The Forgotten Field
As the two men closed the distance, the clamorous arena fell silent in an instant.
Talia realized that everyone was holding their breath at Varkas’s otherworldly presence. Lean, flawlessly sculpted, his fair skin gleaming smoothly in the sun, he looked like a creature apart from the rest.
Varkas bound the cloth strip tightly around his knuckles and gave a brief nod.
“Begin.”
“…Then I won’t hold back.”
The challenger, having sized Varkas up with a sweeping gaze, launched himself forward the next instant. Talia swallowed the scream rising in her throat.
A heavy leg came crashing down toward Varkas’s head like an iron bar. Dodging the blow with ease, Varkas drove his knee straight toward the man’s face. The challenger crossed his forearms in haste, barely checking the counter, but the sheer force sent his thick frame stumbling back with a violent shudder.
“Your form isn’t bad, but your lower body cannot support your upper strength.”
Varkas delivered the critique coolly, catching the end of the hand wrapping in his teeth to pull it taut. Righting his stance, the challenger glared at him, his face flushed with indignation.
“Please reserve your judgment until our bout is finished. The test has only begun.”
“Then close your mouth and come at me.”
The moment the words fell, the man kicked off the dirt and charged.
Watching a fist as dense as stone hurtle toward Varkas’s face, Talia squeezed her eyes shut. Yet neither a cry of pain nor the drumbeat signaling the bout’s end broke the air.
When she cautiously opened her eyes, the challenger was driving punch after punch like an enraged bull, while Varkas parried every blow without breaking stride.
Talia let her tense shoulders drop. Even to her untutored eye, the gap between them was glaring. While the challenger’s breath turned hoarse and ragged, Varkas had not broken a sweat.
As the man’s forearm grazed past his cheek, Varkas caught it, pivoted half a turn with terrifying speed, and hoisted the challenger’s heavy torso—a man standing a full head taller—over his shoulder before slamming him into the dirt.
A roar of cheers broke from the soldiers ringing the ring. The bout had been decided.
Her relief lasted only a heartbeat; seeing him ready himself for the next match, Talia’s expression hardened again.
She had seen firsthand time and again that Varkas was an unmatched warrior, but that did nothing to quiet her dread.
Nervously, she tugged at the sleeve of Tiuran, who stood beside her gazing down into the arena with a serene face.
“Why must Varkas trade blows with the soldiers himself?”
“His Grace commands the finest cavalry in the East. Selecting those worthy of promotion to the Wolfram Elite Unit is among his foremost duties.”
“What sort of duty is that? He could leave such brutal work to his officers. For the Grand Duke to carry on with so little dignity…!”
A sharp cry of pain cut her short.
Talia whipped her head back toward the arena, flinching as she stepped back. The challenger knelt in the dust, spitting crimson. Clasping his bruised, swollen face with both hands, the man stammered out his surrender.
“I yield! I yield!”
Varkas gestured toward the perimeter with his chin. Staggering to his feet, the man was helped over the timber railing by the watching guards.
As an attending priest stepped forward to mend the wounds with healing arts, Varkas unwound his stained wraps, binding clean cloth around his hands as he spoke without inflection.
“Next.”
The crowd, stirred by the young Grand Duke’s cold mastery, fell utterly still once more. He swept his gaze across the Eastern warriors, his voice flat and cutting.
“This is your one chance to strike your lord without forfeiting your neck. Are you going to let it pass?”
“Bold words for a man with no intention of letting anyone lay a finger on him.”
The sudden, low voice drew every eye. Talia turned her head as well, her eyes widening when she saw Lucas ambling slowly across the dirt.
Since taking command of the Outer Castle Guard, Lucas spent most of his days beyond the walls, and it had been some time since she had seen him.
Staring in unfamiliarity at her brother-in-law, who had filled out considerably over the past few months, Talia watched as he tore his collar open, approached the fence, and spoke.
“Still… a chance to hit you, Brother… that I cannot pass up.”
Varkas’s pale eyes turned toward him, cold as carved ice.
“You seem to harbor a great deal of resentment.”
“More than a little.”
Lucas grinned, stripped off his shirt, and tossed it carelessly into the dust. Then, with the fluid grace of a stalking cat, he vaulted the railing into the ring.
Talia frowned, taking in his broad shoulders and sun-bronzed back. An uneasy recoil stirred in her chest at how the lean, slender boy—once barely taller than she was—had hardened into an imposing man.
“If it pains you to watch, shall we return inside?”
Tiuran, watching her expression closely, asked in a gentle murmur.
Talia shook her head. She cared nothing for men mindlessly testing their strength, but she knew that if she walked away now, she would only torment herself wondering if Varkas had been hurt.
She let out a deliberate, cynical snort.
“Never mind. I care little which of them gets beaten senseless; either way, it will be a pleasure to watch.”
The moment she finished speaking, the drumbeat signaled the bout. Holding Khan close against her, Talia stared down into the ring.
Lucas cracked his neck, rolling his shoulders, and sprang toward Varkas like an uncoiling spring. His sudden speed was startling.
Leaping with feral agility, Lucas planted both palms against the dirt and whipped his heel in a wide, vicious arc toward Varkas’s temple.
Varkas tilted back to evade the strike, but he could not entirely avoid the toe of Lucas’s boot grazing his throat. Touching down and sliding back to reset the distance, Lucas flashed a grin and pressed his assault without a breath’s pause.
Startled by his unexpected skill, Talia leaned against the timber rail, her face taut. Lucas sprang into the air in a fluid, acrobatic arch, driving his heel down toward Varkas’s shoulder.
Crossing his forearms to absorb the impact, Varkas seized Lucas’s leg and drove him ruthlessly into the earth. The impact kicked up a thick plume of dust, swallowing Lucas whole.
Just as the referee raised his drumstick to end the bout, Lucas burst through the dust and lunged at Varkas once more.
A punch thrown with savage momentum grazed Varkas’s cheek. His quick reflex in snapping his head back spared him the worst of the force, but his lip split, and a thin bead of dark blood welled along the cut.
Varkas’s brow twitched in annoyance, and in the next heartbeat, he drove forward like lightning. His fist cracked across Lucas’s jaw. The boy’s gloating smirk crumpled into a grimace of pain. Driven back against the ring’s edge in a single blur, Lucas slumped against the timber fence and spat a mouthful of blood into the dirt.
“Isn’t that a bit harsh for a scratch across your cheek?”
“If you intended to whine over that much, you should not have stepped into the ring.”
“Damn it all, really.”
Stumbling as he found his feet, Lucas wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and raised his guard again. But Varkas had no intention of granting him another opening.
Closing the gap before Lucas could reset, Varkas swept his feet out from under him, dropped his weight onto his back, and wrenched his arm into a punishing lock.
Lucas tried to twist away and roll clear, but Varkas’s knee pinned his shoulder blade flat to the ground, sealing him in place.
After thrashing beneath the unyielding weight, Lucas finally choked out his surrender.
“I yield. Please… get off me.”
END
