"I take it Do'vak's hospitality didn't disappoint?" Avris asked, her golden eyes deep and eerily insightful.
Katerin shook her head. "Not at all, my lady. Ky'lei'mei is stunning, and Do'vak was a wonderful host." She kept her tone even and polite, and kept the shaking from her hands.
Avris nodded and her expression became serious. "Let's move on to the point, then," she said. "Do you accept my offer?"
Katerin turned to her companions, looking at them for a final confirmation. They met her with eager smiles. She turned back to Avris, shoulders straight. "We accept."
Avris stood from her throne. "Let us waste no time. Follow me."
She walked toward an archway flanked by two guards, with two more walking casually behind Arjiah as they followed Avris down the curving stairway. When they reached the bottom, they were in a large dirt room, with roots that spiraled around and above them. The roots had grown to form what looked like several rows of seats around the room. A bowl had been shaped below the roots. It smelled of sap, and just-churned soil.
A number of people already lined the benches, with Ra'liel and Sa'leid among them. Sa'leid held Ra'liel's youngest, smiling as the child pulled on his shirt, and Ra'liel stood next to a very tall and thickly built bearded man, with an arm around her that nearly eclipsed her from sight.
On the opposite side of the dirt bowl, four uhma'zarhins stood casually talking among themselves, making the man who stood next to Ra'liel seem small and comforting. When Avris entered, they bowed deeply to her, though excitement was awash across their features. All of them were giant—considering their obvious human lineage—for not one of them stood under seven feet tall.
The men moved to stand in the center of the room, relaxed but holding weapons in hand.
Avris gestured and they followed her to the center of the room to stand opposite the men. She nodded to the men and turned her attention to Katerin. "If you can best these men. I will hold faith that you can best the one who plagues us." She lifted a bow of crystal clear water and dipped a ladle into it. The four men opposite all drank before handing her the ladle back.
She offered it out to them and Katerin accepted it, sensing no magic upon it.
"We ask Ali'damia to watch over this test. For she shall judge the outcome and grant us our truth." Avris spoke with a loud tone that carried out over the whole room.
What are we doing? Brazen suddenly asked her, his thoughts startling her.
We have to best those men in a fight, Katerin replied, trying to ease herself into accepting this strange mental link. To prove we are strong enough to best Val'esis.
I'll end them quickly. Brazen's thoughts buzzed as his weapons formed in his hands.
Try not to kill them! she warned. It's only a test.
Brazen's exuberance faded a bit, but he agreed, and she took a deep breath. She really would have preferred to be standing behind Fykes, but it was too late for that now.
Katerin waited for Avris to give them the guidelines of the fight. But the woman said no such thing and moved as if to step aside. "What are the rules?" she asked when Avris was walking towards the edge of the arena.
"You may use whatever you wish to win. Wit, magic, or weapon," Avris said. She gave a small smile. "Belief in Ali'damia's sight might help you."
Katerin's face scrunched up in confusion, but Avris turned away before she could ask anything else.
Avris stepped up off the floor and onto the roots around the room, shaped like a small stage, that stood out above the lowered bowl of earth. "Begin!" she shouted, clapping her hands.
The Uhma'zarhins charged.
Katerin squeaked as the slash of an axe missed her face by a hairsbreadth. She ducked away, hoping to get out of his reach. She released a quick spell, and flames licked over the man's shoulder—the smell of it sickened her. He showed his teeth and growled as he came forward, swung with the bladed side of his axe, and missed. He thrust the bluntly rounded top of the weapon, and it slammed into her chest, taking her breath from her as she fell sprawling on her back in the dirt. Another downward slash of the axe blade missed her as she rolled aside, still unable to find her breath, tasting blood in her mouth.
She gave up the notion of trying to chant a spell and simply clapped her hands, calling forth an orb of lighting, and spinning it directly into his chest. She cursed as she looked around. Each of her companions were busy enough with their own opponents—she knew she would not be getting any help. She found her feet and faced the man as he recovered, still baring his teeth at her. It seemed he was not at all worried about killing or terribly maiming her.
