[Mkguild] The King of Fighters (2/3)

[Nathan Pfaunmiller]

Part 2

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Paula was waiting, her expression uncertain, even if she was already
prepared to fight.  “What was that about?” she asked simply, not even
bothering to watch his approach.  Her clairvoyance had given him away even
in the sea of moving people.



“It was an older woman from Bradanes.  She was giving me some background on
these young men.”  His eyes followed the hare, who was currently consulting
quickly with his companions, one an impish boy who seemed to intentionally
keep his age young for charm’s sake and the other a sturdy young man who
seemed to be built for the fight himself.



“What did you find out?” Paula inquired again.  This time she turned to
look up at her mentor, face expectant and hopeful.



“I found out that there is at least one person who will vouch for my
intuition here.  She collaborated their story of their intentions for the
money.”  He left out quite a bit, of course, but Paula nodded and turned
back towards the ring.  The men had finished consulting, and the hare was
bobbing with excitement, moving just outside of the circle of one of the
rings.  He seemed to be daunted slightly by the number of Keepers that had
joined but, with a winning smile, he began to speak, somehow projecting
enough to be heard above the milling crowd.



“Ladies and gentlemen!  Thank you all for your contributions and for your
spirit of competition here today.  We are sorry for the delay, but I
believe that we are prepared to begin!”  He held an arm up as if to cue his
audience, and a few took initiative and cheered or clapped.  The crowd was
hardly a match for those seen in similar competitions during the major
festivals, but they were in good spirits, and they put a voice to their
enthusiasm as the hare encouraged them.



He lowered his arm again to signal that he was about to speak again.  “We
wished to make as many bouts available for all to see as possible, but we
have far more entrants than we had expected.  To move things along, we will
be using these three rings,” he indicated which with a wave of his paw, “to
move this competition along for the first few rounds.  Once we are past the
larger rounds, however, we will reduce our area to this, central ring.”  He
indicated the one around which he was patrolling.



The crowd clapped politely once again, a few egging the hare on with a few
joking calls for him to get along with the games.  The hare grinned and
bowed graciously to those few before speaking again.  “Let us begin!”



With those words, he immediately began to read off the names of those
competing.  The number of rings meant that not all of the participants were
able to fight in the first three bouts.  Lois was one of the excepted few,
but Paula smiled confidently to him.  “I’ll see you once I take down this
first one,” she quipped, clearly intending for it to take very little time.



“Don’t overestimate your skills.  You’ve come far in a few months, but you
have much to learn.”  He spoke these words chidingly, but not to discourage
her.  He still smiled to her as she stepped into the ring, and she rolled
her eyes and smiled back.



Lois was interested in some of the other bouts, but something akin to duty
stayed him to watch Paula’s first fight.  He barely needed any time to
assess her opponent.  Clearly he had been one of the few that had thrown
some coins in, hoping that the good feelings associated with his generous
donation would result in a few easy battles he could brag about later.  He
was an animal Cursed Keeper, bearing a form Lois could not identify.  Based
on the way the man moved he assumed that the creature was a sort of
predator, but the man himself lacked the killer instinct that any such
creature should have.



“Begin!”



The bout was quick, as Lois had predicted upon seeing Paula’s competition.  The
man struck quickly a few times, but a combination of Paula’s supernatural
reflexes and her training kept any of them from landing, and the last one
was caught around the wrist by the ermine’s pupil.  She turned the hand at
a painful angle, using her body to lever the man into a position he could
not support by himself.  He growled and tried to pull loose, but Paula
smoothly changed her hold until her competition had twisted himself out of
his chance to compete.  He struggled for a few moments after all of the
onlookers knew the inevitable conclusion, but even he could not delay it
for long.  He spat a few choice words that hardly sounded threatening from
his position but then was forced to relent.  Moaning and shaking his hand,
he walked out of the ring with a scowl back at Paula.



The young woman smiled impishly at Lois.  “One down,” she taunted quietly.



Lois sighed and turned his attention to the other fights.  One was
progressing much like Paula’s, but the other was quite interesting.  Two
men were locked in a good old-fashioned wrestling match, and neither seemed
to have a clear advantage.  By the time the one had pinned the other, there
had already been several bets made on the winner.  The man who had won
clapped the shoulder of the other with hearty enthusiasm, and the two
shared a laugh as they left the ring.



