by S E Zbasnik
“He is perhaps the second best fighter here,” Larissa assumed a lot quickly, “and the only way to prove your worth is to display the full range of skills.” Her ice cold eyes cut across Hayley as she sneered, “Least she’d know better than to have me waste my time on you. What’s your preferred weapon, a washing paddle?”
Hayley didn’t respond, her hands stuffed deep into her armpits so she wouldn’t snatch them over to try and rip out of a chunk of that auburn hair. You’re doomed. Everyone in the rings was holding their own. Swords, axes, those long sticks with the pokey ends, all swung and bashed and blocked. They moved as if they’d done it a thousand times before, as if they’d trained for this.
As if they weren’t given the option to become a squire or face the noose.
Shit.
“Next round!” Knight-Captain Erin shouted above the clang of weapons. The attacks froze, arms yanking swords out of shields and the like as everyone slotted back into their waiting-for-orders stance. “Wait by the wall,” she said to them before turning to Hayley and the rest.
The Knight-Captain’s umber eyes burned over Hayley a moment before she skipped to, “Alice, you’re against Darren in the leftmost ring.”
“Yes, Ser,” Alice called before pausing and staring aghast a moment, “Which is left?”
“That one,” Erin growled, causing the girl to scamper away fast to select a round ball on a stick covered in points. Trusting in the recruits to do as ordered, the Knight-Captain pivoted to the remaining four. “Larissa,” she ordered, causing the pain in the ass to grin wider. For a brief moment, the Knight’s eyes drifted over to the sides before landing squarely upon…
“You will face off against Hayley.”
“What?” Larissa’s jaw dropped, her eyes bulging as she whipped her head over at Hayley. “Ser, I must protest.”
The Knight-Captain froze from moving to tell the last two to get a move on. Hayley watched a line of muscle snap from the back of her shoulder blade clear up her neck as she swung her head to Larissa. “And what do you think gives you the right to question my word?”
“Nothing, Ser, but there are matters you must be made aware of…”
Like a bear surprising a hunter who begins wetting his hose, the Knight-Captain bore down on Larissa. The smart ass suddenly found it hard to lift her head. “And what in your meager existence makes you think you’d know more than I?”
“It…” Larissa’s top lip flexed as she weighed her words before her venomous eyes whipped over at Hayley. “Nothing, Ser.” The girl deflated instantly, her cheeks sinking low as she stared at the ground. They all heard a loud whisper and looked across the arena at the knights, who’d been watching the exchange closely.
With a laugh, Hayley leaned closer to her and whispered, “They’re sure to pick you now.”
“Be eaten by maggots!” Larissa hissed, about to start growling more when the Knight-Captain sent them all over to pick out a weapon. There were stacks of them resting upon rough tables. Swords with blades of varying length, axes that didn’t look like they’d do well against firewood. Hayley graced her fingers against one with a jagged edge at the back, but when she tried to lift it, her arms nearly gave out. The thing only raised a few inches off the bench before she abandoned that plan.
Larissa was still snarling under her breath, the fury practically turning her hair to fire. “What are you doing? Select your weapon, climb into the ring, and prepare to fall repeatedly on your backside.”
About the only thing Hayley had any experience with was a dagger, and that was of a “shiv someone in the kidneys and run” scenario. She’d never faced off against an opponent before, not without hurling dirt in their eyes at least. On the assumption that a sword was like a big dagger she picked one of the ones with a thinner blade. Her eyes graced a giant one, but her failure with the axe told her better than to try.
“There,” she announced, lifting her arm up and down while she held the sword aloft. After getting a feel for the weight, she tossed it to her other hand and smiled. “I’m done,” Hayley added, stretching out the word while glaring at Larissa for holding them up.
The girl snarled again. She’d put guard dogs to shame with her skills. Maybe that was where she could go after she failed at squiring. Sit outside an estate and snarl at unwanted guests. As Hayley waved her sword around a bit more, a lightness rose in her gullet. This didn’t seem so hard. She might pull it off after all.
