Brendan’s training with Saskia had given him a basic understanding of hand-to-hand combat. But nothing could have prepared him for the ferocity of a true fight. Lugh was intent on hurting him, drawing blood. He wanted to cripple him and finish the fight. Brendan had to want to do the same. He had his hands full just keeping out of the reach of the tall Faerie’s hatchet-like hands. Lugh didn’t even break a sweat. Brendan had a vague strategy in mind: let the big guy wear himself out early and then look for an opening. Lugh didn’t seem to be tiring at all. Instead, Brendan found that he himself was breathing hard. He tried to keep his feet moving and prayed for Lugh to make some mistake he could take advantage of.
At last, he saw a chance. Lugh overbalanced after a massive swing that Brendan managed to avoid by a hair’s breadth. Brendan stepped inside the arc of the swing and cocked his fist for a blow to Lugh’s face. For a fraction of an instant, Brendan hesitated. He’d never hurt anyone on purpose in his life. After landing a blow on Saskia, which had been more accidental than premeditated, he’d been guilt-ridden, though she’d laughed it off. Now, faced with the prospect of hurting another person intentionally, he balked.
Lugh took advantage of his scruples, cracking Brendan in the cheekbone with a sharp elbow on his backswing. Brendan felt like a train had hit him. Pain exploded in his head and he staggered against the barrier of the circle. Purple lightning stung his back and flung him to his knees.
He was dimly aware of the crowd shouting, some in delight, most with dismay. He had trouble clearing his vision. He tried to stand, but his limbs seemed to be hung with lead. Something warm dripped from his chin. Raising his face, he saw something looming over him. A building? It was a tree, and the tree had a face. The tree was grinning.
“Brendan!” a voice was shouting. “Get up, Brendan!” He knew that voice. He blinked. Some of the fuzziness left his vision, but his head still buzzed. He saw the tree wasn’t a tree at all but a man. The man was rearing back with his arm raised. That didn’t seem good to Brendan. It seemed very bad. The arm, a giant fist attached, raced toward his skull like the head of a sledgehammer. Brendan frowned.
I don’t think so, he said to himself. He saw the air in front of the fist. He saw the tiny particles of matter that formed the air he breathed and the vastly larger motes of dust that ploughed through them. He sent a thought out to the particles, suggesting they gather in the path of the fist. They did so, reluctantly at first, but then quicker and quicker until they formed a dense, gluey soup, slowing the fist in its advance. Brendan praised the tiny particles, thanking them for their help. They responded by calling more of their fellows, and soon the fist was completely arrested.
Lugh’s fist halted a centimetre from Brendan’s forehead. The silver-haired Faerie’s face was a parody of shock. He looked at his fist in disbelief. He leaned with all his weight on the invisible barrier but to no avail.
The crowd watched in awed silence. They couldn’t understand what was happening. Only Merddyn and Pukh, standing side by side, were not shocked. There was an eager gleam in Pukh’s eye and Merddyn smiled benignly.
“He sees,” Pukh whispers.
“Indeed,” Merddyn agreed. “He has the gift.”
Brendan, in the meantime, was finding it difficult to keep his little army of particles motivated. This was not their normal state and they longed to be free.
Just one more thing and you are free, Brendan assured them. He asked them for one last burst of cohesion. The particles responded. They collapsed inward around Lugh’s fist in a sudden spasm. A loud crack resounded in the hushed silence.
Lugh howled in pain. Brendan thanked the particles and allowed them to disperse. While Lugh staggered back, cradling the wrist of his now fractured hand, Brendan stood and wiped the blood from his cheek. The pain had dwindled slightly to a dull throb. He watched his opponent take deep breaths, trying to calm the agony in his broken hand.
“Do you give up?” Brendan asked. He didn’t see how Lugh could continue the fight.
Lugh raised his grey eyes in an icy glare. Those eyes were so full of hatred that Brendan almost took a step backwards. Lugh let his useless hand drop to his side. “I do not yield to you, Princeling. I will not yield while I still breathe.”
“This is a fight until someone can’t fight anymore. You’re badly hurt. Don’t you think you should give up? Save us any more pain?”
Lugh grinned, showing sharp incisors. “You believe what you will, little boy. We’re in the circle now. None may interfere.” Reaching inside his tunic, he drew out a long, glittering dagger, its blade an opaque sliver of crystal. The edge flashed in the light, hungry for blood. The crowd erupted in shouting and jeering.
Brendan looked to Merddyn, but the old Faerie didn’t move to intervene.
“You must stop them,” Deirdre begged him.
“Have a little faith in your nephew, Deirdre,” Merddyn said.
A roar washed over the crowd and the people parted to reveal a lion with gnashing golden teeth. It launched itself against the barrier. The barrier erupted in purple energy, flinging the magnificent creature back, its pelt smoking. Immediately, the beast sprung to its feet and launched itself against the circle again with the same result. Saskia was instantly at the lion’s side.
“Stop, Leonard,” she cried, burying her face in the lion’s mane. “You’re only hurting yourself.”
The creature’s fur rippled and flowed until Leonard lay there in her arms, his skin scorched and his hair smoking. His eyes were wild with fury.
“This isn’t what we agreed!” Deirdre cried. She lunged forward but Greenleaf caught her arm.
“The circle is closed. It cannot be broken,” Greenleaf said.
“This must stop,” Ariel demanded.
“There’s nothing that can be done,” Pukh said, his face a mask of regret. “The circle is sacred.”
“Merddyn,” Deirdre begged. “You must break it.”
Merddyn shook his head. “I will not interfere. This, more than any other trial, is Brendan’s true Proving.”
In frustration, Deirdre spun away, her fists clenched.
Kim stepped up to the barrier behind Brendan and whispered urgently, “Break the circle, Brendan. You’ve done it once. You can do it again.”
Brendan shook his head, never taking his eyes from Lugh’s. “I don’t cheat.”
“Wake up. Lugh’s already broken the rules. He and Pukh want to kill you. They’re afraid of you.”
Brendan spared her a glance and a wry smile. “You think so? Wait until I beat this creep. They’ll really have something to be scared of.”
“Brendan… ” she pleaded, but he cut her off.
“No, Kim. I’ve got to show them that no matter what they do, they won’t beat me. If I lose, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
He saw Maya’s eyes widen with hungry delight and stepped aside instinctively as Lugh lunged at him. The blade skittered with a flash of sparks across the barrier where Brendan had been standing the instant before. Lugh checked his momentum, spinning and crouching with the knife extended, his broken hand hanging limp at his side.
Brendan sidestepped lightly around the outer edge of the circle, keeping his opponent as far away as he could.
“You can’t run forever, Brendan Morn.”
“Come over and get me, Lugh. I’ll break your other hand for you,” Brendan said with a bravado he didn’t really feel. Lugh was still plenty dangerous, and the knife was an unwelcome addition.
Without warning, Lugh lunged at him. Feinting high, he came in with a sweeping slash that Brendan almost managed to avoid, willing himself to become as thin as possible. Despite his best efforts, the tip of the blade opened a long wound down the ribs of his left side. White fire sizzled in the wound. Lugh didn’t give him a respite, slashing back and forth swiftly. Brendan, his T-shirt quickly soaking through with his own blood, wove back and forth, finally leaping up, stepping onto Lugh’s shoulder, and pitching himself into a somersault. He landed easily on the floor in a crouch. Lugh spun to see Brendan waiting for him and sneered before renewing his assault.