Duel of Fire (Steel and Fire Book 1) (11 page)

Dara headed for the trunk rooms at the far end of the hall. They were a bit dingy, and only a goat-hide screen separated the male and female competitors. Dara deposited her gear by her usual trunk and then began her warm-ups out on the main competition floor. Despite its age and austerity, this was Dara’s favorite venue. The tap of boots and slap of blades echoed in a way that reminded her of the very first duels she’d watched as a child. The arched ceiling amplified the cheers of the spectators, giving the athletes an extra burst of energy when they needed it. Dara always dueled particularly well in East Square.

She settled into her pre-competition routine as other duelists began arriving. More spectators filed into the stands, including a few patrons who had come to see how their investments performed. Dara tried to ignore them and regulate her breathing. Focus. That’s what she needed today.

The Eventide Open was the last major tourney before the Vertigon Cup. It came during the second half of the pro dueling season, which ran from spring to fall. Tournaments were typically held every two weeks during the season, usually on Turndays at the end of the week. Winter was a training time, when amateur tournaments and exhibition matches fulfilled the spectators’ insatiable appetite for the duels.

The Vertigon Cup was an international competition, and it came with a particularly big purse. It was also late enough in the season that patrons usually made their final decisions about who to sign immediately afterwards. Patrons would then put up their chosen duelists for the winter with the understanding that they’d be the official representatives of their sponsor for the following season.

Dara needed a good result here if she wanted to generate interest from the patrons in time for the Vertigon Cup. They probably hadn’t paid much attention to her when she was coming up in the youth division. She had won her fair share of tournaments, but many girls never made the jump to the adult league. Sponsors didn’t want to invest in athletes who weren’t planning to have long careers. Male matches tended to be more popular too, so it was harder for female athletes to prove they’d be a good investment. But today Dara would make sure they remembered her. They would have to take her seriously. She felt more nervous than usual, but she was confident. None of the twenty-four women who’d been on the roster last time she checked should be able to defeat her.

Other duelists soon joined Dara on the competition floor, each settling into their own pre-match rituals. Most jogged or did footwork back and forth across the stone floor, but a few had strange routines to help them get into a tournament mindset. One male duelist, Dell Dunn, was known for singing in a corner right up until the first match began. Another, Shon Quen, lay flat on his back, perfectly still, and stared at the arched ceiling until the moment before his first match. As soon as he started dueling, he’d shriek and shout after every single hit, an unnerving practice that had earned him the nickname Shon the Shrieker.

The chatter of the spectators pattered around the hall like rain. A handful of well-known retired duelists were in the stands, each with a small knot of fans surrounding them. A particularly broad old swordsman named Drimmez had a cackling laugh that carried over his crowd of admirers. Many of the fans had brought old dueling banners to get signatures from their idols. Some athletes would have helpers selling more of the banners outside the dueling hall. The spectators called out to their friends over the din and leaned on the barriers in hopes of getting a good look at their favorite athletes warming up. Dara did her best to ignore them all, willing the noise to fade into the background. The sponsors were all that mattered today.

“Hi Dara! I hear you’re going to win today.” Luci Belling fell in beside Dara as she did footwork up and down the hall. Dara had competed with Luci often in the youth category but hadn’t seen her much since joining the adult division. Luci still had six months before she’d age out, but there was always a youth competition at the Eventide Open.

“Thanks, Luci,” Dara said. She kept moving, but she glanced over at her friend as she advanced and retreated alongside her. Luci had cut her bronze hair short, as many duelists did. Dara had considered it a dozen times but could never bring herself to make the chop. “How’s training?”

“Coach Surri is the same as always.” Luci sighed, dropping into a lunge. “I never work hard enough for her.”

“Ever think about training with Berg?” Dara asked.

“Doban? I’m terrified of him.”

“He’s nicer than he looks.”

“Wish I could say the same for Surri,” Luci said. “She looks
and
acts mean.”

“We owe her for opening the sport up for women.” Dara looked over at a tall, muscular woman with a pair of long scars across one side of her face. Surri was deep in conversation with a tournament official. She had been one of the first female duelists to compete in the Vertigon Cup, and her name was still legendary.

