Phoenix Unbound

by Grace Draven

  Another charge brought the two men close together in a pass. At the last second, Karsas switched sword hands, bringing the blade down in a short arc that sliced a line across Azarion’s chest and split the quilting of his tunic.

  To avoid a deeper cut, Azarion lunged back, overcompensating in the movement, and tumbled off his mount. He sprang instantly to his feet but not before the mare galloped out of range for him to catch her.

  Gilene clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle her gasp. Beside her, Tamura cursed, and near them Karsas pivoted his horse in a triumphant prance while he trilled a victory cry.

  “He fell on purpose.”

  Startled by the comment, Gilene gaped at Tamura. “What do you mean?”

  Tamura didn’t answer, her gaze locked on the scene. Karsas trotted the perimeter, raising the crowd’s avidity for the combat. Azarion jogged in tandem with his movements, always keeping his opponent opposite him until he stood with his back to Gilene, and Karsas faced them across the trampled expanse of grass.

  Gloating at his obvious advantage, Karsas showed off his prowess with both blade and horse by leaping to a standing position atop his mount’s back and spinning his sword in a fast circular motion that created its own shield wall as a defense against attack. It was a showy maneuver, effective in its intimidation against an enemy unfamiliar with Savatar fighting tactics.

  Azarion didn’t react, only held his ground and calmly observed Karsas’s actions. To anyone watching, he was at a clear disadvantage—an armed man on foot facing an armed one on horseback—but Tamura’s comment made Gilene wonder whether that was truly the case.

  She didn’t have the time to puzzle out the why of his action. Karsas dropped down neatly onto the riding pad and, with another victorious ululation, kicked his horse into a hard gallop straight for Azarion.

  Azarion trotted closer to the center as if to meet the charge, then stopped, knees slightly bent, his sword held in a relaxed grip as Karsas raced toward him. The Savatar screamed and shouted.

  Get out of the way. Get out of the way! Gilene shrieked the command inside her head. Beside her, Tamura was silent, taut as a bowstring.

  Clods of dirt flew up from under the mare’s pounding hooves, and Karsas lowered his body to her neck, streamlining both horse and rider until they resembled an arrow shooting straight for Azarion.

  She did scream, as did Tamura, when Karsas’s mare drew nearly abreast to Azarion. Karsas angled his body to the right and swung the sword in an upward arc, the move guaranteed to split his opponent open from groin to throat.

  Had he remained in place.

  The crowd gave a singular gasp when Azarion let go of his sword and dropped into a tuck and roll that carried him under the galloping mare’s belly. The Savatar roared when the mare stumbled and a short spray of blood spattered the ground as Azarion sprang up on the other side, hands cupped under Karsas’s left foot. He heaved upward, sending the startled rider flying off the horse’s back.

  Karsas hit the ground hard. His horse galloped several paces away before a Savatar caught her reins and brought her to a halt. Disoriented, the ataman staggered to his feet, still clutching his sword.

  Azarion bolted toward him, a bright flag of blood cascading down his back on the left side. Gilene spared a quick glance at Tamura. “Why is he bleeding?”

  Tamura shrugged, her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. I think the mare’s hoof caught him when he rolled under her.”

  Azarion crashed into Karsas, arm slamming downward to smash the sword out of his hand. Karsas fell to his back, and Azarion followed, keeping enough of his balance to stay on his knees and pin his enemy down. He grabbed the other man by the ears, using them as grips to slam his head against the ground.

  “Ten years,” Azarion snarled. The open-palm strike he landed against the side of Karsas’s head made the other man grunt and spit blood. Gilene’s heartbeat thundered in her skull at the sight, at the sound of animalistic rage in Azarion’s voice. “A slave to the Empire.” Another blow, this time to the other side of Karsas’s head. More blood to mingle with the crimson flow that spilled from the open wound on Azarion’s shoulder to water the grass.

  With a guttural roar, Karsas lunged upward, freeing one arm long enough to punch Azarion in the side and clip the underside of his chin with his head. Azarion fell away, only to spring to his feet. Karsas did the same, and the two men rushed at each other.

