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Chapter 27: The Privilege at Stake

Chapter 27: The Privilege at Stake

Orven Krail arrived after breakfast carrying his iron staff and a canvas bag stuffed with spare shirts.

Sera eyed the bag as he set it beside the water bench. "Are you planning to live here?"

"The first shirt will be wet before the second station," Orven said. "The others are optimism."

He walked the yard boundary before joining Vhar. One heel paused at a shallow dip in the stone, and his staff tested it without ceremony.

Vhar noticed. "Does the floor change during the measure?"

"The restricted yard does, while this one only lies when nobody checks it."

Reth crouched beside the dip. "There is loose bedding beneath the slab, but it will hold unless someone lands on the corner."

The instructor moved both starting marks away from it. Orven thanked Reth and began loosening his shoulders.

Three stations waited across the court: a reinforced iron target, six swinging rings, and a broad sparring circle. Students crowded the rail to watch the man who broke targets face the candidate who had defended the hazardous-field seat since the previous season.

The instructor called them close. "The first station is force, the second is movement, and the third is controlled contact after both of you are tired. You will see every mark before it enters the slate."

Orven rolled his staff once. "Who goes first?"

"You earned the seat, so you set the opening result."

Orven entered the force lane. The Academy meter caught three even Uvar pulses as he struck the left brace, changed height, and returned to the first bend.

CLANG!

The iron folded deeper with every contact, while his feet finished exactly where they began.

Vhar stepped in after attendants reset the weight. He left both swords secured, settled his fist, and drove one punch through the center.

CRACK!

The target collapsed around his arm. Both braces tore free, and the weighted base buried itself in the sand before its chain stopped it.

Silence held the rail for a breath.

Sera stared at the two empty bolt holes. "That was supposed to take three strikes."

"We have the reading from one," the instructor said as he waved the attendants away from the hanging base. "Leave it down before somebody mistakes the chain for support."

Orven crouched beside the torn brace and pressed a thumb into the fold. "The force station is yours, as I expected, though I thought the target would survive long enough to measure it twice."

Vhar worked a fleck of iron from his knuckle while Orven rose and led them toward the moving rings. The first station needed no further argument.

At the second lane, six rings swung at different heights while a padded weight traveled behind them. Four marked rings had to be touched before the weight crossed a painted line.

Orven’s staff moved from end to end through his hands. He touched the upper rings without chasing them, reversed into the low marks, and caught the approaching weight across the shaft.

THUD!

His rear foot stopped well inside the line.

Kavos whistled from the platform. "He never looked behind him."

"He heard the track change," Reth said. "Watch his front foot when it starts."

Vhar entered empty-handed. He crossed the four marks faster, using the moving weight as a step into the last ring, but the same speed carried him away from the threat behind him. He turned and caught its harness one-handed with the painted line almost gone beneath it.

Orven watched the narrow strip of color. "You reached everything before I did, though that weight nearly took the line. Listen when they reset it because the chain rattles differently once the slack is gone."

Vhar listened during the return and heard the shortening rhythm near the paint. "I hear it now."

The attendants reset the weight. Vhar listened when it ran again, separating the loose beginning from the tight final links. Orven watched him learn the difference and said nothing.

Between stations, both men sat at the water bench. Sweat had already darkened Orven’s first shirt.

Kavos held out the restricted-yard ledger. "I can give Vhar one of my platform hours because I want to watch the space behind those scabbards from above."

Orven pointed his cup toward the western platform. "Use that side because the eastern lamps throw a second shadow behind his left shoulder, and I lost most of an hour to it last month."

Kavos checked both angles. "You just saved me half an hour."

"I spent nearly a full hour noticing that shadow," Orven said. "Use it."

Orven kept his four hours. Eight weeks of missed meals, evening sessions, and one injury absence filled the ledger behind them, and Vhar understood what the cord on Orven’s wrist represented.

"What does the restricted floor change after it reads your footing?" he asked.

Orven rested his staff across his knees. "It changes after it sees what keeps me upright; last time, the center stone dropped beneath my rear foot and put my shoulder under my own weapon."

