Page 16 of Court of Talons
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 gotyour 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.Ishe 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, yougirl. 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 backof 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,gonebecause I didn’t act—didn’t move quickly enough to protect him. Iwon’tbe 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 sidelong 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 anidiot,” 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, youdidhave 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, whichfeelsunprotected 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.