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“Ambassador,” Chrysanthos called across the sand. “We have a score to settle.”
Lio joined him in the ring. “Hesperines practice neither debts nor scores. But I believe repayment is a fundamental tenet of mortal honor where you come from. For the sake of cultural exchange, by all means, let us settle matters.”
Chrysanthos seemed to have springs in the balls of his feet as he stood poised with his fists raised.
Lio tried to relax into his battle stance, but relaxation was dangerous. His body only wanted rest. He must fight tense, or give up and lie down. Tense it was to be.
Chrysanthos took a swing at him. One of the first dodges Lio had learned was sufficient to avoid the blow. But Lio’s body responded so slowly to his effort that he felt the hair on the back of Chrysanthos’s hand brush his chin.
Chrysanthos launched a series of swings. He was probing Lio’s guard. Lio put only his most rudimentary parries on display and stayed on the defensive. The war mage was already convinced Lio was a poor fighter. Perhaps Lio could lure him into complacency, then take him by surprise.
“Diplomats!” the mage scoffed. “Always shrinking from a blow.”
“As a mage, you swore to lay down the sword,” Lio said. “You should know all about avoiding violence.”
“Don’t mistake a politician for a coward.” Chrysanthos struck out twice more.
Lio managed a couple of basic evasions, but gave ground. “Does a politician always sit safely out of harm’s way while the rest of his embassy is trapped in an avalanche and under attack by heart hunters?”
Something hard made impact with the side of Lio’s head. Pain struck him dumb and spun him off balance. Starbursts on his vision dissolved his surroundings into a cascade of spell lights.
A weapon. Surely. Chrysanthos had broken the rules.
Lio raised his arms and retreated, squinting. His hazy vision revealed only the man’s bleeding knuckles.
Goddess have Mercy. That had not been a weapon. That was what a fist felt like to a mortal. How had humans managed not to annihilate each other from the world long ago?
He was still reeling when the bones in his wrist ground and crunched and snapped. Chrysanthos had targeted the joint left vulnerable after Lio’s last fight. His wrist was no longer numb. If only it was.
Lio fell back into fundamental defenses, avoiding blows by the skin of his teeth. Failing to avoid too many. He had only moments and the evidence before his eyes to learn and adapt to hundreds of years of Cordian boxing. Would less than a year of Stand training be enough to keep him in the match?
Meaning, not just tactics. Cultivate that strategy…manipulate your opponents.
Lio had one more arsenal at his disposal. His weapons of choice. Words.
He spat out a mouthful of blood and shook the shredded remnants of one sleeve off his shoulder. “You seem overly determined to convince me you are not a mere scroll-pusher like myself.”
Chrysanthos kept up his volley of punches and insults. “For a self-described scholar, your comprehension is poor. I called you a devious coward, not a scroll-pusher.”
As Lio had with Dalos that night at the Font, he now sought to mire Chrysanthos in discourse. “Such inconsistencies in your argument, Honored Master Politician. I am hard pressed to muster a response, for you keep changing your thesis. Which is it? You must declare your position. Say either that I am more scroll-pusher than warrior or that I am a devious coward who can fight.”
Chrysanthos tossed his head, throwing a strand of hair out of his eyes. “Your performance in battle is laughable, and your father is the butt of the joke. Your silver tongue is the instrument of Hespera’s deception, but I see through Argyros’s ancient tricks. Do not think, however, that I underestimate your magic. You will not take me by surprise.”
Lio laughed. “How flattering for my opponent to do me more credit than I deserve. Alas, that I must dispel your few remaining illusions of my ferocity and remind you I am but a light mage.”
“You think I don’t see through your pretty veil spells? I know exactly what you are capable of.”
Lio dodged another blow and made a verbal feint. “Of course. You are well-informed regarding my performance at the Equinox Summit. As you have said before, I gave a few speeches and conjured some spell lights.”
Chrysanthos slid right under Lio’s guard. The mage’s fist rammed into Lio’s belly, and the man’s other hand wrenched Lio’s hair. Lio swallowed his gorge.
“You conjured the moons’ light,” Chrysanthos growled in Lio’s ear. “Hippolyta and Arkadia built their ward on it. You powered the spell that ended the Equinox Summit.”
“Dalos ended the Equinox Summit,” Lio hissed. “I powered the spell that saved lives.”
Chrysanthos twisted his hand again and drove his knee up into Lio’s gut, robbing him of the breath to speak. The mage’s foot came down, raking the inside of Lio’s ankle and driving his foot sideways into the sand. Pain cracked open inside Lio’s ankle joint.
Enduring the Craving had given him a higher tolerance for pain than he had known. His only outcry was a suppressed growl in his chest. He focused his thoughts.
