I ride forward with Cassius and Antonia flanking me. She carries the standard today. Only a few archers man the walls, so I tell Cassius to make sure we are not ambushed from the flanks in case any of Minerva are about. He gallops away.
Minerva’s fortress is ringed by a hundred meters of barren earth made mud from the torrential rains of the last week. It is the killing field. Step into the ring and the archers will try and kill your horse. If you still do not retreat, they will try to kill you. Nearly twenty horses of both Houses litter the field. Cassius led a bloody assault on a Minervan warband up to the very gates of the castle itself just two days before.
Beyond the killing field is grass. Oceans of grass so high in some places that Sevro could stand tall and still not be seen. We stand at the edge of the mud ring amidst a meadow of autumn wildflowers. The ground squishes underfoot and Quietus whinnies beneath me.
“Pax!” I then shout. “Pax.”
I hurl the name against the walls until their main gate opens ponderously, as ponderously as it once opened that night when Cassius and I snuck inside. Mustang rides out. She trots slowly through the mud and pulls short of us. Her eyes take in everything.
“Is it to be a duel?” she asks with a grin. “Pax of Wise and Noble Minerva versus the Reaper of the Bloody Butcher House?”
“You make it sound so exciting,” Antonia yawns. She’s not got a spot of dirt on her.
Mustang ignores her.
“And you’re sure you’ve no one hiding in that grass waiting to ambush us when we come out to support our champion?” Mustang asks me. “Should we burn it and find out?”
“We’ve brought everyone,” Antonia says. “You know our numbers.”
“Yes. I can count. Thank you.” Mustang doesn’t look at her. Just at me. She seems worried; her voice lowers. “Pax will hurt you.”
“Pax, how are your balls?” I shout over her head. She winces as a drum beats suddenly from inside the fortress. Except it’s not a drum. Pax comes out of the gate. His war axe thumps his shield. Mustang shouts him back and he obeys like a dog, but the beating of the axe on the shield does not cease. We agree that the stakes should be all the remaining slaves between the two of us. A hefty bounty.
“I thought Handsome was the duelist?” Mustang says, then shrugs. Her eyes keep going to the grass. “Where is that mad fellow? Your shadow—the one who leads that wolfpack? Is he hiding in the grass? I don’t want him popping up behind me again.”
I shout for Sevro. A hand rises amongst the Howlers. Mud covers the faces that peer out from beneath the black wolfcloaks. Mustang counts. All five Howlers accounted for. In fact, all our forces save one, Quinn, are accounted for. Still Mustang isn’t satisfied. We are to remove our army six hundred meters from the edge of the mud ring. She will burn away all the grass within one hundred meters of where we now stand. When the grass is done burning, the scorched earth will be the duel field. Ten men of her choosing will join ten of my choosing in creating a circle in which to fight. The rest of hers will stay inside the city, and mine will stay six hundred meters removed.
“Don’t trust me?” I ask. “I don’t have men in the grass.”
“Good. Then no one will burn.”
No one burns. When the fire dwindles and the ground is all ash and smoke and mud within the killing field, I leave my army. Ten of mine accompany me. Pax thumps his war axe on a shield emblazoned with a woman’s head, her hair all of snakes. Medusa. I’ve never fought a man with a shield before. His armor is tight and covers everything but his joints. I heft a stunpike in the hand I’ve painted red and my slingBlade in the hand I’ve painted black.
My heart rattles as the circle forms around us. Cassius motions me over. Even in the muted light, he glows with color. He shares an ironic smile.
“Never stop moving. It’s like Kravat, this.” He eyes Pax. “And you’re faster than this gory bastard. Right?” I get a wink. He thumps me on the shoulder. “Right, brother?”
“Damn right.” I return his wink.
“Thunder and lightning, brother. Thunder and lightning!”
Pax is built like an Obsidian. He’s over seven feet tall, easliy, and he moves like a bloodydamn panther. In this .37grav, he could throw me thirty meters or more. I wonder how high he can jump. I jump to stretch my legs. Nearly three meters. I can easily clear his head. The ground still smokes.
“Jump. Jump, little grasshopper,” he grumbles. “It’ll be the last time you use your legs.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“I said it’ll be the last time you use your legs.”
“Odd,” I murmur.
He blinks at me and frowns. “What’s … odd?”
“You sound like a girl. Did something happen to your balls?”
“You little …”
Mustang trots up with their standard and says something about girls never challenging each other to stupid duels. “The duel is to—”
“Yielding,” Pax says impatiently.
“To the death,” I correct. Really it doesn’t matter. I’m just screwing with them at this point. All I have to do is give the signal.
“To yielding,” Mustang confirms. She finishes necessaries and the duel begins. Almost. A series of pops in the sky above signal sonic booms as the Proctors come join us from Olympus. They spin down from their high-floating mountain, coming from several different towers. Each wears his or her sign today, great headpieces of glittering gold. Their armor is a spectacle. They do not need it, but they love to dress up. Today they’ve brought a table with them. It floats on its own gravLift, supporting huge flagons of wine and trays of food as they set to having a dinner party.
“I hope we’re sufficient entertainment,” I cry up. “Mind dropping some wine? It’s been a while!”
“Good luck against the titan, little mortal!” Mercury cries down. His baby face laughs jovially and he showily brings a flagon of wine to his lips. Some of it tumbles the quarter mile from the sky to fall on my armor. It drips down like blood.
“I suppose we ought to give them a show,” Pax booms.
Pax and I share a real grin. It’s a compliment, of sorts, that they would all come to watch. Then Neptune, her trident headdress wobbling as she swallows a quail egg, shouts for us to get on with it, and Pax’s axe sweeps at my legs like an evil broom. I know he wants me to jump, because he’s about to charge forward with his shield to swat me from the air like a fly. So I step back, then spring forward as his arm finishes its stroke. He’s moving too, but upward in anticipation, so I shoot right past his right arm and jam the stunpike into his armpit with all of my strength. It snaps in half. But he doesn’t fall even as electricity courses through him. Instead, he backhands me so hard that I fly through the circle and into the mud. Broken molar. Mouthful of mud and blood. Whiplash. I’m already rolling.