Gruin wasn’t particularly happy to discover Devyne would be joining our little group, but then he wasn’t particularly happy about anything that wasn’t an alcoholic liquid that I’d yet seen. This, though, seemed to be of particular disagreeability to him, and he wasted no time in letting me know it.

  “You want me to travel with another lank?!” he snapped, sounding very much as if I’d levelled some grave insult against him. Then again, maybe I had. For all the time I’d spent with Gruin at that point, I’d never expressed enough of an interest in Grynkori culture to learn much of anything about them. Not enough, in fact, to stop thinking of it as Grynkori culture, as if my own could be accurately described by lumping it in with the practices of every other human in the world for no reason other than shared ancestry.

  Devyne, had he known what was good for him, would have kept quiet. He did not.

  “I’m not exactly enthused about working with some squat mutate, either, you know,” he spat back. Gruin reacted as I might have expected, lurching up to his feet and glaring crystalised murder at the young noble, who now retreated from his gaze as if it were the stare of…Gruin.

  I fought against every instinct in my body and put myself between them with one long step, hands up and, of course, feet planted in case Gruin’s temper proved more violent than even I was thinking. I didn’t think he’d attack me, but I’d been wrong before. Wounded or not, I didn’t want him to surprise me if I was again.

  Fortunately I did not get into an extra fight between matches, perhaps only because Gruin realised he’d be jeopardizing his own chance to win money from betting in my favour. He came up short of actual fisticuffs like a bull halting its charge, just glaring at us.

  “This is not a good time to be throwing punches around,” I growled. Gruin growled back, egged on by my putting my foot down. Again, not enough to jeopardize his money. I’d calculated that, bet on it in fact. It meant I got to gain a bit of face in front of our new join.

  “Devyne, explain why you’ll be helpful to us,” I commanded.

  This was a cunning and useful technique I was discovering, one that I would make heavy use of for the remainder of my career in heroics. You see, by ordering other people to do something for me, I was able to keep myself from having to do it. This meant, in turn, that there was no chance of my fucking it up. If they fucked it up then I’d be able to act as if I was simply testing them, and show mild disapproval for their having ‘failed’ to meet my standards. On the other hand, if their performance was acceptable then I could simply grin and act as if I’d expected it all, somehow taking credit for it anyway.

  Devyne ended up doing well, and so I rolled with it and flashed a smile to indicate this was somehow in accordance with a yet undescribed plan of mine.

  “I can pay my own way, my name holds a lot of sway in these lands, and if you two have been struggling to find shelter or get past gate guards you need fear that no longer with me around you.”

  Even Gruin’s eyes lit up with that, and I could practically see all the bribes he was imagining himself getting off without paying in the future. It did not, inevitably, take him long to make a decision after that, however roughly the conversation had started out. The Grynkori was decisive if nothing else.

  “Welcome aboard then, lank!” he laughed.

  Devyne looked more terrified than relieved, and I was left wondering if his was the expression I’d once had on my face when Gruin first started travelling alongside me. Probably, mine had been a great deal queasier and shakier. He certainly seemed more in control of himself.

  With Devyne joining us, I had one other thing to worry about at least. That dawned on me as he got himself settled into the room besides ours—evicting some poor sod by waving his father’s name around—and left me to ‘prepare’ for my next bout in the tourney.

  Preparation in this case consisted of rest, of course, easing off my poor, tortured muscles and letting them recover their strength as I lay back and did fuck all. It was Gruin who ruined that for me, noticing just how lazy a fucker I was being and nothing short of dragging me outside to watch more of my future opponents as they fought.

  “You’re not wasting your time now that it’s my money on the line you little fuck,” he said cheerily, bullying me off to the stadium. We weren’t halfway down the street before Devyne scrambled after, actually jogging to keep pace. It was hilariously unnecessary, his legs were almost as long as Gruin’s whole body.

  It was despite Gruin, not because of him, that we reached the stadium just before its next bout started, because the Grynkori’s enthusiasm was not at all a match for his sluggish pace, and it took Devyne and myself both mocking him at once to spur him on enough that he compensated. If barely.

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  This match was a bit less of a crippling blow to my ego, which was good because the poor thing couldn’t have survived taking another solid hit. I sat and tolerated the display as two men wailed on each other and both demonstrated ability which I would’ve been hard pressed to contest with.

  Hard pressed, but confident, if nothing else.

  “Your lot, you fight like little girls,” Gruin snapped. “Dancing around everywhere, it’s a wonder you don’t trip on those bloody stupid legs and fall.”