  Lean and quick, with the powerful leg muscles earned from a lifetime of skilled horsemanship, Karsas used those strengths, landing a pair of kicks on Azarion in quick succession: one against his arm, another to his hip, followed by a knee to his groin. The last made the crowd groan as one.

  Azarion never fell, never flinched, and Gilene noticed something in the violence of their match. He took the hits on purpose. Karsas had aimed for Azarion’s knees and his ribs, vulnerable spots that, once broken, would have abruptly ended the fight. Azarion absorbed the kicks but twisted his body in such a way that Karsas’s lethal strikes landed against his arm and hip. The groin hit might have taken another man down, but not a Pit gladiator. She’d seen some of the fights from a cell during the Rites. Strikes to the ribs, the liver, or the kidneys disabled opponents. Groin hits didn’t.

  While Karsas was fast, Azarion was equally so and also trained. It took the other man only a moment to realize Azarion had allowed the kicks to go through. He leapt back, but not quickly enough.

  Azarion delivered a round of blows to Karsas’s face and torso. Measured, swift, meant to bloody and bruise but not immediately disable, those blows spun Karsas one way and then the other, driving him back to where his sword lay in the grass. It became obvious to the crowd that Azarion was playing with his adversary the way a cat played with a rat.

  Blood saturated Azarion’s tunic from his shoulder to his hip, seeping from the wound made by the mare’s hoof. He looked pale but undaunted by the injury as he swatted his cousin across the makeshift arena, eyes flat, expression murderous.

  Karsas staggered, wiped a hand across his face that left a bloody smear, and lunged for his sword. He swayed on his feet, waving the blade in front of him with threatening swipes. “I am ataman,” he declared before spitting out a gobbet of blood. “You are nothing but a Kraelian thrall.”

  Azarion halted and watched him for a moment before backing away to where his own sword had landed. He kept his gaze on Karsas and casually bent to grab the blade. A fleeting humorless smile played across his mouth when Karsas charged him.

  Just as casually, he countered the attack, his years as a Pit fighter evident in the ease with which he handled the sword and fought his cousin.

  Gilene steepled her fingers and pressed them to her mouth, hardly daring to breathe as Azarion and Karsas battled.

  “I was enslaved, thanks to you,” Azarion said. He caught Karsas across the chest, leaving a shallow cut that split the other man’s leather tunic but didn’t draw blood. “Beaten, raped, degraded.”

  “One,” Tamura breathed in a soft voice. Gilene spared her a puzzled glance before turning her attention back to the fight.

  Karsas’s own swings were clumsy, his movements slowing. Exhaustion, mixed with fear, turned his features gaunt.

  Azarion landed another cut, this one on Karsas’s leg. Like the first, it was shallow. Unlike it, blood welled above the slash in the fabric. “Who else did you ambush or murder to keep your secrets and hold your power?”

  “Two,” Tamura said.

  Others nearby turned to look at her. Realization dawned on Gilene, and her heart ached for the man who would likely find his justice but not his peace when this was over.

  Another slash, this one across Karsas’s abdomen.

  Gilene joined Tamura. “Three.”

  A cut for every year Azarion had been enslaved because of his cousin’s ambitions and his cowardice.

  “Four.”
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br />   Karsas cursed Azarion, calling him every filthy name in Savat as well as trader’s tongue, bloody spittle glossing his lips. His eyes were wide, his stare frenzied and hate-filled. He no longer seemed to notice when Azarion cut him, painting him a little redder each time.

  “Five.” The crowd joined its collective voice to Tamura’s and Gilene’s.

  A grueling, excruciating count that ground out in blood, sweat, and pain.

  “Six.”

  Gilene prayed it would end soon. She felt no pity for Karsas, but his children stood across the field, their faces buried in their stoic mother’s tunic. Justice and vengeance. The merciless speed of the first had become the prolonged savagery of the second.

  At the seventh slash, she no longer counted out loud. By the eighth, she found herself praying, not to gods but to Azarion himself. “Finish it,” she said under her breath. “Please.”

