Cursed by Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

weapons were blunted.
    “How do they expect them to fight to the death with blunted weapons?” Dethan asked his new friend. “Are they forcing them to do this more brutally? Forcing them to kill each other with their bare hands?”
    Tonkin gave him another one of those looks.
    “They aren’t trying to kill each other! They haven’t done that since my father’s father was a boy! No, here it’s to the edge of the ring. Whichever fighter can toss the other out of the ring is the winner.”
    “You must be joking,” Dethan said with a scoffing laugh. It had to be a jest. Shivov was the most glorious test there was of manhood and of a warrior’s skills. “What do your youngbloods do to prove themselves men?”
    “A shivov test. This same here,” Tonkin said, indicating the fight. “That’s right, Willem. Give ’em what for!” he yelled at the top of a pair of mighty lungs. “Keeps us from losing some fine young men,” he said to Dethan.
    “How fine can they be if they lose their fight?” Dethan muttered. Training for one’s shivov fight took every moment of every day; it forced a man to make a weapon of himself. Learn or die. Improve or die. Without that goal, what force drove men these days to better themselves?To make them reach the pinnacle of performance?
    The fight was over a moment later when the shorter man used his low center of gravity and exploited his opponent’s overreaching swings, catching him under his ribs and sending him flying backward over the barrier of the ring. With a roar, the barbarian claimed his victory, showing off to the adulating crowd. Then he moved forward and made a kneeling bow to someone in the stands on the far side of the ring. The minute Dethan saw the teal coloring of her cap and the darkness of her veil, pulled down over her face, he knew it was the grandina. Seated beside her in the position of overseer was the jenden she was engaged to.
    “I, Jjanjiu, am your champion, woman!” the warrior called out rudely to her. “Give me my reward. Give me my gold and give me my kiss!”
    A kiss? That was what the victor got for winning? And now she had to give it to this overbearing and obviously unclean oaf? He wasn’t even that worthy an opponent, all bluster and strength and no finesse. Even across the way from her, even with the veil, Dethan could see the discomfort on her features.
    “That’s the jenden’s doing,” Tonkin confided. “Offering her up to a commoner like a prize. She’s too good for us lot, and so she should be. But he does it to embarrass her. He does a lot of things to her to get back at her for being in a more exalted position than him, if you ask me.”
    “Are there no other challengers?” the grandina asked in a loud, clear voice, but Dethan could hear the quaver of discomfiture in her tone.
    “Give me a weapon and I will challenge him, Grandina.”
    Had those words just come out of his mouth?
It mustbe the press of the crowd. It must be the heat of the day. No, it had to be for the gold, he told himself, satisfied at last with that reasoning. That and the offensive idea that this piece of ill-skilled trash could ever consider calling himself a champion. It was probably better the battle wasn’t to the death because it would be unfair, since he was now immortal. Not that his opponent would know that.
    He stepped into the ring, making certain the grandina could see him clearly, and he could tell immediately that she recognized him, and that she was relieved beyond words that he had stepped forward. Why she thought he, with his burn-scarred body, was anything better than the other oaf was beyond him. But he would not be burn-scarred forever. His body would eventually heal … although not for a while, because by the time he healed enough for it to show, the curse would be upon him again at dusk and he wouldn’t be any more healed then than he was now. But he had to realize that anything would appear better to her than a lumbering man with