Chapter 6

W e set up camp, erecting a central tent that is large enough to hold ten men. No one needs to know we don’t fill it with anything but air and, with any luck, we’ll soon have men to spare. Nazar spends some of our coin to pay for a messenger’s swift ride to the Twelfth House, with a letter to Lord Orlof advising him of our detour to the tournament and assuring him of my eventual arrival. Neither of us speak of how I plan to hide a warrior’s band from my future husband , of course, but that’s a challenge for another day.

There’s also the niggling issue of my sister lodging in some Trilion inn, but Nazar waves off my concern over this. Women have no place at the tournament. No one will come looking for Talia here, he insists, only Merritt.

By the Light, he better be right.

The next morning, I set off with new resolve to play my role and secure my house. To my surprise, Nazar’s prediction has been borne out: the deep cuts on my arm caused by Merritt’s warrior band have closed, thick dark scabs replacing the red welts. Eventually, he says, the black scorching will fade, and this time I believe him.

With the sun bright and full, the morning breeze playing through my cropped hair, I find myself willing to believe anything. It’s nearly a half hour’s journey from our camp to the coliseum, but I don’t mind the walk. Besides, I need the practice.

Riding like a man is easy enough—far easier than as a woman, truth be told. But walking? More difficult than I ever imagined, especially in leggings and boots. If I’m to make a presentation to Lord Protector Rihad later today, as Nazar informs me I must, I have work to do.

But all may not be lost, if I can keep my focus. With a skill I didn’t know the priest possessed, Nazar has fashioned for me thickly padded breeches and a tunic made of heavy material that gives me bulk while straightening the curves of my chest and hips. I carry my sword slung low on my waist, which forces me to walk in a wide, sweeping swagger, and my dark green cloak flows around me in rich, Tenth-House green. I feel ridiculous, but if I go slow, I can manage it.

The tournament grounds are teeming with people this morning, shouts and laughter mingling with the stentorian tones of an official crier reciting the history of the tournament—how it honors the ancient battle between the warriors of the Exalted Imperium and the vile armies of the Western Realms. I barely listen. Even as far away as the Tenth House, I’ve heard this story often enough.

The man’s voice grows more strident as I approach. “Our imperial warriors were allied with the Light, and through a battle of unimaginable ferocity, they conquered the Darkness. In return, we were granted the service of the Light’s mythical beasts, the Divh!”

At these last words, my warrior band flares with sudden and unmistakable heat, and I stop short. A few people around me seem to take notice and edge away respectfully. Respectfully! I struggle not to apologize to them, to tell them they need take no extra measures for me. That I’m only a second-born, a daughter, a woman.

Except, I’m not, by the Light. Not in this place. Here, I’m a firstborn son. A warrior knight. Though Nazar has actually taken something away from me—my hair—he’s also apparently added impressive bulk to my size in all directions. It’s a strange and unsettling truth, both thrilling and, in its way…deeply irritating.

The crier continues his tale, refocusing me. “But the war had taken its toll. The forces of the Exalted Imperium withdrew to its capital city to regroup, leaving behind a Protectorate of twelve great houses whose firstborn sons commanded mighty Divhs, as well as noble families throughout the land who were also granted Divhs by divine decree. No one dared challenge the might of our great beasts, so there was no more fighting. But the twelve houses and their noble families dared not rest! To keep our alliance with the Divh strong, we brought the Way of the Light to our great Protectorate. Under the careful watch of the Lord Protector, Divhs were transferred from one generation of sons to the next. Invoking the imperial right granted only to him, the Lord Protector then used his own band to create new bands, summoning Divhs for worthy fighting men—making them banded soldiers. And then, finally, the First House established an extraordinary proving ground for both the warrior knights and their mighty beasts: the Tournament of Gold!”

Cheers go up all around me, the spell of the man’s tale finally breaking. Though he continues on about the glory of the First House, I force myself to start moving again. How much Merritt would have reveled in the pageantry of this place, I think, unexpected sorrow lancing through me. How much he would have loved every moment of this.

My heart a rough stone in my chest, I make my way toward the coliseum—not to make a purchase right away, but at least to scout out the area. As I walk, my gaze remains fixed on the enormous structure. The crowd is already whispering about the day’s tournament trials, and despite myself, I burn with curiosity to see them.

The banded soldiers and their Divhs won’t be summoned for fights such as these, they say. Instead, it will be men and their horses, tilting for a chance to gain a position in a house’s garrison. A house like the Tenth, I resolve. If I can gather the men we need quickly, in the midst of the pretournament confusion, my deception may not be uncovered.

I’m jostled to the side as my mind is swept away by thoughts of battles and beasts, and stumble into a small group of people. Someone in the crowd shoves back.

