The sword darted towards Daniel’s abdomen. Two sets of instincts went to war in his mind. One screamed at him to put as much distance between himself and the weapon as possible. It urged him to leap backwards until that wicked point could no longer threaten him. The other’s recommendation was more measured and controlled.

There was no time to deliberate between actions. Some primal part of his brain made the decision in the split second he had to react, and to Daniel’s consciousness the response was automatic.

He stepped forward and to the side. At the same time his blade rose to meet Arlan’s. He didn’t bat it aside, instead making contact and angling it with just enough force to turn the thrust so it slid harmlessly past him. A moment passed then when Arlan was defenseless, and only Daniel’s sword filled the narrow space between them. The instincts from Telann’s memories didn’t assert themselves to attack however, and Daniel was too shocked to seize the opportunity.

At nearly the same time the two men retreated from each other, going back to circling distance. There was a wariness in the way Arlan held himself now. Moments before his off hand had been held relaxed in an elegant fencer’s pose behind him. Now there was tension there, less showmanship. Hesitance that hadn’t been there before. Daniel should have felt more confident, but it escaped him. That parry had been brilliant, but he didn’t feel like he could do it again. It hadn’t felt like it was really him who’d done it in the first place.

There was hollering from the watching soldiers, urging the two to get it on with. The manservant Bren shouted at the crowd to keep their silence. Daniel saw his opponent’s eyes flick over to the audience, his face twisting into an annoyed sneer. Daniel took the opportunity. He closed the distance between them and swung the sword like a baseball bat. Arlan used his blade to smack the sword’s underside hard enough to send the swing high. He followed up with a swift chop downward. The strike would have taken Daniel in the shoulder if he hadn’t released his hilt with one hand, grabbing Arlan’s wrist and stopping the motion. Arlan’s free hand shot forward to try to pry Daniel’s off.

They braced there for a second in a contest of strength, pushing back and forth until Daniel swung his sword wildly at Arlan’s thigh. Arlan shoved himself backward in time to free himself and avoid the blow. He stood panting as he recovered his composure. There was no hesitance in that face now, just hatred.

Daniel shifted his stance and found that his feet stuck a little, as if there was a thin layer of mud sticking them to the ground. He spared a brief glance and while there was no mud, the dirt that had moments before been a hard-packed surface was covered in a layer of fine dust. Even more distressing, his feet were bare. Two clumps of rotten leather lay a few meters away.

Not now! He thought. Arlan didn’t seem to notice, but surely the soldiers had. Daniel adjusted his feet, feeling dust form under his soles wherever he stepped.

Arlan attacked, and Telann’s sword came to life in his hands. There was music to this, Daniel decided. A rhythm hidden in the violence. There was a beat to the exchange of momentum, the carefully controlled distance as each man tried to stay far enough from his opponent not to get skewered, but close enough to do the skewering in the blink of an eye.

Again and again Arlan attacked, each blow avoided or parried, but never by much. It was a dance on the edge of a lightning bolt, and Daniel soon realized that he couldn’t keep it up for long. Fending off the relentless exchange demanded every ounce of strength and control he could muster, even as the instincts dredged from the late duke guided his movements. Dust swirled around his feet, kicked up by footwork just as intricate as the bladework.

Arlan’s sword was like a wasp, darting back and forth in clever evasions as it searched for a way past Daniel’s guard. Though his defence was elegant—a testament to Telann’s mastery—Daniel felt clumsy. He was hunkering down, trying to weather the storm. But he couldn’t wait this out. He needed to end this before exhaustion took him.

Telann’s instincts—now his courtesy of the goddess of death—weren’t driving him to attack. Then maybe it was time to drop the crutch.

Daniel planted his feet, enduring a few seconds of onslaught without shifting his stance. Arlan hesitated briefly, but he couldn’t afford to let the man get too cautious. Daniel already felt the layer of dust beneath him deepening, thickening. He thrust his own sword in a half-hearted attack at the lord commander’s gut. The feint did its job as Arlan deflected it, answering with a riposte which Daniel could barely turn aside in time.

