“THREE!”
The pain was intensifying. Do it for Ellie. She would be sold to that awful man, taken away from him and kept a slave forever, if he let this boy overpower him. Bensin gritted his teeth and gripped tighter.
“FOUR!”
It was Ellie’s slavery he was wrestling to conquer. Let his bones shatter. Let his muscles rip. Let him be left a cripple for the rest of his life. Bensin would stay right here and take the pain and hold Jayce down for one more second for his sister’s sake. No matter what.
“FIVE!”
The arena seemed to explode. Bensin let Jayce shove him off and lay limp on his back in the sand, his heart exploding in joy. I did it! I did it!
He struggled to his feet, gasping as streaks of fresh pain nearly blinded him. But he didn’t care. He thrust his fists into the air in triumph. Ellie is free!
The crowd had gone wild, screaming and applauding and roaring in excitement. Limping, nearly falling, Bensin turned in a slow circle the way he had seen other victors do. For the first time, he noticed the TV cameras hovering nearby, their operators stepping in for close-ups of his face. He hoped Ellie was watching from the Creghorns’ living room; hoped she would always remember this moment that would change her life.
A quick movement off to one side caught his eye. Instinctively he spun around just as Jayce flew at him. Bensin raised his shil toward guard position, but the other boy had already seized him by the collar and was slamming his fist into Bensin’s face over and over.
Staggering backward under the force of the attack, Bensin struggled to throw him off. Still gripping his collar, Jayce drew back just enough to shoot his foot out, slamming it into Bensin’s injured knee once and then again.
Then two arena officials appeared, seizing the boy from either side and prying him off. Crying and screaming, his face contorted with hate, Jayce was dragged away as the audience booed.
Bensin reeled and clutched at one of the flimsy poles supporting the rope barrier around the ring. Blood trickled from his nose and lower lip, and he could tell that both his eyes would probably be swollen shut by tomorrow. And his knee hurt worse than anything had ever hurt before.
I won’t collapse on empirewide television, he told himself. He still had to walk back to the Cave, and he sure didn’t want them to have to carry him there on a stretcher. But it took all his strength of will to keep standing mostly upright with the help of the pole.
The emcee was exclaiming in great excitement about what a dreadful breech of cavvara shil etiquette that unprovoked attack had been. Bensin knew that his own battered face must be filling the giant screens that hung above him — and probably most of the television screens in Imperia — as he struggled painfully over the rope. The cameras were all around him now. He managed to grin into the closest one to show that he was all right so Ellie wouldn’t worry if she were watching. He began to half limp, half hop back toward the Cave, wishing he had something to lean on, wishing one of the camera operators would offer him a hand instead of just standing there documenting his feeble progress.
And then Coach was running toward him across the sandy arena floor where friends and family members weren’t supposed to come, dodging the media. His face was full of mingled pride and concern, but Bensin grinned at him too as he drew up before him. “I did it, Coach!”
“Of course you did. I told you you would! Here, grab my shoulder.” Coach wrapped his good arm around Bensin’s waist and Bensin leaned on him, hobbling back toward the Cave with his help.
From every side, the stands echoed with cheers, with applause, with the sound of his name being chanted over and over. Bensin had never heard his own name in a chant before, and he couldn’t help pausing one more time at the entrance to turn back and wave. He was rewarded with a louder roar.
A new musical group hurried out onto the sand as Coach helped him sit down on the duffel bag and unbuckle his padding and shil. He grabbed an ice pack for him from the little ice chest they had brought with their lunch. “Put this on your knee. The first aid guys should be here any minute, and as soon as the awards ceremony’s over, we’ll get you to the hospital.” He passed him the thermos.
There was no sign of Jayce in the Cave, but a woman who Bensin recognized as his mother hurried over to them. “I’m terribly sorry about what happened out there,” she apologized, but she was speaking to Coach Steene, not to Bensin. “My husband and I would like to settle this out of court and avoid as much negative publicity as possible. Suppose we pay for your slave to have a full medical checkup and then cover the cost of any necessary treatment?”
