Throne Hunters Book 1, Chapter 46

Harald, Vic, Nessa, and Sam arrived at the Dueling Circles well before Eighth Bell. The morning was dark and damp, dawn having broken imperceptibly behind dour clouds. A constant drizzle misted down from the sky, soaking into everything. Colors were darkened, sounds muffled. The air had a mineral tang laced with smoke.

The Dueling Circles was a great circular building without a roof. Four stories tall, it took up an entire city block where the Angelic Quarter met the Merchant’s Quarter. Gray stone blocks, alcoves in which pigeon-shitted statues of former heroes and warriors stood. The area before each entrance was usually choked with vendors and costermongers, but as Harald led the way up he saw that the building was practically deserted.

“Well,” said Vic, tone consoling. “It’s early. And word hasn’t really gotten out yet as to just how amazing you are. And it’s raining.”

“I don’t want a crowd,” said Harald. “This won’t take long, anyway.”

“Good man!” Vic shook his shoulder and turned to beam at Nessa. “Scary.”

A couple of guards with dismal expressions stood by the closest entrance, a grand archway easily three yards in height. Broad enough for ten men to march through, it dwarfed both guards, who hunched under their oilskins and watched Harald’s band approach with an impressive lack of enthusiasm.

“We’re not being paid enough to give you the proper greeting,” said one as they drew close. “Just go on in and do what the Adjudicator tells you, yeah?”

“Right on,” said Harald. “Hope your shift ends soon.”

“Not soon enough,” sniffed the other guard, his stare never leaving the middle distance.

They passed through the grand archway, and entered the grounds contained within the walls. To call the Dueling Circles a building wasn’t quite right. It had more in common with a walled park than anything else, despite the few smaller stone buildings set against the inside wall. The grounds were of crushed gravel and contained six great circles demarcated by thick braided ropes that were pitoned in place.

All were empty.

A cluster of people stood by the closest one, and though Harald was early, the crowd glared at him as if he’d kept them waiting for an entire bell.

“Dueling’s not the pastime it used to be,” said Vic. “Once, this place was humming with activity at all bells, filled with shouts and screams and the splashing of blood? Now? Depressing.”

Harald led the way to the waiting crowd. The gravel crunched under his boots. Now that he was here, now that the duel was finally happening, a sense of peace suffused him, the tension and nerves that had riddled his morning with barely restrained energy finally dissipating.

“Adjudicator,” said Harald, nodding to the judge as he stopped before him.

The man had the air of a gravedigger, his lantern-jaw clean shaved but iron gray, his eyes magnified behind his glasses. Dressed in official white robes, he was tall, bony, dour, and clearly displeased to be out in the rain at this early hour. An assistant held a massive umbrella over his head. “Sir Darrowdelve, you’ve come. Very good, very good.”

Beside him stood Yeoric and his crew. The large warrior seemed mountainous under the huge oilskin cloak that was pulled protectively around his half-plate armor. He stared morosely at Harald, then scowled up at the skies. “I must admit I’m surprised, Harald. Pleasantly so. I’d half-started to believe you’d be late on purpose just so as to make us stand in the rain. I’m glad you proved me wrong.”

The man’s voice was resonant, his bearing noble.

All a farce.

Lucine was all but pouting under her peaked hood, while Derrick looked to be nursing one of his customary hangovers, his face pallid and pasty. Only Gazurn the dwarf seemed indifferent to the moment and the weather, one hand resting on the head of his war hammer, the other arm hidden under his forest-green cloak.

“Shall we get to it, then?” Harald kept his gaze on the Adjudicator. “I’m ready when you are.”

“So eager,” said Yeoric, voice tightening with annoyance. “Reminds me of how quickly you offered to fund our outfit. No questions asked, almost. Look where your eagerness has gotten you.”

Harald continued to ignore the man, gaze resting on the judge, who sighed and nodded and gestured toward the Circle. “We’ll begin as soon as we sign the proper forms. I’ve as little interest in dragging this out as anyone else.”

“Very good,” said Harald.

The Adjudicator drew out a sheaf of papers from a leather satchel. “If you’ll just sign a few pages? Master Yeoric has already done so.”

“If I may?” Vic slid in before Harald could take the papers, stepping under the broad umbrella. “I’ll just cast a quick look over the terms, shall I?”

“You’re a barrister?” asked the judge with a frown.

“Oh, you insult me,” murmured Vic, scanning the first page then flipping it. “Nothing so formal. A connoisseur of people and their worst natures, their highest yearnings, their propensity for thinking themselves smarter than they really are. Like Yeoric here. Right, darling?” And he gave the huge warrior a wink.

Yeoric shook his head with a long-suffering expression and doffed his oilskin cloak, handing it to Derrick and stepping into the Circle where he began to swing his arms in large circles.

