Chapter 1.113

Chapter 1.113

The Young Griffon

Violence told a story.

The Young Aristocrat of the Raging Heaven Cult stepped into my octagon of swords and immediately moved to end the fight. He didn’t bother shedding his twice-bronzed silks - naturally, he didn’t need a naked fighter’s mobility to beat me. He didn’t wait for my word or the word of a third party to start the match - of course, I’d forfeited all courtesies when I treated him as my lesser. And most importantly, he didn’t present his wrists to be clapped in iron chains, as was the standard for Heroes playing in the pit - it went without saying that I wouldn’t be able to push him to the point that he’d draw upon his pneuma, even out of reflex.

The Hero struck first and with finality, making a statement through action alone that everyone in the pit could understand. It was a gesture I was more than happy to match, especially with regards to the chains.

Not for all the treasures of Heaven and Earth, not for a single frozen moment, would I ever be a willing slave again.

Alazon was from the brazen Coast, a city lauded in times of war for the valor of its fighting sons. He was a legendary Hero on top of that, grander than any mortal man could be. But that did not mean he was grand in all things. It should have. It should have meant that he was larger than life, glorious in every sense of the word, in every aspect of himself.

But here we were.

My fellow Young Aristocrat lunged straight for me with his right hand outstretched, faster than mortal eyes could track, and grasped nothing but the open air.

“Wrong!” I admonished him sharply, finishing my pivot right and laying a vicious kick into the side of his leading knee. The Hero’s breath hitched, caught just before he could call upon his pneuma, and his leg went out from under him without that bracing strength.

In an instant, the dull curiosity of the athletes in the pit was sharpened to a cutting edge. Alazon turned his fall forward into a graceful roll and came back to his feet as if we’d choreographed the exchange together, but his alacrity alone was not enough to change the truth of it. He’d tried to end this before it was begun and save himself the shameful hassle, but he’d failed.The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

Now his peers were moving from their spots. Gathering around in naked interest to see the spectacle unfold. To see the story told.

The upstart cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, while the Olympic athlete across from him slapped sand out of his silk robes.

“You’re not fast enough for that,” I informed him, and moved a bare moment before he did. Ducking low and to the right, I avoided the blur of a leaping roundhouse kick that would have shattered my skull and seized him by the back of his bronzed attire. I planted my feet and pulled him out of his trajectory. “You’re not fast enough to be fast alone!”

He thrashed free just before I could bury him, spinning sideways in the air and landing in a crouch just within the octagon’s northernmost boundary. His eyes were wide, his heart incredulous.

There came an appreciative whistle. Alazon twitched and glanced back at a lithe and ruggedly built man with umber flames in his eyes, leaning with both hands on the pommel of one of my boundary blades and watching us with naked interest. Our first Heroic spectator, though assuredly not our last.

Only then did Alazon accept my challenge in full. His eyes hardened, and in their cold light I saw more than just the promise of a broken ego. I saw my death, and the death of the humble orator as well.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t a story I had any interest in being told.

The Hero took two bounding steps across the octagon and into my reach, lashing out with a straight right jab and feinting a left hook when I leaned away from it. I stepped into it, caught it on my forearm and struck him once in his kidney. It was like striking a brick with my bare fist. He exhaled sharply, forced himself not to bring to bear his pneuma when he sucked a new breath in, and in that moment of conscious restraint I struck him twice again in the liver and then the gut.

Alazon lurched back to make space and I planted a foot on the trailing hem of his cult attire. It didn’t make him stumble, but the sound of ripping silk and the sight of his attire unraveling halfway from his frame may have been worse. A Heroine off to our right guffawed, and another three competitors traded amused grins as they crowded in around the octagon.

“The Fleet Foot, Alazon.”

I addressed him by his title carved in stone. I knew it not because I’d asked around, but because I’d memorized every name worth knowing on the cult’s stairway to heaven. I’d found him there on the twenty-second step.

“Young Aristocrat of the Brazen Aegis - or at least, Young Aristocrat of her humble colony faction here in Olympia. I’m curious. Who taught you how to fight?”

“Fuck you,” he snarled, slamming clenched fists into my sides and clawing at my skin when that didn’t put me off him. “Fuck you, scavenger!”

“Who condemned you to the Fates? Who brought you here and made you less?”

He twisted and flopped around in the sand like a fish, for all the good it did him.

Body and soul. Heaven and earth. In a righteous world, those scales would be balanced. In a just world, Alazon would be my better in all things - in all three portions of his tripartite soul, and in every martial prowess. But he wasn’t. He was wildly far beyond me in the fields in which he specialized, but that is all he was.

The golden age heroes I’d grown up on stories of were larger than life, grand in all ways. Even the least martially inclined were terrors in a fight. Even the Augur, gentle Orpheus, had been a towering presence the night I met him in his tomb. He was a man of the lyre, a man of poetry and heartfelt song, and there hadn’t been a single doubt in my mind when we spoke that he could tear any man apart with his bare hands if he so chose.

Orpheus was a gentle man, yes, but capable of unspeakable violence.

That’s what a hero was meant to be.

Twisting and rolling in the center of the pit amidst a crowd of rowdy men and women further along the path to heaven than the average soul could ever dream of being, I found myself locking eyes with the solitary Philosopher among their number. I remembered the story he’d given me as a gift, more valuable than any precious weapons or relics.

I remembered how it had ended. In glory.

In gold.

“This is Justice,” spoke Calliope the Muse. The Goddess with the Heavenly Voice cradled Damon Aetos’ jaw in her ethereal hand and laid her golden crown upon his head. “Remember his face.”

“Glory begets a crown,” I told the Hero Alazon. “Not the reverse. It isn’t the laurel leaf that makes you a champion. It’s everything else!”

“You don’t know anything,” he forced out through grit teeth. The fires behind his eyes flickered ominously. “Junior Philosopher sitting smug inside your well, lecturing your betters when they appear above your head. When they step into your little ring to humor you! I’ve overcome trials you couldn’t imagine. I’ve done it twice. I’m a Hero. What are you, to me?”

What other answer could there be?

“I’m free.”

The Young Aristocrat snapped. I released my choke and flung myself away as malice exploded from his soul. The flames behind his eyes surged, his Heroic pneuma rose, and he turned on me with murder pounding in his heart.

He took one step toward me and was struck down by a flash of tanned skin and a golden loincloth. Another Hero’s vibrant pneuma rose as Alazon struggled against one of the men that had been spectating our fight, and any question as to the outcome was quickly put to rest as the struggle was joined by two more against the Young Aristocrat. I supposed that even these sorry souls had a sense of sportsmanship at the end of the day. I snorted and withdrew my tribulation blades back into my shadow, while the rest of the crowd wandered off and returned to their training.

“Apologies, senior brother,” I said, turning back to Chilon. “Where were we-?”

I blinked.

Had I missed them in the crowd, or had they only arrived as the fight was ending?

Standing outside the now invisible boundary of my octagon, Elissa, Kyno, and Lefteris regarded me as if for the first time. I stood up straight and offered them each a smile, setting aside the pain of my broken ribs and battered flesh.

“Hello, friends,” I greeted the three of them happily. “What brings you in to my domain?”