“You’d think she’d be happier about women having our own division now,” Luci said, dropping into a lunge. “But I don’t think she actually likes training girls.”

“I’m sure Berg would love to have you at his school.” Dara searched for her coach among the athletes and coaches milling around the competition floor, but he was nowhere to be seen. That wasn’t like him. He often insisted on last-minute lessons before tournaments.

“I don’t think I could afford Berg’s fees anyway, unless I get a patron,” Luci said.

Dara looked down at her feet and corrected her form. Luci’s family wasn’t as well off as Dara’s. Luci’s father, a bridge carpenter, often took extra shifts so Luci could keep training with Surri. Luci was a decent duelist, but Dara wasn’t sure she’d ever be good enough to land a patron. Luci would end up working in a shop, or perhaps marrying a baker or a bridgeworker like her father. But at least her father came to watch her competitions. His booming voice was always recognizable at tournaments. Dara couldn’t even remember the last time her own parents had watched her duel.

The stands were almost full now. Children crowded down into the first row and leaned over the barrier, waving at their favorite duelists and calling for tokens or signatures. Energy surged through the hall. It would be time to start soon.

Dara spotted Kel shaking hands with a ring of adolescent girls—and some older women—who had gathered to giggle and stare at him. He handed out tokens from a cloth bag at his side. Tokens were made of wood or stone, and each bore the markings of a duelist. Kel’s, for example, were carved with a laughing mountain goat. Dueling enthusiasts collected the tokens from their favorite athletes. It was one of the many tools athletes used to increase their popularity and stay in the minds of their audiences when they weren’t on the strip.

Dara had a bag of tokens too, but she had left it in the trunk room. Handing them out took time away from warming up. Also, her tokens bore an image of a Fire Lantern. She didn’t like reminding people who her father was. They’d either wonder why she was trying to be a duelist instead of following in his footsteps or think she was using his influence to curry favor. She wanted people to know her for her skills and nothing else.

Luci veered off to put on her gear for the youth competition, which would begin before the adult divisions. Dara headed for one more lap around the competition floor. She was halfway around the hall when a commotion broke out near the eastern spectators’ entrance. Trumpets blared, and drums pounded. Spectators pointed and chattered excitedly. A whirl of color, green and gold, swirled through the doorway.

It was Vine Silltine.

Great.
Just what she needed. Dara didn’t know Vine had entered this competition. She had been too busy over the past few days to swing by the sign-up posting.

A crowd grew around Vine as she floated through the stands. People squealed and reached for her tokens. Dara ran an extra lap, pretending not to notice Vine’s grand entrance.
Why can’t she come through the back like the rest of us?

Vine reached the ground level and waltzed across the competition floor. Her lustrous black hair flowed loosely around her shoulders, and she wore a green dress made of a floating, shimmery silk. Veins of Firegold ran through the dress, gleaming in the light from the Firebulbs. She wore a dreamy, benevolent expression as she waved to the crowd. An entourage of companions followed, carrying her green velvet gear bag and blowing those ridiculous trumpets.

At the entrance to the trunk room on the far side of the hall, Vine whirled around, her dress and hair flying, and curtsied deeply to the crowd. Then she smiled beatifically and disappeared into the trunk room. The cheers continued even after she was gone.

“You look like someone broke your favorite blade.”

“What? Oh, hey Kel.” Dara had completed another circuit around the hall without realizing it. Her friend was waiting for her as she slowed to a walk. He had given away the last of his tokens, and there was a smudge of lip stain on his cheek.

“I see your archnemesis has arrived,” Kel said.

Dara frowned. “She wasn’t supposed to be here. I heard she was saving her energy for the Cup.”

“You’ve never lost to her,” Kel said. “I don’t get what you have against her.” He and Dara headed toward the entrance to the trunk room to retrieve their gear. He slung the empty token bag over his shoulder like a cape.

“She’s just annoying,” Dara said.

Vine Silltine was a relative newcomer to the duels. She was a minor nobleman’s daughter from Lower King’s Peak. House Silltine owned a scraggly peach orchard, a greathouse, and not much else. Dara wasn’t sure what had possessed Vine to start competing in the opens, but she was rising quickly through the ranks. Worse, the fans seemed to love her.

