by Michael Mood
As Otom made to get off the boat, the captain stepped up to him.
“Right nice to have you on the ship with us, Monk. I won't ask your name.” The captain chuckled at his own joke. Otom smiled politely. “We all thank you for the Fire you've made. That warmth was worth more than you'll ever know. I'd like ta give ya back yer coins if ye'd take 'em.” The captain held out a handful of tiny silver bits.
Clearly the man has decency in him.
Otom held up his hand to deny the offer, then traced a holy symbol in the air.
“It's all the same ta me,” the captain said, pocketing the coins. “Be needin' a return trip?”
The question saddened Otom, but he shook his head, waved politely, and set off into the town.
He had been to Kilgaan a few times in his life. When he was younger, he had fought in a tournament here, and that was the day he had met Allura Finny.
He made his way south along a thick main road ignoring as much as he could, but the past kept hitting him. He recognized a tavern he passed. The Frost Bear. Of course it hadn't been called that fourteen years ago, but the building was the same if a bit more worn.
Otom longed to see the place inside where he had first seen Allura. She had chosen a booth facing the door as she had liked to do.
-2-
14 Years Ago
The room buzzed with life as Otom sat alone at a table in the corner. The smell of food wafting through the air just barely covered up the smell of the patrons. Meat cooking on a spit dripped its tasty liquids onto the flames below. Fires were always burning up here in the north, especially in a place like The Fool's Heart Tavern.
“You waitin' for someone?” said a blond girl in the next booth. She was leaning over the top of the divider and staring at Otom. She had flawless skin and her hair was a light blond color that spoke of many hours in the sun. There was something angelic about her that captivated him. She held a blood-red drink in one hand and twisted at her hair with the other, weaving the silky strands around slender fingers.
His eyes were drawn to her chest just before he answered her, then he quickly darted his eyes up to her face, hoping she hadn't noticed.
“Me? No. Not waitin' for anyone,” Otom said.
“I like your colors,” she said smiling. “Are those from the Isola region?”
“Yeah." Otom scratched his head nonchalantly. He was still wearing his Skada from the activities before the tournament. The uniform was purple with golden trim on it. “You must know 'bout the tournament, then.”
“You could say that,” said the girl. “My name's Allura Finny.”
“Pretty name.”
“Thanks! You're wearing tournament colors and wrist wraps and that means you're a fighter. I love fighters.”
“Yeah. I'm Otom Aldenburg.”
She popped out of view for a second and then came around to stand at his booth. She wore fur boots that came to her knees and a blue dress that fell just above them. The material was very, very fine as far as Otom could tell. Some rich person's daughter, maybe? She would be alright in the warmth of this tavern, but once she stepped outside into the freezing dusk she'd have to bundle up.
“How old are you?” she asked.
Otom thought about lying, but decided against it. “Sixteen,” he said.
She whistled. “That's young to be fighting in the Kilgaan tourney isn't it? Could have a good beard on ya for sixteen, though. If you let it grow out, ya know?”
“I shaved it close so I could fight. We grow 'em big up in the north, though.” Otom shrugged coolly. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen. But I'm not fighting. Some girls do though, right?”
“Yeah,” said Otom. “Seen a few.” He adjusted himself in his seat so he could face her better.
“Can you see me in the arena?” Allura giggled. She made some mock punching gestures, sloshing her drink a little too hard.
Otom could think of nothing more exciting, but the second he opened his mouth to attempt to say something witty, a man walked up to his table.
“Making friends, I see,” the man said. He was a few fingers taller than Otom, and he stood like a fighter. His forearms were layered with muscles and he carried himself in a relaxed manner that said he was ready to move in any direction at any moment.
“Ris!” said Allura, throwing her arms around him. “You found me!”
He's too old for Allura, Otom thought, desperately. Maybe he's her brother.
“Course I found you. Name's Ris,” the large man said, extending his hand to Otom with Allura still clinging to him.
“I gathered,” Otom said, taking the grip and squeezing pretty hard. It was actually fairly even. “I'm Otom from Pakken.”
