Tiuri Draws His Sword and Fights the Grey Knights in the Castle Courtyard

The courtyard fight at Mistrinaut Castle is a confrontation built on silence: four fully armed Grey Knights face Tiuri, refuse to answer his questions, and finally draw their swords. Tiuri tries to make them speak, then fights when one charges him. The clash tests his courage and puts his life—and the letter he carries—at immediate risk, while leaving the Grey Knights’ purpose unresolved.

Setting and Approach

Tiuri is brought from his prison by two Grey squires, one carrying a torch and the other a spear. They lead him down a long flight of stairs and through several rooms and corridors. The castle seems deserted, and the procession ends in a courtyard he has not seen before. A colonnade surrounds it, with torches burning at intervals; four Grey Knights wait in the middle, while two more squires stand aside with drums and sticks.

The scene is made strange by its deliberate quiet and sparse illumination. A fine rain falls, the knights remain silent, and the squires begin a subdued drumroll at a knight’s signal. Tiuri experiences the place and ceremony as unreal. The arrangement gives the encounter the feel of a formal challenge, but the Grey Knights do not state its terms: they stand in full armor, their visors lowered, shields on their arms and hands on their sword hilts.

The Unanswered Challenge

Tiuri asks why he has been summoned, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the drums. The knights do not answer. He repeats the question; the drumming grows louder. When he asks a third time, raising his voice, the beat has become so forceful that he cannot hear himself. The knights stay motionless, watching him.

Their silence changes the encounter from a meeting into an ordeal. Tiuri’s courage ebbs and his will seems to fail; he cannot get the words out, as if fixed to the ground. Around him, the drumbeat grows heavier and echoes against the courtyard’s high, dark walls. No explanation is offered for the display, and Tiuri has no way to know whether the knights intend to question, challenge, or harm him. The uncertainty is part of the immediate danger: he is surrounded, watched, and denied even the chance to understand what is being demanded of him.

The impasse breaks when one knight suddenly draws his sword and raises it above his head. The other three follow. The first steps toward Tiuri, and the armed group’s stillness gives way to an apparent attack. Tiuri recovers his ability to act and runs across the courtyard, with the knights pursuing him. The flight is not an attempt to escape the castle; he knows that he cannot simply get away. Instead, he uses the movement to loosen the cord at his waist and let his long robe fall, uncovering the weapons he has hidden beneath it.

The Fight

Tiuri stops, turns, and draws his sword. Three of the Grey Knights halt nearby, but the fourth continues forward with his weapon ready to strike. Tiuri parries the descending blow and catches the attacker by surprise with a fierce counterattack that makes him stumble. The knight gets back to his feet, though with difficulty.

Tiuri braces himself with the sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. His fear gives way to fighting ardor. One of the other knights advances, and their swords clash violently. Tiuri fights with all his strength, driven by three immediate pressures: he is fighting for his life, guarding the letter, and angered by the way the knights have treated him. He drives back his opponent, but sees another ready to take his place and understands that the attack could continue until he is beaten or killed.

The exchange does not resolve the confrontation. The Grey Knights hesitate again, drawing close together and looking at one another; at the same time, the drumming dies away. The sudden quiet contrasts with the earlier mounting noise and leaves Tiuri facing the same unanswered question, now after swords have been drawn and blows exchanged.

Identity and Stakes

Tiuri calls out again, demanding an answer and offering to be challenged if only the knights will explain why they have brought him there. When the silence persists, he challenges their honor, asking whether they are really knights or cowards hiding behind closed visors, and demands to know who they are. His challenge is not merely to their fighting ability: he insists that armed men who confront him should identify themselves and state their purpose.

One knight finally replies by asking who Tiuri is. From the voice, Tiuri recognizes the knight with the silver horn. The knight says that Tiuri is not Brother Tarmin of the Brown Monastery. Tiuri refuses to provide his identity, answering that he does not know the knights, has done nothing to them, and has nothing to do with them. That exchange makes the encounter’s central confusion explicit without resolving it. Tiuri does not understand why he is being treated as an adversary, and the Grey Knights have not yet explained their actions; the fight ends its first violent phase with the question of identity still hanging between them.