Shayla and Riley sat nervously in the tournament arena with the same family members they had been with for the past week. They had watched bout after bout, each day packed with contests from each specialisation.
They were in complete awe of the skills possessed by the numerous competitors. With each bout they watched, they were sure that they would not witness a more impressive battle, yet the following bout continued to exceed expectations. Shayla had taken a particular interest in the archery contests, and while Riley was enthralled by most of the fighting, she couldn't help but think that her staff was much more badass than any of the weapons she saw.
They had watched several of the competitors stumble from the field with injuries, but in their stubbornness, had refused aid. One of the younger Dwarves had been slashed across the stomach as he had become overconfident and misjudged the distance between himself and his competitor's sword, and even though he fought off aid from the healers until he had walked from the field, his face showed the pain he was feeling.
Shayla felt her stomach churn at the sight and was glad that he had left the field promptly afterwards. With each bout, and each injury received, Shayla, Riley and Bilbo became more and more anxious about Fain and Jessika's chances in the competition, and their well-being throughout.
Due to the circumstances surrounding the safety of Erebor and Dale, Jessika and Fain's first bouts had both been set for that day to allow their family and the company to watch without impinging too greatly on their work. Because of this fact, the arena was incredibly full, more than four times the amount in the audience than at any other point during the week.
It seemed that the weight of expectation had not been placed on the twin's shoulders from their parents alone.
Fain had barely spoken two words to anyone other than Jessika the entire week and had spent ninety percent of his time at the training fields, attempting to avoid disappointing his family and embarrassing himself further. Shayla and Riley weren't even sure if he left the training fields at all.
After half a dozen bouts that morning, Fain was finally called onto field to face the opponent he had, according to Jessika, had been anxious all week about facing. Ranár had already been called out, and he strode menacingly towards Fain with a pair of short, thick blades within his palms.
Fain collected his blades, which were thinner and longer than that of Ranár's, and approached his opponent with caution, the cocky confidence which he had displayed during his first challenges now non-existent. The air seemed to become thick with tension, the expectation tangible to even Shayla and Riley. Both girls seemed to be holding their breath, as Shayla picked at her palms and Riley gripped onto the staff at her side.
Fain and Ranár stopped and met several metres away from each other, as every other pairing had that morning. An older Dwarf, who had been adjudicating the tournament that day, was standing close by to the two, until he let out a harsh cry which echoed throughout the cavern, and took several paces back from the contenders.
Cheers and cries rung out throughout the space, bouncing between the stone walls as Ranár and Fain circled each other, their movements slow and calculated. Riley couldn't help but feel like she was watching a cat stalk its prey, and Fain was most certainly not the cat.
Ranár lunged suddenly for Fain, and Fain rolled across the ground to his left, standing upright very quickly, and resuming his defensive stance. Ranár wasted no time in lunging towards Fain once more, though this time their blades met, and the bout seemed to have truly begun.
The cries seemed to amplify around them, as Fain countered and parried each thrust and swing of Ranár's daggers. Riley and Shayla could barely hear the clinks of metal on metal over the cheers around them, but Fain held his own with exceptional grace and agility, something that the Dwarves didn't seem to be very well-versed in.
Shayla sat with her mouth open in awe, the ideas that had been forming within her mind were certainly begun to take root, as Fain's abilities exceeded any expectations she may have had.
Fain continued to block and avoid each potential blow, but after around ten minutes, his movements seemed to slow, and Shayla saw Riley shaking her head from her peripheral vision.
"What is it, Riley?" Shayla muttered close to Riley's ear, her eyes still trained on the King's son. Riley replied, but was unable to look away from the bout, mesmerised, as one would be entranced by a train barrelling towards a brick wall, physically powerless to tear their vision from the wreck in front of them.
"He isn't going to win this playing defence."
"What do you mean?" Shayla queried, her signature owl-like expression taking hold.
"From what I have seen and heard about Dwarves, their endurance is, like, ten times better than a human's. Fain is half-human, and you can see him already tiring, look- ", Riley stopped speaking momentarily as Fain was half a moment too short from leaping away from Ranár's dagger, causing the blade to nick his forearm.
Fain grunted with the pain, though refused to release the dagger in that hand, even when blood begun to drip down his wrist, through his palm and fingers. Despite a split-second where Ranár hesitated after his dagger struck the blow, he continued regardless, a barrage of attacks and parries in which Fain was becoming progressively slower and slower to combat and defend.
Riley and Shayla could see droplets of blood flying through the air with each move of his arm, and it took but minutes for the blood to finally take a toll on his grip, and in the process of blocking yet another assault towards his neck, he lost grip on the dagger and it flew across the arena, landing several metres away.
Fain's eyes widened as he glanced between the knife to his left, and Ranár, who was poised and ready to attack, to his right.
It was at that moment that Shayla looked up for the first time, across the arena, to the King's stand. She could see both Kili and the King leaning across the balcony, firing words of encouragement, and Amelia, pacing anxiously behind them.
She glanced back just in time to witness Fain's attempt at retrieving his dagger, when Ranár launched towards him. Ranár certainly wasn't as fast as his younger counterpart, but in his haste, Fain slid across the substrate to pick up the blade, and before he could even attempt to right himself and jump to his feet, Ranár was on him, dagger at his throat, waiting for him to yield.
Silence seemed to deafen in the absence of the cheers and cries that had died down, and everyone in the audience waited anxiously to hear if Fain would yield. Riley was sure that the lack of movement from the two was due to Fain's hesitation to give up, his desperation to find a way out of Ranár's grasp, but after what felt like an hour he finally threw his blades down beside him and muttered the word yield.
After several moments, some members of the crowd cheered, certainly those closest to Ranár, however most of the audience exhibited a muted clap or complete silence, almost as though they were unwilling or fearful to cheer for the loss of the Heir to Erebor.