“Isola region,” Ris said. “Some good fighters come outta there.”
Otom nodded, making sure not to say the first dumb thing that came into his head.
“He's young, dontcha think, Ris?” Allura asked.
Otom was indeed young to be fighting in the Kilgaan Tournament. The tournament was organized into weight groups, with Otom fighting in the thirty-stone group. He wasn't sure if there was another sixteen year old in the tournament. He had come to this tavern after weighing-in at the arena. He hadn't noticed Ris at the weigh-in, but his head had been full of sights and sounds.
“Tournaments are organized to shit up here,” said Ris, moving his hand dangerously close to Allura's hip. “Had to rush to the weigh-in. Almost didn't make it. You knew about this weigh-in bullshit, Otom?”
“Yeah,” Otom said. “It was in the rules.”
Ris shook his head. “Times used to be you'd trust a man when he told you how much he weighed. Could eyeball it, ya know? Now they got these 'stone' weights goin' on. Must be some Northern Kingdom measurement. We don't have it in Marshanti.”
“How did they pick the stone to use?” Allura asked in mock jest.
“See, that's what I mean,” Ris said, taking the question entirely too seriously for Otom's taste. “It's arbitrary. Can't even see any fuckin' stones under all this snow. You northmen have an advantage up here. Come fight in the south. You'll sweat to death!” Ris laughed. “It's so cold up here that my nuts are in my stomach!”
Allura laughed. “Hardly!” she said.
Otom's heart sank. That wasn't the sort of thing you said in front of your sister, and not your typical sister-response. Otom's hopes for anything involving Allura began to dwindle. She had her strong man here, she didn't need Otom. But she had walked over to him . . .
“-fighting in the thirty-two stone weight, just barely,” Ris was saying.
Otom was about to respond, but was cut off.
“Do we really have to talk fighting all night?” Allura pleaded with Ris. She turned to Otom. “He loves to talk about fighting. He'll go on and on and on if you let him.”
“I thought you liked fighting,” Otom replied.
“Like to watch. Like to touch. Don't like to talk.” She took a sip of her drink and then raised the glass a bit higher into the air. “This tastes fantastic!”
“What did you get, Lura?” Ris asked.
“Some kind of cherry . . . snow cherry something or other. I don't even know.”
“Otom, you don't have anything to drink,” Ris said.
“I don't drink the week before a tournament.”
That was apparently Ris's invitation to sit down in the booth. “You know what?” he said. “I don't either. Some of these brawlers'll drink themselves all to shit and when they fight the next day they lock up. Muscles won't work. You hear their breath all raspy and you can hear their tongues smackin' in their mouths.”
Otom knew. He had fought against men like that. He nodded.
“You're built,” Ris said. “And you got a good head on your shoulders, Otom.” He lowered his voice to a whisper as if he were divulging a great secret. “These men that fight with weapons . . . swords, you know. Shields. What if your sword is on the ground, man? What if your shield gets stuck in . . . stuck
in a fuckin' tree? Ya gotta know how to defend yourself with nothing. Ya gotta know how to fight naked.”
“Riiiiis,” sang Allura. “Don't go into this, please. You'd do everything naked if you could. I need another one of these,” she said, staring into her mostly empty glass.
“Cuz there are bad men out there,” Ris continued. “You know the kind. A knife's just a tool. It's not pure. If ya can't brain someone with your bare hands, what kinda man are you?” Passion shone in his eyes and he seemed to be awaiting a response, but Otom was busy watching Allura walk away. She had a way of moving through the crowd that almost looked like a dance. She dodged drunken patrons and serving girls with ease, swishing the hem of her dress from side to side.
“Who did you study under?” Ris asked, undaunted by Otom's lack of participation. Otom noticed how much deeper Ris's voice was than his own.
“I call him Silence," Otom said. "He doesn't talk at all during training. And he's completely blind.”
Ris leaned forward and squinted. “You're shittin' me.”
“No I'm not,” Otom said, not knowing what else to say.
