The hour passed fairly quickly after he finished his meal and did some light meditation.

  He was still confused about the whole Cai Yue thing, but what are you going to do, he thought to himself. Then he thought, I am really too old for these kinds of games.

  Then he caught himself.

  But I am not, really, am I?

  He looked at his hands. No wrinkles. No liver spots. No scars that had not come from this world. When he stood up, he caught a faint reflection in the surface of one of the water barrels.

  Not an old man. Not anymore.

  “No, I am definitely not an old man now,” he mumbled. “So why do I feel like one?”

  With a final “fuck me” and a quiet chuckle, he joined the other contestants heading toward the arena.

  Guard Captain Hall was waiting there again to officiate. This round, he explained, would be simple. Each contestant would walk up and draw a random token. They would then fight whoever stood on the numbered spot that token represented.

  With twenty people left, only ten would draw. It went from right to left in a neat line.

  Algraves did not care who drew his match. He was near the end of the line anyway. After this round there would only be ten people left, and that would start the third and final day of the tournament.

  So he waited.

  A fighter he had not really noticed before ended up drawing his number. They were directed to one of the smaller arenas, a rope circle just large enough for two people to move without tripping over each other every step.

  A sub guard walked over and repeated the rules, voice flat from saying them too many times already.

  “You will fight until one of you can no longer continue. Ring out, which means anything past the rope. Submission. Or knockout. No intentional killing. No intentional crippling. Accidents happen. That is why we have judges. Any such incident will be reviewed.”

  With that, the man walked off, raised his hand, and said, “Begin.”

  Algraves took a quick half hop forward and dropped into his stance.

  Then something in him went sideways.

  Instead of engaging directly, he let his weight slide, rolled in a staggered, drunken pattern, and snapped his back leg out in a sharp, fierce thrust halfway through the roll.

  He felt a solid impact. Heard a grunt. The world spun once more as he completed the motion and came up on one knee.

  His opponent was already on his back halfway out of the ring. The man tried to get up, wobbled, and sat down hard again, clutching at his ribs.

  The judge raised a hand.

  “Victor, Algraves.”

  Algraves blinked.

  That was it?

  He stood, dusted his hands off, and gave his opponent a quick, apologetic nod before stepping out of the circle. The sub guard told him it would be another hour or so, after all the other matches finished, before the final ten were called.

  Totally bewildered by the exchange, he went back to the staging area and sat down.

  He replayed the little fight in his head from the moment he had stepped into the ring to the moment he had felt his heel connect. He had not thought. He had just reacted.

  That was… interesting.

  With a shrug, he looked around to make sure Cai Yue was nowhere nearby, because that would just be awkward, then settled in and began meditating.

  As his breathing slowed and his thoughts loosened their grip, he turned the moments over in his mind.

  Maybe I am trying too hard.

  He needed to know the motions. He needed to practice them. But at some point, did he need to stop forcing it and let everything he had crammed into his muscles and nerves actually move on their own?

  Something like muscle memory. Or instinctive memory, if that was a thing here.

  He did not know. But it was something to watch for.

  An hour later, the remaining ten were called back to the starting area.

  Guard Captain Hall stood waiting in the shade near the largest circle, with a pair of stone faced Steppe elders and Mayor Chen watching from behind him.

  “This will be the third round,” Hall said once they had all gathered. “Round robin. Each participant will face every other participant at least once.”

  He pointed along the line.

  “One fights ten. Two fights nine. Three fights eight, and so on. After the first set, the pairings rotate until everyone has had their turn against everyone. At the end of the round, the five contestants with the most victories advance to the final.”

  He let his gaze sweep over them.

  “This will take the rest of the day. The final round will be held tomorrow morning.”

  Algraves nodded along with the others. Inside, he thought, This is going to be a long day.

  “Everyone, take your seats,” Hall said. “We will begin.”

  The ten of them settled along the edge of the central arena. The crowd had swelled while Algraves had been meditating; the stands were now packed with townsfolk, traders, and Steppe warriors, all buzzing with the specific kind of hunger that came from watching other people risk their bones for the possibility of honor and advancement.

