Chapter 714: The Silent Knight

The Stillborn knight made no sound as he stepped onto the bridge, neither a breath nor a footfall. Juna watched his feet land on the planks and heard nothing, not even the creak of old weight.

"He walks like a ghost with good manners, I already want to bite him," she muttered, flexing her claws.

The arena hung above the Bright Dark, a span of pale bone over a field of unborn stars. Every gallery above it was packed with nobles, their cups raised for the first Courtesy of the dusk.

"Blades Courtesy, first round, Nil of the Stillborn Order against the wolf of the Moon Pack," the masked chancellor announced, "every fallen fragment shrinks the span, whoever leaves it first forfeits."

"Five to one against the wolf," a noble drawled from the gallery, "the Stillborn never lose, they have no sound to surrender."

"Twenty gold says she bleeds before the third plank falls," a woman answered behind her fan, "I never bet against silence."

"A floor that eats itself... wonderful," Juna said, rolling her shoulders until the joints popped.

"Bite him for me, Wolfie!" Hajin called from the stands, grinning like an idiot.

"I bite whoever I like, you don’t get a vote."

Her twin daggers slid into her palms, curved thin as moons, glinting under the unborn stars below. She crossed the first planks with her tail low, her nose working to taste the air ahead.

"You can do it, Juna, I saved you a bun in case you win," Loccy shouted, waving it over her head.

"Put it away, rabbit, you will make me hungry and then I will lose."

"Do not die, wolf, it would ruin his whole evening," Didi called from the rail, nodding toward the stands.

Hajin’s voice came again, softer now, pitched to carry exactly as far as she stood.

"Come back with all your fur on."

"I will come back with his sword, you idiot, keep your seat," she said, her tail betraying her with one quick wag.

Nothing came back to her nose except a faint trace of cold wax, like a candle blown out. The knight had no scent of sweat, leather or steel, which was the first wrong thing about him.

He lifted his longsword in a salute that never rustled, the blade pale as a thread of frost.

"Begin," the chancellor said, his voice dying a pace later in the silence.

’Dead Air, he’s eating the noise, I can’t even hear my own heartbeat.’

The quiet spread from the knight in a ring ten feet wide, swallowing her breath, her steps, her pulse. All her life she trusted her ears and her nose, but now one of the two was torn away.

Her fur rose along her spine, but the silence did not care.

Juna lunged first, Crescent Fang flashing in a double slash that left two pale moon cuts hanging. The knight was simply gone, a thin line of fire opening along her flank a heartbeat later.

"Come out and fight, you coward!" she screamed, though the sound died in her throat like a coin dropped down a well.

Another cut crossed her thigh, so clean that she felt the blood before she felt any pain at all. Her ears flattened as she spun in a circle, snapping at the nothing that kept stealing quietly past her.

The third cut took the tip of her ear, then the fourth laid her forearm open to the bone.

"A fragment falls, the span is thirty paces," the chancellor said, his lips moving a breath before the words arrived, "the wolf bleeds gloriously."

"Double my wager on the knight, she has stopped fighting and started dying," the drawling noble called, waving his slip.

Up in the stands, Hajin gripped the rail with both hands, his knuckles bone white.

"Watch her," Vella said, laying two fingers on his wrist, "she is working something out."

"She’s bleeding, Vella, she’s bleeding a lot," he said through his teeth.

"She is learning, so you are going to let her," she answered, never looking away.

Didi sat rigid in the front row, Gazel’s sword across her knees, one gloved hand clamped on the grip. The blue ribbon on its hilt shivered whenever Juna flinched, as if the old steel wished to jump down.

"She is too stubborn to lose," Nyra said, resting her glaive against her shoulder, though her gold-edged horns stayed very still.

"That’s exactly what scares me, Nyra."

Beside them Loccy crushed her saved bun into a flat disc, crumbs sifting through her fingers onto the floor.

Juna could not hear them, but the scent of Hajin’s fear reached her across the span, salty and sharp. Strangely it steadied her at once, the way a hand on the back of the neck steadies a pup.

Blood ran warm down her leg while the bridge felt narrower with every breath she took.

The fifth cut opened her shoulder while she balanced on a plank barely wider than her paw. Another plank broke loose behind her heel, so she vaulted the gap with Moonlit Step, landing softly.

Beneath the pain sat a colder fear, that the loudest wolf would be the one to fail him.