The assassin’s bout was somewhat more interesting than Paula’s.  By this
point, the hare had taken to calling out the blow by blow description of
the fight, and he introduced the fighters by name.  Unfortunately, he was
not well-acquainted with the fighters and, seeing a name like Lois, he
assumed it belonged to the ermine’s opponent, a wiry female coyote that
bobbed around the ring like a drunkard.  Lois almost laughed himself to
tears while to hare corrected himself, somehow managing to work the crowd
for some support even while going completely red in the ears.



The fight was also entertaining.  The coyote dodged deftly between strikes,
and forced Lois to fall back and reconsider his attack strategy several
times.  It seemed mostly even until Lois landed a nasty right cross to the
coyote’s muzzle.  While she refused to go down so easily, her weaving was
now more due to being punch-drunk than by any design of her intention.



When she finally collapsed under her own power on a badly off-target
straight punch, Lois caught her and made sure she was all right.  She was
checked quickly by a healer, but all he had to say was that she needed to
be off of her paws for a little while.  She wanted to continue the fight,
but when she tried to stand up she quickly began to agree with the
diagnosis, and went to sit in the crowd.



The hare was becoming quite good at his self-appointed task, and soon had
the crowds reacting more to his commentary than to the bouts
themselves.  Everyone
was in high spirits, even those who went on to lose their fights.  A few
left with harsh words, but most were sporting, even in their defeats.



Two rounds passed, leaving sixteen fighters still competing.  Paula had won
her second fight in a far tenser affair than her first.  She had even be
leveled by a one-two punch that she only partially blocked, but she had
returned to her feet before her opponent decided to press his advantage.  Where
the coyote had been shaken by Lois’ strong strike, Paula only seemed more
determined to win afterwards.  She took several more hits throughout the
fight, but more and more she seemed to allow them in order to set up an
opening for her own offensive push.  Finally, she finished the battle, not
with a resounding knockout punch, but with a series of crippling strikes to
her opponent’s knee.  He attempted to continue, but yielded as soon as the
leg folded as he attempted to face down a barrage of quick strike rained on
his defenses by Lois’ protégé.



The ermine smiled and nodded to her as she walked past, but she didn’t
return the gesture.  She was clearly exhausted, and she would not have so
much time to recover after the second round.  Lois had already fought,
having taken down his opponent quickly.  He followed Paula, setting a paw
on her shoulder as she took a moment to breathe.



“Are you all right?” he asked.  She nodded, too busy breathing to respond
with words.  The ermine eyed her warily.  She had only ever faced him using
the techniques that he passed on to her, and he could see the beginnings of
bruises on her arms, and one high on her cheek.  She was bound to look as
though she had been dragged under the wagon after this.  Lois sighed.  If
he fought first again, he meant to do what he could to buy her time in the
ring.



He was indeed called into the ring before she was, and as he stepped in
against his opponent his eyes widened.  Winning a long fight was going to
be difficult; winning a short fight would be nearly impossible.  The man
before him was the winner of the wrestling match in the first round, still
apparently going strong after his second round battle.  He smiled at the
ermine as they entered, quickly preparing to make the battle another
wrestling match.  He clearly expected to be able to win it if he was
successful, and Lois tended to agree with him.  Fighting so far outside of
his weight level seemed like a fool’s errand.



The man’s features were strong from head to toe; his broad shoulder led to
arms that were as large as the legs of many of the spectators.  He grinned
as though he expected an easy win, his long, braided beard bouncing under
his chin as though to make up for his bald scalp.  Many battle scars were
visible on the top of his head; this man was not just a fighter, he was a
soldier who had seen his share of battles.



Emery rapped his foot along the ground to call for attention at the
beginning of the match.  “A match of contrasts, my friends!  The
quick-footed ermine against a true man of the north, bred thick and strong
as the trees that surround this very Keep!”  Some people laughed and
cheered at this description, and the hare smiled and continued his
introduction.  “Is it a battle of brains against brawn, or do these two
have hidden depths to bring to the battlefield?  Ladies and gentlemen,
Balrog vs. Lois!”



