Book Three - Chapter Eighteen (Patreon)

It took Alarion longer than usual to find all the bookmakers in the crowd.

Given the scale of the event, the usual suspects had roped in a few extras. There were five—no, six—of them working the ever-thickening crowd, whispering odds and swapping coins as surreptitiously as they were able. He picked the two most obvious to punish later: Archer—the veteran who really should know better—and one of the hired help.

Alarion’s goal wasn’t to stop the gambling—he might as well try and blow away the wind—but to stop them from being so obvious about it. A bit of betting was good for morale. A flogging at the hands of an uptight officer? Not so much.

He wondered what the odds looked like.

The typical Ilvan-Trai betting scheme was some form of over/under. How many minutes would it take Alarion to beat his opponent? How many hits would they land before he won? Occasionally there was a binary bet. Would Alarion have to use both hands? Would he have to hit them more than once? Time and experience had made the local odds on such bets surprisingly accurate.

But it had been a long time since anyone had bet on the actual outcome.

“What are you looking at?” Anastacia asked, her nose nearly pressed against his as they clashed—blade against haft—in the centre of the training yard.

“Sorry, got distracted.”

“Are you serious right now?” She scowled, lashing a half-hearted swipe at his mid-section as they broke apart.

“I am rarely serious until a fight starts,” he admitted, only to realize too late that he’d misunderstood the question. “There is no sense in starting until everyone is here.”

Anastacia followed his gaze to the milling crowd, and whatever retort she’d been sharpening dulled against sudden stage fright.

“Everyone,” she repeated, flat.

“Give or take.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration, or at least, not much of one. The waist-high safety rail meant to keep spectators clear of the odd wild swing could barely restrain a solid bank of bodies three and four deep. Where the rail ran out, the crowd kept going—spilling into the shade of the armory wall, up onto the supply carts that a few enterprising souls had dragged over for a better view.

Off-duty men in tunics stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers still in powder blue uniforms. A knot of kitchen staff had abandoned prep work—and possibly dinner—to crowd around the mess-hall’s second-floor windows. Even the men in the towers and on the rampart, ostensibly on guard duty, were looking inward rather than out.

“The fortress cannot drop everything just to—” Anastacia scowled deeply as she spotted two bald figures lurking near the back of the crowd, next to her bodyguards. One of the Ordinates—the elder of the two—pressed a few coins into Cyrine’s hand, then gestured to another man in the crowd. “Unbelievable.”

“Soldiers like a show as much as anyone else,” Alarion said. He stepped in with a few jabs and a low kick, more to close the distance so they could talk than as an actual threat. “You can order them to disperse, but it will not win you any favors.”

“Maybe I should make you do it?” she spat, feinting with one arm and then driving him back with the basket hilt of her sword.

They weren’t even fighting anymore. She was waiting for him to take her seriously, and he was waiting for…

“Orphan!” Lily shouted, her pale, flailing hand barely visible above a line of soldiers.

Alarion held up his own hand to stop another of Anastacia’s half-hearted attacks. “Just a moment.”

“Of course,” she sighed. “Why not?”

Alarion made his way to the edge of the crowd, ushering men and women out of the way until Lily finally pushed through to the front. “Took you long enough.”

“It seems like your daughter—” Lily cast a scathing glance around herself, unaware that Nessa had taken up a perch atop one of the carts on the far side of the yard. “—decided we should be the last to know. I assume you want an introduction?”

“She wants Three-Quarters. Might as well make it as formal as we can. Especially if something goes awry,” Alarion said, then lowered his voice. “And some eyes on her bodyguards, please. The last thing I need is them taking a cheap shot when I win.”

“Oh? You are going to win?” Lily teased, that playful side of her bubbling to the surface despite frayed nerves. “Have you seen Archer by any chance? I need to make some changes.”

“Mm.” Alarion tried his best to scowl, but just ended up looking ridiculous. “I have an idea of what she can do. She has no idea what I can do.”

“You know she has read your file.”

“And?”

The two shared a knowing look and a short laugh before they turned to their duty.

“Just a minute more, Madam,” Alarion told Anastacia. “My aide is going to make an announcement.”

“An announcement?” The words dripped with disdain. “Are we prize fighters now?”

Alarion cleared his throat to stifle a laugh, then said, “You wanted tradition.” He waved one hand toward the assembled soldiers. “This is as traditional as it gets with provincials.”

“That is not fai—”

“Martyrs!”

Lily’s voice was crisp and clear in every ear. Not a shout, but a sing-song announcement carried on winds of magic. Perched barefoot on her lover’s broad shoulders, the dark-haired woman took her time to survey all that lay before her, a goofy smile playing across her lips.

She looked out of place as ever. Despite being Vitrian to the core—with porcelain skin and jet-black hair—Lily had never fit in among her own people. Her pointed bob cut was two decades out of fashion, her attire too dark and depressing—to say nothing of the grayscale inken fiends that did battle across her chest and up the side of her neck.