Riley finally glanced to Shayla and saw that her friend was tightly holding Bilbo's hand once more, comforting him as he sat anxiously on the edge of his seat, looking towards his brother, who was being helped from the arena ground by a very sportsmanlike Ranár.
Despite the scowl on Fain's face, he reciprocated the gesture with a nod and a clap on Ranár's back as they exited the field. Shayla glanced back to the King's stand to see that Amelia had disappeared, most likely to tend to her son's injury, and Fili had begun pacing in her place. Kili was sitting once more, though speaking to his brother in what looked to Shayla like a heated manner.
It took only minutes for the adjudicator to announce the next bout, but it felt like hours, because each of them knew which competitor would be next. Jessika was called onto the field first, and though she walked out slowly, her chin was held high and her shoulders held back, even when she picked her sword from the weapons rack nearby.
The adjudicator called forward Jessika's foe, a middle-aged dwarf who Shayla and Riley hadn't seen before, but was announced as Karmur from the Iron Hills. He had a thick beard and intricately braided hair, as most of the Dwarvish folk did, though he stood out from the others because his hair was a blend of silver and scarlet. He held himself in the same way that Ranár had just minutes before, staunch and confident, with each movement he made exuding self-assurance.
He strutted his way towards the middle of the arena, meeting a slower moving Jessika, whose hands gripped the hilt of her blade so hard that her white knuckles stood out like a spotlight. Despite the way she held her shoulders and jutted her jaw, she looked nervous, and even Riley felt sorry for her.
Jessika and Karmur bowed deeply to each other, and fell into stance in unison, their swords at the ready. The adjudicator yelled in his harsh tones, and unlike Ranár, Fain, and most of the competitors seen so far, Karmur and Jessika did not hesitate in beginning the bout. The audience erupted in cheers once more as their swords met above their heads and they disconnected, taking several steps back through the force.
If Shayla thought that Fain was graceful and agile, it was nothing compared to Jessika. Her movements were swift but fierce, and she wondered where she got such a fighting technique from, considering her family and mentors were mostly Dwarven.
Karmur certainly wasn't as agile, but he had an untempered ferocity in his attacks that trumped Jessika in most blows.
Shayla was mesmerised by Jessika's movements; she rose to fight each powerful strike by Karmur's blade with a flourished manoeuvre away from the attack, taking the Dwarf by surprise several times throughout the first five minutes of fighting. Karmur grew increasingly frustrated with the moves, and her attacks became fewer and further between, focusing on defence just as Fain had made the mistake of doing.
It was when Karmur came for her, blow after blow, when he seized the upper hand; Karmur's blade had met hers between them, and in a move that shocked the audience and outraged Jessika's family, Karmur broke away and spun towards Jessika, headbutting her as she had begun to regain her stance.
Instead, she stumbled backwards heavily, her cry of pain echoing across the field and cutting through the angry yells that had begun to ring out from the audience.
Each family member who Shayla and Riley were sitting with had jumped abruptly from where they sat, including the two girls; Shayla in shock, but Riley in fury. Bilbo jumped down to the very first row of seating with his uncle Josh, who were yelling curses in Khuzdul at the blow.
From what Riley and Shayla could gather, physical contact without the weapons in such a bout was frowned upon, and to some, even abhorred, however the fight continued.
Jessika's nose and mouth were very visibly bleeding, and she took several more steps away from Karmur to gather herself. She spat blood onto the ground and wiped her tunic sleeve across her face, making the blood smear and look as though she had been slashed across the face.
Adrenalin, or pain, or perhaps a combination of the two coursed through her veins and she made some flourishes with her blade as she stalked Karmur from where she stood, a smirk coupled with the blood smeared across her face giving Riley serious Dexter vibes. She couldn't help but feel a sliver of respect for this human-dwarf woman who was staring down the old male dwarf, and after giving the tournament and traditions several middle fingers, she decided to give it one more.
Jessika charged towards Karmur, her movements looking to take Karmur head on. It seemed that Karmur anticipated the same attack, but as she reached him, she slid across the dirt and sheathed her weapon in the process, breaking through the Dwarf's defence and jumping to her feet, kicking his sword to the ground.
Karmur didn't even have time to react after his sword flew to the ground, and he was left open for Jessika to punch him, without vacillation, in his face, with immediate retribution for her own injuries. He stumbled one step backwards, stunned by the quick progression of each move, and in his daze, she took the opportunity to punch him once, twice, and three times more, before kicking him in the chest.
He stumbled and fell onto his backside, and Jessika very quickly unsheathed her weapon and held the tip in the soft spot of his neck, a wide smile creeping across her face.
It seemed that Karmur found more difficulty to yield than Fain had, as it took more than several minutes of him attempting to break away for him to give up.
When he finally did, the adjudicator called the end of the bout and Jessika as the winner, which caused an eruption of cheers throughout the cavern. Riley noted that those individuals not cheering the victory were the older Dwarves, which did not surprise her in the slightest, but caused her to be much more vocal in her own cries.
Karmur was livid though, and refused the hand that Jessika extended in place of her blade. He stormed from the arena sporting a blood nose of his own, and Jessika left shortly afterwards to the continued cheers of her family from the audience and the King's box.
Shayla couldn't focus fully on any other bout after that. She knew that the twins were skilled fighters, but seeing how they held their own against experienced Dwarvish warriors, despite Fain's loss, cemented her idea.
She was going to convince Jessika and Fain to help them reach the Elves.
I'm very excited about how this chapter panned out, and I hope you all enjoyed it too :D
Thank you to BrownEyedGirl87 for the review, I really appreciate it!
I hope everyone enjoys their weekend, sending a lot of love xx