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  The air shimmered faintly with heat and dust. The smell of spiced meat, sweat, and excitement mixed together into something oddly familiar. It reminded Algraves of county fairs and middle school tournaments and the time his unit had been stuck doing base security near a military expo.

  Only this time, he was one of the things people had come to watch.

  The other finalists spread out. Algraves recognized most of them.

  The desert fighter, calm as ever, loose trousers fluttering around bare feet, scimitar sheathed at his hip. He stood with his hands loosely clasped behind his back, head bowed as if he were listening to something private.

  The green eyed woman, the one who had tested him with probing strikes in the first round, stood with her eyes half closed, shoulders relaxed. Her hair was tied back in a simple knot, and she wore no obvious weapons.

  The ogre blooded axe wielder leaned her weapon against one shoulder, the chipped head catching the light. She looked entirely at ease, like a woman waiting for a cart to be loaded rather than for a series of fights.

  The orc blooded brawler rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles, grinning at anyone who met his eyes for more than a second.

  The staff wielding twins stood close together, murmuring quietly. Their weapons rested upright, tips braced against the ground. Brother and sister, if Algraves remembered right. The brother was a touch taller, his movements more compact. The sister’s stance was looser, hips set to allow fluid pivots.

  The remaining three were quieter faces from the earlier rounds. A stocky man with scars on his forearms. A thin woman with callused knuckles and a no nonsense grip. A boy who barely looked old enough to drink, but who had somehow made it this far on stubbornness and a surprisingly sharp foot sweep.

  Hall gestured.

  “First pairing. One and ten.”

  The boy and the ogre blooded woman stepped into the ring.

  Algraves watched the boy bow. The ogre blooded woman returned it, eyes calm.

  The fight lasted maybe ten seconds.

  The boy rushed in, hoping to get inside her swing. She shifted her grip, let his charge carry him close, stepped half a pace to the side, and clipped him across the ribs with the haft of the axe like she was knocking dust from a rug.

  He flew, rolled, and slid to a halt with his nose almost touching the rope.

  “Ring out,” a judge called. “Winner, Rasha of High Pasture.”

  The crowd roared approval.

  Algraves winced sympathetically and rubbed his own ribs.

  The day went on like that.

  His first fight in the round robin was against the scar armed man.

  The man carried no weapon. His stance was loose but grounded, arms hanging with deceptive laziness.

  “You are the one with the ugly style,” the man said conversationally as they bowed.

  “You will have to be more specific,” Algraves replied. “There are at least three of us.”

  A few people near the front of the stands laughed.

  Hall lowered his hand.

  “Begin.”

  They circled.

  The scarred man moved first, testing with a low kick, then a fast jab toward Algraves chest. The movements were crisp, controlled. A formal school somewhere. Nothing fancy. Just good basics.

  Algraves blocked the jab and felt the impact travel up his forearm.

  Strong. Not monstrous. Enough to hurt.

  He let his feet start to shift, calling on the odd, slanting footwork he had stolen from one set of films. Step off line. Turn the hips. Keep everything just a fraction out of rhythm.

  The other man went to adjust. Tried to cut him off.

  Algraves swayed like he had had one drink too many, let the punch skim past his shoulder, and slapped his palm against the man’s elbow, guiding the strike past its mark.

  He followed with a straight kick, simple and ugly, heel driving toward the man’s thigh.

  The scarred fighter twisted at the last second, taking it on the meat of his leg instead of the knee. He grunted and backed up, adjusting.

  They traded like that for a while.

  Basic strikes. Basic defenses. Algraves mixing awkward, high level movie theory with low level brute force training from a past life where the most dangerous thing he had expected to fight had been another human with a gun.

  The turning point came when the other man overcommitted on a hook to the body.

  Algraves stepped in instead of away.

  He caught the forearm with one hand, pivoted his hips, and let everything he had dumped into his strange hybrid style flow out through a single, tight movement.

