Fiend's Fourth Hurdle

Their formation lacked any symmetry or strategy, just a clumsy scattering of uncertain bodies, men with hunched shoulders and trembling hands, women whose gaunt frames betrayed the starvation of both body and will. Some looked too old to walk without pain, while others seemed not yet to have seen fifteen summers. A few children barely out of boyhood clutched their blades like sticks in a game whose rules they did not know.

These were not warriors. Most had never held a sword before their shackled wrists were freed and replaced with steel. She used to protect the newcomers, guide them, offer them the training that might just buy them a few more days of breath.

Today was different, twenty opponents at once.

Her mind recoiled at the absurdity, yet instinctively, a thought clawed its way forward.

Did twenty kills count as twenty victories?

She felt sick at the thought, dehumanizing them into tally marks on her ascent through the ranks. Normally, she would have spat at such a notion. Twenty-one enter, how many leave?

If she lost, twenty would survive, but only momentarily. If she won, only one would walk out.

That thought lingered, harsh, cruel, and true. A self-absorbed moralist could argue that her survival meant more, that she would help train others, save more lives in the long run. Valkira, however, did not entertain such self-soothing delusions. No one escaped this place by being noble.

The arena did not care for ethics. The sand drank blood all the same.

Useless thoughts, she cast them aside.

Focus.

This was not a fight, it was a battle, one against many.

The twenty did not advance. They shuffled, whispered, trembled. A few clutched their weapons tighter, while others barely held onto theirs. Confused glances passed between them, questioning who would strike first, how many should move, whether they could overwhelm her together with brute force, or if they should plan.

There was no time.

No one made the first move. The crowd roared in frustration, shouting down at the group from their marble seats.

Valkira inhaled deeply, letting the arena's scent of iron and dust fill her lungs. She planted her sword into the sand and knelt to retrieve a fallen dagger at her feet. Her stance was calm, and the wind around her seemed to whisper.

Then, with a breath and a surge, the wind howled, rushing past her like a beast unleashed. The dagger vanished from her hand.

A heartbeat later, one of the twenty fell.

A man dropped to his knees, a whimper escaping as the dagger lodged in his throat. Blood spilled down his chest, and he collapsed without grace or sound. The silence that followed was louder than the crowd's reaction.

"Did you see that?" someone in the stands asked.

"No," another replied, "but I felt the wind."

Valkira did not gloat. Her face remained cold.

Strike first, lower their numbers, make the odds manageable. The dead do not protest or ask for fairness.

She retrieved a broken sword, little more than a jagged shard, and took the same throwing stance. Aimed, released.

Another man dropped, his skull cracked by the flying blade.

The crowd erupted in disbelief.

Some of her long-time spectators muttered, questioning whether Valkira had ever used wind magic like that before.

Her aim told its own story. She had not struck randomly. She had chosen. Only adult men, only those of age. She was swift and lethal, yet not blind. A sliver of hesitation lingered within her, invisible to the crowd but obvious to herself.

Still, the others began to stir.

Weapons raised, eyes widened, and panic replaced confusion.

Instinct overrode fear.

Seven of them charged.

Taking back her blade, Valkira met them head-on.

She danced between blades, wind curling around her limbs. Her sword sang through air and bone alike. One man fell, his throat opened clean. Another cried out as her elbow crushed his windpipe. A third was kicked backward, ribs broken before her sword punctured his chest.

She pivoted to the next cluster five feet away. Her movements blurred. She blocked one strike, parried another, ducked low to avoid a third. Her leg swept through the dust, knocking an attacker to the ground. She buried her blade into another's abdomen before pivoting mid-spin to slice open the arm of a man who had flanked her left.

Just as her sword raised to finish them, she felt it.

A presence behind her.

She dropped instinctively, a blade slicing overhead.

Her counter was immediate. Spinning, she slashed low, cutting the tendons in her assailant's legs. As he screamed and dropped, she rose and decapitated him in one smooth, vicious arc. His head hit the ground before his body followed.