’Stop it, you idiot... he did not pick you because you win, he picked you because you bite.’

She took the sixth cut across the ribs without dodging, then closed her eyes on purpose.

’Scent-Map, draw the whole bridge, plank by plank, then find the place where he isn’t.’

The bridge unrolled in her mind as a map of smells, every single plank a different shade of dust. The knight showed up as a hole in it, a patch of nothing pushing cold wax ahead of him.

Under the wax she found a second smell, sour milk and old linen, a nursery shut for years.

"Why is she smiling, that was the seventh cut—"

"She is counting them, so be quiet," she said, hiding a smile of her own.

His rhythm came to her on the seventh cut, a left-handed thrust that always followed a stolen footstep. Echo-Eat could steal the sound of his steps, but it could never steal the shift in the air.

A plank dropped away from the edge and drifted down into the Bright Dark, shrinking the arena again.

"Twelve paces, the Stillborn have never needed more than six," the chancellor said, sounding almost curious, "how very interesting."

The span was twelve paces long and barely two wide now, ragged at both edges like a bitten crust. Juna kept to its centre, feeling each loose plank through her soles before she dared to trust it fully.

Hajin leaned over the rail, "She is running out of floor."

"Then she will end it before the floor does, darling."

Back on the Stair, Vella once wiped a streak of blood from her cheek, soft as an older sister. Juna bit down hard on her own tongue each time she remembered it, which was nearly every breath now.

"Pretty," came Vella’s voice from the stands, cutting through the dead hush like a thrown ribbon.

Juna’s ears flattened as her face burned hot, sending her next slash wide by a full hand’s breadth. The miss annoyed her so badly that the next strike landed twice as hard, ringing off his guard.

’Pretty, she says, in the middle of a fight, I am going to bite her next.’

Hush-Thread flickered in a figure-eight, drawing a pale ribbon of nothing across the space between them both. Juna ducked it by a whisker, then drove forward with both daggers crossed in front like jaws.

Another plank fell and the span shrank to six paces, the exact distance he preferred.

She took the next thrust along her ribs on purpose, letting the blade slide past the bone.

Then she clamped her teeth on the flat of the sword, tasting cold steel and old milk. The blade stopped dead, the knight’s body going rigid with the first surprise of his silent life.

’Got you, little ghost... nobody told you teeth count as a weapon.’

Juna spun with the blade still clenched in her jaws, wrenching it sideways out of his grip. Crescent Fang came down in a double arc across his wrist, shattering the bone with a crack.

The knight dropped to one knee with his ruined arm dangling, still making no sound at all.

"Blades, round one, goes to Juna of the Moon Pack," the chancellor called, sounding faintly bored.

"Did you hear that, Hajin, that was me," Juna shouted, spitting blood onto the planks, "I did that."

"The whole Underworld heard it!" he roared back, one fist in the air.

Nyra tilted her head, "She tasted his sword before she broke him, I think that is my favourite part."

"Five to one," the noble moaned, clutching his purse, "five to one and I lost every coin I own."

Didi pretended to study her nails, "That was reckless, wolf... but I suppose it was acceptable."

Loccy waved the squashed disc, "The bun is flat now, but it still counts as a bun!"

Her legs shook the moment the cheering started, so she locked her knees and grinned up at all of them.

Up in the stands Vella mouthed that same word again, very slowly, until Juna’s tail answered before her pride could.

[ashley(mod): She bit a SWORD. She bit a sword and then broke the man holding it.]

[DarkBlade: Wolf girl went feral and I fully support it.]

"Beautifully done, my dear, you have a gift for listening," Ibaran called down warmly.

"The Stillborn have never lost a first duel, so I must find the correct form for it," the chancellor mused.

’He praises me like a hound that fetched, I am going to take that smile off his face.’

The knight’s mask lay cracked on the planks where she kicked it free, its pieces still rocking slowly. The face beneath showed no features at all, only blank flesh stretched tight where a mouth should be.

"Mouthless," a noble whispered in the gallery, "they are all mouthless, every one of them."

"The Stillborn Order is made of men the King fed to the Hush, they simply never forget their swords," the chancellor said, almost fondly.

Cessy’s fan stopped moving, "They had names once, every one of them, with mothers who sang them to sleep."

"Then I’ll make sure the next one gets to scream," Hajin said quietly, his fist closing around the rail.

High above the span, Ibaran sipped his tea, smiling at the faceless man like a proud grandfather.