Chapter Twenty Seven
We rush at each other, my spear thrusting for her heart while her spiked chain whips around at my face, we both dodge to the side just in time, avoiding each other's weapons and coming around for another pass.
Each of us has what we want in this moment. Ravenna has a chance to kill me and take a position where she is feared if not respected, and she will preserve her life. I have a chance at revenge. I am determined to take it. I attack again, thrusting with my spear at her leg. She spins aside from the attack, slashes at me with her knife and keeps moving.
We are both fighters who are trained to move quickly, to hit and run, to dart in and out of range. We circle one another, looking for openings. Ravenna attacks me with sweeping blows of her spiked chain, but there is no obvious pattern to it, nothing I can time to get inside. I punctuate her attacks with thrusts of my spear and swings of my weighted chain. For the moment, at least, neither of us has the advantage.
“You might as well submit, Lyra,” Ravenna says. “You’re not as skilled as me.”
I know that's true. Ravenna has been in the arena longer than me and has built up more skills. More than that, I haven't spent my time trying to kill people, while she is nothing if not deadly. Do I really have a chance here?
I can feel the weight of my power trying to press on me, slowing me down, even with the effect of the dampener. Without it I'm sure she could make me give in completely. She could make me beg her to kill me. Even like this, I must fight against the pressure of the doubts that she throws at me, the insistence that I'm not good enough, that I will never be her equal.
The effort of that slows me, and I'm not fast enough to move away from the next attack. She slashes me with her knife, hot pain flaring along my side, blood spraying onto the sand as the crowd roars its approval.
I throw off her control, reaching out with my own magic for the eyes of the carrion crows, borrowing some of their reflexes and their sight. It makes me faster, letting me dodge her next attacks. Our magics seem to balance one another, her attempts to slow me down offset by what I have been able to gain from the birds. If we had our full powers we could do so much more but with both of his restricted like this, it is going to be a physical contest between us.
I slash with the head of my spear, spin around and swing my weighted chain at her head. She leaps over the spear, then cartwheels away from the chain, sending the end of her own chain at me so that I must weave aside or be cut open by the vicious spikes.
We keep trading attacks from a distance, each of us looking for a weakness in the other person, but neither of us holding back. I don't think I've ever had a fight like this. Often in my fights I have been taking on someone bigger and stronger, who bulls forward at me, not someone who employs the same strategy as me. It means our fight looks almost like a dance, with our weapons flowing in constant movement, trying to force each other into positions where we won't be able to defend anymore.
The fight is different for another reason, too. For the first time, I am setting out with the intention of killing my opponent. For the first time, I want nothing else other than her death. I can feel my anger and my need for vengeance boiling inside me, and I'm sure they lend me speed as well.
My spear scores a line of blood across Ravenna’s thigh. Her chain brings up gashes on my arm. We are both bleeding now, neither one of us showing signs of slowing down, both of us trying to weaken the other and create an opportunity for a killing blow. I am used to Ravenna being a passive, manipulative figure, but now she seems like some deadly snake waiting to strike.
I can hear the crowd cheering us on, and they seem to be cheering for each of us almost equally. They may hate what Ravenna has done, but she has ensured that they don't entirely like me either. In any case, what they want most is the fight, the blood, and we are both obliging them. Ravenna's armor protects her from a thrust of my spear. I deflect her dagger with my vambraces. We run at each other, pass in a blur of violence, and then turn to do it again.
I can feel my heart pounding and my breath coming in shorter bursts. Sweat mingles with the blood on me, dripping down onto the sand of the arena. I catch a brief glimpse of the other gladiators watching from the gates leading to the arena. Alaric is there, pressed up against the iron gates, his expression seeming to will me on. I can see the emperor, too, in his box, looking stern and implacable. Does he want me to win? I would be a fool to think that he's on my side. Certainly, he will show me no mercy if I lose.
But I am not thinking about losing, only about finding a way to finish Ravenna.
