This time, as they neared, Erec had a better feel for Bowyer’s rhythms. That, indeed, was one of Erec’s strengths: being able to sum up his enemy and adjust quickly. This time, Erec waited until the last moment, then lowered his lance just a bit, a move Bowyer could not have expected, as he aimed for Bowyer’s rib cage.
It was a perfect strike, and Erec managed to knock Bowyer sideways off his horse; he hit the ground hard, tumbling in a clang of armor.
The crowd cheered wildly as Erec circled around, dismounted, and removed his helmet.
Bowyer rolled to his feet, his face purple with rage, a look of death in his eyes unlike any he had seen today. Others had clearly wanted to win; but Bowyer, Erec could see, wanted to kill.
“If you are a real man,” Bowyer boomed out, loud enough for all to hear, “and you are aspiring to be a real King, let us fight with real weapons! I demand to use real swords in combat! And I demand the gates to be lowered.”
The crowd gasped at Bowyer’s words.
Erec looked at the copper gates around the perimeter of the sparring field, the only thing separating them from the cliffs below. He knew what lowering them meant: it meant a fight to the death.
“Do you request a match to the death?” Erec asked.
“I do!” Bowyer boomed. “I demand it!”
The crowd gasped. Erec stood there, debating; he did not want to kill this man, but he could not back down.
Bowyer boomed out: “Unless you are afraid!”
Erec blushed.
“I fear no man,” he called out, “and I refuse no challenge in combat. If it is your wish, then lower the gates.”
The crowd gasped, and a horn sounded, and slowly, several attendants turned massive cranks. A groaning noise filled the air, and inch by inch, the copper gates that surrounded the arena lowered. A wind rushed through, and now there was nothing left to stop the warriors from going over the edge, from plummeting to their deaths. Now, there was no room for error. Erec had seen matches as a youth with the gates lowered—and they had always ended in death.
Bowyer, wasting no time, grabbed a real sword from his squire and charged. Erec grabbed his. As he neared Erec, Bowyer swung his sword with both hands for Erec’s head, a death blow; Erec raised his sword to block it, sparks flying.
Erec spun with his own blow, and Bowyer blocked it. Then Bowyer slashed back.
Back and forth they went, slashing and parrying, attacking, blocking, defending, sparks flying, swords whistling through the air, clanging, as they went blow for blow for blow. Erec was exhausted from the day’s battle, and Bowyer was a formidable opponent, fighting as if his life depended on it.
The two did not stop as they drove each other back and forth, back and forth, getting close to the edge, then farther from it, ebbing and flowing, each circling the other, trying to drive him back, trying to gain advantage.
Finally, Erec landed a perfectly placed blow, slashing sideways and knocking Bowyer’s sword from his hand. Bowyer blinked, confused, then rushed to get it, diving down to the dirt.
Erec stood over him and raised his visor.
“Yield!” Erec said, as Bowyer lay there, prone.
Bowyer, though, grabbed a handful of dirt, spun and, before Erec could see it coming, threw it in Erec’s face.
Erec shouted out, blinded, raising his hands to his eyes as they stung, and dropping his sword. Bowyer did not hesitate; he charged, tackling him, driving him all the way across the arena, right to the edge of the cliff, and tackling him down to the ground.
The crowd gasped as Erec lay on his back, Bowyer on top of him, Erec’s head over the edge of the precipice. Erec turned and glanced down, and he knew that if he moved just inches, he would plummet to his death.
Erec looked up to see Bowyer grimacing down, death in his eyes. He lowered his thumbs to gouge out Erec’s eyes.
Erec reached up and grabbed Bowyer’s wrists, and it was like grabbing onto live snakes. They were all muscle, and it took every ounce of Erec’s strength just to hold Bowyer’s fists away.
Groaning, the two of them locked in a struggle, neither giving an inch, Erec knew he had to do something quickly. He knew that he had crossed the tipping point, and that if he resisted anymore, he would lose what little strength he had left.
Instead, Erec decided to make a bold, counterintuitive move: instead of trying to lean forward and get away from the edge, he slumped backwards, over it.
As Erec stopped resisting, all of Bowyer’s weight came rushing forward; Erec pulled Bowyer toward him, straight down, and Bowyer flipped upside down over the edge of the cliff, his feet going over his head as Erec hung onto his wrists. Erec rolled onto his stomach, holding on to Bowyer’s hands, and then turned and looked down. Bowyer dangled over the edge of the cliff, nothing between him and death but Erec’s grip. The crowd gasped.
Erec had turned the tables, and now Bowyer groaned and flailed.
“Don’t let go,” Bowyer pleaded. “I shall die if you do.”
“And yet it was you who wanted the gates lowered,” Erec reminded him. “Why should I not give you the same death you hoped for me?”
Bowyer looked at him, panic in his face, as Erec let go of one hand. Bowyer dropped a few inches, as Erec now held just one hand.
“I yield to you!” Bowyer called up to him. “I yield!” he boomed.
The crowd cheered as Erec lay there, holding him, debating.
Finally, Erec decided to spare Bowyer from death. He reached out, grabbed him by the back of the shirt, and pulled him up onto safe ground.
The crowd cheered again and again, as all twelve horns sounded, and they rushed in, crowding Erec, embracing. He stood there, exhausted, depleted of energy, and yet relieved and happy to be so embraced, so loved, by his people. Alistair rushed forward through the crowd, and he embraced her.
He had won. Finally, he would be King.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Gwendolyn stood in Tirus’s former fort and looked out over his former courtyard, at the swinging body of Tirus’s son, Falus. He hung by a noose from his neck in the city’s center, dozens of Upper Islanders, citizens who did not protest the rebellion, standing below, looking up, gawking. Gwen was glad that they were; she wanted to send them all a message.
Falus represented the last of the rebellious offspring of Tirus’s family, the last of the people Gwen had executed as she had rounded up all surviving rebels here on the Upper Isles. As she watched his body swing, she realized she should have rounded them all up—especially Tirus—long ago. She had been a young and naïve ruler, she realized, putting too much stock in the hope for peace. For way too long she had given Tirus too many chances to survive. She had tried to avoid conflict at all costs—but in doing so, she realized, she had ultimately only generated more conflict. She should have acted boldly and ruthlessly from the start.