Page 23 of Untempered
I wasn’t saying I wanted to, but I wasn’t saying I wouldn’t.
“I’ll look after me. You look after you.”
She stepped back with a curtsey. “May you seize victory, sir Chay.”
Once more, I didn’t look up to where the Butcher reigned on high.
Seizing victory was the goal, yes.
CHAPTERSEVEN
AUDREY
“Once the seed is planted, do not jostle the soil around it for half a moon cycle, except to remove the weeds in its immediate vicinity with caution.”
~ Growing Greatness: Common Garden Plants in Arcanloc
Last year, I’d given my favor to a Ltonan. I hadn’t been allowed out of my rooms until I’d sewn a flag for every holding in Arcanloc. Every. Single. Holding. It had been mid-spring when I was done. My fingers hadn’t healed from it until summer.
But I’d been right, damn it. The Ltonan, a second son of a baron from somewhere east of the Citadel, had damn near had Mikus, until Mikus had tripped him over in an illegal move that no one bothered to correct. The La’Angi crowd liked La’Angi fighters…and blood.
“Your big heart’ll get you killed,” Isolde said two rounds later, as the lists dwindled dramatically. “His shield is tighter.”
It was, and the fact didn’t please me. He could’ve played on it and lured Mikus into an attack. That was his strategy, wasn’t it? Anticipate, then overcome. Still, if this was what he did when he was concentrating, I wasn’t overly impressed.
“It’s not my big heart,” I told her, wanting credit given where it was due. “I want to see their faces when Mikus is beaten by a ’Ban knight.”
Isolde snorted. “If he lives, it’ll be by your grace,” she said bluntly. “Again.”
That was an angle I didn’t dislike. And the memory of him lying helpless beneath me was one I was comfortable with.
He was against a borderlands rapier-wielder when I saw him caught up and unable to lure his opponent. In the extended exchange, his bladework was exquisite, his speed excellent, and his footwork more than good. But he used the shield like it was there only to block when he was threatened. Not that I could’ve done better, but I’dseenbetter. I’d grown up playing on the castle walls while the guardsmen drilled shield walls and spear work. I knew what it wassupposedto look like.
How irritating to have chosen a champion who was middling. Still, he’d listened to me, and wasn’t that a nice change?
He walked off the victor of that bout, and I sipped my cider without tasting it.
By the time Chay and Mikus met for the final, I’d predicted a half-dozen rounds prior, my head was pounding, and my eyes felt like they’d been rolling around in a hearth. I was entirely finished with the noise and the movement, with trying to keep track of faces and competitors, and also not fidgeting.
When he got through to the final, I wished I hadn’t drunk anything at all, so knotted was my belly. I still wanted Mikus to lose, but mostly, I wanted it to be quick. I knew better than to twist my hands or stand and cheer. Plenty of others did, even those in the stands. They cawed like crows.
Mikus had reach, strength, experience and, I was grimly confident, the blessing from my father to do as much damage as he could. My hands ached from holding them so still. If I could just have scrubbed at my poor eyes, mayhap it would be less agonizing. Mikus’ mouth was moving, and I knew he wasn’t murmuring poetry, but if Chay cared, I couldn’t tell. My champion kept him moving, evading swing after lunge, returning only a fraction of the man’s attacks.
“He’s looking for patterns,” Isolde murmured to me, the words low beneath the roar of the crowd.
I could see that much. “Is he finding them?” I asked her, unable to pick any out myself. I just didn’t know enough. I hadn’t practiced enough. The frustration prickled under my skin. Of all the combat skills I’d wanted, it was the one I’d never been able to learn. Isolde was an archer. She’d taught me some knife and grappling, and I knew how to throw a punch now, as well as take one.
In a blur of movement, I saw Mikus get up and under Chay’s shield, and I saw it get shoved away. Chay moved in, and a fragile bubble of pride formed in my chest as I watched him drop his shoulder and avoid that attack. He was in range of the knife I knew Mikus kept in his shield.
I’d seen him use it a time or two. Not always on the field, either.
Chay attacked, but Mikus evaded, and they broke apart, neither with the upper hand. “You made use of your time,” Isolde noted, sipping her juice. “Good advice.”
Pride burned painfully bright in my chest, and I couldn’t help but resettle my weight to shift the way it sat behind my ribs, uncomfortable with its pressure. The pattern resumed—Chay testing, Mikus responding, Chay avoiding. My heart didn’t slow to a normal rhythm, though. I didn’t try to respond to Isolde. The roaring had faded around me, or my focus had narrowed. I could see the drips of sweat on their faces, the strength behind those sword swings.
Once, Mikus let his shield drop a little, feigning exhaustion. But Chay didn’t fall for it—if anything, it made him more wary. And when Mikus toed up dirt Chay just backed up until they weren’t near that place anymore.
Isolde glanced down at her juice as she swirled it in her cup. “Did you?” she asked, idly.