She turned, finishing the wounded without pause.

Then silence.

She stood alone again.

Only ten remained.

Mostly elders, children not yet of age, and women clutching their blades with tears streaming down their faces.

Her blade was still thirsty.

And the battle was far from over.

Valkira's chest barely rose with each breath.

Her body, honed like the edge of her sword, felt no fatigue. Her limbs moved with precision, unshaken and lethal.

The last skirmishes had not pushed her limits, had not even brushed them. Those she had slain were not fighters.

Her skin was lacquered in blood that dripped from her chin and clung to her lashes.

Her arms gleamed crimson.

Her fingers flexed tightly around the hilt of her sword. The wind curled around her, warm and rust-scented, lifting her hair like a veil of war.

And then, her eyes met a pair of others.

A woman crouched low, her arms wrapped protectively around the narrow shoulders of a girl no older than eleven. The woman's face was pale with fear, lips moving in some whispered prayer, or comfort, or apology.

The girl did not cry. She just looked at Valkira, frozen in wide-eyed terror, her small fingers tangled in the hem of the woman's tunic.

Something inside Valkira cracked, a stone out of place in a river.

Only for a moment.

She gripped her sword tighter.

And moved.

The final ten did not fight as one. Three boys and two girls turned and fled toward the arena's edge, as far from her as they could manage.

Panic had overtaken reason. The sand slowed their steps, and fear made their legs stumble.

Five remained, standing as if rooted in place. The woman shielding a young girl with her arm—mother, sister, caretaker, it did not matter. Beside them stood an elderly man and an elderly woman, their hands empty, their eyes sunken.

The last, a boy, stood alone with his head down and shoulders slack. A strip of blood dried across his cheek, but he did not seem to notice it.

He did not blink or lift his gaze as Valkira approached.

They say you should never lower your guard, yet who could blame her?

She stepped until the tip of her sword hovered just above his hair. Still, he did not move or flinch. He was too small to reach her chest.

Her blade hovered.

She hesitated.

He could have lived, years upon years. He should have had a life with books, bruises, hunger, joy, first loves, heartbreak, mornings with firelight, and snow on his shoulders. But here he was, beneath the arena sun, about to be erased like the others.

Her voice came without her meaning to speak.

"What is your name, boy?"

No answer.

He did not meet her eyes or even shift, as if life had long left him already and only his shell remained.

Valkira lowered her head and respected the silence.

She brought the sword high, wind curling around her like a shroud. The blade fell clean. His head dropped to the ground without resistance. Blood spattered her cheeks, her lips, her armor, painting her all over again.

She did not linger.

She turned from the five. She would return to them in time. It was all timing, nothing more. Her conscience made her alter the order, not the end.

All roads led to the same place.

She turned toward the runners.

She became wind.

Her body moved faster than sight. One of the boys turned at the last moment and saw only a flash, a glint, before his head was removed cleanly from his neck.

The girl nearby raised her dagger in panic. Valkira met her blade, steel singing against steel. The girl was brave but untrained. Their exchange ended with a quick twist; Valkira's sword pierced her side, silencing her in the dirt.

Two others, another girl and boy, tried to take her from the sides, attempting surprise. Their blades never made it past her defense. The wind sang louder and, in a blink, their weapons were gone, parried mid-motion and twisted from their hands.

Valkira did not grant them a second chance.

The boy died with a sword in his heart, the girl with a gash across her throat.

One more of them remained.

He had fled farther than the others and now crouched behind the mother and her child, desperate. His shaking hand took the woman by the hair and wrenched her head back. His other hand, trembling but determined, held a blade not just near, but pressed into her throat.

Valkira's eyes narrowed.

Then, with a jerking motion, the boy slit the mother's throat. The act was fast, clumsy, cruel. Blood burst out and painted the child's face.

The woman collapsed without a word, her arms having shielded the girl even as her life was ripped away.

