From where I stood, I could see the high seats where the Seven observed the games. They shone in the sunlight, their skin and their draped garments shimmering as though woven of metal, their faces serene and unmoving. At the center sat Andam the emperor and Shanzia his consort, father and mother to all of Phyreios. Watching them there in all of their finery, I felt I understood their haughty assurance that they could command all within their borders, including the worm under the mountain.
They had already once been wrong, however. I was certain that during the night they believed Khalim to be dead, but he had overcome. Now, of course, they knew the truth: he yet lived, and he was mostly unharmed, his magic having overcome the Serpents’ poison. If they still wished him ill, they would have to try harder. I had slain two Serpents, myself, and Aysulu had taken the third. I would only have to be faster and more vigilant the next time.
The arbiter called me forth to the ring. Were the Ascended watching me, studying my performance in this contest to find the means by which I could be bested? There was nothing to be done about it but to win the contest and the approval of the citizens, and make certain that the Sword of Heaven was awarded either to our team or to an ally.
I crossed the sands and stepped over the rope that marked the dueling ring. Before me stood Heishiro, his arms crossed over his chest, a wooden staff tapered like a sword stuck into the ground beside him. He gave me a nod and reached into the open collar of his tunic, pulling out a flask. He tossed it across the ring to me.
I caught it and took a drink—Cerean spirits, mixed with something lighter and almost sweet. I tossed it back to him and took my own staff between my hands, rolling the tension from my shoulders.
Heishiro finished the flask’s contents and kicked it aside. “I seem to recall beating you once before,” he called out. “I hope you’re ready to taste sand.”
“We’ll see about that,” I countered.
The arbiter stepped back from the ring, and a horn blew from the other side of the arena. Heishiro picked up his staff and charged.
He was fast, crossing the ring in the blink of an eye. I brought my staff up and deflected his first blow, but the second swung around my guard and cracked me on the side of the head.
I reeled, my ears ringing as the arena tilted around me. It leveled when I shook my head. Heishiro had stepped back, his staff readied.
“Well struck!” I said.
He grinned, and waited there for my move. I found my footing in the fine sand and swung with a great sweeping stroke.
The arena echoed with the sound of our blows. Our staves cracked together as we traded strike after strike, neither of us gaining the upper hand. I stumbled once, my foot slipping out from underneath me. Heishiro raised his weapon to deliver me a crushing hit that would surely end the match.
I dropped to one knee and braced my staff. His weapon came down with enough force to send a man sprawling, but I was ready. I met his staff with mine, and as soon as the terrible crack sounded, I stood and pushed back against him.
Heishiro staggered backward. His staff flew across the ring, and he turned and scrambled after it. Mine hadn’t shattered, but it had bent in the center, a fringe of splinters marking where Heishiro’s blow had landed. I tossed it aside and threw myself forward, catching Heishiro and pulling him to the ground beneath me. A cloud of dust went up around us.
I had taken him by surprise. He tried to roll out of my grip and bring his legs up in a guard, but I had pinned him. The arbiter pulled us apart, and we stood and brushed the sand from our clothing.
“Ha! Well done!” Heishiro shouted.
“And you!” I called back with a wave of my arm.
He gathered his staff and his empty flask and clapped me on the shoulder as he left the ring. “Fight well,” he said with his usual cocky grin, “and I hope we have a chance to face each other again one day.”
“I look forward to it,” I said.
My head ached, and I found there was a laceration where he had struck me when I touched the spot. An attendant cleaned the wound, but we were not permitted to receive any magical healing until the duels were over—a fair call, as most healers would take much longer to do their work than the time allotted for the remaining duels. The pain subsided after another moment. I had the thought to make my way under the stands and see Khalim anyway, though I trusted he would be safe with Aysulu and Garvesh, and I had no need of healing.
I leaned against the barrier and watched as Jin crossed to the ring, carrying his staff with the same reverence with which he carried his sword. It was he who would face Ashoka in the next round. The winner of that match, then, would face me.
