Venture unleashed his energy, his power, with precision, all on that corner, that barely discernible point of weakness. Ox’s massive body teetered on that point, then came crashing down with Venture on top, one of the loudest, hardest, most gratifying throws he’d ever executed. He swung into an armlock as Ox fell, forgetting about his injury and going through the motion automatically, so fast that Ox’s tap came with the echo of the thud, even as the pain roared through his own arm.
“Vent, Vent!” Earnest grabbed him at the shoulders as he walked off the mat. “You won. You’re in for tomorrow.”
“Earnest! We did it!” Venture was more relieved than excited, knowing he was going to have to pull off the nearly impossible—making it through another day of this—but he hugged his trainer tight. Then he turned to Chance. The kid’s eyes were dancing with joy such as he’d never seen them. Venture lifted him up in the air and made sure he laughed before he let him down again.
Chance brushed Venture’s hands away as though he were indignant, but he couldn’t fight the smile that persisted in lighting up his face.
“I know,” Venture said, “You’re too old for that.”
Chance shook his head. “Not that.”
“What, then?”
“You smell like Ox.”
“What!”
The others laughed and Venture grabbed Chance by the back of his head and rubbed his face against his sweaty shirt.
Dasher claimed one of the private partitioned-off rooms for Venture, and Earnest took Chance with him to fetch the things he needed to wash up. Alone with Dasher, Venture slumped back on the wooden bench. He squinted through his headache at Dasher, who was shifting the sagging bundle of ice around Venture’s elbow with care. Just last year it was Venture helping Earnest to care for Dasher. It was Dasher who was Champion. Justice had come to watch Venture, even after the way they’d parted, but who had ever come to cheer on or to care for Dasher? No one from his family, though they were numerous and with all the means in the world to travel.
Dasher had remained driven, through the hardships, the pain, the unspoken fear of defeat every fighter of renown secretly struggled with. He was a man born with every opportunity to profit from a softer, safer, more certain occupation; one in which his high reputation was given as a Crested man, and need not be fought, sacrificed, and risked for.
“Dasher,” Venture said, “your parents—they must be proud of you now?”
Dasher laughed dryly. He leaned against the wall near the foot of the bench, arms crossed. “My parents never wanted me out among all these ‘ruffians’ brawling for money. And now, especially after I tell the press who I am . . . they don’t understand that this is where it is now. The cutting edge of fighting, the best fighters. Why shouldn’t we be a part of it? We’re the ones who started it all.”
“What will they think of you helping me do this?”
“Who cares what they think.” he looked away, the muscles in his jaw tensing.
The two of them were quiet until Earnest returned with a servant girl, carrying the washing supplies. Venture expected Earnest to send her away once she’d emptied her arms, but he didn’t expect him to follow her away, as he did.
“Hey, where are you sneaking off to? And where’s Chance?” Venture said.
“Chance is fine. I’ve got something to take care of. I’ll be right back.”
Yeah, I’ll bet you do
, he thought, for the girl was very pretty. “I thought you were supposed to take care of
me
,” he said, lifting up his swollen arm.
“I told you not to use it so much. But don’t worry. You’ll be taken care of. I’ll be right back. Make sure you’re cleaned up and dressed right away.”
“What’s he rushing me for? The interviewers can wait.” Then, though his trainer was already gone, he shouted, “Earnest! I can’t even get this stupid thing off!”
“Here,” Dasher said, grabbing hold of the shirt Venture had been unable to wrest from his injured, sweat-stuck body.
“Aah! Dasher! That hurts too much!”
“Well, how are you going to get it off, then?”
“Like this.” With his good hand, Venture ripped his tight cotton shirt from hem to neck, up the front. “Do the back.” He turned around for Dasher. Dasher finished the job, and slid the scraps down Venture’s shoulders and off his arms.
“Should I rip your shorts off you, too?” Dasher said, smirking.
“I can handle my own shorts, thank you.”
But in the end, he couldn’t. Without the surge of energy he felt during a fight—that rush that enabled him to push through pain, to make his body do the impossible—his arm refused to move the way he needed it to.
“I really feel like a winner now,” Venture said morosely.
