Steelfated, p.44
Steelfated, page 44
The woman, a dryad of a higher order, who looked remarkably like Cynnamora with silver eyes and grey green hair, leaned against one wall of the arena, watching the training with a calm, confident demeanor. The third Fey sat cross-legged and checked the bronzed edges of his weapons.
Radyn paced all over the ring. Back and forth he went, looking at the provided equipment, making snide comments, and giving annoyed huffs at frequent intervals. He spent a long time loudly comparing the poor quality of the equipment compared to what he trained with at home.
The orange haired Fey, apparently named Oren, got called up first, and Radyn gave an irritated huff and sat down petulantly in the stands directly across from Morgain.
“What is he doing?” She whispered to Natalia. “He’s acting like a spoiled child just like he was yesterday- but… I don’t think… Nat, there was something going on yesterday, we were feeding off of each other’s reactions- I talked to several bound pairs of fey- it happens now and then. While we aren’t bound officially, I think the tangle may have a similar effect. I swear I have a faint sense of what is going on in his head now and then, but right now… I’ve got nothing.” Natalia just shook her head.
“I do not know. Have faith in him. Whatever he’s after, he knows what it is he’s doing. Remember that about him Morgain, whatever else he is, whatever else he does, it’s impossible to predict him. He’ll always defy your expectations, unless he fulfills them to the letter.”
“That’s the second time someone has told me that.” Morgain said sourly. She glanced over. Alystra and Daeion were sitting across from her, watching the arena.
Oren breezed through the match against his first opponent. It really wasn’t fair at all. The poor kid they sent into the ring couldn’t have been much older than fifteen, and he was a foot and a half shorter than Oren was. The kid never even touched him.
The woman was next. Her name was Carina. She calmly defeated her opponent with apparent ease, though she offered the young man some pointers on his technique when the match was over.
The third Fey man’s turn was next. His name was Arion. The man moved like a flash of lightning- and for a fey he was broad and stout, shorter than Radyn was and perhaps fifty pounds heavier. However, his opponent scored twice on him before he scored the fifth strike that secured him the win. He seemed to favor the simple, but effective, strategy of bull-rushing anyone smaller than himself.
Then it was Radyn’s turn.
He stood up and impatiently jumped over the wall, dropping ten feet to the sanded floor. He stumbled and fell, clutched at his ankle for a moment, then stood and hobbled slightly to the center of the ring. He was facing a young man who appeared to be about Morgain’s age. The young man, while not as tall as Radyn was, was half again as broad and had arms bigger around than Morgain’s thighs were.
Radyn sniffed at the kid arrogantly and said something she couldn’t hear, but she saw the kid’s face turn scarlet. He raced at Radyn and attacked.
Still hobbling, he half dove, half fell out of the way of the first swipe, and landed on the ground on his stomach. This drew laughs from the entire Fey court who were watching. He rolled to the side, dodging another blow, barely, and finally accepted a glancing blow across his left arm. It had to have stung, but the point went to the kid. The kid said something to Radyn, who sniffed arrogantly at him.
One-nil.
The second point went to Radyn, though only just. With a lightning quick thrust, he tapped the young man on the elbow with the very tip of his sword.
One-one.
The third went to the novice, who was grinning proudly.
Two-one.
Radyn scored two in a row, evening the score, then surpassing the novice by one.
Two-three.
Radyn’s limp was slowly fading as well.
The next point went to the novice. Three-three.
Radyn scored again, only just having dodged a feint that might have taken his arm below the elbow had he not moved out of the way. Three-four.
The novice scored, tie match, game point.
The young man looked excited, and Radyn looked furious. The kid charged at him, and Radyn just barely clumsily dodged his blow and tapped the kid on the back of the head as he went by.
Match point.
The first round of the Muster was done. Daeion and Alystra were shaking their heads at him disapprovingly.