  His elbow snapped up, connecting with the man’s chin.

  Not a full knockout. Enough to send him reeling back toward the rope. Algraves followed and planted a hand on his chest, pushing him the last half step.

  The man stepped out.

  “Ring out. Winner, Algraves.”

  They bowed again.

  “Ugly,” the man said with a faint grin, rubbing his jaw. “But it works.”

  “That is the idea,” Algraves answered.

  His next match was against the green eyed woman.

  Her name, he learned, was Lin. She moved like someone who had spent years walking knife edges.

  They stepped into the ring, bowed, and took their stances. Algraves tried to read her. She stood with her weight evenly distributed, hands loose, eyes half lidded.

  Hall’s hand came down.

  “Begin.”

  She did not rush him.

  She stepped.

  One step in. One to the side. Her fingers flicked, testing distance. A light tap at his wrist. A brush near his ribs. Nothing committed, nothing heavy.

  He tried to answer in kind, using awkward feints and shifts, but every time he thought he had found an opening, she seemed not to be there anymore. Not by much. Just enough.

  Two exchanges later, he realized she was mapping him.

  By the fourth exchange, she had his timing.

  She slipped under a jab, palm skimming his forearm. Something in the contact made his hand go numb to the fingers.

  Nerve strike. Great.

  He tried to change angles. She let him. She even let him land a glancing kick along her hip, though the faint grimace on her face told him it had not been entirely free.

  Then she stepped inside his guard and flicked two quick strikes along his ribs and shoulder. They did not hurt immediately.

  A heartbeat later his legs went loose.

  He stumbled. Knees buckled. One leg refused to respond when he told it to brace.

  She placed two fingers gently against his chest.

  “If you keep moving, you will fall,” she said quietly.

  He tested his balance, found she was right, and let out a breath.

  “I surrender,” he said.

  The crowd murmured. Some cheered, some groaned.

  Lin stepped back, bowing in thanks.

  As he left the ring, he heard Jian near the gate arguing with someone about odds.

  “No, I am telling you, he is too stubborn to go out early. That was a clean loss. Did you see it? She folded him without breaking a sweat. That is the kind of thing people remember.”

  Two fights later, Lin calmly dismantled the scarred man. Then a twin. Then the callused knuckle woman. Each fight was different, but the principle was the same.

  Watch. Map. Close. Touch. End.

  Algraves mentally bumped her up a few notches on his list of people not to piss off.

  His fight against the desert man was worse.

  When they stepped into the ring, the other fighter gave him a faint, polite smile.

  Up close, Algraves could see small details he had missed before. Faint scars along the man’s forearms. Calluses along the fingers, not from sword work but from climbing, catching, hanging. The man smelled faintly of dust and some kind of dry spice.

  “I am honored,” the man said. His accent was strange, the words flowing together in a way that felt almost musical. “You fight like wind that does not know its own direction yet.”

  “I will take that as a compliment,” Algraves said.

  “And as a warning,” the man added. “For both of us.”

  Hall did not need to say begin. The two elders behind him said it instead, in perfect unison.

  They clashed.

  Or rather, Algraves tried to clash.

  The desert fighter did not blur, or vanish, or do anything flashy. He simply stepped where Algraves was not and touched him.

  A tap behind the knee that made his leg buckle.

  A brush along the ribs that stole his breath for half a second.

  A palm against the shoulder that ruined the angle of his next strike.

  He never hit hard. He never needed to.

  Within a minute, Algraves felt like he had lived through three separate sparring sessions and lost all of them.

  He did manage to land one solid shot. A short, snapping kick that clipped the man’s thigh and made him adjust his stance.

  The desert fighter’s eyes lit with approval.

  “Good,” he said. “You listen while you move.”

  Then he swept Algraves legs and ended the fight with a light touch to his throat.

  Algraves lay flat on his back for a moment, staring up at the sky.

  “Knockdown,” the judge called. “Winner, Idrin of the Saffron Dunes.”

  Idrin. Good to have a name for the man who had just folded him like badly set origami.