“I think that would be reasonable,” Coach agreed a little stiffly. “As long as you also include the cost of lost labor from however many days it takes him to get back to full health.”
“Of course, that too.”
“And I imagine he’ll have to do a lot of sitting with his leg up until that knee heals. Our apartment is a bit sparse on furniture at the moment. In fact, we don’t own a couch.” Coach had obviously learned a few things from his years of marriage to a lawyer.
“We’ll be glad to cover that too,” the woman was quick to assure him, “as long this stays out of court and you and your slave don’t say anything about Jayce to the media. The money will come out of what we would have spent on the sports car our son didn’t earn. You have our family’s contact information through the CSF, right? Just send us the bills. We’ll take care of it all.”
Bensin stood on the winners’ block in the center of the arena, a set of icepacks strapped around his knee and a crutch clasped under one arm. In one hand he held the huge gold cup that was his trophy, and in the other he clutched the much more important prize: the bright red envelope with the money that represented Ellie’s freedom. Beside him and one step lower stood Ivan, cradling the silver trophy that he had been granted after Jayce had disqualified himself. The boy Ivan had defeated stood on the third place block, all of them posing proudly as cameras snapped and victorious music thundered through the arena.
In spite of the throbbing pain in his knee, Bensin couldn’t stop grinning. I proved to Jayce and everyone else that wearing a collar doesn’t make me less capable. And much more importantly, Ellie would never wear one again. Nothing else mattered now. He would gladly have sacrificed his life for this moment, but instead he had given his sister a new life — one that she would get to live with him.
I did it, Mom. I kept my promise. Ellie is free.
I hope you enjoyed The Collar and the Cavvarach!
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Read on for a sneak preview of the sequel, The Gladiator and the Guard
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Chapter One: When Everything Will Finally be Fair
The gritty sand stuck to Bensin’s bare feet as he circled his opponent. Sweat trickled down his face, and he could hear his own breathing magnified a thousand times across the arena, picked up by a microphone on one of the drones hovering above the ring. The crowd in the stands was silent in anticipation, or as close to silent as an audience of ten thousand ever gets.
I’ve got to find the right opening and finish this. Bensin’s life didn’t exactly depend on winning this match, but his freedom did.
Like a snake striking, the young man across from him lunged forward, cavvarach flashing through the air. Bensin brought his own cavvarach up to block it, and their blades met with a crash. His opponent shoved forward, weapon pressing against Bensin’s, trying to use his body weight to force him backward. Bensin gripped his hilt more tightly and shoved back, sweaty fingers clenching the foam rubber, feet digging into the sand, willing himself not to give way. The ankle he had twisted in the previous match protested painfully, but he refused to pay it any attention.
Between their crossed blades, he could see the grimace on the young man’s face, the clench of his jaw, as each strained to force the other off balance for the pin that would end
the match. He wants this win bad. But not as bad as I do.
But Bensin’s ankle was threatening to betray him. He found himself compensating by taking a quick step backward, and then another, and his opponent pressed his advantage. I can’t let him beat me! A spark of desperation prickled in his mind.
But the match wasn’t over yet. Get back in your Zone. He knew that was what Coach Steene would say. You can beat him if you just stay in your Zone.
Still straining against his opponent’s cavvarach, Bensin took a deep breath through gritted teeth, drawing in a fresh awareness of how much he loved this martial art. It’s my life. It’s joy. It’s confidence. It’s freedom. The cavvarach in his hand was one of his limbs. The shil on his arm was another layer of skin. Cavvara shil was the blood in his veins, the strength in his muscles, the air he breathed.
He felt the familiar rush of satisfaction, and the rest of the world seemed to drop away. Nothing else existed except the opponent he had to beat.
