The fight lasted long enough for Alden to read only two short sentences. He struck Gosfrid first with a blow to the stomach, then, as Gosfrid was bent over, with a knee to the face. Clawing his way back to his feet, the archer lurched after Dayan like a rabid animal. But the Chanat warrior dodged to the side and, with his left hand, landed a punishing blow to the side of Gosfrid’s head.

Alden was at least thankful that Gosfrid was only left unconscious in the dirt, and relatively undamaged.

“He is an interesting fighter,” Dayan said as Alden healed the unconscious archer.

“Better than most,” Alden said. Splitting his focus between healing, reading, and speaking proved to be a difficult undertaking.

“I have seen him with a bow. He is the best archer in Drygallis, yes?” Dayan asked.

“No. Though he is the best archer in my employ, I have the honor of being the best archer and spearman in Lyonpool. Beyond Lyonpool I am certain there are those better than myself, though I have never met them.”

“Will you face me with a spear, then?”

“No.”

When Gosfrid was healed and taken away, Alden stood and looked down upon Dayan. The warrior had the imposing countenance of a beast, combined with the calm menace of a knight, and all that before leveling up. If there were any in Tejin’s Strait that could match him now, Alden was hesitant to make their acquaintance.

“Shall we begin?” Alden asked dully.

Dayan nodded, then attacked.

Leading with a low kick, Alden watched the warriors legs. The back leg ground into the grass as the front leg arced outward and gained speed, coming around to the side of Alden’s own leg. He allowed Dayan to hit his mark; a throb of pain shot up his leg, but the leg, held down by Alden’s sizable mass, otherwise refused to budge.

Dayan leapt back, wincing slightly as he put weight on the leg he’d kicked with. He stared at Alden’s own leg with perplexion. Then his eyes shot up, he raised his arms into a guard, and waited for retaliation.

But Alden had no such intentions. A game such as this, one in which he had no initial interest and in which all previous interest had waned, required him to settle it in a most humiliating fashion. There was no better way to destroy any hope in future attempts, short of complete annihilation. But, though he could end the match in a single punch, or through a number of gruesome attacks that would leave Dayan, if temporarily, in bloody tatters, Alden instead chose to read.

Dayan went for a kick again, this time against Alden’s stomach. Alden, unmoving, allowed the blow to land and almost regretted it. Dull pain arced across and up his torso, forcing him to tense the muscles of his back to keep from buckling over. When Dayan struck the same spot again he did regret it, but his resolve forced him still.

The details of what he read spawned a hundred ideas, all of them requiring testing. There was, beyond the base problem of injecting mana within a being's cells, the underlying shape and form of mana itself. Likening it to the very body itself, if only for his own understanding, mana was, at its core, an impermeable thing made of countless smaller parts, not dissimilar to the cells of living things.

A paragraph later his stomach was bruised and bleeding to the point of distraction; a wetness trickled down his stomach onto his thighs and groin, and the pain that wracked his body was so intense it was a wonder that he was not screaming.

“This is not a fight,” Dayan complained. A sheen of sweat beaded his brow, and he breathed hard.

“I never intended it to be,” Alden said.

Anger flashed over Dayan’s features. He kicked again. More than pain, Alden felt the sudden disconnect of flesh and a splattering sound. The crowd groaned, then began to yell and scream. They pressed inward, rushing towards him, but, with a simple raise of his hand, an invisible barrier of magic was cast over Dayan and himself, preventing their entrance.

“My lord!” Dayan yelled.

Humoring the Chanat warrior brought Alden little comfort. He looked down and saw what he already knew had happened: his entrails, no longer held in place by the paltry flesh that Dayan had taken such animus towards, had fallen to the ground like wet ropes.

Dayan rushed to Alden and gripped at the loose intestines. Slippery with blood, he gained no purchase and in the suffocating realization that he could be no aid looked helplessly to Alden.

“I have suffered worse,” Alden said, his calm demeanor breaking through the veil of panic that had overtaken Dayan. “This fight is at an end, I think.”

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Pouring magic into his stomach, Alden felt his entrails flex and shift as they were pulled back inside him, to the amazement of everyone around. When he was done he grabbed Dayan by the arm, carrying him firmly along with him. “None are to follow,” he said, to silence.

Dayan wriggled in his grip and complained the entire way, stopping only once they had entered the racing stables and Alden had released him.

