. Against his breath-weakness, fright found Kazos new strength. When his backward swipes proved outcomeless, somehow he wallowed aside, crouched, and then lifted both himself and me upright, all while I leaned back and drew my knee tight on his neck with all my weight and strength, all while his lungs fought for breath and his heart raced against my stranglehold.
In this short but too long while ere his breath and blood yielded, I found myself in plighty stead, for while I was locked on his neck behind, he had full stir. Uncanny to draw me from his back, he reeled about the ring, and then to the edge, where watchers dodged as he drove to overrun. He found a mushroom-beam, at which he halted and twisted back. Then he ran backward and drove me against the beam. When I loosened not, he tottered forth and again struck me thereon, knocking wind from my lungs as I had done him. I gritted teeth, tightened my leg, and ahung for my life’s sake.
Another time he tried to rise from the tree. Yet strangle-weariness was already overtaking. He stumbled and knelt. I took the hap to grab his wrecked nose, which hurt misdrew him from any new wickedness, and then slipped fingers into his lips, threatening to offtear them if he tried to rip free. Amidst our grapple my head lowered next to his. ~O’soari-mi thanis o’stimi laethi-vyaru!~ - “This is so near as you shall ever come to my maidenhead!” I growled.
In answer, his head smashed backward into my face. I felt my nose crack and tear, and saw stars amid blackness.
Against my will, I tumbled blindly, dizzily found myself on hands and knees, and lurched afoot. My sight cleared to behold the watchers’s ring, though why they gaped I could not tell. My face stayed a queer numb throb. Then I startlingly reminded Kazos, whirled, stumbled, and saw him lying on the mossy stone. Swiftly I feared I had slain him. I staggered to his body, knelt, and overheaved him. A quick touch to his lips, however, proved breath strong enough after my erstwhile stranglehold, of which I shrove relief.
Over his head I knelt, setting one knee lightly on his throat, and waited for his eyes to flutter. ~Dei ruaelis?~ - “Do you yield?” I asked loudly enough for the watchers to hear.
His thought betrayed wish to offcast me. Yet I had gotten too far in his mind to let him forecatch. I answered with a wit-stroke that addled his mind and made his antennae and whole body quiver fitfully, to the watchers’ awe. Slowly his mind crawled from befuddleship to witfulness to dread, bewaring what I had wrought on him. I let my knee weigh harder on his throat. ~Dei ruaelis?!~ - I repeated. Kazos's hands flapped but struck not while fear scrabbled through his mind. He yielded mind-speakingly, but loud enough for the nearest ring-watchers to wit. A shudder ran through them all as they forsoothed the fight was over.
I staggered back afoot while Kazos stayed lying. I wheeled to the Sholasa housewives sitting under their tentfly: one holding her heavy belly, the other her babe, the last two tightly their breasts. ~Dizamaza-sas o’voe ruaeldas.~ - “Your Clanhead has fallen and yielded,” I told: “Do you acknowledge my win and our trial’s bargain?” ~Dei uroaes inya-vara mi aesaea hafaraea?~
Together the housewives bowed. The eldest spoke: ~Inyadise. Heienifa.~ - “You have won. We shall have peace.”
Next, I asked: ~Dei adeni Sholasi o laere sharaes maeori-bei?~ - “Is it the Sholasa’s wise to bereave maidens of their sheerness?” Shamefully the eldest frowned and shrove it had erenever been so until now. ~Ti illi zhyeayi zhaoadeni.~ - “It shall not be so henceforth.”
I nodded, waved back at Kazos fallen, and bade them deem now whether they would keep him. If no, they might ban or slay him, I recked not, but that there should be no backstride from their choice. The four housewives looked at each other, and I witted them enwed in mindshare. They forespoke to deem him themselves. ~Os o’di illi ithaea yi aladaya o’mi-eshi.~ - “Things shall not keep as they have gone until now,” said their eldest. I wondered if they would even keep him as Clanhead, against the evil he had tried. Then they yielded oath the Sholasa should keep peace with the other clans and work for truce with the Elves. I bade them send their warriors back home, and that the four housewives and Kazos should tomorrow come to our campstead, first to speak with me, and then with the Elves. They yaysaid. 
I wiped my lips, which felt wet. Forecaughtly, my hand offcame bloody. I tasted steel on my tongue, and then bewitted, where a numbness had stood in my nose’s stead, an angry ache was growing. I headed about, where I saw Istae, Kaure, Krastaes, Oshis, Less, Tae, Draue, and all the rest hurrying toward me. Then dizzy darkness overtook….
[to be continued in next week's chapter...]