“Watch your step, boy,” comes the surly snap.

I straighten, willing myself not to react. Here’s yet another person taken in by my disguise! A tremor of hope chases through me. Here in Trilion, I’m not a crime, not an abomination…I’m an ordinary boy, someone meant to be here. No one knows my truth in this city. No one knows my shame.

No one will know anything but what I show them.

As long as I never again cross paths with other true warriors like Fortiss of the First, I will survive this place.

Squaring my shoulders, I aim once more for the tournament stands when a flurry of activity to the right catches my attention. There are shouts and cries of excitement, and small, lumpy sacks held high in grimy hands. Money bags, I realize instantly. A fight must be underway, or some game of sport to keep the interest of the mob at bay until they can wager on the tournament proper. Nazar has warned me to stay away from everyone other than the soldiers whose services I must buy, but I’m a man now. A first-blooded, firstborn warrior, in fact. I can go anywhere as long as I don’t stay too long, don’t fix my attention on anyone, or let them fix their attention on me.

I shoulder my way through the crowd until it shifts before me, giving me some view to the open space beyond.

It is a fight—my very first of the tournament!

A tall, strong boy brandishes a long, well-turned sword. His face is set in a snarl of outrage, thick lips pressed back against his teeth. He wears no helmet. A shiny chain mail shirt hangs from his shoulders, and his breeches are sturdy and well made. This is a warrior knight, I realize instantly, cut from the same cloth as Merritt and probably the same age of seventeen years, no more. I don’t think he’s first-blooded, more likely a warrior knight from lesser noble family, but his sword is well made, and heavy enough to make the boy’s arms wobble, for all his apparent strength.

“You dare to speak to me, cripple , about anything?” he demands in a shrill voice, staring hard at someone I can’t see. “You dare?”

I stand up on my tiptoes to see his opponent—and gape.

Facing the warrior knight is an even younger boy of maybe only fourteen years, but not one dressed in chain mail or heavy clothes. He’s wrapped in rags that look stitched together from several different shirts and pants, and in place of a sword, he holds a long stave in his right hand. But though I’ve fought many mock battles with rods, the boy doesn’t fling out his left hand in the same manner I have done.

Because he has no left hand. He has no left arm.

His face is a mass of old bruises and cuts, and there’s blood on his ragged shirt as well. He doesn’t back down in the face of the young warrior attacking him, however. Instead, he eggs him on.

“Come at me, then,” he cries, his face creasing in a wild grin that seems more desperate than joyful. “Come at me. You’ve got your sword, Hantor. All I’ve got is this stave. Hardly a threat, yeah? Come at me!”

Chuckles ripple through the crowd at this, and the young warrior knight stiffens. His colors are red and white, the standard of the Second House. Is he first-blooded? He’s arrogant enough to be, anyway. Does he already have a Divh? I strain to peer above the shoulders of the men in front of me and miss the next taunt of the one-armed boy—the one-armed boy who surely knows better.

Then his laughter sounds again. “Come at me, you girl . Let me show you?—”

The one-armed boy can’t finish his jibe because the taller youth screams in outrage and races toward him. A loud cry goes up from the watchers. Bags change hands, and a rush of chatter fills the space as new bets are made, the boys in the circle now engaging in a furious clanging of sword and stave.

I watch, wide eyed, as I watched every training battle of men or boys I could at the Tenth House, always from the shadows. I could never train formally, of course, but I would sneak out when all was dark and quiet and lift the heavy rods in the middle of the night, thrusting and striking at wooden posts driven into the ground, while Adriana stood watch. I’d always take care to miss the posts, so as not to make any noise, until one day I found a stave had been wrapped with a thick blanket of sheep’s wool. Striking it made no sound at all.

My lips twist as I recall my delight of that night’s discovery, and all the subsequent training I’d done with that blunt weapon. I’d assumed it was a training tool one of our men had devised and forgotten about, but now I think of Nazar…and wonder.

Another shout goes up, recalling me, and I shove into a pocket of space between two arguing spectators. As I do, the one-armed boy steps out of the way barely in time to avoid a long slashing lunge then cracks his wooden stave against the back of the taller boy. The young warrior knight stumbles and goes down on one knee. The crowd yells louder. The knight scrambles back up to his feet, his face a mask of rage and dirt. I stare at him in surprise. I’ve never seen anyone that furious before, and over—what? A sparring match?

But the warrior knight’s anger is his undoing. He surges forward, and the one-armed boy flicks his stick in exactly the way I’d do it. The knight apparently has not been spending his time with staves, and his sword tips up, slipping out of his grasp and tumbling to the ground.

A great cheer rises, and the boy grins, his face transformed in that moment to one of sheer joy as he flourishes the stave, then drops it to signify the fight is over. Money changes hands at a swift pace, laughter and taunting cries gilding the air around us.