Dasher’s would-be laughter evaporated as he eyed Venture’s arm. Though he wouldn’t ask, the question was in his eyes.
How are you going to make it through tomorrow?
Just as Dasher had finished buttoning his clean shirt for him, and Venture was struggling through the pain to tuck it in himself, Chance slid the partition open. He ducked his head in, then back out.
“He dress,” Venture heard him announce to someone outside.
“Chance, what are you doing?”
“Mr. Delving, someone here see you, sir.”
“Must you call me
sir
?”
“I try remember not do, Mr. Delving.”
“No, no, if you have to try, then I don’t care,” he mumbled as he carefully lay back on the bench, holding his injured arm to his chest.
“It a lady, sir. She say you want see her. She very ‘certain’ of it,” he said, in such a way that Venture knew the word
certain
was a direct quote and a new addition to Chance’s rapidly expanding vocabulary.
Dasher laughed incredulously.
“Do me a favor, would you, Chance? Find out where Earnest is and remind him to keep the girls away from me. All of them. I don’t care who they are or how much they claim I’ll enjoy their company.”
“You sure about that, Vent?” Earnest appeared, with the cloaked figure of a woman behind him.
“Earnest! Get her out of here.”
“Do you really want me to go, Vent?”
Jade stepped out from behind Earnest and threw back the hood of her summer traveling cloak.
“Jade!” Venture limped up from the bench and embraced her. He lifted her up with his uninjured arm, only to feel his overused muscles begin to tremble under her slight weight.
“Vent,” she said as he eased her back down, “you’re exhausted. Earnest warned me you would be. Sit down.” She guided him back to the bench. “You’ve been strong enough for long enough today. Be weak for a while and let me take care of you.”
Venture couldn’t help smiling at the thought of that. He sank back down on the bench. Jade leaned over him, eying his now obviously swollen elbow, and visibly holding back what she wanted to say about that. She took his good hand in hers and glanced over her shoulder at the guys. But they’d gotten the hint and were already on their way out, Earnest tugging Chance behind him.
The touch of Jade’s hand was soft against Venture’s cheek, but her lips, as she brought them to his, were softer. Sweeter. All the questions that had come to mind on seeing her faded away.
It was a long time before she released him, but it was still too soon.
As she sat next to him, holding his hand, he said, “You came alone?”
“Of course.”
“Jade! You shouldn’t have—”
“I had to, just like you have to be here. I made it here safely, and I’m staying with Tempest and her husband tonight. She lives here in Founders Rock now, remember? So stop worrying about me.”
Venture leaned back against the wall with a tired groan. He didn’t have the energy right now to argue about all the disasters that could have befallen a lady traveling alone.
“You didn’t tell them what happened, did you?” Jade said.
“How could I?”
“I didn’t say anything to Earnest when I found him, but you might want to, before he and Dasher find out the hard way. My father’s on his way. I sneaked into town and hired a driver, paid him double to get me here in time, as soon as I found out he was planning on coming. He’ll be here by tomorrow.”
Venture straightened up. His whole aching body tensed.
Now what?
he thought, but he just nodded.
“He wouldn’t talk to me about it. He wouldn’t say a word about what he was going to do, but he was angry, Vent. He was so angry. He isn’t himself.”
Venture let out a long breath and gave her hand a squeeze. “So you came to warn me?”
“I thought about it a lot on my way here—why I was coming. I wanted to tell you to forget this whole thing, the Championship, the money—I don’t care about the money. I wanted to tell you to just run away with me.” She gave a little laugh, but it caught in her throat and her eyes filled with tears.
She couldn’t know how tempting that idea was. He wasn’t so strong as she thought, so strong he wouldn’t consider it. To not go through the pain tomorrow was sure to bring. And the risk. What if he lost, in front of everyone? Lost everything? The Championship, Jade, his freedom, Dasher and Earnest’s friendship. Chance’s faith in him. All his hopes for his future.
