Description: Chapter 1 Qalsyn, Stelpana, on Ravens Wash, Hunter's Moon waxing, year 1211 First blood, the rules said. Beyond that, they didn't specify. A nick of the skin, the severing of a limb, a fatal strike to the breast; any of these would do. First blood. That was all a warrior needed to win. .nament worked. From the youngest child, dreaming of the day when she might step into the ring and bow to His Lordship, to the oldest man, his memory of that first bow to the lord governor a fading memory, they all knew. A battle could turn with a single thrust, be it the desperate last lunge of a weary guard or the methodical advance of .giving as steel, as merciless as the Growing sun. One mistake, one momentary lapse of concentration. First blood. Even as she circled her opponent, watching for his next .ingand stamping all around the arena. She had watched enough matches as a child to understand the rituals of those in the boxes: the wagers, the exchange of coin at the end of each match, the constant shifting of fortune among men and women hoping to profit from each new wound. But while the spectators made sport of the contests, there could be no doubt: the tournament was a matter deadly serious to all who watched. And yet, the earnestness of those in the boxes was nothing compared with the gravity of those in the ring. Each contest began the same way. The two combatants entered through the doors at opposite sides of the ring, walked to the center, and turned to face His Lordship, who sat in the main box. Each warrior bowed to the lord .head in salute. Then they bowed to each other. And then they began to fight. Tirnya had fought dozens of battles in the ring, and had watched more than she could count. Some began and ended with a single devastating assault or in a blindingly .ing of blood. Other matches began slowly, as this one had, the warriors turning slow circles, eyeing each other, looking for any advantage. Attacks in such contests came in quick bursts; swords dancing suddenly, fitfully, bright blurs in the sunlight, chiming like sanctuary bells each time they clashed, whistling dully as they carved through air. Standard Qalsyn army blades and Aelean bastard swords; Tordjanni broad blades and the famed shillads of .gers and narrow-bladed knives concealed in a sleeve or a boot: Tirnya had faced all sorts of steel in the ring. She herself might use three or four different swords and as many short blades in the course of a single tournament. But every warrior knew that the weapon itself meant nothing; it was the hand wielding the blade that mattered. There was a saying that was heard quite often this time of .neath, where the combatants awaited their turn. "You can arm a fool with the finest Aelean steel, and at the end of the day he'll still end up bloodied." Like all sayings of its sort, this one carried the weight of truth. Tirnya remembered a battle tournament from her tenth or eleventh year, when she still sat in the boxes with her mother and brothers, watching with the women and children and the men who had grown too old to fight. .member seeing before. His coat of mail, the only armor the combatants were allowed, was dull and fit poorly. .tered and travel- stained. And, most memorably, his sword was rusted and notched, a weapon barely adequate for a road brigand, much less someone who hoped to be .ment and take home the crystal blade and twenty gold sovereigns. No one who saw him step into the ring for the first time thought the stranger would last more than a round or two. "Even the Tordjanni army would turn away a man who .ting behind Tirnya and her family. His companion agreed. "One round with a Qalsyn .longs." .ing his first opponent with elegant ease. His swordwork .trolled blow to the neck that drew blood, but caused the vanquished man no serious injury. "The first man was no one," the older man assured himself and his companion. "I'd never seen him before, either." His companion might have nodded his agreement. Tirnya wasn't certain. She knew only that he said nothing. When next the stranger entered the ring, it was to face a soldier from the Qalsyn army. Coaf Vantol wasn't the finest swordsman in His Lordship's force, but he was a good fighter, a big, strong, genial man, and a favorite among the city people. Surely the stranger would fall to Coaf. But no. With astonishing speed this man no one knew, this so-called warrior, who looked more like a troubadour desperate for coin than a fighter, had Coaf on his heels. In mere moments, the city's man was bleeding from a cut on his cheek. First blood; second victory. No one cheered, until at last His Lordship himself stood and .plause spread through the arena, growing louder and louder. After that the man became the favored warrior in the tournament. And he didn't disappoint. Nine more times