"If it's a fight you want, then fight me," Bellamy says, surprised by how steady his voice sounds.
"Bellamy, no!" Harwick struggles to his feet, blood running from a cut on his scalp.
But the Barbarian King is already nodding, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "How could I refuse such a generous offer?"
The battle seems to slow around them as word of the duel spreads like fire. Mirn soldiers and Everitt warriors alike fall back, forming a rough circle. Bellamy is dimly aware of the sudden quiet around them,broken only by the harsh breathing of exhausted fighters and the sound of his own heart beating loudly in his chest.
He raises his sword in a formal salute, the way Harwick has taught him. Ivah returns the gesture with his axes, the movement somehow elegant despite the weapons' crude design.
Then they begin to circle each other.
Bellamy has sparred with the best fighters in Mirn, has trained since childhood in the courtyard under Harwick's demanding eye. He is fast, skilled, and determined. But within the first exchange of blows, he knows he is hopelessly outmatched.
The Barbarian King moves like nothing Bellamy has ever faced, his axes weaving patterns in the air that seem impossible to dodge. Bellamy manages to parry the first strike, the impact jarring his shoulders, but the second nearly takes his head off. He ducks desperately, feeling the blade whistle past his ear, and tries a thrust toward Ivah's midsection.
The Barbarian King moves out of the way as though he's fighting a child, like Bellamy's attacks are an afterthought.
Bellamy spins, searching, and barely gets his sword up in time to block a crushing overhead strike that drives him to one knee. The force of the blow sends shockwaves through his arms, numbing his fingers. He rolls aside as the second axe splits the earth where he'd been kneeling, comes up with a wild swing that Ivah avoids with contemptuous ease.
"Is this the best you can do, little prince?" Ivah sneers at him, and he doesn't even sound winded. "Maybe your wounded general would have been better sport after all."
Bellamy doesn't waste breath on a reply. He presses forward, trying to use his speed to his advantage, but it is like fighting an impenetrable wall. Every attack meets steel, while Ivah's counterstrikes come from angles that Bellamy is only barely able to block.
A glancing blow from an axe handle sends Bellamy staggering, his ribs screaming in protest. He tastes copper in his mouth that tells him he's bitten his tongue. Another strike, this one from the flat of Ivah's blade, catches him across the shoulder and spins him around. His armor dents but holds, though the impact leaves his left arm partially numb.
Bellamy stumbles but keeps his feet, blood trickling from his nose inside his helm where the metal has been driven down against his face. His vision blurs for a moment before clearing through the eyeslits. He tries a desperate lunge, and Ivah's counter leaves a shallow cut along his sword arm that immediately begins leaking blood down his wrist, making his grip slippery.
Still he fights on.
Ivah seems to be toying with him now, each strike calculated to wound but not to kill. A blow to Bellamy's thigh that leaves him limping. A cut across his forearm that opens his mail. Each impact drives home how completely outclassed he is, yet something in Ivah's dark eyes suggests the Barbarian King is... enjoying this.
Bellamy's helm rings like a bell as another blow strikes it, denting the metal and making his ears ring. Blood runs down his scalp from where the padding has been crushed against a gash he doesn't remember receiving. His breathing is harsh and ragged now, muffled by the confines of his helmet, his vision starting to tunnel from exhaustion and blood loss.
But still he fights.
He fights because his people are watching. He fights because Harwick has trained him to never give up. He fights because his father's sword is in his hand and his father's courage is in his heart.
But courage isn't enough.
Bellamy tries one last, desperate gambit—a feint high followed by a low thrust, the same combination that has won him countless sparring matches in the practice yards of Mirn. But Ivah reads him like an open book. One massive hand shoots out and closes around Bellamy's throat with crushing force, the grip finding the gap between his helmet and gorget. Ivah lifts him partially off his feet before slamming him backward into the mud with bone-jarring impact.
The world explodes in stars and pain. Bellamy's sword flies from his nerveless fingers, landing somewhere in the mud with a wet slap. He lies pinned beneath the Barbarian King's weight, his hands instinctively flying to Ivah's wrist, trying desperately to pry those iron fingers from his throat. But Ivah's grip is unshakeable, and Bellamy can't get leverage from his position flat on his back.
Ivah straddles him, one knee on either side of Bellamy's ribs, his free hand moving to the prince's helmet. With practiced efficiency, he yanks the dented helm from Bellamy's head and hurls it aside, where it lands in the mud with a dull clang.
Bellamy's blonde hair spills across the dark earth, matted with sweat and blood from the gash on his scalp. His green eyes, wide with exhaustion and the certainty of death, stare up at his executioner.
Ivah raises his axe, its blade gleaming in the afternoon sun like a promise of death. This is it—the moment of the killing blow, the clean stroke that will end the Prince of Mirn and seal his people's fate.
But as Ivah looks down at the face now revealed to him, something stops him cold.
The axe freezes at the apex of its arc, Ivah's entire body going still as stone. His dark eyes widen slightly, studying Bellamy's features with sudden, intense focus. He stares at the way those green eyes refuse to close even in the face of death, the proud set of his mouth despite being utterly defeated.
Something flickers in those dark depths that looks like surprise, like recognition, like something deeper and more complicated than simple bloodlust.
The moment stretches between them, charged with a tension Bellamy doesn't understand. He can feel Ivah's breath on his face, can see his own battered reflection in those burning eyes. His hands still grip Ivah's wrist where it circles his throat, but the crushing pressure has eased slightly, allowing him to draw precious air.
Time seems suspended, the entire battlefield holding its breath as the Barbarian King stares down at his captive prey.
