Won't Back Down: Won't Back Down

by Unknown

  "I can be there the first day of the new week, if it suits, m'lord."

  Lord Cutler nodded absently as he remounted. "That will be fine; I shall ensure that the stable hands know that you are to have access to my horses."

  Daelan mumbled out a confirmation as she made another attempt at a proper curtsy. It was wobbly at best, but when she looked up through her lashes, neither Lord Cutler nor Lady Beatrice was laughing at her. So either she hadn't made such a fool of herself, or they were too polite to let on that they had noticed. She'd have to get better if she ever wanted to take over her father's smithy, but in the meantime, the lack of mocking was appreciated, if not deserved.

  She watched as they disappeared from view before heading back inside, rolling her eyes in frustration as she realized the fire was no longer the right temperature for iron work. With a sigh, Daelan picked up the bellows, losing herself in its rhythm, trying to ignore the part of her that wondered if she'd get to see Lady Beatrice when she went to Lord Cutler's stables.

  *~*~*

  The beginning of the new week found Daelan in the cool shadow of Lord Cutler's stables, the soft whinnies of horses greeting her as she walked down the aisles. She had worked with some of the horses before, re-shoeing them with her father at her shoulder. A large bay nickered and lipped at her sleeve when she stopped to take stock of the stalls.

  Lord Cutler's horses were housed at the very end of their row. The straw was clean and dry under Daelan's feet, and Moonshine eyed her calmly as she slipped a lead rope onto the horse. Leading the mare out into the sunlight and tying her to the post close of the smaller, travel forge she'd set up to do her work was no trouble at all. Already she had the rough horseshoes to use, but they would need final reshaping if they were to fit properly. Doing shoddy work on Lord Cutler's horses would mean trouble for her, as well as her father.

  Moonshine was shod without problems. While working on the second of Blossom's hooves, merry laughter spilled across the courtyard accompanied by the sound of an approaching horse. Daelan's head popped up as the source of the noise came near. She had managed to keep her mind focused on her work—necessary to keep from becoming too closely acquainted with the hooves—into the afternoon. The sun and her work had conspired to have her shirt sticking to skin and loose hair plastered to her face with sweat.

  And there was Lady Beatrice, shining hair plaited round her head, looking cool and lovely after what must have been a morning of riding. Her laugh carried across the cobblestones again, and Daelan dropped her eyes to the task at hand when she realized the lady was drawing near while her escorts dismounted behind her.

  "Hale, Daelan!"

  Daelan could feel her neck pink as she straightened and fully trained her gaze on Lady Beatrice's approach. Her horse was a beautiful bay, and the lady slipped off gracefully, twitching her skirts back into place almost absently. Hoping for more dignity than she'd managed last time, Daelan sank into a curtsy. "Good afternoon, milady."

  When she came back up with a blessedly quiet creaking of knees, Lady Beatrice was eyeing her shrewdly. "Are we to pretend we have not spent years between us as bosom friends and confidantes then?"

  Under her stare, Daelan's face went up in flames, ears burning as she warred between maintaining eye contact and lowering her gaze demurely. She finally settled on ducking her head sheepishly, risking a glance up through her lashes. "I had supposed, after you returned from schooling, your uncle would expect you to act the proper lady," she said.

  It was true. Daelan hadn't been happy about it, but the thought of trying to approach Lady Beatrice freshly home from finishing school, and what had seemed guaranteed rejection of their friendship, had stayed Daelan from visiting any of the haunts where she and Beatrice had played before she was sent away. She hadn't been hiding in the smithy, per se, but it hadn't been far off.

  Beatrice snorted in what was certainly not a ladylike fashion and propped her hands on her hips. "When have I ever done what my uncle expected of me? He should know better than to think finishing school would change me into a proper lady all the time." Her expression wavered uncertainly for a moment, and she bit her lip. "Unless you no longer wish to be friends with a 'proper lady'." She lifted her chin defiantly, but Daelan didn't miss the pinch between her brows.

