Chapter 13 - The Tournament.
Part III
Hart's searing blade was already glowing yellow at the base while Aren sat, his numb legs forgotten, and Schtance changed her guard for the first time in the whole bout, drawing her left leg back, turning her body three-quarters on and bringing her hands up to chest height, her eyes fixing on the blade.
Fray looked down with a face that did not move.
What is this?.. Where is he getting that much energy?.. And has that kind of density really started to make his blade glow, Morgiana analyzed.
A face came up in Hart's mind, young, with faint lines at the eyes that always came with the smile.
"Rowan, let's make a deal, I come back with a pile of trophies and you become champion of the tournament!"
Hart raised his eyes slowly to Schtance with his head still a little lowered.
He burst forward after a short pause, with the clap of a shock wave that lifted a wide ring of sand around him, and in the same second he was in front of Schtance with the blade already coming up in a wide arc.
The air around the edge flared, and after it a tongue of flame lashed across the arena, breaking out from under the cut air with a short, dry sound.
Schtance pulled back at the highest speed the distance allowed, so that the fire passed a few centimeters from her face and singed the ends of her blue bangs with a faint smell of burnt hair.
The stands answered with a bewildered, unreadable hum that rolled through every tier at once.
Aren turned to Bernard, finding no words for the question.
"The fourth threshold," he said.
"There's a fourth as well?" Leo asked.
Bernard breathed out and took his time answering, waiting until the noise of the stands sank a little.
"Three Conductors out of four stop at the first or the second. The third is already rare. The fourth…" he said, pausing before he finished.
"When the pressure of the energy inside grows past what the circuit can hold in its ordinary form, it starts taking on thermal effects. It is the rarest and most powerful threshold in Waldruhm."
"So he isn't controlling the fire," Leo said.
"No, he isn't," Bernard confirmed.
"He is only compressing the energy far enough that it takes another form."
Hart straightened and stood side-on to Schtance with his blade down and his breathing even, the flame on the edge already settled, though the heat of the metal still showed in the tremor of the air above it.
Schtance ran a hand along her bangs, found the singed ends with her fingers and lowered it, then looked at Hart again with her brows drawn together.
How many degrees is that?.. How has his blade not deformed at all under that kind of pressure and temperature, Schtance asked herself.
Her eyes passed along the edge from the point to the base and stopped on the short, precise notches, cut along the flat and filled now with energy to a bright even glow that pulsed in time with the heating of the metal.
I see. Some of these runes hold their strength and their shape even at that temperature. Not bad.
She let a little breath out through her nose and brought her hands back up into guard.
Hart came at her again, though the tempo had changed, because the strikes came in frequent crossing series with no pauses between changes of direction, and several times, at the point of greatest speed in the swing, the blade threw out short, narrow tongues of flame.
Interesting. The flame does not appear every time, the lieutenant noted.
She slipped each strike with the smallest shift of her body, tracking the frequency and the angle of the fire with every new series.
Speed of the swing and peak energy density. To set the air alight, it seems, both need to come together at once.
Hart made a wide thrust into the right sector, and in the window that opened Schtance threw a strike of her own for the first time, straight, into the open body, with a short movement of the shoulder.
Hart went left and down, letting the blow pass over his shoulder, and at once turned the blade back the other way with his full weight, aiming for her right side.
Schtance pushed off the sand with her left hand, rolled backward over it and came up on her feet three paces from Hart with her back straight.
Hart raised his left hand to the strap of his helmet, unfastening it and taking the helmet off in one movement, and threw it aside onto the sand.
"So you decided to attack after all?"
Schtance did not answer, watching him in silence.
Hart raised his head to the royal box, found Fray sitting straight with an unruffled face, then brought his eyes back to his opponent.
"I see your little friend isn't smiling any more. Something about this bout isn't to his liking. Maybe… you?"
Schtance changed neither her expression nor her position.
Hart burst forward, keeping up the pressure at the same rate, and after a few strikes he opened his fingers, giving the blade over to control at a distance.