It took a moment for Ris to absorb the weird information. “Huh,” he said, leaning back against the booth divider. “I trained under a man named Screaming Grizzly. Probably a much different method of teaching.”
“Lots of yelling, I'm sure,” Otom said.
“Gotta have a war cry. Gets the blood up, ya know?” Ris slapped his hand hard on the table. Otom was embarrassed that he jumped a little at the sound. “If you can't get angry, how are you supposed to throttle some guy?”
Allura was back with another sloshing snow-cherry-something-or-other. “It's all ale down where we come from,” she complained. “Ale, ale, ale.” She took a long, healthy swallow of her drink and then looked through the side of the glass at it. “I thought I ordered a full one!” she exclaimed, then plopped herself down next to Ris.
“Did your master come with you?” Ris asked Otom. “Silence?”
“No,” Otom said. “Made the journey myself. Pakken isn't that far away.”
“It's gotta be thirty bands at least, Otom!” Allura said with wide eyes. “You rode all that way? You didn't freeze to death?”
Otom shrugged. “Didn't ride. Walked. I grew up in the north. My dad says we're almost immune to the cold.”
“No one is immune to nature,” Ris said, a serious look on his face. “Nature is the greatest adversary of the naked fighter.”
Otom couldn't tell if that was a joke or not, so he half-smiled.
Ris was waving to someone across the tavern now. “Hey,” he said turning back to Otom. “Some friends from Marshanti just tracked me down. 'Lura, we gotta go mingle, ya know? My advice to you Otom: get into the camaraderie of the whole thing. Meet people. Get to know your fellow fighters.”
Ris pushed Allura out of the booth firmly enough to miff Otom, but gently enough that he didn't say anything about it.
“Bye Otom,” she said. “It was nice to meetchoo, even if't was brief.” Her words were slurred ever so slightly. She couldn't have weighed more than seventeen stone, and those snow-cherry-something-or-others were probably pretty strong.
“See ya, Aldenburg,” Ris said, grabbing Allura's wrist and tugging her off towards whomever he had waved at.
Otom wasn't sure if he liked Ris. There was something very weird lying just below the surface of that man. He didn't think he'd ever met anybody like Ris before, but he decided to put his mind squarely on the tournament now that Allura was out of sight.
But Ris had called him “Aldenburg”. Ris hadn't been there when he had told Allura his last name. Something sank in the pit of Otom's stomach. He had been scouted. He'd heard of it happening. I'm in over my head.
Ris now knew Otom's region, town, age. Small facts, but then . . .
Otom had divulged his master without thinking. If Ris knew the styles he could counter them.
He had let Ris watch him jump at the slap of his hand on the table. They had shaken hands. The strength of his grip. The man had been feeling him out.
And what did he know about Ris? Nothing, really. He couldn't know if he was really from Marshanti, or if his name was really Ris, or even if he studied under a master named Screaming Grizzly. It sounded like a dumb, made-up name now that Otom thought about it.
He knew Ris would be in his weight group, regardless of what he had said about fighting in the thirty-two stone group. That was probably a lie, too.
Otom had been so off guard the whole time, gawking at Allura and her beautiful face.
And that's when it really hit him. It hurt to think that maybe the blond-haired angel had been a planned distraction, and that she had been in on the whole operation.
“Get to know your fellow fighters, indeed,” muttered Otom. He laid his head in his arms and tried to shut out the world.
-3-
The hard-packed dirt came up to meet Otom's back, but he spun his legs in the air and regained his footing almost immediately. Ris was on him, rushing up to greet him with a large open palm slap to the side of the head. Otom barely got his arm up in time to even half-block the blow and then Ris danced into another combination.
Fists flew quicker than Otom had ever encountered, coming in so many places that he had to concentrate entirely on blocking rather than launching an attack of his own. He blocked his neck, stomach, shoulder, other shoulder, jaw, and somehow – through a miracle of reflex - his groin. All of that had happened in the space of a few heartbeats.