Radyn just started acting more petulant than before, loudly proclaiming that the kid would never have scored over two points if he hadn’t had to fight with an injured ankle. Morgain could quickly see the Fey losing respect for him, and blowing him off. What was he doing?
One thing he had always seemed proud of was the warrior’s reputation he held among the Steelfated, and the other Highlanders. Even Lachlan, who hated the Halstraad family with every fiber of his being, respected Radyn’s martial abilities. And he actually seemed to care somewhat what other warriors thought of him. Why then behave like this? Unless. He looked up at her, and when his back was completely to Daeion and Alystra, when they were the only ones who could actually see him, offered a quick wink to the three women.
“You cunning bastard.” Morgain muttered. Natalia looked at her. “I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to make himself look bad, so that when he trounces the master without letting a point land, everyone shuts up.”
“Maybe.” Natalia said. “Or maybe he’s trying to hide how good he actually is, so that they underestimate him. He does that a lot. All of us know he is good, but no one is sure exactly how good he is. Feryx is the same way. And if I wanted anyone to underestimate me, it would be the Fey court.”
“I don’t know.” Gwen said. “I think Morgain is right, he’s trying to embarrass them. I’d just like to know why.”
The Judge called for the second round, and Oren walked up. He won this match as well, two to five. Once again, Carina sailed through her match without letting her opponent score.
Arion got through this round, but only barely, and Morgain recognized suddenly that he would not make it. He had incredible speed, and was a brilliant judge of distance, but he counted entirely on his first strike to make the point. If his first strike missed, he was over committed and couldn’t change directions cleanly enough to react. It was a strategy that would work in the fancy tournament fights of some place like Thyria, where the nobility dueled to first blood over the smallest perceived insult, but in an actual fight, it was a surefire way to get yourself killed.
Radyn’s opponent this time was a woman who probably had an inch and thirty pounds over him. He fought sloppily again, though his limp was gone, and he seemed a little more in control of himself. He fought a little better, making sure his first move was flashy and extremely quick. Like Arion, every time he scored a point, he did it on his opening move. He barely squeaked out a victory at a technicality. On the match point, his opponent leaped at him with a strong cut down at his head that looked as if it would simply blast through his guard.
Radyn clumsily got his guard up, and the young woman actually knocked his sword out of his hand and sent it spinning. Radyn dodged her swing by a hairsbreadth, reaching desperately for his sword. The woman ran into his sword on her follow through as the blade spun down and smacked the flat directly across her nose, drawing blood.
Radyn sniffed lightly, but seemed satisfied and excited that they had awarded him the point. The woman, however, was furious.
He was too controlled to have a “cat who got the cream” smile on his face when he turned towards them to exit the ring, but he winked again.
“Do you think he did that on purpose?” Morgain asked Gwen quietly.
“Do what?”
“Drop his sword like that?” She snorted quietly.
“If it was anyone else, I’d say that it was an accident, and it might have been, but don’t forget who we are talking about.”
The third round was against five opponents, a unit of the Glass Guard carrying swords and shields. Oren started the fight by diving to the side and getting hit across the calf. He stood quickly and shouldered one man over backwards, scoring his own point as he knocked the man off his feet. The others attacked in pairs. He used the shield still attached to the man’s left arm to catch the blows that were falling from that side. He accepted the two hits that fell on his back, and whipped his sword over the shield and tapped both men’s helmets with his sword. Three points scored more than half, and Oren could still have taken two more hits.
Carina had her first point scored against her, but handled the Glass guard too much for the same result Oren had.
Arion failed out at this stage. He was lightning quick on his opening move, and hit two of the guards, but a third smashed his shield down onto the Fey man’s heel with a crack that had to have shattered bones. It dropped him to one knee, still extended in his lunge, and the other three laid into him. He was out before his knee struck the ground.
