Nor did Kayan. What are you thing? she mindsent. She started to get up, but Jedra stopped her.
Stay there! I'm trying to keep from getting killed.
I don't see how this is going to accomplish that, she said, but she settled back down.
Watch. Jedra beckoned to Sahalik with his fingers. "Come on, cross the line."
Sahalik grinned widely and came to his feet with a smooth unfolding of his legs. Balling his hands into fists, he took a step forward, then another-directly across Jedra's line in the sand.
But Jedra was no longer there waiting for him. The moment Sahalik had committed his weight to his second step, Jedra darted around him and dived for the vacant spot at Kayan's side.
"Thanks for keeping my seat warm," he said as nonchalantly as he could manage, twisting around to sit there as if nothing had ever happened.
The elves burst into laughter-all but Sahalik. The elf warrior whirled around to face Jedra, his eyebrows nearly meeting over his nose with the intensity of his scowl. He clenched and unclenched his fists, his face glowing even redder than the firelight could account for, then he shouted at the tribe, "Silence!"
He was their champion warrior, and next in line to be chief. They gave him silence. Sahalik turned back to Jedra and said, "You choose the coward's way out. Amusing, perhaps, but foolish tricks will not serve you in the desert. I
challenge you to prove your worth to the tribe."
Sahalik spat into the fire. "Mental tricks are useless if he runs from battle. He must prove that he will fight, hand-to-hand in single combat, or he must leave us now."
"He's our guest, Sahalik," Galar said.
"He is a parasite," Sahalik answered.
Galar hesitated, obviously not wanting to put himself in Jedra's place, but he couldn't abandon his friend, either. Softly, he said, "This isn't about Jedra and you know it. You're just mad because Kayan prefers him to you."
Sahalik nodded. "Perhaps. Then I challenge him to fight for her as well as for his own honor."
Kayan had kept quiet so far, but at that she got up and stood in front of Sahalik, her hands on her hips, and said, "I'm not anybody's property to fight over. I choose whom I want to associate with, and you're not my type."
Sahalik barely glanced at her. "Beware, human woman, or you may find yourself alone in the desert with only your chosen worm for company."
A few of the other elves laughed at the affront, and Jedra realized he was losing them. They'd been perfectly happy to laugh at his amusing stories, and even at his practical joke, but he was an outsider and a half-elf. They weren't going to back him against one of their own. He would have to defuse the situation some other way.
He rose to his feet and said, "All right, both of you, that's enough. Insults and taunts are for children. We're supposed to be adults here; why don't we start acting like it?"
He meant it as a rebuke of the whole argument, but Sahalik said, "Yes, why don't we? Among the Jura-Dai, adults respond to a challenge."
The elves backed him up with shouts of, "Yeah, come on!" and "Fight, fight!"
"Fighting just for the sake of a fight is for children, too," Jedra said loudly. "There are better ways to resolve our differences."
"Like what, flip a coin?" someone called out.
"No," Jedra said over the rising laughter. "We can choose a judge who will listen to both sides of the argument and decide who is right."
"You'd rather talk than fight," Sahalik said contemptuously.
Jedra turned to face him, but he spoke to everyone. "Of course I'd rather talk than fight. With talk you can actually solve the problem, but in a fight you can only beat your opponent into submission. Nothing is resolved but the question of who has the bigger muscles."
Sahalik sneered. "And the question of who has the courage to enter battle-and who does not."
Again, someone shouted "Fight!" Another voice echoed the first, then another. Once it got started there was no stopping it. Chanting "Fight, fight, fight!" continuously now, the elves backed away to clear a space around Sahalik and Jedra. Kayan and Galar stood their ground, but there was nothing they could do and everyone knew it.
Jedra felt sick to his stomach, as if he had already been punched there. He was going to have to fight this slab of muscle and sinew after all. Either that or fend for himself in the desert, and he knew how poor his chances would be there. He looked around at the jeering faces for some sign that this might be a cruel joke, that he might be offered a last-minute reprieve, but all around him he saw only hostility and eagerness for a conflict.
Then the crowd suddenly quieted. All the faces turned away from the fire, toward the tents, where a lone figure limped toward them: the chief.