Beasts of Tabat Read Online Free

the sinews and lumps of their character, how they respond to taunt or stroke, how they move when pressed to their utmost effort, how they take losing.
    So it is with this one, Crysa. I’ve fought her that often.
    This isn’t a teaching match, though. She’s trying to shortcut the usual climb, challenging me directly. If she wins, she’ll be Spring’s Champion in another month.
    That’s where the good ones end up. Fighting me there.
    She falls back with a scrape of armored heels on the tiles, never loses balance throughout the move.
    She’s in peak shape. I warmed up for this bout by fighting a Beast, a Minotaur who’d tried to kill his Master. He didn’t score a hit, and now I’m warm and limber, if breathing harder. She came into the fight fresh, so she’s holding her own.
    She’s not bad, not bad at all. She shouldn’t be. I trained her myself.
    This is her moment, or so she thinks.
    They all do, just before I pluck it from them.
    My sword comes up.
    Skirl and screech, blade sliding against blade, the noises only the closest onlookers can hear, though they can see the sparks catch her in the face. I taste blood.
    Touch. Wheel.
    Another clash of blades.
    The crowd’s impatience swells. Idlers and others with time to spare. When the actual ceremonial match comes, the seats will be packed with onlookers.
    She angles sideways, trying to keep out of the reflected sun glitter on my shield.
    I do the same. Bright sparkles cross her visor, light dances against her eyes.
    She blinks.
    Time to feint and kick, catching her calf.
    She staggers.
    It’s actually disappointing when they don’t last longer than this.
    The crowd noise swells. They’re disappointed too. But it’s not her lack of stamina that makes them mutter.
    They want to find someone who will defeat me in the ceremony and win them six extra weeks of spring.
    Let them groan and whine.
    If they want to change things, they can find another Champion. I’m Winter’s, as I have been for almost two decades now. As I will be again this year.
    Champion of Tabat. And this year that ritual’s even more important, with all the political changes taking place. There’ll be more stress to throw the match than ever before.
    But I don’t throw matches.
    She’s done. I can see it in her eyes.
    She must learn all the steps, even though she’s not experiencing them from the side she wanted. I step forward to put my sword to her throat. She droops in surrender; hands up her sword.
    I hold it up to the crowd, into the oncoming snowflakes, thickening now.
    They cheer despite the oncoming weather, swept up in the fervor.
    They are Tabat.
    They are mine.
    In his box, Alberic, the current and last Duke of Tabat, stands. He waves his hand above his head to signal silence, and the crowd obeys.
    He speaks. The Mage beside him amplifies the speech with a device that he holds near the Duke’s face, a mesh and gears cylinder.
    “Citizenry of Tabat! Crysa Silverskiff has failed her challenge. She will not face Winter’s Champion.”
    Downright boos this time, even though I can see the Duke’s Enforcers patrolling the packed stands. Events like this make them ineffectual. Before they can get to a booer, he or she has slipped away through the crowds, which are melting away themselves, the impatient heading out before the final words or the exhortations to pay their upcoming taxes.
    It’s not as though Winter will continue forever. Only that I’ve stretched it out a red moon’s length. After all this time, you’d think they’d be used to the long Winters, to a delayed arrival of Spring. They’ll appreciate it more because of that. And the Gods have given us this ritual, to tell us what the weather will be.
    Alberic begins talking about the history of Tabat’s sacred Games and I stop listening. Twenty years of this now. I’ve heard every permutation of pontification Alberic can provide.
    I pat the shoulder of the girl by my side.
    She thought she was skilled or lucky