We are starting to move more slowly now as the fight wears on. It has become clear that the battle will not be decided by some swift burst of violence or sudden tactics, but instead by patience and timing, seeking the moment for the perfect attack. Each of us tries to draw the other out, seeking to lure one another into an overextension that we can exploit.
I have an advantage in one way, because my spear gives me the chance to inflict a finishing wound from a distance. Unless Ravenna can get her spiked chain around my throat, its main purpose is to make me bleed and weaken me until she can come in close with her dagger. I try to focus on attacking her from the end of my spear range, using my weighted chain to distract her, then thrusting. She dodges each attack still.
She kicks up sand towards my eyes. It's enough to make me flinch, but I'm ready for any sudden rush. What I'm not ready for is her whipping her chain around the haft of my spear, ripping it from my grasp and then tossing it aside on the sand.
Now we are more equal. I draw my short dagger, and the two of us could be mirrors of one another, each attempting attacks with our chains, each attempting to find a way to get close enough for a finishing blow.
Ravenna is slowing. I see her fumble the swing of her chain, and I dart into the gap she has left. Too late, I realize it is a trap. She is already moving aside, and her chain wraps around my legs, the agony of the spikes digging into me even as she trips me and sends me sprawling in the sand.
She follows me down not giving me any respite. Her dagger flashes in the sunlight, and I must grab her wrist to keep it from me, using the threat of my own dagger to keep her at bay. She's looming over me, trying to use her weight to drive the dagger down into my chest.
“They're going to cheer for me when I kill you,” she assures me.
I throw myself to one side, rolling on the sand, her dagger digging into the dirt where I was just lying. I kick off her chain from my legs, ignoring the blood that's pouring from the wounds there as I struggle back to my feet.
“I'll take you a piece at a time if I have to,” Ravenna says. “Sooner or later the pain will get too great, and you won't be able to keep me out of your mind anymore.”
As if to punctuate that she renews her mental assault. I fight back, but it's almost too great. I feel the moment when the crow plummets from the sky, dying as I take too much from it. I shrug off the attack but barely.
“I'm going to make you offer up your throat to me,” Ravenna assures me, even as she starts her spiked chain spinning and whirling again.
I know I need to do something, or I'm going to lose this bout. I focus on my own chain, trying to match the rhythm to hers. I set my feet in the sand, knowing that this isn't about hitting and moving anymore. I have to finish this. I can't just let her bleed me little by little until my resistance is gone.
I swing my chain, aiming, not for her, but for her chain. The two tangle in the air, knotting around one another until they seem to form one continuous strand between us. I take hold of my chain firmly and I pull, dragging the two of us closer little by little. Ravenna has the choice now to either let go of her chain or be dragged forward. She chooses the latter, slashing at me with her knife as she comes, but I'm ready for the attack.
I let my armor take the brunt of the blow, not caring about the pain as it carries on to open up my flesh, instead I move closer, inside Ravenna's reach. I thrust upwards with my dagger, underneath her rib cage, up into her heart.
“This is for Naia,” I say, as I drive the dagger deeper.
She gasps, her eyes going wide as I deal the killing blow. She looks as if she is trying to say something, trying to plead. I can feel her power reaching out for me, but it is already fading. I hold her there, transfixed on my knife for a moment, staring into her eyes.
Then I let her go and she falls to the sand, blood pooling around her as she dies. I stand there holding the knife in my hand, and I raise it, the still bloody edge catching the light.
The crowd goes wild in the wake of the kill.
“Lyra! Lyra! Lyra!”
I can hear them chanting my name. I can see the emperor is on his feet, and I bow my head as I salute him, knowing it is required. But mostly I feel numb. I have killed Ravenna. I have gotten the revenge I wanted. I have shown myself to be the gladiator the emperor wants, and I have survived my last challenge of the Champions Trials. I should feel ecstatic at that, but I do not feel anything as I walk from the arena.