The dawn broke clear and bracing cold. My team and I had been working since five in the morning to set up for the tournament’s first day. For me, that meant carrying around a giant skin full of dog piss.

Apparently, the boundaries of dueling rings were traditionally drawn using a mixture of sand and dog piss, so that the fighters might be inspired by the loyal animals’ unwavering bravery.

Anyway, we had two hundred thirty-seven contestants competing for Ikfael’s Boon, and they’d do so in six rounds of one-on-one elimination matches over the course of a single day. We only had space for twenty dueling rings, so the first three rounds entailed cycling the fighters through them. Then, we’d break for lunch, giving the competitors time to rest, and then resume in the late afternoon.

There were no bleachers, so spectators would gather around the dueling rings that interested them, which was the norm according to my team. Supposedly, arenas weren’t really a thing until you got to the big cities.

The matchups were determined randomly, and the winners would be determined by both skill at arms and endurance since it wouldn't be possible to heal completely in between bouts. The fighters were allowed to wear armor and they’d be using wooden, blunted weapons, but we’d likely still see broken bones and internal bleeding.

As I laid a stream of piss down, I couldn’t help the flutter of worry in my belly. I was always like this before a big event—uncertain about whether things would go well or not, anxious about how much Murphy’s Law would apply, and so on—but this free-floating unease was different. It didn’t feel like a premonition, but I couldn't help thinking there’d be no way the healers would roll over without a fight.

###

I stood on the pavilion’s platform and examined the assembled fighters. They smelled of buckskin and steel, of confidence and caution. The tournament’s participants were colorful in their masks and martial in their demeanor. Ostensibly, they watched as Knight Otter beside me signed a blessing, but many quietly focused on those around them—their competition.

Some were measured and found wanting. Others inspired uncertainty, individuals like Wusta and Bruta, the land soldier captains, Aslishtei, and even Goost. Each was surrounded by their people, but they somehow stood alone too, like pillars among the fighters, their presence calling into question the worthiness of one’s path.

I also found one more pillar among them—this one truly alone; no one stood within ten feet of him. He was unmasked too, but not a land soldier. No, he wore the healer’s badge.

Ichkadeshtu the Wall (Human, Dawn)

Talents: Unstoppable, Regenerative Biology, Well-Trained, Trained Some More

The healers had planted another agent—a soldier with a couple of remarkable talents. If he were a normal competitor, I’d say he’d go far in the tournament, but he wasn’t, and I didn’t know what kind of trouble he planned for us.

Knight Otter finished her remarks, then launched a waterwork–this one exploding high in the air and misting down in a rainbow of colors. The fighters watched in appreciation, then bowed to honor her.

Beyond them, and all around the event site, a larger crowd of festival goers had gathered to watch the fights, and they also murmured in appreciation. I was glad for Ikfael—she’d put a lot of thought into the ceremonies associated with the tournament.

The crowd parted for Iseld the World Speaker, as she bustled toward the pavilion—no doubt to introduce herself to Ikfael. I would’ve preferred to be present for the meeting, but with the latest wrinkle from the Healer’s Lodge, I really needed to be elsewhere.

“Sorry,” I whispered, and placed Ikfael’s figurine at the pavilion’s entrance so that she'd have a view of the interior and the dueling rings.

Knight Otter gestured, “It’s okay. Go.”

So, I hopped down to run toward Mumu. “There’s a competitor from the healers.”

“We’re aware. Haol spotted him when he arrived.”

“Did we know?”

“That he was healer-sworn?” Mumu shook her head. “No. As near as we can tell, he was masked like everyone else when he registered. He wore nothing that identified him or his loyalties. Tegen is checking now to see what we can learn about him.”

“He’s a talented fighter,” I said.

“I’d expect nothing less.”

Uncle Kila emerged from the organizer’s tent with a couple of sheets of paper in hand. The fighters made way for him to post them to the board, and the murmurs among them increased as they saw their assignments.

Kila’s family had the day’s logistics well in hand. Other than the opening and closing ceremonies, my team’s role in the proceedings was simply to keep watch for trouble and help if anyone was gravely injured. Healing Water was illegal on anyone who wasn’t a hunter, but three of us knew Nature’s Spring and the rest could do first aid.

The bouts themselves were relatively informal, trusting in the honor of the participants. And if that was lacking, then the spectators were sure to call one or both parties out. That was one of the things that had reassured me when I’d learned the bouts wouldn’t be refereed. There were established cultural expectations for friendly duels, which is what these were considered.

