He saw it coming from a mile away, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had backed off until he ran out of circle. He had blocked and parried until he lost the feeling in his fingers. This time, when he raised his aching arm and there was the crash of metal on metal, one tired foot slipped and he tumbled squawking from the ring, floundering on his side, his short steel spinning from his twitching fingers. His face slapped against the ground and he took a gritty mouthful of sand. It was a painful and embarrassing fall, but he felt too tired and too battered to be all that disappointed. He was almost relieved that the punishment was over, if only for a moment.
“One to Gorst!” shouted the referee. A light dusting of applause was crushed beneath hoots of derision, but the big man seemed scarcely to notice, shuffling back to his mark with his head down and already preparing for the next touch.
Jezal rolled slowly onto his hands and knees, flexing his aching hands and taking his time getting up. He needed a moment to breathe and make ready, to think up some strategy. Gorst waited for him: big, silent, still. Jezal brushed the sand from his shirt, mind racing. How to beat him? How? He stepped cautiously back to his mark, raised his steels.
“Begin!”
This time Gorst came out even harder, slashing away as if he was scything wheat, making Jezal dance around the circle. One blow passed so close to his left side that he could feel the wind from it on his cheek. The next missed him by a margin no greater on his right. Then Gorst flung a sideways sweep aimed at his head and Jezal saw an opening. He ducked beneath it, sure the blade tore at the hairs on top of his scalp. He closed the distance as the heavy long steel swung away, almost catching the referee in the face on the back-swing, leaving Gorst’s right side all but undefended.
Jezal lunged at the big bastard, sure he had finally got through, knowing he had made it one touch apiece. But Gorst caught the thrust on his short steel and forced it just wide, the guards of the two blades scraping then locking together. Jezal cut at him viciously with his short steel but somehow Gorst blocked that too, bringing up his other sword just in time, catching Jezal’s blade and holding it just short of his chest.
For a moment their four steels were locked together, hilts grating, their faces just a few inches apart. Jezal was snarling like a dog, teeth bared, the muscles of his face a rigid mask. Gorst’s heavy features showed little sign of effort. He looked like a man having a piss: involved in a mundane and faintly distasteful task that must simply be done with as quickly as possible.
For a moment their blades were locked together, Jezal pushing with every grain of strength, each hard-trained muscle flexing: legs straining against the ground, stomach straining to twist his arms, arms straining to push his hands, hands gripped around the hilts of his steels like grim death. Every muscle, every sinew, every tendon. He knew he had the better position, the big man was off balance, if only he could push him back a step… an inch…
For that moment their steels were locked together, then Gorst dipped his shoulder, and grunted, and flung Jezal away as a child might fling away a boring toy.
He tumbled back, mouth and eyes wide open with surprise, feet kicking at the dirt, all his attention focused on staying upright. He heard Gorst growl again, and was shocked to see the heavy long steel already curving through the air towards him. He was in no position to dodge, and there was no time anyway. He raised his left arm on an instinct, but the thick, blunted blade tore his short steel away like a straw on the wind and crashed into his ribs, hammering the breath from his body in a wail of pain that echoed round and round the silent arena. His legs crumpled under him and he sprawled out on the turf, limbs flopping, sighing like a split bellows.
This time there was not even the shadow of applause. The crowd roared their hatred, booing and hissing at Gorst for all they were worth as he trudged back to his enclosure.
“Damn you, Gorst, you thug!”
“Get up Luthar! Up and at him!”
“Go home, you brute!”
“You damn savage!”
Their hisses turned to half-hearted cheers as Jezal picked himself up off the grass, his whole left side pulsing. He would have screamed with the pain if he had any breath left in him. For all his effort, for all his training, he was utterly outclassed and he knew it. The thought of doing it all again next year made him want to vomit. He did his best to appear undaunted as he struggled back to his enclosure, but he could not help sagging down heavily in his chair when he got there, dropping his notched steels on the flags and gasping for breath.
West bent over him and pulled up his shirt to check the damage. Jezal peered down gingerly, half expecting to see a great hole caved in his side, but there was only an ugly red welt across his ribs, some bruising already coming up around it.