Their other blows were not gentle with him, either. She was relatively certain at least one of his ribs broke when he got hit in the chest. The blow on his left forearm, extended behind him for balance, broke the bone cleanly in a section the width of the blade on both sides of the blade. The blow actually knocked the bone down so that his forearm, which should have been a straight line, had a U-shaped notch in the middle of its length.
Then it was Radyn’s turn. He stood in the middle of the ring of the Glass Guards as they waited for the signal to start. They moved in to enclose Radyn in as tight a circle as they could and all five attacked at once.
Five Feyglass swords met in the air at shoulder level with a shrieking crash of metal.
Radyn had collapsed to the ground, his left ankle apparently giving way. He snapped his face up at the crash of metal above him, then quickly tagged three guards across the shins while they were trying to get their blades untangled.
He had gotten past his first round without taking a point, though it was still quite ugly, and the man made it look like a complete and total accident.
Oren did score two points on the master, though the fight took ten minutes, and by the time it was over, sweat drenched his face. Carina did the same in five.
Radyn stood up for his round. He sauntered in arrogantly. The master scored the first two, then Radyn got an apparently lucky blow in on the man’s elbow, much as he had done to Morgain when teaching her to fence with the Rapier.
He desperately dodged and wove, diving out of the way and making big, flashy moves. The Master scored two more points against Radyn.
The two came together in a rapid clashing of steel that Morgain could barely follow, then both froze suddenly. The edge of the master’s blade was resting across Radyn’s chest, the final point, but he was also standing awkwardly. Morgain realized with amusement that Radyn had somehow pulled a dagger out, and was holding it against the man’s inner thigh, pointed towards delicate areas meaningfully.
“Simultaneous point.” The Judge called after a moment. “The match goes to Master Halen. The challenger does not pass the muster.” Morgain started to her feet in protest. Gwen grabbed her suddenly.
“Wait.”
Daeion was standing with a mage-killer crossbow leveled at Radyn’s back. They were only effective for about thirty paces, but Radyn was much closer to the regent than that.
Daeion fired. There was a sharp ring of metal striking metal. Then he stumbled backwards, clutching at his ear. Golden blood leaked from between his fingers.
Radyn was standing with his back to the group of masters, glaring up at Daeion. His sword held in both hands by his cheekbones, a high-guard stance, motionless. Daeion took his hand away from his ear, and Morgain could see the rounded top of it only holding on by a thin flap of skin. Alystra rose and glared at Radyn coldly.
“Master Torse, we will accept the young man to his role as gwefri yn Caomnhar.” Daeion said levelly, though he winced as he touched his ear.
“But Regent, he lost the muster.” The judge, Torse, protested. “No one makes it in without passing the muster.” Daeion shook his head gingerly, as if afraid that shaking his head might make the top part of his ear pull the rest of the way off.
“He passed, Torse.”
“Are you questioning my judgment, Daeion?” Torse said coolly.
“No. I’m not questioning it. I’m blatantly telling you it is wrong.”
The entire room was silent, and Torse looked like a lightning bolt had just struck him out of a clear sky. Daeion turned back to Radyn, who hadn’t moved.
“Congratulations, young Master Halstraad.” He said with a sly, almost proud grin. “You are the first being I have underestimated in nearly five centuries, since my previous ascension.” Radyn lowered his blade slowly, but did not return it to its sheath. “I’m glad that I took the time to swap the iron disc out for a bronze one. If that had been Iron, I’d be dead, and at nearly the height of my power. I never thought you’d have been able to hit it back at me, but I thought you might have been able to dodge it, and I didn’t want to risk striking one of the glass guardsmen by ill luck.”
“But Daeion, Lord Regent, he lost. He fought-”
“He fought incredibly well, Torse. Better than any of you would even believe. Do you have any idea how hard it is to throw a match in a room full of masters and make it look like an accident?” Daeion asked. “I wasn’t even entirely sure myself if he had been losing on purpose until I fired at him. Yes, he lost, but I believe he could kill any being in this room, myself included, should he choose. And lest you forget, the man has been directly responsible for deaths of two of the Seven Sisters.’’ The room remained silent, but only for two heartbeats.
