Savior of Arcadia

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  o o o

  “A duel. To determine political policy.” Aubry snorted with audible derision. “Really. It’s barbaric and backward, to say the least. Dealing with these Highlanders is like arguing with stones.”

  “Honestly, I thought you’d be one to admire that.” Esmeralda smirked. “But you certainly told them what you thought of it after dinner. Which promptly got you banned from further negotiations.”

  The Comte cleared his throat. “A miscalculation. I had assumed that these people's penchant for bluntness would work both ways. But, despite the armor and furs they wear, they seem remarkably thin skinned.”

  “Once again,” Bellamy sighed, “please. Let’s not antagonize them further. It was hard enough to move things this far along.”

  “I don’t like it,” Jone announced, glancing around the interior of the tall leather tent as her friends secured her armor.

  “Me neither,” Adrienne agreed. Jone held out her hand, and the other blond Arcadian helped her wrap strips of cloth around the palm of her gauntlet for a better grip. “Don’t it seem a little, well, unnecessary? Excessive, even?”

  “Oh, you haven’t even begun to not like it,” Esmeralda commented. “I’ve seen these duels before. But it’s the only way to get them to help. If we even hinted that we might back out now, we’d never secure their support.”

  Samantha nodded. “She’s right. The custom may be brutish and crude by our standards, but it’s also necessary. We need their airspace.” Jone nodded. “But...there is still concern. Namely, that it’s very dangerous.”

  Jone’s eyebrows shot up. Bellamy wouldn’t emphasize danger lightly, not like that. “How so? Even if his bravery and prowess were as massive as his size, I still have far more followers than he could possibly—”

  “Jone, Highland challenges are fought without the aid of devotions,” Bellamy cut in, the steel of her eyes sharp and serious. “No magic, no healing, no invocation...and especially no evocation.”

  “Yeah.” Esmeralda sighed. “You have to be extra, extra sneaky to slip that past them. Trust me.”

  Adrienne paled. “Then there ain’t no way! It’s too risky. I saw that Stewart’s big ol’ mace. One good hit with that thing...” She shuddered.

  “Probably means I’m sidelined too.” The spirit’s snort ruffled the top of Jone’s hair. “Well, I guess you’re not winning this one then, huh?”

  Jone rolled her eyes, but no one paid it any mind.

  “If the Highlanders notice so much as a single thread of magic, you’ll be labeled a cheater, a coward, and a weakling,” Bellamy cautioned. “There are no accidents, and no second chances.”

  Jone swallowed. She was confident in her martial skill, and as any trained fighter knew, size wasn’t much of a deciding factor in combat. Large or small, light or heavy, everyone brought something different to the battlefield; it was simply a matter of playing to your strengths while minimizing your weaknesses. And everyone she fought was always bigger than she was; she was well used to that by now.

  Jone knew she was good...but she wasn’t the best.

  And what if she’d relied on the power of her followers for too long? What if her personal skill was too rusty? Try as she might, the Highlander’s massive size and bone-crushing greatmace did concern her—specifically, that he had two extra Jones’ of reach with which to pulverize her before she could get close.

  “Yeah, and he probably passed that milestone when he was twelve,” Rote added.

  You know what? You’re not helping. A lot of lives might be riding indirectly on her success or failure in this duel. Including possibly her own. But if Bellamy thought this was worth the risk, and that she was up to the task...well, there was a good reason she typically deferred to her friend’s judgement. The elegant pirate hadn’t steered them wrong yet, not over the entire five-year campaign.

  As if summoned, the Lady Bellamy leaned in close, slipping her arms around Jone as she fastened the Arcadian’s gorget around her throat. “Bear in mind,” she whispered, “what I said to you about Ard Ri Matthias, back in Gallia. Endless wars drain coffers. We need progress.” Jone nodded; one more worry to clutter her mind before battle, one more reason she couldn’t afford to lose. Satisfied, Bellamy fastened the latch and straightened, hands still supportively on her shoulders. “Please be careful, Jone. While Highlander duels aren’t to the death, deaths do happen.”

  “He won’t hold back,” Esmeralda clarified. “It would make him look weak.”

