Leibricht came on fast and with a focus that surprised me, clearly a harder worker than I’d been when it came to swordplay before my life was staked on it. I took the chance to back away, paced myself, studied his offence and took his measure. I was better by far, that much was clear in moments. Decently more skilled and vastly stronger, faster too.

  But he was trying to kill me.

  No two ways about it, every time his sword stopped anywhere short of my guts was a failure on Leibricht’s part, and I could see each failure eating away at his temper.

  Normally, a fraying temper is good in your enemy. Has him make mistakes, has him be too predictable, too aggressive, lowers his guard for that crucial moment where you score a touch and take the victory for yourself. But I wasn’t able to do that now. If I countered I’d be risking scarring, maiming or killing him. I’d already decided that wasn’t an option, for purely selfish reasons of course, and so he could attack with abandon and have no worries at all.

  A fair fight, and I’d have won in seconds. This was far from a fair fight.

  But far from unwinnable.

  The trick was that I needed to trap him in a completely thorough way. He needed to grip his sword just so, to lean into my parry—which necessitated an attack—and to keep from seeing what was about to happen ahead of time and countering it with technique. My physical advantage helped, with the difference in how strong our grips it would be far easier for me to disarm him.

  But attempting to win in such a limited way was still a mountainous disadvantage. Those readers familiar with bladework will understand it already, those who aren’t can best picture it by imagining me fighting with only a single arm. My off-hand, at that. That was the situation I found myself in.

  Again, far from unwinnable given my other advantages. But you’ll understand why I wasn’t exactly pleased to be fighting such a fight.

  Leibricht’s attack became more ferocious by the second, not less. I began to suspect if he was augmenting himself with some substance or another. I’d heard of medicinal compounds that brought unnatural vigour, found myself wondering whether he was using them. There wasn’t much space in my head for curiosity and theorising though, most of it was taken up by the unrelenting press to parry every sword swing in the world as all of them seemed to converge on me.

  I would’ve been in trouble, were every parry in the world not converging in that same spot to turn them aside. Still, the intensity of fighting was not to my advantage. Leibricht’s tirelessness and modicum of skill meant that his odds of catching me were greater than zero. The sheer volume of attacks he was throwing my way meant anything greater than zero was to my disfavour in that regard.

  Time passed, a few seconds at most. They dragged by like wounded animals lumbering from the hunter’s path. At the end of them, I had a wound. Not a deep one, a scratch more than anything. It was a red line glistening on the back of my arm, wet and leaking. It was progress for Leibricht and a warning for me.

  He picked up his assault and threw more attacks my way, every one a deathblow. Clearly he knew that I wouldn’t be countering with any effective bloodlust, that he could just swing away without guarding as if he were wailing at some straw dummy. Clearly he had no compunctions about murdering a man who was trying so very hard not to return the favour.

  Another gash made itself known on my body, this time a slightly deeper one just above the knee. It was hot with pain, throbbing and feeling as though it tore wider every time I shifted the leg to dodge. And it was not the last wound I’d take here, either.

  One by one, piece by piece, Leibricht carved away at me. I just weathered the storm as best I could, but that wasn’t very well at all. No man is tough when edged steel starts hitting him at speed, and if I was able to get away with only taking glancing blows that meant little save that Leibricht was hurting me more before defeat came.

  And then he started slowing down. Not just from fatigue, though. I watched him grow clumsy and sluggish, confused, even, at his own sudden lethargy. The drugs we’d slipped his way before the match came to kick in, and my desperate fight had finally turned into a chance at victory.

  What, surprised? You thought I was above cheating? Ha! Only when I’m scared of the consequences, and the young lord Leibricht had, if nothing else, done a fine job of leaving me facing fearful consequences already. There’s a lesson there about too much terror and boxing people in, if you care to learn it.

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  Leibricht probably didn’t. Oh he had all the time to learn any lesson he wanted, but I imagined as soon as his arse was finished with its kicking he’d just head home and sulk. I moved onto the attack at that, or pretended to at least. Feinting one way and the other, grinning and scaring the little bastard to raise his panic. Panicked, slowed, with the weight of a fickle crowd crashing down over him and his fear suddenly up at actually getting hurt, Leibricht did what all impulsive idiots do in their first taste of real combat.

  He made a mistake.

  One of my thrusts came deliberately slow and predictable, right for his centre. He did the natural block, the easy block. The predictable block. It came hard and caught the steel, sent a shock up my arm as he pushed my blade away and sent his right for my guts. Then his steel was halted when I shifted footing just a shade to whip my own weapon back faster than he’d expected.