The sword came in from the right while Hart himself moved to the left, working his fists into her open body under the pressure of the blade from the opposite flank.
Schtance slipped both directions at the same time, moving in the narrow space between them, and several times she threw counters, one of which passed close enough that Hart shifted back half a step.
She caught the moment when the sword was running on a low line and struck the flat of the edge with the toe of her boot in one precise movement, which sent the blade far off to the side and drove it into the stonework of the wall with a hollow boom.
Then, turning on her standing leg, she sent her other leg into Hart's hands, raised in a block, so that the pressure of the kick went through the block into his body and drove him two meters back through the sand with a drawn-out rasp.
Schtance did not stop and at once rushed at him.
The sword tore out of the stonework with a crack and flew back to Hart along the line of his control, gathering speed.
Schtance caught the movement at the edge of her vision and jumped up and aside, letting the flying blade pass under her.
The grip hit Hart's palm, and he attacked out of a turn without giving her the chance to land in a stable position.
The blade went along a wide rising arc, so that the air around the edge went up with a short hard clap and threw a searing wave forward.
Schtance could not get clear of it in time and brought her right hand up in front of her face, so it was her hand the flame passed over, and the fabric caught in an instant, engulfing the back of the hand and the fingers.
Schtance tore the glove off in one movement and threw it burning into the sand, finishing her landing in several hard steps.
Suddenly Hart threw the sword, and its energy dropped away in the moment of the throw, so that in place of flame there was only the whistle of the air it cut and the speed with which the blade went at her in a straight line.
All at once, a short sound of metal on metal carried across the arena, throwing a spray of sparks out to the sides along with a wide cloud of sand.
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Hart came down on one knee, braced a fist against the ground and breathed hard while the overload pressed on his shoulders and held a high ringing in his ears.
A single exhalation from several thousand people passed over the arena as the stands fell quiet in sections.
Schtance sat on one knee, holding the cooling sword's blade in her right hand, where her fingers gripped the point and bronze-and-steel plates ran along her hand and forearm, finely engraved on every segment.
Schtance rose slowly off her knee and straightened, bringing her eyes across to the blade in the mechanical hand.
The energy layer had dispersed from the metal, but the heat of the blade still held in the plates of her fingers, which she closed, increasing the force evenly until the metal cracked at the point of pressure and broke in two, the pieces falling into the sand.
Hart got up slowly off his knee, evening out his breathing in deep steady exhalations, then raised his hands in front of his body and closed his fists.
Schtance lifted one corner of her mouth without moving the rest of her features and started toward him at a slow walk with her arms at her sides.
Hart threw a straight with the right, then a hook with the left, then a straight again, changing the tempo and switching direction with every blow.
Schtance slipped each one with the smallest shift of her body, without opening the distance and without taking her eyes off his face.
The next straight she did not let pass, closing the fingers of her left hand on Hart's fist in a short grip, and then the mechanical fist came straight into his body.
The blow went through the breastplate, so that the steel crumpled inward with a crunch into a wide dent, and Hart folded from the pressure and the loss of air.
Schtance caught him from below, threw him over her shoulder and flung him forward with a turn of her body, so that Hart flew several meters and hit the sand with his whole weight, lifting a wide cloud of dust.
The stands, for their part, held a crushing silence.
Edith watched the arena with her back straight and her face still, while her eyes narrowed.
Sterling said nothing, though the knots of muscle at his jaw moved under the skin, while Fray kept his eyes on the sand with his face closed.
Schtance walked toward Hart at an even pace as he turned over slowly in the sand and started to get up, bracing his palms against the ground and evening out his breathing through set teeth.
"It was stupid to take this fight straight after the last one," she said, stopping a few paces from him.
"Considering that you apparently have not mastered your special ability yet."
Hart got up, ignoring the pain in his ribs, and straightened without looking at the dent in his breastplate.
"Though I will admit, you managed to surprise me," the lieutenant went on.
