Simon hadn’t been quite sure of what to make of the man’s words. He thought that maybe he’d come back and spar with a couple of the Baron’s guards tomorrow or something. Instead, once they’d all finished eating dinner, the servants moved the trestle tables aside to clear space in the large room. The way that they did so with such practiced ease made Simon think this was not the first time this sort of after-dinner entertainment had been arranged, either.

“What… Here? Now?” Simon asked, suddenly regretting his third glass of wine.

“Why not?” the Baron asked with a smile. “I could do with some entertainment. Now would you like to do the honors, Varten, or should I pick one of the guards to test his mettle?”

Simon breathed a sigh of relief when the Baron turned to his eldest son. He was a slender man who’d been somewhat reserved all night. Not only would he not be much of a challenge compared to some of the burly men Simon had seen around the sprawling home, but Simon was certain the Baron wouldn’t endanger his own heir with some kind of blood sport.

He was completely surprised when the boy drew a heavy saber already on his hip and held it up dramatically, letting the light dance along its razor’s edge before he pointed it at Simon. That was the moment he knew they’d planned all of this from the start. Of all the men at the table, Varten was the only one wearing a weapon and the only one with the look of a killer in his eye.

“As if I would ever turn down a challenge, Father,” he answered with a sneer before walking toward Simon.

“But my weapon and armor are at the inn, my lord,” Simon said, trying to think of a way out of this.

“Nonsense. This is just a quick exhibition, so to speak. To the blood or the yield, as it were. You may pick from any blade in the room,” the Baron said, gesturing widely to the trophies displayed on the south wall.

“Thank you, my Lord,” Simon said, quickly explaining what was going to happen to Freya as he rose from his seat. There was worry in her eyes and a quick shake of her head. She knew that he shouldn’t do this, and he agreed with her, but there was no way out of this short of preparing to leave the city now, and he wasn’t willing to do that.

The man might be perverse, but he valued the life of his heir, so he was sure that he wouldn’t let things get too out of hand with Simon.

Simon’s first instinct had been that the weapons on the wall had been nothing but display weapons, and he’d been right. Most of them were pretty decrepit. The shields were sundered, and the blades were chipped or worse. Simon picked up several before deciding they might not last for even one good parry before putting them back. Eventually, he selected a small steel shield that was much smaller than what he was used to fighting with, but he could find no weapon to pair with it. That’s when he noticed that the long swords the guards carried were just about twins of his own.

Simon walked to the guard with a nasty scar across his forehead at the nearest door and said, “Your blade, sir?”

The guard looked to the Baron for approval, but after a quick nod, he handed it to Simon Hilt first. The long straight blade would do nicely, he decided as he turned to face his foe.

Simon had never fought a saber before, or anyone taller than him, and Varten’s reach was nullified by Simon’s longer blade, so he could be fine, but he felt like there was something here he still wasn’t getting as he walked toward the center of the room to face off against the other man.

“So how do you want to—” Simon had barely opened his mouth to speak when his opponent lashed out with his blade.

The man certainly didn’t seem to be pulling any punches and almost put out his eye before he managed to step back. He lashed out with a wide swing of his sword just to force the other man back, though he easily avoided it. After that, the battle was joined.

Over the space of the next several seconds, they exchanged half a dozen blows. Steel clashed with steel, and though Simon was on the defensive the whole time, he didn’t have another near miss, at least. His opponent was faster and less concerned about hurting a stranger, whereas Simon had a shield but was worried he might accidentally strike the young man fatally if he went all out. He had very little experience fighting people for sport compared to the amount of time he’d spent killing monsters, while the other man had obviously spent all of his time in duels.

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“You’re not so bad for a fat man,” Varten said softly as he moved close to Simon for another exchange. “Your footwork is abysmal, though. You can’t expect to beat me like that.”

Simon tried to slam his shield into the other man to make him pay for the insult, but obviously, his opponent had been expecting that, so the blow never connected. Instead, Simon found himself being shoved, and then he was falling backward, though he wasn’t quite sure how. It was only when he hit the ground that he realized that Varten had slipped his foot behind Simon’s, tripping him even as he toppled him.