There, that should be enough. Doing his best not to disturb the layer of dust, Daniel stepped back in retreat. Arlan closed the distance, his lead foot sinking into the thick silt left where the ground itself had rebelled against Daniel’s foreign presence.

Daniel attacked, intentionally letting the blades clash together as he pressed forward. Arlan tried to sidestep but his feet were slowed by the dust as he slipped, just enough for Daniel to step inside his guard and lock his cross guard against the lord’s basket hilt. Recalling his wrestling days, Daniel used his own instincts to hook his leading leg around Arlan’s back leg, dropping his center of gravity and driving his shoulder through his opponent’s gut.

Arlan was a fast and clever fighter, but Daniel—or Telann—had him beat for weight and strength. The takedown worked like a charm, the leg collapsed, and Arlan toppled backward with Daniel on top of him, their swords uselessly tangled together. Daniel rose to one knee, buying just enough space to bring one heavy fist crashing down onto the lord’s surprised face. He didn’t hear the crunch, but he felt it. Blood spurted from the crushed nose and painted Daniel’s knuckles as he stood, leaving a shocked Arlan lying on his back.

He held his bloody fist out toward the judge, Bren. “First blood.”

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Raucous cheers mixed with laughter echoed across the circle from the soldiers, who as a whole found this unexpected development quite entertaining. Bren was pale and sweating, unsure about what to do. Arlan scrambled to his feet, hands pressed to his face in an attempt to staunch the blood.

“You…” he said, voice distorted from the broken nose. “You uncouth savage!”

“That’s a disqualification,” Bren declared, finding his wits again. “Lord Arlan Diallos claims victory in the duel.”

“He can claim whatever he likes,” Daniel whispered under his breath. His blood was running hot from the adrenaline, and worried he’d say or do something he shouldn’t, he strode to where Arnica stood. She crossed her arms in disapproval, but he recognized the barest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

He searched the crowd for Taur and saw him with the two soldiers they’d talked to by the camp entrance. Several people in the vicinity were exchanging coins, some much happier than others. Side action, he thought.

By now Corporal Knocks had made her way to the lord commander. She instructed him to sit on the ground so she could work, and Daniel couldn’t help but be amused by the image of the pompous lord sitting in the dirt, futilely trying to stop the blood from staining his uniform while the amused, yellow-toothed healer chided him to hold still.

“You should have told us you knew how to fight,” Arnica said deadpan.

“I don’t,” Daniel huffed, still recovering his breath. “Not like that.” Arnica raised an elegant eyebrow but didn’t push the subject further. As they stood, waiting for their host to recover, several soldiers clapped Daniel on the back or called out their congratulations. After a minute Taur approached, a small pouch of money in hand.

“You bet on it?” Daniel asked, surprised.

“Me?” Taur said, sheepish. “Oh yeah, sorry. I bet against you. It was Jep and Pinkie who thought you would take it.”

“Jep and Pinkie?” Daniel asked.

“The lads you were talking to back before the lord commander showed up.”

“Pinkie? Is that a common name?”

“No, don’t think so,” Taur rubbed the back of his neck. “He got it on account of the fact he’s only got one pinkie finger. A horse bit off the other one when they were deployed back down South.”

“Huh,” Daniel didn’t know what to say about that. “Congrats on your winnings, Taur.”

“Oh this? No these aren’t mine. This is the victor’s take. For you.”

“I didn’t win.”

“No, but I think the veterans in the company were just happy to see an officer take his licks, you know?”

“I’m getting that impression,” he muttered. Lord Arlan Diallos hardly seemed like a popular guy around here. That was dangerous, when taking command of an army with a history. He didn’t know how often mutiny occurred in imperial forces, but surely there was a grizzled captain or two around here with the thought in their head that they could run this group better than some noble-born dandy.