The large man raised an eyebrow at the introduction, but neither of them
left their initial positions until the hare cried for them to fight.  When
he did, the two of them moved quickly, even the large human who showed
quite a bit more reflex than anyone expected.  For his part, Lois dodged
the man’s initial lunge for his leg, and began to circle carefully, dodging
several testing reaches from the larger man while keeping his own body low.
He attempted a few strikes himself, but Balrog brushed them all off as
though he didn’t feel them at all.  He smiled again.  In an instant, Lois
suddenly found himself in a struggle to keep his balance.  In the time it
had taken Lois to notice and react to the man’s strange expression, Balrog
had finally managed to catch his leg.  Lois braced against the larger
man.  Victory
from this position seemed unlikely at best.



Thankfully, Lois’ new form was far more flexible than his human form had
been.  He struggled for balance for a few moments, and then realized that
the man was relying on him falling to one side, something that was certain
to happen if Balrog had a human in this sort of position.  Unfortunately
for him, Lois could bend at angles that would snap a normal man’s spine.  He
let the man lift him up as though to drive him into the ground, but he
twisted midair before the man could finish the maneuver.  As Balrog nearly
met the ground face-first, Lois simply snaked out of the hold like the
weasel he had become.  The man was so stunned by his opponent’s sudden
disappearance that he was barely ready when Lois pivoted on one paw and
threw himself back onto his opponent, grabbing and twisting the man’s arm
behind his back.  Balrog grunted, but he wasn’t about to allow such a
simple hold to keep him down.



To his credit, Lois did hold him for a while, but there was only so much
that the ermine could do with leverage alone.  Once the hold had been
broken, Lois and Balrog returned to their original positions, Balrog again
smiling like an idiot and Lois too focused to care what his expression was.
This man irked him.  Lois had fought others who used this manner of attack,
but he had not fought one so powerful in years.



The two of them battled between holds for several minutes, switching grips
each time another one proved useless.  All the while, Balrog’s grin grew,
while Lois became more frustrated.  The ermine was at least able to slip
through the man’s fingers at some points, but these opportunities just kept
him from having to yield prematurely.  As he stood and circled his opponent
again, he was almost convinced that there was no way to keep the stubborn
human down.



The man lunged again, going for a hold on Lois’ head.  Lois simply dodged
at first, but as the man failed to find his purchase, Lois realized that he
had an angle.  He slipped around under the man’s arms, twisting in a way
that would have been extraordinarily painful in his original form.  He
managed to pull the man off balance and down into an improvised
chokehold.  Lois
was certain that Balrog would usually have been able to get out of the
hold, but the strange position that the ermine managed to keep while
constricting the man’s windpipe kept his unsure of where he could go to
escape the hold.  Lois heard the man grunt in discomfort as he tried to
pull free, but Lois stayed steady as well as he could.  He did his best not
to show stress himself; if the man wasn’t certain of Lois’ stance, he might
not also realize that it was quite uncomfortable, even for an ermine.



Fortunately, Balrog was never able to recover.  After a few moments of
mutual discomfort the large man finally slapped the ground with a bit of a
grunt, coughing a bit once Lois released him.  Both of them fell to the
side as the bout finished, giving each other a respectful glance as each
tried to regain their breath.  Emery was yelling something, but neither man
noticed.  They carefully maneuvered back to the sidelines, still catching
their breaths as the next two moved into the ring.



Paula gave Lois a sarcastic grin.  “I bet you though I was having trouble,”
she commented.  Lois shrugged her off, but he kept his eyes on his
opposition.  The man had been given a waterskin by a respectful spectator,
and he dumped the better part of it over the back of his head before taking
a small swig and giving it back.  Some words were exchanged, and Lois could
hear Balrog’s raucous laughter from where he sat.  Paula kept her eyes on
Lois, trying to decide why he continued to watch the man.



“Looking for a rematch?” she asked sarcastically.  Lois turned an exhausted
glare at her, but she simply raised a tin cup full of water to hide her
face and glanced innocently away.  Lois huffed, still trying to regain his
breath.



