by Jim Butcher
And after that, who knew.
He might even get to rest.
Chapter 54
As challenger to the duel, protocol required Tavi to arrive at the field first, and his knuckles were white as he climbed up the ladder to the southern wall.
It felt like a very long way up.
Tavi pulled himself up to the top of the wall and made room for Araris, who was coming up behind him. The structure was a standard Legion battle wall, at least in appearance. Given how much material they'd had to raise, and how little time they'd had to do it, Tavi was sure that it lacked the interlocking, interwoven layers of stone that would make it practically invincible to all but the most violent furycrafting. The wall itself was a flat shelf about eight feet across, and crenellation rose along its outer edge. The tops of the merlons rose to a few inches higher than Tavi's head, and the embrasures between them rose to the middle of Tavi's stomach.
The wall was a series of straight sections, each one at a slight angle to the next, following the terrain it had been built upon. It would not be difficult to keep track of the inner edge, which would be handy for avoiding a potentially fatal fall to the ground below. At Tavi's order, his men had left a series of fury-lamps along the length of the wall, providing plenty of light to see by.
He felt cold. Though spring was edging toward summer, the night was chilly, and the steel of his armor drew the heat from his body.
"Walk a bit," Araris suggested. "Stretch out. You don't want to go into it with your muscles cold and tight."
Tavi followed the singulare's suggestion. "How many times have you fought in the juris macto, Fade?" He caught himself and shook his head. "I mean, Araris."
The older man smiled, his eyes wrinkling at their corners. "I don't mind it from you," he said. "And I've done it four times. I championed someone else in three of them."
"Four?" Tavi asked, still stretching. "That's all?"
"I don't enjoy hurting people."
Tavi shook his head. "That's not what I meant. From your reputation, I thought it would be dozens."
Araris shrugged. "Quality over quantity, I suppose. I fought the High Lord of Parcia's bastard half brother when he challenged the old man for the throne of his city. Antillus Raucus took offense at a young Knight, even younger than you, who had been sleeping with his sister. I had to intervene on the Knight's behalf."
"You beat a High Lord at the blade?" Tavi asked.
"Like I said. Quality over quantity." Araris frowned. "He's got a scar or two to show for it, but I didn't kill him. And I championed Septimus just before the Battle of Seven Hills broke out-"
"That was you?" Tavi said.
Araris shrugged again. "Kadius, a Placidan Lord, had decided that he needed to improve his lands by stealing his neighbors', and Septimus and the Crown Legion were sent to restore order. Kadius challenged the Princeps to compel him to withdraw-and when I killed him, his wife went insane with anger and sent every soldier in her army against the Crown Legion. They had a respectable force of Knights. It was a mess."
"And the fourth was Aldrick ex Gladius," Tavi said.
"With more than a hundred duels to his credit. He used to hire out as a champion, before he took up service with your father. That one got a lot of attention. We went for about ten hours, all the way around Garden Lane and Craft Lane both. Must have been fifty or sixty thousand people that came down to see it."
Tavi frowned, lifted a boot to one of the embrasures, and leaned, stretching out his leg. "But he challenged Sir Miles originally, right?"
"Yes."
"Over what?"
"A girl." Araris narrowed his eyes, looking down the wall past Tavi. "They're here."
A hundred feet down the wall, Navaris pulled herself up from the ladder and rose. The slender cutter wore close-fit armor of leather and light mail, rather than the heavy, steel-plated Legion lorica Tavi wore. She faced him from a hundred feet away, and her expression was empty, devoid of humanity. She carried a long blade and a gladius on two belts slung over her shoulder, just as Araris carried Tavi's. Neither of them would burden themselves with a scabbard in this duel.
Arnos climbed up the stairs behind her, and the climb up the ladder had evidently convinced him to rid himself of the tailored Senatorial robes. He was dressed in a coat of mail, and was puffing visibly from hauling himself and the armor up the ladder.
