The elf smiled as he saw Finn approaching, and his voice sounded light and effortless, as if they had met on a morning stroll:
"I have been watching your training, boy. You... have changed. Will you allow me to see how much?"
Only now did Finn truly take in his surroundings. A small group of elves had gathered along the walls of the arena – some sat on stone ledges, others stood leaning against columns. Their faces expressed undisguised interest. Among them, he noticed Eva – she stood slightly apart from the others, and when their eyes met, she gave an almost imperceptible nod. In that simple gesture, Finn read more than words could have expressed.
Without a word, he walked to the rack of training weapons. His hand instinctively reached for the familiar curved blade – the tulwar, with which he had spent the last days training. The weapon seemed to greet him, fitting perfectly into his palm.
Returning to the center of the arena, Finn looked into his opponent's eyes: "What is your name?"he asked, surprised by the calmness of his own voice.
"Lim," the elf replied with the same benevolent smile. His gaze held no trace of hostility or contempt – only a strange, almost paternal expectation. It was as if he was searching for something in Finn, hoping to see confirmation of his thoughts. But what those thoughts were – a hope that the boy would be weak and unworthy, or the opposite, that he was truly special – Finn could not tell.
They took fighting stances opposite each other. Finn felt the air around them grow thick with tension. A horn sounded somewhere in the distance – Eva had given the signal to begin the duel.
Lim moved like lightning – exactly as he had in their first fight. His sword described a swift arc, aiming for Finn's shoulder. A week ago, that blow would have caught the boy by surprise, sending him to the ground. But now... Finn almost smirked at the irony of the moment as his blade met the elf's strike, deflecting it to the side, while he himself slid to the right, moving off the line of attack.
Lim's eyes widened for a moment in surprise, but his next attack followed immediately. He launched a complex combination of blows – a high slash was replaced by a short lunge, transitioning into an oblique upward strike. Finn moved as if in a dance, his body knowing how to respond on its own. Block, dodge, block again – every movement was precise and economical, without unnecessary fuss.
Their swords met with a dull clang that echoed off the cave walls. Lim attacked continuously, his blade seeming to be everywhere at once. But where before Finn had seen only a blur of motion, he now distinguished individual strikes, reading his opponent's intentions from the slightest movement of his shoulders or turn of his wrist.
Gradually, the elf's attacks became more and more sophisticated. He changed rhythm, alternated lightning-fast lunges with feints, and tried to catch Finn off guard with unexpected changes of direction. But the boy did not yield. Every time it seemed Lim was about to break through his defense, Finn found a way to evade the blow or meet it with his own blade.
At some point, Finn caught himself beginning to enjoy the duel. It was nothing like the exhausting training with the ancient tree and its spawn. This was a dance, a dialogue between two warriors speaking the language of blades. He began to add his own elements to this conversation – a feint he had learned while fighting the woody creatures, an unexpected step forward instead of the usual retreat, a spinning motion copied from the writhing roots.
Lim, too, seemed to appreciate these improvisations. His smile widened, and a gleam of excitement appeared in his eyes. Now he was not just attacking – he was probing, testing the boundaries of his young opponent's capabilities. Each new combination was more complex than the last, each feint demanded an ever more sophisticated response.
The spectators around the arena held their breath. Even the most experienced warriors among them could not tear their eyes away from this duel. What had begun as a simple test had turned into a true spectacle – a demonstration of skill where the grace of an elven warrior met the unpredictable adaptability of a human boy. But Finn was not a master, and Lim was not a strong warrior; no, he was much stronger than an ordinary human, but among his own house, he was the weakest.
Finn felt his body singing with tension. Every muscle was taut as a string, every nerve ringing with concentration. He no longer thought about technique or tactics – his body knew what to do on its own. All the lessons of the past days, all the bruises and aches, all the hours of training merged into a single stream of intuitive knowledge guiding his every move.
But the triumph was short-lived. In one of his lunges, Lim, who had until then confidently controlled the fight, made a barely noticeable mistake – his blade hesitated for a fraction of a second in a high position after a swing. For an ordinary opponent, this pause would have been imperceptible, but Finn, whose reflexes had been honed by endless fights with the lightning-fast attacks of the tree creatures, caught that moment.
The boy reacted instantly. Where a second ago he had been defending, he now launched a swift attack. His blade seemed to come alive, transforming from a defensive shield into a striking weapon. A blow, then another – each movement was aimed not just at breaking through the elf's defense, but at depriving him of any chance to regain his lost advantage.
Lim tried to regain control of the fight, but now it was he who could barely react in time. Finn moved unpredictably, using everything he had learned these days – sharp changes in the direction of attack, deceptive movements, unexpected angles of strike. His every step, every swing of his sword forced the elf to retreat.
The end came swiftly. When Lim tried to parry a particularly cunning combination of blows, Finn changed the trajectory of his blade with an elusive movement. The tulwar slid along the edge of the elven sword, dipped down, and then shot upward. Lim's weapon, knocked from his grasp by this unexpected maneuver, flew aside and hit the stone floor of the arena with a dull clang.
Finn froze, his blade held at the elf's throat. An absolute silence fell over the cave. Even the echo of Lim's falling sword seemed afraid to break this moment. The spectators, holding their breath, watched the incredible scene: a human boy holding one of the warriors of the underground city at swordpoint.