Pretending to stumble, Bensin gave way, shifted his weight, and swung one foot around in a hook kick that caught his opponent behind the knees. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, he slid his cavvarach out from under the man’s weapon and, at the same moment, ducked and threw his body against him.
The man lost his balance, staggered backward, and fell, arms flailing as he tried to keep his feet under him. Bensin flung himself forward to pin him down, but his opponent was too quick. He twisted in midair and hit the ground already rolling. Disentangling his legs from Bensin’s, he scrambled to his feet and struck out in a hard front kick that caught Bensin on the thigh.
Bensin rolled, too, knowing he had to get out of the way before his tactic backfired and he found himself pinned down. Mid-roll and still in his Zone, he brought his hands together and switched his cavvarach to his left hand. That had become his trademark move and had won him many a match. Would it work this time?
He lunged to his feet. The moment he had them under him, he charged again. Dimly, he could hear the audience roar: the cameras had probably zoomed in on his hands and filled the huge screens that hung from the arena ceiling with evidence of his maneuver. But he hoped his opponent hadn’t had a chance to process what had changed.
Disarm him quick. End it now. Bensin jerked his blade out, aiming the hook that protruded from halfway along its upper edge for the hook on the other man’s blade.
Expecting another right-handed attack, the man had already thrown his left arm out, ready to block the blow with the narrow shil strapped to his forearm. Even when an opponent knew beforehand that Bensin was ambidextrous, there was a difference between knowing and being ready for that sudden switch, that moment when the angle of his attack changed.
The man’s shil met empty space, and Bensin felt the hooks on their two cavvarachs connect. But even as he tugged, the man lunged forward in a desperate attempt not to lose his weapon and the match. He threw himself against Bensin and they went down again, arms and cavvarachs entangled.
Bensin managed to twist aside so he didn’t land underneath, which would probably have resulted in a pin and cost him the match. He hit the ground on his left side, his feet scrabbling in the sand, ankle throbbing, straining for leverage to force the other man onto his back.
The other man, of course, was straining with the exact same goal. They grabbed at each other’s arms, both their cavvarachs slipping out of their grips in the process. This was it, then. Once a contestant had dropped his weapon, there was no picking it up again. The two of them were locked into groundfighting until one of them managed to pin the other down.
Bensin turned his head aside as his opponent struck out at him with his forearm. The force of the blow might have broken his nose if he hadn’t turned in time, but as it was, the hard smooth surface of the shil just slammed against his cheekbone. Bensin’s own shil was pinned underneath him. Teeth clenched, he managed to grab the man’s left wrist just as he brought his arm around for another blow. Squirming in the sand, Bensin forced his opponent’s arm backward, pushing forward with his whole body. I’ve got to pin him down. They were both exhausted. Neither could keep this up much longer.
He could hear the desperation in the man’s grunting breaths, picked up by the microphones and broadcast all over the arena, as he slowly forced him onto his back. Bensin’s hands were slippery with sweat, but he shoved with elbows and knees against the thick protective padding his opponent wore. Left foot digging into the sand, he threw the weight of his upper body onto the other man. At last, both padded shoulders made contact with the ground.
“One!” The emcee voice boomed across the arena. The crowd roared again. The man beneath Bensin roared too, voice desperate through clenched teeth.
“Two!”
He struggled, twisted, doing everything in his power to throw Bensin off.
“Three!”
Bensin’s feet scrabbled for traction again, pain flashing through his ankle, as his opponent tried to squirm out from under him. I can’t let him up. I can’t! I can’t afford to lose this match!
“Four!”
The man was trying to strike at him with his knees, to head-butt him, to grab his throat or anywhere he could reach. But Bensin held on, pressing those shoulders to the ground with all his weight and strength.
“Five!”
The man’s muscles went limp in defeat, his cry of anger and despair swallowed up in the deafening roar that shook the stadium.
Bensin let go and rolled aside, his own muscles trembling with the strain and his ankle about to buckle on him. Fumbling in the sand for his cavvarach, he seized it and scrambled to his feet. I did it!
