Chapter 45 Where You Stand

Dust settled around the stone barrier.

Through its viewing slit, Jin saw a red throat swell beneath a layered black shell.

The creature exhaled again.

A loose chip of stone jumped off the sill and struck his chest.

“Hammerhide,” Lark said. “Don't stand in front of that.”

Jin stepped aside.

“How much for killing it?”

“Six gold. Third pit, if the match needs one. Or an open bounty bout after the trial.”

“Six?”

“You've stopped hearing numbers below twenty, haven't you?”

Lark took him back toward the second arena.

Behind the barrier, heavy feet scraped the ground.

Jin looked back once.

The throat was dark again. The shell had drawn down around the head until the viewing slit showed little besides overlapping plates.

The second pit held water.

Three narrow wooden walks crossed it, each wide enough to stand on comfortably and too narrow to forget the drop on either side. Two teams waited at the ends.

Lark's green flag went up over the far platform.

First pit, first finish. One point.

Dessa nudged Jin toward the rack of practice weapons.

“Captain's duel. Disarm him, make him yield or put him in the water. Win this, we still have the third pit.”

“Why am I captain?”

“You paid.”

“I would like to revisit that arrangement.”

“Your feet are our best chance on that walk,” Dessa said. “Fire won't help me keep it standing.”

Kessa picked a wooden sword from the rack and put it in his hand.

“Longer than your knife. Try holding the end with the handle.”

He looked at her.

She shrugged.

“I can hate two things at once.”

Jin stepped onto the nearest walk.

Lark waited at the other end, rolling his own practice sword between his palms.

For a moment a thin silver line shone along its edge.

He drew it across the end of the railing.

A curl of wood fell into the water.

A quiet source detail: this text was taken from the author's publishing page without their approval.

“Only the wood,” he said. “If you want to stop, say it.”

Jin tightened his grip.

The first exchange drove him back two steps.

Lark's blade came in low, rose against Jin's guard and turned in his hands without the pause Jin expected. The wooden point tapped his collar before he got his own weapon down.

“Too slow?” Lark asked.

Jin knocked the point aside.

“Talking about yourself?”

He struck.

Lark parried, but the force pushed his hand back toward his chest.

His eyebrows rose.

Jin came after him.

A high cut. A short thrust. The hard turn Bae had battered into him with the staff.

Lark gave ground.

Jin's next blow struck the railing instead of a blade. Splinters flew.

Lark had shifted onto the crossing walk.

“Better,” he said.

“Everyone keeps saying that right before they hit me.”

Lark hit him.

Jin caught most of it on his guard. The rest bruised his upper arm.

He kept his feet.

He could keep up long enough to make Lark work. That was new. It wasn't enough.

Jin moved along the crosswalk, four strides past a broad joint in the timber. He practiced the final foothold while Lark watched his shoulders.

Recorded it.

Then he backed toward the first mark, making the swordsman follow.

Lark's gaze flicked down.

Jin saw it.

Too late to pretend it hadn't happened.

He activated.

His feet drove along the four-stride path. The first cut knocked Lark's weapon high. The second stride brought him within reach of the arm.

Lark turned his blade downward.

Silver flashed.

The timber at Jin's arrival cracked across its grain.

Jin's third step landed on solid wood.

His fourth found a board tilting into the water.

The brace caught his own weight against a surface that no longer held level.

He couldn't turn his feet out of it.

He could still move his sword.

Jin caught Lark's descending blade and shoved it away from his head.

Water struck his ankle.

Lark stepped inside the guard, turned the bind and peeled the hilt out of Jin's hand.

The sword dropped.

Jin followed it into the pit.

Cold water closed over his ears.

For a moment the whole trial became a distant, muffled roar.

Then he came up coughing beside the walk.

A green flag rose.

Two points.

Lark's team had the trial.

Jin rested both hands on the timber and let the water drip off his nose.

No twenty gold. No triumphant march back with a new bow and a kiln he could point at and say he'd helped buy.

Just the exact piece of wood he'd counted on floating beside him.

Lark crouched and offered a hand.

Jin took it.

“You watched the landing,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I hate that.”

Lark hauled him onto the walk.

“Me too. Your first hit nearly folded my wrist.”

Jin sat dripping while the crowd cheered the defending champions.

Dessa came over with a towel.

“Six gold is still six gold,” she said.

Kessa stood behind her, the saved bow grip inside her shirt.

Jin looked toward the third pit.

“I want a closer look before I volunteer.”

Lark was already looking the same way.

Beyond the open bounty gate, a worker raised a heavy crossbar.

The hammerhide stepped into the light.

Its shell was low enough to scrape stone on both sides. Four clawed feet spread beneath a body as broad as a cart.

The worker tapped its shell with his pole to turn it.

A red pulse ran under its throat.

Dessa caught the man's sleeve.

“Don't do that again.”

The creature looked at the pole.

Then at the damaged wall behind Jin.