"You clearly had no plan to use that trump card. And so you did manage to entertain me a little."
Hart raised his hands and came at her again, with wide straight thrusts, then with hooks to the head, changing the rhythm and the length of the blow with every attempt that followed.
Schtance slipped each one with the same ease as before, and when the next straight went past, her left hand struck him three times across the face, short, with no wind-up.
Hart swayed, and in the same second a turning kick came into his head with her full weight behind it, driving his face into the sand, where he stayed lying for several seconds without moving.
Schtance stood over him and looked down.
"You have tarred every foreigner with the same brush… Over a situation in the forest that we have nothing to do with. That is an insolent and unfounded accusation, propped up by your personal hatred," she said, stepping aside.
"And it is a direct insult to the will of your queen, who agreed to receive us as guests."
Hart came up onto all fours, hawking blood into the sand, spitting once more and starting to rise slowly, onto one knee, then onto both feet.
Blood ran down his chin and dripped onto the breastplate while he raised his hands.
Schtance looked at him for several seconds with a completely empty face.
"How stupid and primitive you people really are," she said under her breath.
The first blow of the mechanical hand landed on the raised block and crushed it, bending the vambraces and pushing Hart's arms into his own face.
With the next movement her left leg struck his knee out of a short wind-up, so that his standing leg buckled.
Schtance caught him by the shoulder before he fell, straightened him and drove the elbow of the mechanical arm into his temple, which sent Hart sideways with his legs tangling, held up by momentum alone.
She came in behind him, took him by the shoulder and landed a short blow into the base of his neck, from which his knees gave.
As he went down she drove a knee into his ribs, then stepped back and let him fall.
Hart lay face down in the sand and did not get up, while Schtance bent over him and spoke quietly, low enough that her voice reached neither the stands nor the boxes.
"Look at yourself. This is what your insolence and your empty confidence were worth. Stupidity. Inefficiency. A total absence of logic."
She straightened and stepped aside, turning toward the tunnel.
"And that is your whole nature."
A rasp came out of the sand, and Schtance stopped.
Hart was lifting his head with a heavy racking breath, and through the coughing a weak broken laugh began to break out of his chest.
"Inefficiency…" he rasped, propped on one hand.
"How strange… that sounds…"
He put his second hand down on the sand and began to rise.
"Yes… maybe we… aren't efficient…"
He paused and swallowed blood.
"But at least we know what… respect is… and caring about another life…"
Schtance turned back and stood without moving.
Hart got onto both feet, swaying slightly, and set them wider, spreading his weight evenly.
"You think you know… our nature…"
He raised his head, and for all the broken face and the blood on his chin, his gaze was direct.
"Maybe so… but I know yours too… I can see… that you are what the…"
Coughing cut him off for several seconds.
"…the adventurers described… unfeeling… empty… not people, more like… machines…"
He smiled slightly and raised his eyes to Schtance.
"And that is why… my insolence was worth it… to see for myself… what you are…"
Schtance stepped up to him, closing the mechanical fingers on his throat with precise pressure, and set him down on his knees in one unstoppable movement.
"Is that so," she said.
"And how much did you learn from an ordinary bout in which all I did was dodge your useless attacks?… You know… nothing… Nothing of how great Aisengard is… Nothing of its people."
Her left hand struck him across the face with a short movement that took his head to the side, though Hart braced his free hand against the ground and kept himself from falling.
"To us you are no more than a primitive species," she went on.
"One that will perish sooner or later under the common march of the great powers."
Hart turned his head back, drew breath and spat blood into her face.
In the same second his right fist, packed tight with energy, came up into her stomach with his full weight behind it.
Schtance folded without a sound, doubling over at the waist, and stood in that position for several seconds, then breathed out slowly through her nose and raised her head, looking at the knight with amber eyes that shone in the shadow, and then she began beating him without stopping.
Aren could not take his eyes off the arena.
Every blow of the mechanical hand left a new dent in the armor, while every blow of the left landed on the open face or the neck with a sound that made the stands flinch section by section and go quiet again.
