She’s ready for me, but not quite fast enough, grunting when I clip her heel.Her stumble might have been her end, but she tumbles and springs to her feet, hand rising with a fistful of sand that she throws at me.
That trick won’t work, not when I’ve swallowed mud and blood and worse on the battlefield, but it makes me laugh, and now I’m pushing harder, stretching out, feeling the places where my body is weak, where I need to focus to return to my previous condition.This is a gift she gives me, whether she knows it or not, our dance that joy I most love to engage in.
She attacks again, this time in that tumble of hers, coming up with the discarded net that my first opponent lost, one of the hooks aimed for my armband’s strap.I cackle back, because she’s fucking hilarious trying that shit on me.This time, when she goes down it’s not of her own accord, my hands winding in the scarf around her hair, jerking back and dropping her on her ass, already twisting to flip her over on her stomach.
We’re not even using weapons now, my swords discarded as I grapple her.She’s strong, very strong for her size, even for someone bigger than her, and her center of gravity is deep and grounded.She manages to lift me from my feet and twists at the waist, tossing me with a grunt, my shoulder catching me as I roll, on my toes and lashing out with my leg behind me before I even hit the ground.
I catch her in the chest, sending her backward with the momentum she sacrificed in her throw, both of us thudding to the sand at the same moment, tumbling to the ground.She’s laughing, too, and I’m hysterical, delighted as I stare at the sky and breathe deeply.
My body is weary already, but I know my limits now, and how to fix what has been broken, misused, rubbed bare.When I face the task ahead, I will be ready.
“And matchette,” Brem says, collapsing next to me, dark eyes bright, giant smile on her face.“You fight like a fucking girl,” she says.And giggles.
An unlikely place for peals of laughter, a ring meant for death, but I can’t help it.
I just hope I don’t have to kill her to be free.
***
Chapter Thirteen
Romouth finally intervenes, though she’s not angry when she calls out.
“I’m not seeing any sparring!”
Brem is on her feet and snapping orders again, though she continues with that cheerful tone amid her cursing and insults.It’s quickly obvious after a few, “lazy cow”, “move your fat arse”, and “your pussy sucks harder than you do” comments that this is simply how she is, and no one seems to take offense.Since my mother’s battlefield talk was just as harsh, it’s another familiar addition to a day that feels more ordinary to me than it deserves to.
When it’s clear that no one will fight me anymore, I find a corner of the arena to work alone, hardly the first time.There’s a kink in my right shoulder I need to work out, and my stomach feels soft, my core strength requiring my attention.As I flow through the patterns of attack, first bare-handed, then with one sword, and finally with two, I’m panting and sweating and shaking long before I’m done, but the feeling of it is as sweet as the best fuck I’ve ever had.
Well, maybe second to that, because Atlas and Zenthris are very skilled.
“Remi.”I pause, turn to Brem, who nods to me.What is that look on her face?“Take a meal.You’ll need it at this pace.”
I return my weapons to the chest, noting everyone but Brem leaves theirs where they fought, resisting the urge to gather them all up and store them away.We exchange a look over the open top before she shrugs and sighs, voice very soft when she speaks.
“I’ve tried,” she says.“I swear it, sister.But they do not live war inside them as we do.”
“You were raised to this,” I say, following her toward the open benches and tables, sitting next to her when she nods.
“As were you,” she says.Gerthi appears with plates, the two young women who tended to my first opponent behind her, carrying trays of bread, delivering food as they go.I note that the silver-toothed woman is glaring at me, muttering to the stocky woman next to her, but choose to ignore them and the visible threat on their faces.“Don’t mind Kasha,” Brem says.So, she noted the animosity, too, did she?Of course.“That little cunt needed to learn a lesson, and you just happened to be the one to hand it to her.She’ll get over it.”
“Or not,” I shrug, accepting a full plate of some meaty stew from one of the girls, inhaling the hearty aroma.I snag a large chunk of flatbread and dip it immediately, the giant bite as rich and spiced as expected, though it’s not thekurrieI’m used to, but some other earthy flavor that has me digging in for more.
Brem laughs.“Or not, just so.”She dives into her own meal, the two of us eating in happy, companionable silence.She feels like someone I could easily fit into my company, to add to my elite cadre who ride with me into battle, and though I know and have reminded myself only recently that trusting strangers in this odd land will put me at risk, I can’t help myself.
Romouth joins us partway through, drifting from table to table with a low, quiet word for each of the small groups who gather to eat.I note that she pauses next to the silver-toothed Kasha, the woman’s expression turning sullen but accepting, before Romouth comes to sit across from me and Brem, accepting a plate from Gerthi herself along with a soft pat on the cheek and a toothless grin from the old cook.
“She’s been with me since I was agladatte,” Romouth says, fond smile kind.“I’d have kept her on for that fact alone, the old dear, but her food makes her even more worth the effort.”She’s as enthusiastic in her eating as we are, sipping the odd drink that everyone seems to gulp down.
“It’s not alcoholic,” Brem tells me when I hesitate, so she’s noticed me sipping.“They infuse it with some sort of bubbling, that’s all.”The burning sensation that I’ve started to like very much.“It seems to invigorate.”
Very good to know.I guzzle the glass, then, as I had last night, and accept more from the girl with the pitcher, who quickly comes to refill me before I even look up.
“I’ve heard of Heald,” Romouth says in a casual voice that is far from it, her head down over her food.“Many tales of it, though I’ve never been that far north.”She raises her gaze, meets mine.“Your armies are feared far south of your territory, as is the name of your queen, Jhanette.”If she notices my startled response, she doesn’t show it, and I’m swiftly hiding it behind a long drink.“Her legend lingers after almost thirty years.”What had my mother done to earn such a reverent tone?“Though I’d always thought it a fable to make us fear the north.”
I shrug, tearing off more bread to sop up the rest of my stew.“The armies of Heald are the sword arm of the Overkingdom,” I say.“And my—” I cut myself off before I say “mother” and use her honorific instead, “queen was the finest warrior I’ve ever known, from a long line of war queens.”I’m about to ask for the tale that Romouth mentioned, longing suddenly for a fable about my mother, when Brem asks the hard question.
“Was, you say,” she says in a soft voice.“She’s passed, your queen?”