“Not remotely,” he managed to reply.  “Balrog…  I know the man.  I just
didn’t realize he was still here.”



Paula glanced back at the large man, who had draped himself over several
adjacent seats, causing some good-natured protests from those in the area
and some joking applause from elsewhere in the audience.  He looked like he
could have been from the timber crews, but she could not say she recognized
him.



“He looks like many of the men here in Metamor,” she noted with a shrug.



“I think the phrase you’re looking for is ‘He looks like many of the men
here in Metamor used to look.’”  He turned to watch Paula’s expression from
one side as she looked back at the man.  She started to say something, but
couldn’t quite manage it.  Lois continued.  “I’m certain there are those
formerly women that were Cursed to be men that have amassed a great number
of scars since their change.  I would note, however, that there is a
surprising lack of fresh scars around his head area.”



Paula nodded.  He had a point.  If the man had once been a woman, she must
have had quite a rough life.  She could not think of a situation that would
cause so many injuries of that sort.  Metamor had been one of the first to
allow women to work in many of the same capacities as men, but those
reforms had taken place mostly after the Curse had made so many of the
Keep’s best soldiers into the fairer sex.  Balrog’s scars looked like the
scars of a warrior; especially, as Lois had noted, along the man’s
scalp.  Almost
all of them were straight like the cut of a knife.



“That is… odd,” Paula mused quietly.  Lois nodded in agreement.



“If you like, I can tell you about how I know him later.”  He got the man’s
attention with a wave and started to move in his direction.  “I’m going to
try to get a drink with him; catch up on some lost years.”



Paula watched him go, but did not have time to follow after as her name was
called, and she was once more back into the ring.



Her opponent was a ferret, who stepped into the ring opposite her as though
he hadn’t taken a punch all day.  Indeed, he looked like he had come
through the day entirely unscathed so far.  He stretched out his limbs
quickly as he stood across from her, waiting for the hare to signal the
beginning of the fight.  He nodded to Paula, smiling softly, but genuinely,
as he did.  She could see when he did this that he had taken a bad strike
to the muzzle at some point in the past.  He was missing a tooth, and his
smile seemed slightly off-kilter as though a broken jaw had mended
incorrectly in the recent past.  She wondered why the man was putting
himself in a situation to fight when he had already clearly gotten
someone’s best.



“On this side of the ring, winner by two of the cleanest knockouts I’ve
seen in or out of the ring, Master Garigan!” the hare crowed proudly.
“Opposite
him, Miss Paula, owner of two masterful takedowns of her own.  Only one can
step out of this ring as the victor.  Which of these will move on to face
the winner of our last bout, Master Lois?”



Paula smiled to herself.  All she had to do was get past the man in front
of her, and she would be able to prove her skills against her master in the
ring of honor.  Lois was tired; if she could get past this opponent she
might very well have punched her ticket into the round of four with little
effort.



Garigan seemed built for a fast, flexible method of combat, but his stance
belied this assumption.  He bobbed a little bit in his stance, but he
seemed to be setting up to fight towards a strong approach, rather than a
flexible method of combat.  As Emery the hare announced the beginning of
the fight, Paula recalled Lois’ advice for such an opponent and loosened
her stance.  She could strike with some strength, but she would be far
better served if she was…



A quick first strike from her opponent broke through her introspection, and
she found herself reeling.  She kept her stance feet on the ground, but
only just barely.  The strike had not only been fast; it had been stronger
than any punch she had faced in her life.  She only just barely turned it
away from her face, but even as she danced around the border to discourage
a follow-up punch she could feel her left arm going numb.  There would be a
nice bruise there before long.  Of course, if she didn’t manage something
quickly, she would have far more bruises in far more concerning places.



Paula steadied herself, but another strike came quickly.  She managed to
dodge to the side and struck a punch of her own, but the ferret blocked her
punches as though he were the clairvoyant one.  Paula realized her concern
now.  She was not only being forced to fight defensively, she was being
forced to fight in a situation she had never experienced before.  Even as
she blocked another strike, the truth became clear.  Her clairvoyance could
not give her enough advanced warning.  Her supernatural reflexes would be
no help here.