he stepped into the ring, and nine more times he raised his rusted blade in victory, bowing graciously, first to the central box and then to the rest. Even the old man began to cheer for him, cataloging in a loud voice the man's fine attributes as a fighter: his agile footwork, his skilled use of the long-handled dagger in his off hand, the fluid grace of his sword arm. One might have thought that the old .gant was his praise. Eventually the stranger did lose, to Tirnya's father, as it happened. Her father was a marshal in His Lordship's army, and one of the finest swordsmen in all of Stelpana. He was also well liked in many parts of the city; usually a victory for Jenoe Onjaef would have elicited a mighty roar. But on this day, the defeat of the stranger left the arena strangely quiet. The men and women in the boxes cheered for her father as he raised his blade, but even Tirnya could sense their disappointment. This once, they had been pulling not for Jenoe, but for the other man. Tirnya couldn't deny that even she had felt the briefest pang of regret at the stranger's loss. Her father won the tournament that year, the last of his seven championships. He could have fought for several years more; there were some who said he could still fight in the ring to this day and compete for the crystal dagger. But his duties in His Lordship's army had begun to lie heavy on his shoulders and he had grown bored with the ring. Besides, a few years later Tirnya was ready to take her place in the tournament, and only one member of any family could enter the ring in a given year. Still, though that was Jenoe's last year as champion, forever after that .ance in Qalsyn. Stri had since become a captain in her father's battalion and one of the city's most renowned soldiers. But for Tirnya, it was the warning inherent in Stri's success that remained freshest in her mind. Never again would she look at any warrior and underestimate his or .nished armor. Nor would she assume that a man or woman couldn't fight simply because he or she didn't look the part of a warrior. Others in the Qalsyn tournament had been slower to take this lesson to heart, and she had benefited from their .nament, the year she came of age, the other combatants looked at her and saw the daughter of a great warrior, beautiful, graceful, but too weak and too lovely to be a swordswoman of any consequence. Like Stri, she proved ..nament. In fact, she bore scars from every tournament she had entered, for though she had established herself as one of the best fighters in all the land, she had yet to win the crystal blade. The last two years she had made it to the final match, only to be beaten on both occasions by Enly Tolm, son of Maisaak, the lord governor. Tirnya fully expected that they would meet again this year, though with a different result. First, though, she had to defeat this giant of a man stalking her in the center of the ring. She had never learned his name; like most of the other fighters she knew him only as the Aelean. But she had seen him fight several times, and she knew that this was not a victory she could take for granted. The Aelean was a full head taller than she, with huge shoulders and long, muscular arms. For a man of his size, he was fairly nimble: he moved his feet well and reacted quickly to his opponents' attacks. Usually, against so powerful an opponent, she would have circled continually toward his off hand and the smaller blade. But the Aelean had won more than a few of his matches with the dirk he carried in his left hand, which lashed out like a serpent at any foe too concerned with his great sword. His greatest asset as a warrior, though, was his strength. One stroke of his bastard sword, it was said, could hew through an oak tree two hands wide. Tirnya wasn't certain that she believed this, but there could be no denying the power of the man's sword stroke. If she tried to parry more than one or two of his attacks, her arm would end up numb, or broken. Best, then, to keep moving. Not toward his dirk, but to her left, his right. She took care to keep outside of his sword hand, so that any blow he landed with the bastard sword would be backhanded. He eyed her warily as they turned their slow circle in the dirt. He might have been twice her size, but he knew as well as she that Tirnya had her own advantages in the ring. She was strong for one so little, though not nearly as powerful as the Aelean. But she was quicker and more skilled with her shillad, the long, thin blade used by the horsemen of Naqbae. It wasn't the weapon she used when leading her soldiers; it wasn't even the sword she usually carried into the ring. But she always brought it with her to the tournament, knowing that it would be the perfect weapon agai

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