  Devyne seemed surprised and confused by the outburst, but I could recognise Gruin watching the very footwork that had evened the score between us in sparring. As a fact, I’d have traded that for a Grynkori’s upper body strength any day. Or his durability, or his stamina, or…

  Listing all the things I’d have traded human legs for suddenly struck me as rather depressing, so instead I kept my eyes focused on the match and committed to memory all the habits I could glean from either opponent. Took a while to do that, at my skill level, but every now and then you’d recognise a feint before it finished and gain the vital edge needed to win from it. It was worth the effort, even if I found it hard to think so while putting that effort in.

  “I hope you get better before tomorrow,” Gruin said once the bout had finally finished. I kept the memory of all the others I’d seen fresh in my mind, and though I didn’t nod…I could hardly help but agree.

  I slept miserably that night, tossing and turning with a stress that, ridiculously, exceeded most I’d felt in quite some time. Different kinds of worries bubbled up in a tourney than a fight to the death, it seemed, and if I have one truly Heroic talent it’s always been staving off the fear of oblivion regardless of how imminent that fate becomes.

  Waking up was almost a relief, until I remembered that I had another fight in store. There was no wimping out of it, either. Gruin informed me, rather cheerfully, that he’d already placed his wager, and Devyne seemed shockingly enthusiastic about seeing me in action again.

  So I couldn’t get out of this without pissing off both of my companions, one of whom was my new key to all sorts of doors across the world and the other was the most violent sapient creature I had yet met. I trudged off to the stadium with feet weighed down by self-pity.

  That didn’t last long, you’ll be happy to know. Soon enough the intoxicant of victory was pumping through my veins again. This newest opponent was inferior even to Devyne, certainly in the bottom half of the tourney’s fighters and maybe as low as its ground quarter. I was receiving so enthusiastic a cheer from the crowd as I began to trounce him that I decided to make a show of it, ensuring to disarm him each time I wanted to land a touch and doing so on the tip of his brow with a gentle poke.

  The audience ate it up, of course. Crowds love an overdog, and I was certainly that for them. This is where you’ll see my other Heroic qualities come into play; height, good looks, the works. One thing I never lacked, despite everything, was the aesthetics, eh?

  By the time I’d gotten my third touch—these later bouts were best of five rather than three—I’d already worked up such a frantic energy in the spectators that I almost expected the stadium to burn down around me. I walked out feeling nice and big again, and as I returned to Gruin and Devyne I saw a pair of grins awaiting me.

  Only one, mind, was actually focused on myself, and that would be Devyne’s. His eyes were incandescent with awe as he started babbling about my performance, while Gruin’s eyes remained thoroughly affixed on the sizeable handful of pennies he was currently counting.

  “Bet in my favour then,” I noted. I wasn’t surprised, they’d probably not have allowed him to bet against me given our association.

  “Bet in your favour, and you won!” the Grynkori laughed, “keep doing that, eh?”

  We left the stadium in rather high spirits, I must admit. Those spirits grew higher still as we made our way to a tavern to celebrate more thoroughly, even if drinking myself into a coma was off the table.

  Gruin either didn’t seem to share that concern about his own body, or was confident in the ability of Grynkori biology to resist any amount of intoxication from measly human beer. He was tipping back pints almost by the minute, and I am fairly sure the amount he drank would have killed a man. Devyne, the poor idiot, made the mistake of trying to match him swig for swig. I knew by now how bad an idea it was of course, and considered telling him as much.

  I decided against it, though, given that it was far funnier to watch it all play out.

  Now, drinking with friends is a perfectly fun passtime. Thing is that I wasn’t exactly doing that. I had literally met Devyne yesterday, and Gruin and I had hardly grown particularly close despite our falling into an easy cooperation over the brief months we’d been acquainted. Thing with alcohol, though, is its tendency to lubricate such interactions.

  Within an hour we were all roaring with laughter at some of the least funny jokes you’ve ever heard, and the night started progressing a lot easier. I was high on victory, Gruion on his winnings, Devyne on the perpetual good mood that seemed innate to any man of nobility.

  Thinking about it, that much makes sense. You should hope the people who do nothing and soak up everyone else’s resources are in a good mood, eh? Well anyway, I was in a good one to, which if anything proves that little hypothesis. Things took a sour turn when the arseholes made their way over, though.

  “Oi, did nobody tell you that kids aren’t allowed in here?” We all turned, blearily, to gaze upon the only group within a mile that may have been as drunk as us. Four of them, all merchants or some other men of property by the look of them and all glaring right at Gruin.

  “Very amusing,” Gruin grunted, not even looking at the men as Devyne and I slowly realised what was happening. He looked at me, as if for a lead, and I, realising that fact even in my drunken state, felt pressed to keep my jaw up and my face stiff. I slowly prepared to leap up to a stand if I had to.

  Gruin, rather unfortunately, was up before me.

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