"I'm relatively inexperienced compared to Navaris," Tavi said drily. "For that matter, so are you."
Araris smiled. "Patience. Don't let the fear drive you. Don't initiate. Mind your footwork, keep your blades in tight, and wait for your opening."
"Suppose she doesn't give me an opening."
"Outthink her. Make one."
Tavi laid a hand on the merlon beside him. "Like you did at Second Calderon."
"Exactly. Very few people understand that swords aren't dangerous, Tavi, nor hands nor arms, nor furies. Minds are dangerous. Wills are dangerous. You are heavily armed with both."
Tavi frowned at that, staring at his opponent, mulling the thought in his head.
His hands stopped shaking.
The ladder behind them rattled, and Captain Nalus heaved himself onto the wall. He had a fresh bandage on his cheek, where a sickle had laid open his face all the way down to his skull. Tavi had heard he'd ordered them to stitch it closed with thread rather than "wasting a healer's energies on a minor injury when other men's lives were in jeopardy."
"Your Highness," Nalus said, nodding at Tavi. "You're ready?"
Tavi accepted his weapons from Araris and slung the belts over one shoulder. "I am."
"Follow me," Nalus said.
Tavi followed the captain, who had agreed to officiate under protest, down the length of the wall toward Navaris. At the same time, the cutter began walking toward them, slim and deadly.
In the ruins below, people had gathered-legionares, domestics, camp followers. Thousands of them. Several had climbed atop walls and dilapidated rooftops to get a better view of the top of the wall. He could only just see them in the darkness-but atop one of the nearest buildings, he could make out white hair, and Marat manes drifting on the gentle breeze-Kitai and her people. He nodded to them, and fists thumped simultaneously against leather-armored chests in response, the sound loud in the otherwise-silent night.
They reached the middle of the wall in time with Navaris. Tavi stopped far enough away from her to have time to avoid a sudden draw and lunge, while Captain Nalus stopped halfway between them.
"Phrygiar Navaris," he said. "Are you ready?"
Her flat eyes never left Tavi's. "I am."
"Gaius Octavian," Nalus said. "Are you ready?"
"I am."
Nalus glanced back and forth between them. "I remind you that this duel is to the death. I ask you both if you will concede the point of the duel and spare needless bloodshed."
"I will not," Tavi said.
Navaris only smiled a little and said nothing.
Nalus sighed. "Gaius Octavian, draw steel."
Tavi did so, and offered the hilts of the weapons to Nalus. The captain inspected them both for poison, and handed them back to Tavi, then slung the empty weapon belts over one shoulder.
"Phrygiar Navaris, draw steel."
He went through the same process with Navaris, and took her weapon belts as well.
"Very well," he said. "Neither party may move until I have stepped from between you and counted to ten. Once that is done, both participants are free to act. Do you understand?"
Both replied in the affirmative. Nalus stepped out from between them and hurried down the wall to descend to the ground. It took approximately forever, and Tavi held his gaze against Navaris's for the entire while.
"One!" called Nalus.
"Are you nervous, boy?" Navaris asked quietly.
"A little sleepy," Tavi replied. "A bit hungry. I'll get some breakfast in a bit and have a nap."
"You'll rest," Navaris said. "I promise you that. You won't be hungry, either."
"Two!" called Nalus.
"I'm curious," Tavi said. "How did you survive the sinking of the Mactis?"
"Araris killed his witchman. You only gutted yours. We got him into a boat and he hid us from the leviathans."
"Three!" called Nalus.
Her lips spread into a soulless smile. "It took him three days to die. Time enough to get us clear of the Run."
Tavi felt a surge of nausea at the description. Three days… Crows, that was a bad way to go. Though he supposed there weren't many good ones.
"I've been looking forward to this," Navaris said.
"Four!"
"Why's that?" Tavi asked.
"Because you're the bait, boy." Her eyes left his for a moment, focusing down the length of the wall behind him. "Once you're dead, Valerian there will come for me." She shuddered. "And that will be a fight worth watching."
"Five!"
"You have to get there first," Tavi said.
Navaris tilted her head, her eyes returning to his.
"Six!"
"I'm curious," she said. "Are you truly Princeps Octavian?"
Tavi gave her a copy of her little smile. "We'll know shortly."
"Seven!" Nalus called.
Navaris's breathing began to speed up. He watched her eyes dilate, and a series of eager little shivers ran through her body and down the length of both of her blades.
His mouth felt dry, but he focused on what Araris had told him. Patience. Control. He faced the cutter and touched lightly on the steel of his blade with his crafting, drawing his world into sharp, calm focus.
"Eight!"
Navaris's lips parted, and her body undulated strangely, as if it wished to fly straight into battle without consulting her feet.
"Nine!"
Tavi took a deep breath.
Kitai's voice rang out clear and vibrant in the silence between Nalus's counts, ringing from the stones so that every man, woman, and child looking on was sure to hear it. "Take her to the crows, Aleran!"
"Ten!"
The First Aleran spoke in a single, enormous, deafening voice that shook the stones as the Legion roared its encouragement for their commander.
Phrygiar Navaris's eyes glittered with sudden lust and fury, and her mouth opened in a wordless cry of something eerily like pleasure as she lifted her blades and darted at Tavi.
Chapter 55
Navaris was fast. She closed the distance in the blink of an eye, both weapons whirling out in front of her, weaving through a rapid series of slashes broken by the occasional lightning thrust. Before the First Aleran's roar had died down, she had sent half a hundred strokes toward Tavi, and he was certain that only steady retreat and his recent, intensive training with Araris enabled him to stop them.
Colored sparks showered out every time the blades met, and the cuts and parries came so swiftly that Tavi could hardly see through them. He felt as if they were fighting in a blizzard of miniature stars.
Her assault was unrelenting, aggressive, and precise. Her cuts and slashes slammed hard into his upraised weapons, so that he felt the shock all the way to his shoulder when they hit. They were, by far, the simplest attacks to defeat. Her thrusts slithered forward like double-bladed serpents, smooth, almost unpredictable, and impossibly fast. He caught each one as it came in, but only responded with the most conservative of counterattacks, more meant to force her to remain wary of a counterstrike than actually to draw blood.
He missed the next thrust and had to spin to the side, arching his back out. Navaris's sword struck a line of sparks along his belly, glancing off the lorica- and leaving a seared black crease on the Legion steel. If she could strike squarely against his armor, her sword would pierce it like cloth.
Twice, Tavi saw an obvious opening, but Araris had taught him better than that. It had been a deliberate act on Navaris's part, and had Tavi launched his own attack in unthinking response, he would have paid with his life.
And then Tavi felt it-a flicker of surprise and concern that flowed from Navaris, coloring the riot of emotions that spilled from her.
She stepped up the pace and power of her attacks, but not enough to allow Tavi his chance to strike. He was forced to backpedal more quickly, and his defense wavered for a moment before solidifying under the storm of steel and light that threatened to engulf him.