“Anything broken?” asked Marshal Varuz, peering over West’s shoulder.
Jezal fought back the tears as the Major probed his side. “I don’t think so, but damn it!” West threw his towel down in disgust. “You call this the beautiful sport? Is there no rule against these heavy steels?”
Varuz shook his head grimly. “They all have to be the same length, but there’s no rule for the weight. I mean, why would anyone want heavy ones?”
“Now we know, don’t we!” snapped West. “Are you sure we shouldn’t stop this before that bastard takes his head off?”
Varuz ignored him. “Now look here,” said the old Marshal, leaning down to talk in Jezal’s face. “It’s the best of seven touches! First to four! There’s still time!”
Time for what? For Jezal to get cut in half, blunted steels or no? “He’s too strong!” Jezal gasped.
“Too strong? No one’s too strong for you!” But even Varuz looked doubtful. “There’s still time! You can beat him!” The old Marshal tugged at his moustaches. “You can beat him!”
But Jezal noticed he did not suggest how.
Glokta was becoming worried he might choke, so convulsive was his laughter. He tried to think of something he would rather see than Jezal dan Luthar being smashed around a fencing circle, and failed. The young man winced as he just barely blocked a raking cut. He had not been handling his left side at all well since he took that blow in the ribs, and Glokta could almost feel his pain. And my, my, how nice it is to feel someone else’s for a change. The crowd sulked, silent and brooding as Gorst harried their favourite around with his brutal slashes, while Glokta spluttered giggles through his clenched gums.
Luthar was quick and flashy, and he moved well once he saw the steels coming. A competent fighter. Good enough to win a Contest, no doubt, in a mediocre year. Quick feet, and quick hands, but his mind is not as sharp as it should be. As it needs to be. He is too predictable.
Gorst was an entirely different proposition. He seemed to be swinging, and swinging, without a thought in his head. But Glokta knew better. He has a whole new way of doing things. It was all jab, jab in my day. By next year’s Contest they’ll all be chopping away with these big, heavy steels. Glokta wondered idly if he could have beaten Gorst, at his best. It would have been a bout worth seeing anyway—a damn sight better than this mismatch.
Gorst easily dealt with a couple of limp jabs, then Glokta winced and the crowd hissed as Luthar just barely parried another great butcher’s chop, the force of it nearly lifting him off his feet. He had no way to avoid the next swing, pressed against the edge of the circle as he was, and he was forced to jump back into the sand.
“Three to nothing!” shouted the referee.
Glokta shook with merriment as he watched Luthar chop at the ground in frustration, sending up a petulant spray of sand, his face a picture of pale self-pity. Dear me, Captain Luthar, it will be four to nothing. A whitewash. An embarrassment. Perhaps this will teach that whining little shit some humility. Some men are better off for a good beating. Only look at me, eh?
“Begin!”
The fourth touch began precisely as the third had ended. With Luthar taking a hammering. Glokta could see it, the man was out of i
deas. His left arm was moving slowly, painfully, his feet looked heavy. Another numbing blow crashed against his long steel, making him stumble back towards the edge of the circle, off-balance and gasping. Gorst needed only to press his attack a little further. And something tells me he is not the man to let up when he’s ahead. Glokta grabbed his cane, pushed himself to his feet. Anyone could see it was all over, and he had no wish to be caught in the crush as the disappointed crowds all tried to leave at once.
Gorst’s heavy long steel flashed down through the air. The final blow, surely. Luthar’s only choice was to try and block it and be knocked clean out of the circle. Or it might just split his fat head. We can hope for that. Glokta smiled, half turned to leave.
But out of the corner of his eye, somehow, he saw the cut miss. Gorst blinked as his heavy long steel thudded into the turf, then grunted as Luthar caught him across the leg with a left-handed cut. It was the most emotion he had shown all day.
“One to Luthar!” shouted the referee after a brief pause, unable to entirely keep the amazement out of his voice.
“No,” murmured Glokta to himself, as the crowd around him erupted into riotous applause. No. He had fought hundreds of touches in his youth, and watched thousands more, but he had never seen anything quite like that, never seen anyone move so quickly. Luthar was a good swordsman, he knew it. But no one is that good. He frowned as he watched the two finalists come out from their second break and take their marks.
