56 A Duel for Honor's Sake

The Provost's offer was more than enticing. Jacob needed that information. It would certainly boost his chances of victory if he knew the tendencies of at least the fighters Provost Thomson knew would participate. Victory was the most important thing to him. The rewards offered by the Duke were astounding, and they offered him a meager hope of shaking off the shackles that bound him.

The suns were setting by the time Jacob finished restoring the room to the state in which he found it. The mat was rolled up and shoved to the side, while the weapons rack had all of its slots filled. There wasn't much else to fix up, but his training had run late and moving heavy things while exhausted slowed him considerably.

He had to find Cynthia. With any luck, he hadn't burned all his bridges with the arrogant girl. If he played the role of the servant he was meant to be, he might be able to pull it off. He rankled at being forced to do so, but he swallowed his rage. There was a difference between now and with the King. One path lead to slavery. The other, freedom.

It didn't take long to find her. She was the center of attention in the mess hall at the center of the building. Standing in the center of a large circle of students, she appeared to be telling a tale. Her hands flew as she spoke, describing the story physically. Jacob inched closer to listen.

"And so I challenged him to a duel! He wasn't scared at all, but I showed him why he had to be scared of me!" Cynthia boasted, pumping her fists in the air. Jacob facepalmed; she was apparently retelling their encounter with some… embellishments. "He was down in the first two minutes. Pesky mage had no idea how to fight. Stupid pretender."

So much for mending things with the girl. "Oh yeah?" Jacob called loudly, stalking forward. Cynthia's eyes widened, realizing the very real threat the angry mage represented. "How do I go about challenging someone?" Jacob asked one of the students close to him.

"All you have to do is state your intention of a challenge," the man, older than Jacob by a few years, responded. The students around the commotion grew more interested, their bodies leaning forward as they took in the drama. Jacob sighed; he didn't really like being the center of attention if he could avoid it.

"Cynthia Thomson, I challenge you to a duel to restore my honor. Do you accept?" Jacob proposed, letting his words diffuse through the air. The girl in front of him recoiled, but she quickly recovered.

"I accept. The terms of the duel are as such: there is to be magic and we are permitted to use whatever weapons we wish," she responded. Jacob had been unaware that she would be able to set the terms, but he supposed it was only fair as he was the one challenging her. The restriction on his magic worried him, but he hoped that he would be able to triumph over the girl.

"Is tomorrow evening acceptable to you?" Jacob asked, hoping that Cynthia wouldn't realize that this was a ploy for him to shove more training into the space before the duel. As he was now, unexperienced with the spatha, he stood less than even odds at winning. To someone with as few possessions as he, very few things mattered. Honor was one of them. He would not, could not, let her speak those poisoned stories of hers.

"It is. We will duel in the training yard outside. I will be there a quarter past seven. Be there, or I will have assumed you have backed out of this duel," she said haughtily. Any threat a mage presented was removed if they were unable to use their magic. She was certain of her victory. Good, let her waste her time. Jacob would not be making the same mistake.

Leaving the mess hall without having eaten, Jacob marched back to his room past a few frightened students and the occasional soldier of the Fourth Infantry. All of them were eager to get out of his path, for there was a darkness to his face that dealt with no inconveniences.

Jacob collapsed on his bed once he returned to his dorm room. It was a small place he shared with another sergeant, one of a different unit than Jacob had been a part of. Both soldiers kept to themselves; the sergeant read a novel at his desk while Jacob lay in bed with an arm draped over his eyes. A headache was developing despite his best efforts to repress it.

Cynthia was a bigger pain in the behind than even he had expected. That first interaction had not done her attitude justice. If he lost tomorrow, he'd have made a laughingstock of himself. That thought accompanied him as he drifted off to sleep.

The morning sunlight streamed in through a small window. It was barely even dawn, the suns having just peeked their heads over the horizon. Jacob woke with them, changing into another set of his uniform. Eager to begin training, Jacob quietly ran past all the other rooms near him, careful not to wake anyone else. The training rooms were unoccupied so early in the morning, all except one.

Taking the one adjacent to the one in use, Jacob entered a similar space to the one he had been in the day before. Provost Thomson wouldn't show up for another few hours, giving him plenty of time to get used to doing various sword forms with the spatha instead of a heavy sword. The balance was all different, and he had to get used to the way it felt in his hand if he wanted any chance at defeating Cynthia. He had no idea how good she was, but if she was a student at a Blade College, she must be better than the average soldier by a considerable margin. Jacob was too, but he needed for this not to be a toss-up.

He wanted to show everyone exactly what he could do even without magic. The Provost's offer was secondary; he could figure out what to do about that in the future.