“All good,” said Vic, finishing the last page. “Customary and professional. Delightful. Sign away, Harald.”

Who took a brass pen, dipped it in the assistant’s ink pot, then signed his initials on each page and his signature on the last page.

“Now, to be clear, Sir Darrowdelve, the blood price has been waived,” said the Adjudicator as the papers were placed back in the satchel. “You are quite aware of that fact?”

“Yes,” said Harald. “I am. Vic, my clause was entered?”

“It was,” agreed Vic.

“Then you may enter the Circle,” said the Adjudicator. “I will commence the duel precisely when the Eighth Bell finishes ringing.”

Harald handed his cloak to Sam. The wet drizzle immediately began to soak against the back of his neck.

“Get him,” whispered Sam, squeezing Harald’s upper arm strongly. “Show him who you really are.”

“Stick him with the pointy end,” added Vic. “And don’t let him do the same to you.”

Harald snorted despite himself, then turned to Nessa who’d hung back. “Here I go.”

“Here you go,” she said with an enigmatic smile. “You’ve done everything humanly possible to prepare for this moment. And more. Remember what we discussed.”

“Yes.” He took a deep breath, and when she nodded encouragingly, Harald stepped into the Circle and moved to stand across from Yeoric.

Nobody spoke.

The crowd was sparse. Vic, Nessa, and Sam stood to one side.

Yeoric watched him with a smug smile as he warmed up. The rain drizzled down between them, causing the gravel to take on a metallic sheen. Any moment now, the Eighth Bell would begin.

Harald didn’t feel the need to stretch, but he went through the motions regardless. Twisted from side to side, hugged one knee to his chest, then the other. He wore his old leather armor, battered and mauled as it was. Sam had suggested chain, perhaps even a breastplate, but Harald had demurred. He needed to be quick on his feet. To be light. But more than that, he’d only ever trained with his leather armor. It was too late to throw in something heavier into the equation.

Yeoric’s smile was smug, his gaze flat and heavy. No doubt flickered in the depths of those dark eyes. Despite Harald’s growth, despite how he’d changed, Yeoric, it seemed, still saw him as the sweating, apologizing, overeager youth he’d been only a month ago.

Hard to blame him, really.

But that was perfect.

That was just what Harald wanted.

“We can call this off, if you like,” said Yeoric abruptly. “There’s no need to go through with this farce. Just concede the loss, agree to pay the remaining Aurora, and we can walk away from this nonsense. There might be some honor in taking a beating for your pride, but no intelligence.”

Harald didn’t answer. Vic had tried to convince him to mislead Yeoric further by acting like his old self, pretending to be nervous, saying stupid things.

But no.

“I should thank you, actually,” Harald said, a thought occurring to him. “Without you, without your backstabbing me and robbing me in broad daylight, none of this would have come to pass.”

Yeoric paused, confused. “Thank me? That’s mighty broad-sighted of you. If you’d gone into the dungeon, you would have surely died.”

Harald thought of the dire rats, Vorakhar leaning down to grin into Harald’s dying eyes. “You don’t know how right you are.”

“Then shall we stop pretending? This rain’s going to rust my armor no matter how quickly I put you down.”

“Let’s give it a whirl,” said Harald, rolling his head about on his neck so that it popped. “You never know what might happen.”

Yeoric sighed and shook his head. “You dumb idiot. Fine. It’s your funeral.”

The Eighth Bell tolled its first peal.

Harald ceased stretching and drew his blade, heart thundering in his chest.

Yeoric stared at the live steel and grinned. Made no move to draw his own.

Harald resisted a grimace. Now the other man was going to make a big show of drawing his blade nonchalantly at the last second.

And his anger began to rouse. The man feigned nobility of character, of being a grave and solemn warrior with a moral code, but he was nothing but a mugger. An opportunist and a bully.

Harald felt himself still as his anger rose higher and higher within him like the flames of a bonfire. And though he still felt nervous, worried, possibly even scared, for the first time, he felt something entirely new: excitement.

The moment was finally here.

All his training.

All the pain. The sacrifices. The lessons. The raiding.

Every moment of sweat and labor, of burning muscles and bone-deep exhaustion.

All the hours, the weeks that he’d pushed himself to his limit.

All of it in service to this one moment.

The seventh toll sounded across the city, a medley of bells singing from every Seraphite church.

“Ready!” called out the Adjudicator.

The eighth toll pealed out, and Yeoric finally deigned to draw his broadsword, bending his knee and sinking into a Tower Stance.

Harald held his blade back in the Tail, and he felt so light, so feverish, so ready to explode.

“Begin!” cried the Adjudicator as the final peal faded away.

Yeoric advanced, expression grim, formidable and massive in the morning gloom. Harald gave ground, moving out wide. The man didn’t have an aura, but his Thunderstrike was the next best thing, an area of effect attack that would catch Harald no matter what he did.