“Begin!”
Luthar was transformed. He harried Gorst with furious, lightning jabs, giving him no time to get started. It was the big man now who seemed stretched to the limit: blocking, dodging, trying to stay out of reach. It was as though they had sneaked the old Luthar away in the break and replaced him with a different man altogether: a stronger, faster, far more confident twin brother.
So long denied something to cheer for, the crowd whooped and yelled as though they’d split their throats. Glokta did not share their enthusiasm. Something is wrong here. Something is wrong. He glanced across the faces nearby, but no one else had sensed anything amiss. They only saw what they wanted to see: Luthar giving the ugly brute a spectacular and well-deserved thrashing. Glokta’s eyes scanned across the benches, not knowing what he was looking for.
Bayaz, so-called. Sitting near the front, leaning forward and staring at the two fighters with fixed concentration, his “apprentice” and the scarred Northman beside him. No one else noticed it, everyone was intent on the fighters before them, but Glokta did. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Something wrong.
“Say one thing for the First of the Magi, say he’s a cheating bastard,” growled Logen.
Bayaz had a little smile at the corner of his mouth as he mopped the sweat from his forehead. “Who ever said he wasn’t?”
Luthar was in trouble again. Bad trouble. Each time he blocked one of those heavy sweeps, his swords snapped back further, his grip seemed slacker. Each time he dodged, he ended up a little further back towards the edge of the yellow circle.
Then, when the end seemed certain, out of the corner of his eye, Logen saw the air above Bayaz’ shoulders shimmer, as it had on the road south when the trees burned, and he felt that strange tugging at his guts.
Luthar seemed suddenly to find new vigour. He caught the next great blow on the grip of his short sword. A moment before, it might easily have sent the thing flying from his hand. Now he held it there for an instant, then flung it away with a cry, pushing his opponent off balance and jumping forward, suddenly on the attack.
“If you were caught cheating in a Northern duel,” growled Logen, shaking his head, “they’d cut the bloody cross into your stomach and pull your guts out.”
“Lucky for me,” murmured Bayaz through gritted teeth, without taking his eyes away from the fighters, “that we are in the North no longer.” Sweat was already beading his bald scalp again, running down his face in fat drops. His fists were clenched tight and trembling with effort.
Luthar struck furiously, again and again, his swords a flashing blur. Gorst grunted and growled as he turned the blows away, but Luthar was too quick for him now, and too strong. He drove him mercilessly across the circle like a crazy dog might drive a cow.
“Fucking cheating,” growled Logen again, as Luthar’s blade flashed and left a bright red line across Gorst’s cheek. A few drops of blood spattered across into the crowd on Logen’s left, and they exploded into riotous cheering. That, just for a moment, was a shadow of his own duels. The referee’s cry of three apiece could hardly be heard at all. Gorst frowned slightly and touched one hand to his face.
Above the din, Logen could just hear Quai’s whisper. “Never bet against a Magus…”
Jezal knew that he was good, but he had never dreamed he could be this good. He was sharp as a cat, nimble as a fly, strong as a bear. His ribs no longer hurt, his wrists no longer hurt, all trace of tiredness had left him, all trace of doubt. He was fearless, peerless, unstoppable. The applause thundered around him and yet he could hear every word of it, see every detail of every face in the crowd. His heart was pumping tingling fire instead of blood, his lungs were sucking in the very clouds.
He did not bother even to sit in the break, so great was his eagerness to get back into the circle. The chair was an insult to him. He was not listening to what Varuz and West were saying. They were of no importance. Little people, far below. They stared at him: flushed, amazed, as well they might be.
He was the greatest swordsman ever.
That cripple Glokta could not have known how right he was: Jezal had only to try, it seemed, and he could have anything he wanted. He chuckled as he danced back to the mark. He laughed as he heard the crowds cheer. He smiled at Gorst as he stepped back into the circle. All was precisely as it should be. Those eyes were still heavy-lidded, lazy above the little red cut that Jezal had given him, but there was something else there now as well: a trace of shock, of wariness, of respect. As well there might be.