The sound of wood bashing into itself drew Hayley’s attention and she watched Larissa yank a six-foot long pole off the line. It didn’t have that hook the other one did, but there was a weighted end at the bottom, which Larissa drove into the dirt. “Well…” she extended her hand towards the middle ring. It was the same one Marco had to help Abed out of after the giant man-boy nearly bifurcated him on accident.
Dashing forward, Hayley found the iron wall was about knee height. Not wanting to trip on it and fall, looking like an even bigger idiot than before, she placed both her hands upon the wall’s edge and tried to slide over. In doing so, the bottom bit of the sword clanged louder than the bells of St. Cheric’s church. The reverberations rattled up Hayley’s teeth and she whipped her head around to find everyone staring at her. Even the others in the middle of fighting to prove themselves paused to glare at her in confusion.
“Sorry about that,” Hayley waved while scampering into place, “I’m still growing.” That caused a few to guffaw from the knight camp, but those amber eyes weren’t laughing. No, they were staring — hard. Trying to shake off the feeling she was a scraggly pig at auction, Hayley wafted her shoulders. She rolled her wrist a bit more, the sword sliding into what looked like the right place, while Larissa adjusted the leather bracers on her wrists.
“Are you prepared?” the girl asked. Her words sounded hollow, as if she’d asked them a million times before.
“Uh,” Hayley bit into her lip, her eyes wandering towards the other rings. It looked like the trick was to wave her sword towards the stick part. Easy. “Yeah,” she nodded brusquely. “Yeah, I am.”
“Very well,” Larissa twisted in place. Okay, just move the sword towards…
A blur of brown streaked towards Hayley’s head. She screamed in shock, barely bashing it away with the sword before it could scatter her brains on the ground. Which was when Larissa swung it straight into Hayley’s calves. They crumpled, splattering her back to the dirt and all the wind burst from her lungs.
Coughing to cram some of the lost air back in, all she managed for her trouble was the filthy dust. Hayley spun onto her hands, spitting into the dirt to clear her mouth while Larissa loomed above her. “I told you this was pointless,” the girl sighed as if she was bored.
“Maybe for you,” Hayley wiped at the side of her mouth, surprised to find nothing but saliva there. Staggering to her bruised knees, she rose up, “but I’m learning a lot.”
Brandishing the sword in both hands this time, Hayley dug the handle end into her gut and stared defiantly into Larissa’s eyes. This was the trick. She was about to tell Larissa to attack when the girl’s shoulders sloped to the side. Shit! Shit shit shit!
Muscles, and not wanting to wind up wiped out on the ground again, deflected the first two attacks. The iron in her palms vibrated when it struck the wooden pole, burning against her loosening grip until she feared she might drop it. Then what? Would Larissa just keep attacking? Crap! Another swipe of the pole came for Hayley’s skull. This time she dodged it, causing the stick to swing right above her.
Smirking at her ingenuity, Hayley moved to strike forward when Larissa spun in a circle. Her pole moved with her and she jammed the blunted end right into Hayley’s gut. Pain erupted in an instant, the meager meal of blackened bread rising straight up her throat. She stumbled backwards, doing her damnedest to keep from vomiting all over the grounds. Her entire throat burned from the path her last meal forged, but Hayley wasn’t about to disgrace herself by spewing everywhere.
Just as she got a
handle on it, her gorge returning to its slumbering depths, Hayley glanced up to find a wooden blur slicing for her shoulder. “Shit!” she screamed loud enough to rattle the banners, sparks burning across her eyes from Larissa landing a hard blow. Pain won out and Hayley crumpled to the ground curling on her side. She gulped like a suffocating fish, refusing away the tears even as she reached for her surely shattered shoulder.
Her fingers expected to find pieces of bone tumbling out of the ripped apart flesh, but all she found was a roaring bruise and a tear to her shirt. Above her, the deadly stick rotated in a circle, eclipsing the view of Larissa who was…snarling at her. Shit, she wasn’t going to do something weird like try and bite her, was she?
“You are pathetic!” Larissa hissed, her eyes shifting to that scary red haze just before someone gets a limb torn off.
“Yeah…” Hayley struggled to slide back, one hand gripping to her torn shoulder while the other refused to drop the sword. If Larissa really went spare, it might be her only hope. Cold metal banged against her spine, and she glanced over her shoulder to find the half wall was keeping her trapped.