Unless, of course, Yeoric had taken the last few months seriously and leveled up.

Harald felt both his Thrones thrumming deep in his Cosmos, begging to be tapped. Deep reserves of power that he held at bay despite all temptation.

Not yet.

Yeoric turned to keep Harald before him, then darted forward to pin Harald against the perimeter. He moved with surprising grace and speed. Harald could have feasibly thrown himself into a dive to avoid being pinned, but no.

Instead, he moved forward to meet Yeoric head on, and swung his blade up from the Tail into a great gleaming arc that would have split Yeoric open from crotch to chin.

If it had landed.

Yeoric stepped aside, deflected the upswing neatly, then riposted with savage strength at Harald’s face.

A feint.

But by the angels, it was hard to not simply jerk aside.

They clashed, blades dancing. Harald fought to not fall into the Dungeon Square, and strained instead to simply move with the larger man, to read his intent from the angle of his shoulders, his gaze, his wrist.

Four, five times their blades sang out, and then Yeoric stepped in to swing a heavy fist over their bind, moving with such surety of purpose that he almost caught Harald flat-footed.

Harald turned and raised his shoulder, disengaging and stumbling aside as the gauntlet skimmed off his shoulder.

By the angels, he was strong.

Harald tried to recover his balance, but Yeoric gave him no quarter. The massive man pursued him, hammering overhead blow after overhead blow down upon Harald as if he were a nail.

Harald parried, continued to stumble, parried again, then dropped to one knee.

Yeoric gripped his blade with both hands, his fists bunched up right under the hilt for maximum strength, and hammered down a third blow with all his strength.

Bewildered, still off-balance, Harald threw himself aside. He rolled over one shoulder, the gravel crunching, came up on his feet and spun to meet Yeoric when the world detonated into a calamitous BOOM.

The impact nearly lifted Harald off his feet. He felt the attack in the cavity of his chest, deep within his mind, as if he’d run full tilt into a brick wall. The sheer violence of the explosion deafened him as he fell back and crashed onto the gravel, and there sat, momentarily stunned.

Yeoric straightened, a look of eminent satisfaction on his handsome face. He considered Harald, then shook his head with feigned pity.

Harald’s ears were ringing. People were shouting from the Circle’s perimeter. The fight had only begun seconds ago. How was he already knocked on his ass?

Yeoric approached slowly, completely at ease, the master of the Circle. He said something, but Harald couldn’t make it out over his ringing ears.

The rain was starting to come down harder. Harald pushed himself upright, blinking water out of his eyes, and backed away as Yeoric advanced. Thunderstrike was brutal… but already the ringing was dying down. And though Harald felt shook up, it wasn’t from actual damage.

One Throne.

Yeoric was still sitting at one Throne.

Savage satisfaction flooded Harald’s mind, and he felt some of his nerves sluice away. Instead of waiting again for Yeoric’s next assault, he ran at the man, a sudden rush that surprised the larger warrior, and swept his blade in again.

This time, he did use the Dungeon Square, and used it for all he was worth. Upper left, lower right, lower left, upper right.

At first, Yeoric simply parried, taken aback by Harald’s ferocity, but then understanding dawned in his eyes.

He recognized what Harald was doing.

Confidence entered his bearing, and he parried the next strike so aggressively it was almost a strike. Harald’s blade shivered, the force of the blow racing up Harald’s already numbed arm. Harald stuck with the Square, and again Yeoric smashed his blow aside. A third time, and now the large warrior was grinning with sadistic delight.

It had to feel like sparring with a child.

Harald kept pressing the other man, but it was like attacking a column of stone. Yeoric went to smash the next blow, swinging his blade like a club, but that blow never appeared.

Instead, Harald twisted his sword around, abandoning the Square for a swirling thrust Nessa had shown him the night before, and stabbed the other man square in the armored chest.

And just before the tip of his blade slammed home, he activated Abyssal Attunement.

Both Thrones came roaring to life.

The Throne of Harmony sent a flood of power into Harald, fueling the awakening of the abyss, but this time the Throne of Shadow joined in, doubling the size of the stream. Harald felt the nothingness between everything blossom along the edge of his blade, that endless depth, that yawning hunger, and his sword flashed an absolute black just as it hit home.

A pulse of energy flew from Yeoric to Harald, who felt revitalized. Yeoric staggered back before the force of the attack, face blank with shock, his chest plate dented.

“An Active?” He ran a hand over his chest, then stared at Harald in disbelief. “You? You got a Class?”

“You forget that I’m Darius Darrowdelve’s son?” Harald drew himself up, black sword held out to one side. “You forget what my father did? Who he slew? You think all that power just disappeared?”

