“All right, listen up!” the gruff woman standing in front of the group of 14 year old contestants shouts. “The rules are simple. First you select a wooden sparring sword to use for the duration of the test. No other weapons are to be used. A loss occurs with forfeiture, or a hard strike to the chest or head or two strikes to the legs. A strike to the arm requires you to place it behind your back, and if both arms are struck then that is also a loss. If you are eliminated you may continue to strike for any amount of time unless your arms were struck, but cannot make any steps to do so. This allows for draws which are worth half the points. The match is only over once one side is eliminated and the other has withdrawn from striking distance. Two losses mean you’re out, and two draws equal a loss.

“In the arena you will find several squares projected onto the ground with numbers on them. You will be assigned a number and must go to the corresponding square. Stepping out of the square will result in a loss unless your opponent has already been eliminated. There will be older students wandering around acting as referees. Follow their instructions and judgments. If you don’t, you will automatically lose the round, or possibly be disqualified from the test. You may call them to contest an occurrence or ask for clarification. All bouts will be visually recorded for reference if needed. Otherwise, if both parties agree to the results then make your way to the recording table and declare the winner.

“Now, you have until those doors open to select your sparring swords. After that, make your way to the square and wait at the designated spot until the whistle blows to get ready, then another one blows to start. Fighting or moving from the starting spot before the second whistle will result in a loss. If you have any questions then ask me before the door opens. Now, get moving!”

She finishes with a shout and the room of about four dozen teenagers all rush the barrels holding the wooden swords. They seem to be organized by length/weight, so I have little trouble getting the one I want as I go for the smallest one– being the biggest I feel comfortable using one handed, which is the style I’m used to training in to keep one hand free for daggers. The consideration is pointless since secondary weapons are not allowed, but it would be foolish to shift to a style I’m not used to.

My crystal disk already has my assigned number, 87, so when the door opens I don’t have to queue to receive it. There are about a hundred squares wide enough for a horse and wagon to fit in projected onto the arena’s sandy floor with youths flooding from several entrances. My opponent, a boy twice my height in a sleeveless top that shows off arm muscles thicker than my leg, and nearly as thick as my waist, is waiting for me. I note the sword is of the largest variety that was available, and is twice the length of mine.

“Noble?” the youth asks, his accent has an odd clipping pattern to it.

I nod, not returning the question as it’s obvious he isn’t from his rougher clothes and scars visible on his arms and face.

“Squire?” He follows up.

“No, you?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

He looks confused. “You want to fight a squire?”

“No. But you look pretty skilled. I’m guessing mercenary?”

He nods. “The squire in my troop who was going to teach me died before they could. So, I’m here as my last chance for greater power.”

I nod, knowing that the age restriction of only 14 year olds is because of how much harder it gets to become a mage after that. “Anyways,” I say, “winning is worth 50 points, but you also get 10 points for each of your opponent’s wins. You seem to be the worst case scenario for me. More skilled, but not a squire. Bad luck really. I obviously want weak opponents, but if I’m going to lose it’ll be best to lose to the best. For all I know, winning against you might be worse than losing to a squire.”

He gives a hostile, toothy, smirk. “I promise: winning against me is better than losing to them.”

“Oh? Do you think you can beat one.”

“I have before.”

“… Good to know,” I say, changing my planned tactics.

“You don’t plan on defeating one?”

“I don’t really plan on winning that many bouts at all. I’m a mage so I’m really just doing this to fill out the time since my main tests are on later days and I shouldn’t lose too many points even if I’m unlucky.”

“I see.” His face darkens so I stop engaging.

The rest of the contestants are still finding their spots, so I take the lull in the conversation to look for Alan’s flamboyant blue and pink outfit, quickly spotting it with my enhanced vision. I wave my sword at him, and he waves back, causing me to smile.

“Family?” My contestant asks.

“…Yes,” I say. “The roster said your name was Bart, correct?”

“Yes, and your name is Malichi.”

“You should include the family name when meeting nobles if you know it.”

“My apologies, Malichi Monhal.”

“I took no offense, I just wanted to tell you some might.”

“Thanks…” He’s about to say something when the ready whistle shrills throughout the stadium causing everyone to tense into defensive postures.

A moment later the second whistle blows and we both charge.

