by Aderyn Wood
Varashti squealed and pressed a hand to his face. Blood welled through his fingers.
“First cut,” Mutat announced. “This is war, Princess. If you cannot handle the heat you need to leave, to run back to your father with your precious tail firmly between those soft thighs.”
Danael squirmed in his seat. This was wrong. Varashti was weak, inept and irritating, but he didn’t deserve this.
“We should help,” he hissed to Alangar.
His friend flicked him a troubled look.
Varashti was circling, doing a poor job of defence with his sword held too high in front of him. He used it as a shield, or something to keep the sun off, rather than a weapon.
Ilbrit danced close and thwacked him in the side, pushing Varashti off balance. He lost his footing and fell in the sand. Ilbrit took the opportunity to thwack him in his upended arse.
A roar of laughter emanated from the general’s platform, and the front benches occupied by the royal cousins.
Danael clenched his jaw. It was wrong what they were doing. Wrong of the general to allow this, but just as wrong to watch it. He stood. “Stop!”
All eyes turned to him, including Varashti’s openmouthed gaze.
“What are you doing? Sit down!” Alangar hissed.
“I, Varashti’s champion.” Danael’s voice echoed over the stalls.
The general’s frown slowly transformed into a sinister smile. He turned to look at the royal cousins. “It appears we have another pair of lovers.” He looked at Varashti. “You’ve been busy, Princess.”
The cousins sniggered again.
Danael descended the steps.
“Watch his speed, he’s quick,” he heard Alangar say before a renewed rush of movement toward Ibbi caught his attention. Ibbi was already busy scratching new wagers into his tablet. Danael wondered who they favoured. He’d only fought Ilbrit once before. Not long after his arrival they’d trained with wooden short swords. Ilbrit had won easily. Danael had limited practice, and was weakened by the long journey. But I can beat this oaf.
He stood next to the ring’s barrier and looked up at the general who still smirked at him from above. “I do it on one condition.”
The general scoffed. “You don’t make demands in war, pale face.”
“In war, don’t treat your men like dirt.”
The general sucked in a breath as he glanced around the stalls. He lowered his gaze to Danael. “Name your condition.”
“I make wager. Ilbrit wins, I oil his shield and leathers, and hone his swords till next moon.”
Ilbrit flashed a broad smile at the general. “I like this wager, Father-General. Though I’d like it even more if he also had to clean my grandmother’s bedpans.” Ilbrit swaggered. “We already know him for a piss-guzzler, he’d probably enjoy having his hands in shit too.”
More laughter flowed from the benches.
The general nodded. “And in the unlikely event you win?”
Danael climbed into the ring and picked up Verashti’s khopesh before casting a hard gaze at the general. “I fight you.”
Renewed murmurings wavered over the stalls and Danael imagined Ibbi’s tablet filled with new scratchings.
The general drew together his thick kohl eyebrows.
Danael didn’t shift his gaze. What are you going to do, Mutat? Back out and prove to everyone you’re a coward?
“Get on with it,” the general growled.
Danael allowed himself the slightest of smirks as he glanced at Ilbrit.
Ilbrit threw him a sinister grin.
Varashti had clambered back over the barrier.
“Do your best, pale man,” Ilbrit snarled.
Danael ignored him and crouched into fighting stance. It had been a long time since he’d held a real sword and the balance felt good, despite the odd shape of the khopesh. Like coming home.
He took a moment to size Ilbrit up. He was bloody ugly with the bent nose and battle scars. Like most of the royals he wore his black hair tied back in a long tail. Ilbrit, like his father was taller than most Zraemians but not near as tall as Danael. Watch his speed, Alglanar had said, but he wouldn’t have Danael’s reach. Still, he wondered if it wasn’t folly after all. Battling in war was one thing. Danael had experienced enough of the ring to know it was a different kind of fight altogether, requiring a different thinking.
Nothing he could do about it now. He was the one who opened his stupid mouth, and here he was, face-to-face with the best fighter in all Azzuri. Ilbrit remained undefeated quarter-moon after quarter-moon.
