Chapter 11 #2
“The first challenge of our competitors will be the same that inaugurated the Angel’s own tournament thousands of years ago: The duel.
” So Rocarri was modeling this event after Valyrie’s.
Maybe she could find a piece of old governance that stated how the Angel felt about forced bondings.
“Since last night, we have had nearly four dozen more warriors volunteer to enter our esteemed tournament. Today, all contestants have been randomly paired based on drawings completed in the seeing chamber of the Angel’s Sacred Temple. ”
Emmeline inhaled sharply at the casual mention of a seeing chamber, but even more shocking was the number. “Four dozen? There are sixty men trying to win me?” Her stomach twisted.
“They turned out in droves last night,” Cyren said, gripping the ornamental dagger on their belt tightly enough Emmeline would wager the General wasn’t pleased with this arrangement.
“I was stuck going through applicants late into the night with a few council members. I can promise you, some of them don’t stand a chance. ”
The sparkling silver gate across the dusty arena groaned opened, every eye snapping to the Angel wings in the center as they parted.
The competitors didn’t ride in chariots this time.
Sixty men jogged across the dirt, many of them waving to the adoring crowd.
Flags swung rapidly, and coins, flowers, and numerous symbols of Fates were tossed into the ring, the men flashing jubilant smiles.
Some wore full chest plates, others simple vambraces or spaulders, a variety of weapons strung on their belts and baldrics.
Very specific chants rose from the crowd, names she recognized from the opening ceremonies and even more she didn’t. The colored banners they waved were more uniform than yesterday, entire rows with matching sets.
“They already have favorites?” Emmeline asked as the voices carried across the arena.
“A bit presumptuous, I’d think,” Alana said. “We haven’t seen them do anything.”
Perry’s name was one of the loudest, and Emmeline quickly found his smug expression among the front of the pack, smiling up at a section of at least fifty warriors.
The mossy green scarf peeking above his armor matched the hue of the flags they waved, a helmet topped with bronzed carvings tucked beneath his arm.
“Many of them have earned reputations in various battles or at prestigious academies,” Cyren whispered as Rocarri called out pairs by number, not name.
“A few of the newer entrants are untested, but a lot of them—especially the original twelve—are from notable families who bargained to get them here. They’re all fairly young.
Though, if you ask me, that makes some of them more arrogant. ”
Emmeline’s chest panged for Roremar the Reckless and the arrogance she’d once—mistakenly—thought of him. The many true sides she’d seen since.
“Their families want the prestige that badly? Don’t some of them already have wealth and titles? Why go through this?” Emmeline asked as she watched Perry cross to his opponent.
Cyren hummed. “It’s never enough.”
With the final pairings established, Rocarri called for silence. “With this duel, you will notice there are fewer guardrails than some.”
What did that mean? Emmeline’s spine prickled at the mischief in the Chancellor’s tone. She twirled her opal ring around her finger.
“The Angel devised this tournament to unveil her most ruthless and loyal, but that was many years ago. As time has evolved, the council has decided the rules of the games must evolve to meet the grander consequences of all the difficulties we have seen recently.”
Nothing he was saying seemed to surprise the competitors. Though many of them wore helmets or masks, Emmeline could tell by their fixed stances and grips on their weapons they were preparing for combat, slipping into some other self as warriors did on a battlefield.
“There’s an odd number,” Emmeline muttered to Alana as Rocarri explained how the obscenely large hourglass at the head of the arena would be tipped over to time the first round.
Emmeline pointed to the center of the back row of fighters where one slight man stood alone.
“See, there. He doesn’t have a partner.”
Alana craned her neck to see around the pennants waving in the breeze at the front of the platform. “I guess they’ll have the others fight to first blood then pair him with a winner.”
“Seems unfair to whoever has to fight twice,” Emmeline said.
“Let us begin with the opening duel!” Rocarri called.
All but the first two men moved to the perimeter of the arena, some removing their helmets to wait, others remaining in their hardened mindset. Emmeline tried not to look too closely at them—she didn’t want to humanize the men trying to force her into a bond.
The first pair circled each other in the center of the arena, dirt scuffing up around their feet. Their cheering sections shouted impossibly loud. They were clearly favorites.
