Page 100 of Court of Talons

She catches the other Divhs in full arc, slashing and puncturing with her teeth, clearing a swath for Gent to regain hisfeet. At the last moment, he releases the serpent, and she piles into both monsters with Gent roaring in behind. As she ducks and spins away, he follows up with punishing blows to the faces, heads, and necks of the other Divhs. The ground shakes as they all topple to the ground. Kheris’s snake wraps herself around the wolf, and Gent pounds away in blind outrage at the bull until the trumpets finally sound above.

The battle is over.

Gent stands and turns quickly this time, not to be denied. But he doesn’t turn first to me. Instead, he turns to Kheris on the far platform and raises both arms to the warrior, in silent testimony of the act that has quite possibly saved the tournament for us, if not our lives. As I stare, a swirl of dark blue and white petals surge around the giant man, a maelstrom of color. Then Gent turns to me, and the crowd roars.

Petals are everywhere. They burst into the space around me, but also in hundreds of places around the tournament stands, and the wind whips them into a soaring storm.

It takes four tries for the horns to quiet the crowd enough for Rihad to announce the next stage of the tournament: the melee. My guard was right in one thing at least—there will be no one-on-one fight between Kheris’s serpent and Gent. The crowds are already streaming out of the coliseum to spread out along the great plain. I instantly see the value of this. From the ground, they’ll be able to see nothing but enormous clashing Divhs. I could die a hundred times over and no one would know how.

For a moment, fear attacks me in the cut of one timing, but I am ready with a lifetime of fury to push it back. Fury at being denied everything, at being forced to scrape and cower, my life hanging by a string. I will fight in this twisted battle of Rihad’s, because Icanfight.

Before, it was denied to me. But I will be denied no more.

By the time my escorts come to usher me off the platform, I’m ready.

“Your horse has been prepared,” the first man says as we clomp down the steps, the same guard who’d spoken to me before. “Your squire rides with you.”

“My—” I widen my eyes, thinking of Caleb astride his sturdy gelding. Caleb, fierce and brash, ready to run headlong into any fight, so convinced that he could win by the strength of his will alone. How can I let him risk his life for me? How will I live with myself if he’s hurt?

As if in answer to my thoughts, a smile creases the guard’s gruff, weary face. “He would not be denied,” he says. “He’s determined to ride into battle with his warrior, he says, and to face death as only a warrior can. He’s a good man.”

I nod, my heart thudding with so many emotions for my bright and irrepressible friend—pride, fear, worry, and above allgratitude—I’m surprised it doesn’t burst. “He’s the best man I know.”

There’s no more time for words as the guard resumes his clomp down the stairs, but my thoughts are not so easily stifled. The image of Fortiss leaps to my mind—unbidden, unwanted. His glorious golden eyes, his heart-swelling touch, his warm and vibrant laugh…his ultimate, damning disdain.

Did he watch me fight this day, one of the very few who knows my true nature? Did he worry about me at all—or even, like the guard, silently cheer for me? Or is that battle already lost forever?

I shouldn’t care. I don’t. I won’t.

I do.

Chapter 42

The other warriors are already lined up to fight the melee in long lines of men and guards, and each of the winners of the fighting pit tournaments has been provided with a horse and spear. Caleb’s own long sword is already drawn. Instead of his gelding, however, he sits upon Nazar’s mare. Seeing that makes me feel better, if only slightly. Caleb can’t balance a spear with only one arm, but a sword is an extension of his arm, and his center is strong. He will hold.

Darkwing stamps and whinnies, and I meet the gazes of the men who line up to be captained by me. These aren’t my allies, nor are they my friends. How many of them have been ordered to kill me in the first rush of the attack? Many, I suspect. All, more likely.

Nothing I can do about that now.

As we ride, I watch the men’s eyes slide off me like water off a fish, eddying to the right and left. They won’t follow me. They can’t. Even though I’ve won the tournament beside Kheris, there are too many among them who are under the Lord Protector’s sway. Too many among them who bristle at my youth and lack of knowledge—and who’d lose their minds entirely if they knew I was female. There will be no time to convert them, not this day.

I need to try something else.

I turn to Caleb. “Go into the men. They respect you,” I say as he looks up at me with surprise. “Tell them this as if you have studied the strategy of the melee your entire life.”

“Um…I’ve never fought in a melee.”

“Neither have they. Neither have the men opposite us. Therefore, to win we must take the strategy of the long sword and apply it to the concept of one against many. Each of our men are one, but they shouldn’t fight one against one. That’s the conventional thought, and it’s what’ll be expected, but it will fail. Instead, they should each choose four opponents as their enemies, and chase those four specifically from side to side, left and right. The outliers of one man’s foursome will also be the outliers of another man’s. In this way, each of our opponents will have two enemies, not one.”

I stop, pointing to the far side of the melee gathering, where the youngest winners of the pit battles, boys of twelve and thirteen, are massing on foot. Why are they even here? If they get caught in between the foot soldiers, or Light forbid, the mounted combatants, they’ll be crushed. “The boys should stay out of the battle entirely, fighting only on the fringes.”

Caleb nods, his breath coming more quickly now. “What of the Divhs?”

“The Divhs will appear behind the warriors. It’s what they’re accustomed to doing. So we’ll create a wide path for them, driving the enemies away to the left and right, so the Divhs don’t trample us in their coming run. The warriors will fight first with lance to cut a path open, and then with their minds once the Divhs arrive. When the Divhs are clear, they’ll fight once more with the lance and sword…I think. No matter what, the soldiers and boys will be the most at risk. You must ensure their safety.”

I look up and see I’ve nearly reached my mark. “Go.”

Caleb peels away from me as I line up across the wide swath of open space from Kheris, who sits staring at me like a man possessed. He’ll get his chance at last, first of all the others. He and I are positioned several steps forward of the nearly five-score men in the melee. Fifty or so remaining banded soldiers, fifty more men of worth who have not yet received their Divhs, but whose mettle has been proven in the fighting pits. The excitement in the air is palpable, as is the dread. There’ll be severe injuries from this tournament game, beyond what might happen to me, I think. It’s too many men. Too many men and too many Divhs for safety.

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