A pall was cast over the festival by the loss of life during their encounter in the Falkwood that day. King Maebric insisted that the festival continue though, and did his best to encourage everyone else to enjoy themselves by appearing to enjoy it himself.

  On the day of the two handed sword contest that Turgeon would be participating in, the Swordmaster greeted him in the morning with a new weapon for him to use in his bouts. He had been entered into the shieldless duels, where combatants were allowed only a blunted sword and light leather protection. It was a blunted weapon only in that it had not been sharpened and had no point. Turgeon’s trained eye could see that this was no training blade, the weight and construction of the blade identified it as a true weapon.

  “The other combatants will all be wielding similar blades,” his master had informed him, “Only your pelvic bone will stop this blade swung properly and with intent. Watch yourself out there today.”

  As reassuring as that was, Turgeon was feeling confident as he spent the morning preparing for the duels. They were scheduled to begin after noontime, and so he spent the time warming up and stretching, practicing his catae and generally getting his mind and energy into the proper state for combat. His recent experience with real battle had honed him, helping him to better understand how his own body and mind would react – or not react – under the pressures that came with facing an opponent who intended to do him real harm.

  When the time came to begin the trek down to the contest fields he felt as prepared as he could be for the event.

  The duels in the two handed sword event were expected to be concluded in time to crown a champion at the evening feast. There were only sixteen total challengers who had entered the event, one of the smallest fields in the entire tournament. Only the rock hauling event was even close in size, and that still featured more entrants, all of them massive giants. The other dueling event, which allowed the use of a shield, had nearly a hundred competitors participating. That event didn’t require as much skill, it was mostly about brute strength and endurance.

  Only the best sword fighters in the kingdom dared to participate in an event like this, without the protection of a shield. The two handed sword duels were not brutal melees, they were dances requiring finesse and speed. Everyone who had seen contests like this before told Turgeon that most of them would be over in seconds, which he found hard to believe based on his experience training with the Swordmaster and Suzette.

  He found Dael and Ted awaiting him in the courtyard when he exited the keep. Ed was still under Melora’s care in the infirmary, laid up with the broken leg from the battle in the forest.

  “How’s Ed doing?” Turgeon inquired, knowing Ted would’ve visited his brother this morning.

  “He’s in good spirits as always. The leg still hurts like the fall though, but Melora says it’ll heal fine and he probably won’t even have a limp.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Turgeon was truly pleased to hear Ed’s prospects were good. They had all been concerned about the long term damage an injury like that could do. Even a slight limp could be the sort of thing that would get Ed killed in a future battle, and they were all likely to see more battles soon when the war began in earnest. Since the attack it seemed there was nothing that could be done to stop it now, and even the optimists who had previously thought it might somehow still be avoided had accepted the inevitability of it.

  “He is pretty disappointed to be missing your bouts in the tournament though, Turge,” Ted continued. “I had to promise him I’d head straight to the infirmary and give him all the details after the final match.”

  “Hopefully you’ll have some good news to bring him,” Turgeon’s confidence was riding high today, he knew this was going to be his best opportunity to prove himself to the King and the rest of Falkaria’s court and he didn’t plan to let it pass.

  Outside the ring where the bouts would occur a large board had the bracket posted for all to see. Turgeon, having no previous tournament fighting experience that he could be rated by, had been given one of the lowest seeds in the whole contest. Only one other fighter had been given a worse seed than he had, an older boy from a rural barony who also had never fought in a tournament. Turgeon had only been seeded higher on account of his master’s reputation. He also saw that Duke Y’gurth, as a multiple time winner of kingdom-wide tournaments in the past, had been given the top seed.

  As he waited for his first bout he attempted to watch the other contests to learn more about his potential opponents and their fighting style in case he had to face them later. He watched Y’grathen defeat an older man with the look of a lifelong soldier with ease, the other boy’s training and skill quickly overwhelming the older man’s experience.

  Sooner than he had expected it was time for his first fight. What he had heard appeared to be correct, these bouts were, for the most part, over very quickly. Most of the matches he had seen so far had lasted only a few exchanges.