  “I imagine he’ll be trying to test you,” Aubry added thoughtfully from an oversized stool near the tent flap, his back turned politely away while Jone was dressed and armored. “Perhaps to prove to his people that you’re worth the alliance. There was something in his eyes at dinner...there’s more to this meeting and impromptu conflict than meets the eye, I think.”

  Jone nodded. “I know. The flow of events during the feast weren’t accidental; he maneuvered me into this conflict for a reason.” The Comte and Lady Bellamy both nodded approvingly. “I think Sir Stewart wants this alliance, but not all of his people agree. So instead of looking like he thinks the Highlanders need our help, he wants me to prove it to them.”

  Aubry chuckled. “So you have been paying attention these past few years. I’m impressed. Also, I concur. Though I’m not certain it’s worth the risk to your life, all things considered.”

  “It is,” Bellamy responded. “And on that, you’ll just have to trust me.” She laid a hand softly on the side of Jone’s face, and the Arcadian warrior grasped it gently with her mailed glove.

  “...Okay. I ain’t following,” Adrienne interjected. “If you’re all correct, don’t that mean he will hold back, to make sure Jone wins?”

  “Can’t afford to,” Esmeralda shook her head. “If anyone figured it out, they’d both lose.”

  “Right,” Bellamy smiled. “So I imagine that right now, he’s hoping you’re what all the stories make you out to be.”

  Me too, Jone thought.

  Outside the tent, a deep bass drum rang out without warning, followed by a rising chant and the sound of hundreds of stomping Highlander boots that echoed through the earth and quickly gained momentum. The noise handily drowned out the sound of steam gusts and wind; Jone could feel the beat reverberating deep in her chest.

  “That’s your call,” Esmeralda said, a glimmer of nervousness darting through the depths of her emerald eyes. “You ready?”

  Jone nodded.

  With a final kiss from Adrienne, Jone took one deep breath, set aside her nerves, and gave her friends a reassuring smile before stepping out onto the battlefield.

  3

  Strife

  “Down!”

  Jone ducked low as Stewart’s red-handled greatmace nearly took her head off. Without wasting an instant, she tumbled headlong into a roll, putting precious space between them before he could follow it up with another bone-crushing blow.

  Shut up! We can’t cheat. You’re going to ruin this—or get me killed.

  “You wanna win? Then you need my help. Next one’s a feint.”

  Stewart bellowed like an enraged bull as he rushed her, enormous weapon held high above his head. A distraction. Jone played her part for a moment and let her eyes go wide as the point of her greatsword wavered, but she stood her ground all the same. The Highlander bore down on her like an avalanche, but at the last moment he rolled his shoulders and swept his mace across, striking aside her weapon and dropped his massive shoulder to plow directly into her.

  Forewarned, Jone dove through his legs instead. Stewart dug in his heels and pulled up short, snapping his knees together a second too late to trap her. As the Highlander stumbled, Jone rolled to her feet, her articulated plate armor flexing smoothly with the movement, and sunk a couple of inches of razor-sharp tritanium blade through fur and leather and into the back of his thigh.

  In the background, the packed crowd of Stewart’s people cheered as she tugged her crimson-tipped blade free of his leg
.

  “He’s quickly living up to his name, at least? Look out.”

  Jone barely leapt back in time as her opponent spun, roaring with laughter, and whipped his mace at her skull, the weapon whistling dangerously as it split the cool Highland air. As Rote had so succinctly noted, Stewart the Red was bleeding from a dozen or more punctures and lacerations: blood dribbled sluggishly from wounds on his legs and arms, and streamed from a semi-solid strike she’d landed along his ribs.

  But, to Jone’s dismay, it didn’t slow him down at all. Instead, the damage only seemed to encourage the Highland warrior. As the fight drew on, Jone felt the early burns of fatigue already setting in, a problem usually eliminated by drawing from her immense pool of followers. But Stewart only seemed to get faster, more aggressive.

