Jarod’s hands were muddy. He could feel it wet between his fingers. He could also feel a pulsing sharp pain on the back of his head where he’d been hit by something.

  Something appeared to him. Not visible to his sight, but an awareness from some other sense.

  Surprise round.

  Hit for 2 damage.

  Health: 3/5

  Well, he wasn’t sure what sense it was that had presented him that information. The him that was Jarod had no experience of such a sensation, but the him that was Voyager recalled something similar. Back when all that had been was the void, the voice spoke to him with a sound that was not a sound.

  Whatever it was had communicated some information to him. Information about what had just happened. It also communicated the fact that another couple hits like that would put him out of commission. He had to act back before that happened.

  Jarod rolled onto his side and pushed up into a crouching position. A slow swaying from the blow and the booze forced him to catch himself with his other hand as he looked up to find what had caused the message.

  Some of the out of town guests — the ones dressed in fancy red robes — were staggering around, pointing at him in the mud. One of them in particular was leaned back in laughter, while clutching a fist just starting to bleed around the knuckles. That had to be the one who had hit him.

  “Hey,” he shouted, standing up with what intimidation he could muster. A sizable amount considering his blacksmithing frame. “You swineherds don’t even have the decency to look a man face to face before throwing a blow at him?”

  The bleeding man’s smile didn’t falter except around his eyes. They narrowed as they gazed at Jarod, as though surprised at the man’s luck to take another shot at him.

  “By the mud on your shirt I would have assumed that was your profession,” the man stepped out in front of his other friends, shrugging off the half-hearted arms trying to hold him back.

  Jarod could feel that mud, wet and cold, sticking to his skin. The stench clung to his nose, but that wasn’t the thing on his mind right now.

  “Why don’t you step forward,” Jarod said, inclining his head slightly and setting his feet. “We can see who winds up in the mud in the end.”

  “You insolent, little…” but the last bit of the man’s insult was lost to drink and surprise.

  “Come on Avery.” Another one of the richly-clothed men had stepped forward to grab his friend’s shoulder. “It’s not worth it. Let’s get back in the carriage.”

  “No. ”The ambusher shook off his accomplice, and raised his fists. “I will not allow this commoner the satisfaction of getting away with such an insult.”

  Jarod squared up and did his best to look intimidating. Truthfully though, he had no idea what he was doing. Scanning his memory, the most he could remember about his history of fighting was of drunken brawls, wailing away on each other until a lucky blow landed or one of them passed out from exhaustion. From how this Avery took a stance, he didn’t think this bout would come down to a battle of attrition.

  Nevertheless, he couldn’t let the man go. Jarod felt as though something compelled him to put the other man in his place. He couldn’t stand the rich asshole.

  The two of them started to slowly circle each other, as though waiting for some signal to start. Jarod watched as the shadows on the other man’s face shifted in the torchlight, obscuring and sharpening his features as the flickering points of flame in the growing crowd flashed across his features. He saw a drunken confidence in the other man’s eyes, not afraid to stare him down, but not fully in focus either.

  Another message appeared to Jarod’s sixth sense.

  Roll for initiative

  [4]

  Win initiative

  Nearly simultaneously with the message, Jarod leapt forward, hoping to catch his opponent unawares with a quick punch right to the face.

  Roll to hit

  Unarmed: [4]-1

  Hit for 1 damage

  Smack! Jarod felt his fist connect squarely with his opponent’s cheekbone. Avery flailed his arms out, trying to fend off Jarod, but the damage was done, and he was sent reeling away. Not wanting to lose his opportunity, Jarod kept rushing forward, swinging hard again and again. As he’d feared though, it seemed Avery had some training in combat, and he kept his hands up defensively, shoving hard to gain some space when the chance arose.

  Jarod raised his arms, trying to imitate how he’d seen the other man start the encounter. He might not know what he was doing in a fight, but at least he had some power behind his blows. Already, a trickle of blood, shiny and dark in the night, was dripping down Avery’s face, a cut clearly visible across his upper cheek.

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  The richer man spat on the ground, and suddenly pounced towards Jarod. Jarod kept his hands up, shielding his face from the same kind of attack that he’d launched earlier, but it seemed that wasn’t Avery’s target. His vision obscured as he instinctively held his hand up and turned away, Jarod suddenly felt a sharp pain in his stomach, and the air left his lungs as he keeled forward. When his hands dropped down to guard his delicate midsection, his head snapped sharply to the left, and then to the right.

  Hit for 1 damage.

  Health: 2/5

  Out of breath. Ears ringing. Jarod stumbled back, turning around and ducking his head to shield himself as he stumbled forward into the crowd. The punches kept coming, so he swung a wild arm out with enough power to send the other man flying back. It bought him some time, but not enough to fully collect himself. Jarod was hurt, and he wasn’t sure he would win if he kept up the same tactics. It was time for a change of plans.

  He swung another wild arm around as he turned to face Avery. It didn’t connect with anything this time, but it still did its job of buying a little more time. Jarod might not have the advantage when it came to fisticuffs, but he knew that swinging a hammer in the forge all day had made him much stronger than the effete man standing in front of him. He had to use that to his advantage.

  Still half out of breath, Jarod reared back, as though to unleash another wild swing. He saw Avery coil back onto his rear foot, ready to launch a counterattack as soon as the out of control fist passed him, but the fist never came. Jarod ducked down and launched himself bodily at the other man, slamming into him with a broad shoulder.