Scrubbing bedpans isn’t so bad. He stepped forward and readied himself for Ilbrit’s first strike. You lead, I’ll follow. Let’s see how you want to dance, ox.
Ilbrit was crouched impossibly low. His eyes burned with a fury, his lips withdrawn in a terrifying snarl, his teeth fully bared at Danael.
Sweet Prijna, he’s a berserker.
“If I met you on the battle field, piss-drinker, you’d be dead.”
Danael didn’t flinch. It was Ilbrit’s way to yell insults and vile obscenities. He wasn’t the first opponent Danael had faced who employed such tactics and he wouldn’t be the last. Danael concentrated on the basics. His footing, his balance, his stance. He tried to incorporate all he’d learned from his homeland and this new world.
Ilbrit lunged.
Danael jumped back, narrowly avoiding his sword. A mistake for Ilbrit moved ever forward. Danael inched back again and again with each new sword thrust, until the cool stone of the barrier met his back.
The onlookers were yelling out now, and above the din came a dozen strips of advice.
“Strike back!”
“Hold!”
“Drop and roll.”
Ilbrit was impossibly quick. Each strike coming immediately after the last. Danael was only just parrying each blow, holding on. He couldn’t sustain it for much longer. For a moment his eyes met Ilbrits’ and all that lingered there was crazed hatred. Then his sword was whipped from out of his hand and a hot wire of pain sliced through his shoulder. He yelled out.
“First strike,” the general called, and Ilbrit backed off, jogging lightly on his feet to the centre of the ring, smiling in a crazed fashion to his royal cousins and announcing to his father that this would all be over soon.
“Grandmother will find it entertaining to have a pale-faced, piss-drinking barbarian cleaning her bedpans.”
Cheers and laughter filled the stalls occupied by the royal cousins.
Danael looked down at the wound on the tip of his shoulder. It was a delicate cut, which proved Ilbrit’s skill as much as any mortal wound. Danael took a long breath as he bent to pick up the khopesh. Ilbrit had used the hook at the very end of the blade to dislodge Danael’s sword. He had to try harder.
They engaged again, and again Danael was forced back to the barrier. This time Ilbrit sliced his other shoulder. An identical lesion. But at least Danael held his sword this time.
Very well, oaf. Your point has been made.
The watching soldiers were on their feet now, everyone yelling and shouting advice.
“Use your height.” It sounded like Alangar.
I have to do something. Something was different. It was the sword, the khopesh. The realisation gave him some relief. He was used to fighting with a longer sword. One that could reach men on an enemy longboat. These swords were shorter. Ilbrit was quicker, more agile. But Danael was taller and stronger. He couldn’t dodge as well as he ought, but he needed to overpower Ilbrit. It was time to lead the dance.
This time when they met at the centre, Danael didn’t wait, not even for a heartbeat. He struck out and his sword found the open skin on Ilbrit’s side under his arm.
Ilbrit bawled like a river bull, and silence followed as Ilbrit looked at his wound. A messy one that would hurt for days to come. His gaze then turned to Danael and a renewed anger burned in his eyes. “Cunt!” he screamed, and ran with speed at Danael.
Danael thrust his arm
s forward and pushed. Ilbrit flew back landing on his arse. Sand flung into the stalls and the onlookers whooped in frenzied excitement.
Danael acted fast. He took four quick strides while Ilbrit lay sprawled on his back and nicked him on the leg.
“Second cut,” someone yelled.
Danael glanced up at Mutat. A glower turned the corners of the general’s mouth down. “Two cuts each,” he growled.
Ilbrit got to his feet and dusted sand from his arms. He stalked to the centre once more. “One day, pale face, we must fight till the death. Then I can rid the world of another barbarian.” Ilbrit spat out a mouthful of sand. “Though, you’d make a worthy slave. You could haul me around the streets and save my ass the effort.”