  "Fancy manners will not make you any less my friend," Daelan answered plainly, forgetting the sweat cooling on her back and neck in favor of taking in the way Beatrice's honey-gold eyes brightened at her words.

  A few bouncing steps brought Beatrice to her side, pressing a chaste kiss to her cheek, apparently uncaring of the grime an afternoon had wrought. "Good. I have such tales to tell you from school, and I was becoming quite certain I should never get to relate them if you had no need for a lady as a… as a friend." Daelan just smiled softly, more than used to letting Beatrice carry the conversation, in fact willing for her to. "At sunset, will you meet me down at the pond? The one with the rock where we found the tadpoles that one summer."

  She looked so eager that Daelan didn't have the heart to admit she would likely be rather poor company by the end of the day, exhausted from shoeing horses and the chores she had yet to complete back at the smithy. She smiled, though, because she hadn't really thought that the proper and learned Lady Beatrice who would return from school would have time for a blacksmith's daughter, and she would do what she could to keep that. "At sunset," Daelan promised, eyes never leaving Beatrice as she darted in close again, this time just squeezing Daelan's hand before disappearing into the stables to take care of her horse.

  It was only Blossom's even temperament which saved Daelan from a kick as she shod the remaining hooves with her thoughts on the warmth in Beatrice's eyes.

  *~*~*

  An elbow slammed into her stomach and Daelan shoved back, unwilling to relinquish what space she'd gained. Wedged into a corner of the cart, she could at least breathe fresh air—though it only brought the stench of too many unwashed bodies packed together, and she was unable to get much distance with the chain around her ankle keeping her tethered to her fellow debtors.

  Maybe her father had known this was coming. Maybe he'd gone out to the western farms to make sure he wasn't there to see it. They had no other family, not since her mother had died, and she tried to imagine that having to sell his only kin to the kingdom hadn't been an easy decision.

  She should blame him. It sat there at the back of her mind, the surety that most daughters would be furious with their fathers, would be unable to forgive them. Daelan was probably broken; she couldn't find it in her to be angry at her father. Being a blacksmith wasn't a glamorous life, and it didn't give them much in the way of luxuries, but it had been enough to live on until a couple of years ago. The taxes had hit their part of the kingdom especially hard—she and her father even more so since they were far away from most of the mines that supplied the raw material necessary to their calling.

  So she couldn't really fault her father, in the end. She could try, but it wouldn't help anything, and it was energy she wouldn't be able to spare soon enough. There were only so many options for what would happen to a debtor. Given her age, Daelan was headed for the Games held in the kingdom's center. It was a vicious series of matches that would end in the death of many a debtor, likely her own among them.

  It was a silly thought when she was staring down her own mortality, but Daelan lamented that Beatrice had probably been left wondering why she didn't show at the pond.

  *~*~*

  Their holding cell was damp in the corners, and Daelan doubted it had been cleaned properly during this decade, if the smell was anything to go by. She had tucked herself along the driest edge of the cell, closer to the bars since the rest of her cellmates were avoiding it—as though that would somehow spare them this fate.

  After the mild disaster that had been the cart ride, she had kept her gaze firmly trained on the ground. It turned out not all of her compatriots approached their situation with her practical equanimity. Some of them rea
lly hadn't appreciated Daelan's calm, but she was a blacksmith's daughter, and it was a fool who thought she'd let anyone lay a hand on her. She'd been ten the last time that had happened and she wasn't going to willingly break that streak.

  There was a small circle around her now, no one willing to let themselves get too close lest she lash out. Daelan could've told them that if they didn't raise a hand against her, she'd let them be, but the cart had been crowded, and it was rather nice not to have someone's elbow digging into her back or someone treading on her toes, so she kept her silence.

  The light in the room shifted as a door opened out of view of the cell, the thud echoing off stone walls. It was followed by the stamp-clink that Daelan now knew intimately as the shuffle of shackled prisoners. The raw welt around her left ankle throbbed in sympathy.