She managed to dodge around another punch and made some contact with her
counterattack, but any satisfaction she might have realized for this
success lasted only as long as the remainder of the fight.



The next thing Paula knew, she was staring at the sky, wondering how she
had gotten there.  A healer was crouched beside her, waving a finger before
her eyes and watching her reaction.  When her eyes tracked it flawlessly he
shook his head.



“You’re lucky you got your arm in the way,” he commented drily.  “I might
have had to treat you for a concussion if that had been a direct hit.”



Paula groaned and sat up, shaking the cobwebs out of her head and
immediately regretting it as a headache seemed to spring up from nowhere.  She
groaned, pinching her eyes shut and hoping that the gongs that were
pounding behind her temples would be silenced soon.  The healer, a
regressed boy who appeared about twelve years of age, helped her up and
waited while she steadied herself on his shoulder.



The ferret was beside her a moment later.  “Are you feeling alright?” he
asked.  The concern in his voice was genuine.



Paula nodded.  “You’re quick,” she managed to note, although she hardly
heard her own words over the ringing in her ears.  She grunted and waved
him off as he offered to help her to the sidelines.  She smiled at him all
the same.  “I’ll be fine,” she said.  “Thank you for the offer.”



Lois was waiting for her at the sidelines.  He shook his head.  “You did
well to last as long as you did,” he offered.  She glared at him.



“Was that encouragement?” she asked sarcastically.  Her mentor shrugged
indifferently.



“Take it as you will; to me it was simply a statement of fact.  He is fast,
far faster than anyone you have faced before.”



Paula nodded, still shaken from the fight.  “How about you?”  When Lois
didn’t answer she turned to look up at him.  “Is he faster than anyone
you’ve ever fought?”



“Not everyone,” he mused quietly.  “He will be a challenge, however.”



Paula smirked and shook her head.  “Better you than me,” she muttered.



Lois watched impatiently as the next few fights progressed.  His eyes
wandered back and forth from the ferret, who still looked as though he had
not faced an opponent yet, and Balrog, who was still loudly trading jibes
with the men and women seated around him.  It would be interesting to speak
with the man again; he had already arranged a meeting in the Deaf Mule once
the tournament ended.  That did leave Lois with the task of staying
something healthy and whole until that point, but he had done reasonably
well with that task up to this point, at least.



Several of the fights went longer, now that the tournament had naturally
dealt with the less skilled fighters, but it still seemed like a short time
before Lois was told to enter the ring alongside the ferret that had beaten
Paula.  Lois spent most of the time trying to plan an attack strategy.  A
man that fast was difficult to defend against when Lois was at his best.  The
added complication of the man’s strength made it even more difficult to see
a reliable method of fighting the man.



As Lois stepped into the ring alongside Garigan, they exchanged glances,
and Lois nodded respectfully.  The ferret returned the nod, and both waited
patiently for Emery to announce the beginning of the fight.



Lois didn’t listen to the hare’s admittedly interesting introduction this
time.  Instead he took note of how Garigan set his stance.  He kept the
same combat style that he had used against Paula, strong but not without
considerable flexibility.  The ermine waited until the fight had begun to
select his stance, and when Emery called for them to start, Lois
immediately began weaving like a drunk, his stance close to the one used by
his first opponent.  He bobbed his head around the first few strikes from
his opponent, not actually making physical contact with him until the
fourth punch of the battle.  He blocked that strike and used it as an
opportunity to deliver two innocuous blows to Garigan’s upper body.  They
barely hurt, and didn’t hamper the ferret’s movements at all, but he the
ermine smiled.  He had proven that he could get through his opponent’s
defenses.



Lois and Garigan continued their circle for several more minutes, patiently
awaiting openings between short flurries of combat.  Lois took a good
strike to the chest, but he didn’t think it had broken anything and the
pain had settled to a dull sensation he could ignore before long at all.  He
continued to deliver repeated blows whenever he could manage, not going for
quality so much as quantity.  He even took one opportunity to intentionally
pummel his opponent’s arm.  Garigan simply brushed him back, but his
expression was full of consternation.  He was having trouble figuring out
what Lois was doing.  The ferret’s arm was unlikely to even bruise from the
peppering of strikes.