Rocarri bellowed, “Begin!”
A member of Valyn City Guard turned over the hourglass.
It was a slow start, a build to the flurry of clashing blades and soaring daggers. While the two seemed evenly matched in ability, one wore pristinely polished armor while the other only wore leather guards. So, they were even in skill but perhaps not wealth.
Emmeline tucked away every bit of information she could glean from their appearances, how they moved and what strategies each employed, which members of Rocarri’s entourage cheered for which man.
“What do we know of them?” Emmeline asked Cyren.
“One is born and raised in Valyn—a favorite to many, but not all. His grandfather was in the pocket of the last Chancellor which has left a lot of people wary.”
That would be the armored man, then.
Cyren winced as he got in a good hit, but went on, “The other is from a southern city. Trained at a military academy there and did a few stints working with other warrior clans. I’ve met him a couple times before this. He’s a strong contender.”
He had a more brutal technique, blunt strikes and clear predictions of his opponent’s next moves.
The armored man slashed, and the blow came within an inch of the other’s chest.
Emmeline gasped, clutching Alana’s hand. She’d seen her fair share of bloodshed—had taken more lives than she liked to admit—but that had been such a careless strike.
“That could have been lethal. Aren’t they only fighting to disarm one another?” Emmeline asked.
Alana shook her head, clearly equally shocked.
Emmeline’s heart beat erratically as the men’s blades swiped once, twice, more than three times.
One sliced his opponent’s cheek, bringing the cross guard up to slam into his jaw on the follow through.
The other took a bruising hit to the shoulder.
Crimson splattered the ground from minor cuts, dust swirling up around them as their feet traveled quicker across the floor.
Blood rushed in Emmeline’s ears as the armored man backed the other toward the wall, driving him to his knees with a sneaky tripping maneuver. He kneed him in the jaw and knocked aside his sword.
There was enough blood now—one man had fallen.
“Why isn’t he yielding?” Emmeline whispered, her heart beating in her throat. “Or someone calling first blood?”
Alana stuttered, “I—I don’t know.”
The man on the ground—the one in only leather armor—coughed, spitting crimson to the dust.
Horror squeezed Emmeline’s chest as he grinned a bloodstained smile up at his competitor and wrenched a knife from his bandolier, slamming it through the man’s foot.
It sank all the way to the dirt, both of their screams—one of victory and one of agony—blending with the collective gasp in the arena.
With the flapping of flags on the wind.
With the roaring in Emmeline’s ears.
The crowd cried out for more. More blood, more violence.
Emmeline’s stomach turned at the senseless, recreational brutality, but she couldn’t look away.
And when the competitor in the leather armor hoisted himself upright and staggered to retrieve his sword, one word fell from her lips.
“No.”
The contestants rimming the arena stomped their feet, banging steel against steel.
“Yield,” she pleaded.
The man from the southern military academy stumbled back to his opponent—still impaled in the dirt. He lifted his sword, spit another mouthful of blood to the sand, and without remorse brought the gleaming blade down on the neck of his opponent.
Emmeline’s knees weakened as blood spurted across the arena.
As the body fell.
As a life was ended.
Her glass tumbled from her hand, the shatter lost beneath the crowd’s roar. And she realized, this was no organized fight. It wasn’t fair swordplay and timed attacks. There would be no yielding to the stronger opponent. This duel ended in death.
It was the ruthlessness of the Angel set upon a freshly whetted blade.
It was the Fates’ wrath embodied and motivated by the one thing people gave their morals up for fastest: power.
And all of it—every life sacrificed—was in pursuit of her.
The first victor ripped off his helmet, long brown hair tumbling around his shoulders and greedy eyes finding Emmeline’s.
He raised his sword above his head and beat his other fist against his chest, right over the eleven starred sigil pressed into his leathers.
Blood dripped to the sand, soaking deep and bright around the lifeless body.
The crowd erupted into cheers, and there was a moment where time seemed to suspend.
“Fates knew it,” Cyren whispered. The General’s lips pressed into a tight line, but their eyes weren’t on the crowd.
They were on the competitors, on the hunger brewing in their tense frames.
With the crowd cheering them on, the men erupted. Blades out and cries of victory on their lips, untamed battle broke across the arena.