Struggling to her feet, Hayley shrugged, “Gotta admit, I’m making you look good.”
The pole swung fast, its weighted end coming towards Hayley. But it was with words Larissa attacked instead. “You are making me look incompetent. A warrior is only as good as their opponent, and I’d look better in comparison fighting a basket of kittens.”
Hayley dug her knuckles against her cheek, trying to bite down on the pain ratcheting through her arm as she hefted up the sword. She had no god damn idea how to hold it, but it was her only chance. “Stop taking things so personal,” Hayley said, staring up into the heartless eyes that would bring her doom, “that’s how you get ulcers.”
Snarling, Larissa swung fast. She expected Hayley to try and block it, and fail, but the girl had a better idea. Picking up her legs, Hayley broke into a full-on run looping around the inner ring of the circle. “What are you doing?!” Larissa shrieked from behind. The terror followed suit, her pole whipping through the air like a scythe as she gave chase.
“Trying to not get pulverized,” Hayley cried back. She didn’t dare turn around, just kept on twisting in the circle of dirt while Larissa tried to remain on her tail.
“You are…AAHHH!” the girl screamed and Hayley felt the tip of the pole skitter against her spine. Crap. She lengthened her gait as far as it could stretch, the sword bent downward in her grip to try and aid her escape to nowhere.
It had to look pathetic to the knights watching as one squire pursued another inside a metal ring that was at best fifty feet wide. Larissa continued to scream more manic than the hill folk, her weapon creaming the air behind that wily Hayley who avoided it by the hair of her nose.
“You know nothing about why you’re here, you have no skills to make you worthy of becoming a squire. What is your purpose?!” Larissa shrieked, turning into an old witch that haunted the moors instead of a highly trained fifteen-year-old.
Rather than answer, Hayley continued on her run. This was probably the only thing she had under her belt, a long life of fleeing — especially from people with weapons. Dirt erupted from the ground, shrouding them from the spectators, when the sole upon Hayley’s flimsy shoe cracked.
Dragging into the ground, she began to tumble. Her arms flailed wide, attempting to catch anything to keep her going. It’d have worked too if Larissa wasn’t waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. Just as Hayley got her footing back, the pole jammed straight into her spine. The force shoved her clear out of those cheap shoes and Hayley once against crashed to the ground.
As her palms, scratched and bloody from the churned up dirt, struck to keep her face from doing the same, the sword went flying free. It clanged like another funerary bell, bounding against the metal wall and dying. So much for plan C. What else could she try?
Hayley was about to spin up to her feet to reach for the sword and begin again when the bottom of the pole smashed into her ribs. “Gah!” she cried, wincing away instinctively from the second attack. Her body was screaming at her to roll and never stop.
Unable to keep up with the girl on the ground, Larissa kept jabbing at empty dirt where a Hayley filled hole just formed. “Damn it! What makes you think you have a right, any right to be here? I worked for years to become good enough to serve, and you…you dare to waltz in as if it is yours to claim!”
It wasn’t tears streaming from Larissa’s eyes. That might be something Hayley could use. No, a terrifying rage burned inside those green irises, one so hot Hayley expected to find smoke gushing from her eyelids. Raising the bludgeoning end high above her head, Larissa’s snake glare honed in on Hayley’s unprotected head. A blow like that and they’d be scooping her brains up with a shovel -- assuming anyone cared enough to bother.
Hefting both her legs out of the dirt, Hayley slammed her heels straight into Larissa’s knees. The girl shrieked at both the pain and the temerity of some nobody striking her. Hayley sat up, about to grab onto the end of the pole and rip it free.
She got a hand onto it, yanking the gasping Larissa closer. “You’re not killing me today!”
It was a good line. It should have sent people scattering to piss in corners and gasp in awe. But she forgot the second part of that boast — having the wherewithal to back it up. Larissa dug a foot into Hayley’s exposed gut and yanked her staff free with a mighty grunt. It sent Larissa staggering back, but she was armed and on her feet while Hayley was once again gasping for breath in the dirt.