“Where to leave you the mark of my favor, hmmm…” Varten said, standing over his defeated enemy. Simon had been worried the man might actually try to kill him, but he could see his game now. He’d noticed that almost every guard in the place had some kind of obvious scar, but in his mind, that just meant that Lord Raithewait had a penchant for blooded veterans. He had no idea that it was some sick game that this family liked to play where they marked their territory.

Even with that revelation, Simon stayed perfectly still, waiting for just the right moment as the fingers of his shield hand grabbed a handful of the throw rug that his opponent was standing on. It was only when Varten drew back his sword to strike that Simon put all of his strength into it and yanked the rug hard, momentarily throwing the other man off balance and giving Simon a chance to kick the legs out from under the cocky duelist.

After that, they both struggled to their feet, but Simon had tossed his blade aside, and instead of trying to match him with blades, he was going to put his weight to better use and pin the man beneath him. Varten tried to pull a dagger with his offhand, but Simon grabbed his wrist and twisted hard enough to make him drop it.

“Do you yield?” Simon gasped, half out of breath. Varten ignored the request and continued to struggle fruitlessly to bring his blade around and run Simon through.

Simon ignored that and released the other man’s left hand long enough to pick up the dropped knife and bring it to Varden’s throat. “I said, do you y—”

“That will be quite enough of that, I think,” Lord Raithewait called from the far end of the hall. “You will have to forgive my son. He is not used to losing. You may be able to do this family good service, yet, I think.”

Simon was a little surprised that he’d won, but even more than that, he was wary of letting go of the other man since he hadn’t actually yielded, but in the end, when Simon stood and backed away quickly, his opponent didn’t try to run him through a second time, and only looked at Simon sourly, as he returned the dagger.

As they sat down to a dessert of brandy and walnut-encrusted sweet bread, the duke complimented him on both his choice of weapons and on his unorthodox finale. “Never accept the obvious, and certainly never fight your enemy where they are strongest. These are the exact behaviors I look for in my men,” he said with a smile.

They left with the promise that in the morning, Varten would show them to their new home, where they could stay as long as they were in the Raithewait family’s service. That night Freya alternated between being angry at him for doing such a foolish thing and being proud of him for winning in the end. They got very little sleep as a result.

In the morning, Varten met them as promised, and though he congratulated Simon on his victory and suggested they should spar more often, he was sure that the noble still bore a grudge. The cottage he took them to was near the north wall, down a crowded, dingy street that stank of chamber pots. It had obviously been abandoned for some time, and part of the roof had given way completely.

Simon wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be an insult, but he thanked Varten just the same.

“It’s not much,” Simon said, holding Freya once they were alone, “but it’s home.”

“It will be lovely,” she said, “It’s the men that you’ve sworn yourself to serve that I’m less happy with. We can find people to fix the roof in a few days, but you can never fix that hole in that man’s heart.”

Simon agreed with her, of course, but there was little he could do. Even the zombie threat wasn’t as bad as he’d first feared; apparently, the world was getting to be a dangerous place. Centaur attacks from the east, and goblin raids in the south. Unlike the world he’d come from, this was a place of chaos, and Freya didn’t understand why a cruel man like Baron Raithewait was needed in places like this; Simon did, even if he didn’t like it.

Once they were done, and he and his wife decided what needed to be done, Simon sought out some craftsmen to help him resolve the most pressing work. They’d need to replace several of the timbers, replace the rotten shutters and redo the tile roof, but the walls were sturdy, the fireplace worked, and it would even have space for a small garden in time.

For now, they continued sleeping at the inn. Simon wasn't in any danger of running out of money any time soon, and it wasn’t like he could just pop down to Ikea to handle the whole no furniture problem. Eventually, though, he had to leave these things in his wife’s capable hands because his end of the deal was coming due: some of the farms under the Baron’s control had been burned out by goblins, and since he was such an expert on these things, the man had decided to give him a few men, so he could go handle it for him.

Freya was hardly happy about this, but it wasn’t like he could do anything about the arrangement. “First, you bring me into this strange town with these awful people, and then you just, what? Leave me here?” she demanded.

“You know I don’t want to, but Mr. and Mrs. Stravsen will take good care of you while I’m away, and by the time I get back, maybe we’ll finally be able to move into our place together.”

“I don’t want our place,” she said. “I want you!”

There was a lot of hugging and crying after that, but nothing could change the fact that the next morning he still saddled up and took five men with him to go see how bad these goblins really were.