Milo was small and feeble despite a lifetime of laboring, but his large, hazel eyes were lit with the confidence of a warrior. Tobias was familiar with that look; it was one of conviction, and no amount of badgering would change his mind.
“I’ll see you off.” Tobias scowled. “Because you’re my friend. Not because I support your careless decision.”
“Good!” Milo led the way down the stone path. “I thought things were about to get tense for a moment there.”
“You’ve abandoned all reason.”
“And you’ve lost your optimism and your sense of adventure.” Milo stared ahead as he rambled. “It died in you on that fateful day.”
Tobias went rigid, frozen by the chill of Milo’s words. Milo glanced up at him, and his face dropped. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to prod at old wounds.”
“You’re an ass.”
“I’m an ass. A stubborn one, remember?” Milo tugged Tobias’s arm. “Come.”
The two navigated their way through town, winding past peddlers and street venders. The Ceres fountain lay just ahead of The Savior’s fortress, and though it was miles away, it wasn’t long before the fortress wall peeked above the shops. Milo’s stare turned hungry, fixated on the stacked stones, and meanwhile Tobias counted his footsteps, trying to delay the inevitable.
He lurched to a stop. A wall made of bodies, each one undeniably male, stood before him, clogging the road. He elbowed the man in front of him—a fat beast with a braided beard—and cocked his chin at the crowd. “What is this?”
“The pool,” the man grunted.
Milo stood on his toes, straining to see ahead. “I thought the pool was at the Ceres fountain.”
“It is.” The man glowered. “This is the end of the line.”
“But the fortress is—”
“So very, very far away,” another man chimed in. “Every cunt in this line has said the same thing.”
Tobias craned his neck around the mob. It hardly qualified as a line, as clusters of men were appearing from all angles, but indeed they were headed in the same direction—straight toward the Ceres fountain, which couldn’t even be seen from where they stood.
Tobias turned to Milo, raising an eyebrow. “And you still want to enter?”
“Of course! Why would I reconsider?”
“We’ll be waiting here all day.”
“Then I have plenty of time to convince you to change your mind.”
Tobias laughed. “You waste your breath.”
“Enter with me. Fight for The Savior, and be known far and wide as a hero…”
Before Milo could finish, Tobias began plodding away.
“Tobias, wait!” Milo hurried after him. “Dammit, we’ll lose our spot in line!”
“Your spot.”
Milo darted in front of him. “How about a compromise? A game, really.” He took Tobias by the shoulders and steered him back to the line. “For every reason I give you to enter the tournament, you can give me one reason why I shouldn’t.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“And neither will I.”
“So what’s the point?”
“To pass the time.”
Tobias looked at the endless line and then down at his friend—his comrade since childhood, a fool who so desperately wanted to risk his life for a Woman he didn’t know. Idiot.
“Fine.” He folded his arms. “I’ll go first.”
“Hey, I’m going fir—”
“Reason number one why you’re a stupid shit: you’re going to die.” Tobias nodded at Milo. “Your turn.”
“Already you ruin the fun.” Milo frowned. “All right, first reason why you should enter: The Savior. As if it even needs to be said. You marry The Savior.”
“Correction, the Champion marries The Savior. Reason number two why you’re a stupid shit.” Tobias gestured toward the line. “These men all around us.”
“What about them?”
“They stand head and shoulders above you.”
Milo hesitated, eyeing the surrounding men. “I wouldn’t say they’re head and shoulders above me.”
“They’re bigger than you too. Twice as wide. And they’re not even that big.”
“What exactly is your point?”
“Just that you’re small, and you’re going to die.”
Milo’s scowl sank deeper. “Second reason why you should enter: the glory. The entire realm and all foreign powers cheering for you as you fight for the throne.”
“Or cheering against you.”
“Such a cynic, you are…”
“Reason number three why you’re a stupid shit: the challenges.” Tobias hunched lower, bringing himself to Milo’s level. “Have you any clue what they entail? Men sing for The Savior, they dance for The Savior, and they kill for The Savior—and you can’t do a single one of those things. Which brings me to my point—”
“I’m going to die.”
“At least you’re catching on,” Tobias scoffed.
Milo gritted his teeth. “Third reason why you should enter: your sister.”
Tobias went stiff. The way Milo said sister, the word as sharp as a blade, set him on edge.
“She suffers most nights and many days,” Milo said. “She hasn’t a life. She has no prospects for a job, no chance to marry, to have children of her own. You lament to me, telling me of her pain. How you wish there was something you could do, yet there’s nothing. Well now there’s something.”
Tobias glared at Milo, seething with a heat that threatened to boil the blood in his veins. Milo pointed his nose to the sky, and the look of it tore through Tobias, creating a hole where his pride once resided.
“I’m done with this game,” he muttered.
The two friends stood in sullen silence, though the chill between them eventually thawed; the line moved slowly, and it was simply too tedious of an experience to spend the whole time hating one another. Every so often they took a few steps forward, until the road beneath them turned from stone to sand. Just as the horde of men in front of them became smaller than that behind them, Tobias once again, perhaps for the hundredth time, peered around the crowd.
“Holy hell.”
“Are we there?” Milo asked, struggling to see. “Are we near the fountain?”
A short distance ahead was a large bronze fountain, its centerpiece a shining statue in the likeness of Ceres, the realm’s first Savior. But Tobias was far more interested in what lay beyond it; well over one hundred canvas tents were scattered far and wide, extending all the way to the fortress walls. Men trooped from tent to tent, some small like Milo, others large and bearish, all escorted by women in white dresses.
Tobias took in a deep breath. “Yes. We’re near the fountain.”