Chapter 32: Trembling Grip.

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: Trembling Grip.

He seems strong, was what he’d once said to Binny.

He is, the servant had replied, and there had been awe in his voice. And maybe something like pride, too, when he added, seriously.

Back then, somewhere deep down he had believed it, without question.

And now, facing off against the man himself in the torchlight, he understood, because when one lived a life around dangerous men, it was impossible to not acquire a certain sense for them.

Whether or not he’d listened to them remained to be seen --but his instincts had never been wrong, and right in that moment they were lighting fires of warning in his blood that burned white hot.

Now, Khobi knew the dangers of underestimating an opponent, but to look at him --even if he knew otherwise, even if his eyes betrayed his strength and his presence demanded respect, he didn’t look much like a fighter.

Glasses were for bookish scholars, not soldiers, and were so easily broken, rich robes were bulky and cumbersome, and his were too clean, and his skin far too unmarred to belong to the kind of man who was accustomed to a fight.

--But there was no denying, he sure moved like one.

The precarious balance of the night broke in the blink of an eye. Green swam before Khobi’s vision, little more than a blur, but with the whirlwind intensity of a gale.

The air shifted around him, and ice prickled across his skin as an incredible kind of pressure seeped upon him from all around.

Time slowed, and suddenly there was nothing in the world but Khobi and the man before him.

He could see the knife, glinting in the torchlight and aching for blood. He thought maybe he recognised it, but then again, knives were knives, and in reality it was coming at him too fast for him to be sure.

And he caught a glimpse of the thunder that lay in his eyes --a steel that gave away deadly intent and the resolve to strike with all his strength.

It was both terrifying and invigorating.

A new kind of anticipation crawled its way across Khobi’s skin and coursed down his spine, because sure, he’d fought off all kinds of dangerous men before --Silas only threw the most wretched kinds of men into the Trash Pit to butcher each other, after all --but the strength rippling off Vogrid in waves was in an entirely new league.

It was perhaps the kind of power he’d witnessed in the days when he was young and watched with childish awe the way the grandest of swordsmen had sparred together for sport like warring gods.

It held promise of the kind of fight he’d always wanted --one that was more than just bloodshed and cruelty and death, the chance to prove himself, and the strength he had always desired and knew he possessed. He’d show them what he could do.

But even as he tensed, waiting for Vogrid to come within arms reach, he became dimly aware of a dead weight he was lugging about on his left side.

Ah. The nobleman. His painstakingly acquired bargaining chip --the one that Vogrid cared nothing for, surging forwards with such intent that he might as well have not been there.

He had an instant to decide his next course of action --a decision that would in a sense determine what kind of man he was. He could hide behind a wall of flesh, fling him into the path of the knife and strike while an innocent man died on the blade of his peer.

Because what use was he to him otherwise? Vogrid was fast, and deceptively strong, and keeping his prisoner restrained would drag slow him down and make his movements clumsy and slow.

Or.

Or, he could cast him aside and meet Vogrid head on like a true soldier. Because that was what he’d secretly wanted, wasn’t it?

No tricks. No surprises. Just them and their blades.

In the end, the choice was easy.

Heat singing through his veins, Khobi bodily flung his captive aside, sending him careening backwards into the nearby fountain as he stepped up to take his place at the forefront of the fight.

Almost a breath too late, he flung his knife up to catch on Vogrid’s blade and halt it in its tracks, metal grating sickeningly upon itself to a chorus of stunned gasps and a horrific, untimely splash.

Shock waves rippled up his arm from the force of the blow, and his entire limb trembled as he fought to keep his opponent’s knife from burying itself in his throat.

"Not this time, you bastard!" Khobi snarled with a kick at the other man’s knees. With a cold elegance, Vogrid avoided the blow, his knife skittering down the length of Khobi’s and catching on his forearm, splitting it open in an angry welt.

Khobi was quick to retaliate, heedless of the blood dripping down his arm, lunging forwards as water rose up over the sides of the fountain and spilled out over the courtyard in an attempt to catch the other man off balance.

With the water came a man, gasping in outrage and drenched from head to toe, elaborately embroidered clothes clinging to his lithe frame, and his golden hair darkened and hanging in dregs about his face. And from the way he clambered up out of the fountain, it seemed like he intended to join them in the ring.

And Khobi would have kicked him back into the fountain for his idiocy if he hadn’t seen in a fleeting moment, how all earlier signs of indifference had been washed away by the water, if he hadn’t caught sight of amber eyes glinting out from under his dripping hair with cold vengeance, fury touching the very air around him in a way that made his hackles rear into life.

There was a tension to his form in the way he flung out a hand to the nearest soldier --not seeking a shoulder to lean on, but rather, something else.

The soldier grimaced but made no move to offer what the man was demanding, and suddenly those sharp golden eyes were boring daggers right through his armour.

It must’ve caught Vogrid’s eye too --an instant enough for Khobi to lunge for his throat. The man was fast enough to escape with his life, but the edge of Khobi’s knife split the skin on his cheek and made it weep red.

Grimacing with distaste, he shot a stern, commanding look at the pissed off nobleman and flung out an arm to ward him off. The blond’s jaw clenched crossly and defiance flared behind his eyes as he made to reach for the soldier’s sword.

"Back, Sprida!" he barked, sharp and unquestionable, emerald eyes flashing thick with warning before they snapped back to face the wreck of a man facing off against him.

And maybe Khobi smirked when the blond nobleman grudgingly drew back into the crowd, dripping and fuming --because perhaps it turned out he wasn’t the only one who had his pride.

Do not interfere.

He wouldn’t have it any other way. This was between them now, and Khobi intended to pay him back for his humiliating loss in the throne room that night.

The soldiers that ringed them and the nobles that looked on with contempt ceased to exist –because he had heard enough crowds jeering and wishing defeat on him to last a lifetime.

(He knew that one day –someday –he’d heard them cheering his name.)

But all that mattered right then, was the rush of exhilaration in his ears when he lurched forwards to meet vogrid.

The knife wasn’t his favoured weapon by any means, but it was a blade and it warmed him to have one back in his hand. And with the chilly air that vogrid brought with him, he was going to need all the warmth he could get.

And so he struck again, and their knives sung an awful duet as they clashed and scraped and caught against each other.

But Vogrid was strong and deft, and moved with an uncanny grace, like these were steps he’d been dancing his whole life.

And yet his attention never wavered –he never let Khobi duck into the hazy corners of his vision, and not a single of his strokes fell with even the slightest hesitation.

Each time their knives clashed, tremors ran up Khobi’s arms and juddered his bones in their sockets, and each time he would fling Vogrid back with the full weight of his body and send him reeling.

That took its toll. There might be heat in his veins and fire burning red and white behind his eyes, but even the fiercest flames need feeding.

And there was simply no denying that after all that he’d endured that night, Khobi was finally running on fumes.

Sweat, in rivers, rolled down off his brow, smearing blood and wine and dirt in its wake and leaving his eyes salty and stinging. He wasn’t wearing armour, but for how heavy his limbs felt, he might as well have been wearing lead.

As a fight wore on, usually things grew sharper --but he was long past that now. Weariness was beginning to trap his bones, binding him and dulling his reflexes.

A cut opened up on his shoulder as he rolled aside too late, and then another on his ribs when he tried to pull back to regroup. Pain and anger flashed across his features as his right leg gave way and he staggered with a curse, blade coming up just in time to deflect Vogrid’s attack.