Anskar responded with deft stabs that drove Blosius back against the rope, then he abandoned finesse for power, hacking apart Blosius’s defense as if possessed by a demon.
Blosius pivoted out of danger, but his mouth hung open and he gasped for every breath. But when Blosius let his sword hang limp as if he were too exhausted to lift it, Anskar didn’t fall for the trick. Instead, he forced Blosius back across the square with relentless pressure.
As his back hit the rope on the other side of the square, Blosius tried to regain the initiative with three quick thrusts, but there was no sting in his attacks.
Anskar’s confidence soared, and he felt as fresh as he’d been at the start of the bout. He kept just out of range, then lunged in and stabbed Blosius in the sternum. Blosius grunted and pitched backward into the rope as his sword clattered to the floor.
Anskar stepped back. “Pick it up,” he said.
Blosius shook his head, then bent over, exhausted, hands on thighs. “I’m done,” he said. “Really, I’m done.”
A look of disgust on his face, Vihtor announced Anskar the winner and shook his head at Blosius before leaving the square to call for the next fight.
Blosius straightened up and offered his hand to Anskar. “The best man won.”
“You fought well, Blosius.”
“Not really. I hung on in there as long as I could, but that’s all I was doing: barely surviving.”
“Not true,” Anskar said. “You had me in trouble. With more stamina, more belief in your abilities … Learn from this, Blosius. Don’t give up.”
“I won’t,” Blosius said, but there was no conviction in his voice.
Clenna stepped into the square, ready to fight, glaring at them for lingering too long.
“Perhaps I’ll take up running,” Blosius said unconvincingly. “Who knows, with another year to train …”
“You’d still lose,” Clenna said. “Rich bastards like you can’t fight. You’ve never had to.”
Blosius looked relieved as he headed out through the blackwood doors, and Anskar wondered if he had it in him to enter the trial a second time.
As Anskar turned back to the bench, he almost bumped into Vihtor, who was waiting to adjudicate Clenna’s bout. The Seneschal nodded, his mouth curling into a half smile, and Anskar beamed with pride.
Clenna was up against a frightened-looking youth who was clearly older than her, and possibly on his last attempt. The lad had no meat on his bones and was right to look scared. Clenna smirked at him, virtually licking her lips at the prospect of beating him senseless.
It didn’t take her long to destroy the skinny youth, and she continued to spit and curse at his unconscious form even as the Seneschal dragged her from the fight square.
“Enough, girl!” Vihtor shouted. “By Menselas, you demean yourself. Start acting like a knight, if that’s what you want to be. Another show of behavior like that, and it’ll be the lash for you.”
Clenna’s eyes narrowed and her hands clenched into fists, but she gave Vihtor a curt nod before moving back to her seat. She sat sullenly, breathing heavily, and stared at the ground. They’d all felt the sting of the lash for infractions, even Anskar.
A short recess followed so the combatants could visit the latrines and drink from the jugs of water Niyandrian servants brought around.
Head bowed, hair obscuring her face, Jonita poured Anskar a drink. He knew it was her from the welts on her wrists. He longed to say something to his old friend but had no idea what and started to move away.
“You fought well, Anskar,” Jonita murmured.
“You saw?”
She lifted her head, and through her unruly hair, Anskar could see that she had a black eye to go with her swollen jaw. “I always knew you’d amount to something.”
“Who did this to you?” Anskar asked.
“It’s nothing.”
“Tell me who it was and I’ll—”
“You were always kind to me,” Jonita said, meeting his gaze. She looked older than she was, wise beyond her years. “But that was another world, a world you’ve left behind.”
“Jonita …”
“Don’t lose your focus,” she said. “You still have two bouts remaining. Pass the trials. The other kitchen hands and I, we’re all cheering for you.”
You are? Anskar wanted to say. He swallowed a lump in his throat. “I …” But once more he was speechless.
Jonita smiled and touched his cheek. “Go on. If not for yourself, do it for us.”
“I will,” he said. “Thank you, I will.”
As he turned away, an older novice caught his eye—a lad by the name of Unther he’d sparred with once or twice.
“By the Five, did you see Clenna fight?” Unther said as he handed a water jug back to a Niyandrian servant. “That is one wild bitch! Thank Menselas she’s not in my group.”
“No,” Anskar said, “she’s in mine.”
“Yes, well, good luck there,” Unther said. He nudged Anskar with his elbow. “Say, do you think she’s as ferocious in other activities?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know!”
“Sorcery?”
Unther rolled his eyes and looked about to give up, and then Anskar understood what he was getting at.
“You know the rules, Unther.”
“I do, but does she? That’s what you have to ask yourself. Imagine, though!” He gulped down his water. “Actually, don’t. There’s a sin in there somewhere, though you’d know better than me.”
“I doubt that,” Anskar said with a shake of his head. “But you’re right about Clenna’s wildness. There’s something … broken about her.”
“And you’re the one to fix it, eh? Do you think she needs taming?”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Anskar said. “But all that rage … on a battlefield … Either she’ll learn to temper it, or she’ll die long before her time.”
Unther grunted his agreement. “We’ll probably all die before our time. It’s not like we’re training to work in the kitchens.”
“Don’t knock what you’ve not tried,” Anskar said. “The kitchens aren’t so bad.”
When the time came for his second bout, it was Rhett waiting across the square from him. As Anskar took his place, he heard Clenna mutter, “Hope you die, half-blood.”
She was goading him, Anskar knew, in the hope that he would make a mistake that her twin could capitalize on.
Anskar immediately took control of the center of the square, willing himself to relax and allow his movements to flow.
Rhett tried the same tactic he’d used on Shenk in the first round: he feinted a thrust, trying to lure Anskar into an attack so he could counter. Anskar circled to the right, always an inch or two out of range. Whenever Rhett edged forward, Anskar retreated the same distance, then pivoted and worked his way back to the center. It was a game of patience, both wanting the other to strike first.
But when Clenna called out from the bench, “Get on with it!” it was her brother who attacked. Rhett feinted low, then launched a cut at Anskar’s head.