Thistle smiled as he took aim and let the first of his own daggers fly. He’d been worried things would get boring, but it seemed he might have a little fun at this tournament, after all.
Unlike Thistle, Eric wasn’t particularly interesting to the other adventurers who wandered into his area of the training arena. Most of them seemed to stick together, whispering when others came by. A few of them shot Eric looks, suspiciously gauging whether he was a danger, but after watching him smack the dummy around, they lost interest.
He couldn’t really blame them; he knew he didn’t look the part of a fellow adventurer. They were all decked out in well-made clothes and fitted armor, while Eric was wearing a homemade tunic and pants, along with shoes that were barely holding together. His mother had taught him to patch his clothing, though in the rush to get out of town, he hadn’t thought to bring along any sewing implements.
Hopefully, his footwear would hold out until at least after the tournament. If even one of them won, it would provide enough to equip themselves with the necessities. Eric took a break to catch his breath and watched a few of the other groups sparring. Most of them were good, but not spectacular. A few, he felt sure he could actually win against. There was the occasional rarity, though: warriors in armor that nearly hummed with magic, and who struck each other with such power that the dust behind them was blown away. One was a dwarf swinging a club nearly the size of him. Another was human, longsword dancing lightly in his hands. When Eric looked at these competitors, he felt a hot stone of certainty in his gut that, if one in his group did win, it wasn’t going to be him or Gabrielle. Even if they had even odds against the bulk of the others, one of those two he was watching spar would likely be walking away with the win.
Eric took up his wooden sword once more and began training, determination renewed. Maybe the impressive contenders would both go to General Melee, in which case, his party would be counting on him to win some prize money from Sword Fighting. It was like the leader of the guards had always said: “In a real battle, anything can happen.”
He’d meant it as a caution to be prepared for whatever their opponent might throw at them, but Eric had gleaned a different meaning from those words. To him, it meant that, no matter how difficult an opponent might be, there was always a chance.
Eric intended to make the most that chance, if it was presented to him.
The grove Grumph brought Gabrielle into wasn’t particularly peacefuclass="underline" nearby sounds of battle still echoed from the training area, bouncing off the trees. Still, the shade, greenery, and distance from others did help Gabrielle calm down. For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine why she’d snapped at Eric like that. Gabrielle was on the verge of telling Grumph to forget everything, that it had been a fluke when he spoke.
“You’ve had anger for a long time,” he said simply, rough voice brought down softer than she’d expected.
“No, just since the goblin camp,” she replied.
Grumph shook his head. “Years. Always angry. Unhappy with your life. Unhappy with your place in the world. Anger boils, constantly. Builds pressure as time goes by. Anger didn’t begin at goblin camp; that was when Anger broke free.”
It was more than Gabrielle had ever heard him speak at once. Grumph always kept things short, simple, and concise. That fact alone impressed upon her the importance of what he was trying to convey to her. Besides, hadn’t she just admitted to herself that she’d been trying to live two lives, being forced to compromise pieces of herself nearly every day? Maybe that sort of thing had worn on her more than she’d let herself realize.
“But I’ve never had a temper before,” Gabrielle pointed out.
“Sarcasm, biting words, fierce tones. You kept it sealed, released only in small spurts.”
“That still doesn’t explain why I’ve got one now, though.”
“If I have barrel of mead with a spout, I control how much mead comes out,” Grumph told her. “If I kick open a hole, mead comes out as it sees fit. Spout is no help anymore. You broke open your sealed Anger when you saw the goblins dying. Now, it is flowing out when it chooses.”
“Fine; if — and this is definitely an ‘if’ — but if I accept that idea, how do I fix it?”
“A broken barrel cannot be fixed unless mead is emptied. I don’t know how to empty a person of Anger,” Grumph admitted. “Fixing is off the table for now, so we have to work with next best thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Learning to aim,” Grumph told her, a slight smile creeping across his wide, hairy face.
11.
The day of the tournament was a gorgeous one: sun shining brightly overhead and not a single cloud in the sky. Of course, this was the worst possible weather for the competitors; it meant glares of light in the eye from every reflective surface and stifling heat for those equipped with armor. Despite this, spirits were high as the various parties wandered into the arena.
Unlike on the days of training, all the decorations had been set up and unfurled the previous evening. Large banners, sizable signs, and endless knick-knacks were positioned all over the arena. While at a royal tournament these would have shown the standards of great houses, or of the warriors for whom various groups were cheering for; here, nearly all of them were advertisements for various stalls and vendors in town. One for the local herbalist, showing a wounded knight being magically healed, would prove to be particularly well-targeted advertising by the day’s end.
Another notable difference from the days before was the people in attendance. A peasant or two had wandered by the training grounds on days prior, though the vast majority of them were working, or manning shops in order to squeeze every coin they could from the adventurers. Now that their cash cows were otherwise occupied, it made all the sense in the world to come watch a free show. After all, they’d put in a lot of work over the last week. They deserved a day off.
The mood in the stands was festive, buoyant even, as locals with more gold under their mattresses than they’d ever had before kicked back to be entertained. A few die-hard entrepreneurs were walking through the stands, selling mead and meat, though pointedly not calling out prices. They wouldn’t want an adventurer to overhear how much things really cost.
Near the center, in a part of the stands slightly sectioned off, was the mayor of Appleram and his two children. Despite his high office Mayor Branders still worked his farm daily, leaving him a muscular man with a sun-beaten face. The young boy and girl scrambling about energetically had similar features to his, but theirs were turned up in smiles and glowing with excitement. They raced alongside the railings, pointing to each new adventurer who entered the arena, frantically speculating about what their events were and how they would do.
The mayor’s children were far from the only ones doing some speculating. A buzz swept through the crowds any time an adventurer did so much as stretch their back. Bets on who would win what events were made and taken in covert gestures and secret hand-offs. Many made their guesses based on the interactions they’d had with the adventurers during the week while others used physical stature as their betting benchmarks, and still a third camp made their speculations based entirely on the quality of the armor an individual was wearing. Due to this third camp, there was already heavy money riding on the party Eric had watched during his training and more would certainly be added to that sum as the day wore on.
One group, on whom no one had placed even a single copper coin, was the party containing a human female wearing a large axe, a half-orc clutching a spellbook, a crooked gnome fiddling with a pair of goblin-made daggers, and a human male with a hole in the left heel of his shoes. Truthfully, their drab equipment didn’t stand out as much as their motley assortment of races, and even that wasn’t terribly divergent from the other groups. Many of the other parties had a similar quality of gear and more than one race of warrior in their arsenal. What set this group apart was the simple truth that they appeared to have no idea what they were doing. As they wandered around the arena, muttering to themselves, the other parties were warming up, doing some mock sparring, or just posing for the crowd. These four merely kept to themselves, tried to stay out of everyone else’s way, and waited for the events to begin.