Excerpt from The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He pressed his advantage, whipping a backhand strike at Collum's head that just missed—

There it was. The knight let his follow-through pull him round just a little too far. He was tired, or he'd overcommitted, either way he couldn't quite stop the stroke and it left him off-balance. Collum's blood broke out in a martial chorus and with the last of his strength he barged ahead behind his gauntleted fist MANG! to the side of the knight's helm, and twice more, MANG! MANG! Just like that he was through and into that other place, the one where he felt like a solid shining steel godling and nothing could stand against him, certainly not this soft, staggering wretch he saw before him! Collum regripped and delivered a clean, high, two-handed horizontal cut and the knight's head snapped round and he sat down backward on the grass.

Sir Vergescu tried to raise his blade but only dropped it again, as though fairies had cursed it so it weighed a thousand pounds. Collum let himself bend over panting, hands on hips. Sweat stung his eyes and gathered and dripped under his chin. Had he won? Really won? The man just sat there. He'd won.

He dropped to one knee and pressed the top of his helm against the cross of his sword. Thanks be to almighty God in Heaven! Thank you God for giving me—your unworthy servant—this magnificent fucking victory! He'd fought a British knight in a British hayfield and he had won. He could keep his precious armor, for now at least. In the darkness of his helmet un knightly tears prickled in his eyes. Somewhere inside him there was strength, the strength he'd always longed for but never quite believed in. Not really. Not truly.

Or was there? Was there not something about this victory that was just a little bit too easy? Collum pushed that unappealing idea away, sniffed, and hauled himself to his feet again.

"Well fought, sir," he said. "Do you yield?" Collum thought in Gaelic, the language of the north, but for the occasion he used the courtliest, most correct, most Roman Latin he could muster.

The man didn't answer. That beaky bird-helmet just gazed up at him, expressionless. It looked quizzical and a bit funny.

In fact, now that Collum had a second to take it in, the man's appearance was stranger than he'd realized. Armor hid his face but in other ways it spoke volumes. That pretty silver rose on his chest had been scratched and scribbled over; somebody had taken a nail or a sharp rock to it. On top of the knight's helm, where a lady's favor might have been, a knotted hank of dry grass was tied instead.

There were streaks of rust on his mail undercoat where the armor plates overlapped and trapped the wet. Sir Vergescu's cozy castle was far away, if he even had one. He must've been out on the road a long time. Maybe not so different from Collum after all.

He shook off his gauntlets and fumbled with his bare fingers at the buckles and catches at the back of his head and tore his helmet off and dropped it on the grass. The bright world blasted in on him from all sides, loud and acid-green. He rubbed his face vigorously with both hands. The hot summer air felt marvelously cool. The rush of victory was fading now, and the heat and hunger and thirst were coming back. His knees felt weak. He hadn't eaten in two days.

He hoped the man wasn't hurt. He'd actually been looking forward to having a chat with him. Breaking down the combat, talking some shop. Maybe he knew how things stood at Camelot. Maybe he even knew Sir Bleoberys of the Round Table.

"Well fought, sir," Collum said. "Do you yield to me now?"

"Fuck your mother."

The man's voice was hoarse and weary. Somewhere a woodlark sang: loo-loo-loo-loo-loo tlooeet tlooeet tlooeet.

"Beg pardon?"

"Your mother." His Latin was surprisingly refined. A lot better than Collum's. "Fuck. Her."

Maybe they weren't going to be having that chat after all.

Excerpted from THE BRIGHT SWORD by Lev Grossman. To be published by Viking, an imprint of the Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC on July 16, 2024. Copyright © 2024 by Cozy Horse Limited.