“Do you know the name Lukas?” Alden asked him before he could complain further. Dayan shook his head, curious and confused. “My nobility is a status only recently earned; Drygallis was at war only a few months ago. Hilva, our vassal to the east, decided to rebel, and invaded. And at the final battle I fought a mage calling himself Lukas; I know of no greater mage than myself, but he was not so much weaker that I could do to him as I am now doing to you. He attacked me with the intent to kill. He nearly succeeded, and failed only due to circumstance.”

As he recollected the events of his siege on Licester, Alden felt pangs of anger course through him. Lukas, at least, had proven a challenge to himself; the fight had been a necessity, done with only the barest desire and pushed upon himself from powers greater than his own. To compare the two, that fateful fight with Lukas with his quarrel now with Dayan, could bring only anger.

“Lukas was a fine opponent, but you… what have you done, really, other than irritate me with your games?”

“I play no game!”

Alden stepped forward, his shadow encompassing Dayan in darkness. Dayan flinched back a step, his eyes darting to Alden and then away.

“Then you did intend to kill me? To claim my lands as your own? To betray me?”

“I did not betray you,” Dayan said.

“You did. You came to me, intending violence. Intending to take what is mine.”

“How else did you expect me to behave? I am a warrior! I will follow only a warrior, and only the strongest warrior is deserving of my loyalty.”

“We are not in the Bloody Grass,” Alden replied. “What it means to be a warrior is different. Warriors serve, as all serve. Here, to challenge your betters, those you are sworn to protect, is an act of rebellion, nothing more. Even if you defeated me, what then? You would rule? You, a leader of people already conquered once by the Empire?”

“I am stronger now than I was before,” Dayan protested.

“By my power! Mine! Power that was gifted to you for your service to me. And the lands upon which you live now are, as well, mine, gifted to me for my strength and the aid I provided to the Empire. You and your people, too, are mine, entrusted to me by the Empire which conquered you.”

Beneath the rage was a face Alden he wished, at times, to forget. The face, which was of Ormar, was but a reminder to himself of the meaning of victory and, to a much more important degree, the meaning of betrayal.

“You must understand,” Alden began again, “that in the climb to power you will gain no purchase in following the brutal man who thinks only of war. The Empire has some of the finest warriors in the world, finer still than anything you have yet seen. There are many knights greater than yourself in power, and many who could threaten me. And then, in the heart of the Empire where the late Emperor once lived, there are those whose power is incomprehensible to you or I.”

“How are we to face them?” Dayan asked, his competitive demeanor suddenly lost.

“Quiet,” Alden said. He conjured his detection magic in search of eavesdroppers and, finding none, continued. “There will be no facing them,” he said, hearing the fear in his own voice. “If they smell a hint of rebellion the Vigilants will descend upon us and kill us all.”

“Could we not fight?”

“No. I have met only three of them, but them alone would be enough to snuff us out without great resistance.”

Disbelief was written over Dayan’s features. That he could, with all his might, only struggle in vain against Alden in combat, and then shortly thereafter, while looking upon the giant man who was almost a figure of myth, sense nothing but the unmistakable stench of fear off of him was a great discomfort to Dayan. The attempt to join his lived experiences with Alden’s statements was a visible hardship, one that Alden had little intention of patiently waiting to resolve.

“If the discussion is passed, there is still the issue of your punishment,” Alden said.

Pulled from his thoughts, Dayan looked up at his lord and scowled.

“There is no need for punishment,” he said.

“Oh, but there is. You have challenged me, your rightful lord, and you have lost.”

“There has been no loss! There had barely been a fight!”

Alden began to tense his arms and legs, preparing them. “If a display of force is required of me, then so be it.”

Alden struck him only once. From another’s perspective it must have been a frightening sight, to see his massive bulk disappear from one location some paces away from Dayan and, without time seeming to pass, appear again in front of the warrior. More frightening would be to see the mass of his arm resting neatly within a section of Dayan’s body which had been carved out completely in the shape of Alden’s arm and which, a moment before, had held the Chanat warriors arm and shoulder. The arm itself was flung with such force it splattered against the far wall of the stables, a spray of blood raining down upon frightened horses.

Dayan, to his credit, remained silent. There was no scream, nor guttural groans of pain from his lips. Surprise, however, was immediately evident in his expression. He fell to his knees.

“Is it done?” Alden asked him.

“It is done, my lord. I shall await my punishment eagerly.”

Taking the arm from its spot on the floor, Alden placed it back to its rightful place and, with his magic, began to reattach it.

“No need for eagerness,” Alden said as he finished. “It will begin shortly. Come.”