Slupor Attacks Tiuri at the Unauwen Gate and Is Captured

Slupor Attacks Tiuri at the Unauwen Gate and Is Captured marks the final, face-to-face clash between Tiuri and the pursuer who has shadowed his mission. Disguised as a destitute beggar, Slupor tries to turn Tiuri’s compassion into an opening for murder. Instead, Tiuri’s decision to stop and help him brings the hidden enemy into view, and the assault ends with Slupor in the custody of the guards of King Unauwen.

Approach to the Gate

By the time Tiuri and Piak reached the gate, their journey had already tested their judgment as well as their endurance. Earlier, when mist closed around them in the mountains, they had waited in shelter by a stone rather than risk the more exposed Green Ledge. As the weather shifted, the sun appeared through the mist; at the Green Ledge, Piak pointed out that the visible roads were not the route they would take. The account of their arrival thus belongs to a longer passage in which safe progress depends on reading uncertain conditions and avoiding the paths an obvious pursuer might follow.

At the gate, the companions encountered a figure sharply at odds with the carved pillars and orderly approaches around him. An old beggar sat near a gate, leaning against a column. A patched, torn cloak and hood concealed most of his face; only his nose, long tangled gray hair, and beard could be seen. A staff lay beside him, and he held out a begging bowl. The modest appearance concealed the danger that Tiuri had long feared: this was Slupor, not a harmless stranger.

Tiuri Stops

Tiuri gave the beggar the money pouch the toll keeper had entrusted to him. Little remained, but he put it all in the bowl; Piak gave his own copper coin as well. The beggar murmured thanks and began to rise, wishing the travelers well. Piak touched Tiuri’s arm and urged him to come on, but Tiuri could not simply ride away. Pity had led him to look again at the person receiving the alms, and he wanted to know who stood before him.

Tiuri dismounted and offered his hand to help the beggar up. Although he was in a hurry, he chose to make clear that the haste did not prevent him from trying to help or know the man. The beggar thanked him not for the money but for standing before him. When Tiuri asked to see his face, the stranger stayed bent over his staff. Tiuri’s pity gave way to curiosity and an inexplicable tension: he felt unable to leave before the beggar looked at him. Slupor answered by calling him a fool. By then Tiuri understood that he was in danger, and when the hooded man raised his face, Tiuri recognized the cold, false eyes of the enemy he had feared for so long.

The Assault and Capture

Slupor drew a weapon from inside his staff and thrust at Tiuri with a dagger. Tiuri was ready for the attack: he deflected the blow and received only a scratch, then forced Slupor to drop the dagger. The assault did not end there. Slupor seized Tiuri by the throat, while Piak shouted his name and joined the struggle. Slupor was stronger, but Tiuri was not afraid; he wrenched himself free and tried to overpower his attacker.

Help arrived first from Piak, then from passersby and the gate guards. Slupor released Tiuri and ran, but the guards pursued him with drawn swords. They soon returned with the beggar under restraint. Piak identified the dagger on the ground and accused Slupor of murdering the messenger from Dangria. Slupor denied knowing what Piak meant, but Tiuri calmly told him that he had followed them for a long time. Slupor answered with hatred, cursing Tiuri and predicting strife, fire, and blood for the land and the city. The threat made the danger of his capture plain: he was not merely a robber attacking travelers, but an enemy invested in the political crisis surrounding Tiuri’s message.

Identity and Consequences

Asked to explain who they were and how they knew the prisoner, Tiuri identified Slupor as a spy from Eviellan. The guard declared him a prisoner of King Unauwen and ordered him taken into the city. Slupor then announced that he would say nothing more. His disguise had failed, but his silence left the guards without an immediate account of his plans. The evidence nevertheless establishes his pursuit of Tiuri and Piak and connects him to the murder of the Dangria messenger.

Tiuri and Piak identified themselves as travelers from the realm of King Dagonaut carrying a message for King Unauwen. The gate guard responded with concern and arranged for men to escort them to the palace. Slupor was taken away, soon disappearing from their sight; the companions passed through the gate and continued under guard. The confrontation therefore removes a direct physical threat without delaying the delivery mission. Tiuri has risked the message by stopping to help a stranger, yet that choice reveals the disguise and gives the authorities custody of a spy.

Compassion as a Test

The scene places Tiuri’s compassion in direct conflict with the urgency and danger of his mission. Piak’s warning to leave is sensible: the apparent beggar is an enemy, and Tiuri is carrying a consequential message. But Tiuri does not treat the stranger’s poverty as a mere obstacle to his errand. He gives away what remains in his pouch, helps the beggar stand, and insists on facing the person rather than riding past him. Those actions create the opportunity for Slupor’s attack, but they also bring the hidden pursuer into the open.

That choice anticipates the judgment King Dagonaut later makes about Tiuri. Although Tiuri’s vigil for knighthood had required fasting, prayer, silence, and reflection on serving the king and fighting for what is good, his completed journey supplies a harder test of those commitments. King Dagonaut later tells him that answering a request for help, fulfilling his mission, and keeping his promise to Edwinem have shown him to be a knight even before the king’s formal blow with the sword. The encounter at the gate is one concrete instance of that principle: Tiuri’s mission does not erase his duty to another person, even when the person before him is dangerous. His conduct does not make him immune to attack; it makes the decisive response his own, while Piak and the guards turn that response into Slupor’s capture.