Hart stayed upright only because Schtance was herself holding him in the right position for the next blow.
"Bernard," Aren called to him.
"Why is nobody stopping this. She's going to kill him."
Bernard watched the arena without stirring.
"When a knight throws a challenge from the stands, the challenge rules come into force."
"Killing is not forbidden under the challenge rules. The announcer has no authority to stop the fight."
Leo stood beside him and said nothing, his face gone white.
Schtance sent Hart into the stone wall of the arena, so that he hit the stonework with his whole body and slid down, left kneeling with his head hanging and his hands lying limp in the sand.
There was not a whole spot left on him, the breastplate crumpled, the vambraces bent out of shape, the face broken open and bleeding in several places.
She walked over to the broken blade lying a few paces away, lifting the shard by its tip with the mechanical hand, tossing it once on her palm, and then brought her eyes across to Hart.
Aren's chest clenched with such force that his breath stopped for a second, and what was going to happen next he did not want to see.
Aren sprang up, catching Leo's shoulder with his elbow, vaulted the barrier of the lower row and leapt onto the arena, landing on the sand with the impact going through both feet, and in the next second he crashed into Hart with his whole weight and shoved him with his shoulder out of the line of the flying shard.
The shard of the blade hit the stonework and lodged in it.
A complete silence hung over the arena, until the stands began to rise section after section, so that the sound built from the bottom upward through the tiers and finally settled over the arena as one solid pressure.
In the royal box Sterling gripped the railing with both hands, looking down in bewilderment, while Thorne rose from his chair, Sir Aurey stepped forward, and the queen leaned forward slightly.
Fray narrowed his eyes, moving them to Aren.
Schtance stood a few meters away and looked at him without moving, with a cold expression where in place of surprise or fury there was only an appraising calculation.
Elara shouted from the barrier, though her words drowned in the roar of the stands.
Leo stood at the edge of the lower row, looking down at the sand and not moving, his face white, while Bernard sat frozen in horror with his back straight and his eyes down.
Behind Aren, Hart breathed with a rasp, propped on the wall with his palms and his head down.
Elara grabbed Bernard by the sleeve and turned to him with open fear on her face.
"Bernard, what do we do?! How do we stop this?!"
Bernard looked down at the arena and took several seconds before answering.
"We don't…"
"If a man steps onto the arena during an active bout under the challenge rules, he becomes a participant automatically. Aren has to fight."
Elara said nothing, only closing her fingers harder on his sleeve and turning her eyes down.
Idiot…, Bernard thought, his teeth set.
Self-satisfied, impulsive idiot. If I go down there… then the Aisengarder in the box jumps after his comrade, and what we get is a slaughter in the royal arena instead of a bout…
"Bernard, he's going to—" Leo said.
"I see it."
Aren stood on the arena, feeling the sand under his feet and keeping his eyes on Schtance, while behind him Hart's breathing rasped.
The lieutenant stood a few meters off with the mechanical arm at her side, while her amber eyes never left Aren.
"Who are you?"
Aren did not answer at once, swallowing and getting his breath back.
"M-My name is Aren."
Schtance threw a glance toward Fray, and then turned back to Aren.
"You want to stand up for him?" she said, with a short nod toward Hart.
Aren turned to Hart, sitting propped back against the stone wall with a cut above his brow, a broken lip and a swollen cheekbone, breathing hard, his eyes down in the sand.
Sweat had reached the corner of Hart's jaw, and then Aren swallowed, turned to Schtance, said nothing and stepped forward, putting himself between her and Hart.
She held the pause, waiting for an answer, then lowered her head slowly without taking her eyes off him.
"Very well. So be it."
She came forward with the same relaxed carriage as before, closing the distance between them slowly.
Aren settled into the guard he had seen in the hand-to-hand exchange a short while before, putting one leg forward and bringing his hands up to chest height with his fists closed, though it came out unsteady, with his shoulders tight.
That was how he readied himself for the first deadly bout of his life.