With us both in position, Shek Kul took his place between Gar and Laio, Kaeska seated to one side on a low stool, head bowed beneath her veil. I drew a deep breath and focused on the Elietimm to the exclusion of all else, as the Warlord clapped his hands together, the abrupt sound echoing back from the surrounding buildings. For a long moment neither of us moved; then the Elietimm took a cautious pace sideways and the fight was begun.

I moved slowly, sword at the ready, assessing what I was facing. He was using a long mace, a foot soldier’s weapon, the flanged metal head with a collar of spikes on a haft of black wood reinforced with strips of steel. No chance of simply hacking through that, then. I wasn’t used to seeing such a complex guard on a mace though; it almost enveloped his hand and gave his knuckles unassailable protection. I noted the poniard at his belt as well and resolved to spare what attention I could for his off hand, also protected by a heavy plated gauntlet, which would at least make drawing that dagger a clumsy task.

We continued to circle, just out of each other’s reach, feet scuffing up the sand, sweat already beading our faces. I wanted to go for his knees but wasn’t about to risk lowering my stance and catching that mace on the side of my head, helm or no helm. He made a move, a darting step toward me and I took a rapid pace backward, sword at the ready. He didn’t follow it up, instead shaking his head at me with a mocking smile. Let him grin; I wasn’t some first-season recruit about to let any taunt distract me. I’d spit in his face, if I got the chance; see how he liked that. Lost temper kills more men than lost swords—I reminded myself of the sergeant-at-arms’ words back home.

I stopped the circling and swayed from side to side, trans-ferring my weight from one foot to the other, assessing his balance and stance. A backhanded downward sweep nearly reached him, but he caught my blade with the head of his mace, circling it up and around, trying to catch the blade in the sword-breaking spikes as I fought equally hard to free it up. I pulled the blade loose and the priest leaped backward just in time to escape a blow to the gap between shoulder and helm that would have taken his head off if I’d landed it. The bastard caught my blade again, putting all his effort into denying me another stroke until I ripped the sword free. Taking a pace backward myself, I looked for the next opportunity. Against another sword I’d have aimed to trade a flurry of blows, sending the killing stroke through any hesitation in the response. This was clearly not going to be an option here, not against a mace used like this; I was starting to think the Ice Islander was looking to draw the fight out until the heat and the weight of my armor started to slow me down. I could tell already that my reactions were just that little bit faster than his, my blows just that little bit harder, my feet just that little bit lighter in the dry sand. I reminded myself not to grow overconfident.

I lunged, he parried, I got my sword back fast for a round, high swing, he swept it aside and as my blade slid down the mace’s shaft, I leaned into it, shoving him backward, nearly taking him off his feet. I followed up my advantage, hitting him with rapid strokes that he could only defend against, giving him no chance to tie up my blade again. A feint deceived him and I got a full-bodied blow in on his side, the finely honed blade gouging into the black leather, the weight of the stroke punishing his ribs sorely. As he retreated around the circle, I looked for a chance at his knees, sending him jumping backward with a low sweep before dodging back myself to avoid his riposte.

That was when I first felt it: a scratching; a tapping; insistent fingers running along the edges of the doors to my mind. I set my jaw and went for the bastard, sending fast, short feints to either side until his guard faltered and I thrust for his guts. He turned sideways just in time as my step took me forward; we stood there, helmets almost touching, hands trapped between our bodies and I saw his lips were motionless inside his concealing cheek guards. No words from him were raising whatever demon had escaped Poldrion’s vigilance to pick away at my consciousness. As I thought this, the gnawing sensation redoubled.

I threw the Elietimm away from me but he came back with renewed vigor. Now I had no time to spare to wonder who was working this cursed enchantment as I dodged and shifted, fighting to turn every defensive move into a chance to regain the initiative. All the while the feeling of being undermined, that my defenses were crumbling, grew stronger and stronger. In a burst of desperation I unleashed a storm of blows on him, sacrificing my own protection in an all-out assault, taking a few bruising blows myself but managing to leave some telling cuts on the priest’s arms and legs. I withdrew, satisfied, careful to avoid the treacherous patches of blood-stained sand, happy to let the Elietimm go back on the defensive now he had bleeding injuries to drain his strength.

A ripping noise tore through my head. Cold talons dug themselves into my mind and clenched themselves, sending my senses reeling. The hot sunlight faded before my eyes, and I could feel nothing beneath my feet. The sounds of the crowd died to nothing as I gasped and stumbled, knees as weak as water, head swimming. Some instinct pulled me away from a mace stroke that would have sent my brains rattling in my skull, but I could only watch the bastard prepare for his next stroke, unable to move as the black iron flanges came hammering in toward my blurring eyes, wrestling as I was with the grasping hatred that was clawing at my wits.

My sword met the stroke, turning it fluently aside. My feet followed up the move, spreading my weight, light and balanced, as my hands launched a series of piercing thrusts. I could only look on in astonishment, locked in a frantic struggle for possession of my own mind, as some other intelligence took over my body and defended it against everything the Ice Islander could do. I was dimly aware of a long, shadowy hand overlaying my own work-hardened fingers as they wrapped around the sword hilt, the great blue stone of a signet ring catching the sunlight. My mind was stumbling a step or two behind my body, struggling as I was with the clutching hands of the magic trying to drag me down into the blackness. Someone else’s emotions were running through my veins, stiffening my sinews, guiding my every move. I could feel an eagerness, a resolution, a youthful energy and above all an implacable hatred of the Elietimm and all his kind, but somehow I was isolated from it, as if I were lost in a fever dream.

The priest went down, stumbling on a sticky patch of sand, weakened by the punishment he had taken. I watched from some distant corner of my mind as the long hands sent blow after hammering blow down on the Elietimm’s back, head and shoulders as he rolled, this way and that, feet kicking, mace flailing, trying to evade the razor-sharp blade as it gouged into his armor, his skin and the raw red flesh beneath, his blood running freely. A voice that was not my own came from my lips, Tormalin words ringing with an archaic cadence I had only ever heard in poetry and law courts.

“Go back to your master and tell him this land is ours. We will hold what we have won from the wilderness to the last man!”

The priest looked up in startled horror, his face paling beneath the mask of blood and sweat. He gabbled an incantation and was suddenly no longer there, leaving only a welter of blood-stained sand before my eyes.

The place erupted with noise, but all I could hear was the frantic shouting inside my head.

“What is this? Who are you? Where am I?”

I sank to my knees, ripping off my helm, my gauntlets, clutching my head as I summoned every measure of strength I possessed to force that panic-stricken presence out of my mind. With a suddenness that left me gasping, it was gone, leaving my skull echoing with a hollow silence in the midst of the deafening uproar. I looked at my hands; they were my own again, no shadows blurring them, but I saw that I bore a pale mark and a dent in the flesh around the long finger of my sword hand. Anyone would say that I habitually wore a broad ring with one central stone, now somehow lost.