The ermine dodged another punch and attempted to go around for a few more
strikes, but Garigan turned quickly and landed a solid punch in Lois’ gut.  The
ermine stumbled back, wheezing for breath, but Garigan pressed his
advantage.  For the first time the ermine was forced to block the full
force of one of Garigan’s punches.  He winced as he caught the strike, the
force of the blow stinging all the way up his arm and into his shoulder.  He
grunted and spun away, but not without unleashing another hail of strikes
to the ferrets back.  He nearly earned a backhand for his effort, but was
able to dodge underneath it, deliver two more strikes, and dance back to a
safe distance before Garigan could counterattack again.



The ferret steadied himself again, but he narrowed his gaze at Lois.  The
former assassin was still catching his breath from the earlier attack, but
he flashed a confident grin towards the younger fighter.



Garigan struck more quickly this time, quickly enough to clip the ermine
even when he tried to step aside, but Lois landed a few more short strikes
even while his momentum carried him into the ferret.  Seizing the odd
opportunity, Lois locked him in a tight embrace, trying to squeeze the
breath from his opponent.  The attempt only lasted a few moments, and Lois
was rewarded with an elbow barely above the belt.  If it had been at full
force he would have been floored, and even so he was still gasping as the
two reset.  As he returned to his stance, he quickly realized that his plan
had worked.  Unfortunately, his plan had involved goading the ferret into
abandoning his cautious, quick strikes in favor of more powerful, constant
barrage of attacks.  After losing his breath twice within a few moments, it
was all he could do to turn away most of the oncoming attacks.



He kept his defenses up while Garigan tried to break through them with
aggressive strikes, gasping at the lancing pain in his arms every time one
landed.  Thankfully, he was able to walk the chalk of the combat ring and
escape the barrage entirely after a few moments.  He flexed his arms and
moved his fingers, happy that he could at least still move them all.  He
probably would not be able to the next day, but for now he had an outside
chance of winning.



As Garigan continued his aggressive blows, Lois slowly started making
progress.  Dodging through one, he landed a strike just under the ferret’s
collar.  Ducking another, he caught his opponent’s arm and twisted it at a
nasty angle, an action he broke off just in time as Garigan slipped away
and tried to turn the attack to his advantage.  Every time one of his
attacks failed, the ferret’s frustration grew.  His anger made his already
powerful blows even more crushing, but Lois finally had his feet under him.
He learned that blocking the attacks was inadvisable quickly, and was able
to instead turn to dodging and counterpunching.



The end of the fight was somewhat unexpected, but appropriate.  The two
continued to exchange blows until Lois finally took most of a blow across
the jaw.  Even as his body was turned to the side by the force of the
attack, however, Lois managed an extra strike between the ribs of the
ferret.  Lois spun down to his knees, working his jaw to make sure that it
wasn’t broken, while Garigan stumbled back a few steps, trying to compose
himself.  As both of them tried to recover, the crowd began to shout a
variety of things towards the ring and the organizers.  It took a few
moments for the two men in the middle to realize it, but Garigan’s right
foot had stepped over the outside line of the ring.



The crowd was yelling mostly for the hare to allow the two to continue the
fight, but as he left the decision to the fighters, Garigan just laughed
and waved him off.



“I’ve had enough,” he announced.  He flashed a grin towards his opponent,
who was still crouched in the ring.  “Good fight,” he said by way of
compliment.  Without waiting for any confirmation from the hare or response
from the ermine, he walked towards the sidelines, grunting as he held his
freshly-bruised side.  Lois stood back up, spitting a little bit of blood
to the side of the ring before returning to his own place in the stands.  Paula
was shaking her head and didn’t say anything as he approached, instead
watching Garigan limp to the side of the ring.



“Didn’t expect me to give him a fight?” Lois asked breathlessly.



Paula grinned as she turned back towards her mentor.  “I’m still not
entirely certain you did.  He folded; how much longer would you have lasted
if he had stayed in?”



Lois coughed and gasped as he sat beside her.  He hoped he would have some
time before he had to stand again.  “Not long.  He could have beaten me by
knockout if it had taken much longer.”  He again flexed his sore muscles,
already noticing how much more difficult it was than it had been during the
front.  “I hope this doesn’t take much longer,” he mused aloud, “I’ll need
a drink to take my mind off of my bruises.”



