Chanoch realized it too, and skittered back before Ashok could get in any close-range attacks. He gained his feet and stood before Ashok, weaponless but defiant.
It’s over, Ashok thought. I could take him with the chain or cut him with his own sword. The urge to finish the fight and put his enemy down was as natural to Ashok as breathing. He felt the surge in his blood and the need to satisfy it. He stood again on the Span, in the breath between life and death. But the life at stake was not his own. Not an enemy’s. Not his brother’s.
In that breath, Ashok made his decision. Instead of forcing his need into his weapon, he drew it inward. He took a breath to steady his body and channeled all the violence into a different focus. Deliberately lowering his arms to his sides, he did not move to strike. His body trembled with the effort of maintaining control, but he reveled in his success.
“Concede,” Ashok said to Chanoch. “You’re disarmed.”
“Not yet,” Chanoch said.
Ashok heard chuckles from the side of the field. “Give it up, won’t you,” Cree called out. “We want our turn. We’re getting restless.”
“And pained from the sight of Ashok taking you apart,” Skagi added, snickering.
Chanoch’s face reddened. The blood swelling just under the surface of his skin gave his face a sickly appearance. “Not yet,” he said stubbornly.
Then he did something Ashok truly wasn’t expecting. Weaponless, he came at Ashok with his bare hands.
Ashok jerked the chain up defensively, but his reaction was slow-all his focus had been on restraining himself from attacking. The young one was too close. He would peel the skin from Chanoch’s face if he completed the motion with the chain. But Chanoch was still coming at him, with fury in his eyes.
Every instinct in Ashok’s body roared that he should defend himself. He would be killed if he didn’t. His muscles trembled, but something, an impulse almost separate from his body, made him release the chain and absorb the impact as Chanoch hit him.
They went down in a cloud of dirt. Through the grit in his eyes, Ashok managed to get his hands around Chanoch’s throat. He felt the shadar-kai’s blood pulsing erratically through his veins. Of course he knew such excitement well. Ashok had felt it himself, just moments before. It was more than survival; it was the need for the kill. Feeling it, so close, Ashok found himself unable to control his own instinct for self-preservation. He let it come and squeezed, trying to break Chanoch’s windpipe.
Choking, Chanoch rolled them, slamming Ashok’s tender shoulder into the ground. Ashok gave an involuntary, strangled cry as his arm went dead. He’d fixed the dislocation himself; he hadn’t sought Tempus’s healers, and he was paying the price. He reached for Chanoch’s face with his good hand, but the young one batted it aside.
Then suddenly, Chanoch eased back. Blinking through the pain and the dirt, Ashok tried to sit up. He saw Chanoch groping to free the dagger at his belt. Ashok remembered his own dagger, but instead of going for it, he brought his knees up and kicked. His feet connected with Chanoch’s midsection. The breath whooshed out of the young man, and he fell back, his head hitting the ground with an audible crack.
Ashok scrambled to his feet, panting, waiting for the next attack, his blood pounding and his old instincts raging. He grabbed his discarded chain and wound the links around his knuckles. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. The next time he charged, the young one was dead.
But Chanoch didn’t attack again. He sat up, touching the back of his head. His fingers came away bloody. The feral excitement had left his eyes, banished by the blow to his head.
Ashok’s awareness was not so affected. He was overcome with the need to finish what he’d started. The desire to kill sang in his blood. He took a step forward. An involuntary growl ripped from his throat, but Chanoch didn’t hear and didn’t recognize the danger.
Suddenly, Vedoran stood beside Ashok. He’d come from nowhere. Ashok snarled and struck out with his chain-wrapped fist. The punch passed right through Vedoran’s insubstantial face and threw Ashok off balance. He righted himself, and when he looked again, Vedoran had come out of his wraith form. He gripped Ashok’s upper arm firmly.
“It’s over,” he said.
And it was. Across the yard, the brothers were helping Chanoch to his feet and examining his head. They were talking and laughing as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Only Vedoran had seen Ashok’s loss of control.
Ashok closed his eyes to try to clear his head. He was dizzy with the release of tension and didn’t speak for several breaths.
Finally, he looked up at Vedoran and nodded. Vedoran released him.
“My thanks,” Ashok said quietly.
Vedoran shrugged. “The battle was already over,” he said. “The young one should never have pressed his attack. You would have been justified teaching him to know his limits.”
“I would have killed him,” Ashok replied.
Vedoran said nothing.
Ashok put his chain back on his belt. He noticed for the first time that the back of his hand was covered in blood. The chain spikes had dug deep furrows into the skin around his knuckles. His inner struggle had eclipsed the pain and the fire in his shoulder.
Jamet walked across the yard toward them. He stopped to examine Chanoch, then moved on to Ashok.
“Well fought,” he said as he examined Ashok’s shoulder and the hand wounds. “You’re done for today. Go to the temple and receive Tempus’s blessing.”
“I’m fine,” Ashok said.
“You’re no use to me with a dead arm,” Jamet said briskly. He pointed to Vedoran and Skagi. “You two take their places,” he said.
Vedoran nodded to Ashok and went to spar with Skagi while Cree and Chanoch looked on.
Left alone, Ashok moved off and wandered the training yard for a time, watching the other sparring matches. The shadar-kai fought well and were far more disciplined than most he’d seen-and they were only warriors in training, the lowest rank in the hierarchy.
Ashok’s arm throbbed, reminding him where he was supposed to be. He turned and walked off the training yard before Jamet saw that he’d lingered.
He passed beyond the iron fence and came to a startling realization. It was the first time he’d been alone since he’d been captured. The shadar-kai in the training yard were absorbed in sparring, Cree and Skagi hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared when he’d left, and Jamet hadn’t sent anyone with him to the temple.
Ashok’s thoughts hadn’t turned to escape since his adventure with the nightmare. After that first attempt, he knew they would be watching him closely, so he’d focused on learning all he could about Ikemmu and trying to divine what Uwan wanted from him. But his captors’ attention had waned, he thought. How could he take advantage of the lapse?
Ashok walked slowly, crossing the markets, which were just as bustling as they had been the previous day. He saw Gaina, hawking his colorful clothing, and gave the human a wide berth. The circuitous route took him down a quieter avenue of shops. The buildings here were older, showing only light fire damage, so Ashok could see shadows of their former beauty.
Many of the roofs had been tall and conical-a field of spherical stone to match the imposing towers. But the shapes had become tumbling and crooked. There were no doors on the older structures, only archways outlined in brick.
Ashok passed close enough to one of the shops to see strange carvings embedded in the bricks. He hesitated, tracing a finger in one that was roughly shaped like a bird. Latent heat brushed his fingertips, and a slight electrical shock. He took his hand away, surprised.
“Are you lost, friend?” a voice called.
Ashok looked down to see a diminutive woman step from the shop. She had bright hair stacked in thick braids on top of her head. Her angular face made her blue and white and black eyes look enormous, but they were friendly and curious as they met his.