Did Ashoka know that there were so many allied against him and his gods? He must have had some idea. He paced the boundaries of the ring, staff tucked under his arm, looking as much like a caged tiger as the divinely favored prince that he was. His hair shone in the sunlight, so purely black as to be almost blue, and his skin was the red-brown of the desert. He was dressed in the sky-blue of the Ascended, all fine silk and silvery-white embroidery. Beside him, Jin looked almost shabby in his simple white robe.
The horn blew again. The fighters circled each other, silent footsteps tracing a ring inside the ropes. Ashoka’s staff darted out, quick as a striking snake, and cracked against Jin’s.
The arena rang with the echo of their blows. The stands were quiet, watching. After one exchange, Jin stepped back, returning his staff to a guard. Ashoka mirrored him, and they walked another slow circle in the sand.
Another exchange—they were too quick for me to tell which had struck first. Jin landed a glancing blow on Ashoka, but it left him open to a strike to the ribs, knocking the breath from him. He stepped back again, his staff readied and his breathing careful.
Ashoka brought a flurry of blows down on him, wood clacking against wood as Jin defended. He was pressed back, but his steps were sure, and soon he twisted out of Ashoka’s attack and landed a hit of his own. I realized that I had been holding my breath. I let it out as they went to face each other yet again in the center of the ring. It was such a display of skill that I was certain I’d be handed a swift defeat in the next match.
There was another exchange, and another. Both fighters were breathing hard now, and sweating in the heat of the sun. Bruises had already formed where each had been struck.
They circled each other once more. Jin, now facing me, caught my eyes and gave me a slow nod. I did not quite understand what he meant. He broke the gaze and charged.
Ashoka blocked, but Jin was lightning-fast. Ashoka could no more parry every strike than he could every raindrop in a storm. He stumbled back, his feet digging furrows in the sand, and regained his footing to press forward once more.
They traded blows for another long moment. Finally, Ashoka’s staff cracked into Jin’s, shattering it in a shower of splinters. Unable to defend, Jin stepped back, and a wide sweep from Ashoka sent him sprawling. He pushed himself up with his hands raised.
He yielded, and Ashoka won the match. Now I understood: Jin had done what he could, and now it was up to me. Ashoka was winded, though not as thoroughly as I would have liked, and I was comparatively fresh.
I rolled my shoulders and turned my head from side to side to loosen my neck, and I picked up my staff and went out to the ring.
Ashoka was tall, statuesque, and he looked down at me with a contempt that defied his disheveled clothing and the streaks of dust clinging to his face. Regardless of how much he knew of the rebellion, or of his masters’ efforts to put it down, he did not consider me much of a threat.
I set my jaw and stepped over the rope, coming close enough to him that he took an instinctive step back. “You serve false gods,” I said, in a quiet hiss so only he could hear me. “I’ll see you cast down.”
“Foolish barbarian,” he growled.
The arbiter separated us to just outside the reach of our staffs, and the horn blew for the last match.
My instinct was to attack in a storm of blows like Jin had, but that would quickly spend what advantage I possessed. I waited, my fingers curled tightly around the staff, watching for any sign that would give the Ascended’s champion away.
Ashoka shifted his weight and lunged. I caught the impact on the length between my hands and twisted, sending his staff harmlessly aside. I held my staff as I would a two-handed axe, and what I gained in stability and comfort I lost in reach. Ashoka reset his stance, his staff like a sword without a guard, and despite his exhaustion the weapon sat as easily in his hands as though it were an extension of his two arms.
I had to be patient; to save my strength, and let Ashoka use his. I had been born a warrior just as he had, but my people’s ways were simple, my training a matter of hunting and raiding from a young age. I had never faced one as skilled and disciplined as Ashoka face to face. Jin certainly had, and he had been defeated. I could not waste the chance he had given me.
