Free The Enemy of My Enemy by Avram Davidson

understandable, which is natural … deprived of them for so long, ‘in
barbarous lands and far,’
oh?”
    “
‘Thirsty flock, return ye to the water,’
oh?”
    “Just exactly … . Ah. Last shaft.” They placed the carved and gilded top-pieces of their T-staves securely under their arms and leaned forward, mouths slightly open, jaws thrust slightly forward. No arm unaided could ever have propelled a target-spear one hundred marks; this was the function of the long wooden spear thrower, to constitute as it were an artificial extension of the thrower’s arm, thus to give greater force and distance to the hurtled lance shaft. A very light sweat glistened on the sun-dark skin of Lord Tilionoth, on face and neck, hands and arms and lower legs. He stood for a moment motionless in his place, the thrower hanging from his one hand, the spear pointing head down as it rested loosely in the other. In one swift flashing series of motions which seemed almost one motion, spear was in spear-thrower and thrower was flung forward and downward and spear was in air and spear was transfixed in target and quivered there and Lord Tilionoth was just righting himself and the
thud
of the stricken board met their ears.
    “Heart! Heart! Well tossed, well thrown, and neatly in the heart!”
    The dim and dancing Volanth image supported five shafts. Not one had missed, not one had dropped out. “No fear, eh? that anyone who can throw like that is likely to be spoiled by foreign toys — ”
    “None whatsoever, one must hope. Mmm. Umm. Tilionoth is, ah, still quite safe?”
    A look of craft and cunning and pride passed between the gray-haired man in the dark-green and the ruddy-faced one in the lizard-green robe, swept down to cover the young spearman who, stripping off his dampened under-tunic, was walking towards the bathing-booth, and came back to each other.
    “Oh, yes. Still quite safe, one need not hope.”
    Something of the heat had begun to pass from the later afternoon air. The groups of spectators broke up, walked to and fro, formed into other groups, gradually dispersed. And still the two stood where they had stood, leaning each one upon his T-stave, talking in tones no less intent for being quiet. And at length even they turned and tucked their staves and slowly walked back to the great bulk of Green-glades, greener — beneath its clustering of thick-growing vines — than the robes of either. They had mounted the low rise just before the ramp when one of them stopped and took a bit of the other’s sleeve between his thumb and his forefinger.
    “One moment more, my sister’s sib … .”
    “Certainly … ? my brother’s get … .”
    “In all our talk of those men long-known and familiar to us, let us not forget the newly re-arrived. Exiles need not necessarily assume their fathers’ and grandfathers’ allegiances. Do you follow? So. And there is this, too, that their former lives abroad have served to whet their wits and sharpen their — ”
    The other nodded, once, twice, quickly.
    “Yes. There
is
that. Toys or not. Let us indeed not forget it.”
    They walked their separate ways into the house.
    • • •
    Tonorosant and Sarlamat stood looking over the railing of Tonorosant’s new house at the swift-flowing river where the water purled among the grasses of the shallows. Not far below, it curved and vanished among clumps of furry saplings and beneath overhanging branches of huge-boled trees. A water-wander flipped and dipped after sprats in the eddy, sending scattered drops to pierce the pattern of the ripples. Now and then came a sound of wooden bowls clattering from the kitchen, almost instantly hushed by the soft-voiced and soft-footed Pemathi house servants. Aside from this, the sound of the water, and an occasional flash of bird song, all was silence.
    Tonorosant sighed and breathed deeply. “I hope that no one is ever bored with this,” he said. “The river … . A whole new, clean, vivid, sweet, wonderful