  A line of debtors, both more bedraggled and stragglier than Daelan's fellows, was dragged in. Her cellmates shied back, as if that could somehow help them avoid what was coming. She didn't think drawing attention would change anything at this point and didn't worry overly as she craned to take in the cell's new occupants. The debtors already in the cell huddled together, inching as far from the door as they could manage, leaving Daelan with a growing berth around her.

  The newcomers seemed to take the space seriously, leaving as much distance between them and Daelan as they could. She kept her eyes focused on the ground, perfectly content to let everyone avoid her. When a body thumped down beside her, close enough for Daelan to feel body heat, she nearly startled out of her skin.

  With raised brows, she turned to take in the newcomer. He—at least, Daelan thought it was a he—was more than a decade older than her, hair falling in messy clumps around a gaunt face streaked with blood and dirt. His eyes were bright as they regarded her though, a crooked smile on his face as he studied her.

  She blinked at him silently, wondering what it said that he'd sat beside her when no one else would. It probably wasn't good, so she tipped her head curiously but said nothing, waiting for him to make the first move.

  "I'm called Zeke." Certainly a he, then, although Daelan still wasn't sure what had prompted him to sit next to her and make conversation.

  "Daelan," she said cautiously. She didn't move to shake his hand or to elaborate, just sat back and continued to eye him warily.

  He didn't seem to have such qualms, slouching closer with a conspiratorial wink. "I've been locked up before," he informed her nonchalantly. "I know how these places work. They're avoidin' you, so you pro'ly done somethink wrong. Don' care though." He shrugged, gaze now wandering over their cellmates. "Mos' times, you lot ain't gonn do nothink to me, so s'not my problem. Plus, you got more room o'er here." Zeke smirked at her as he noticed everyone's gazes skirting their section of the cell.

  "So what you do to get here? Pinched the wrong purse, huh? Nah, thing like ye oughta been able to talk ya way out, yeah?"

  Daelan could feel herself bristling, though she couldn't decide what she actually thought the slight was. Instead of thinking too hard on it, she interrupted. "Taxes. I was a blacksmith's daughter."

  The look Zeke treated her to was appraising, but the leer that had accompanied his previous comment was gone. "So ye are indeed. I nabbed the wrong horse. Both ended the same though, dinnit?" He leaned close, voice gone low and calculating, and his gaze sharpened intently. "Ye might actually stand a chance in the Games, fer a bit, if y'ain't stupid 'bout it. Ye list'ning? Ima say this once and if ye miss it, ye've no one to blame fer yer death but ye."

  Her eyes were wide. Making it through the Games hadn't been something she'd entertained. A tiny glimmer of hope flared to life in her chest, and Daelan futilely tried to quash it. Despite that, she focused on him closely, unable to resist any possibility that she might live even a few more days.

  "Do not make the first move." The words were barely above a whisper, almost too quiet for even Daelan to hear, and his head was turned down and away so their cellmates wouldn't be able to read his lips. "Let 'em wear 'emselves out, let 'em attack firs', let 'em show their hand. Ye jus' got to keep movin'. Ye git it?"

  She nodded quickly, though she wasn't sure how the advice would help. She and her father had never attended the Games, some mix of too little time and taste for bloodshed keeping them away. The only real idea she had about them had come from Beatrice, who'd attended with her uncle and been so horrified by them that Daelan hadn't wanted to press for more information. What she did know of them didn't exactly support helping a fellow player though. "Why help me?"

  Zeke's head was tipped to the side, and Daelan wondered what he was seeing when he looked at her. Instead of explaining, he smirked and gave a loose shrug. "Ye never know how things'll pan."

  She could have said something then. Maybe she should have. Daelan had never been a big talker though, and she'd learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth. If a horse thief wanted to give her advice before she had to face the metaphorical lions, she'd take it. He probably wouldn't kill her now either, so she was probably safe to grab a couple hours of sleep before the first round of the Games in the morning.

  *~*~*

  The mace didn't look right.

  Daelan didn't have extensive experience with them, admittedly, but the mace that had been handed to her was of a higher level of craftsmanship than most of the other weapons handed out as they were led into an antechamber. She could hear the vague thunder of a crowd somewhere beyond the stone walls surrounding them, but her fellows nearly drowned it out.