I stepped in, feinting a strike to his midsection before turning my staff to catch him under his block. It was a solid hit, but not quite enough, and I wasn’t fast enough to parry his counterattack. Pain exploded through my shoulder and shot down my arm. I almost lost my grip.
Backing up, I braced for his next attack. His success had given him more confidence. He came in again, a wild swing toward my head that turned downward at the last possible second.
I dodged, and the blow glanced off the same shoulder. The bruise that was undoubtedly forming burned with more pain. My counter slammed into his staff and bounced back, and I brought my weapon down and cracked him on the wrist.
He cried out in pain, and his injured hand let go for a brief moment before he found his stance again. I readied my own weapon and breathed in the dusty air of the arena until the pain in my shoulder had subsided to a dull throb.
We exchanged blows twice more. Ashoka was slowing, almost imperceptibly. Would it be enough for me to claim the advantage?
I attacked twice, testing him, swinging toward either side of his head. He blocked both, and I stepped around his counter. He ducked into my guard and drove the end of his staff into my ribs.
It hurt with such intensity that I feared for a moment that Ashoka also had been concealing a tipped weapon, but there was no blood. Even winded, he was powerfully strong. I suspected, as well, that he thought cheating was beneath him.
I could not wait out the fight until I was as exhausted as he. The sun was climbing, and I was accustomed to colder environs. I had to finish this duel, and quickly.
I charged and swung my staff, trying to fell him like a tree. He defended, but I had expected him to. I pulled my weapon in and thrust. It was an easy strike to dodge; Ashoka shifted his weight to his back foot and was well clear of it. I saw my chance, braced my staff between both hands, and barreled into him.
Ashoka went down, and I nearly fell on top of him. His staff leapt from his hand and skipped across the ring in a trail of dust. I righted myself and stepped over his sprawling limbs to put myself between him and his weapon.
He was stunned for only a second, but it was enough. He lifted his head and saw the lost staff, and began to roll to his feet. Before he could cover his head with his arms, I swung my staff. It struck him across the head and he fell back into the dust, this time unconscious.
I stood there, staff ready, waiting to see if he would get up again. In the space of two more breaths he did not move. A raucous cheer went up from the stands behind me, where the miners and their families were standing. The nobles, seated on their silk cushions at the other side, only murmured in surprise.
I had won. The arbiter took one of my hands and held it up, and the commotion from the stands grew louder; with a hoarse whoop of my own, I joined them.
The attendants saw to Ashoka, and he was coming to as I left the ring to return to my teammates.
“For a moment there, I didn’t think you could do it,” said Aysulu.
“As always,” I told her, “I appreciate your confidence.”
Khalim said nothing; he moved aside a stack of Garvesh’s notes to make room for me and ignored his grumbling protests. He examined the abrasion on my head, his hands soft and his face so close to mine, his breath in my hair as he called up his magic once more.
My injuries weren’t serious. I was feeling invigorated after only a moment, and when I gave Garvesh a clap on the back later for good luck, my shoulder did not even twinge. He gathered his notes and went to wait with the other participants, including Jin and Ashoka, who were looking much better from where I was seated.
After some fanfare, the second contest of oratory began. The speakers gave more humorous pieces this time, but any laughter they elicited from the stands was strained. Rhea of the Golden Road, who had survived the first Serpent attack, played her lute and did not sing.
I lost track of the performances when Khalim fell asleep, his head leaning on my shoulder. Guilt sat heavily in my chest. He had brought himself back from near death this morning, and would have to do even more magic in a few more hours. I should not have let him heal me.
But it was comforting to see him rest easy after the night before, untroubled by pain or by dreams. I stayed perfectly still as the speakers gave their pieces, punctuated by the polite applause from the stands, and I heard not a one of them but the man beside me quietly breathing.
Blog content is and will always be free, but if you want to support my work, please consider throwing a couple dollars my way on Ko-Fi.
Space Whales Press 
2 thoughts on “Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea: Chapter XIII”