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“Eek!”
There was a sound like splitting logs, and both lances burst into shards of wood. The rhea girl’s cry was lost in the crash, and it disappeared before anyone had heard it. Under her visor, though, she flushed red. To scream just because the enemy had struck her!
The brutal shock ran down the left side of her body, nearly throwing her from her saddle. She braced herself in the stirrups and clutched the reins, managing to hold fast. She didn’t fall out—excellent. Wait… Was it excellent?
Do you have to ask?!
If she didn’t win, there was no point. Her eyes glinted with fighting spirit, and she wheeled her donkey around. There, on the other side of the tilt—there he was. The knight was still on his horse.
The girl shouted, “Points?!”
“One point!” said Wizard Boy, who came scrambling up, clutching a fresh lance. He held it out to her. Within the confines of her visor, she could barely see the flags raised to indicate the number of points. “But thanks to my little oration, the crowd is on our side!”
“So what?!”
“So subjectively, we’re even!” Wizard Boy said with a bitter smile. “His lance broke, too, after all.”
Rhea Fighter made an angry “hrm” under her helmet.
For a second, the boy thought she was hurt, but then he realized the reaction was emotional.
“What, you upset?” he asked.
“Not upset. I’m sure he’ll have some kind of excuse.”
“Ahhh…”
Like maybe that he’d been going easy on her because she was a rhea. That would be hard to stomach—that much, Wizard Boy could understand.
“I want to win this. On merit. And no questions!”
“Then you’d better really thrash him,” the boy said, handing her the lance. He patted her helmet, plonk, just once.
“Right!” she said with an energetic nod, and then she leaned forward in the stirrups. She couldn’t forget to give her trusty mount a pat on the neck and congratulate him on a job well done. He was working just as hard as she was—he was a mere donkey, and he’d brought her this far against trained warhorses.
We’re not gonna lose now!
Filled with fresh determination, the rhea girl readied her lance.
As for the knight, he looked as calm as anything. (Well, not that you could actually tell with his visor down.) He lazily raised his lance toward her, like he didn’t care whether he won or not.
I don’t like it.
Yeah—the rhea girl didn’t like it at all. He’d traded lances, but she didn’t feel anything from him.
I know I’m not my grandfather, but still.
Her dear departed grandfather, who had gone to the great dungeon under the mountain—he might have sensed the knight’s killing impulse or at least his warrior spirit or something. The modest rhea girl, however, hadn’t yet reached such a point. But nonetheless…
He thinks I can’t do this.
She knew that was what was on her opponent’s mind. He thought rheas were poor, small, weak creatures in need of protection. He thought, therefore, that the fact she had come this far was thanks to his own intercession, her victories only an exception to the rule. The hit she’d scored just now would not enter into his consideration—in other words, she wasn’t worthy of even thinking about.
Somewhere in there was something almost like compassion. Almost, but not quite.
To be regarded as someone who wasn’t even there—now, that made the rhea girl very, very angry.
It was the same way the people of the shire had kept their distance from her as she went around waving her stick, working at being a fighter.
I’m gonna send his ass flying!
It just didn’t feel nice.
“Eeeyaaaahh!”
Almost before the judge had waved the flag, she gave a great cry and spurred her mount, launching forward. The jabbering of the spectators disappeared, as did the shouts of the boy wizard behind. Inside the confines of her visor, her vision narrowed to a single point, closing around her opponent.
She gritted her teeth, hefting the weight in her right arm. Her body lurched up. She rose in the saddle.
She braced herself against the stirrups, gripped the reins as hard as she could, made her small self even smaller, and thrust the lance forward.
This was one of the forms she’d used time and time again since the tournament had started.
In any other contest, the result would have been down to her opponent’s study of his opponent. It was unlikely, however, that the knight was thinking about such things. He was simply too confident: A casual thrust from above, he believed, was the way to deal with small enemies.
As they crossed lances, the girl’s eyes went wide. Her lance worked. Her opponent’s weapon came closer.
It would be disrespectful to call it the fruit of much training on the knight’s part, and it was certainly no mistake by the rhea girl.
It was simply the pips on the dice of Fate and Chance.
“Heeek?!”
There was a metallic crash, and the girl felt herself go flying.
No—she was thrown backward in the saddle like a discarded puppet, but she was still safe. Her feet in the stirrups just held her in place.
The rest of her, however, was in poor shape. The shock was like she’d been hit by a wild animal or a battering ram; the instrument may have been a competition lance, but the blow was still very powerful. Her white-painted armor was battered; the lance had pierced her visor, rendering it useless. If she hadn’t had it, she would have been in a fearful state indeed. Then again, even with the visor, there was always that king who had been killed by an errant piece of wood.
With a little less luck—with a critical failure, say—that could have been her fate.
The crowd watched with bated breath for any sign of life from the girl, who sat motionless on her donkey.
Even if she survived, this was a costly outcome. For her breastplate had slipped, revealing her underarmor clinging to her chest for all to see. The curves, intact, moved up and down in time with her breathing, even though she was flat on her back atop her donkey.
She couldn’t seem to get a breath. Huff, huff. It was just air, moaning in and out through her lips.
The sky… It never looked so blue…
Her head was spinning, her thoughts felt half-formed. Her vision was fuzzy. Past her ruined visor, she saw the boy upside down. He was clenching his fist, trying to keep her from jumping up, shouting something.
“Don’t fall off”?
“……!!!”
Then the girl’s eyes went wide, as if she’d been struck by lightning, and she clenched her scrupulously built abdominal muscles and sat up in the saddle.
“Hn… Haaah!”
She found a shout at her lips. That was a close one. She shook her head hard. It felt so, so heavy.
Argh!
She tore away the armor that hung limply from her shoulder girdle, then reached for her helmet. The visor was warped; she could lift it but barely. She mustered her strength and tore the helmet off her head.
“Hoo!” she exclaimed. She felt like she had been trapped in there for hours, though it had only been a matter of minutes. She shoved aside her hair, stuck to her by the copious sweat on her cheeks and forehead, and sucked in a breath.
A thunderous cheer greeted her safety, and the judge raised a flag in the paladin’s corner.
None of that mattered to the girl. She simply waved her fist toward her partner, the boy. He saw her and nodded; she replied with a nod of her own, and then she slapped her cheeks as hard as she could.
Damn! That was a pathetic showing!
If her grandpa or her mentor had seen that, she would never have lived it down. She gritted her teeth from shame, then glared fixedly at her opponent.
The paladin shook his head and muttered, “I knew this very tournament was inherently barbaric…” Did anyone hear him? “It only serves to make rheas and other such peoples the objects of gawkers and to get them hurt as well! It ought to be done away with immediately.”
Neither the knight’s words nor his opinions would have mattered to most of the people in the stands—and certainly not to the rhea girl.
It started quietly, like a ripple. The yelling and cheering stopped, replaced by mutters of confusion and dismay that slowly built.
It wasn’t clear who saw it first—but Rhea Fighter noticed only after Wizard Boy had.
“…Huh?”
She’d turned her mount around for a change of armor—well, not that she had one, but maybe he could swing something—and a fresh lance, to find Wizard Boy pointing upward. At the spectator seating? No, higher than that. The other side of the coliseum?
“The sky…?”
Her gaze rose to the sky she had contemplated a moment earlier. White sunlight pierced the blue. She saw gathering clouds, white and gray, dark and light—and among them, a collection of black smears. As she watched, they grew bigger, until she could see the wings, the claws, the fangs, and the glowing eyes…
“Monsters…?”
The coliseum erupted in screams.