Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
Ipulled out my slingshot, ignoring the shocked chatter and gasps from above as I prepared for the battle of my life.
“H-hold on a moment!” the steward called down from above, but the gate was already beginning to creak open. “That’s too many!”
“Is there a rule that says so?” I called up, loading the first stone into the weapon.
“No,” he shouted back. “But if you take them all, then there won’t be any for the others to score with!”
“Good,” I said, pulling back the slingshot. “Send them out. I’ll be the only one fighting today.”
The gates split open, a soft scream echoing from behind me while I kept my gaze locked forward.
“Diaspro! Wait!” Mara’s voice cracked.
“Are you insane?” Avalyn shouted next.
Their voices died off as they were dragged away from the sidelines, and I took the moment to steady my breathing as the first soldier came into view.
I was no novice to fighting, but even I knew better than to challenge fifty men at once.
Even with my body in perfect condition and a good portion of them being weak, I knew this was a gamble I was likely to lose.
But even so, if I claim all the enemies the others will be safe.
Damon wouldn’t be foolish enough to try this, but he might be strong enough to win.
I fired the first shot, my stone perfectly nailing the first soldier right between the eye slit in his helmet and knocking him out cold.
The crowd gasped when he dropped, then erupted into applause that fueled my confidence.
I loaded the next shot but immediately felt that confidence vanish when a wave of three men rushed through the gates at once.
I fired a quick shot at the fastest one, hitting him hard enough in the knee that his leg buckled under him, but not necessarily knocking him out of the round.
I pulled my sword, clashing blades with the other two at the same time, glad to find that they could barely even swing their swords enough to clang against my armor.
Three more came out of the gate next, and I was relieved to see that they were coming in short spurts instead of all fifty at once.
If I had to guess, the organizers likely hadn’t immediately prepared all fifty men for battle, so now they were scrambling to get them all fitted with weapons so they could send them out together.
A bell chimed every time a soldier fell to the ground and didn’t rise up.
Fortunately killing my enemies didn’t seem to be a requirement.
I might have a chance after all.
The second wave was far more difficult. All three fighters had double the strength of the last group, forcing me to switch to my dagger and try to get in close enough that I could accomplish a few quick jabs.
The trick worked on the first soldier, my blade scraping against the exposed part of his arm and shocking him into dropping his blade.
However, the other two studied this tactic, and one pulled out a bow to attempt a long-range attack instead.
My heart pumped hard and fast, my muscles remembering the years of relentless training that had prepared me for this moment. As I dodged the arrows, I could feel the fire under my feet as I thought back to the day of the siege.
The arrow in my mother’s heart, the cinders burning the hem of my very first dress, and the screams of my people dying all around me. There wasn’t a night that I didn’t lie in bed and wish I could have saved them, but today, I could save at least one at the cost of fifty.
I caught the next arrow from the air, running forward to stab it into the swordsman’s shoulder.
He yelped in pain, and I used his moment of weakness to drag him in front of me and use his body as a shield against the next arrow.
The arrow ricocheted off his helmet, so I brought my knee to his chest to knock the wind out of his gut and throw him to the ground with the others.
The archer dropped his bow to come running at me, but that was clearly a mistake, given that he was still too far away to be effective. I fired two quick stones from my slingshot, hitting him once in the neck, then again in the wrist so he dropped the weapon.
I wasn’t sure if disarming him counted as a defeat or not, but before I could find out, another rush of men came filtering through the gate. I recognized the center man this time.
It was Roy, the soldier who often trained with Atlas.
I adjusted my grip on my sword, preparing for a real battle this time.
The others who had joined him seemed a bit too timid to rush into the fight, but Roy didn’t hesitate to meet my blade.
The heavy clash nearly sent me flying backwards, his strength rivaling even Lochlan’s.
I took a few strategic steps back, dodging his attacks while keeping an eye on the timid fighters in the back.
“I’m sorry for this,” Roy grunted, lashing out with another hefty swing. I wasn’t fast enough to fully dodge that one, a fresh sting racing down my arm as I felt the blade graze my skin.
I should have retreated further after the blow, but I’d watched Roy fight enough times to know that he paused to adjust his form when he succeeded in an attack. That, and I remembered that he had a weakness…an old injury that slowed his left leg.
I targeted his left side immediately, throwing him off balance and getting an opening to thrust the hilt of my sword into his gut. He gasped for air, falling to the ground, where I immediately stepped on his wrist to prevent his sword from swinging.
“Well done,” he grunted, giving me a subtle smile before dropping his weapon. He could have easily gotten back up and fought on. I couldn’t thank him enough for staying down.
My breathing was getting heavy, but I couldn’t get tired yet. A few more soldiers trickled in, and the archer from earlier went back to shooting arrows now that he’d recovered. This was getting more challenging by the second, but my dream of surviving kept me going.
I decided to target the timid fighters first, raising my sword to the first but stopping when I saw a grim fear reflect in their bright-blue eyes.
An Ivalonian?
I hesitated, making a vital mistake that let an arrow pierce into the back of my calf.
I yelped out in pain but kept moving to avoid becoming an easy target.
In another moment of recklessness, I crashed into the back of another soldier, earning a terrified scream from them.
They spun around, cowering in fear as I met another set of Ivalonian eyes.
