In the city of Corregal, sword fighting is a way of life - unless you're a girl. While young men compete for prestigious positions within the ruling Houses, young women have to rely on others to protect them from the dangers lurking in the streets...
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Pay attention, and the world would drop stories at your feet. Tierce's father had taught him that. But because he was not particularly interested in collecting stories, he'd added a corollary of his own: find enough stories, and sooner or later you'd end up in the middle of one. That was how he happened to find himself wedged into the throng on the Bridge of Blades, hoping for his chance to duel the foreigner who had thrown down an open challenge to all-comers—and was, improbably, beating every one of them. If a story was going to start on the Blade today, he wanted to be a part of it.
"Sieur Eristan wants us back before dark," Barris reminded him, raising his voice to make sure he was heard over the enthusiastic clamor of the onlookers. The two of them stood side-by-side in the crowd that packed the bridge to the rails, all young men with House and Guild badges on their shoulders and swords at their hips. Barris was a head taller, which gave him a slightly better view of the cleared area in the middle where the duelists circled one another, though he didn't look particularly happy about it. He had not wanted to be there at all, and his impatience with his companion was clear. "We'll be late."
Tierce pulled his attention away from the duel long enough to glance upriver, where the sun would soon disappear behind distant mountains. "Not that late. We could take Shinetower."
The peal of sword against sword interrupted Barris' next objection. Blades flickered back and forth in a swift exchange of blows that left him as mesmerized as everyone else on the bridge. "We'll miss the dedication," he muttered as the duelists pulled apart again, though there was not much conviction to it.
Frustrated by the heads still in the way, Tierce tried to elbow his way forward for a better view, but he had to settle for standing on tiptoe to see much. Cael Averre was having a hard time of it. The youngest son of one of the richest Houses in Corregal, Cael was an aggressive duelist with a reputation for overpowering his opponents in the first minutes of a fight. Tierce had personal experience of that, so it was with some satisfaction that he watched the Jurati swordsman rebuff his attacks with apparent ease. The sheen of sweat on Cael's brow showed the effort was starting to wear him down.
In contrast, the foreigner seemed hardly winded at all, and this was his sixth—no, seventh—bout of the afternoon. Impressive.
"Look at that," Tierce exclaimed, admiring the negligent flick with which the Jurati deflected a thrust, and then smoothly turned the move into a cut of his own. His blade moved with precision and speed, too fast to possibly avoid. Only at the last second did he pull the blow aside, the blade skimming so close to flesh that Cael must have felt the wind of its passing against his cheek. There was a shout of approval from the audience.
"Who is he?" Barris mused as the Jurati danced away once more from Cael's blade.
"The son of an impoverished count," Tierce suggested, the details spinning themselves out in his head even as he spoke. The Jurati's flamboyant clothing—not to mention the fine blade he wielded—suggested something less humble than ordinary merchant-folk. And since Corregal had no hereditary aristocracy of its own, tales about foreign nobility always had a particularly romantic appeal. "His father gambled away the family's wealth. All he had left was a sword with which to make his fortune, so that he can return home, restore his family's honor, and claim the woman he loves as his bride."