  “You’ve got this,” Dael encouraged him as he prepared to step into the ring. His friends patted him on the back and he ducked under the wooden railing that provided a boundary for the match. The ring itself was hard packed dirt with only a few patches of lonely grass remaining at this point in the festival’s contests. It had seen hard use for the other dueling events in the previous week.

  His confidence began to wane as he saw his first opponent. He had been matched against Garedon, the Duke of Meritinia’s oldest son. Seeing Garedon’s name next to his on the board had been one thing, but actually confronting the man in the ring was something entirely different. Garedon was a hard man, with years of experience in both combat and dueling. Turgeon knew he was the commander of the Duchy’s military force, and had likely spent much of his time in recent weeks preparing not only for these duels but for the impending war as well. A full grown man, Garedon stood head and shoulders above him and had an intimidatingly muscular build.

  Garedon smiled at the sight of Turgeon’s obviously waning confidence as they faced off within the ring. The referee directed them both to salute each other, which they did, and then called the start of the match.

  Both fighters dropped immediately into a low fighting stance and began to circle the ring and each other. Turgeon kept his eyes locked onto Garedon’s knowing he would betray any attack with his eyes before his body began to move. Given the disparity in size, Turgeon decided to let Garedon take the initiative and make the first move. He would put his skills to use in defending and hopefully countering the bigger man’s attack.

  After a few moments of circling and quick probing feints, Garedon made his move. He fully committed himself to a powerful overhand cut, obviously expecting to be able to overwhelm Turgeon with his greater physical strength.

  A moment of fear nearly gripped Turgeon long enough for him to fail to mount a defense, but at the last moment he stepped back and brought his own blade up and effectively batted the attack aside with a false edge expulsion, using the strong of his blade on the weak of Garedon’s to counter the power of the blow. Acting on pure instinct, he brought his own point back in line for a thrust at Garedon’s throat and the larger man’s momentum nearly caused him to run himself onto Turgeon’s blade despite the lack of a point.

  “Match! To Turgeon Falkar!” the referee called loudly as Garedon rubbed his throat and stalked angrily out of the ring.

  Turgeon’s friends were cheering, as was the majority of the crowd, especially the commoners in the open stands. Everyone loves to see the underdog win a fight, and by now Turgeon’s story was known to many of the local commoners. They saw him as one of their own, made good through luck and the opportunity to train with the King’s Swordmaster.

  For Turgeon though, the victory felt hollow. Immediately after the referee had called the match he had almost fallen over, reeling from the vision that struck him of the Swordmaster slaying his brother with the exact same maneuver he had just used on Garedon. The other man was alive in this case, but he couldn’t help feeling like he had become the thing he hated.

  Dael could see that something was wrong when Turgeon came over to him and Ted on the sideline of the ring. “What’s wrong Turge, you look pale and as though you might be sick. You’ve won!”

  Pushing away the memories, Turgeon forced a smile onto his face and attempted to assuage his friend’s concerns, “It’s nothing Dael, it just sort of all hit me at once. I should be much more afraid of these matches than I was, I could be seriously injured fighting like this against grown men.”

  “Nonsense! You just beat Garedon of Maritinia in one move. He’s one of the best fighters in Falkaria! You might even have a shot at winning this whole thing!”

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  Dael elbowed Ted hard in the gut, “We’ve always thought that, haven’t we Ted?”

  “Wha– yeah, of course we have. It’s just… thinking it and seeing it are two different things…”

  “It’s alright Ted. I appreciate your confidence in me, but it’s fair to temper your enthusiasm. These are hard men I’m up against, men with years of experience in both duels in and out of the ring and in real battles.”

  “You’ve got that now too, Turge,” Dael reminded him solemnly. Dael was right, the battle in the Falkwood was still so recent sometimes he forgot he too had that experience now.

  “One battle, Dael. One.”

  “One’s enough to know you won’t run from the enemy. You didn’t.”

  He was right again, of course. From the sidelines, they watched the next round of bouts proceed. Y’grathen managed to defeat Garedon’s brother, Ferelan, in a match that lasted longer than four other matches combined. Both were very artful sword fighters with a lot of dueling experience.

  Before long though it was time for Turgeon’s second bout.

