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“Get up this instant!”
Lying face-down in his pillow, Lucas jerked his head up at the shrill shriek.
Rubbing the crust from his eyes, he looked up to see his pest of a younger sister standing defiantly beside his bed.
He clutched his throbbing forehead and groaned.
“Please! How many times do I have to tell you not to barge into my room?”
“This is no time for manners! Get up right now! It’s an emergency!”
Raina shook his shoulders mercilessly, yelling at the top of her lungs. Lucas shoved her away and pressed down on his stinging temples.
From early dawn, he had spent the entire day scouring the hunting grounds with the other Wolfram squires, then dragged himself to a tavern to drown in ale.
His skull felt split wide open as it was, and here she was raising hell.
He glared at his sister through bleary eyes.
“What in the world is it? Did the Zramians storm Raedgo Castle or something?”
“Stop spouting nonsense and get out of bed right now!”
Raina stomped her foot, wrenching violently at his arm.
“Something awful has happened! The Black Bear of the South is going to duel Brother!”
The grogginess vanished in a heartbeat, and Lucas bolted upright. He stared at his sister, wide-eyed and bewildered.
“Who’s fighting who?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!”
Her sliver of patience spent, Raina flung his arm down and stormed toward the door.
Lucas stared blankly after her before scrambling out of bed. Snatching a tunka he had tossed carelessly across a chair, he threw it over his bare chest and hurried after her.
He caught sight of servants scurrying down the corridors, lanterns swinging in hand.
Looking around in bewilderment, he used his long strides to catch up to his sister, who was already halfway down the stairs.
“Is Brother really fighting a duel?”
“I told you he is!”
Raina snapped back, taking two steps at a time. Lucas frowned. He knew guests had arrived at Raedgo Castle.
Even so, he could not fathom how a duel had broken out between the heir of House Shearkan and a lord representing the Southeast.
He nursed his head, still throbbing from the drink, and asked, “Why a duel so suddenly in the dead of night?”
“Why else? That harbinger of doom finally wrought havoc!”
Raina ground her teeth.
“Apparently she barged into the banquet hall, poured wine all over Lord Gutban, and slapped him across the face!”
Lucas’s mouth fell open.
“By ‘she’… do you mean the Second Princess?”
“Who else!”
Raina thumped her chest in fury.
“Because of her, an argument flared up between the Black Bear and Brother, and now they’re dueling!”
Sweeping through the hall in an instant, Raina burst out of the building, fuming.
“See! I told you again and again that woman would be a curse! I was right!”
Lucas rolled his eyes as he pulled the edges of his tunka shut.
To be precise, what his sister had predicted was a cunning viper playing the delicate flower in front of their brother while plotting in the shadows—not a madwoman who would strike the East’s fiercest lancer before everyone’s eyes.
‘Either way, there’s no denying she’s trouble.’
He dragged a hand through his tangled hair and hurried across the sprawling courtyard.
At the stairs descending to the training grounds, hundreds of people had already amassed, brandishing torches and lanterns.
Lucas pushed through the press of bodies toward the inner grounds. There stood the gathered nobles who had come to watch the fight, alongside the elite knights of Wolfram. Spotting a familiar face among them, Lucas headed straight over.
“Tyrone!”
The lancer, mid-conversation with his men, turned his head. He, too, looked as though he had bolted from his rest; clad only in a loose coat over bare skin, he looked back and forth between Lucas and Raina, letting out a long sigh.
“What are you two doing wandering about at this hour without an escort?”
“Never mind that. What on earth happened?”
“I just got here myself, so I don’t have all the details.”
Tyrone gave a careless shrug.
“One thing is certain: our future lord is far more hot-blooded than he looks.”
With that, he gestured with his chin toward one side of the vast equestrian grounds.
There stood Varkas, clad head to foot in black iron armor, waiting beside a massive grey stallion.
Lucas took him in with stunned eyes. Among these men built like mountains, he looked like an exquisite, finely sculpted statue.
His lean body encased in steel was by no means small or frail, but he lacked the monstrous bulk of the Eastern lancers. The way he adjusted the plates and joints of his armor looked closer to a dancer’s grace than a warrior’s.
His opponent, by contrast, was a beast in human skin.
Lucas shifted his gaze to the opposite side of the yard and swallowed dryly. The man stood nearly seven kuvets tall and easily exceeded five lants—nearing six, even without armor. Covered in full steel plate, his weight would be terrifying.
Leading a hulking charger that matched his stature, the man stepped into the center of the grounds.