Tavi watched Navaris, willing all expression from his face as well. He was glad she'd come up so far away. It gave him time to get control of the sudden trembling in his hands before she could come close enough to see it. He took slow, steady breaths.
"She's human," Araris said quietly. "She's imperfect. She can be beaten."
"Can she?" Tavi asked.
"She's won a lot of duels," Araris said. "But most of them were the same duel, just with a different face. Someone relatively inexperienced, who let fear rule their thoughts and actions. They were over in seconds."
"I'm relatively inexperienced compared to Navaris," Tavi said drily. "For that matter, so are you."
Araris smiled. "Patience. Don't let the fear drive you. Don't initiate. Mind your footwork, keep your blades in tight, and wait for your opening."
"Suppose she doesn't give me an opening."
"Outthink her. Make one."
Tavi laid a hand on the merlon beside him. "Like you did at Second Calderon."
"Exactly. Very few people understand that swords aren't dangerous, Tavi, nor hands nor arms, nor furies. Minds are dangerous. Wills are dangerous. You are heavily armed with both."
Tavi frowned at that, staring at his opponent, mulling the thought in his head.
His hands stopped shaking.
The ladder behind them rattled, and Captain Nalus heaved himself onto the wall. He had a fresh bandage on his cheek, where a sickle had laid open his face all the way down to his skull. Tavi had heard he'd ordered them to stitch it closed with thread rather than "wasting a healer's energies on a minor injury when other men's lives were in jeopardy."
"Your Highness," Nalus said, nodding at Tavi. "You're ready?"
Tavi accepted his weapons from Araris and slung the belts over one shoulder. "I am."
"Follow me," Nalus said.
Tavi followed the captain, who had agreed to officiate under protest, down the length of the wall toward Navaris. At the same time, the cutter began walking toward them, slim and deadly.
In the ruins below, people had gathered-legionares, domestics, camp followers. Thousands of them. Several had climbed atop walls and dilapidated rooftops to get a better view of the top of the wall. He could only just see them in the darkness-but atop one of the nearest buildings, he could make out white hair, and Marat manes drifting on the gentle breeze-Kitai and her people. He nodded to them, and fists thumped simultaneously against leather-armored chests in response, the sound loud in the otherwise-silent night.
They reached the middle of the wall in time with Navaris. Tavi stopped far enough away from her to have time to avoid a sudden draw and lunge, while Captain Nalus stopped halfway between them.
"Phrygiar Navaris," he said. "Are you ready?"
Her flat eyes never left Tavi's. "I am."
"Gaius Octavian," Nalus said. "Are you ready?"
"I am."
Nalus glanced back and forth between them. "I remind you that this duel is to the death. I ask you both if you will concede the point of the duel and spare needless bloodshed."
"I will not," Tavi said.
Navaris only smiled a little and said nothing.
Nalus sighed. "Gaius Octavian, draw steel."
Tavi did so, and offered the hilts of the weapons to Nalus. The captain inspected them both for poison, and handed them back to Tavi, then slung the empty weapon belts over one shoulder.
"Phrygiar Navaris, draw steel."
He went through the same process with Navaris, and took her weapon belts as well.
"Very well," he said. "Neither party may move until I have stepped from between
you and counted to ten. Once that is done, both participants are free to act. Do you understand?"
Both replied in the affirmative. Nalus stepped out from between them and hurried down the wall to descend to the ground. It took approximately forever, and Tavi held his gaze against Navaris's for the entire while.
"One!" called Nalus.
"Are you nervous, boy?" Navaris asked quietly.
"A little sleepy," Tavi replied. "A bit hungry. I'll get some breakfast in a bit and have a nap."
"You'll rest," Navaris said. "I promise you that. You won't be hungry, either."
"Two!" called Nalus.
"I'm curious," Tavi said. "How did you survive the sinking of the Mactis?"
"Araris killed his witchman. You only gutted yours. We got him into a boat and he hid us from the leviathans."
"Three!" called Nalus.
Her lips spread into a soulless smile. "It took him three days to die. Time enough to get us clear of the Run."