She spit blood and refused to hold her chest as she dodged another axe swing. A fist clipped the bottom of her jaw and made her vision spin. She could not use any of her more deadly magics, or she would risk dropping this tree on top of them all. So she hefted her metal banded staff and swung towards the man's chest, releasing the magic in the weapon. He grunted and staggered back from the blow. She swung again and hit the man across the head, splitting the side of his ear open.
He let out a yell and clenched his fists as they became covered with pebbles and dirt. She swung her staff again, but he simply raised his arm and blocked it. Before she could do anything else, he sent his rock-encrusted fist towards her nose.
It missed, mostly.
Little shards of gravel left at least a dozen stinging cuts and scrapes across her skin. She had been so worried about her face, she had forgotten about his axe. It slashed across her stomach, leaving her breathless once again. She screamed, or at least tried to, as her body allowed no sound to escape. She refused to look down at the sticky warm substance covering over the arm she clamped across her middle. Her every sense went numb and her vision dimmed. She swung the staff again, and as it struck him in the temple she released all the magic it could give.
Thunderous booming echoed from the weapon. Once, twice, three times.
The man staggered back, falling to his knees with blood pouring from his face. She had no ability to speak, or think, and she slumped to the ground, only able to watch her friends, as she felt more and more detached, catching terrifying glances of her own blood, dark and sticky on the dirt as she crawled for the edge of the pit, looking to the crowd that paid her little heed. Terror rose in a vast wave, and every part of her grew cold.
Were they going to leave her to die?
Fykes smiled confidently, dancing around his opponent, jabbing a shoulder here, a hip there. He never stopped moving. He knew the big man would be slower than him, knew it took more effort to wield a hammer that size. The man facing him seemed unfazed at his every miss, a snarl of concentration on his face.
Until he finally landed a hit.
Fykes' ankle buckled under the weight of the blow, and he was sure it would not hold him long, if it would at all. He would be the slower one, now. He shifted his weight to the other foot and swung his blades together, in a blow meant to unbalance his opponent, but the man simply parried it as if batting away a wasp. Fykes cursed. The Uhma'zarhin was bleeding from a dozen or more small wounds, but they did not seem to bother him in the least. If he wanted to win, he needed to get inside the reach of the hammer.
The hammer swung at him again, and he parried, but he let the blow carry him off his feet and to the ground. He rolled, coming up to a crouch. He stabbed into the man's arm, throwing his defenses open. He reversed his grip on his other weapon and smashed the hilt of the sword into the man's face.
The big man grunted and swayed heavily to the side before his eyes focused on Fykes again. Fykes' eyes widened as he tried to step away. The man just would not fall. Accidentally putting too much weight on his injured ankle, Fykes stumbled back, losing every ounce of the advantage he had just gained.
The Uhma'zarhin grinned and reached out a hand. Lifting Fykes by the armor, he threw him into the wall.
Fykes sucked in a shallow painful breath as he slid down the wall, tasting dirt in his mouth. His breath was labored and shallow, a hollow and burning pain with every breath. He clawed himself into a standing position and faced his opponent, holding his ground, and only one of his blades now. The man charged, hammer already mid-swing. It landed on Fykes' shoulder, and there was a sickening snapping noise as the joint was crushed, torn free of its socket. Fykes screamed and fell to his knees. His blade protruded from the man's abdomen, and he twisted it viciously with his good arm, as he sank to his knees. He thought surely the hammer would find his skull, and he waited for some blinding pain, but it never came. He found one agonizing breath, and saw the fallen Uhma'zarhin next to him.
Bile and panic rose in his throat. No. He did not want to kill them, it was only supposed to be a test. He crawled for the man and laid his hands across the wound in a desperate attempt to save someone already dead.
Arjiah stood behind the three of her companions, wincing as they traded their first blows. Each was being singled out. Her eyes widened as she realized they would single her out, too. She chanted a spell, watching as the last Uhma'zarhin moved away from Brazen and barreled toward her. She waited as calmly as she could, jumping back to avoid the first swing, she released her spell, and the man froze in place—locked there by her magic as a mist of frost hazed the air around him. She smashed her short-handled mace across his chin and watched his eyes flare in anger. As she readied another swing, the man broke free of her spell and swung the hand axe at her thigh. She parried it with her mace, lithe on her feet.