  A moment of two swords touching, their weight leaning against one another like drunkards in a wrestling match. The moment ended, and Leibricht’s sword went flying from his hands as surely and quickly as if I’d kicked it as dead weight.

  Leibricht froze as I lifted the tip of my blade up and held it just short of his throat, his head cocked back and eyes fell on mine and whole body trembling with a mix of ingested poison and mounting dread.

  Then his sword landed, and as if that had been some agreed-upon signal I heard the duel called in my favour. I took a moment to sheathe my sword, keeping an eye on Leibricht as I backed away from him, not wanting to be caught off-guard if he suddenly spasmed into another violent outburst. I needn’t have bothered, the fight had left him as soon as his killing power did.

  Apparently the crowds had been just as stunned as we were, because they only started cheering a good few seconds after the announcement of my victory came. I was somewhat surprised, at first, having expected the noble to get their favour by sheer weight of…well, all the unfair things that’d made me popular growing up.

  What I wasn’t considering at the time, of course, was how things looked. As far as that crowd was concerned I’d just gone out of my way to avoid hurting an opponent who was clearly not showing me the same courtesy, then succeeded in disarming him anyway. It combined the traits that people like to imagine heroes have; courage, kindness and, the only real one, overwhelming martial strength. It was no wonder I was getting bombarded by cheers from all sides.

  Well, not all sides. There was a sliver of animosity in that crowd that I was too caught up in my own world to properly take note of. Duke Leibricht did not enjoy an underdog nearly as much as everyone now roaring with pleasure around him, not when the overdog had been his own son. Unlike most of the things that would come back to haunt me, this was not my fault. But that meant nothing for its haunting ability of course.

  I was kept from concerning myself with such things when I exited the stadium to find Vara grinning in waiting for me, with Gruin and Morlo beside her. Even they seemed rather pleased, albeit for entirely different reasons.

  “The look on his face!” Gruin laughed, “oh you should’ve stabbed him, it would’ve been great.”

  “It was bloody well done,” Morlo grinned as he slapped me on one shoulder with more affection than I’d have expected. “Preserved your reputation in just about every way possible, and absolutely ruined his. Oh Duke Leibricht will be seething about this, but he won’t be able to do anything open about it after a display like that.”

  My face still fell anyway. “You mean I’m still on his shit-list?”

  “Relax,” Morlo grinned, “I can cover you from most of his attempts at subtlety. I do have some pull among Thaumaturges, you know.”

  I didn’t know that, actually, as far as I could tell Morlo was just some weirdo in a bath robe who happened to wield several times more power than the norm. It was good to find out, though.

  “What happens now?” I asked, so tired I could barely bring myself to do even that much.

  “Now the actual politics starts. This was an annoying distraction from that, but I have plans for you as I said. And those plans were actually helped quite a bit by the way you resolved this. You have something of a knack for Heroing, don’t you?”

  I just glared at him.

  The good thing about my little struggle was that it meant I’d apparently earned myself some rest, and I had no intentions of turning that down. I headed right back to the rooms, started getting drunk and settled into my bed for a good long sulk. It was starting to become something of a ritual following any of my near-death experiences. Let me tell you now, it remains so even to this day.

  On this occasion, Vara joined me. I was surprised by that but she didn’t seem up to be discussing the minutiae of why, and I didn’t care enough to push things and ask. She just strolled in, sat down beside me and started sharing my drink. We lounged about, talked. Talked about nothing, mostly. Talked just to have some talking around us.

  I won’t record what Vara and I ended up saying to each other. That’s private. I don’t mind giving my account of things, but I certainly won’t be describing the events pertaining to her. If you’re so curious you can write to her and ask yourself. Knowing her she won’t actually mind answering, but all the same I’ll err on the side of silence now.

  ++”We spent about an hour crying and hugging each other and then had incredibly clumsy, teenaged sex. It was horrible. My fault as much as his. I just lay there.”++

  That night was the closest thing to a good rest I’d had in some time, though I can’t for the life of me say what it was that helped me sleep.

  ++”Liar.”++

  When morning came, I had enough trouble on my plate for another year of course, so in hindsight it’s rather fortunate I got as much rest as I did. The world wasn’t done with me yet.

  Or, to be more specific, Morlo the Great and Terrible wasn’t bloody done with me yet.

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