When he was healed, which took the better part of five minutes, Arlan stalked towards them with a face like a storm cloud. His nose, interestingly, was now unblemished but quite crooked. Daniel decided not to mention it.

“I have decided to forgive the insult you’ve levied against me,” Arlan said in a voice nearly a growl, “but you’ll understand if I’m not keen on having you at my table for a feast. Get out of my camp.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Arnica said with a quick, shallow bow. “We’ll take our leave.” Arlan grunted in assent before turning on his heel, returning to confer with his manservant. There was no escort as the trio made their way to the city gate, wending their way through the scattered tents and campfires.

The city watch stopped them as they tried to enter. “You from the sixth?” one of them asked through a mouthful of some aromatic herb he was chewing.

“No, we were just guests in their camp,” Arnica spoke up.

“Why? You got business with the imperials?” The guard was quizzical.

“I know their commander from when we were younger,” Daniel said. Taur had explained to him earlier that Telann had spent two years receiving education in the imperial capital in his youth. Though neither Taur nor Arnica knew how Telann had met lord Arlan, that was the most likely explanation.

“Huh. Fair enough. Just watch out, there’s far too many of them in the city right now, and not enough have come back out. You could probably find a drunk imperial in every alley. Try not to trip over ‘em.”

“Or go ahead and do it,” one guard said, shrugging. “Makes no difference to us, but they can get testy.”

“Aye, that,” agreed the first guard. “Go on ahead then.” He beckoned them through the gate, and with a nervous exchange of glances they walked through.

They walked in silence for a few minutes while they made their way through the city toward the inn they’d booked. Sure enough, on the way they passed more than a few men and women wearing the colors of the sixth army.

“Arlan’s incompetence I get, but I’m surprised the soldiers are acting this way,” Arnica said, shaking her head. “Everything I’ve heard about them had been stellar until now.”

“That was the old sixth,” Taur replied. “When I was talking to Jep and Pinkie they mentioned it. They got too many recruits too fast. The old guard is still around, but most of the officer corps was swapped out in the capital, everyone but their cavalry captain. The leaders don’t know how to run things, and the new soldiers don’t know how to be run.”

As if to punctuate the statement, a baby-faced soldier puked in the street, her friends supporting her weight and laughing uproariously.

----------------------------------------

Sleep came easy that night, and Daniel slipped quickly into pleasant dreams. He couldn’t quite recall what they were about, but he knew they were pleasant because of how reluctant he was to leave them when he was woken up. Woken in fact by a sound that was decidedly unpleasant.

“That’s a gunshot,” he whispered, bolting upright.

“A what?” Taur asked, sitting up from his own bed bleary eyed.

“A gunshot, a firearm. Taur, would the city garrison have muskets? Anyone else? Anyone other than the sixth?”

Realization dawned on the big man. “No. The formula for the powder they use is an imperial secret.” Several more shots came in quick succession. No musket could fire that fast. Several weapons then.

“Those sound like they’re coming from inside the city!” Daniel exclaimed. “Why would they fire here?”

“They shouldn’t,” Taur said, rising to his feet. “I’m getting a bad feeling."

Arnica was awake and had already packed her meager belongings by the time the two men arrived at the door to her room. Clearly, she’d come to the same conclusion they had. With the sixth here, so short on discipline, the city was a powder keg ready to explode. It would have been best to leave before the spark, but they would have to make do.

They made their way downstairs and found the innkeeper awake, trembling in the common room. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw them.

“The streets aren’t safe tonight,” he said, voice wavering. “Especially not for outsiders.”

“We know,” Arnica dismissed.

“I have a panic room in the back. It’s well hidden. If you’re worried about safety I could—”

“Thank you, friend, but we will make do. You’ve been paid in full, yes?” Taur asked, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder. The innkeeper nodded shakily. “Then we will take our leave. Maybe consider the panic room yourself, should things get too bad.”

With that, Taur led the way, Arnica behind and Daniel in the rear as they stepped out of the inn and into Konti’s streets.

They found the city in riot.