So, the fighters found their opponents in the crowd, and walked to the dueling rings to find an open one for their use. Those not immediately matched up followed behind the fighters whose bouts they were interested in watching, as did the wider audience of non-fighters.

Ichkadeshtu was matched against one of the nathlein teenagers from the north. The young boy had no idea of the reasons underlying his opponent’s presence in the ring, and at first, he joked with his friends in the audience. That faded, however, when he noticed more and more people gathering to watch his bout.

His spirit revealed that he hoped to make a name for himself—he'd be famous one day, but he wasn’t yet—which meant the people were here to watch his opponent. He’d apparently drawn one of the famous ones.

Whoever had trained the boy had done their job well—the young warrior focused, bringing his full attention to the bout. He selected a wooden sword for a weapon, but Ichkadeshtu chose to go unarmed.

Then, once the fighters took positions opposite each other and bowed, one of the spectators stepped forward to recite: “Let Barakas witness the strength of our arms, the determination in our hearts. We will fight this day and every day, undaunted.”

The last word was the signal to begin, and the young warrior launched himself at Ichkadeshtu, only for the healer’s soldier to slip aside. In one smooth motion, he let the sword pass where he’d been and snaked his arms up and around the boy’s head. With a brutal twist, he cranked to bring the head down to smash onto the ground.

Before I knew what I was doing, I rushed into the circle to kick Ichkadeshtu away, an instinctive Bear’s Strength powering the blow, but I hit nothing but air. The healer’s soldier had once more stepped aside. But he didn’t do anything else. He just watched me, so I quickly turned to the boy whose neck had been broken. His skull too, from the way it was bleeding. I started up my Nature’s Spring, a double cast with Yuki’s help, as the other spectators moved in to also help.

Dimly, I heard people berating Ichkadeshtu, calling his behavior shameful, but he didn’t reply. All I saw of him was his back as he left the ring.

###

The boy lived, and he’d do so without permanent injury thanks to the alchemists, but we were off to a rough start, using one of the limited, more expensive elixirs. He was in shock though, not understanding how quickly and summarily he’d lost.

Grim-faced, I explained the context to him, and he cursed his bad luck once he had a chance to process it. His friends too—they’d gathered worriedly around him and helped to get him walking around.

Thank the gods none of them were stupid. I half-expected the youths to swear revenge against Ichkadeshtu, but from what I heard of their muttered plans, the friends planned to concede if they matched up against him.

Afterward, I found Mumu at the organizer’s tent, clustered with Tegen and Uncle Kila. Haol was in eavesdropping range too, but his attention was on observing Ichkadeshtu. At the dueling rings, the next set of fights began, but he wouldn’t fight again until the second round.

“Ichkadeshtu is the healer grandmaster’s personal guard,” Tegen said. “There’s a team around him, and we’ve spotted them in the audience among the observers.”

“What do we know him and them?” Mumu asked.

“Not much, as they’re rarely at the walls during the Long Dark. Their focus is on protecting their lodge during breakthroughs.”

“Ouch,” I said, “that must be expensive.”

“Indeed,” Tegen replied, “the replacement tax for a team of dawn soldiers is onerous.”

“My spirit eyes tell me he has remarkable endurance, he heals quickly, and that he’s exceptionally well trained.”

“What about magic?” Mumu asked.

I shook my head, not having scented any during his earlier fight.

Tegen, though, offered: “If he belongs to the healers’ grandmaster, then we should assume he’s well versed in both qi and mana.”

“We can confirm the truth of that with Agath,” Uncle Kila said. “Ichkadeshtu might be sworn to the healers, but he still belongs to the soldiers. For someone that strong, she’ll have looked at his spirit map.”

That was probably true. Spirit maps were considered public information, and it was a kind of entertainment to browse through them, like going to the library.

The day I’d gone to browse the Butchery’s market, I saw a merchant hawking copies of spirit maps that’d been stitched together into booklets, and her stall was crowded with customers flipping through them like magazines. Apparently, they were a relatively new phenomenon in Albei’s cultural scene.

Eventually, someone was bound to hit on the idea of trading cards, and maybe that person ought to be me. But that idea was for another, more peaceful time. I brought my attention back to the conversation, which had moved on in the time I’d spent woolgathering. Come on, Ollie. Focus.

It’s okay, Yuki said. You didn’t miss anything. The assumption is Ichkadeshtu is here to dissuade people from participating in the future and/or to take Ikfael’s Boon for the healers.