“But I know it’s not that simple. I know that’s not you. And I know a lot of people are counting on you to fight and do well, and not just bondsmen. Everyone who wants to believe a man can affect his own future, regardless of his past. I don’t know what my father’s going to do, but if he tries to get in the way of you fighting tomorrow, I’m going to do everything I can to stop him, because I know how you want to win this thing. But really,” she said, leaning closer, so that her lips brushed his cheek, “I came just to be here with you, no matter what else happens.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Seven of the men who qualified to compete for the title assembled in the arena, before a crowd of thousands. Three of those who’d qualified the day before had been too injured to continue. Only the middle area would be used for competition. Only one match at a time would take place. Beyond the two empty competition areas on either side would be the crowd, with all their eyes, all their cheers, focused on Venture and his opponent when it was his turn to fight. One of those spectators was Jade. He knew it, though he hadn’t been able to locate her yet. That was for the best, for it meant that her efforts at staying hidden among the masses so that her father wouldn’t see her and try to drag her away, were working.
An attendant was busy wiping up the excess blood from the previous fight so that the next pair wouldn’t lose their footing in the mess. Dasher was already halfway to the bench, while Venture was still standing at the edge of the mat with Earnest, in the midst of a last minute pep-talk behind the great yellow banner, hanging from the rafters and bearing the crest of the government of Richland and of the Fighting Commission, and welcoming the spectators to the All Richland Absolute Fighting Championship.
“Venture Delving.” The familiar and unwelcome voice came from behind Earnest.
“Will Fisher,” Venture returned gruffly. Will Fisher hadn’t said a word directly to him since that strange encounter at the last Championship, and he’d never seen him alone before, without so much as a servant boy at his side. Yet here he stood. Venture gave Earnest a look to hold him back. He was the one who was going to have to fight Fisher later; he would deal with him now on his own.
“Force Delving’s son,” Fisher said.
Venture froze. He hadn’t heard his father’s name uttered by anyone since he’d left Calm Harbor when he was six years old. He couldn’t imagine how Fisher knew it. “That’s right, Fisher,” he replied, in spite of the agonizing ringing of the name
Force Delving
in his ears.
Fisher looked him right in the eye. He gave a strange, short laugh and walked away.
Before Venture could fully absorb what had happened, Chance came jogging over to him with the water he’d sent him after, all out of breath. “Mr. Delving, Justice want talk. He say it urgent.”
“Great. Where is he?”
“Vent,” Earnest protested, “You’ve got five minutes, tops.” To Chance he said, “Tell him to wait.”
“It can’t wait,” Justice said, coming up behind them. “Vent, you can
not
fight that guy.” He pointed discreetly at Will Fisher, now at the other end of the mat. “You don’t know who he is.”
“Of course I know who Will Fisher is. He’s—”
“He’s the son of the bastard who killed our father, that’s who he is.”
“What?”
“Look at him! Don’t you see the way he looks at you? He wants revenge.”
“Why should he want revenge?” Venture’s mind, his emotions, were reeling, his stomach, already fluttery with nerves, now churning. “If anyone should want revenge for that, it should be me.
Besides, how could . . . how could it be . . .?”
“Fisher is a common enough name, but he looked familiar when I saw him last year. I looked into it. But when I found out he was retiring, I decided not to say anything. I should’ve told you. Dad’s supporters accused Fisher’s father of fighting dirty, cheating somehow, even killing him on purpose. The crowd turned on him.”
“I know that.”
“But you don’t know that they beat him so bad that he died a few days later. I never told you that. No one did. Think about what rage is in Will Fisher, what it could make him capable of!”
As though Venture didn’t have his own anger about not having a father, about what that had eventually done to him, landing him in the bonded class. He couldn’t think like that right now. Rage never won anybody a Championship. This was the arena. He couldn’t let himself lose control here. Couldn’t screw up over old wounds, old arguments. He wasn’t that angry little boy anymore.
“What do you want me to do? Pull out, give up everything I’ve worked for because of something that happened a long time ago?”
“‘Something that happened a long time ago?’ Is that all our father’s death is to you?”
“Justice—”
“You weren’t there. You didn’t see!”
No matter how he tried to hold it shut, Venture felt the deep ache opening up inside him, an ache reflective of the one he saw in Justice’s eyes. Justice’s fourteen-year-old soul was crying out, so that Venture felt, for a moment, the disorienting sensation of being the elder brother rather than the younger.