Chapter 176: The Duel
The air in the tent had gone as still and stagnant as standing water.
Bazel's hand was already on the axe handle at his hip. Those tiger eyes were locked on the beastman king.
The beastman king withdrew the hand he had left hanging in the air.
He stepped back half a pace and settled back into the stone chair draped with human skins.
The golden lion mane fell across his shoulders and covered half his face, leaving only a pair of amber eyes exposed.
Those eyes were full of exhaustion. And something else that didn't have a name.
"Bazel." His voice was rough. "How do you want to settle this?"
Bazel's hand came off the axe handle. His tiger eyes narrowed slightly.
"Single combat."
The corner of his mouth lifted into a smile that said he had already decided how this ended.
"Your Majesty, this is the beastman nation's tradition. If Your Majesty believes your decisions were sound, prove it with strength. If I lose, I accept the judgment. If I win—"
The beastman king was quiet for a moment. His gaze moved across Bazel's face.
He had the numbers. Roughly twenty thousand surviving soldiers were camped outside. The Steel Fang Tribe's fighters were far fewer than the forces under his own command.
He could refuse. He could order Bazel seized right now.
But —
"Agreed."
Even Bazel went still for a moment.
He had expected to wait longer before the beastman king made up his mind. The decisiveness was more than he'd anticipated.
"His Majesty is direct." Bazel released the axe handle and waved the hand back at his followers. "Step back."
The tiger-head beastmen withdrew, clearing space.
The beastman king raised his hand as well, signaling his own guards to fall back.
A few of the lion-beastmen hesitated, then obeyed, moving to the edges of the tent.
The center of the tent was open.
Bazel unhooked both short axes from his belt and took them in his hands. The blades were sharp; the wrapping on the handles had been soaked through with old sweat and had darkened considerably.
The beastman king rose from his chair and reached beside it for the war blade that had been with him for many years.
The blade was wide, the handle set with several faded gemstones that still carried a faint trace of the richness they had once been.
The two of them faced each other in the center of the tent.
Five paces apart.
Bazel looked at the beastman king's lined lion face and felt, suddenly, that the man had aged far more than he remembered.
The golden-brown mane was thinner than it had been, the grey-white skin beneath more visible. The amber eyes had less light in them.
"Your Majesty," Bazel said. "You've grown old."
The beastman king slowly raised the war blade.
The tip pointed at Bazel. The flat of the blade caught the light with a cold gleam.
"Then show me."
Bazel said nothing further.
He launched forward, both axes sweeping out to the sides of his body like a hunting tiger opening its strike.
The beastman king's war blade came down to meet him.
The sound of metal on metal cracked through the tent and set the oil lamp flames lurching hard.
Their shapes crossed, then separated quickly.
Bazel glanced down at the short axe in his left hand. A chip the size of a grain of rice had been knocked out of the blade.
His pupils contracted slightly.
The beastman king's strength was greater than he had prepared for.
He was old. But the raw force he put behind the blade still outweighed Bazel's.
Bazel pressed his teeth together and went in again.
This time he didn't test. Both axes moved in alternating rhythm, the assault relentless.
The beastman king raised his blade to meet each strike. Every impact between axe and blade threw hard sparks. His footwork was steady — his body wasn't as quick as it had been in younger years, but he placed himself precisely where each of Bazel's attacks needed to be intercepted, every time.
The more they fought, the more uneasy Bazel became.
He had expected a man past his prime. What the beastman king was showing him was still beyond his own level.
Several times the war blade came within a fraction of landing on a vital point, only to angle away at the last instant and graze past the edge of his armor.
Bazel did the same thing in return, without making a decision about it.
His axes reached openings in the beastman king's guard and pulled back fractionally at the last moment, each time stopping just short of landing cleanly.
The two of them were performing something they hadn't discussed.
A blade for an axe, back and forth.
Violent in appearance. And by unspoken agreement, neither going for the kill.
As though both of them were waiting for something.
Along the edges of the tent, the warriors from both sides watched with their eyes fixed on the duel.
The oil lamp flames swayed violently in the pressure of their movements, nearly going out more than once.
Time moved slowly through the flicker of blade and axe.
Then, after a long stretch —
The tent flap burst open.
A lion-beastman stumbled in, drenched in blood.
The golden fur was so soaked through it had lost its color almost entirely.
One arm had been severed at the shoulder. The stump was wrapped in a haphazard bandage, still seeping.
His body was shaking. His eyes had no focus.
"Your Majesty..." His voice was so rough it was barely audible. "The mission... has failed."
Time seemed to stop in that instant.
The beastman king's war blade hung motionless in the air.
His body went rigid. The light in those amber eyes dimmed, degree by degree.
As though something inside him was rapidly running out.
The mission had failed.
The human noble had not been captured.
Everything he had staked was gone in this moment.
The beastman king's war blade dropped.
The tip found the ground. It held him upright.
The beastman king's gaze settled somewhere in the middle distance. His lips moved faintly without producing a sound.
Bazel tightened his grip on both axes.
This time he didn't hold back.
The blades tore through the air with a sound like something final, aimed directly at the beastman king's neck.
The beastman king didn't move.
He stood where he was, his eyes watching the blade approach, calm and clear.
In those eyes, only the acceptance of someone who had made their bet and lost.
The axe fell.
A clean, sharp crack of bone rang through the tent.
The beastman king's head left his shoulders, turned twice in the air, and came down hard on the ground.
Blood surged from the neck and spread across the human-skin-draped stone chair.
The headless body swayed once, then crashed to earth.
The beastman king's head lay with its eyes still open. Those amber eyes caught a faint glimmer in the dark, as though still watching something.
Bazel stood where he was, both hands on his axe handles, breathing in long pulls.
He crouched down slowly, reached out, and closed those amber eyes.
"Go well."
Outside the tent, the night wind moved through the valley in long, grieving gusts, carrying away the dying army's sounds, the groans of the wounded and the dull murmur of the defeated, and sent them up into the black sky.
Not far off, the last of a campfire's embers still faintly glowed, like a half-closed eye, slowly shutting on a piece of ground soaked through with blood.
The beastman nation turned a new page.
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