Chapter Forty-Six

 

Pandora's arms pinwheeled outward as Noctus' punch knocked her over the edge. The impact reverberated in her chest, exploding the air from her lungs. The spiked arena floor rose quickly towards her.

She kicked out both feet, finding opposite poles, halting her fall as she slid for a short distance until she could stop her momentum. The splits stretched the limits of her muscles. Stabilized, she threw herself to a pole and monkey-climbed upward until she spotted Noctus lurking above. The second she reached the top, he'd be on her. Rather than continue the climb, she rotated around, leaping to the next pole, but Noctus followed. She kept up her monkey-like traverse until she could drop down on a platform.

The crowd gave her begrudging applause for the escape, while Noctus prowled above, clearly contemplating his next move. When he leapt, she scrambled across a field of poles to the place they'd started their fight, relishing the room as he sauntered onto the platform like a predator who had trapped their prey.

Pandora risked a glance to see her grandfather watching passively from his perch. She wondered what he would think if he knew that it was his kin in the tournament. The answer came right away. Her presence would only be meaningful if she won. That was the maetrie way. Win at all cost. No one cared about the losers.

Noctus' careful approach woke her from the thought, but she hadn't shaken the meaning. She was trying to fight fair against Noctus and he had the advantage of strength and speed. A possible path to victory appeared in her mind, based on Hylakane's teachings. In a fight between the faeila and knavth, it's the terrain that decides the winner. She would have liked to have believed she was a wraithhawk, but in this fight she was a knavth trying to match punches with a dolgant.

She eyed the arena, looking for the proper location to spring her trap. Before Noctus could engage, she leapt to a higher location, springing across the tops like a zephyr until she reached the highest point, which was a cluster of poles with no platforms nearby. The Brodarian warrior followed cautiously, sensing a purpose to her choices. When he was three poles away, he hesitated.

"Giving yourself more chance to stop your fall when I knock you off?"

She smirked at his attempt to lure her strategy into the open. "I thought this spot would make a better spectacle for the crowd. We wouldn't want to deprive them."

"Spoken like a true city fae," he said as he surveyed the surrounding poles, clearly looking for a place to make his assault.

Pandora checked over the edge. She was sixty feet above the arena floor and only twenty feet from the ceiling. The truncated stalactites that Kuma had run through to defeat her in their duel years ago were off to her right.

"There's value in spectacle," she said.

"As a diversion."

"Or I wanted to raise the stakes."

He chuckled. "It's the stakes that make this more interesting."

Unlike her, he had no way to slow his descent if he was knocked off. The longer the poles, the less stable they were, so she watched the one on which he was standing for signs of shifting.

The barely detectable quiver announced the resumption of the fight. As he strode across the poles, she slammed them with her sapphire at the same time she retreated two spots. Pandora danced across them as she shook the surface of their battle, never remaining in the same place. The enormous Brodarian struggled with the shifting poles and keeping up with her tactical retreat. To keep him guessing, she attacked him when he landed, but never stayed still long enough for him to counter. The guerilla warfare made him wary, but pushed him to extend himself, which was the intent of her strategy.

To anticipate his moves, she watched his eyes and the way his weight shifted, sending the pole to one side or the other, which made knowing which way he was going next as simple as if she had an amber. Pandora waited until he made a longer leap and threw herself in that direction.

Instead of aiming for her opponent, she flew like a spear towards the shaft of the pole about six feet below the top. The impact sent a loud crack throughout the arena as the wood splintered, sending Noctus over headfirst. The enormous Brodarian managed to grab a pole, swinging around, where she met him with a foot. The battle continued apace, not on top of the poles but along the shafts. She used her sapphire to push them around, making them sway like bamboo in stiff winds. Their back and forth slowly brought them closer to the spiked sands. Her nimbleness combined with the uneven terrain gave her the advantage, which she pressed with sundering kicks and devastating punches. She landed a half dozen blows as he tried to escape to the floor.

Noctus leapt, but Pandora caught him with a knee to the head, sending him tipping into space, headed straight for a pair of sharpened spikes that would puncture him. Using a Pull, she flung herself past him, exploding the wooden spears with a targeted Push. The Brodarian landed on the shards of wood, sending out plumes of sand upon impact. Before he could rise, she kicked him solidly in the back of the head, knocking him out.

The crowd was on their feet, quiet as death, stunned by the sudden turn of events. After the required timing of unconsciousness, the judge declared her the winner. Pandora resisted the urge to check on Noctus as it was something Lady Saha would never do. Instead, she strolled back to the competitor area with the haughty disdain she'd grown up with in the Eternal City.