  A flanged mace head larger than her own head blurred past her face, keeping her at bay and stirring her heavy braid with its passage. Stewart’s unflagging stamina was a twofold problem; for one, she didn’t want to have to kill the man to stop him. Not only did the alliance need him alive, but it felt wholly unnecessary. He wasn’t her enemy, after all.

  Jone aborted a lunge and rolled to the side as Stewart’s mace cracked the earth where she’d been standing; she could feel the weight of the impact through the soles of her boots. That neatly illustrated the second problem: she didn’t want him to kill her. And now that she was fully human with no magic coursing through her veins, one solid strike would likely do just that.

  “Not gonna let that happen. Leap back.”

  Jone did as instructed as Stewart leaned into a wide swing, the arc of the swipe coming within inches of her midriff.

  “Shoulders tense. Overhead smash. Watch the follow up.”

  Jone dodged, struck, drew blood, and danced away again, her armor chinking quietly as it shifted, the sound smothered by the roar of the encircling Highlanders. Somewhere in the crowd, a loud-voiced man kept up a running commentary of the fight over the cheers, jeers, and rhythmic stomp of boots, as well as bellowing frequent updates on the active betting pool.

  According to the native Highlanders, the odds were not in her favor.

  Seriously, shut up! I can’t afford to cheat this. Distracted, Jone almost leaned the wrong way as Stewart jabbed out with the end of his great weapon, the heavy steel head coming so close to her face that her breath left fog on the polished metal.

  “Pffft. No one’s gonna know.”

  I will, and I’m a horrible liar. And what if someone notices something’s off about my fighting style? Or that I notice things I shouldn’t be able to? They’ll assume I’m invoking. So be quiet! I can’t—

  A flange of the greatmace barely clipped her shoulder, but with enough force to send a spike of pain shooting through her body and throw her forcefully to the ground. As Rote fell grudgingly, irritably silent, Jone rolled with the force of the blow, then tensed her muscles and flipped herself back to her feet, a narrow margin between her spine and the ground-level sweep of Stewart’s gargantuan weapon.

  The crowd burst into raucous cheers at her display of armored athletics, but overall their excitement was dying; she’d already gotten booed a couple of times for evading and not taking some of the more obvious openings to sink her greatsword deep into Stewart’s flesh.

  Bleeding him to exhaustion wasn’t working; if she wanted to win the crowd’s respect, she needed to go on the offensive, yet hold back enough to avoid killing him. She also needed to take him out before he got in a solid hit, one powerful enough to render her bones to meal, armor or no.

  As the Highlands warrior raised his mace high, Jone recognized the feint and dove forward at his spread, trunk-like legs. Like last time, he snapped them shut, trying to trap her, and Jone pulled up short and slammed the pommel of her greatsword into his knee cap instead.

  The Highlander chieftain winced in pain, but didn’t fall.

  Instead, he choked up on his greatmace and swept it down and across, too quick for Jone to dodge away. This time, the strike caught Jone in the chest and slapped her aside hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs through reinforced tritanium. She let the force tumble her backward, away from her foe, then caught herself, tensed her powerful arms, and flipped herself backward onto her feet—just in time to receive the Highland berserker’s distracting, deafening war cry and predictable follow-up charge.

  Too predictable, she realized.

  Stewart the Red was, as Bellamy had remarked, a much more canny leader and fighter than he appeared, and only a fool would assume that stopped at his fighting style. The truth was, there were only so many effective strikes open to a weapon like Stewart’s—especially with his reliance on brute strength, and against a much smaller and faster moving target like Jone. And while that limitation made him no less deadly, it did make him more predictable.

  So a clever fighter would cloak those predictabilities with feints and mind games—and nothing would be what it appeared to be.

  Jone shifted her weight to dodge as Stewart charged, the massive Highlander’s thunderous footfalls sending little tremors through the packed earth. And when his overhand slam transformed into a heavy sidelong swipe that he stepped into without warning, instead of dodging, she simply dropped her weight and let her knees buckle backward.

  Stewart’s eyes went wide with surprise as his own unstoppable momentum betrayed him and took him completely, harmlessly past Jone—

  —Who promptly rammed the tip of her greatsword deep into the side of his leg, just above the knee.