Sera handed him another cup. "How long did it take you to trust the floor again?"

"I stopped trusting it, and learning to keep the staff line without it took another week."

She laughed once, and Orven drank before the third station called them back.

They entered opposite sides of the sparring circle. Orven needed to touch Vhar’s shoulder or ribs with either padded staff end. Vhar needed to cross the weapon and place one hand against Orven’s chest. Every contact ended the exchange.

The bell rang.

Orven’s front end snapped toward Vhar’s shoulder. Vhar slipped outside it and reached for the shaft, but the staff vanished from his fingers and its other end tapped his lower ribs.

TAP!

Orven withdrew immediately.

"I followed the end you showed me," Vhar said.

"Your hip showed me where you were going."

Vhar reset from his feet. On the next exchange, he drove the staff upward with his forearm and entered beneath it. His palm reached Orven’s chest.

Orven’s inherited body absorbed the pressure without losing its footing, but the touch belonged to Vhar.

They continued until sweat ran from both men. Vhar crossed the distance through speed, shoulder pressure, and grips that moved the staff aside. Orven changed ends, shortened his reach near the boundary, and recovered into the same balanced stance after every contact.

Vhar could have snapped the staff or broken Orven’s ribs. Either strike would have failed the station, so he entered without spending the force he used on iron targets.

On the seventh exchange, Vhar caught the shaft and pulled. Orven came with it instead of resisting, drove one shoulder beneath Vhar’s arm, and touched the padded end against his back.

Sera slapped the boundary rail. "He let the staff go, Vhar, and you pulled him exactly where he wanted to stand."

Vhar released the shaft and rubbed the place where the padded end had landed. "I thought he would protect the weapon."

"I used to," Orven said as he reset his hands over the worn grips. "The restricted floor cured me of it because a staff can be replaced much faster than a shoulder."

When Orven yielded the shaft again, Vhar let it travel. Orven stepped forward expecting another pull and found Vhar already inside his reach. Vhar’s palm stopped against his chest before the staff could turn.

Orven looked down at the hand and laughed under his breath. Vhar had needed less than a minute to stop giving him the same opening.

The ninth exchange carried both men near the loose slab Reth had found before the measure. Orven changed his rear step rather than trust it, giving Vhar the shorter entry. Vhar reached his chest, but the staff’s free end was still traveling toward Kavos’s platform.

Vhar caught the iron before it crossed the boundary. The exchange was over, though neither man let the weapon continue simply because the slate no longer cared.

Kavos leaned back from the rail. "That end came close."

Orven examined the captured end as Vhar returned it. "Too close; I turned late when the slab changed my step."

The instructor shifted their starting marks, while Reth wedged a bright chip into the slab’s crack so the repair crew would see it after the yard emptied.

The final exchange began with Orven breathing harder than before, though his staff remained level.

He feinted high and turned the rear end toward Vhar’s ribs. Vhar stepped inside the turning point instead of chasing either tip. One hand trapped the staff against Orven’s side, while the other settled over his sternum.

Orven’s padded end touched Vhar’s coat at the same instant.

The bell sounded before either man forced the result.

Six contacts each.

The readers gave Vhar the force station, Orven the movement station, and the final station to neither. Vhar had become faster as Orven adjusted; Orven’s last contact had landed within a few finger widths of his first.

Neither side of the rail sounded disappointed. Each man had forced the other to answer a problem he could not dismiss.

At the bench, Orven changed shirts and wiped iron dust from his staff. The instructor brought both open slates.

"You have seen enough of each other to make an informed mistake," he said. "Do you still want a witnessed challenge for the restricted seat?"

Orven looked at the cord around his wrist. "Yes, because I spent eight weeks earning those four hours, and I would rather lose them in front of the readers than keep wondering whether I still deserve them."

Vhar considered the broken target, the nearly crossed line, and the staff that had touched him without ever needing to overpower him. Orven had shown him a weakness without pretending it made their strength equal.

"Put my name beside his," Vhar said. "I will be here at first bell."

The instructor wrote both names. Orven offered his forearm, and Vhar gripped it while the public board received their challenge.