  His second opponent wasn’t as big as Garedon, and probably only had a few years on Turgeon himself, but this man was still taller, larger and stronger than he was. Turgeon had never seen him at court before, but Dael informed him he was the younger son of the Baron of Ko-athon, a wealthy wine growing region within the Duchy of Ko and a distant cousin of Dael himself. With the riches they gleaned from the fabulous wines they grow, the Baron of Ko-athon was likely able to afford exceptional training for his son, Perignot.

  Perignot had watched Turgeon’s first bout with Garedon, and displayed far more caution in his approach to this fight than the older man had. He persisted with Garedon’s approach of leveraging his greater strength to beat Turgeon down, but without overcommitting himself. Over and over he darted at Turgeon, attacking with a cut or quick thrust, only to dart back out of Turgeon’s reach when he attempted to return the attack. Perignot used his height advantage and longer reach to keep Turgeon from achieving a position from which he would be able to strike an effective blow and end the match, apparently hoping to wear Turgeon down and win the bout through endurance alone.

  An approach that was beginning to work, Turgeon realized, as his arms tired and it became harder and harder to both deflect the blows thrown at him and to even attempt a response. If he was going to win this match he needed to do something to do it quickly. He was going to have to take a risk.

  When Perignot’s next attack came at him it was a high cut from Turgeon’s right. Instead of blocking it with his point forward and stepping back, Turgeon stepped into the blow and to Perignot’s left, raising his own blade over his back with the point behind him and the crossguard above his own head. He caught the blow on the strong of his blade, shedding it down his back and throwing Perginot off balance. Without missing a step, Turgeon kept moving and came up behind his opponent, bringing his own blade back across sideways and around the older boy’s neck. Perignot froze as soon as he felt the blade kiss his skin, knowing immediately that he had lost.

  “Match! To Turgeon Falkar!” The referee again called loudly.

  After a short breather, his next match was up. This time he would be facing the opponent he had been looking forward to the most, Y’grathen. He finally had an opportunity to show the bully the skills he had developed in the past year, an opportunity he didn’t intend to let pass him by.

  “I’ve been looking forward to this, farm boy,” Y’grathen greeted him in the expected manner when he entered the ring.

  “Me too, you ‘rupting arsehole.”

  Y’grathen snarled at him and began to lunch, but the referee interceded and held the other boy back.

  “Not yet, young man,” the referee admonished the Duke’s son. “The match begins when I say it begins. To your places, please sirs.”

  After a brief and perfunctory salute from both of them, the referee allowed the fight to begin. Y’grathen wasted no time in making his assault. Y’grathen could see that Turgeon was feeling the exhaustion from his long previous bout and sought to take advantage of the opportunity quickly, depriving him of more time to recover. Little did he know that the prospect of taking Y’grathen down had given Turgeon a renewed energy.

  Y’grathen closed and brought his blade in with a low thrust to Turgeon’s right side, away from where he held his own weapon in guard. The maneuver forced Turgeon to bring his own blade low with the point down to deflect the thrust and dictated his counterattack as a sweeping overhead cut out of the low block. Turgeon was familiar with this opening, and knew it to be the mark of a well trained duelist. If he had been interested in going on the offensive it was likely how he would have opened as well, as it gave both an opportunity to go on the offensive and to defend with prior knowledge of your opponents line of attack by severely constraining their options.

  His opponent brought his weapon up in front of his body in flowing river, easily catching Turgeon’s cut on his cross, then forced Turgeon’s blade down and to the side to sweep in for a thrust at Turgeon’s chest. Acting on instinct and perfectly executing one of the most challenging maneuvers he had learned in his training, Turgeon turned the thrust, casting Y’grathen’s blade aside and plunging his own blade hard enough into the other boy’s thigh to visibly bend it into an arc. Y’grathen’s howl of pain almost overwhelmed the referee’s shout to end the match. He would have a large and painful bruise on that thigh as a memento of the match.

  The roar of the crowd, once again loudest from the open stands, did overwhelm the referee’s shouted declaration of Turgeon’s victory. He wanted to hold his hands above his head in exultation and acceptance of the crowd’s adoration, but he knew that would be premature. There was still one more duel to fight before he could celebrate.

  After a brief rest, it was time to face his final opponent, Duke Y’gurth himself. His friends had no encouraging words for him this time as he entered the ring, only forced smiles. They all knew what he was up against.

