Page 17 of Nemesis Mine
“Yield,” ordered Maximillian.
There was something surprising in that word that Cyrus should be responding to. Instead, he stared up at Maximillian, his heart beating very fast in his chest. The champion’s hair was in disarray, pushed back off his flushed face. His pale shirt was stained with dirt and blood and sweat. His arm still bled sluggishly from the knife wound even as it held Cyrus in place. He had done that. Taken Maximillian’s perfection and marred it, spoiled it. Scrawled his mark all over him.
“Yield,” Maximillian repeated, annoyed. Cyrus distantly supposed it would be a bit irritating, if you had someone pinned on their back in public and they were too busy gawping at you to do anything about it.
... pinned on his back. In public.Gawping.Yeah, Cyrus needed to do something about this.
His hands were free now that Maximillian wasn’t coiled around him like a snake. And Maximillian himself was distracted by the prospect of his victory, staring down at Cyrus’s face and breathing hard. He wasn’t watching the twitch of Cyrus’s fingers towards the final dagger still tucked into his belt. He grasped the hilt, felt the smoothcherry wood against his fingertips. His eyes remained fixed on the champion’s face but his mind had finally pinned down the source of surprise.
Yieldwas a chance for survival, not a precursor to a killing blow. Why would Maximillian let him live?
For a heartbeat, disappointment flashed through Cyrus. He would never know the answer. But there was no time to indulge a spark of fascination. His chance was here, and he had to take it.
Cyrus swung upwards with the dagger with all his might, aiming for Maximillian’s throat. He missed only because Maximillian lurched away with the reflexes of a seasoned champion, toppling backwards and hissing in pain as the blade nipped at his clavicle. Cyrus surged to his knees and seized the advantage, looming over the champion. Fearful cries rose from the villagers as Maximillian struggled to right himself and Cyrus reared his arm back for the final blow, grinning ferociously.
Footsteps. Heavy on the earth behind him. Rushed and panicked and heading his way.
Before he could strike Maximillian, something struckhim. Something hard and hefty, wielded clumsily by an inexperienced hand. It slammed into the side of Cyrus’s head with vicious force and sent him reeling sideways.
Cyrus clutched his head, heedless of Maximillian so close, of the villagers watching. He was swearing and a voice nearby was raised in anger but he could barely hear over the ringing in his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut, the world cavorting sickeningly around him. There was bloodagainst his fingers, but he could do nothing but ride it out, curled around himself.
The pain did not leave, but it started to fade—in increments, unwillingly giving ground. Cyrus breathed through it. When he felt like he could take his hands away from his head without his skull disintegrating, he pushed himself gingerly to his feet.
A broken-off branch lay close by on the ground, about the length of his arm. Blood glinted wetly at one end. Cyrus stared at it, then lifted his eyes slowly to the wielder.
Not Maximillian, standing motionless a few paces away. He had one arm held out to warn off the crowd of peasants who had come closer, huddled at his back. His eyes were wide as he stared at Cyrus.
Another thought, fleeting, trying and failing to tug at Cyrus’s attention. Why hadn’t Maximillian moved to finish Cyrus off whilst he was down?
He couldn’t pay heed to that right now. He, a wrongdoer deserving of respect and terror, had been viciously attacked. Assaulted.Maimed.By a downtrodden little peasant from fuckingArclee.
Cyrus’s eyes drifted from Maximillian to the people clustered behind him. Most cringed away from eye contact. But a man standing just behind Maximillian’s shoulder stared at the champion rather than at Cyrus. There was a peculiar expression on his face. Sulky but stubborn. Like he had been scolded, but stood by his actions.
His actions. Like hitting Cyrus on the head when he had been about to deliver his killing blow.
That snivelling littleworm.
Cyrus stepped forward without thought. He was in no fit state to take Maximillian on again, and reason clamoured for him to take note amid the swell of outrage and bruised pride. But it was lost to the flood of anger demanding he make that peasantpay.
Maximillian matched him immediately, keeping his arm out. He wasn’t holding back the crowd, he was throwing up a barrier between Cyrus and the man behind him.
“Some champion you are,” Cyrus hissed. “Needing your precious villagers to step in and protect you.”
Maximillian’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like that, not one bit. “I didn’t ask him to.”
Cyrus sneered. But whilst he longed to sink his teeth into that weakness, to worry at it until Maximillian came apart at the seams, he could not ignore his own condition. His head pounded an unremitting drumbeat, his spine and his limbs ached, his bruised face still throbbed. He could not pit himself against Maximillian and expect to win. In this state, he wouldn’t even be able to call on his magic to help. He didn’t have the strength for it.
He needed to end this fight, now, before Maximillian let go of whatever hesitance had stopped him from finishing Cyrus off whilst he was down.
But... Cyrushadwon. In the fight between Cyrus and Maximillian, he had won. Maximillian’s heart was only beating now due to the intervention of an overly zealous villager. And therein lay Cyrus’s way out.
Cyrus’s sneer faded. He thought of the detestable, patronising little smile Maximillian had worn the last time they met here in Arclee and let it curl at his own lip.
“You lost,” Cyrus said quietly. “Didn’t you?”
Silence strained between them, just the crackle of the fire to fill the air. Cyrus tasted the iron tang of blood and ash and the burn of smoke. Still, Maximillian said nothing.
“You lost to me,” said Cyrus, his voice so very soft. “I don’t have to kill you to prove that I am your better.” He let his eyes slide to the anxious faces of the villagers—thewitnesses—beyond. Then he looked back at Maximillian and allowed the mocking smile to spread across his face, a mirror to the expression the champion was so fond of. Cyrus savoured every moment, tilting his head just so to make sure Maximillian was hit with every bit of condescension he could muster.
