Chapter Four #5
Cyrus clutched his head, heedless of Maximillian so close, of the villagers watching.
He was swearing and a voice nearby was raised in anger but he could barely hear over the ringing in his ears.
He squeezed his eyes shut, the world cavorting sickeningly around him.
There was blood against his fingers, but he could do nothing but ride it out, curled around himself.
The pain did not leave, but it started to fade—in increments, unwillingly giving ground. Cyrus breathed through it. When he
felt like he could take his hands away from his head without his skull disintegrating, he pushed himself gingerly to his feet.
A broken-off branch lay close by on the ground, about the length of his arm. Blood glinted wetly at one end. Cyrus stared
at it, then lifted his eyes slowly to the wielder.
Not Maximillian, standing motionless a few paces away. He had one arm held out to warn off the crowd of peasants who had come
closer, huddled at his back. His eyes were wide as he stared at Cyrus.
Another thought, fleeting, trying and failing to tug at Cyrus’s attention. Why hadn’t Maximillian moved to finish Cyrus off
whilst he was down?
He couldn’t pay heed to that right now. He, a wrongdoer deserving of respect and terror, had been viciously attacked. Assaulted.
Maimed. By a downtrodden little peasant from fucking Arclee.
Cyrus’s eyes drifted from Maximillian to the people clustered behind him. Most cringed away from eye contact. But a man standing
just behind Maximillian’s shoulder stared at the champion rather than at Cyrus. There was a peculiar expression on his face.
Sulky but stubborn. Like he had been scolded, but stood by his actions.
His actions. Like hitting Cyrus on the head when he had been about to deliver his killing blow.
That snivelling little worm.
Cyrus stepped forward without thought. He was in no fit state to take Maximillian on again, and reason clamoured for him to
take note amid the swell of outrage and bruised pride. But it was lost to the flood of anger demanding he make that peasant
pay.
Maximillian matched him immediately, keeping his arm out. He wasn’t holding back the crowd, he was throwing up a barrier between
Cyrus and the man behind him.
“Some champion you are,” Cyrus hissed. “Needing your precious villagers to step in and protect you.”
Maximillian’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like that, not one bit. “I didn’t ask him to.”
Cyrus sneered. But whilst he longed to sink his teeth into that weakness, to worry at it until Maximillian came apart at the
seams, he could not ignore his own condition. His head pounded an unremitting drumbeat, his spine and his limbs ached, his
bruised face still throbbed. He could not pit himself against Maximillian and expect to win. In this state, he wouldn’t even
be able to call on his magic to help. He didn’t have the strength for it.
He needed to end this fight, now, before Maximillian let go of whatever hesitance had stopped him from finishing Cyrus off
whilst he was down.
But . . . Cyrus had won. In the fight between Cyrus and Maximillian, he had won. Maximillian’s heart was only beating now due to the intervention
of an overly zealous villager. And therein lay Cyrus’s way out.
Cyrus’s sneer faded. He thought of the detestable, patronising little smile Maximillian had worn the last time they met here in Arclee and let it curl at his own lip.
“You lost,” Cyrus said quietly. “Didn’t you?”
Silence strained between them, just the crackle of the fire to fill the air. Cyrus tasted the iron tang of blood and ash and
the burn of smoke. Still, Maximillian said nothing.
“You lost to me,” said Cyrus, his voice so very soft. “I don’t have to kill you to prove that I am your better.” He let his
eyes slide to the anxious faces of the villagers—the witnesses—beyond. Then he looked back at Maximillian and allowed the mocking smile to spread across his face, a mirror to the expression
the champion was so fond of. Cyrus savoured every moment, tilting his head just so to make sure Maximillian was hit with every
bit of condescension he could muster.
A risk, perhaps, that Maximillian wouldn’t just lash out and try to end him here and now. But it seemed unlikely. That chance
had already been missed.
“In fact—” A pause to relish his own words, because he might’ve had Athaca’s worst ever headache, but he was not about to
miss this moment. “I think I prefer you alive. To let you think back on this day. Really pore over the memory.” Like I did, all those years.
Maximillian’s face was carefully blank. He was good at putting up a facade, at hiding his truth behind a meticulously constructed
mask. Cyrus saw through it to the howling shame beneath.
Good. Let him feel it this time.
Cyrus studied Maximillian’s face for a few seconds more, committing the sight to memory.
His enemy, defeated. Humiliated before him.
Maybe this was the best outcome he could have hoped for.
It was something new, unprecedented. Champions and wrongdoers killed each other all the time.
Gossip ran rife and faded to memory. But people would be talking about this for years to come.
“Better hope you don’t see me around, Maximillian,” Cyrus murmured. Somehow it sounded like an invitation.
If Maximillian’s jaw tightened any more, the bone would surely splinter. Cyrus smiled.
Then he turned and walked away; and Maximillian let him, like Cyrus had known he would.