“One of the Seven. I killed Feronia.” Morgain pointed out. Radyn looked over at her and arched an eyebrow.
“No, you didn’t. We had this discussion already.”
The silence was so heavy you could have heard a pin drop.
The master that Radyn had been fighting against decided that this was the best moment to test Daeion’s theory himself. He leaped at Radyn from behind, leading with a feyglass baton. Radyn ducked, twisted under the blow, kicked the man’s feet out from under him. He caught him in the small of the back with his knee as he fell, and pressed downwards, all in one seamless motion. His left arm held the man’s legs down, while his right pressed against the hollow of the man’s throat, bending him backwards over his leg. Morgain remembered him catching her like that once, though his face had lacked the lethal intent it now displayed.
After a moment, the master tapped out.
“Yield.” he grunted, and Radyn slid backwards, rising to his feet. The other man stumbled back to his feet and looked at Radyn warily. “Second point goes to the lad, Torse. He hit me first, if only by a hairsbreadth. It was not a simultaneous blow.”
Alystra continued to glare coldly at Radyn. He didn’t seem to notice.
“So what is this about the pair of you killing Feronia?” Daeion said with a chuckle. “I meant to ask you about that night, for which we so shamelessly neglected to extend our invitation to our feast with the court.”
“I killed Feronia.” Morgain said. “With the iron prong of my belt buckle. She was stomping on Radyn, and I jumped on her back and the iron through her eye.” Morgain said.
“Not before I had buried two dozen iron nails in her throat and jaw with my shillelagh.” Radyn retorted. The two seemed as if they might devolve into their petty arguing again.
“A simultaneous strike, eh?” Daeion said, stroking his chin and grinning cruelly. “Very nice. I tell you what, what say we make a bet- whichever of you kills more of the seven can have their choice of weapon and armor custom made by our triumvirate of craftsmen?”
“And what does the loser have to do?” Radyn said. Daeion grinned.
“Oh, the loser will have to endure the flyting of the Court, and to have the shame of their failure written for the bards.”
“And should we tie?”
“Then no one gets anything.” Daeion said. “Except for myself and Alystra, who are having our… rebel problem… removed. But, since there is no clear winner on this- I’m declaring it a simultaneous blow- meaning you both killed her. That means the score is Halstraad 2, Bandrui 1.”
Neither of them were happy with that result, but the regents had spoken it three times in the court, and that was how it would be remembered.
“You are walking a dangerous line, Radyn.” Natalia said when they were outside of the Regents’ court. “What were you trying to prove with that little stunt?” Radyn looked at her flatly and didn’t answer. “I’m expecting an answer, lad.”
“What stunt?” He asked innocently.
“You know what I mean. Why make them think you were going to fail? What was the point?”
“Nothing. I did it for sheer spite.” he finally retorted. Natalia watched him flatly.
“Fine then. Be that way.” She huffed, knowing full well that wasn’t the full answer, if it was even a part of it. Radyn’s reasons were his own, and they would remain his own.
The walk back to the Siedhe was peaceful. Morgain almost thought that she was going to have a peaceful, happy day, and the appearance of Dremhin Vallanin went and ruined it.
He opened his mouth to speak to her, and she cut him off with a glare that rivaled one of Radyn’s. Her eyes were emerald fire, yet her face was a sheet of snow.
“Are you here to apologize?”
“I-” A flicker of fear crossed his face, but then his jaw set. It was an obvious no.
“Leave.” She said,
“I already apologized to you, and I’m here on request of the circle- they-”
“Leave.” She repeated. “Until you can apologize on your own free will without being sent or bullied into it, I’m not interested in anything you have to say, Dremhin.” His jaw tightened more, and his face flushed. He was angry with her, but the lust and desire that had been in his gaze before had gone cold.