A movement behind the boy propels me forward.

“No!” I shout instinctively, stepping closer to the open space of the fighting pit. The taller youth has picked up his sword and now lunges toward the younger boy, who, without his stave or a second arm to protect himself, can only twist in shock as the warrior knight comes at him.

Instantly, I see Merritt before my eyes. Merritt, tall and straight, laughing and brash and joyful and now, impossibly, gone because I didn’t act—didn’t move quickly enough to protect him. I won’t be too slow again.

Pushing the one-armed boy out of the way, I scoop up his abandoned stave and bring it forward in an underhand swing as the young warrior knight’s sword comes down. The stave is sturdy, a thicker, heavier wood than I’ve ever used in my play-acting behind our manor house. The sword clangs against it and bounces back, wobbling in the knight’s inexperienced grip. The young man attacks me in a fury then, slashing and thrashing. I hold up the stave to block him, but still he comes on, each clang of his sword jolting me to my bones. Then I pivot to the side long enough to bring the stave around in a jarring crack to the knight’s skull, and he loses his sword completely.

His sword, but not his fury.

He rushes me.

I’ve never grappled with anyone before, and the boy advances with his fists up and hammering, suddenly far too close for me to use my stave. Instinctively, I drop the stave and lift my forearms to protect my face, but not before the warrior knight cracks me directly beneath the eye, a blow hard enough to make my vision scatter into a million fragmented pieces. The pain surprises me almost as much as the violence of the blow, and I taste blood in my mouth. Blood! With my arms positioned so high, he tries to pummel my stomach, but Nazar’s padding saves me there—saves me and gives me the space of a breath to regain my senses. I lunge forward, shoving hard against the boy’s body until he crashes to the ground.

Once again, that seems to be the wrong thing to do. We roll, and distantly I hear the cheering of men. Then suddenly, I am on the bottom and the boy is on top of me, his fists battering down on my forearms. He sits heavily on my stomach, too heavily, and a new kind of agony grips me, this one tinged with hysteria. I can’t breathe, can’t think! I fling my right hand out to scrabble away and my fingers connect with something round and slender—the stave.

As I flail for it, however, I leave my face open, and the boy’s blows rain down harder, each one thudding mercilessly, his fists seeming to follow me even as I try to twist and jerk my head away. My hand grips the stave now, but it’s too long for me to do anything normal—its arc would soar too high and too slow. Instead, I heft it in my grasp until a good four inches extends to the near side of my fist.

I grin, and the sight of my teeth flashing between my bloody, split lips seems to take my opponent off guard. His eyes widen— and I strike. I lift the stave off the ground and yank my arm in tight, cracking the boy in the temple with the rod’s thick base.

With a furious cry, the young warrior knight topples off me. Even as I scramble away, fear blanking my pain for a blessed moment, a strong arm snakes around my waist and a voice as fast as a galloping horse chatters into my ear.

“We go, we go now! Hantor’s stunned, but he’ll get the others, he’ll get the others and they’ll be furious. He’ll kill us, they’ll all kill us; you’re an idiot, so we go!”

Still babbling at an almost manic speed, the one-armed boy half drags me into the crowd. Delighted onlookers part easily for us, cheerfully letting us escape into the throng. The boy doesn’t stop, however, until we’re in the shadows of the enormous coliseum walls.

“You’re an idiot ,” he says again after he dumps me unceremoniously on the dirt. The sting of my injuries crashes down with me, an avalanche of rocks that seems to have landed mostly on my face. “You know that, right? An idiot.”

“I’m an idiot,” I moan. I roll over onto my back, and the boy whistles long and low.

“Your sword—Holy Divh, you did have something in that scabbard. “Why didn’t you use it? You’re an?—”

I let him carry on as I try to assess the damage. My face is a mushy pulp, but my teeth appear to be intact. My body is not at all damaged. The knight hadn’t gone for my wrists or hands, which were the most unprotected part of me after my face. He’s also spared my neck, which feels unprotected but mostly because I no longer have a thick pile of hair wrapped around it. I’m bleeding from a long scrape along my scalp, but I’ve been injured enough to know that such blood doesn’t mean much. My vision dances and my head feels stuffed with straw, but I’ll live.

I haul myself up to a sitting position, and the boy opposite me shuts up. I squint with the eye that hasn’t yet swelled shut. “Who are you?” I ask.

He grins despite his own split lip, which bleeds anew as he holds out his one good hand to me. “Caleb. I’m a squire for the Second—well, I used to be with the Second House.” He shrugs his left shoulder, causing the flap of cloth to flutter. I expect to get queasy at the sight, but I don’t. Mainly because Caleb keeps talking.