We seem about equally enhanced, which means I’m faster. I take the centre, then go past, making to attack when I suddenly stop and dodge back as he swings. I observe his form, which reinforces the conclusion that he’s better trained than me. I won’t be able to break through his defences with clever swording. This match will be about positioning– forcing the other to disqualify themselves by stepping out of bounds.

On that count I’m winning since I have more room to retreat to, but that doesn’t last long. His much greater reach allows him to stay away and force me back with probing strikes. Still, it’s not all bad news. The duelling area is just wide enough to give me room to manoeuvre.

I’m forced out of the centre, so I strafe to the side. He follows and I retreat in a circular pattern. He lunges forward so I go wide and slip past, allowing me to retake the centre with him on the side. He turns to face me with a swing, expecting me to retreat only to get hit by a handful of sand as I stoop to throw a clump of the coarse ground into his face, and suddenly change direction to charge him while he still can’t see. He blocks my swing with blind skill, but the impact combined with the stinging of his eyes causes him to instinctively step back, inches away from the line. I move to swing again…

“Number 87 what the fuck are you doing!?” A shout from the side causes me to freeze my attack. We both go to a neutral posture and turn to face the approaching referee.

“What do you mean?” I ask, covering my annoyance at being interrupted on the verge of victory with a layer of calm.

“What do I mean?!” The referee, a youth only a few years older than me shouts into my face. “I mean this is a sporting tournament of skill. Throwing sand is not sporting. Frankly I’m disgusted that a noble would have to be told this.”

“I thought it was a fair move,” Bart says, surprisingly to my defence.

“Oh, you did, did you?” The referee snaps towards my unlikely protector.

“Yes,” he says unperturbed, “I’ve seen it done many times on the battlefield, and have done it myself. If this tournament is meant to assess our ability to fight for Arkothia, I fail to see why it should be forbidden.”

“The general fighting assessment is later. This is just a test of skill.” The referee says.

“But it was a skilled throw.” He says.

“I don’t care! This is a warning to both of you then. NO THROWING SAND! Now reset your positions and start again. Oh, and wash your eyes.” The ref hands Bart a flask of water which he pours on his eyes.

We both move back to the starting lines, Bart shrugs nonchalantly, then we move back to the attack. It doesn’t go nearly as well this time. He knows what to expect and adjusts. I quickly tire myself out dodging around him, then he suddenly advances and takes me out with a horizontal swing. I try to swing back for a draw, but his longer sword puts me out of reach. My first match ends with a loss.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I look around and see almost everyone else has already finished the round. I look to Alan who gives me a reassuring thumbs up which I don’t feel like I deserve.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?” Bart asks after we report the results.

“Be my guest,” I say, and we head together to the competitor seating to watch the next batch of duels.

“It was unlucky the referee saw you,” says Bart as we sit, “I would not have contested the loss had you succeeded in forcing me out.”

“That’s… admirable of you, I suppose.”

He laughs. “You wonder why I spoke to defend you when this tournament means so much to me, but so little to you.”

“Yes. I may not be that invested in this test, but I certainly wouldn’t have argued with the referee for my opponent’s sake.”

“Yes, I really should not have, but I was angry.”

“Angry at what?”

“At the woman. The referee. She said the throw was not skilled, but it was. You set it up very well. It would not have worked if you didn’t position me at the right spot, chose your time correctly, and turned to attack when I least expected it after the entire bout was spent running away. I was impressed by the effort, given your statement about not really caring about victory.

“But for her to say this was not skilled was an insult to me. It was saying I would fallen for anyone throwing sand regardless of setup. That I only amounted to that much. I didn’t speak to defend you, but me.”

“…I think you’re destined to rise in rank, either that or die very young.” He turns questioningly to me. “Pride like that is a noble’s folly. Only they can survive it.”

“They? Yes. Perhaps you’re right. But that is not what I wished to speak of. You have experience fighting, no? Actual Combat?”

“…A little,” I say, hesitantly.

“A little? No. The timing of that throw required significant experience. Don’t deny it. The fact that woman couldn’t see the skill in it proves me right.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” I say, hiding the nerves.

“Yes, of course. I was wondering why a noble our age would have so much experience… I must be mistaken.” He finishes slowly, each word weighted.

I ignore his obvious insinuation as the third wave of contestants enter the field and I spot Preston. He quickly moves to the side away from the duelling squares towards another contestant seating area, but spots me and so comes over.