The girl screamed, a thin, ragged sound that pierced through the arena noise. She dropped to her knees beside the body, sobbing with hands soaked red.

The boy wasted no time. He grabbed the child by the arm, dragged her up violently, and held the bloodied blade to her neck now.

"She dies if you come closer!" he shouted. "You take another step, and I'll gut her like the rest!"

There was desperation in his voice, a glint in his eye that revealed the will to survive, no matter what had to be done.

Valkira did not move. Her jaw clenched.

He had made his choice.

He had stolen the girl's final moment with her mother—her last touch, last breath, last memory. A moment longer was all it could have been, and now even that was gone.

She hated him for it, not for cowardice, but for rushing death.

And perhaps because he had used her softness against her, tried to mold her mercy into a shield for himself.

He had seen her in the cells, seen her protect others and fight Brusk's brutes. He had seen her kindness and now clung to it like a weapon.

He thought this would save him.

The boy saw her hesitation, mistaking it for weakness. He shoved the girl forward and lunged at Valkira.

But he was slow.

Her blade met him halfway.

One flash of silver, and his head was severed mid-charge, his body stumbling before crashing to the blood-soaked ground.

The girl collapsed beside her mother's corpse. Her tiny hands clutched lifeless fingers, her face buried into blood-soaked cloth.

Valkira turned away.

There were still others to end.

They had not run.

"We are no match for you," said the elderly man. His voice was calm, but hollow. "We have lived long enough."

"One moment more or less," said the woman beside him, "it makes no difference."

She searched their faces. No fear, no malice, only surrender. She waited for a trick, a twitch, anything.

There was none.

She delivered death swiftly.

Two clean slashes, no pain, no delay.

One remained.

And there, at the center of it all, stood Valkira, blood-soaked, unshaken, victorious.

Her chest rose and fell with calm breath. Her muscles still hummed with readiness, her grip on the sword firm.

She could fight more, slay a hundred more if she had to, but there was no one left.

Except her.

The child.

Tiny, trembling, and alone, the girl knelt beside her mother's body, soaked in warmth long since gone. Her cries had quieted, and now only shuddered breaths remained, with wide, wet eyes that stared at nothing.

Valkira approached, each footstep heavy in the hush of death.

The girl flinched when the shadow fell over her.

Valkira stopped. There was no logic left to hesitate. A thread inside her pulled taut, almost to the point of pain.

She stared at the girl, small and defenseless, just a child in a place where children should never be.

The sword in Valkira's hand dripped thick blood onto the sand.

The crowd roared above them. They had already moved on, cheering the carnage, drunk on the thrill of survival turned slaughter.

They wanted more. They always wanted more.

One life left to claim.

The wind stirred again, brushing Valkira's hair back and drying the blood on her cheeks.

She looked at the girl. She was not a fighter, not a prisoner, not a stepping stone on her climb.

Just a child, weeping in the ruins of something that used to be a family.

The rules were clear. No survivor, except the victor.

The girl looked up. Those eyes, dark and wide, met Valkira's.

If the world had been different, if there had been no arenas, no announcers, no numbered ranks or crowds drunk on death, this child would be alive.

If Valkira had been different, she might have carried the girl out and protected her. She had done it before. She had tried.

But here and now, there were no stories where both walked out.

Valkira knelt, face to face with the child. The sword remained in her hand.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

She meant it.

The girl nodded, just once. Maybe she understood. Maybe she did not. But she did not flinch when Valkira raised the blade.

And Valkira did what had to be done.

The cut was clean.

The girl never saw the arena again.

When it was over, Valkira remained kneeling. Blood stained her hands, her chest, her face.

She did not rise right away.

She only stared at the small body in the sand, beside the mother's, and let the silence of victory wrap around her like a shroud.

This, too, was a kind of grave.

The crowd erupted behind her, cheers, chants, coins tossed to the pit floor, but it all felt distant, duller than before.

As Valkira finally stood and turned toward the exit, the weight of being the last one standing felt heavier than steel.

Victory had never felt so much like loss.