Gruin did not indulge in another fit of rage, which came as quite the relief. I’d gotten too used to the newfound physical prowess of my body, and perhaps too accustomed to using it in situations where it was most beneficial. Durability is not really a trait that exists, for the purpose of most fights. A tough man has no hard advantage over a fragile one, save that he requires more luck or more timing to be killed with one punch. Isn’t a human in the world who can say they’re fully immune to that. Or at least, not a full human.

  No ribs were broken, at least, and being forced to speak with that guard had actually loosened by vocal chords up a shade. I still found a strain in my throat as I forced out more words once we’d taken our leave from the arena.

  “I didn’t have any choice in the matter,” I spat, “for all I knew he was going to fucking kill me!”

  “You are so easy to bully around,” Gruin growled, “a little threat of death and you just roll over and do anything anyone wants you to!”

  I was just stunned at that, finding it another reminder that Grynkori didn’t quite feel fear the way humans did.

  “Just because you don’t care if you die,” I said slowly, “doesn’t mean I feel the same way.”

  “Of course I care,” Gruin snapped, “but not for the reasons your lot do. Grynkori have things to do, have purpose, and dying gets in the way of that. But you lanks just cling onto life for no reason at all except its own sake.” He turned a disgusted eye onto Devyne now. “Like that one cowering in the fight.”

  For a change, Devyne actually met Gruin’s eye and spoke up to defend himself.

  “You think it’s cowardice to not join in some stupid pub brawl?!” he spat, “I had no business engaging in that. It wasn’t my duty, if you find fighting alone to be such a horror then you shouldn’t be so quick to start those damned fights yourself!”

  It was, I thought, quite a good point. Problem was Gruin was completely beyond reason at the best of times, and as expected it just bounced off him now.

  “They needed beating, at least I had the bones to do it.” The Grynkori spoke as if he’d just made some final retort, then, apparently thinking his digression with Devyne won, turned back to me, “but you, a bloody magic-user…Pah.”

  “What even is your problem with magic?” I snapped, suddenly defensive of the idea now that I was getting pushed against using it. Say one thing for me, I could at least stand up for myself when ego was twitching more than cowardice.

  “It turns people into abominations, corrupts the world and threatens everything that lives. It’s one thing to be capable of it—most of your bloody lot are—but another entirely to go out of your way to fuck with it.” Gruin’s response came so bluntly and mechanically that it hardly sounded like he was the one saying it at all, more like it was being recited by some choir. Like a prayer.

  I got the feeling there was something to that, that I’d just been told a mantra drilled into him as early as any could be. If Gruin was aware or at all critical of this fact, it didn’t show on his face. Well, I thought, that made sense, it was well known the Grynkori lacked all the intellectual curiosity that led to human advancement.

  You can laugh at the irony now.

  “How do you know this if your people are so wary of magic that you never even go near it?” I asked him. Gruin looked on the brink of answering, but he remained silent, mouth working wordlessly and body trembling. To his credit, it meant he was at least registering enough of the words thrown his way to recognise when a retort was hitting home.

  But that didn’t mean he’d back down, of course. Not an inch.

  “We know because we’ve recorded it well and proper, unlike your kind running around making the same mistakes ten generations in a row.”

  “Our kind live in houses,” Devyne snapped, “we build cities, we don’t live and die in dirty holes underground.”

  “We build cities too you little earslig!” Gruin roared, “you just can’t see them with your heads so far up your own arses!”

  The conversation was growing both angrier and louder, right as we came to one of the rougher districts to boot. Not a great place to walk with a Grynkori, I’d learned, let alone one who was currently raving about the multitudinous failings of humanity and our fickle natures. I felt a chill run down my spine with every bout of movement around us, but fortunately nothing came of it.

  Stolen story; please report.

  We got back to our rooms easily enough, even if the arguing had far from tapered by then. If anything I should’ve been grateful not to see Gruin beating Devyne into a coma already.

  In fact, I was actually grateful that the conversation’s turn had distracted the Grynkori. And more grateful still when that fact remained right up until we all went to sleep.

  Gruin woke me with more yelling, though, because no good thing can last forever. Nor can they even last more than a few hours, most of the time. It had been maybe half the time I’d have chosen to sleep for, another reminder of how unnatural Grynkori biology was to let them cope with so little rest.

  This time I tried to be the bigger man, to ignore his yelling as I rolled over for more sleep. Gruin did not like this, it seemed, and retaliated by grabbing me by both ankles and swinging me out of bed like I was a sack of grain. I landed hard and kicking out, finding the whole thing vaguely familiar as I lunged to my feet.