  As if he heard her plea, he altered his stance and struck with a sweeping arc of his blade.

  “Nine,” the crowd said in chorus, their voices lowered to a grim murmur.

  A gout of blood spilled through Karsas’s fingers, and he fell to his knees. Gilene closed her eyes against the sight of his entrails bulging from the gaping wound that split his gut. Azarion had nearly cut him in half.

  She opened her eyes in time to witness Azarion end his cousin’s suffering with a hard, clean slash that severed the man’s head from his body. The head rolled in one direction as the body tipped to the side and hit the ground with a dull thud.

  The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by Azarion’s clipped voice. “Ten.”

  Keening cries of grief rose from the crowd but were soon drowned out by the triumphant roar of those who had sided with Azarion’s bid to reclaim the chieftainship.

  Gilene turned to Saruke, who stared at her son with tear-filled eyes. Her mouth trembled. “He lives,” she said, as if still trying to convince herself that Azarion had come out the victor and the survivor of this bout.

  Beside her, Tamura reacted in an entirely different way from Saruke, shouting her brother’s name and chanting “Ataman! Ataman!” along with the rest of the clan as Azarion took a victory walk along the circle’s perimeter, sword raised, his face gray. Blood coated his entire left side, but he paid it no heed as he recognized the clan’s acceptance of his leadership.

  He paused briefly before the newly widowed Arita and the children pressed against her. Her expression was inscrutable when he leaned in and said something in her ear. Her features didn’t change, though her gaze flickered toward Tamura before she gave a quick nod.

  By the time Azarion had completed his victory walk and stood before the three women of his household, the crowd had gone riotous with celebration, passing flasks of fermented mare’s milk between them and breaking into impromptu jigs, as if Karsas’s headless body didn’t sprawl before them in the bloodstained grass.

  Gilene gathered around Azarion, along with Saruke and Tamura. Up close, he looked even more ghastly, and the serene facade he wore cracked under exhaustion. Pain darkened his eyes.

  He grasped one of Tamura’s hands. “Get me to the qara before I collapse,” he said in a raspy voice.

  His warning might have been a lightning strike at their feet. Gilene and Tamura each took up a place on either side of him and leaned close to offer support while Saruke cleaved a path through the gathering.

  They made it to the qara without a moment to spare. Azarion took three steps past the threshold before dropping his sword and falling to his knees, bringing Gilene and his sister with him.

  “Fetch a healer,” Saruke snapped once Tamura gained her feet, and the younger woman bolted out of the qara.

  Saruke and Gilene managed to coax Azarion up long enough to stumble to his pallet, where he crumpled, facedown, into the bedding.

  His mother used a knife to cut away his gore-soaked tunic. “Drying cloths, quick,” she commanded Gilene. “And there’s a small green box in that chest.” She pointed to one close to her pallet. “Bring it.” Gilene jumped to do her bidding, returning with the items requested.

  Saruke carefully peeled away the last strip of Azarion’s tunic and tossed it aside. He grunted but didn’t move. Both women gasped at the sight of the wound, a gaping slash with ragged edges that split a diagonal line across the shoulder blade and down his back. Blood welled from the wound to slide down his side and stain the bedding.

  To Gilene, it looked life-threatening. “Is it very deep?”

  “Deep enough that it’ll need sewing.” Saruke peered more closely at the injury. “I won’t know much more until we clean him up.”

  She opened the box Gilene handed her and tilted its contents into her cupped palm. Gilene recognized the yellow powder. Her mother always kept a supply in her cupboard to help control fleas in the summer.

  “How does the yarrow help?”

  Saruke poured the powder directly into the wound. Azarion didn’t move. “It stops the bleeding.” She gestured for Gilene to pass her one of the cloths, which she folded and pressed to his flesh. Blood saturated the cloth, and she applied more until the compress lay thick and blood-spotted under her hand.

  Gilene had set a pot of water to warm on the cooking brazier when Tamura returned with the healer, a tiny woman who looked more avian than human with her withered hands like bird feet, a nose that resembled a beak, and black eyes that saw everything. She crouched beside Saruke to inspect Azarion’s injury.

