“Challenge of Combat?” he asks. “But Umbria has no Challenge of Combat.”

I meet his gaze and have to swallow to steady myself. He doesn’t remember killing me a few minutes ago in a future that will never come to pass, but I do. “We do not,” I agree, “but Klotia does. Do you deny our request? Do you fear to face me as our chosen Champion?”

Emperor Klotak throws back his head and bellows with laughter, another rare display of pleasure from him. “Minotaurs do not fear puny humans,” he says. “I agree to your terms. Defeat my Champion and I will relinquish my claim for the slaughter at Shevinshome, but if you should perish, I will name the terms of our satisfaction.”

“And what,” the icy-cold voice of the elf queen cuts in, “will be your terms, Klotak?”

“King Leonid will relinquish the crown of Umbria to me,” he says. Emperor Klotak bares his stubby teeth. I think he thinks that’s supposed to look like a smile. It doesn’t.

My king looks at me. I nod. Somehow, he trusts me. “Umbria agrees to these terms,” he says.

“I bear witness to this Challenge,” Queen Phaise says.

“Aye. Me too,” the dwarf king agrees.

“Yes, I do as well,” the much softer voice of the owling leader echoes.

All their backroom talks of “treaties” and “alliances” and this was all it came down to? Placidly standing by and watching the minotaurs crush us? Fine. If I was the only thing standing between the last kingdom of humanity and subjugation, I would stand as tall as I could. “I will be the Champion for humanity, who will be yours?” I ask, though I know what he will say.

Emperor Klotak waves a magnanimous hand over his shoulder at the hulking behemoth of black fur and muscle that looms in the back of the room. “Brecklin, kill this child for me,” he says. The other leaders brought wise advisors and strategists with them; Emperor Klotak brought Brecklin the Breaker, the most feared warrior on the entire continent.

“How you want me to kill ‘er?” Brecklin asks.

“With your hammer!” Klotak shoots back. “Go get it.”

The Peace Summit agreed to meet in King Leonid’s great hall, which has been completely cleared of witnesses. Queen Phaise stands up and beckons to the grey-haired, matronly elf advisor she brought with her. “We will clear the room,” she says. The assorted group of leaders and advisors briefly band together to help push the round table to the side while Brecklin grabs his warhammer from where he left it by the entrance to the hall.

“Do you need a weapon?” my king asks me while we wait for the center of the hall to be cleared.

“Just the short swords I brought with me,” I tell him. They are the weapons I am most familiar with, and I can see no hope in trying to master something new with so much riding on my victory. If I win, Klotak with be forced to withdraw his claim against Umbria for the slaughter he himself fabricated; if I lose, he will take over the entire kingdom without a single battle. I retrieve my short swords from where they were stored by the opposite entrance to the great hall. Both of them are perfectly balanced, simple blades; two and a half feet of steel, sharpened to a razor’s edge. Will they be enough against Brecklin? I imagine jamming one of them into his thick, cow-like neck, but even in my imagination he only laughs at me. Then I think of him hitting me back: it’s a frightening image.

Brecklin slings his hammer over his shoulder and clomps forward into the center of the room. The rumors say his hammer is magically enchanted to give it unnatural strength, but it looks perfectly mundane to me. It is at least one-and-a-half times as long as I am tall, with a flat crushing edge on one side and a jagged spike on the other. Brecklin himself is dressed in hardened leather armor around his chest, which I’m told is constructed from the tanned hides of other minotaurs he’s killed. He looks every bit the monster. At my full height I only come up to his waist. I don’t bother with armor, as I can tell even a glancing blow from that hammer would kill a soldier in full plate. To survive, I can’t let him strike me even a single time.

“Are both fighters ready?” the elf queen asks. I nod. So does Brecklin. “Then let the Challenge commence!”

I dash forward, a short sword in each hand. Brecklin lets out a mighty roar and sweeps his hammer across the ground. I leap over it and—

I misjudged the height of his hammer’s flat end. It clips me at the knees and sends me careening end-over-end toward the stone wall. My last sight is the giant minotaur’s body spinning in circles before I feel a sharp pressure on the side of my head. My vision goes black.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I wake up.

Giselle is already there. She has my head in her lap, her hands gently holding me in place. I squint open bleary eyes as I have so many times before. She looks down at me with that sad tilt to her mouth. I know it means she pities me my burden. I pity myself. “Juice?” she asks.

“Mmm,” I moan. My body is curled up on itself. A wordless moan is all I can manage. She forces the cup to my mouth, and I suck it down. As the fire of the healing draught burns away my pain I sit up and am surprised to find Darius watching me from close by. The goat I killed is already gone and another bleats from the bleeding post as it unknowingly waits its turn to die.

“Was the last sacrifice… successful?” he asks.

“I made progress,” I say, which isn’t entirely untrue, “but I have a long way to go. Getting more animals?”