Danael let the words slide off him like mud. He twirled his sword and rolled his shoulders. A divine focus seemed to prevail in his mind and he knew the outcome before he met his opponent in the centre of the ring. He cut a low swing to Ilbrit’s leg, slicing another red line and assuring his victory.
“Cunt!” Ilbrit bellowed once again, and his fury drove him forward. He struck twice in quick succession slicing Danael’s skin once on the thigh and again to his trunk. Deep cuts this time, and they hurt like Hador’s fire, but Danael had got in first. He’d won. Next duel, he’d face the general.
“Third cut,” The general roared above the din. “Ilbrit is the victor.”
An uproar filled the stalls.
Danael grimaced, suddenly feeling the pain of all four wounds. “No, It was I who won the challenge. I am the victor.” In his frustration he’d switched to his native tongue. Not that it mattered. The noise around him was thunderous.
“The barbarian has it!”
“Ilbrit lost.”
“Danael.”
“Danael.”
“Danael.”
The crowd was chanting. Danael blinked as he watched them. He had beaten Ilbrit who had rubbed his arrogance into the face of everyone one of them at some point. They were chanting for him now because Danael had achieved the revenge they’d only dreamed of.
“Silence!” The general and his brother-commanders were yelling, and the soldiers, so used to obeying him, quietened.
“Look at you.” The general snarled. “Acting like a pack of barbarians.” He struck a fist on his chest. “We are better than this rabble before me. We are Azzurian. You are the king’s contingent. Act like it.”
The soldiers glanced sideways. No one spoke. The chanting was a rare act of rebellion and the general was about to impose his punishment on them. “I say it again. Ilbrit is the champion. It was witnessed by myself and my brother-commanders. It was witnessed by all of you too. Who dares deny it?”
Not a peep was forthcoming.
“Very well,” the general muttered. “At dawn I expect to see you all in the field.”
Danael shut his eyes for a breath. The men were supposed to have a day of rest on the morrow. So this was their punishment for siding with Danael.
The general and commanders turned and left the platform. Ilbrit gave Danael a smirk before rejoining his royal cousins.
Liers and cheats all of them. Danael limped to the barrier and left the ring.
In the armoury, Danael grappled with the ties on his wristband as his friends talked in hushed and hurried words around him.
“The general is growing more corrupt,” Lu said as he paced back and forth in their little nook of the dark storage room where they kept their armour and weapons.
“No, he doesn’t,” Alangar replied. “He’s always been a cheat. And keep your voice down.”
“But he made a wager. In front of all the men, and Phadite. Does he not worry for his soul?”
“The man believes he’s half a god, like his brother-king,” Ibbi said, as he looked over the scratchings on his tablet. “You owe me a jug of beer, Tizgar.”
Tizgar gave him an astonished look, but it was Ru who spoke, “We’ve all just been fucked by the general, and you’re worried about your winnings! You’re nothing but a mercenary, Ibbi. A weaselly merchant like Varashti’s father.”
Ibbi shrugged. “You owe me too, Ru. That lovely table dagger.”
Lu threw his hands in the air. “What are we going to do about it?” Lu had stopped his pacing and faced them.
“Do about it?” Alangar asked.
“I don’t intend to do anything,” Nanum said. “Aside from keep my head down, and avoid the general’s attention. It wasn’t me who put my hand up to defend a scum like Varashti.”
Danael glanced at Nanum. His hair hung in messy strands. He had a thug’s face and always looked as though he could do with a wash. On the ship, the others had all welcomed Danael, eventually. They’d brought him water and food, and helped him learn the language. But, Nanum had kept his distance. Danael wondered if he’d put his neck out for his own mother.
Danael took his wristbands off and placed them on the shelf with his weapons. “Help with back, Alangar?”
Alangar nodded and stepped over to untie the leather bands that crossed Danael’s torso and back. “We should get a priest to look at those cuts.”
Danael nodded. “I go to temple.”
“You don’t want to do something about this?” Lu stared straight at Danael in his intense way. Lu’s father was a scribe who worked directly under the king. He helped to write the codes that Azzuri was supposedly becoming famous for. The others had explained it numerous times and Danael had even witnessed their mote for himself a few times, just to see how it worked, exactly.