“Hey…” he says hesitantly. “So, um, I thought it over and I was a bit harsh in my assessment of your relative and would like to apologize.”

“Think nothing of it.” I shrug. “I don’t think he really cares about his knightly reputation much, and it was amusing to hear you call him a lecher too. Oh, manners. Preston, this is Bart, a mercenary and my round one opponent. Bart this is Preston Calhal. I don’t really know him, but we walked together for a little while.”

“Pleasure,” says Preston with a side eye. “…You made a commoner friend already?”

I shrug. “Acquaintance, probably.”

“So, you weren’t actually worried about being out among them? That was just me?”

“I thought it would be rude to point it out. Was I wrong?”

“… I don’t know. Maybe… You have a nexus disk right? We should exchange pieces.”

“Oh?” I smile. “Are we friends then?”

He looks confused. “People other than friends exchange pieces.”

“Maybe, but I was told to only exchange with friends,” I say, playfully thinking that Alan will be happy his gift worked already.

“Who told you that?”

“The lecher, when he gave it to me. So, are we exchanging?”

“Um… wait, what? I don’t think I want to become what he means by friends.”

“…I think he was using a standard definition.”

“Oh… Ok, friends, but not you know…” He blushes as he raises his hands, fingers splayed defensively then wincingly taps his index fingers together in a way that I think is meant to be suggestive of sex.

I laugh, causing the blush to deepen. “No worries there. I don’t partake in my cousin’s activities in that area. But, you’ll have to show me how to break a piece off. I just got it and never done it before.”

“Oh, that’s simple.” He pulls a faded red counterpart to my faded blue hexagon and traces three straight lines that separates a smaller hexagon at the corner. A silver line appears where he traces with fine symbols running beside it. He grips the tessellated corner hexagon and twists, causing it to separate cleanly with a sharp snap. He keeps the large incomplete hexagon and hands me the piece.

“Interesting,” I say as I copy him to produce my own piece.

“The missing piece will regrow in about a day. You can write a message with my piece in contact with your disk which will securely propagate to any other disk you make contact with. It’ll usually decay in a few days on each device depending on size, but it’s still possible for messages to be passed around for a while so make sure you date anything you send.

“Thanks for showing me… friend.”

“Yeah…” He blushes slightly.

“GROUP ONE AND TWO, LOSERS BRACKET, PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO YOUR ASSIGNED PREP ROOMS.” A voice booms through the stadium.

“Well, that’s me,” I say, standing up.

“Oh, you lost?” Preston says. “Sorry, I should have asked how you did.”

“He would have won, but for an arbitrary ruling.” Bart says from beside me.

I roll my eyes at his strange insistence at defeat. “Bart is generous. I would only have won by exploiting an arbitrary rule, so I can hardly complain that an arbitrary rule stopped me.”

“The line rule is not arbitrary.” Bart argues, for some reason. “Real fights often are decided on positioning and moving your opponent. They cannot replicate those conditions here, and so have an approximation instead. Besides, without it the arena would be chaos. But prohibiting throwing sand makes no sense. What condition on the battlefield could that be replicating?”

Preston looks at me in horror, and I get flashbacks to our earlier conversation. “You threw sand? But that’s… cowardly.”

“It is not cowardly, it was skilled!” Bart exclaims, drawing more attention to the deed from our neighbouring contestants than I would like. “Besides, there was no rule against it. I checked beforehand.”

“There shouldn’t need to be a rule. It’s obvious you can’t do that,” says Preston, nearly stammering.

I sigh. “I suppose it’s a valid interpretation of the ‘no unsporting behaviour’ rule. Though I didn’t realize that would be the general consensus at the time.

“Why didn’t you? It’s obvious that would be dishonourable,” says Preston.

I sigh again. “I’m a mage, remember. Honour isn’t my thing. Now I really must be going.” I walk away promptly before he can say anything else, though I hear the two continue debating my act until I reach the stairs.

Bart suddenly shouts after me. “Make sure you win! Get me lots of points!”

My number this time is 63 and there is another tall youth waiting for me, though this one is much thinner than Bart with wiry glasses and shorter, neater hair. Due to being delayed by my two new friends I don’t have time to introduce myself before the ready whistle blows.