The tournament rules would bar past winners from entering again, but the healers surely had a deep bench of powerful soldiers to call on. And if not, then they could hire some. That was a future problem, though.

“Should we—” I started, but then cut myself off.

The others seemed to have the same thought, and they shook their heads along with me.

Uncle Kila was the one who spoke the idea aloud, “We'll lose the competitors’ trust if we arrange the fights against him. As it is, he’ll match against a powerful fighter eventually. We’ll just have to pray that it happens in the early rounds before too many people are hurt.”

These people—the healers—were so frustrating. It took a real effort to unclench my jaw and loosen my shoulders. “I don’t want him to win. I don’t want them to win.”

There were mutters of agreement, but we could only watch and hold ourselves ready in case of more trouble. We were constantly forced onto our back feet by the healers, reactive to their moves. The feeling was horrible, and not a good strategy either. If there was one thing I’d learned from Inleio, it was to control the timing and distance of every clash. To get sucked into an enemy’s pace and into their zone of control was to place their claws against my neck.

###

Ichkadeshtu’s team wandered through the crowd like they were in enemy territory. Our people tracked them, and we weren’t alone in doing so. All the factions participating in the tournament had people trailing them. That was one consolation—if the healers started something, we wouldn’t be alone in responding.

I sat on the pavilion’s platform to keep track of everyone’s movements. Behind me, Knight Otter pretended to watch the last of the first round’s duels. The real Ikfael was still in her figurine sitting beside me.

“We need to hit them,” I whispered, “in a way that matters, that gets them to react to us, but not so hard they feel like they must remove the threat. Just because the assassins turned out to be Kuros and friends, it doesn’t mean the healers couldn’t send some of their own.”

Everyone around me had certainly thought it was possible.

Knight Otter caused a small commotion when she got up to come sit beside me. She didn’t do anything other than nod her head, though. The expression on the water sculpture’s face was serious and thoughtful.

###

In the second round, Ichkadeshtu randomly drew:

Noospet the Breaker (Human)

Talents: Natural Grappler, Well Trained, Gets the Job Done

She was the land soldier who’d escorted me to Ithia’s fortress, and her talents promised to counter Ichkadeshtu, especially since he once again chose to forgo a weapon. A huge crowd had gathered around their ring, and I’d had to worm my way through to see.

The two soldiers faced each other—Noospet grim but determined, Ichkadeshtu game-faced—and it took a long time for them to bow. A voice to my left said, “Let Barakas witness the strength of our arms, the determination in our hearts. We will fight this day and every day, undaunted.”

The crowd held its breath, but Noospet began the fight by circulating her qi and stepping towards the middle of the ring. Then, she waved Ichkadeshtu closer. That won her a small smile from him, and he accepted her invitation.

Once he was in arm’s reach, though, they both moved—their bodies blurring as the qi inside them exploded into action. Back and forth they shifted, as each fought to grab hold of the other’s hands, elbows, shoulders, waist—shoving and punching all the while to disrupt their opponent’s flow.

Then, Noospet launched a flurry of low kicks, which Ichkadeshtu half-blocked and half-slid around. The sequence only lasted a handful of seconds, but it meant more than a dozen attacks and counters. Somehow, at the end, Noospet snaked an arm behind Ichkadeshtu’s shoulder; she grabbed tight, and the kicks turned into knees until she could break his balance. Then she tossed him over her hip.

Ichkadeshtu was thrown with a meaty thump. She’d aimed to slam him into the ground headfirst, but he’d tucked in time to let his back take fall. Before he could react further, she twisted his arm around, forcing him onto his belly, and then she struck his elbow.

For the first time, I sensed mana, and the elbow didn’t shatter. If anything, Ichkadeshtu accepted the strike and used it to flip himself onto his back again. His legs sprung up to capture Noospet’s torso, and the two of them were on the ground rolling—fighting for leverage and control. To me it looked like a disorganized mess, but I’d never trained to fight other people.

Ultimately, Noospet found a way to get her opponent flipped over again. She rode his back, got his elbows over her knees, and wove her hands forward to clasp his chin, hauling with all her might. Ichkadeshtu’s spine bent like a bow. No matter how hard she pulled, though, his bones refused to break. Noospet’s qi shifted; she switched from speed to strength, and then his spine cracked—the awful sound sending shivers through me.