And that had been before she went native.

Her off-duty clothes were still grim as ever, but their cut was loose and flowing, the tied silken skirts and ruffled sleeves of an Ashadi. She’d added new piercings to her ears, studded hoops of silver and gold that were all the rage in the southern cities. And her tattoos? Those were works of local art, as gorgeous as the woman herself, and perhaps almost as seditious.

“I step away for one afternoon,” she began, and the yard rippled with laughter before she’d finished the sentence, “and the Orphan picks a fight with the Scion.”

“She picked the—”

“Alarion. Quiet.” This time even Anastacia joined in the laughter.

“I turn my back for one afternoon.” Lily’s heavy, performative sigh felt almost erotic as the magic whispered it into his ear. “But there is no helping him, is there? We all know how the Orphan is.”

This was not going quite as Alarion planned.

“For those of you who have joined us since the commander’s last challenger, those of you with bad memories, or those of you who are named Nessa and do not listen when I talk, Lieutenant Regethern has challenged the commander to a Three-Quarters Match under standard Vitrian terms. What does that mean? It means the duel ends when one combatant is driven below a quarter of their total health, or when one of them has the good sense to yield.”

Lily paused, either for effect or to allow a few degenerate gamblers the chance to adjust their thinking, then continued.

“There are healers on standby who will monitor our combatants, though both are expected to set System warnings and concede immediately upon defeat.” Lily adjusted her glasses and looked pointedly at Anastacia as she said, “I would remind the Lieutenant that Three-Quarters Matches are strictly illegal if she does not have either a Rank advantage or a category—”

“I have a skill,” was all the reply Anastacia gave.

“Well, there you have it! The lovely Ivor has empowered the training field’s wards, but I will remind our viewers that even wards rated for Rank III combat do not always stand up to the commander. If you cannot take a hit, let someone else stand in front.”

“One time,” Alarion muttered under his breath.

“Obviously combat is confined to the arena, but we know that things do happen. If a combatant leaves the area willingly or unwillingly—or if they willingly remain more than thirty feet above the arena for more than twenty seconds—combat will be halted, and the displaced combatant returned to the arena with a 50% penalty to their total HP.” Blue eyes flicked pointedly to Kali as Lily added, “That last bit is more of a house rule.”

The crowd lost their minds.

The story predated at least half of them. But that didn’t matter. The tale of Alarion cheaping out a victory against the unit’s Godborn Sergeant was a perennial favorite among the men, a soy that had morphed into something almost unrecognizable in the endless retellings.

And Kali, the great man himself, stood at the edge of the throng, arms crossed, radiating something between nonchalance and killing intent.

That only made it funnier.

Anastacia drifted closer under cover of the noise, brow furrowed. “I do not get it.”

“It honestly is not that funny,” Alarion said, trying not to grin. “You will hear it from a better storyteller than I am, sooner or later.”

Rather than press the issue, Anastacia turned her eyes toward her fellow Vitrian. “She is enjoying this.”

“Immensely,” Alarion agreed. “It is her calling, I think.”

As if she’d heard—and knowing Lily, she might be lip-reading—the dark-haired woman clapped her hands several times, letting her body language speak for her rather than trying to cut through the laughter more directly.

“Yes, yes. He should have brought more rocks. Settle.” Her gaze dropped to the two of them, and the smile she aimed at Anastacia was pure sugar. “Orphan, be a dear and scoot. You are on the wrong side.”

“Scoot?” Alarion asked.

“Ah.” Lily’s pale skin grew just a touch brighter. There was playful, morale-boosting disrespect, and then there was telling him to scoot like he was a disobedient child. “Your corner, please, Master Sergeant.”

Alarion gave her one more knowing glance, then complied. He rolled his neck and shoulders as he walked. The time for fun was fast dwindling, and all jokes aside, he knew it would not be an easy fight.

Lily waited until Alarion arrived, then filled her lungs.

“On my right—the blue corner, and does she not suit it—newly arrived to bless us with her presence, Scion of the House of Guilt, trained by the finest tutors coin can buy, and the only officer ever confident enough to actually show up to her job: Lieutenant Anastacia Regethern!”

The cheer was surprisingly warm—the sound a mob made for an out-of-town challenger who’d earned grudging respect. Anastacia inclined her head with stiff grace, but her eyes were no longer on Lily. They were flat and focused.

“And on my left—the red corner, where he belongs—the victor of Carling Hill, the slayer of Or’Valde, the Hero of Ikeda, the—”

“Lily.”

She spared Alarion a single, annoyed glance, then threw her hands up and said, “You know who he is.”

The roar that answered was a different animal entirely. They could probably hear it in the Old City.

Lily reached up and plucked a single delicate earring from her left ear, then looked to each combatant to be sure she had their attention. She let it dangle from her fingers, glittering in the afternoon sunlight.

Then she tossed it into the air.