Tavi felt a surge of nausea at the description. Three days… Crows, that was a bad way to go. Though he supposed there weren't many good ones.
"I've been looking forward to this," Navaris said.
"Four!"
"Why's that?" Tavi asked.
"Because you're the bait, boy." Her eyes left his for a moment, focusing down the length of the wall behind him. "Once you're dead, Valerian there will come for me." She shuddered. "And that will be a fight worth watching."
"Five!"
"You have to get there first," Tavi said.
Navaris tilted her head, her eyes returning to his.
"Six!"
"I'm curious," she said. "Are you truly Princeps Octavian?"
Tavi gave her a copy of her little smile. "We'll know shortly."
"Seven!" Nalus called.
Navaris's breathing began to speed up. He watched her eyes dilate, and a series of eager little shivers ran through her body and down the length of both of her blades.
His mouth felt dry, but he focused on what Araris had told him. Patience. Control. He faced the cutter and touched lightly on the steel of his blade with his crafting, drawing his world into sharp, calm focus.
"Eight!"
Navaris's lips parted, and her body undulated strangely, as if it wished to fly straight into battle without consulting her feet.
"Nine!"
Tavi took a deep breath.
Kitai's voice rang out clear and vibrant in the silence between Nalus's counts, ringing from the stones so that every man, woman, and child looking on was sure to hear it. "Take her to the crows, Aleran!"
"Ten!"
The First Aleran spoke in a single, enormous, deafening voice that shook the stones as the Legion roared its encouragement for their commander.
Phrygiar Navaris's eyes glittered with sudden lust and fury, and her mouth opened in a wordless cry of something eerily like pleasure as she lifted her blades and darted at Tavi.
Chapter 55
Navaris was fast. She closed the distance in the blink of an eye, both weapons whirling out in front of her, weaving through a rapid series of slashes broken by the occasional lightning thrust. Before the First Aleran's roar had died down, she had sent half a hundred strokes toward Tavi, and he was certain that only steady retreat and his recent, intensive training with Araris enabled him to stop them.
Colored sparks showered out every time the blades met, and the cuts and parries came so swiftly that Tavi could hardly see through them. He felt as if they were fighting in a blizzard of miniature stars.
Her assault was unrelenting, aggressive, and precise. Her cuts and slashes slammed hard into his upraised weapons, so that he felt the shock all the way to his shoulder when they hit. They were, by far, the simplest attacks to defeat. Her thrusts slithered forward like double-bladed serpents, smooth, almost unpredictable, and impossibly fast. He caught each one as it came in, but only responded with the most conservative of counterattacks, more meant to force her to remain wary of a counterstrike than actually to draw blood.
He missed the next thrust and had to spin to the side, arching his back out. Navaris's sword struck a line of sparks along his belly, glancing off the lorica- and leaving a seared black crease on the Legion steel. If she could strike squarely against his armor, her sword would pierce it like cloth.
Twice, Tavi saw an obvious opening, but Araris had taught him better than that. It had been a deliberate act on Navaris's part, and had Tavi launched his own attack in unthinking response, he would have paid with his life.
And then Tavi felt it-a flicker of surprise and concern that flowed from Navaris, coloring the riot of emotions that spilled from her.
She stepped up the pace and power of her attacks, but not enough to allow Tavi his chance to strike. He was forced to backpedal more quickly, and his defense wavered for a moment before solidifying under the storm of steel and light that threatened to engulf him.
"Footwork!" Araris cried.
Tavi didn't dare glance down at his feet. The cutter would skewer him. But he felt his balance shift for a second and realized that Navaris had driven him back to the edge of the wall-his right heel was hanging over empty air.
Navaris surged forward again, and Tavi knew that if he didn't have room to retreat, he'd never hold off her furious assault.
He called upon the wind and turned the whole world into a hazy, languidly fluid portrait. His blades swept up, simultaneously sliding aside one thrust aimed at his throat, the other at his groin.