“My arm’s a bit of a challenge for people to work around. So these days, I’m more of a squire for hire by any house that needs me, scurrying about, doing whatever needs doing. Gathering supplies, chasing away thieves, all of it.” He grins again. “But I can fight better than anyone gives me credit for, and that helps. I’da made more on that scrap if you hadn’t come along. ’Course, I might’ve gotten clocked too. No one wants to bet on a cripple once he gets beat up, I tell you plain.”

“Your house lets you—where are your clothes?”

“My—oh.” He sighs, and a little of his stuffing seeps out of him. I instantly miss it and curse myself for my thoughtless comment. “I can’t wear a proper squire’s garb anymore. Not a squire, you see, not really. And I don’t have a family, not like a regular one. So—I make do. I think the Second’ll take me back but till then, I…”

“Until then, you need clothes,” I say, my voice far too sharp. “I’ve got extra.”

Caleb bristles. “I don’t want your charity. I don’t even know you.”

“I’m…Merritt of the Tenth,” I say, forming the words awkwardly. “At least take me back to my camp then, hey? Before I go blind.” I hold my hands out to the side as I try to rise—no easy task with a sword strapped to my side, and harder still with my ringing head. “Help me up? I’m not going to be able to see anything in the next few minutes.”

Caleb moves quickly to my side and stands steady as I grasp his arm and pull myself to my feet. Beneath his rags, he’s thin and wiry—definitely no older than fourteen, maybe only thirteen years. But someone I desperately need at the moment, all the same. “I can’t tell direction,” I mutter.

“Where are you camped?” He’s already moving me back into the crowd, standing far enough away that I’m not hanging on him, but close enough for me to keep him in view despite my dimming sight. “This side of the coliseum?”

“Yes, on the road toward the village. No, off the road. Off…” I shake my head slowly, trying to stay focused. “There are trees.”

He snorts. “Trees are a good start. Is there a stream as well? Or rocks?”

We move like that back through the crowd, Caleb stopping once to crack his right palm on the back of an apparent friend. Money bags are emptied and their contents divvied up, and I resolve to find my own way. I point myself in what I hope is the direction of Nazar’s camp, unsurprised when Caleb catches up with me and turns me slightly to the left.

“Sorry, needed the coin,” he says. “I find if I don’t settle up right fast, it tends to slip away.”

“You fight for money?” My words aren’t forming correctly anymore, and my mouth has difficulty closing, my lips puffy and dry.

“Well, I don’t fight for fun, if that’s what you’re thinking. And I’m not in the tournament proper, can’t be without an arm. Though that would be a thing, wouldn’t it? Fighting for the right to join a noble house as a soldier, to have a chance at earning a Divh. This year, thirty men will get chosen as banded soldiers, to be parceled out to the winning house of the tournament, their first year’s wages paid for by the First House! Twelve will go to the winner alone!”

I swing my head toward him, aware that it’s taking me longer than it should. “Really?” I’d never heard of so many men being granted the honor of a Divh so quickly.

Was this what Fortiss had meant, saying the winners of the tournament could earn soldiers for their house of real worth? “Thirty banded soldiers, all at once?”

“ Thirty .” Caleb nods. “It’s unprecedented. The thirty best non-banded combatants at the tournament will undergo a ritual with Lord Protector Rihad and his priests to become banded soldiers. Then they’ll be free to serve a house. Rumor has it that all the houses are coming who need more men, which is most of them now.” He eyes me meaningfully, then frowns and fumbles at his side. “Here, take a sip of this.”

He holds something up to me, and I try to sniff it, but my nose is clogged with blood and gore. “Just water,” Caleb says. “You get spirits in you, you’ll fall down. And I won’t be able to carry you, I’m thinking.”

The water tastes like the finest liquid I’ve ever drunk, and I take two long pulls on it before I push it back. “Yours,” I say. “You need it too, with this heat. But thank you.”

“You really are an idiot,” Caleb says again, but there’s something in his voice that catches at me, something important. Then I stumble into him. How am I this hurt? I wasn’t hit that hard, I’m sure of it.

“Sorry,” I grunt, and Caleb picks up the pace, threading through the crowd with nimble ease, chattering all the way as my heart begins to hammer and my eyes water. I don’t realize I’ve hunched over until I squint hard and the tips of Nazar’s boots finally swim into view. I nearly sag to my knees, but Caleb’s strong arm holds me, and his high, clear voice bursts out.

“Your knight, sir.” Caleb shuffles back, taking me with him. His voice quakes as he speaks more quickly, all in a rush. “Sir, I did him no harm. He saved my life—my life! In the crowd today. I could do naught but bring him back to your camp. He saved my life, and I brought him back—hey!”

I slump to the ground.