These aren’t soldiers…they're prisoners.
“Stay down,” I whispered, grabbing the Ivalonian boy by the neck and pretending to choke him to the ground. The boy gasped, then gladly shut his eyes and fell limp to the ground, still shaking despite me barely touching him.
Blood trickled down my calf, and I snapped the shaft of the arrow off to keep it from getting in my way. Taking out the arrowhead might speed up the bleeding, and I needed all the blood I could keep right now.
I targeted the archer again, slinging a thoughtful stone at his eye.
He wasn’t much of a threat after that, and neither were most of the other soldiers at that point.
At least half of them were more terrified to be there than I was, shaking the moment I laid eyes on them and fearfully swinging their blades like I was a wild dog they needed to fend off.
One by one, I whispered to them to stay down, gently bruising them enough to make the fight look real in between facing the real threats that came.
I’d lost track of how many enemies I’d taken down at that point, but the arena was getting difficult to navigate with all the fallen bodies on the ground.
The crowd roared with applause, completely immersed in the battle of the century as sweat pooled down my back.
It may have looked incredible, but the fight was beginning to take its toll. My leg was moving slower by the second, the muscle locking up from the injury. The cut I’d received from Roy was deeper than I’d initially thought too, staining the right side of my armor in my own blood.
Still, I couldn’t stop.
The waves kept coming, and I slowly started to realize why so many were Ivalonian. The king wanted to watch me make my own people bleed, forcing these prisoners who likely hadn’t seen the sun in months to stare into their lost princess’s eyes and see nothing but bloodlust.
He likely didn’t expect me to stop and recognize who I was fighting, or to get them to fake their defeat, but he must have suspected something, because the moment I was finally on top of the fight enough to catch my breath, his voice boomed over the crowd.
“Send out the rest!” The king’s bloodcurdling words thundered overhead. “Everyone who is left. Now!”
They’re all ready to come? How many are left?
My blade lowered, my limbs sticky with blood and my chest heaving for breath as a mob of soldiers funneled through the gate all at once. There were at least twenty of them, maybe more—had I only taken out half so far?
They stepped over the fallen bodies, their blades all raised against me as the crowd booed and screamed at the king to slow down the attack. They didn’t want to see their champion die like this any more than I wanted to give up hope, but not even Damon could handle this.
This is the end, isn’t it?
I looked up at the clouds, wishing I could see the sun pierce through one final time.
The roaring of the crowd filled my ears along with the clatter of armor racing toward me.
I took a deep breath, shutting my eyes for a long moment before adjusting the grip on my sword so that I could go down fighting.
I opened my eyes, but what I saw was enough to make me believe I had already died.
At least ten of the incoming soldiers had stopped in front of the rest, dropping to one knee. The others were blocked behind them, shouting at them to get up and move as they tried to push through their line.
They’re all Ivalonians. What are they doing?
Were they kneeling at me?
“Rise up, brothers!” one of the kneeling soldiers shouted, rising from his kneel to turn and face the enemies behind him. “Our time to fight has come!”
Like corpses rising from the dead, the Ivalonians I’d pretended to injure climbed shakily to their feet, a new courage filling their faces as they picked up their weapons and surrounded me.
I could hardly believe my eyes; these young men were barely able to hold a sword yet still raised one in my defense.
“What is the meaning of this?” the king shouted from above, his anger punctuating each word like a javelin’s stab. “Defeat your enemy, soldiers!”
“We are,” another Ivalonian called up, his voice older and full of rage. “Defend Damon’s princess, men!”
“Defend the princess!” they cried out, my mind unable to understand what was happening as they charged the remaining men.
I couldn’t even move, my heart in my throat as a full-blown battle ensued around me. The crowd erupted into a cacophony of joyous cheers and fearful gasps as the king’s anger bubbled over into a raging boil.
“Kill them all!” Septimus boomed, standing from his seat to storm down the steps. “Send every guard! Kill them all!”
In a flash, guards burst in from the sidelines, joining the fight against the Ivalonians.
There were only a handful nearby, most of the stronger ones likely already on the ground from early waves.
I couldn’t stand by any longer, raising my sword to knock a guard off of a smaller-framed Ivalonian.
The crowd began to panic, unsure what to do or say as the game still seemed to be continuing to some extent.
The last wave of fighters pushed through the Ivalonians’ defenses, targeting only me but struggling to get past my dozens of defenders.
I couldn’t keep track of every element of the battle, but I could tell that the Ivalonians’ morale was dangerously strong.
The bell continued to ring as more men fell, cheering everyone on to keep fighting.
These men who had likely never held a weapon in their life were swinging them with the courage of a lion, fearlessly pushing back the men that were desperate to kill me.
Their strength pulsed through me, helping me to block out my own pain as I knocked out guard after guard, until my blade clashed with a sword so powerful it nearly knocked my shoulder out of place.
Who’s left that’s this strong?
The Aemastian enemy pushed past the crowd, his black attire adorned with a blue cape that seemed to crown him as a champion swordsman. The blade pushed back against mine, but I was distracted by the hand that was wrapped around the hilt.
It was bandaged, with one finger missing on his right hand.
I looked up the attacker’s arm, my stomach dropping and my own ring finger going numb as I met the dark eyes of the man who’d been silent all day.
Atlas.