They didn’t call it a mote though, their word for it was ‘court’. The king sat in his seat of rule, they called it a throne, and delivered his judgements. There was no communal reckoning by the citizens. There were too many of them in the city, and such a process would have been impossible. Rather, the king’s judgment was final, but he adhered stringently to his rules, or codes. Unless there was a case that hadn’t been brought to him before. Then he would invent a new code, and the scribes would write it down on the large clay tablet.
Lu always brimmed with a sense of justice. Once again Danael wondered why he didn’t become a scribe instead of a soldier.
“There is nothing that can be done, Lu, so why get so worked up about it?” Ubranum asked.
Lu gave him a glare. “I wasn’t talking to you, camel brains. I was talking to our barbarian friend.”
Danael shook his head. “I am angry. The general, not man of word. No honour. Ubranum is right. Nothing I can do. In my country, such matter—” He shook his head, searching for the right words. “Khanassa would hear the people and make judgement. Things different here.”
Lu frowned. “You’re wrong. Things are not so different.” His eyes lit up. “We could bring it to the court. You could bring your grievance to the king himself.”
The others laughed. “You’re quite mad today, Lu. You’ve been inhaling too much blue smoke,” Ibbi said.
“No, listen to me,” Lu continued. “Danael could bring it to the king’s attention. He is a newcomer, he doesn’t know our customs or our unwritten rules.”
“Go against the general? The king’s own dear brother?” Ubranum scoffed. “Mutat has always got away with his cruelty, what makes you think the king will step in now?”
Lu licked his lips. “He gets away with it because no one stands up to him. It’s likely the king doesn’t even know what the general does.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Ibbi said.
“As do I,” Ru agreed.
Danael looked at Lu. He had a point. “Is there law for this? What General has done?”
“Definitely,” Lu replied. “For the common man, if you make a wager, witnessed by another, you must adhere to it.”
“The general believes he has adhered to it,” Nanum said. “He has invented the outcome.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter. The king needs to be made aware of his brother’s corruption,” Lu stared at Danael with appeal in his hawkish eyes.
Danael too
k a breath. “Alangar?”
Alangar looked at each of them in turn. “The king will require three of us to bear witness. Who’s willing?”
“I will!” Lu said immediately.
Alangar nodded. “As will I. Who else?”
Danael glanced around. His companions cast their gaze at the floor. Nanum bit down on his lip. Ibbi busied himself studying his tablet. Ru and Ubranum both shook their heads with curled lips, and Tizgar held his head in his hands.
“I’ll do it. I’ll bear witness.”
Danael turned to see Varashti standing in the shadows. His large eyes even wider in the dim space. The wound on his cheek was an inflamed red line.
Danael nodded. “When is court?”
“Post noon,” Lu said. “We’ll go to the field training in the morn, then head straight to the palace.”
Heduanna
Heduanna looked over the city as she walked along the lower terrace of the palace. Her eye fell to the temple and the obelisk that marked the time. Now it represented more than just the hour. It meant tedium. The temple lessons had proved entirely uninteresting. Body parts, diseases, and various cures held no appeal. The stuffy priests even less so. She almost wished for a return to Qisht’s lessons. Almost.
The worst part was the initiate quarters. She’d been allotted her own little room, thank the goddess, but little else. She had no slave to serve her, and was expected to help prepare meals and undertake chores like all the other initiates. Thankfully, her father requested her presence at breakfast in the palace most days, and it was always a relief to return home to luxury.
Rainclouds drifted in from the west, casting a shadow on the city and Heduanna took comfort in the gloominess. She nodded to Namtur and Alshu who stood guard at the entrance to the royal courtyard. At this time of year, when the climate was cooler, her father often enjoyed breakfast outside, near the pool, overlooking the city. He entered the courtyard, from his suite, just as she entered from the terrace.
“Good morning, Father,” Heduanna said as she bent to kiss the ring on his hand.
“Daughter.”
