Chapter 419: The Horn

Jin used that half second. He stepped forward instead of back, and the fourth-year swung to meet him. It was a big, committed swing, meant to drive Jin off his feet.

Jin pulsed Gravity Press beneath the boy’s advancing foot just as his weight came forward. The shortened step spoiled his balance. He dropped to one knee, the mace passing wide of Jin’s hip.

Jin released the pulse and brought the padded spear tip into line with the boy’s chest. A touch alone meant nothing today; he needed to keep the advantage without hurting him.

The boy started to bring his mace back. Jin shifted the shaft across its path and stepped to the outside of his raised knee. The tamer could regain his feet, but not without giving ground and letting Jin follow.

Flicker circled low on his other side, claws tucked, ready to intercept a dash toward the hound. Glitch still controlled the beast’s attempts to turn. There was no quick way to restore their partnership.

The boy looked from the spear to his hound. Jin waited, breathing hard, with the referee close enough to intervene.

"All right," he said. "All right. Yield. I yield."

The referee raised her hand, confirming the surrender.

"Off," Jin told Glitch. "Gently."

Glitch backed clear, letting the hound regain its feet before turning toward Jin. The boy put a hand on its head and didn’t look at Jin as he walked away.

Two.

He had barely returned to the mound when another contender approached.

It was a girl in a third-year’s vest he didn’t know, with a pair of lean grey jackals that moved like one animal. She didn’t rush.

She advanced along the southern lane while her jackals spread apart, threatening different sides of Jin’s position.

She’s fresh, Jin thought, and felt his stomach drop. And she’s good.

One jackal darted at Glitch’s forelegs, then backed away when he turned. The other sprang toward Flicker’s perch on the mound. She rose out of its reach, but it stayed beneath her, ready to challenge a low approach. Their tamer came down the middle with a short practice blade.

He set his feet behind the mound. His legs didn’t want to. His hip had started to throb.

She feinted. He covered. She went the other way, and he only just got the shaft across. She wasn’t stronger than the fourth-year with the mace.

She was just quicker, and she kept him moving, a step at a time, so that he had to keep turning his head to find Glitch.

On the north side of the arena, there was a sudden shout.

The sound of a heavy collision reached him, followed by a whistle and an official calling a name. A moment later, another official announced that eleven tamers remained.

The girl came again. Jin caught her blade on the shaft, his hands stinging. Glitch checked one jackal’s rush, but the second kept moving beneath Flicker, denying her an easy angle on the girl without passing close to Jin.

He needed them together. "Flicker, round behind—"

Across the arena, near the western boundary, a beast went sprawling. Its tamer retreated from the opposing student’s advance and stumbled fully across the white line.

The flag rose, and the horn sounded immediately.

It was a long, flat blast that went right through the arena and made everyone flinch. The girl’s blade stopped a foot from Jin’s spear. She held it there, breathing hard, and then lowered it.

All across the sand, fights stopped. Referees walked into the lanes with their hands up.

"Ten," Ashdown’s voice said, over everything. "It’s done. Call your beasts. Nobody touches anybody."

The girl looked at Jin over the lowered blade. Her jackals were already trotting back to her.

"Next time," she said, and turned away.

Jin lowered his spear. Glitch stood in the lane, looking confused that the jackal had stopped.

Flicker glided back from above the mound, well within the marked airspace.

She landed on his shoulder and leaned her whole small hot body against his neck.

"Yeah," he said. "Me too."

An official walked Jin to the medical tents behind the north gate, asking whether he could feel all his fingers.

The beast clinic took Glitch and Flicker into a separate bay. A medic sat Jin down and examined his forearm.

"Bruising here and at the shoulder," the medic said. "The hip looks overworked rather than injured, but I want to see your movement again on Monday. Rest tomorrow. No training."

"I wasn’t planning anything."

"Good."

Glitch’s scrape was cleaned and dressed, and the cut on his jaw got a smear of salve. Flicker had a torn covert feather and was exhausted, nothing else. The clinic handler wrote rest, recheck Monday on both their cards.

The list went up outside the tents an hour later.

[Resource-Realm Selection — Melee Survivors]

[By original seed: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 18.]

Underneath was the bracket, already drawn.

The six highest-seeded survivors received byes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8. With seeds 5 and 6 eliminated, Jin was fifth in the surviving order. He read the list again before letting himself believe it.

Lucian, as ninth seed, didn’t. He would fight seed 18 tomorrow. Seed 11 would fight seed 14. The two winners would join the six.

The quarterfinals were drawn below in two halves. In the first, seed 1 would meet the winner of 11 and 14, and seed 4 would meet seed 7.

Seed 4, Jin thought. Wednesday.

In the other half, seed 2 would meet the winner of 9 and 18, and seed 3 would meet seed 8.

Lucian came round the side of the tent while Jin was still reading it, with Kite on his arm and a long graze down his own cheek.

He looked at the bracket. Then he looked at Jin.

"You’ve got a bye," he said.

"I’ve got a bye."

"And I’ve got Sunday." He laughed, a bit shakily, and sat down on the bench beside Jin so heavily it creaked. "Of course I’ve got Sunday."

They sat on the bench outside the clinic and filled in each other’s afternoons.

Lucian had put two people out, the same as Jin. One was the hound tamer Jin had seen him reach.

The other had used a burrowing beast to threaten Kite’s landing spots, until Lucian anticipated its next approach.

"I nearly went out at the start," Lucian said. "There was a girl with a hawk who tried to push Kite up through the cords. Over and over."

"Mine tried that too," Jin said. "A boy with a Shellhorn Ox."

"Different pair, then." Lucian rubbed his face. "I didn’t realise how close she’d got to the limit until I looked up."

The clinic handler came out with Kite’s card and handed it to Lucian. Jin read it upside down out of habit.

[Kite — Thunder Falcon. Quality: Gold (Low). Combat Rank: 2 — 3-Star.]

[Condition: fatigued, minor feather damage. Cleared for Sunday, recheck after bout.]

Both Lucian and Kite had reached 3-Star over the preceding weeks. Jin had watched the work behind it, though Lucian had made far less fuss about his own result than hers.

"She’s good for tomorrow," Lucian said, reading it himself. He let out a breath. "Good."

"Are you?"

"Cleared, unless anything changes overnight." Lucian touched the graze on his cheek and winced. "Apparently this will look worse than it feels."

Jin went back to the dorm, iced his arm, ate two dinners, and slept for ten hours.