The audience gasped, and I thought the fight was over, but Noospet continued to pull at Ichkadeshtu like she wanted to fold him in half. And he continued to struggle, which I didn’t understand at all. The way the fight was going, he should be in danger of being paralyzed, if not already, but instead he slipped his right arm free, using the escape to twist—no, your spine, I thought—and slam a palm against Noospet’s chest. Mana flashed, and suddenly she was gasping like she’d been sprinting. Like she couldn’t get enough oxygen.

Still, she fought to get Ichkadeshtu back under control, but he was fast and slipped free, using the opportunity to get back to standing. Noospet did the same, and they faced off once more, except whatever spell he’d cast, it was still affecting her.

If she wanted any hope of winning the bout, she had to finish it quickly. She cast her speed spell to dash in, but stopped halfway when, with a grunt, Ichkadeshtu straightened his spine. There was the sense of something—not qi or mana—and he could suddenly breathe easier. He smiled then, gave an acknowledging nod to Noospet, and stepped forward to resume the fight.

But she backed off, shaking her head. Speaking was a struggle, but she got out: “I concede.” Repeating the words in Signed Diaksh at the same time.

Ichkadeshtu had the gall to look disappointed. He gave a sort of helpless shrug, then bowed and walked out of the ring—no doubt to register his win. Noospet still couldn’t breathe, though, and the land soldiers who’d been watching the bout got in his way, demanding he release the spell.

Noospet’s lips were turning blue by that point, and it didn’t help when I ran up to cast Nature’s Spring. That was when Ichkadeshtu’s team showed up, and it seemed an altercation was inevitable.

With Bear’s Strength-powered lungs, I yelled, “Honored Ikfael!”

That caused everyone to pause, which in turn gave Knight Otter time to make her way over. Ikfael had been watching the bout and was ready for me to call for help, so she’d moved from being one with the stone of the figurine to being one with the water of the sculpture. That way she could be mobile while still hiding her real self.

In any case, the crowd parted for Knight Otter, and the look of disdain she cast toward Ichkadeshtu was Oscar-worthy—not that it wasn’t genuine, but to be able to sculpt it out of water was... well, it was magical and spoke eloquently of her talent and the intense practice that had gone into refining her skills in manipulating water.

By that point, Noospet was bent over, hands on her knees, and struggling to stay upright. Knight Otter came over to examine her, and I quickly reported, “A spell was cast on her that seems to restrict the lungs from the benefits of breathing.”

Dramatically, Knight Otter turned to Ichkadeshtu. “Release the spell or be expelled from the tournament. It is my honor you are staining, since this place is meant to be a test of skill and courage—a way to prove one’s worthiness for my boon. At the moment, you are proving yourself most unworthy.”

Ichkadeshtu hesitated, and I caught him glancing toward his team. They were all dawn, though, and gave away little to my spirit eyes. Still, they came to a wordless agreement, and he bowed, speaking for the first time, “It will be as you say.”

He walked over to Noospet, put a hand on her back, and with a surge of mana, she took a huge, relieved inhale—followed by a series of them, one after the other.

Ichkadeshtu bowed to Knight Otter and left. Meanwhile, Noospet got herself under control, and she gave Knight Otter a much deeper and more heartfelt bow.

“My thanks to you, Honored Ikfael.”

Knight Otter accepted the words with grace. She appeared to look around to see if there was anything else to be done, and—as if the idea suddenly came to her—she signed, “The Path of Perfection is fraught with danger. Risks abound at every turn, and it is easy to lose your way. Too often, the result is injury or death before you can find your way back to the path. So, in honor of this tournament and the purpose behind it, I will make my Healing Water spell available to all who ask, reducing the exchange requirements so that anyone intent on truly pursuing their Path to Perfection may have better opportunities to survive it.”

The crowd muttered, as the people in the back asked those in front what was said. Seeing her words repeated and spread, Knight Otter returned to her pavilion, walking slowly so that she could linger in people’s eyes a while longer.

Well, we’d cast our rock back at the healers—not that we expected anyone to take Ikfael up on the offer. There might be a few people with special circumstances, like Heicata from Voorsowen, but most people wouldn’t be willing to risk exile. Still, the gesture let them know we had a nuclear option available in making the spell more widely known. Ikfael could, after all, give it away effectively free—handing out spell orbs to every lodge. All it’d take is an exchange on my part to trigger it.

We weren’t quite there yet. And hopefully we wouldn’t ever be. I mean, I’d love to see Healing Water in every library, but... how was it said? In the game of nuclear war, the best way to win was not to play.

Still, we weren’t going to let the healers kick us around. If they wanted trouble, we’d give it to them. We just had to be smart about it.