Shrieking to rattle the clouds of heaven, Larissa swung her pole hard right into Hayley’s already bruised shoulder. “Shit!” Hayley screamed, pain erupting down her arm to her wrist and up to her teeth.
“Cease your attack,” the Knight-Captain’s voice rang out and for a brief second, Hayley was hopeful. Maybe Larissa wouldn’t bash her skull in and dance a jig on the gooey innards.
Then she got a look at the eyes. She’d only seen madder in dogs that went bad in the head. Gritting her teeth, Hayley’s hand fished around backwards. Maybe if she got the sword, maybe if she tried to block with it. Maybe if…
Blurring through the air, the staff came streaking towards her skull. She flinched deeper into her chest, hoping to cause it to glance off or minimize the damage. Fingers sliding through the filthy dirt, Hayley refused to give in. Get the sword, block it. Save your sorry hide again.
A brown hand lashed from the side, massive fingers enveloping the wood and holding it a foot above Hayley’s head. She gasped and sputtered, her eyes crossing to take in the knotted wood about to brain her, before her eyes turned to follow the arm. Ser Gavin effortlessly hurled the staff back towards Larissa who just had all the fight knocked out of her from a single amber glare.
“Your orders were to cease,” he said. His body relaxed but Hayley noticed he kept his hand close in case he had to try and stop another attack.
“Yes, Ser,” Larissa mumbled, her eyes upon the ground.
The knight glanced down at the pile of Hayley on the floor. She wanted to melt into a puddle from the look in his eyes and to avoid the embarrassment of how epically she failed at this. Bards would write three-hour odes about how not to fight like Hayley. But it was to Larissa he turned, “Help your opponent rise.”
Nodding dumbly, Larissa extended her hand towards Hayley. Shit, was this when a viper would slither out of her sleeve and bite fangs into Hayley’s wrist? It’d be her luck. Feeling the eyes of every single person on her, Hayley gripped tight to Larissa’s palm and got back to her feet. Without saying another word, Knight Gavin returned to standing beside the rest.
“I think we’ve seen enough,” Knight-Captain Erin ordered, clapping her hands tight to get everyone’s attention. “Hang up your weapons and wait while the Knights deliberate.”
Hayley could feel every single bruise on her body throbbing with her heartbeat, her arm dangling at the side as it made her eyes burn to lift it higher. St
ill, it was Larissa who sneered at her, as if Hayley got a single hit in. “If I am not chosen because of you…” she hissed, the threat left unspoken while Larissa stalked towards the edge of the ring and out.
Hayley didn’t give a shit what Larissa would do to her. Become a squire. It seemed an easy enough task. She didn’t think she’d have to know how to use a weapon, or be able to disarm some lunatic waving around a stick, or…or whatever else they expected in this gauntlet. If Hayley wasn’t chosen, she wasn’t going anywhere except back to the gallows she narrowly avoided. Maybe the magistrate even left the noose there with a tiny reserved sign hanging off it. Seemed like the kind of thing they’d do for jollies.
Closing her eyes tight, Hayley whispered to herself, “It’d have been better if she killed me in the ring.” One arm cradling the other, she stared at the knights in a huddle. Gavin stood a head above the rest, seeming to be in deep council, but as Hayley scrabbled to try and get free of the ring she could have sworn she felt his eyes on her.
CHAPTER TWO
She was dead. A rotting corpse hanging out of a gibbet. Mulch chewed up to fertilize some mayor’s favorite begonias. Deader than the flattest nail in the kingdom.
The others huddled around the weapons rack, eyes peeled as all the nobs in shiny armor began to bicker over who got the best pig at market. Hayley originally thought this wouldn’t be too hard. A little smooching of the backside, some indiscriminate bowing, and she’d be able to hightail it out from under the knights’ eyes before sundown.
With one hand cradling the massive welt puffed off her shoulder, she felt the narrowed eyes of guards standing at the only exit to this arena. They looked calm, as if they had all the time in the world. The others paid them no heed, either used to having a few armored men around or thinking it a compliment, but Hayley’s palms itched at the sight. On instinct, her stomach churned if she smelled armor polish.
