“Still up for a fight, old man?”

"He's trying to goad you, Brin!"

Even though Brin could hear Castor’s warnings, and knew that the boy was undoubtedly baiting him, his pride was too high to be unshaken. Whirling his huge sword in a terrifying arc over his head, he rushed towards Conrad, aiming to sever his head from his shoulders.

Brin’s biggest weakness is his temper, but only for a short while. Once he’s good and worked up, his movement becomes sloppy, but if given enough time to calm down, he’ll go back to being deadly, so don’t push your luck.

Keeping the advice that he’d received in mind, Conrad kept provoking the larger man, tightening his grip on his sword. “I thought that members of the King’s Guard were the best of the best, but perhaps that’s not all true. Oh, or perhaps it is… you were demoted, weren’t you?”

The Raven Knight’s blade was making an impressively intimidating whoomp-whoomp-whoomp sound as it spun, reminding Astra of a helicopter blade. Conrad kept his eyes on his opponent’s movements, waiting for the telltale bunching of muscles that would indicate a strike.

There it came!

Ducking, Conrad avoided the blow with the speed of a snake, stepped in instead of back, and thrust his sword upwards.

Brin barely felt the pain, but the shock of realizing he’d been injured made him freeze instinctively. He felt something wet run down his chin, and looked down to see spots of blood landing on the stones.

The cut was tiny – Conrad had just barely flicked his blade along the lower side of Brin’s jaw, but there was no denying the fact that the one to draw first blood was not the Raven Knight, but the sixteen year old boy. The implication – and humiliation – was severe.

As if on cue, he suddenly became aware of the mood of the apprehensive crowd. They had come here itching for a grand fight, and what they had gotten so far was quite unsatisfying. A minimal amount of blows had been landed, and only a few drops of blood shed, leaving them disappointed. There were some who were murmuring amongst themselves that perhaps the esteemed Raven Knights were not all that, if a slip of a thing like this blond lad could toy with one so easily.

Brin’s frown deepened and he glanced up at the box where the Crown Prince sat, thinking that the young royal would not be happy to hear his personal knights so discussed.

But the prince’s expression was mild, his long legs still elegantly crossed as he gazed at the fight without a chance in expression. A glance at Azela proved that the Raven Knights’ Captain was much the same.

“Get on with it, geezer.” The boy’s lazy voice sliced through the air as he grinned and performed a few fancy tricks in the air with the tip of his sword, earning himself a scattering of applause from the audience. “This is boring.”

Astra felt someone poke her and bit back her sigh, glancing sideways at Liam. “What?”

“Are we sure that’s our Conrad?” the redhead whispered. “He’s too soft to hurt a fly. Hearing him mouth off so well is giving me goosebumps.”

“We practiced.”

Liam did a double take. When Astra did not explain further, he reached out to prod her again. “You what?”

Astra gave up holding back her sigh as she reached to nab Liam’s wrist, stopping him from making another assault on her ribcage. “We sat down in his room and I walked him through his lines, because he was originally much too shy to say half the things we came up with. Ilia helped.”

Liam glanced at the shield knight then, and Ilia tossed her long braid, saying, “Well, I am naturally charismatic.”

“Hush now, both of you.” Astra’s voice brought them back to the fight, and the two redheads stopped talking and turned their attention back to the arena.

Castor, on the sidelines, watched a bit helplessly as Brin again roared his fury and began chasing the slim young man around the arena, seemingly abandoning all his rationality. He frowned, deep in thought. How was Conrad going to end this battle? Brin would need to be incapacitated or surrender of his own volition, but it was clear from the way Conrad had been flitting about the older man that the blonde lacked the strength necessary to take Brin down. And yet, he could not afford to dodge forever. Sooner or later he was bound to misstep, or Brin would catch on to his movements, and the fight would be over.

However, Conrad was not planning on waiting nearly that long. He felt a little regretful that he hadn’t gotten to use up the entire list of one-liners that he and Astra had collaborated on, but he knew his mentor wouldn’t thank him for prolonging the fight just to ridicule his opponent.

