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“Could you save it for later?” Sunbeam snapped. “There’s a war about to start.”

“If ye helped her escape,” Lulach said, “then whaur is she?”

There were only a few possible answers to that. The most horrifying one was that she’d died in the swamp, which I very, very much hoped was not the case. If that hadn’t happened, though…

“The genii might have recaptured her,” I said. “They were trying to. She could be back in their palace.”

“Ye have tae tell him!” Lulach gestured up at the balcony. “Afore he overruns the world in search of her!”

“How would I even get a chance to talk to him?”

I couldn’t just stroll up to the emperor and start a casual conversation. I could try to get a message to him, but there were a hundred ways that could go wrong. Why would anyone believe me? No one knew me here; no one trusted my word. By the time the information worked its way up to someone important, if it ever did at all, Ilyana might be unwillingly married to the genius, and Tailliz occupied by Red Empire troops. Once the truth came to light, I doubted that the de facto conquest would be declared null and void as an apology for the mistake.

Overhead, the Red Emperor droned on. I hadn’t been listening while I tried to come up with some way, any way, to catch his ear. I doubted that I’d missed anything important. Even Dr. Pipt wore an expression of glazed boredom.

“…and I know many of you are new to the imperial forces,” the emperor was saying. “You are welcome in our ranks, and I thank you for joining this mission of rescue. To celebrate your arrival, and to test your mettle, any knights who have come to my service in recent weeks are invited to participate in a grand tournament this afternoon. You will demonstrate the skills you will use on my behalf, and I shall personally crown the winner with a laurel wreath, as a mark of my gratitude for…”

“That’s how you’ll do it!” Sunbeam said.

I knew what he had to mean. “What? No. That’s insane.”

“Care tae explain what ye’r talking aboot tae the rest of us?” said Lulach.

“Jules will join the tournament. The noble Ecossic knight, aided faithfully by a trusty squire.” Sunbeam glanced at Yudit, who nodded with only a small show of reluctance. “When Jules wins and gets the laurel wreath, the pair of them can tell the emperor about Ilyana. And stop the war.”

Lulach broke into a broad grin, and Nicki sniffled appreciatively at the plan, her eyes shining bright. They appeared to have every confidence that I would leap boldly into action and carry the day. Which made no sense whatsoever.

The emperor was still speaking. He certainly liked the sound of his own voice. It was something about the prizes for second and third place. I didn’t pay much attention. I wouldn’t be taking home any of those, either.

“I can’t win,” I said. “I’d be up against knights from across the Red Empire. Some of them have probably been doing the tournament circuit for years. Professional jousters in all but name.” I’d tilted at a practice quintain a few times, but I wasn’t anywhere close to that level.

Sunbeam lifted his upper lip in a tooth-baring horse smile. “Yeah. But you have a secret weapon. Something nobody else has.”

“You mean the magic spear?” The Spear That Probably Won’t Break would certainly come in handy—the difference between a braceable spear and a lance was essentially semantics, and a lance that could (probably) be relied on not to shatter would be a huge advantage in a Red Empire–style tourney. It wouldn’t be enough to win me the tournament, though—not against knights who vastly surpassed me in skill. “A good weapon won’t beat anyone with real experience. Not all by itself.”

“No, it won’t,” Sunbeam agreed. “But I didn’t mean that. I meant me.”

Chapter Twenty

Tournament Is Fair Play

Let me tell you a few things about jousting. It requires a little math, but bear with me.

The combined weight of a warhorse carrying a knight in full armor is about 2,500 pounds. If it’s a well-bred tournament horse, then its top sprinting speed might be as high as thirty-five miles per hour. That comes to about 100,000 foot-pounds of force—roughly equivalent to a one-ton boulder falling on your head from a height of sixty feet. All of that force is concentrated in a single point at the tip of a lance.

Murdering your opponent is not the object of a joust. But it should come as no surprise that injuries are common and loss of life isn’t exactly rare. Many a jousting knight has been slain in the flower of their youth, a brilliant career cut short by a thirst for glory and a broken neck.

Jousting tournaments, in other words, are fucking stupid. In the Red Empire, they’re even stupider than usual.

In many countries, like the northern kingdoms, a few precautions have been instituted in an attempt to reduce death by friendly sporting event. A low wooden fence separates the contenders, keeping the horses from colliding with each other. The lances have breakaway tips, because the object is to win points with an accurate strike, not to unseat your opponent.

The Red Empire, however, preferred an older, more brutal style. Northern tournaments were considered rather lackluster and unexciting there. In the Red Empire, jousters charged at each other across an open field, and the goal was knocking your opponent off his horse. Knocking him off with your solid, one-ton-boulder lance.

Fucking stupid.

And yet, there I was. More than thirty knights had entered the lists, myself among their number. I’d waved around my letter of introduction from Gruoch until I convinced someone in charge that I was there to join the Red Empire army. After that, getting into the tournament was just a matter of signing up for a slot.

Yudit was tightening up Sunbeam’s girth, making the final preparations before I rode out for my first pass. The staging area was blessedly cool, a stone enclosure tucked beneath the seats of the Crimson City’s grand stadium. The roar of the crowd was loud enough to make the whole place vibrate.