Hrafn and Hakon stood facing one another, hurt and tired like two stray dogs. Hrafn could see in the young noble's eyes that the other lacked will, not that much was left in him either. His cracked teeth hurt like hell, the burns were even worse, and every movement was filled with pain.
The crowd still shouted his name, or perhaps shouted something else, the sound reached his ears blurred, his vision was bad too, but he at least still had Liv. Tired as she was, she was not wounded like him, though she was almost dry of power.
He took one difficult step forward, and Hakon took one step back in response, out of fear. However hard the young noble's training had been, it must always have been controlled training, with rules and the guarantee that his former name would protect him. Hrafn was different, he worked in the sun like a dog during the day, always hurt and tired, dealing with all kinds of people, and at night still returned home through dim alleys and the filthy streets of the outer ring, where there was little justice and order. Hakon knew how to fight, Hrafn knew how to survive.
As he kept walking, the other retreated a little more, looked toward the stands and hesitated, Hrafn always getting closer, and there was no greatness in it anymore, they were just two broken boys trying not to yield first. When he got close enough, Hrafn simply let his body fall onto the young man with all the weight of the armor, taking both of them to the ground.
Hakon threw weak and tired punches at his face, blows that served more to bother than to truly hurt him, although one or two landed square and tore flashes of pain from his head. Hrafn returned in kind, and the two rolled in the sand and the rain, embracing and pummeling one another.
Hrafn tried to shove his finger into his eyes, pulled his hair, sought the mouth and even the nose, anything that could make the noble yield, pass out or die already. He no longer cared how ugly that looked, he only wanted it to end, but the other side was too proud to yield.
It was then that Hrafn decided to make his final move against his will, for killing the other two voroirs would already be enough of a headache, he knew he would create enmity with many people. But killing the youngest son of a marquis was one of those problems that did not end on the battlefield, even so, Hrafn was stubborn in his own way and did not intend to surrender.
"Liv." he said.
Following his command, dense branches came out from the right side of the armor, where Liv was hidden and compressed between the metal and his skin. They came much slower this time, tired like her, but still strong enough to restrain Hakon's arms. Hrafn then positioned himself over him and started punching, each punch worse than the last, the arm rising heavy and falling light, with some missing by a good margin and others barely having the strength to finish the job.
Hakon sometimes managed to break a branch and raise a defense, sometimes even returned some stray blow, but was soon trapped by the wood again. The crowd was silent now, and all that remained was the rain striking the metal, the breathing of the two and the dry sound of the blows.
The young blue kept losing more and more strength as time passed, seconds stretching out as if they were an eternity. His arm could no longer free itself from the branches, his nose was crushed inward, a good part of his teeth broken, and some splinters were even beginning to choke him, bringing on repulsive coughs full of blood and saliva, but Hrafn did not stop, for by then he was acting by pure instinct.
It was then that something great came, it was a presence powerful enough to pull him from that trance. Someone caught his hand in the middle of another blow, although Hrafn could not lift his head to see who it was, he could see the iron boots, finely carved.
The presence became a weight over his body, making him tremble and bend his spine, his head giving way downward while his eyes dropped to the ground, and for an instant he thought he was going to die. Then came a second presence, even denser and more powerful, but unlike the first it was not turned against him, if Hrafn had to describe the feeling, he would say it was like being wrapped in a very heavy blanket. He heard a powerful voice come out of the first aura, saying something about justice and blood, the second answered something short that he could not understand, then the first let go of his hand and Hrafn fell to the side, looking up at the Veil above.
It was gray and ugly, exactly as this day had been, which would be remembered for blood and death. The first presence passed by him, and Hrafn felt when the man bent down and picked up Hakon, but before they went away, the owner of that pressure said a few more things to the second man.
This time the other answered nothing, but his aura changed, it became so nervous and so charged that even Hrafn, protected by it, ended up feeling the weight injure his body. The ground beneath him cracked, the air trembled, and for a moment it seemed that the whole arena would split in half.
The first presence retreated in haste, said one last thing that sounded hateful and left, then hands came down to Hrafn's body and lifted him into the air. He saw the sky spin and then saw the ground again when the person threw him over his own shoulder and began walking toward the exit of the arena.
He was too tired to understand everything, but understood enough. The first presence must have been the marquis, the boy's father would not let his son die there, not in his debut and before all Sahirid, even if to do so he had to break the rules that the whole rest of the world seemed obliged to obey. Hrafn would have laughed in disgust if laughing did not hurt so much.
Instead, he kept wondering whether if it were the other way around, someone would come for him. Whether anyone would have the power to step into the field, ignore the rules and play a game of his own as it suited him.
Probably not.
It was with that thought that he passed out, and also with the conviction to seek strength. Because that miserable world was fair only to the strong.