THE SEA HAG(79)

Dalquin nudged Dennis and pointed to Gannon as the champion stood up at the royal table. "Truly a great hero," the guardsman murmured. "To tell the truth, lad—Gannon has a fine figure, but I wouldn't have thought he had that in him. Rose to the occasion, you might say."

"Oh, the true Gannon must be a surprise to many," Dennis said in what the citizen thought was agreement.

Dennis had expected to be nervous. Instead he felt loose and dangerous, much as he had done the morning he swaggered into the hut of Mother Grimes. Something was going to happen. He wasn't sure what; but he was sure that he'd be in the middle of it.

And that it was better than standing by, leaving events to others.

The cheers that greeted Gannon's rise died away. King Conall still had a doubtful expression as he looked up at the champion.

Aria's upper lip was swollen and slightly cut. The injury made an odd background to her sardonic smile.

The princess wasn't staring at her folded hands this evening. Her gaze wandered across the hall; to the serpent heads on the table; and occasionally to the King's Champion, standing beside her.

When she looked up at Gannon, her smile grew broader.

"Fellow citizens!" Gannon cried. "I have slain the monster!"

The assembly cheered, as though their cheers in the past two days had been only practice for the real victory. Dennis noted a few furtive glances toward the center of the hall. Some of the citizens wondered whether this celebration, too, might not be premature.

The doubters were wrong. This time, Rakastava was really dead.

"King Conall," Gannon continued, looking down at his titular monarch, "I claim your daughter as my bride tonight!"

Aria stood up, unsummoned. She lifted her hair away from her shoulders with both hands, displaying her lack of earrings.

"Father," she said in a clear voice, "I gave my crystal ring and earrings to the hero who slew Rakastava. Gannon, will you return the jewels to me now?"

Gannon's face went dark with blood and fury. "Later, Princess," he said. "In our bedroom."

Aria let her hair fall.

"Very well," she agreed. "But do me one thing, noble Gannon. The hero who slew Rakastava bound the manes of the three trophies. Do thou separate them here, so that all can see proof of thy prowess."

Gannon drew his sword.

Dennis was on his feet, but the champion's intent was not the murder he had threatened if Aria denied him. He waved the shining blade high and called to the assembly, "Indeed, I will separate the heads—as I separated them in life from the living monster!"

He brought his blade down with a crash, hacking the knot against the table like a butcher jointing meat on a chopping block.

When Gannon lifted his sword again, the steel edge was notched and the glass-hard manes were as they had been before the vain stroke. The King's Champion gaped at his blade.

Dennis stepped forward, remembering his own shock when he cut at Malbawn's forearm with the Founder's Sword and succeeded only in putting a thumb-deep notch in the steel. Now the blade he held bare was truly star-metal, and in his left hand—

"Princess Aria!" Dennis called. "I believe these are yours."

He held his left hand high. When he opened his fist, everyone in the hall could see the crystal jewelry tumble into her cupped palm.

There was a gasp so general that it seemed the room itself drew in a breath.

"And these—" Dennis went on.

He expected Gannon to try to stop him as he reached for the joined heads. Instead, the King's Champion only watched. Perhaps he was still stunned by events; perhaps he was arrogant enough to think his failure was everyone's certain failure.

The weight of Rakastava's lifeless heads was nothing to muscles as charged with adrenalin as Dennis' were. He lifted them high, his thumb and forefinger locked in the nostrils of the freshest trophy and the other two dangling like charms from a bracelet.

Dennis brought his sword around. The knot sang like a lute-string parting. Two heads bumped and jounced onto the table, then rolled to the floor. Dennis waved the third higher yet, then hurled it toward the center of the hall.

"Dennis!" Aria screamed.

He turned, and Gannon cut down at his skull.

But Gannon was a courtier, while Dennis was a swordsman whose skill and reflexes had been honed to a wire edge around and beneath this city. He raised his own long blade without having to think about it, a blocking motion and not a lethal stroke.

Dennis didn't need to kill the King's Champion. Gannon had nothing, and Dennis had everything his heart desired.

The swords met at the cross-guards, the thickest part of the metal. Gannon's blade rang in two notes, the stump in his hand vibrating at one frequency and the rest of the steel quivering an undamped song as it spun to the floor.