The light of the roaring bonfires laid bare the brute’s terrifying presence. Gasps of awe, dread, and wild excitement rippled through the spectators.
Lucas let out a low groan.
“This is insane.”
Before long, four men—evidently his own soldiers—came staggering out, carrying a colossal halberd that looked more like a massive slab of iron.
When the man hauled the shaft up with a single hand and raised the monstrous axe blade high, the crowd’s roar peaked.
Raina, her face stark white, seized Tyrone by the collar.
“Why aren’t you stopping this right now!”
“That lady over there has been screaming her lungs out to do just that, but he won’t even pretend to hear her.”
Tyrone sighed, angling his thumb toward a figure beside Varkas.
Lucas followed the gesture and widened his eyes at the sight of a slight figure shouting at his brother. The woman shook both fists, visibly seething.
Drawn by disbelief, Lucas stepped closer, flinching at the sharp, high-pitched voice. She was screaming fearlessly into the face of a man a full head taller than her.
“Are you an idiot? A fool? You could crush a man like that under your authority! Why on earth would you be stupid enough to test your strength against him!”
Lucas let out a dry huff of laughter. He had never imagined another woman lived who could speak as recklessly as Raina. And to his brother, of all people…
Lucas checked Varkas’s face. He was calmly inspecting his mount’s gear, unmoved.
The woman slammed her fist into his armored back.
“Did you sleep through your sums? That man weighs three times what you do! Don’t you know weight and force are one and the same?”
“Bring me my helm.”
Varkas ignored her entirely, issuing the command to his squire. Outraged, the woman hitched up her sleeves. Daren hurriedly seized her shoulders as she looked ready to strike.
“Highness, you need not worry so. This is standard fare among warriors. Neither of them will take it too far…”
“Who said I was worried about him!”
she shrieked, wrenching free of Daren’s grip.
“I’m worried about myself! If I become a widow right after getting married, my life is finished!”
Daren recoiled, visibly stunned by the venom in her words. Yet his brother offered no reaction whatsoever to her outburst.
Pulling his helm over his head, Varkas vaulted onto the saddle.
“Hand me the weapon.”
The squire immediately offered up a halberd tipped with a silver crescent blade. Varkas took it and rode out toward the center before anyone could halt him.
The woman gave chase in desperation. Watching from the sidelines, Lucas instinctively darted forward and caught her. In return, a look sharp as a dagger flew at him.
Lucas stopped breathing. For an instant, his mind emptied entirely.
As he stared down into that unnervingly beautiful face, dazed, a blaring trumpet heralded the start of the duel.
Lucas snapped his head toward the field, groaning as Alec Gutban slowly circled the ring, twirling the colossal halberd in one hand.
Every time the head—closer to a mace than an axe—cut through the air in wide arcs, it cracked like a whip.
Beside him, he could feel the woman trembling as though about to collapse. Yet he had no mind to spare for her.
As if parading his might, the brute finished his slow circuit along the stands and kicked his horse forward.
The heavy hammer of hooves shook the dirt. Billowing a thick cloud of dust, the giant mounted on that monstrous steed charged Varkas at terrifying speed, whirling his halberd. Screams tore through the crowd.
Small wonder. It looked for all the world like an enraged bull bearing down on a stag. Lucas clenched his fists tight. It seemed as though that mass of iron would crush his brother into dust with a single blow.
Yet what Lucas saw next defied his own eyes. The axe head, broad as a man’s chest, was brushed aside effortlessly by a spear tip that swept in as graceful as a wing.
Lucas’s eyes went wide.
The miracle did not end there. As Varkas spurred his mount forward, the brute’s massive body lurched back as though he had collided with a fortress wall.
Varkas did not miss the opening.
Driving his heels into the stallion’s flanks, Varkas drove his weapon forward. The spearhead, flashing like a streak of light, tore through the thick steel breastplate and drove straight through the man’s chest.
It happened in a single heartbeat.
With the spear still buried through the man, Varkas urged his horse into a run. As he wrenched the haft upward, the giant was lifted high into the air. Horrified shrieks erupted across the grounds at the grotesque sight.
Thundering across the yard, Varkas swung the shaft around in a wide arc and drove the weapon into the earth. A dull, heavy crunch resounded as the mountain of flesh crashed into the dirt.
A suffocating silence smothered the field.
While everyone stood paralyzed by a duel that had ended in seconds, Varkas rode up to the mangled corpse, ripped off his helmet, and hurled it to the ground. Then, with a chilling composure that showed not an ounce of strain, he barked toward the sidelines,
“Summon a priest. Bury him.”
END