Paula just shook her head and settled in to watch the next pair of fighters.



Lois stood stiffly when he was called to return to the ring.  He groaned as
he saw his opponent.  The black wolf showed some signs of fatigue, but he
did not seem to be nearly as badly handicapped by bruises as Lois was.  As
the fight began, it became clear that the man was a very smart fighter as
well.  He perhaps lacked the raw skill or grace of any of Lois’ earlier
opponents, but he intentionally struck Lois where his bruises were deepest.



It was apparent from the beginning that this fight would not have the
result that Lois had hoped.  Before long at all he was on his knees panting
as he tried to will himself to any position other than all four paws.  He
also briefly considered attempting to fight from the more feral position,
falling back on instincts where training failed him.  As he looked up at
his opponent, however, he realized that he had no strength left.  He raised
one paw exhaustedly, calling in a painfully slurred voice that he had taken
enough.  The assassin had yielded.



Paula was a good sport to her credit.  Rather than taunt the ermine over
his loss, she gave him a few words of encouragement and actively avoided
any physical contact with him.  He sagged into his seat to watch the last
few bouts, although he seemed less concentrated on the progression of the
combat than he was in watching the last two pairs face off in the ring.



After a few moments he did offer a few words to Paula.  “The wolf who beat
me is a dangerous fighter,” he mused.



Paula scoffed.  “He didn’t seem very threatening.  I think I could have
beaten him if it had fallen to me.”

“I would not assume,” Lois chided her softly.  He looked her in the eyes to
demonstrate his seriousness.  “He did not have any of the strength or speed
that Garigan had, it is true.  If you two had fought it would not have
seemed as difficult as your battle with the ferret, but I believe that you
would have lost.  My reason for believing that is that he did not just rely
on my weakness to beat me.  He observed me, knew where I had been injured
during my earlier battle, and immediately attacked me at just those points.
His combat philosophy is much the same as my own in that way, actually.”



Although Paula smiled in a disbelieving way in response to her mentor’s
assertions, she certainly appreciated the technique that the wolf had shown.
She picked him out of the crowd now, standing on the opposite side of the
ring, and noticed as he watched the second semifinal bout that he was
observing each of the fighters carefully.  She was surprised when she saw
him tapping his claws on each strike point that the opponents used against
each other.  He was certainly a more active observer than any other man in
the arena.



Lois stood for the last few moments of the second semifinal, muttering
something about being able to move in the morning.  Paula let him go, but
she began to emulate the methods that the black wolf was using, noting
where each blow fell and trying to figure a way to exploit each injury in
turn.  She was quickly overwhelmed by the number of strikes that landed in
the melee, but even as her concentration wavered, the wolf on the other
side of the rings continued to watch, even crouching down as the combat
came to its last blows, with one fighter attempting to continue from a
compromised crouch.  The battle ended soon after, and the wolf remained
crouched where he was, smiling in a predatory manner as he waited for the
hare to announce the final battle.  He seemed quite confident of his
success.



The battle was delayed for the benefit of the second finalist, with the
decision quickly made to give the man as long as he wanted.  The wolf gave
this idea his full approval, and bided his time waiting for his opponent by
conversing quietly with some other spectators on the far side of the ring.  He
seemed good natured enough, if somewhat reserved.



The final two fighters faced each other in the ring at long last, and Emery
wasted no time beginning the combat.  He called for the battle to begin and
looked on as the wolf and his opponent, a strange sort of lizard whose
tongue flicked out at intervals, began to round on each other.



Before anyone had a chance to react, the battle was over.  The wolf drove
straight through one of the reptile’s arms, a gap that had been created by
a vicious haymaker in the previous fight, landing a precise punch that
followed straight through his opponent’s right shoulder and rocked the
lizard into taking several steps back.  He hissed, attempting to recover
and step around the next drive, but the wolf followed the first blow by
forcing the issue to the scaled Keeper’s right side, repeatedly striking
blows along the arm.  The lizard cried out in pain by the third such
strike, and Paula winced as she saw the shoulder joint bend at an
impossible angle.  The wolf backed off as the reptilian fighter assessed
his injury, and he never got a chance to continue his barrage; his opponent
rasped for a healer, ending the fight prematurely.