The next strike whistled just in front of her, and she felt her heart skip a beat. The hand axe swung in the same arc once more, quicker than she had expected for a man so large. She stepped away, but felt the axe slice through her skin. The cut was not deep, but it was long, leaving a line of blood from shoulder to hip. Forming a spear of ice, she threw it forward, lunging and pushing into the shield as she did. The man growled in pain, his shield arm falling limply to his side as the ice slowly faded. She sent two much smaller missiles of ice towards his face.
He caught one in his hand, and the other left a long gash under one eye. At first, she had felt some hesitation at fighting these people, but she very much doubted they would be so aggressive if this was a battle only to first blood. They were far past that, now, but her opponent did not look angered or worried in the slightest.
The Uhma'zarhin man glared at her as she backed away, then he charged. She dropped into a crouch on his left side, thinking his arm useless, until the shield slammed into her face. It knocked her onto her side, and the blood pouring from the cuts to her face blinded her. She blinked and saw the bright silver metal of the axe swinging for her head. She held the mace at both ends and thrust it up to parry the blow. His strength was far more than hers, and she gained a nasty cut just to the side of her collarbone for the attempt, but she kept her life.
She gritted her teeth, feeling the adrenaline pumping as it narrowed her field of vision, and hefted her knee up as hard as she could. She felt it impact his groin and watched as he paled, visibly shaking from the blow.
She scrambled away and to her feet again, outside of his reach. Frost swirled around her, her mace in the dirt at her feet. He rushed at her once again, so she simply held her spell, waiting. When he was close with his small axe raised high, she spoke one word and pushed the ice blade forward, straight through his chest. She watched with a strong sense of guilt and sickness rising in her stomach as he dropped gracelessly in the dirt.
She took a deep breath and turned to watch for any other threat.
Brazen's opponent was not the largest, but he wielded a deadly looking spear. The man used his superior reach well—trying to break open Brazen's defenses from as far away as possible. Brazen waited, letting him poke—and miss—for several seconds. Finally, with one long lunge, he was inside the spear's range. He brought his shield up into the man's face, breaking his nose, and slashed his axe at the man's ankle.
The axe swing missed entirely as his opponent was quicker than he had analyzed at first. The Uhma'zarhin dropped his weapon and grabbed his shield with both hands, pushing it out and forcing Brazen back. The tip of the spear came around quickly and nicked his hip. Though he was aware that his leg refused to function correctly, he did not know what the sensation he was feeling from it was. It was strange, and... uncomfortable.
He could sense the same emotion and feeling in Katerin as she fought, something fuzzy and not-quite-right. He slipped his hand up the haft of the axe and delivered a short but less powerful slash to his opponent. The Uhma'zarhin danced sideways and stepped back to his preferred distance, launching a number of quick thrusts towards Brazen. He was able to dodge and block most of them, only taking minor wounds. He watched the people around him from the corners of his vision. All were involved in a fight of their own. Fykes was limping badly and sweating as he parried a blow. Arjiah's face was battered and bloody as she slashed at her opponent with ice. Katerin rose to her feet and swung her staff, holding her ground with determination and pain painted across her face.
These men were not treating this fight as a sparring match. They were fighting for their lives, and fighting to kill.
He kept his focus on his opponent and watched the man develop a habit to his attacks. It was a pattern Brazen could easily counter, as he saw it in his mind, saw the answers to every move. He blocked a thrust with his shield and avoided another swing, waiting for the move he needed. The low thrust went lower than he expected and stuck into his thigh.
So he adapted his plan, blocking out the strange feeling that his container was not working right.
He dropped his shield as hard as he could, jarring the weapon from the Uhma'zarhin's grasp. He jumped forward, but again was that odd sensation in his leg, and he came up short and blinked as a shield bashed into his face. It blurred his vision, rocking him back. Suddenly, Katerin's request was lost as he bashed his shield into the man's knees. He brought his axe up and dropped it on the man's neck, with as much force as he could find.
The head rolled from the body, with a wet thump.