  “Don’t you ignore me aga—” I punched Gruin harder than I’d ever punched anyone and caught him right across the face, sent him stumbling back and into a wall.

  For a second I was worried I’d seriously hurt him. Gruin was big, and so his weight crashing into anything meant the impact was great. He’d hit the hard wood right on with his head and bounced jerkily from it in a way that looked unnatural to me. Maybe a human might have been knocked out or killed after taking such a blow, but he seemed more pissed off than anything and stared at me through narrowed eyes.

  My worry evaporated instantly. “Don’t attack me while I’m in bed,” I spat. There, the line was drawn now. Would he cross it?

  I waited for the attack to come, for the Grynkori’s anger to finally bubble into violence. Instead he just spat, then gruffly nodded once. I was so surprised by the lack of any muscular explosion that I almost missed what he said next.

  “The Thaumaturge,” he growled, “what are you planning?”

  I let out a long breath, relieved to see that I’d not be getting into two fights today. In all likelihood a brawl with Gruin would have been by far the greater thrashing compared to whatever awaited me at the stadium.

  “I’m going to try to keep him from blowing me up in a rage and leave as soon as I can,” I said honestly. In rather a nice change of pace, the truth seemed to go down well.

  “You going to kill him?” I was beyond shockable by Gruin’s insanity, at that point, but damn it if that didn’t come close.

  “Why the fuck would I try and do that?” I snapped, “he’s a Thaumaturge!”

  “And?” I was actually left speechless by that response, but in this case it was more because I really couldn’t say much to defend the point. And what? It was a fair question. I didn’t know anything specific about a Thaumaturge’s capabilities, just that they were something I’d always known not to cross through ‘common sense’.

  “I don’t know what his abilities are, and I don’t want to piss him off just to learn that he can still reach me from a hundred miles away.” There, a nice and logical retort. Gruin wasn’t satisfied of course.

  “If he could do that, do you think Thaumaturges would need money and apprentices to rule your world? They’d just make themselves kings overnight with that power.”

  “Shut up!” I snapped, angry in a way I couldn’t quite articulate, “I don’t know what his actual resources are either, it’s dangerous no matter what.”

  Gruin snorted with disgust, but made nothing more of it. My match wasn’t for another half-day and, blood up from the arguing, I had little success in snatching more sleep before it came. Another hour, maybe two. Still, I was in more or less fighting condition once the time came for me to be fully roused and I headed off.

  Devyne, I noted, was still shooting looks at Gruin, and vice-versa. My fellow human hadn’t been present for my waking, and I’d feared more arguing would follow he and the Grynkori when they were face to face again. It didn’t, just a constant, simmering distaste.

  That was almost worst, because I got the distinct impression it was perpetually moments away from exploding into something more physical. Better to have it over and done with.

  On the other hand, if Devyne got beaten to death it would jeopardize my free meal tickets. Life was full of these concessions, I supposed.

  I had an hour to wait before actually fighting once we all arrived, and with Gruin clearly not in the mood to speak with me, and Devyne still on my shit-list, I spent it pretty much in silence. Other than the crowd, of course, which come to think of it was about the least silent thing I’d ever seen.

  Now, though, two bouts into the tourney, I was suddenly in the quarter-finals, and I saw first-hand what a spike that caused in the quality of competition. As the two fighters came out, one Sir Varick and one Lord Ganistran, I heard the crowd quieten down and an armour-thick tension diffuse across the air. The beginning was called, and the fighting started.

  Watching that bout was like staring at a pair of monsters fight, and the only sensation I can recall feeling was fear.

  Fear that I might be put against one of them of course, but a much deeper fear to simply find out men like this lived. I’d felt something like it only once before, watching Morlo the Mad unleash his powers against that horde of undead. I’d be lying to say this inspired that same level of dawning horror, but it was yet another reminder of how big the world was and how small a part of it I could claim to be.

  It’s hard to put into words what sort of fight I was watching, so let me try and do so by just sharing a simple fact about it. Four times across that bout, it was interrupted. Not by a touch being scored and the men stepping back to begin a new round, but by one or both practice swords breaking apart from the force of their clashing.

  When it finally ended, I felt like I’d just seen an angel kill a demon.

  It was Lord Ganistran who’d won after all, though with two touches on his opponent’s part it had been a fairly near thing. I watched him leave and hand off the nearly-ruined practice weapon he’d scored his last hit with. Well over an inch thick, the solid hardwood already looked on the verge of splintering as the others had before it.

  “Well, I think I might stop betting in your favour after that,” Gruin grunted. I turned to scowl at him, then looked to Devyne for support.

  He wouldn’t quite meet my eye.

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