  For his part, the Duke looked calm and dismissive as he stepped into the ring spinning his blade one handed in arcing loops as if he needed to loosen up his arms despite having already fought three duels this afternoon himself. Turgeon’s defeat of his earlier opponents, including the Duke’s own son, did nothing to inspire concern in this seasoned duelist.

  When the bout began, the Duke simply stood idle, holding his blade wide of his body in his right hand and with his left hand similarly held out to the side, tempting Turgeon to make the first move. In all of his earlier matches his opponents had seized the initiative, allowing him to defend and eventually seize on a mistake to strike a killing blow. As he considered how to approach this situation, the crowd began to boo and hiss at the two idle opponents.

  With a snarl, Turgeon launched at the Duke, attempting the same entry Y’grathen had used on him with a low thrust to force the Duke to block point down and counter with a sweeping overhead cut. Knowing that the Duke and his son likely sparred regularly, Turgeon thought the Duke would likely be expecting the same response Y’grathen had used earlier in this scenario and opted for a different block and counter. Bringing his blade up but keeping the point down and forward he caught the Duke’s attack low on a forward hanging guard with his hands high above his head and swept around for a cut of his own to Y’gurth’s left side.

  By the time he realized his mistake it was too late to do anything about it, he’d brought his cut in far too low against the taller man. Y’gurth was able to easily block the cut and then he grasped Turgeon’s blade with his gauntleted hand to pull it forward while at the same time inverting his own blade so that the pommel struck Turgeon square in the face with the full force of the Duke’s forward strike combined with Turgeon’s own forward momentum.

  Stars exploded before Turgeon’s eyes as he reeled backwards and fell to the ground on his back. He must have blacked out for a moment, and when he came around the Duke was standing above him still holding Turgeon’s sword and with his own sword point at Turgeon’s neck.

  “Match and contest! To Duke Y’gurth!” The referee declared.

  Nobles in the covered stands erupted with cheers. The commoners in the open stands gave a lackluster cheer, not wanting to anger the Duke and the other nobles but clearly disappointed that their appointed champion had lost the final bout.

  With a nasty grin, Y’gurth tossed Turgeon’s own blade in the dirt beside him and spit a large phlegmy gob directly onto Turgeon’s chest. Now the crowd in the open stands erupted with shouts of anger and loud boos, disdainful of the Duke’s performance.

  Despite the throbbing pain in his face, Turgeon began to scramble to his feet with the intent to charge and tackle the Duke, but before he could stand Dael and Ted were in the ring with him holding him down.

  “Calm, Turgeon,” Dael was whispering to him. ”Nothing good will come from assaulting the Duke now that the bout is over.”

  Wheezing through what he realized was a shattered nose, unable to see out of his left eye through the rapid swelling, Turgeon slumped into his friend's arms and allowed himself to be carried out of the ring and away from the contest field.

  They found a quiet spot behind a row of merchant’s tents and set Turgeon down on a wooden bench. Dael gave his face a brisk inspection and whistled softly at the damage Y’gurth had done.

  “We need to get you to Melora right away, Turge,” Dael decided quickly, “She should be able to do something about this before the damage becomes permanent.”

  “I’m fine, Dael,” Turgeon managed to rasp out through the pain, “I can get to Melora myself, you and Ted should stay and enjoy the festival.”

  “No way we’re letting you walk back to the castle alone,” Ted insisted. “What if you run into Y’grathen in this state? He’s bound to be angry at losing to you in the tournament.”

  But the shame of his loss was settling in on Turgeon’s shoulders and he just wanted to be alone. Melora could wait, but he wasn’t going to tell his friends that. He’d squandered his best opportunity to prove himself worthy of his master’s tutelage and the King’s favor.

  “I’m fine, really. This is nothing compared to the beatings I took growing up in the streets of the city,” he lied to them, “Besides, Y’grathen will be here at the festival celebrating his father’s victory.”

  After a few more rounds of arguing Turgeon promised to head directly to the castle and his friends conceded, agreeing to let him go back to the castle alone on the condition that they keep an eye on Y’grathen to ensure he didn’t try to follow and ambush Turgeon. They helped him up off the bench, ensuring he began to make his way towards the castle, before heading back to the festival and feast that was being served.