Over cheers and ovations from the crowd, Emery managed to announce the
winner.  Although the crowd was small, they still managed a spirited
celebration of the fine fight.  A few called out congratulations to the
organizers as well as the winner, but Emery just smiled and bobbed his ears.
His companions had long since left the speaking to him, and they now took
the initiative to deliver the winnings to the wolf.  He thanked them
graciously, and then was swept along by a crowd that seemed destined for
the nearest bar.  No doubt the losers still hoped that the wolf would buy
them a round in celebration.



Paula found Lois speaking to Balrog to one side.  They had just finished
agreeing to avoid whatever bar the other revelers were going to when she
reached them, and the large man smiled at her approach.



“Hello, young lady,” he greeted her.  His voice was gruff and carried what
might have been an accent or a growl behind it, but it was unmistakably
friendly.  “Lois was just telling me that he had found quite a talented
protégé here in the Keep.  He managed to leave out the fact that you are
quite lovely.”



Paula blushed; she was still uncertain as to how to handle those who
flattered her Cursed form.  Part of her wanted to accept it graciously as
she was indeed a woman now, but another was afraid that if she did not
resist any such compliment she would be leaving the door open for men to
take advantage of her, much like…



The young woman shook herself out of her reverie before it was too
noticeable.  “Lois is a fine mentor,” she replied, turning the subject from
herself as quickly as possible.  “His style suits me well, and I hope to be
at his level quite soon.”



Balrog laughed loudly, unashamed of the fact that it might be received as
rude.  “Lois has seen more battles than I hope you ever face,” he commented
once he had finished.  “You may one day, perhaps soon, surpass him in a
ring here.  Until you have experience on the battlefield, however, Lois
will trump you in any serious battle.”



“And where does that leave you?”  Paula’s tone was no longer entirely
civil; she had to admit that this man’s rather free tongue was beginning to
grate on her.



The man was fortunately aware of the sudden, rather chilly shift to her
tone.  He quickly moved to do something about it.  “Now, I mean no insult
by it.  You show great talent, especially if you have, as Lois suggests,
been training for less than two months under him.  I have worked with Lois
in the field, however, and I know how dangerous he is.  Stay close to him
and he’ll keep you safe.”



Lois seemed somewhat embarrassed at the suggestion, but he didn’t oppose
the suggestion even while he gave a chagrined smiled.  “If neither of you
mind, I would like to get a drink before all of my joints seize up,” he
commented.



Balrog seemed especially fond of the idea, but his idea differed from Lois’
own.  “I have a keg in my Keep apartments,” he announced as though it were
the most normal thing to keep beneath his bed.  “A bit of ale in private
around my table will give us just the setting we need to catch up on lost
time away from…,” he cast about in an overly-dramatic fashion, “…prying
ears.”



Lois rolled his eyes, but he was not inclined to argue.  He turned to Paula.
“Does that sound all right to you?” he asked.



Paula froze for a moment.  She had drunk some ale before, as it was the
cheapest form of purified drink available to non-mages, but the suggestion
meant that she would be in a private room with two potentially drunk
men.  Balrog
she did not know at all, but she was uncertain of her ability to even trust
Lois that far.  Still, her mentor watched her expectantly.  He had
mentioned that he knew Balrog from before, and the prospect of discovering
the secret behind the enigmatic man intrigued her.  Hesitantly at first,
but with more conviction as she made certain her choice, Paula nodded.



“I will come for a little while, at least,” she replied.  “My father will
doubtless want to know where I am before it grows too late, however, so I
cannot drink much.”



Balrog dismissed her last comment with a wave of his hand.  “Nah, I’m no
good company when I’m drunk anyway. I’ll be certain to keep the grog
watered down until after the both of you have left.”


Paula smiled.  That certainly did seem much safer.  She thanked the man and
the three of them made for the upper Keep, Balrog and Paula at a reasonable
walking pace, and Lois with a protracted limp.  Paula sighed.  He would
doubtless be seeing a healer about his bruises before the night was over.
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