The start whistle blows and I’m halfway across the square before he can react. He takes a step forward but is forced back as he meets my charge. I swing again and he steps back again, dangerously close to the edge. He notices this and nearly stumbles back, but regains his balance with effort. The act however exposes his defences allowing me to slam my sword point into his stomach. He tries to swing back for a draw, but I leap back before he recovers from my blow.

He just stands there, staring into space, shoulders slumped at the realization of defeat.

“Um…” I start to say but realize I don’t know what to.

He sighs. “I guess that’s all I amount to then.” He speaks quietly, directed at no one.

“Just bad luck I guess,” I say.

“Bad luck?”

“Yeah. Your form was probably better than mine, I’m just more enhanced. Really, I think I’m only a little better than you. So bad luck since I probably won’t be winning too many more bouts after this, meaning you won’t get many points from losing to me.”

“I take it you have better avenues to gain points then?” he asks.

“Yeah, well I’m a mage, and I know a few things. What about you?”

“A mage?” he laughs. “I lost to a mage in a sword fight? How funny. No. I’m a page. Slow learner they say. I have a decent education, but I was relying on this test to get in. I guess that’s it for that dream then.”

I don’t know what to say so we silently go to report the results. When I get back to my two friends they are still in vigorous discussion, though the subject seems to have moved on to the fairness of distributing the squires so they didn’t have to face each other in round one.

Preston is speaking. “It is fair, because by allowing all the squires an easy win it prevents a mundane from being unlucky and have to face a squire their first two matches and being eliminated without a chance of winning a match.”

“But that wouldn’t be a problem if all the squires had to face each other in the first round.”

“It would be if there was an odd number. Besides, how would it be fair to force them to face all the hard opponents? You’d end up with mundanes getting more points than squires then.”

“Hey, I won.” I say as I sit next to them.

“We saw.” Preston says before turning back to Bart to continue the conversation, evidentially having gotten over his nervousness with commoners.

“Yes, good job,” Bart says, showing more appreciation, “I’m glad you showed the same enthusiasm as when you fought me. Keep this up and make me lots of points.”

I shake my head. “That’s not going to happen. I assumed I’ll be eliminated before lunch and so have a test scheduled for after. Even if I manage to stay in until then I’ll be forfeiting.”

“What?!” Preston shouts. “You went into a tournament assuming you’ll lose no matter what?”

“Well, yeah. What, do you two think you can win the whole thing or something?”

“Of course!” The two shout together.

“Yeah, well, good luck with that.” I say, trying not to let sarcasm into my voice. They’re probably both better than me, but I’m far from the top in this venue.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Preston says, “it’s unlikely with our skills. But a true knight must always have victory in their hearts and keep the path to it open no matter the odds.”

“Why do I keep on having to remind you I’m a mage? I won’t neglect other paths just on the slim chance of this one working. The goal isn’t the tournament but admission and this is one of the least of my tested areas.”

“But if you hold a sword you should resolve to keep your grip firm until the end! Otherwise, why hold it at all?!”

“Well,” I say as if speaking to a small child, “because sometimes picking up a sword and then letting it go can bring you closer to your goal.”

“But what is the point of goals if you have no conviction!?” Preston says in growing exclamation.

I sigh, looking around at the askance gazes of those around us and realizing that this has been the volume of conversation the entire time I was gone. How exhausting. “Say what you will, but it’s pointless to debate the merits now as I can’t change it.”

Preston looks dissatisfied but lets the subject go to engage in new ones with Bart as I watch our competitors below. Once all the groups from the losers bracket are done it’s time for the two of them to go down. Preston fights another page and wins quickly in a move opposite to mine– stepping forward into a defensive posture and turning his opponent’s charge against them with precise sword work that reminds me of Alan’s absurd binding with the point.

Bart spends the first few moments keeping his opponent away with broad power swings, but suddenly reverses the motion of his blade in a subtle dextrous technique that catches them in the head when they thought they had an opening and moved in to strike. It turns out when he gets back that the opponent was a squire, which I guess proves he isn’t all just talk. The squire wasn’t nearly at the level of Sarah, but it is still an impressive achievement for a mundane.

Then it’s my turn again and I make my way to queue for my number. I’m cautiously optimistic after watching my friends win, but tense when I see the name on the number next to mine. Bryant Fenhal– a name on the blue list.