There was nothing that Jezal could not do. He was invincible. He was unstoppable. He was…
“Begin!”
…completely lost. The pain lanced through his side and made him gasp. Suddenly he was afraid, and tired, and weak again. Gorst growled and unleashed his savage cuts, jarring the steels in Jezal’s hands, making him jump like a frightened rabbit. The mastery was gone, the anticipation, the nerve, and Gorst’s onslaught was more brutal than ever. He felt a terrible lurch of despair as his long steel was torn from his buzzing fingers, flew through the air and clattered into the barrier. Jezal was bludgeoned to his knees. The crowd gasped. It was all over…
…It was not over. The blow was arcing down towards him. The final blow. It seemed to drift. Slow, slow, as though through honey. Jezal smiled. It was a simple matter for him to push it away with his short steel. The strength flowed again. He sprang upwards, shoved Gorst away with his empty hand, flicked another swing aside, and then another, his one sword doing the work of two with time to spare. The arena was breathless silent but for the rapid clashing of the steels. Right and left, right and left went the short blade, flashing faster than his eye could follow, faster than his mind could think, seeming almost to be dragging him along behind it.
There was a squeal of metal on metal as it tore Gorst’s notched long steel from his hand, then another as it flickered across and did the same with his short. For a moment, all was still. The big man, disarmed and with his heels on the very edge of the circle, looked up at Jezal. The crowd was silent.
Then Jezal slowly lifted his short steel, all of a sudden seeming to weigh a ton, and poked Gorst gently in the ribs with it.
“Huh,” said the big man quietly, raising his eyebrows.
Then the crowd exploded into deafening applause. The noise went on and on, rising and rising, washing over Jezal in waves. Now that it was finished he felt drained beyond description. He closed his eyes, swaying, his sword dropped from his nerveless fingers and he sank to his knees. He was beyond exha
ustion. It was as though he had used a whole week’s energy in a few moments. Even kneeling was an effort he was not sure he could sustain for long, and if he fell he was not sure he could ever get up again.
But then he felt strong hands taking him under the arms, and felt himself being lifted. The noise of the crowd grew even louder as he was hoisted into the air. He opened his eyes—bleary, blurry colour flashed in front of him as he was turned around. His head rang with the sound. He was up on someone’s shoulders. A shaved head. Gorst. The big man had lifted him up, as a father might lift his child, displaying him to the crowd, smiling up at him with a big, ugly grin. Jezal smiled back despite himself. It was a strange moment, all in all.
“Luthar wins!” cried the referee pointlessly, barely audible. “Luthar wins!”
The cheering had resolved itself into a steady chant of “Luthar! Luthar! Luthar!” The arena shook with it. Jezal’s head swam with it. It was like being drunk. Drunk on victory. Drunk on yourself.
Gorst lowered him back to the circle as the cheering of the crowd began to fade. “You beat me,” he said, smiling wide. His voice was strangely high and soft, almost like a woman’s. “Fair and square. I’d like to be the first to congratulate you.” And he nodded his big head and smiled again, rubbing at the cut under his eye without the slightest bitterness. “You deserve it,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Thank you.” Jezal flashed a sour smile and gave the man’s big paw as cursory a squeeze as possible, then he turned away towards his enclosure. Of course he fucking deserved it, and he was damned if he would let that bastard bask in his reflected glory a moment longer.
“Bravely done, my boy, bravely done!” frothed Marshal Varuz, slapping him on the shoulder as he stumbled back to his chair on wobbly legs. “I knew you could do it!”
West grinned as he handed him the towel. “They’ll be talking about this for years.”
Other well-wishers crowded in, offering their congratulations, leaning over the barrier. A whirl of smiling faces, and in amongst them the face of Jezal’s father, shining with pride. “I knew that you could do it, Jezal! I never doubted! Not for a minute! You’ve brought honour to our family!” Jezal noticed that his elder brother didn’t look all that pleased about it, though. He had the usual stodgy, envious expression on his face, even at Jezal’s moment of victory. The stodgy, envious bastard. Could he not be happy for his brother, if only for one day?
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