A score of TV reporters and cameramen jostled each other for position just outside the rope barrier that formed the fighting ring. Bensin grinned into the cameras and raised his cavvarach and his other fist high in the air. The camera drone hovering a few feet away was projecting his triumphant face onto the screens that hung above his head, but these men and women were sending it out to millions of televisions across the Krillonian Empire. The Grand Imperial Cavvara Shil Tourney was the most publicized sports event in the empire.
Of course, this wasn’t even the final round. What will really matter is if I win the finals next weekend. It would matter to the media, of course, but much more importantly, to Bensin. He hadn’t won first place in the Grand Imperial in four years. That first all-important victory had changed the course of his sister’s life forever. And a victory this time would change the course of his.
I’m still in. Winning this match meant that he wasn’t eliminated.
Waving to the crowd, Bensin turned and stepped over the ropes, pushing his way between two of the reporters. Microphones were thrust at his face, but there was nothing he wanted to say, so he merely grinned into the cameras again and limped across the arena’s sand-covered floor. He would have liked to stop and slump over, to prop his hands on his knees and close his eyes and just breathe. But he was acutely aware of the videographers keeping pace with him, running backwards ahead of him, capturing his every expression and movement. So he kept his head high and his posture erect and triumphant.
The cool, welcoming dimness of the Competitors’ Cave loomed open in front of him, a refuge from the attention. The media wasn’t allowed in the lobby-like room beneath the stands where the athletes warmed up and where their coaches or family members hovered, watching the matches.
Three people were waiting for him just inside the entrance. “Bensin!” shrieked his nine-year-old sister Ellie, blonde curls bouncing as she jumped up and down. “You did it! You did it! You did it!” The moment he stepped inside, she leaped into his sweaty arms.
I’m too tired for this. But cameras were pointed at them from just outside the Cave, so he kept the grin on his face and forced himself to swing her in a circle.
“Congratulations. I knew you could do it!” Coach Steene wrapped an arm around Bensin’s shoulders in a quick half-hug. Bensin fumbled for the clasp at his waist and unfastened the poncho-lik
e protective padding that hung from his shoulders down to his thighs, and Coach helped him pull it over his head.
“Dude, that was awesome. You’re even better than I realized!” His friend Ricky high-fived him, beaming. “You were right: the Grand Imperial is the most exciting sports event ever.”
“Yeah.” That was all Bensin had the energy to say as he unbuckled his shil, the inside slick with sweat, and wiped more sweat off his face.
Coach handed him a thermos. “Drink up. You obviously need it.”
Bensin unscrewed the top and downed a long draft of creamy, fruit-flavored sweetness. Coach Steene was a firm believer in the power of the smoothie and its ability to put energy back into you after a match or workout quicker than anything else. And it did seem to help.
Over the PA system, the emcee called the names of the next two fighters. Bensin handed the empty thermos back to Coach as two young women jogged past them out onto the sand, cavvarachs in hand. He didn’t care that much about the results of this match, but he definitely didn’t want to miss the next one.
Ellie was still hopping around in excitement. “You did so great! Now you get a week to rest and then you’ve just gotta win four more times. Four more times and you’ll be the champion!”
Four more times. The number was like a heavy load dropped into his arms. I’m so tired. He was sure glad he didn’t have to fight again today.
Bensin wiped another trickle of sweat off his forehead. He glanced around to make sure the cameras were gone, but the reporters were back at the ring now, leaning in to capture the start of the next match. “Hey, I’m going to go splash some water on my face, okay?” he told the others. “I’ll be right back.”
He hobbled across the padded floor of the Competitors’ Cave, weaving his way between athletes warming up and coaches and family members hovering around offering encouragement or last-minute advice. Now that the adrenaline of battle was wearing off, he could feel bruises and sore spots on his thigh and half a dozen other places.
The Collar and the Cavvarach Page 35