Brin’s got a strong uppercut, but it has a flaw. The nature of the blow doesn’t let his sword gain as much momentum as his other strikes, so he overcompensates. He’ll be exposed for just a moment after he swings, so don’t miss your chance.

Just as he had been told, the Raven Knight had to step back and build up speed and power for a split second before he swung his giant blade upwards with all his might.

Conrad went to back up, and felt his back collide with something. The moment he realized his mistake, he bit back a curse.

Brin was smarter than they’d given him credit for. He’d slowly backed Conrad to the very edge of the arena, where the four-foot high wooden fence around the ring would obstruct his movements. Conrad was left with very little room for him to dodge to the left or right. 

The oncoming blow would hit his legs first. Conrad lowered his gaze as he prepared to avoid the strike again. 

“I’ve got you now!” Brin shouted triumphantly, suddenly releasing his sword with one hand and reaching to grab at Conrad’s head, aiming to gather a fistful of his blond hair.

Too late, Conrad realized that he'd forgotten what Astra had taught him: to always watch everything around him in a fight. He'd been too focused on the oncoming blow, and had left himself open to the Raven Knight's hands!

The boy, startled, stopped for a split second. That second would cost him, as the sword continued on its path (albeit a little slower without the support of two hands), and Brin showed off an ugly, toothy grin, certain of his victory.

In the audience, very few people managed to see what Conrad did.

However, his four mentors had a clear view of both combatants, and they saw everything.

In the moment that Brin’s fist went to close around his hair, Conrad shifted his head to the side to avoid it, and grabbed the man’s thick wrist with his left hand. Then, bracing his right arm on the top of the wooden barrier, he used the two points as leverage to hoist his feet up and sideways onto the top of the fence proper, narrowly avoiding the sweeping sword. He balanced precariously atop the wood for a moment before he pushed off again, leaping up, and landed squarely on Brin’s face.

It was a magnificent display of reflexes and coordination, but it happened in the space of a few seconds. The boy had moved so quickly that most of the audience missed it.

The Raven Knight had no way to see the flurry of movement coming. He only knew that he had closed his fist around empty air and suddenly the boy crashed into his face. Like a frantic spider, Conrad scrambled to get behind Brin’s head, and wrapped his legs around the man’s neck as though he were riding on his shoulders.

Brin snarled, and tried to reach for the boy clinging to his neck, but he didn’t dare hack at him with his sword lest he lop a piece off himself, too. Conrad squeezed his legs tighter around the Raven Knight’s neck, cutting off his air, and leaned left and right to avoid Brin’s frantically swiping hands.

Brin felt himself running out of oxygen, careening erratically around the arena, and began to panic. Even when he felt his big hands strike a few glancing blows on Conrad’s shoulders or knees, the boy stubbornly refused to let go. His vision was blurring, and he knew he only had a few moments before he ran out of air completely. In a desperate, last-ditch attempt, he suddenly charged towards the nearest fencepost, lowering his head, intending to slam Conrad directly into it, even if it meant injuring himself.

When Conrad saw this, he loosened his muscles just barely, waiting, his eyes narrowing as he gauged the distance. In the moment before Brin collided with the fence, he unlocked his legs, flipped backwards off of his perch, and landed with a heavy thump on the ground.

He stumbled, but didn’t fall. A moment later, the crazed Raven Knight smashed headfirst into the fencepost, breaking it in two. Then, bleeding from scratches on his face and neck, he staggered, and fell to the floor where he lay, unmoving.

He had knocked himself out.

For a long moment, the only sound in the coliseum was that of Conrad’s labored breathing as the boy, after confirming that Brin was well and truly unconscious, flopped onto his back on the dirt and tried to catch his breath. However, he didn’t forget to raise a fist in the air, recognizing that he had won.

If he had thrown himself backwards against the barrier, or even fallen to the ground to crush the boy with his own significant weight, Brin could have easily shaken Conrad off with minimal risk to himself. However, the burly man’s panic and his ‘always charge forwards’ mentality had unfortunately become the keys to his downfall.

Liam was staring at the Raven Knight’s prone body, speechless. After a second or two, his mouth moved and he asked incredulously, “Is he an actual idiot?”