Darius inclines his head. “Many more. The crown has just purchased twenty-seven heads of cattle from a nearby farm which will be here in a manner of hours. I have a number of men gathering stray dogs from—”

“No dogs!” I interrupt. One of his eyebrows rise in an unspoken question. “They don’t work,” I explain, though the truth is I’ve never been brave enough to try. Everyone needs limits and dogs are mine.

“As you say,” he agrees. “I will see what options we have from the neighboring farmers, but it does not appear hopeful. We are working on a tight deadline.”

I nod and pick up my knife. “No time to waste then,” I agree. I slash open the next goat’s throat right in front of Darius. Let him see what I do for our king. I drop the knife and stick my hands under the rush. The goat bleats. The blood drips. In I go.

This time I follow the new Path I have laid out. I make my Challenge and charge in at Brecklin with both swords raised. Again, he opens by swinging his hammer in a wide arch along the ground. This time I jump high over it and tuck my legs in. It sweeps under me, and I hit the ground running. He roars in frustration as he sees me dodge his attack. I slash with my right sword and draw blood from his thigh then I—

The thick hoof of his left leg caves in my skull.

I wake up. Frustrated. How did I not see that coming?

Giselle is already force feeding me juice. It is my fifth cup this evening and I know there will be many more to come. My stomach is already starting to feel full. That will be a problem to handle later.

I sit up and look around. Darius isn’t here this time, but another goat is ready for me. “I need to go back,” I say as I reach for my dagger. “It’s going to be a long night.”

My knife goes in. Flesh parts. Blood pours. My hands are already sticky with it as I trace the pattern and find the Bloody Path.

Once again, I face Brecklin the Breaker. I charge in, jump high over his sweeping blow. I come in close and slash his thigh once, then dodge to the right as his foot comes in to surprise me. I see it this time and jam my left-hand blade into the extended leg as it flies past me, just behind his kneecap. It gets stuck in a fold of muscle and is torn from my hand. I watch for his next attack and dodge under the elbow that follows. I try to leave him a slash along the ribcage as I go past but my blade can’t pierce the hardened leather he wears. I lose my balance as my sword clangs against his armor and get a knee to the underside of my chin before I can recover. It’s powerful enough to lift me off the ground. My body briefly goes weightless before I land flat on my back. I am only given a moment to lay there and think about my failure before Brecklin’s hammer comes down on my chest to finish the job.

I wake up.

Juice. Goat. Blood. I dive back in.

This time I don’t attempt a cut along his ribcage after I dodge his elbow. Instead, I do an acrobatic tumble around his backside. I jab again at the back of the same knee that has captured my other sword just as he’s setting his weight down on it. My swords look like needles in a pin cushion on such a large beast but doubling at the same spot gets a reaction from him. I wanted his knee to buckle but it doesn’t, instead he twists at the hip and brings his hammer to bear on me. I’m far too close to him to be threatened by the head of the hammer but he manages to clip me with the long bar of its shaft. I’m thrown away: not roughly, but enough. I slide to a stop on the paving stones and realize both of my swords are now stuck in his right knee. This is not how I will win this fight. I don’t even attempt to dodge as he finishes me off with a downward strike.

I wake up.

Darius is back. After I’m fed my juice, I sit up to see what he wants. “Any progress?” he asks.

“I’m working on it!” I spit back. Too late I realize I’m taking my frustration out on the wrong person. “Sorry,” I add belatedly. I look down and see my hands are absolutely caked in layers of sticky blood. Normally Giselle tries to clean me off between visions, but it seems she’s been otherwise occupied this evening.

“No apologies necessary, Mistress Hand,” Darius says, slipping back to his more formal address.

I don’t bother to correct him this time. Like Giselle, I have more important concerns. “Just make sure the animals keep coming,” I tell Darius. Then I take another life.

The goat bleats: pitifully. I find I am resentful of these stupid goats and their wasteful lives that can’t buy me a way out of this impossible fight. I stick my hand under the rush of hot blood and realize as the Path takes me that a small rivulet of red has formed from my bed in the center of the room to the doorway. The floor of the chamber was sloped when it was built to accommodate just such a situation, though I can scarcely remember the last time it was used thusly.

I face Brecklin again. Sweep. Jump. Run in close. Slash the thigh. Dodge the hoof. This time I opt not to jam a blade into his exposed knee. It is clear that wasn’t a winning strategy and I think I would do better to keep both my blades. Instead, I settle for another slash that draws blood. The same elbow comes down on me. I tumble behind and slash again at the back of the same knee. Now I’m back to playing things by ear. I expect that he’ll try to sweep from the right with his hammer again and he does. I duck under it. As he once again turns his front to me, I rush forward and give him another slash across the thigh. He bellows in frustration, loud enough to cause me to involuntarily wince my eyes closed. Before I can even realize the trap his auditory attack must have been, I find myself waking up, not even knowing how he killed me this time.