“No Artifacts allowed!” bellowed Yeoric, glancing back at the Adjudicator. “He’s cheating!”

“He’s not using an Artifact,” called back the judge. “Carry on.”

“If I had use of my Artifacts, you’d be dead ten times over by now,” whispered Harald, knowing his voice carried through the rain. “But I don’t need them. You’ve no idea what I’ve become, Yeoric. No idea what I can do. But now you’ll find out.”

Yeoric went to answer, expression sour, but froze as Harald activated the Aura of the Aching Depths.

The air around them darkened, the hiss of the rain growing quiet, the chill deepening. The power of the abyss manifested itself, thrummed in the air, and sank into Yeoric.

Whose Abilities were all martial in nature.

And whose Ego was a mere 8.

The dark power washed over him, and Harald could only imagine what he saw, what he felt as Harald began to approach him, black blade rising into the Ox Stance, hilt by his brow, tip pointed at Yeoric’s face.

“You’re a coward,” Harald said in a voice of cold iron, “who hides his fear behind his bullying. You’re a coward who only picks fights with those weaker than yourself. It’s why you’ve never led your crew deeper than the 4th Level. It’s why you’re still only Level 2, why you’ve never made enough scales to reach your second Throne. You’re a pathetic bully, a joke, a painful farce. But your time has come.”

Yeoric’s face blanched as he gave ground. The power of the Aching Depths continued to swirl around him, leaching him of strength and draining his Ego further.

“No,” said Yeoric, finally ceasing his retreat. “You’re the farce. You’re the pathetic joke!”

“Nice,” whispered Harald. “What a comeback.”

And he attacked.

This time, he eschewed the Dungeon Square. Shoulders squared, chest puffed out, elbows tucked in, he surged forward and hewed, letting his blade dictate the battle. It was like an antenna of darkness, slicing through the Depths, its ebon length gleaming wickedly as it slashed through rain to clang across Yeoric’s desperate parry.

But the man had dug in. Set in Stone, his Active that turned him into an immovable bastion of resilience. From that place of fortitude, he fought desperately, blocking and parrying each of Harald’s slashes and stabs.

Damn it.

So much for Nessa’s plan to intimidate him so badly he stumbled out of the Circle and disqualified himself.

Harald was going to have to do this the hard way.

So he drank deep of both Thrones, channeled as much power as he could into his blade, set about carving Yeoric down to size.

And oh, the glory, the power. His Abyssal Attunement was unstoppable, crashing again and again against Yeoric’s own, cutting nicks into his enemy’s edge. And then with a cry, Harald twisted a bind, thrust Yeoric’s sword aside, and stabbed him in the thigh.

The larger warrior grunted in pain, but refused to cede. A flash of darkness flew to Harald, and then a second when he cracked his sword against the man’s pauldron.

Terror showed in Yeoric’s face.

Wide-eyed, he fought back desperately.

Harald sought to dominate him. Increased his tempo, gripped his sword with both hands. He slashed and hewed at the large man, and the Aching Depths did the rest.

Panicked, weak of mind, Yeoric was unable to weather the storm. His Shrug It Off and Revitalization Passives were designed for exactly this kind of scenario, and if Yeoric had been a stronger man, he might have weathered the storm.

But pale-faced, lips writhing, he stared at Harald in shock and horror as his parrying became sloppy, his mind seized by the awful, the awesome, the eternal power welling up from the depths of the abyss.

Fury had Harald by the heart. He blasted the other man’s blade aside again and again, rained blows upon his chest plate, his shoulders, his thighs and hips, and each sent a new flood of dark energy into him.

He felt terribly alive, he felt himself a god, he felt unstoppable, invincible, immortal.

Yeoric swayed and gasped, fought again and again to recover his balance, his center, but there was no surcease.

And then his Throne ran out of power, and the battle was over.

With a great cry, Harald raised his foot and kicked the other man square in the chest. He drove him back with all the strength of his hips, with all the strength he’d stolen from Yeoric himself, and with Set in Stone gone, Yeoric couldn’t resist.

The large man stumbled back, his heels hit the huge rope edge of the Circle, and he tripped and fell onto his ass outside the ring.

Harald just stood there, panting, staring, blade raised, ready to pursue, but then Vic and Sam were there, grabbing him by the arms and pulling him into an embrace as they shouted their glee.

Yeoric simply stared at him, numb incomprehension on his face, and then he looked down and away.

It was only then that Harald realized he’d won.

He’d done it.

He’d defeated Yeoric with such utter finality that there could be no doubting who was the greater warrior.

Filled with savage satisfaction, Harald dismissed his aura and Abyssal Attunement, returned Vic’s and Sam’s hugs, then looked over to where Nessa yet stood, arms crossed, smiling at him.

Her wink cemented his victory, and he laughed in sheer delight.