“Apparently,” Astra muttered, and was the first to clap.

Once the noirette started, the applause swept through the arena, and many of the audience began to cheer. They had no idea what Conrad had done, exactly, only that he had moved very quickly and proved to be very agile, but the last few seconds of the fight had been exciting enough to please them. In addition, Conrad’s victory meant that the potential for a second fight lay in store, and now that everyone realized the blond had more to him than met the eye, they were eager to see what other talents he was hiding.

Castor’s expression was very ugly. Even when his Captain called an end to the match, he could not even pretend to smile. He watched as the Crown Prince declared the boy's victory, and his cold gaze following the young soldier. Conrad was currently surrounded by several of his fellow guards, who were all cheering and slapping him on the back.

Something was different about their favourite victim now, that much was clear. Conrad was faster and stronger, but more importantly, his timid temperament had vanished. What could have happened in this short period of time to change him so much?

The Crown Prince stood to order a few soldiers to carry Brin off the field for treatment, and then asked Conrad if he wished to end the day’s events there, publicizing the conditions of the bet that Castor and Conrad had made once more for the audience’s benefit. Despite the fact that he could have declined the second duel without sacrificing his honour, Conrad firmly replied that he wished to participate in the next fight. The audience was delighted to hear this, and shouted encouragement to the young boy.

The prince nodded and then stated that, in fairness to Conrad, there would be a brief lull to allow the combatants to prepare themselves for the upcoming battle.

“Come on.” Astra nudged the people beside her, and the four of them went down to speak to the victor.

The moment Conrad saw them approaching, his eyes lit up, and he ran towards them with a sunny smile. “How did I do?”

Liam cuffed him over the head before stuffing the young man into the crook of his arm in a headlock. “Amazingly, kid,” he told him as Conrad struggled and let out brief sounds of protest.

“You did well improvising at the end,” Rain praised him. “We hadn’t planned for Brin to charge the fence like that.”

“How did a man like that end up in the King’s Guard, anyway?” Ilia complained, thinking back to the Raven Knight’s self-destruct move. “Forget his majesty’s knights, even the Raven Knights are too good for him.”

“Ilia,” Astra cautioned, and the older woman shrugged, unrepentant. “You did wonderfully, Conrad. Are you sure you’re up to the next fight, though? Castor’s much shrewder than Brin. I doubt you’ll be able to goad him into losing his temper.”

Conrad managed to wrestle out of Liam’s grip as he gave the noirette a playfully reproachful look. “This coming from the person who planned everything out?” he teased, seeing Astra’s responding smile. 

“Even so, don’t let your guard down,” Rain warned him flatly, handing the young man a waterskin. “One slipup could cost you your life.”

“I know. I’ll be careful.” Though he promised, Conrad was feeling much more confident after his first victory. He could hardly believe that taking down Brin had gone so smoothly. Of course, he would not have called it easy, and he knew he had made a mistake in allowing himself to be cornered, but the Conrad of the past would never have imagined he could fight a Raven Knight and come out on top. “I owe today’s victory to all of you. Thank you,” he said shyly to his four mentors, seeing them all smile back at him as he uncapped the skin and drank deeply.

“Day’s not over until you win that second duel. Afterwards, you can treat us to dinner,” Liam told him, taking the waterskin from him.

The boy’s smile grew and he nodded happily.

At that moment, a shout from Aleron drew everyone’s attention. The Crown Prince was standing again, gesturing for the bystanders to leave the fighting area and return to their seats.

“Well, I’ll be off,” Conrad said cheerfully. “Wish me luck!”

“You don’t need it,” Astra replied simply, and led the others back to their spots. 

-----

Author's Note:

Hello! Another chapter done! I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season. 

Our golden child Conrad has won his first duel! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ I'm so proud. 

This novel doesn't have a lot of subscribers at the moment, but thank you so much to anyone who has read up until this point. I'm honoured that anyone would read the things I write, and I hope you'll stick around for the rest of the story! 

Also, it's a bit early but Happy New Year to you all! I hope this next year will be full of only good things (and significantly less chaos)! Stay safe and healthy, everyone, and I'll see you in 2022! ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