  Tamura joined Gilene at the brazier. “How badly is he wounded?”

  Gilene stoked the coals before testing the water’s temperature with her finger. Not warm enough yet. “Your mother managed to stop the worst of the bleeding, but she thinks he’ll need stitching.”

  The idea of a needle puncturing his skin made her shudder. Her oldest brother had suffered through such a procedure when he was eleven. She’d never forgotten the sound of his screams. “I didn’t know a horse’s hoof could cut someone so badly.”

  The maneuver he’d executed to unhorse Karsas had been a risky one, dependent on perfect timing and speed to keep from being trampled. It had been an impressive display of Azarion’s daring and prowess, but he hadn’t come away from the feat unscathed.

  Tamura gave an indelicate snort. “A horse’s hoof can do a lot of damage, especially its edge. He’s lucky the mare took him in the shoulder instead of the head. He wouldn’t have survived otherwise.” She and Gilene stared at each other, recognizing their mutual fear of Azarion’s close call with death.

  Gilene left the brazier to join Saruke and Vua, the healer, at Azarion’s pallet. The healer was explaining that he would suffer fever from his injury and to dose him with both willow bark tea for the fever and bone broth for the blood loss.

  She gingerly peeled back the compresses Saruke had used, careful not to dislodge anything newly scabbed. Azarion twitched but remained quiet. Gilene flinched for him.

  Vua stared at the wound and frowned. “This is deep enough to need stitching,” she said, echoing Saruke’s earlier declaration. “I’ll return with supplies.” She replaced the compresses. “Keep a pot of water heated, and have more cloths ready.” She rose and departed, leaving Gilene, Saruke, and Tamura gathered around their silent patient.

  Gilene touched Saruke’s arm. “What do you want us to do?”

  Saruke ran her fingers through Azarion’s hair. “Watch over him while I brew the tea Vua wants.” She turned to Tamura. “See if you can find a family willing to part with some mutton bones. I used my last one two days ago for the soup we ate at supper. I need more to make that broth.”

  All three women startled when Azarion suddenly spoke in a raspy voice. “Tamura.”

  His sister bent down to him, the scowl on her face in contrast to the worry in her eyes. “Your years in Kraelag have rotted your brain,” she admonished him. “I can’t believe you were mad en
ough to roll under a galloping horse like that. I’d kill you myself for such idiocy if you hadn’t nearly completed the task on your own.” Her criticism lacked any sharpness.

  Azarion’s pallor was still ashy, and his lips pale, but he managed a small smile. “Skin me later. Go see Arita. Make it known to all who will listen that I offer her my protection before word is sent to her clan of Karsas’s death.”

  She clasped his wrist in an affectionate squeeze. “Thank you, Brother,” she said, before leaving with assurances to Saruke that she’d return with the mutton bones.

  Saruke took her place at the brazier, sorting through a number of satchels in her lap and pouring some of their contents into the pot resting on the grate.

  Gilene sat down cross-legged beside Azarion. “I won’t ask you if you’re in pain. It’s a foolish question, considering.” She waved a hand at his back. “Instead, I will ask, how can I ease your pain?”

  His lips curved in a thin smile. “Distract me.” His fingers brushed hers, and she captured them, bringing them to her lips for a brief kiss. “You didn’t pray, but you brought me the luck I needed, as I knew you would.”

  “I wouldn’t call that luck.” She gestured to his back a second time.

  “I won, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  She had watched the entire fight with her heart in her throat. That fluttering organ still slammed against her ribs with relief and terror, the first because he had indeed survived and defeated Karsas, the second because he lay on a pallet, his back split open. It might not be Karsas’s sword that would kill him but Karsas’s horse.

  “I keep my promises, Gilene,” he said.

  Gilene blinked at him. What promise? It took her a moment to recall his vow to return her to Beroe once he became ataman. She squeezed his fingers. “Hush. We’ll speak of it later.”

  His eyes closed. His fingers were dark against hers, browned by days in the sun. Hers were paler, with bony knuckles and broken nails.