  Strength Contest

  [4/10] successes

  Jarod wins

  Jarod wasn’t sure what the message meant this time, but as he barrelled into Avery, he felt the man’s legs go out from under him as he crashed onto the ground.

  The breath was forced from Avery’s mouth as half gasp, half groan. For the moment, he was stunned, eyes wide in shock as his brain tried to process the suddenly turned tables.

  This gave Jarod all the chance he needed to flip the other man over and pin him to the ground.

  Jarod was breathing heavily. He could feel the pools of water in the mud seeping through the fabric of his pants and shirt, and a dull ache still in his side. But the man who had attacked him from behind was face-down now, squirming in the mud that he’d used as an insult just moments before.

  “Get off of me, you oaf,” Avery shouted from underneath.

  “Learned your lesson yet?”

  When Avery continued to thrash and yell out obscenities, Jarod punctuated his question by grabbing a handful of Avery’s hair and pushing his head into the mud.

  Avery spluttered a reply, finally conceding his defeat. “Fine, you’ve made your point. Now get off me.”

  Jarod wasn’t ready for his moment of victory to be finished. He sat up, ready to leave his attacker stuck in the mud for a while longer, but he felt strong and fresh hands grab him by the elbow and pull him to his feet. The other men in rich robes had pulled him off their fallen comrade, but they didn’t look to continue the fight.

  A pair of them stepped between Jarod and Avery, shielding the two of them from the prospect of further violence, and the fallen man was helped to his own feet. Jarod was satisfied to see once-vibrant robes were now splotchy with mud, and the fur lining had been matted down and discolored.

  Avery stumbled around when he found his foot again, and spotted the blacksmith through the pair of men cordoning them off from each other. “I’ll remember this.” His eyes were wild as he stared Jarod down, but he allowed himself to be led away back to the carriage by his friends.

  Adrenaline from the fight still coursed through Jarod, but his labored breathing had finally started to calm down. The hot fire of rage following the unexpected attack slowly dwindled, turning into smoldering coals, tame but ready to ignite again if needed. The pair who were standing between the two combatants turned to assess Jarod now. They looked at him with a strange look in their eyes, apologetic yet vindictive at the same time, as though they saw some retributory inevitability to come. Jarod respected that at least they had stayed out of the fight while it was happening.

  Jarod’s gaze left the pair as they turned away, and followed Avery back to the carriage. He tracked the man back through the slippery mud, but looked around, feeling another pair of eyes on him. Suddenly, his stare was caught by the tall figure in the driver’s seat looking at him with watchful eyes, black and sunken in the dim light. The cloaked man loomed over the group, strikingly tall both from his stature and his raised position atop the carriage. He was staring directly at Jarod, unblinking, and uncaring when his passengers hopped aboard.

  Another of the men in rich red robes shut the carriage door after the rest of the entourage was aboard, and moved to the front to climb atop with the silent, watching figure. Out of the corner of his eye, Jarod saw hesitation, as though he was wary of climbing next to the man in the black cloak.

  Finally, the man said something, and the driver took his eyes off of Jarod. The driver turned to his front-seat passenger, and spoke something too distant to hear, audible only as a low, constant drone. Eventually, the red-robed man nodded, and climbed aboard beside the driver. Without so much as a flick of his wrist, the powerful horses at the front began pulling, and the carriage drove on.

  As he watched the visitors pull away, Jarod felt another pair of hands touch his shoulder. He instinctively spun his head around, preparing for danger as another surge of adrenaline coursed through him. It was just Basma.

  “Here, take this,” she said. A large cloth was pressed into his hands as she began wiping at the back of his head. “Damn fool cracked you hard enough to make you bleed. I hope their carriage breaks a wheel on the way home. Well don’t just stand there, wipe yourself off.”

  Jarod did as he was told. Clumps of mud came off his arms and onto the cloth she’d given him. The crowd that had gathered started to step forward to check on him, wandering off back to their homes after making sure he was being taken care of. Everyone seemed content to let Basma finish patching him up, except for Filgin, the old bowyer.

  “You did well, boy.” Filgin’s voice was croaky, but with the confidence of long wisdom that had not yet faded. “This isn’t the end of it for you though.”

  Jarod felt a dull pulse around his injured midsection again. The prospect of a return trip, with a full squadron of riled up richlings settled into a pit in his stomach. “What do you mean, you think they’ll be back?”

  “Those folks you got into that little spat with, they’re surveyors, here taking a survey of the kingdom. Some minor gentry, sent off by their fathers on a field trip. It ain’t right, but they’ll be back to charge you.”

  Basma spoke up behind them, as she wrapped a bandage around his head wound. “Charge him! With what? He was just defending himself.”

  “Doesn’t matter, they’ve got the threat of power on their side.” Filgrin paused, thinking over Jarod’s predicament. “Come over to my house after you’re bandaged up, you have some decisions to make. Besides, it wouldn’t do for you to sleep in a house alone for the night. We’ll have some things to talk through in the morning, after some rest.”

  The bowyer gave him a final nod, and then walked away, leaning ever so slightly on his walking staff in the mud. Basma finished up bandaging his head, and then turned him around to look him in the eye.

  She had a look of sorrow on her face, as she regarded the sorry state he was in. Mud was still caked onto his pants and shirt, despite his best efforts to wipe himself down with the cloth. He would have to dump some water on himself to properly clean off the mess, but all he really wanted to do right now was lie down and rest.

  Basma took the grimy cloth from him and rested a gentle hand on his cheek. “Oh Jarod, what sort of mess have you gotten yourself into.”