Kel put a hand over his heart. “You mean you don’t like talking about energy meditations, or whatever airy-fairy powers she claims help her focus? I always thought meditation would do you good.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Dara grinned. “I’m going to win today.”

“That’s right. Now, I must depart to the other side of the screen.” Kel gave a rather impressive imitation of Vine’s curtsy before heading to his side of the trunk room.

The long, narrow space lined with trunks served as temporary lockers during competitions. There was a washbasin and latrine crammed at the end. A wrinkled serving woman supplied towels, drinking water, and dried fruits to the athletes. It was crowded in these final moments before the competition, the air crackling with nerves and adrenaline. They could hear the boasting and banter from the men’s side of the trunk room. Someone crashed against the screen, causing it to teeter. Roars of laughter followed.

On the women’s side, the other competitors gathered around Vine Silltine. She had removed her floating green gown and put on a tight pair of breeches embroidered with gold and green vines. She hadn’t put on her blouse yet, showing off her impressive figure in a tight undergarment. The other women passed around Vine’s glittering tokens and fawned over her.

Dara avoided them all and went straight to her trunk to put on her chest plate and white competition jacket. None of the other duelists even looked over at her. She was friendly with many of them from her youth competition days, though none had been as close as Luci. But they ignored her now. All of them except one.

“Is that Dara? Dara Ruminor?”

Mother of a cur-dragon.
“Hello Vine.”

Vine swept her arms wide, clearing a path through the other women, and danced over to Dara’s trunk.

“When I heard you were entered in the Eventide, Dara, I just
had
to sign up,” Vine said. She had a trilling voice and always seemed on the verge of singing.

“It’s an open competition.”

“I wanted to feel your aura before the Vertigon Cup. I’ve had a bout with each of the primary contenders in the past month, but you’re the last one. I’m working on a new sensory technique that helps center my energy.”

“Is that right?” Dara gave her a tight smile, working to disentangle the straps of her chest plate from her spare glove as quickly as possible.

“It involves the higher orders of Air Sense, and I think it’s improving my accuracy immensely.” Vine smiled serenely.

“Hmm.”

“Do you mind if I sense your energy, Dara?”

“What?”

“May I place my hands on your temples and sense the—”

“No!” Dara ducked as Vine stretched out her jeweled hands and tried to place them on either side of her face. “Look, Vine, I’m glad you’ve got a new air strategy or whatever, but I need to focus on the competition.”

“But this is all about focus, Dara. My energy coach says—”

“I’m sure that’s great,” Dara said quickly. “I’ll see you out there, okay?”

Dara slung the rest of her gear over her arm and dashed out of the trunk room. As she left, Vine was saying, “Hmm, I’m sensing a very stubborn aura, with . . .”

Dara stopped outside the trunk room to finish putting on her jacket. She wasn’t sure why Vine annoyed her so much. Maybe it was because she hadn’t been competing for long, and she was already doing
very
well. Dara felt wrong-footed. Focus. She needed focus. She had to win today. Nothing would get Vine Silltine out of her head like beating her in a match to ten.

The stands were packed now. The youth event was underway, and cheers and screams filled the cavernous hall. There were a total of twelve dueling strips laid out for the competition, leaving enough space to run some of the divisions simultaneously. Blades rang, metal on metal, and coaches shouted instructions to their athletes. The smell of sweat and charcoal hung over everything.

Dara checked the list of matches posted on the wall and made her way over to the strip where she’d have her first bout. Two teenage boys were dueling there now, with much flailing and bluster. She scanned the crowd, especially the front row, assessing which patrons would have a good view of her bout.

Some key patrons were there in the audience, mostly noblemen and business owners. Dara knew them all by sight. There were also a few retired dueling champions who had used their winnings to establish themselves in Lower King’s. Patrons sponsored athletes both as a matter of a pride and as a way of growing their own businesses. Of course, Dara’s parents would never employ such a practice, but other business owners were more practical. Sponsored athletes would use their products in public places or appear at special events in their parlors, shops, and greathouses. Sponsors often arranged exhibition matches between popular duelists and took home a portion of the ticket sales from these private events.