Page 101 of A War of Crowns

As it always did when Aldric was in the very heat of battle, everything seemed to slow. Every single one of his senses shifted into crystalline focus to make up for his half-blind state.

He was aware of the pounding of boots on the cobblestones. The shifting of armored bodies behind him as his men readied themselves to fight. He smelled the tang of the baron’s blood on the wind.

More blood would soon be spilled if he didn’t do something to stop it.

“Duel me,” Aldric growled to his bride’s lover, earning a bewildered glance from Crestley at last.

“What?” the other man asked.

Aldric twisted his lips and stepped forward, driving the baron backward by a single step. He was aware of the Elmorian guards lingering on the edges of the altercation. Their uncertainty was nearly as palpable as the warm breeze flirting all around.

He roared up to the nobleman, “I saidduelme. If I win, my man is absolved of any crime or insult.”

The baron huffed out a breath and glanced aside, eyeing his fellow Elmorians. “And what if I win?”

“You won’t,” Aldric promised on another low snarl.

A small smile pulled at the corner of Crestley’s mouth as he unbuttoned his doublet to reveal the pristine undershirt beneath. “How about this, then: if I win, you will turn right around and sail back home.”

Aldric frowned and pointed out to the man, “You do not have the authority to dismiss me from Her Majesty’s court.”

“Very well,” Crestley sighed. “You’re right.” The baron tossed his doublet to the sickly man, the one named Threston. “If I win, your Kunishi hangs.”

“Fine,” Aldric agreed after giving the peacock another once-over. The man wore lace.

It would be easy enough to best such a fop.

Crestley’s smile deepened. “Shall we duel to first blood, then?”

“If it was to first blood,” Calix taunted, “you’d have already lost.”

“Shut up, Calix,” Aldric snapped. But his second-in-command was right. The baron was already bleeding. “To a yield?”

“To a yield,” Crestley agreed at once.

In the very next moment, the queen’s peacock had his rapier in his hand. Aldric had barely seen him draw it.

Crestley lunged straight for Aldric without pause. The sheer speed of the other man caught him off guard. He didn’t block the incoming blade swiftly enough, and the sharp tip of the rapier slipped like a knife through butter in the scant space at his right shoulder, where the sleeve of his brigandine armor laced into his jerkin.

Aldric bit back a growl as pain flared around the pierced skin.

The baron smiled. “If it was to first blood, you’d have already lost,” he purred, all taunting sweetness.

Aldric answered by thrusting the butt of his glaive into Crestley’s stomach, hard enough to steal the breath from the larger man. He smiled in kind.

What he had originally thought would be an easy victory was anything but. The Baron of Crestley was quick, with all the reflexes of a Drakmori alley cat.

Aldric fought hard to keep his opponent on the defensive. He rained blow after blow toward the baron’s legs, still using only his glaive’s pole rather than the blade.

But the baron easily kept pace, side-stepping and riposting his way toward what was shaping up to be a draw.

Aldric’s upper arms and shoulders burned with the evidence of each and every prick from his opponent’s rapier. But he was sure he had left his fair share of bruises on the baron in return.

On more than one occasion, he considered twirling his glaive the right way about and striking the man with the sharpened end of his own blade. But he just wanted to win. He didn’t want tokillthe peacock.

Spearing the Baron of Crestley like a pig fit for a roast would not win him a wedding with the queen any sooner, he was certain.

“Have you had enough?” Crestley purred, driving Aldric on the defensive now. A dark amusement shone in the baron’s eyes, as if he was quite certain of just who would yield in the end.

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