Even as he felt the contact, he drew power up through the heavy stone of the wall, pivoted, and flung himself into empty air.
The fury-borne strength of his legs sent him sailing across a twenty-foot volume of open space to land on the rooftop of the nearest building. He landed heavily-there was generally no other way to land when one wore heavy armor-and rolled as the overstrained stonework of the roof gave way in his wake, falling straight down into the dilapidated building beneath him. He gained his feet as the watching crowd erupted into cheers.
Navaris stared coldly at Tavi for a moment, and then down at the wall. With a quick, practical motion, she reversed her grip on her gladius, knelt, and with a single thrust drove it several inches into the stone of the vertical surface of the wall's interior.
Then she backed away, long blade in her right hand, took two bounding steps forward, and leapt. Her heels came down upon the quillions of the blade embedded in the wall. The gladius bent, then flexed back with unnatural strength, flinging the cutter into the air. She turned a complete flip as she sailed toward Tavi, and landed in a roll on the building's roof, exactly as he had.
Except, he realized with a sinking feeling, that the roof hadn't collapsed under the slender, lightly armored woman's weight. His situation had not improved. At least on the wall he had known where the drop was. If he spent much time shuffling around up here, he was sure to find a weak spot and fall right through the roof, and almost certainly through the rotted wooden floors of the building's interior.
Navaris drew a dagger from her belt and stalked forward. She smirked, and Tavi felt certain that she had come to the same conclusions he had about the roof.
They engaged again, and storms of blazing motes shattered from every touch of blade on blade. Though Navaris's offensive potential had been reduced by the loss of her gladius, Tavi, forced to keep track of his footing, could not take advantage of it. Bits of rubble threatened to turn beneath his feet, and the furylamps on the wall were just far enough away to offer deep shadows that concealed the sections of rooftop that had already fallen.
Tavi's instincts screamed at him to take the offensive and drive the fight off the rooftop, but he knew it would be a deadly mistake. Patience, Araris had said. Wait for the opening.
But Navaris hadn't given him one.
Tavi barely avoided a neatly executed maneuver that would have disarmed him, and whipped his shorter blade at Navaris's dagger arm.
The blade struck.
Navaris's attack st
opped at once, and the two stood poised, barely out of one another's reach, weapons raised. The stillness was eerie, broken only by Tavi's steady, heavy breaths and those of his opponent.
A tiny trickle of blood wound its way down Navaris's hand.
"You pinked me," she said, her head tilted, her eyes narrowed with what felt to Tavi like a sudden and somewhat alarming interest. "That hasn't happened in years."
Tavi didn't move, holding his gladius at arm's length in his left hand, in a low guard, his long blade in his right, slightly forward, pommel close to his body, tip aimed at Navaris's throat. Any shifting of his weight or stance would give her an opening for a blow he might not be able to repel. But by the same token, she couldn't move without facing a similar risk.
The hit had been the result of luck as much as skill, but it had certainly caught Navaris's attention. She would be more wary now, harder to strike, and there would be no repetition of his riposte's success. Tavi gritted his teeth. He had to push her, somehow, get her to take more chances, come at him even harder. Otherwise, he would wind up one more name on the list of people killed by Phrygiar Navaris.
But how? There was nothing for him to work with. The woman was apparently driven solely by a desire to inflict pain on others, coupled with an obsessive need to prove her skill. If he used his earthcraft to increase his strength, he was likely to leave her an opening while he demonstrated the danger to her. If he windcrafted greater alacrity into his attacks, it was entirely possible that she'd skewer him before he had the chance to frighten her. Speed alone was no guarantor of success.
But how else to force her into a more aggressive attack without getting himself killed in the process?
Outthink her. Create the opening. Blades and furies aren't dangerous. Minds and wills are dangerous.
There was another way to overcome her skill and metalcraft-by overturning the mind and will that sustained the cautious discipline that could prove lethal to Tavi. In the face of that discipline and skill, he would never be able to take her down blade to blade. Not all weapons were made of steel.
His mother had shown him that.