The Prize in the Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

him.
    King Conary led the ten of them remaining into the Weapons Room. Emer had never been right inside the
    Weapons Room of the Speckled Hall before. As a child, she had had no weapons of her own to leave, and for practice, they used weapons kept down at the stables. The light came in under the eaves where the roof met the walls. The walls were plastered and painted with pictures of champions fighting in chariots. Maga would have sneered at the paintings, which were crudely drawn and used too much blood-colored paint. Emer quite liked them. The way the people were standing looked right, almost as if they could move. It took a moment or two for her to lower her eyes to the arms they had come to find.
    The room was almost full of weapons of all descriptions, clearly carefully arranged, but equally clearly using some system she could not imagine. There were spears and knives and slings in great profusion, and piles of round slingshots, lime mixed with blood and set harder than stone.
    Among them were swords, more swords than she had ever seen. At home her father had a sword of course, and her brother, and maybe half a dozen
    of the other champions. Here, there seemed to be uncountable numbers of them. Emer stopped. She knew better than that. Ap Fial had taught her the Thorn Knowledge, how to count large numbers. She ran her eyes over the swords, counting by threes and twelves. "Forty-five and two," she murmured, impressed.
    "What?" Conal asked, setting down a sling and turning to her.
    "Forty-seven swords," she said. "That must be one for each champion of Oriel."
    "More," King Conary said, stopping abruptly again and turning to Emer. "Many of these Page 12

    swords are mine, battle spoil that I have not yet gifted to any champion." He bent and picked one up to show her. "This is a
    Vincan cavalry sword. I won it fighting them on the coast of Demedia five, no, six years ago."
    He half drew it out of the scabbard. "Look at the edge on that!" He set it down again carefully in its place and picked up another nearby. "This one belonged to the champion Ardan of Muin; before I killed him. It is called Oakheart.
    See how the hilt is carved and the blade is veined a little like an oak leaf? It was made by a smith of Muin, you do not see those patterns on swords made in the north."
    Quite suddenly King Conary seemed to notice that everyone was watching and listening. His face twitched and he set the sword Oakheart down carefully. "Well, why are you waiting?" he asked. "Arm these children; it is why we have come here." Then, as they began to bustle about, he put his hand on Emer's arm. "Do you just admire good weapons, or can you use a sword, ap Allel?" he asked.
    "I can use one a little," Emer admitted. "My father taught me. But he said I should wait until I was tall enough to use a real one. Mostly I have used a wooden one made the right size for practice."
    "Very wise. The sword must work with the arm, and if you started using an ordinary sword before you were tall enough, you would have too much to unlearn, or you would need a sword as tall as that onemdash" he indicated the Vincan sword "mdashwhen you had all your growth."
    "Is that the sword of a Vincan who made that mistake then?" she asked. "Or an ogre?"
    He laughed. "Neither. It is a cavalry sword, meant to be used from horseback."
    "Riding on a horse? For battle?" Emer was astonished. "I have ridden, but I would never have thought of such a thing."
    "Their horses are larger," Conary said. "Much larger. Even their ordinary horses are almost three hands larger than ours, and their war horses maybe six hands higher. They can bear a heavy man in armor. They use them in preference to chariots. I might do so myself if I had horses of that size."
    "And they use those swords?"
    "They use thrusting spears first, and then the swords."
    "Sir, I did not realize before what a feat you were recounting when you told me you won that sword in battle,"
    Emer said, bowing with both hands on her