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“—and allow such monstrosity?” a bold, familiar voice bellows. I step around a trollis woman, and my stomach sinks as I recognize Grodd standing before the crowd, his arms raised. “He should not even be allowed the tournament! He is an abomination!”
About half of the crowd reacts in low, angry voices. Angry at Grodd or at Perg, I’m not sure, but my skin tingles as I watch. Nothing good can come of this.
Grodd marches forward and disappears into the crowd, and for a moment I think the complaints will end, but he returns swiftly, dragging a smaller trollis woman with him. Judging by her dress, she’s a Pleb.
He hands the shaking woman a sword and steps back, his arms spread wide.
Someone from the highest seats, near what I assume is the council, shouts, “A tournament cannot be entered unwillingly.”
“Oh, she’s willing,” Grodd bellows back. He looks at the Pleb. I’m not so far as to miss the malicious gleam in his eye.
Will he kill the woman out of anger? Does she mean something to Perg? Yet Perg looks as confused as I feel. What—
The woman lunges for Grodd, and Grodd allows her to strike him across the face with the flat of her sword. He falls dramatically to the ground.
The crowd gasps. I don’t breathe. I don’t understand.
Grodd, still supine, motions to someone, and the officiator hesitantly comes out to announce the Pleb the winner.
Another gasp sounds around me. Cold seizes my fingers. I press them into my neck.
Grodd, aMontra, just willingly gave his title to a Pleb. He exchanged one of the highest ranks for the lowest.
Why?
“Oh stars,” I whisper.
Taking the sword from the Pleb—the new Montra, who seems utterly stunned—Grodd turns for Perg.
No.He’s going to fight Perg. Strip him of his new Deccor status and make him a Pleb. And while Grodd isn’t nearly the size of Perg’s first opponent, he waits like a viper, cruel and tense. And Perg is tired.
I rush to the nearest trollis, a gray woman, and say, “But Perg has to agree!”
She looks at me, surprised—I imagine she’s Intra and I’m overstepping my bounds—but shock must sway her to speak with me. “No, he’s still standing on the battlefield. He can still be confronted if he remains. It’s a stance of challenge.”
Stance of challenge.Azmar explained that to me. Strength oozes from my legs. “But Grodd came too quickly. Perg wasn’t challenging anyone! He was confused ...”
The Intra gives me an odd look, and I excuse myself before I get in trouble. I turn back for the arena as Grodd advances on Perg. Perg grips the long handle of his axe with both hands. He bares his teeth, bends his knees. Perhaps he can win this.
But Grodd is Montra, or at least he was, and Perg just gave everything he had to beat a Deccor. He’s exhausted. I’m not sure if he can turn down a fight when, in the trollis’ eyes, he initiated the stance of challenge.
No one was calling out Grodd’s manipulation of it.
“I’m so sorry, Perg,” I whisper. No one hears me.
Grodd roars when he strikes. Perg blocks with the shaft of his axe, but the strong blow forces him back. Flashes of sunlight gleam on Grodd’s savage blade as he swings, driving Perg back, and back again. Perg loses his stance as the blade slices open his arm, and he falters when it opens up his trousers above the knee, his blueish blood flowing freely.
I shove my knuckle into my mouth to keep from biting my tongue.Just surrender, Perg!
Perg tries to strike back, but his swing goes wide. Grodd moves in and shoves the hilt of his sword painfully into Perg’s gut. When Perg bends over from the blow, Grodd twists and swings high, his blade slicing clean across Perg’s collar, part of his neck, and his face.
I scream, but it’s drowned out by the sound of the murmuring crowd, all morbidly fascinated with the fight.
Perg drops to one knee. His blood spatters the ground. He spits and glares hatefully at Grodd. He lifts a hand to surrender, but before he can raise it fully, Grodd attacks again.
Cold seizes my entire body. Grodd hits, strikes, cuts, kicks. Over and over. He’s already won, but he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t let up. Perg’s face swells. A well-placed foot to his knee bends it backward, and he topples.
Still Grodd does not relent. The medics don’t rush forward. No one calls him off.
