and

in which Belhadan had her roots, and his brown eyes were cold. Danger clung to him like winter fog and, despite himself, Charrow swallowed. He had never faced hradani in battle; now, looking upon Bahzell Bahnakson, he realized how fortunate he had been.
Another door opened, this one in the salle's southern wall, and Vaijon stepped through it. Like Bahzell, he was bareheaded, carrying his helmet, but there the similarities ended. Bahzell was grim and still, a towering cliff of plain, burnished steel and the muted tones of leather harness, but Vaijon glittered like the War God Himself. Silver-washed chain flickered in the lantern light, silk and gems and blinding white leather added their magnificence to his presence, and his golden hair shone like a prince's crown. He was a foot shorter than his foe, but he moved with catlike grace, and if Bahzell's eyes were cold, his blazed with determination.
A fresh mutter went up, and Charrow's stomach tightened as he heard it. It came from Yorhus and Adiskael's followers, and it carried the unmistakable echo of approval for Vaijon's cause.
But he had little time to think about that as Vaijon strode towards Bahzell, and he straightened his own spine as they approached him. Normally, there would have been at least two referees to serve as score keepers; today there were none, for this was no training exercise. The combatants were not armed with the blunted weapons of practice, and their scores would be kept only in the wounds they wreaked upon one another.
Bahzell and Vaijon stopped with a perfectly matched timing which could not have been intentional, each precisely one pace short of Charrow, and he looked back and forth between them. Under any other circumstances, it would have been his duty to attempt to dissuade them from combat even now, but Bahzell had made that impossible. The huge hradani who had been so reluctant to exert his prerogatives had never even hesitated this time, and he was right. A champion's authority did supersede even that of the Order's commandery. He, and he alone, could avert this confrontation, and his cold expression said all too clearly that he had no intention of averting it. And so Charrow made no effort to remind them of their brotherhood within the Order or to beg them to reconcile. He only cleared his throat sadly, then made his voice come out as clear and calm as he could.
"Brothers of the Order, you are here to meet under arms," he told them simply. "May Tomanāk judge rightly in the quarrel between you."
He took one step backwards, turned, and walked to the high-backed chair which awaited 中古車買取り him. He seated himself in it and watched as Bahzell and Vaijon nodded u