Otom felt blood trickle down his face. The fist wraps they were forced to wear would protect against the worst of it, but he still got cut up while fighting, skin splitting from impact.
The crowd roared around them making it hard for Otom to hear. Hearing the scrape of a foot on the dirt could mean the difference between blocking a kick and never seeing it coming.
His master had taught him to listen; always listen. Listening in combat had been the core of his training. Silence's students had been required to block punches while blindfolded and to be able to hear the sound of a piece of straw being dropped into snow.
Silence once said that a man gained more from one minute of listening than he did from an hour of talking. Otom had forgotten that lesson, and now he was fighting Ris in the semi-finals and having a bad time of it.
The Arena was ablaze with sound and heat and Otom couldn't imagine fighting like this in the south. It was near freezing outside, but in the ring he was sweating, breath coming from him in white clouds. Ris had been right: Otom would have passed out long ago in Marshanti's warmer climate.
Otom swept his foot down to the ground, but Ris jumped over it, slamming a fist directly toward the side of Otom's head. The blow connected with his ear, sending a jolt of pain through his head. The impact made him shudder and he scampered back to a position of safety. He faced Ris with his hands out in front of him.
He's going for my ears. One was already ringing from the barely deflected open-hand slap and now the other one felt like it was filled up with liquid. More blood, he realized morbidly.
But Ris would have known those moves wouldn't matter in a strategic sense. Otom couldn't hear over the frenzy of the screaming crowd anyway. This was a morale tactic.
Otom opened his mouth and let out a scream. His voice wasn't deep like Ris's, but it was powerful. The crowd reacted to the energy of the youngest fighter in the tournament, filling the arena with even thicker noise.
Otom charged at Ris, not sure what to do, but knowing, deep down in his gut, that he had already lost. Am I simply getting it over with? Right out of the gate Ris had been faster, stronger, and better prepared. He had come at Otom with a frightening level of aggression. It had made his muscles feel weaker just to see Ris's face.
The two fighters came together with a smack that was lost in the roar of the crowd and then, as Otom struggled and twisted, Ris was on top of him on the ground.
All fights end on the ground.
Ris tucked hi
s head right up next to Otom's, the man's legs and arms curled around the boy and Otom could swear he felt nine or ten limbs instead of just four. It was some hold he didn't know, and didn't care to know. Ris hissed in his ear, “War cries are my thing, Aldenburg. So's fuckin' Allura.”
Otom struggled underneath. The darkness of Ris's hair blocked his vision and turned the world black, but he could see silver stars crawling across that blackness. The pressure Ris was putting on him was immense. He felt like he was trapped under a boulder, all his limbs bending in amazingly painful ways, his chest unable to draw breath.
Otom tapped his hand against some part of Ris's body to signal that he was finished.
Ris had won this fight.
-4-
Silence hadn't wanted me to come.
That was what kept repeating itself in the back of Otom's head. This tournament was too large, this tournament was too skilled. The crowd was too large and loud. It was more of a brawl than a technique fight.
Silence had known, and Silence had tried to warn Otom, but Otom hadn't listened. That's why he had made the journey alone: Silence had refused to go with him. Otom's master had set the whole thing up, but had refused to go along. If he had thought that might have deterred Otom he had been wrong.
“If he just would have come,” Otom said to himself as he slammed his belongings into his pack one by one. His small room atop The Fool's Heart Tavern was just barely big enough to hold him and his things, but rooms were scarce during the tournament so he had taken what he could get. “He could have helped me. He could have done . . . something . . . “ Otom trailed off. His ear was leaking blood again. Not too painful, but there it was: some kind of damage that would have to be seen to. His other cuts were healing nicely and his bruises had faded a little with the help of some packed snow, but that ear had something wrong with it.
“Well, dammit!” Otom yelled in a frenzy. He was probably bleeding all over his wolf-skin coat. He didn't even check the room to see if he'd left anything as he slung his pack over his back. He took off down the stairs determined to get as far away from Kilgaan as he could before anyone looked at him or, God forbid, talked to him.
