Chapter 2 #2
He fights because his people are watching. He fights because Harwick has trained him to never give up. He fights because his father's sword is in his hand and his father's courage is in his heart.
But courage isn't enough.
Bellamy tries one last, desperate gambit—a feint high followed by a low thrust, the same combination that has won him countless sparring matches in the practice yards of Mirn.
But Ivah reads him like an open book. One massive hand shoots out and closes around Bellamy's throat with crushing force, the grip finding the gap between his helmet and gorget.
Ivah lifts him partially off his feet before slamming him backward into the mud with bone-jarring impact.
The world explodes in stars and pain. Bellamy's sword flies from his nerveless fingers, landing somewhere in the mud with a wet slap.
He lies pinned beneath the Barbarian King's weight, his hands instinctively flying to Ivah's wrist, trying desperately to pry those iron fingers from his throat.
But Ivah's grip is unshakeable, and Bellamy can't get leverage from his position flat on his back.
Ivah straddles him, one knee on either side of Bellamy's ribs, his free hand moving to the prince's helmet. With practiced efficiency, he yanks the dented helm from Bellamy's head and hurls it aside, where it lands in the mud with a dull clang.
Bellamy's blonde hair spills across the dark earth, matted with sweat and blood from the gash on his scalp. His green eyes, wide with exhaustion and the certainty of death, stare up at his executioner.
Ivah raises his axe, its blade gleaming in the afternoon sun like a promise of death. This is it—the moment of the killing blow, the clean stroke that will end the Prince of Mirn and seal his people's fate.
But as Ivah looks down at the face now revealed to him, something stops him cold.
The axe freezes at the apex of its arc, Ivah's entire body going still as stone.
His dark eyes widen slightly, studying Bellamy's features with sudden, intense focus.
He stares at the way those green eyes refuse to close even in the face of death, the proud set of his mouth despite being utterly defeated.
Something flickers in those dark depths that looks like surprise, like recognition, like something deeper and more complicated than simple bloodlust.
The moment stretches between them, charged with a tension Bellamy doesn't understand.
He can feel Ivah's breath on his face, can see his own battered reflection in those burning eyes.
His hands still grip Ivah's wrist where it circles his throat, but the crushing pressure has eased slightly, allowing him to draw precious air.
Time seems suspended, the entire battlefield holding its breath as the Barbarian King stares down at his captive prey.
Bellamy holds his breath, waiting for the final blow, his heart hammering against his ribs as he watches something shift in Ivah's fierce expression.
But the blow doesn't fall.
Then steel bites deep between Ivah's shoulder blades.
The Barbarian King's eyes widen in shock and pain as Harwick's blade punches through his back, the point emerging just below his collarbone. Blood spills from the wound, spattering across Bellamy's armor.
"Now!" Harwick roars.
Chaos erupts around them. Mirn soldiers swarm from all sides, taking advantage of Ivah's moment of vulnerability. Nets fly through the air, weighted ropes tangle around his ankles, and suddenly there are a dozen men wrestling the wounded Barbarian King to the ground.
Ivah roars his fury, throwing off attackers like a bear surrounded by hounds despite the blade still protruding from his back.
His axes swing in deadly arcs, and two soldiers fall screaming, but more keep coming.
Harwick twists his sword deeper, using his weight to drive Ivah down, while other men grab at the Barbarian King's arms.
Bellamy rolls away, gasping, his vision swimming.
Through the haze of pain and exhaustion, he sees his soldiers falling on their enemy with desperate courage.
Chains appear from somewhere—heavy iron links that even Ivah's considerable strength can't break, especially weakened as he is by Harwick's blade.
The general finally yanks his sword free in a spray of blood, and Ivah staggers, one hand pressed to his wound.
But even injured, even surrounded, he fights like a demon.
It takes eight men to finally wrestle him to the ground, and even then he nearly breaks free twice before the chains secure him properly.
When the dust settles, the Barbarian King kneels in the mud, bound with enough chain to anchor a ship.
Blood runs from the wound in his back, staining his dark leathers crimson, and more blood trickles from cuts on his arms and face where his captors have finally subdued him.
But his eyes blaze with undiminished fury.
Harwick appears at Bellamy's side, his face tight with concern and his sword still slick with the Barbarian King's blood. "Can you stand?"
Bellamy nods, though his legs feel like water. Harwick helps him to his feet, steadying him as the world tilts dangerously. Every movement sends fresh waves of pain through his battered body—ribs that might be cracked, cuts that sting with each breath, muscles that scream in protest.
"What happened?" Bellamy asks, his voice hoarse from Ivah's grip on his throat. "Why didn't he...?"
"I don't know, lad." Harwick's voice is troubled as he glances toward their chained prisoner. "I've never seen anything like it. He had you dead to rights, and then he just... stopped. Stared at you like he'd seen a ghost."
Bellamy looks across the battlefield to where the Barbarian King kneels in chains.
Even bound, even wounded and defeated, Ivah radiates a dangerous power that makes lesser men step back.
His dark eyes find Bellamy's across the distance, and for a moment, that strange intensity returns—as if he's trying to solve a puzzle written in Bellamy's face.
Then Ivah's lips curve in a slow, predatory smile that makes heat flood Bellamy's cheeks for reasons he can't understand.
There's something in that expression that suggests the Barbarian King doesn't see himself as truly defeated.
As if this capture is merely another move in a game only he understands.
"Get him back to the dungeons," Harwick orders, never taking his eyes off their dangerous prisoner. "Full guard, triple chains. And get a healer to tend that wound—we need him alive. Someone also tend to the wounded—we've got a long march home."
As his men begin the grim task of collecting their dead and wounded, Bellamy finds himself unable to look away from their captive.
The Barbarian King allows himself to be hauled to his feet with regal dignity, the chains clanking with each movement, never taking his eyes off Bellamy.
Even wounded, even in shackles, there's something magnetic about him—a raw power that draws the eye and holds it.
Why had he hesitated? What had he seen in that crucial moment that had stayed his hand?
Bellamy doesn't have answers, but as they begin the long journey back to Mirn, he can't shake the feeling that his life has just changed in ways he's only beginning to understand.
The way Ivah continues to watch him, the way that knowing smile lingers at the corners of the Barbarian King's mouth—it all speaks to something larger than simple defeat and capture.
The Barbarian King is their prisoner now, bound in chains and wounded by Harwick's blade, but somehow Bellamy feels like the one who has been captured.