  This time, the Highlander choked off a cry of pain as they passed. Leather, flesh, and tendons tore as Jone threw herself forward; her opponent's leg tried to buckle under his own momentum as she wrenched the blade free, savagely widening the wound.

  With a roar, Stewart whirled around, but he’d already lost track of the smaller fighter. Reluctantly, Jone stuck the tip of her greatsword into her foe’s kidney as his weapon whistled over her head, then leapt back; the greatmace pounded the ground as his leg nearly gave way. Still, with gritted teeth, Stewart stomped forward, covering his weakness by pressing her hard with a frenzy of swings as he chased her around the ring.

  The Arcadian just smiled as she dodged away and let him chase her on his badly wounded leg. She wasn’t worried. Most fighters likely lose the first time they fall prey to one of Stewart’s tricks; now that I understand the way his mind works, all I have to do is—

  Jone stepped in between two great sweeps of his huge mace and lunged for the Highlander’s injured knee.

  And took his fist-shaped pommel to the sternum as Stewart twisted and spun, slamming the butt end of the weapon into her chestplate.

  “Jone!”

  The next thing she knew, she lay on her back, coughing blood as her eyes cleared.

  “Yield!” the Highlands chieftain bellowed, his face flushed with victory as he straddled Jone with his weapon raised high, offering her an undoubtedly lethal blow.

  “You yield,” Jone retorted as her head spun. She wiggled her arm and drew the Highlander’s attention to where her greatsword was braced against the ground, its razor-sharp tip barely an inch from his crotch.

  The crowd roared with laughter; Stewart the Red yelped in alarm as he leapt back.

  —get him to trick himself. As Jone’s plan fell into place, she rolled to her feet, dropped her greatsword, and launched herself at the Highlander’s injured leg.

  Jone’s shoulder slammed into the weakened, wounded joint, and she heard her foe gasp as he rocked forward. Before he could do more, she wrapped her arms around his tree-trunk like limb and heaved. The Arcadian’s strong, corded muscles went tight with strain as she toppled the gargantuan Highlander past her, over her head, and to the earth.

  For a small woman with a low center of gravity like Jone, falls weren’t typically a big deal. But for a man probably ten times her mass or more?

  Stewart the Red cursed and crashed to the earth like a falling tree, face-first. His two handed greatmace tumbled from hi
s fingers as he tried to brace himself, but he laid there stunned for a moment too long.

  When he moved again, Jone’s greatsword was already at his throat.

  “Whew. You even had me fooled.”

  “Now yield,” she said firmly. “This is no place for needless death. Not when our mutual enemy—”

  “Jone—”

  She turned too late, and a heavy, hurled stone half the size of her head struck her in the back of the skull.

  For the second time in moments, Jone felt herself on the ground. Her head rang from the impact like a blacksmith’s anvil; her vision blurred and went dark at the edges, and she tasted blood. Distantly, she registered her friends’ voices, almost buried under an avalanche of shouts of anger and protest. Even Rote’s worried voice was far away and liquid.

  She managed to roll over, choking. A hulking shadow towered ominously over her, backed by a rumble of anger.

  Suddenly, the pain was far away; Jone felt herself pushed aside as Rote took control and yanked at her network of followers, forcibly shoving restorative magic through her body. Slowly, her broken skull and cracked sternum healed, and a glance to the side showed the source of the angry voices: her friends encircled her with weapons bared, exchanging shouts with an enraged portion of the crowd of Highlanders. And above her, she could make out the looming form of Stewart the Red hovering over her—protectively.

  “Enough!” Stewart’s voice drowned out all the rest, deafeningly loud to Jone as the man drew on his magic. Except for Esmeralda, everyone fell silent.

  “She did not cheat!” The Highlander bellowed. “There was no magic in her eyes. She set me up, tricked me, and defeated me. Fairly and rightly.” The crowd quieted, save for a lingering ripple of dissent. Stewart leaned low and offered her a hand up. “Yeh have my deepest apologies, Jonelise.”

  Jone nodded carefully, wincing at her brand-new, throbbing headache. Her arm disappeared into the Chieftain's massive hand as she let him haul her to her feet.