  Not all of them had gotten here under their own power. The guards had dragged a number of them, too busy wailing and crying or cursing at the heavens to even shuffle along with the help. The guards had attempted to hand weapons to these prisoners too and had eventually placed those on the ground beside them, as though that would persuade them to action. It didn't seem to matter to the guards that the weapons were being ignored, though Daelan caught more than a few of her fellows eyeing the arms, some with worry, some with obvious plans for them.

  With tools finally in their hands, it wasn't hard for Daelan to size up her fellow players. She'd grown up around weapons, designing and maintaining them if not necessarily wielding them herself. She knew the look of someone who was comfortable with a weapon in their hand, and a few of these people certainly had the bearing that spoke of actually knowing what they were doing. She kept an eye on them even as she edged away.

  Their weapons nagged at her though. She knew weapons, knew the look and the feel of ones that had been made well and the ones that were little better than apprentice-work. There was a perplexing range in the ones that had been handed out.

  All of the prisoners had been asked—at the beginning, when they were first led into their cell—where their choice of weapon lay. Choosing the mace hadn't taken much thought, years of muscles built up from swinging hammer at an anvil making a mace the best option. Daelan figured it was the closest she would get to feeling natural with a weapon she'd never handled in combat. She was sure most of them had never seen combat of any kind—maybe this was their way of leveling the playing field. Or maybe it just made for better sport when the players were given their choice of weapon.

  Her mace was better quality though. She could see it at a glance without needing to get her hands on most of the other weapons to know theirs weren't as well made. She didn't know why. The sword of the man who might've been a baker next to her looked like it would crumple or shatter under a few good blows. The head of the ax of the woman eyeing her warily was already visibly loose. Why would her weapon be different? The mace was well-balanced and solid however, and Daelan wasn't foolish enough to bring it to anyone's attention.

  The trill of a fanfare sounded nearby, carrying over the roar of the crowd and the wails that only grew louder. They'd been told what would happen, brusquely and with no time for questions, by one of their guards. They would be released into the arena, as would three other groups of prisoners they hadn't yet seen. This wasn't the first round of the Gam
es, and there were two others after them, before the final round could commence. This stage was merely for weeding out the weakest of the herd, picking off those who refused to fight.

  Daelan knew it was probably also to rid the Games of those who were falling apart before they even made it into the arena. They wouldn't do much for the spectators really, and she got the feeling that was what everything was geared toward, maximizing the pleasure of the crowd. It was why they did this in rounds, thinning out a group round by round. There wouldn't be just one survivor from Daelan's group this round. Any number of them might live to see the night.

  A grating noise filled the air and the antechamber they stood in fell silent, almost deafening as a hush settled over the crowds waiting beyond the door that was slowly being lowered. The arena opened up before them, large sandy hills blocking their view of the opposite side. Daelan slunk across the door acting as a drawbridge, sparing a glance for what appeared to be a moat. It hadn't been expected, but that didn't change much.

  Her first priority was putting distance between herself and her other cellmates. The round wouldn't start until the second call of fanfare, and she doubted anyone would risk starting before since the guards had promised ominously that anyone who tried would be 'dealt with'. It wouldn't hurt to get as much space between herself and them, though.

  The mace was a comforting weight tucked into her crude belt, and she wiped her hands nervously on the leather jerkin she'd been provided. It wouldn't stop much, would just minimize nicks and cuts really, but it made her feel better all the same. Even the semblance of protection was comforting, regardless of the fact it was also making her sweat enough to stick her undershirt to her back.

  When it finally came, the fanfare echoed across the arena, the crowd chillingly silent now that there were players in the arena. Daelan's bones trembled and the ground shook as a deafening cheer went up from the crowd. The stands encircled the arena, climbing into the sky. She wasn't certain what exactly they came for because she thought it must be pretty hard to see what was happening on the ground beyond the view afforded to the well-dressed people in the edge boxes. From here, she could barely make out faces in the very front row of normal seats. Perhaps bloodshed benefited from the distance.