He’d annoyed Blackfell, or perhaps frightened him, and now the man slashed and advanced like an angry, half-blind hornet. Seeking to overwhelm Niel, his strikes bled one into the next, slashing up and down and diagonally, pressing towards the younger knight. Niel bobbed, weaved, and sidestepped, tracking the blade with years of practice. It whistled past him so close he could feel the air against his cheek. Niel jumped back, then dipped and dodged forward, dancing always out of Ditmar’s reach.
He could see the older man getting tired. The blows had become less precise, and he raised the sword less high at the start of them, as if its weight was already beginning to tire him. And while Ditmar was smart enough not to waste his breath on taunts, Niel could hear him breathing all the same, panting open-mouthed as he hacked at the younger, unarmed knight before him.
The next time Ditmar swung the sword in a downward diagonal slice, Niel slid to Ditmar’s open side and slammed the ball of his boot into the front of Ditmar’s right knee. He heard a crack, and then a bellow of pain as Ditmar whirled towards him, dragging the sword in a wide chest-height arc. Niel tucked and rolled back. He sprang to his feet and circled Ditmar, feeling now almost like a cat playing with a wounded mouse.
He couldn’t afford to be over-confident. That was how good swordsmen lost fights. But it had been even easier than Niel anticipated. Being the Duke of Eyron’s son wasn’t good for much, but it was good for this.
Ditmar threw himself towards Niel, but his injured knee wouldn’t let him advance smoothly or turn quickly. Ditmar thrust towards Niel, throwing himself off balance. Niel pivoted just to the side of the blade. He wasted no time getting more distance than a few inches.
Instead, he rushed Ditmar, got within the sword’s guard, and wrestled the Lord of Blackfell to the ground. Lord Blackfell called out and thrashed, trying to angle his sword to cut Niel without stabbing himself, but Niel pinned the man’s arms under one knee and slammed a fist into Blackfell’s face. Then another. The man’s hands loosened on the sword, and Niel reached to pick it up as Blackfell thrashed beneath him again.
One of Blackfell’s knees connected with Niel’s groin. Nausea flared so swiftly he thought he’d hurl bile onto the man below him. With a grunt of pain, Niel tossed the sword across the ring, out of Blackfell’s reach. Then he pinned the lord beneath him so that Blackfell could not land any other blows. Blood smeared the man’s face from a broken nose.
“Mercy,” Blackfell said, his voice coming out nasal.
“Did she ask for Mercy, too?” Niel answered coldly.
He smashed his fist back into Ditmar’s face. Blood made Niel’s leather gloves wet. He heard a strained gasp of air from the man beneath him.
Niel stood and settled his boot on Ditmar’s throat. The lord of Blackfell looked up at him, the man’s dark eyes desperate. Blackfell’s lips moved again in a silent plea, his hands grasping at Niel’s leg. Niel pressed his foot down slowly, and heard the crunch of Blackfell’s neck. With one last desperate wheeze, the life left Ditmar’s eyes. His hands spasmed, then stilled. A drop of blood slid from the man’s mouth. His dead eyes kept staring at Niel. Niel stared coldly back.
The fight was over. It had been easy.
But the triumph he’d expected to feel didn’t come. A part of Niel had truly believed he could change the world, if he could just remove the men like this one from existence. It seemed futile now. There were more. There would always be more.
He’d freed Ayla, and that was worth any cost. But the entire war, the lives he’d taken, the soldiers he’d lost—Ditmar was all he had to show for it.
The crowd kept shouting. They sounded loud, now that he wasn’t focused on the battle anymore. He peeled off his bloody gloves slowly, and dropped them onto the corpse at his feet.
The death should have been longer. Long enough for Ditmar to contemplate all the crimes of his life. Perhaps then, Niel would feel better, like he’d done something. But Ditmar was gone now. There was no more vengeance to be had.
The crowd fell to hushed whispers, and Niel looked to see his brother Corin holding a hand up to silence them. Niel raised his chin and met Corin’s eyes defiantly. Corin looked back, his own expression heavy.
“You’ve had your duel,” Corin said. “Now honor the terms of our deal, and submit to the crown’s justice.”
For a moment Niel looked away, at the sword he’d thrown across the ring, and wondered if that wasn’t a better way to go. He could fetch it before his brother could reach him. And then he could prove, once and for all, which of them was the better swordsman.
But he was tired, and sick, and suddenly he didn’t want to see his brother skewered on a blade. He just wanted… he didn’t know what. Things he could never have. Ayla, and peace, and to lay his head down on a pillow and sleep without wondering whether he’d be attacked during the night. To feel like he had any chance at a future, and any reason to hope for one. To believe there was a point to a world in which men like Ditmar and Hannes and his father could not just exist, but rule.
But hadn’t he learned, long ago, that he was not a man whose hopes came true?
“I surrender,” he said, and held his hands out to be shackled.
Forgiveness
Once again, Niel found himself marching through wintry conditions with a troop of soldiers.
Except before, he’d been at the head, leading them while his brother's army chased them. Now, that same army had caught him, and he walked with his arms bound behind his back and his ankles chained together. Two ropes were knotted around his midsection, each leading to another rider’s saddle, pulling him on. The men towing Niel were knights he recognized from his time in Liron: Sir Herdan, a warrior with decades of experience, and Sir Melchior, a knight as young and green as Niel himself.
Some of Corin’s soldiers had headed back to Ironcliff city, but the bulk were here, marching south to rest before Spring brought another assault from the north. He wasn’t sure where his own soldiers were, but if they were marching south as prisoners of the same army as Niel, they were too far back in the column for him to tell.
It was an easy pace. The Kettalist’s terrain had been rugged, but now they marched through a wood that neighbored the Hulder’s, studiously careful to keep to their own path. It was a longer route to Liron than a straight line, but nobody was foolish enough to suggest crossing into the immortal Queen’s wood. A pair of soldiers or knights could do so without attracting wrath, but a thousand men marching in columns would be a sure violation of the treaty that kept the Hulder bound.
Niel found himself looking east, wondering how hard it would be to disappear into the Hulder wood. He could live happily enough as a hermit. It wasn’t as though he liked many people. If he could just get his shackles off, he could lose them at the other forest’s border.
A sharp tug at his waist threatened to topple him forward, a reminder he was not keeping pace with the horses in front of him. Niel turned his focus back to the path before him and continued to trudge. At least the warhorses and men ahead of him broke through the thick snows, leaving a trampled path that was easier to walk. With a heavy, ice-cold chain clanking between his feet and weighing down every step, he needed the help.
Thudding hoofbeats sounded as riders churned through the snow. Niel turned his head to the side and watched bleakly as his brother and another knight cantered up the line. Corin’s black warhorse was stark against the snows. It reminded Niel of the way the Kettalist firs looked against the icy mountains, giant and ink-dark, and for a moment his mind was back at Blackfell. Pain burrowed into him like a shard of glass.
