The young charr stared with white-ringed eyes at his practice sword and bobbed away.
Watching the cub go, Rytlock sighed, "Yeah, I could get used to this!"
Just then, the server brought three tall tankards of charr ale, setting them in the middle of the table.
"Old Regret!" Rytlock enthused. "I didn"t think you could get this stuff outside the Black Citadel." He hoisted his tankard. "Here"s to Edge of Steel."
"To Edge of Steel," chimed in the other two, lifting their ales and clanking the tankards.
Rytlock drained his in a single, long pull. Logan tried to match him but had to stop halfway, tears coming to his eyes.
Caithe took two gulps and set the tankard down, eyes wide. "Water from a peat marsh?"
"No," Rytlock said, tugging on the waistcoat of the server and handing his empty tankard over for a refill.
Caithe sniffed the drink again. "It"s not sweat, is it?"
"No!" Logan laughed, winking at her above his ale. "Drink some more. It tastes better the more you have." As if to prove his point, he drained his tankard-while Rytlock drained a second.
Shrugging, Caithe took a few more gulps. She lowered the drink to see two faces leering at her.
"Well, what do you think?" Rytlock asked.
Caithe stared blankly back. "You two are not as ugly as I first thought."
Logan guffawed.
"You"re not as insufferable, either," Rytlock said. "Neither one of you."
"I"m not sure why I said that," Caithe blurted.
Rytlock grinned. "It"s in the name, girl. Old Regret. Makes you say things-true things, of course-that you"ll regret later."
Caithe scowled and took another gulp, coming away with a foam mustache. "Things like what?"
"Things like . . . well, like . . ." Rytlock huffed, making a decision. "All right, here goes: being with the two of you is like being with the striplings."
"What?"
"That"s what they called us," Rytlock reflected. "In my fahrar-that"s the pack they put you in when you"re born-in my fahrar they called the smallest of us the striplings."
"You were small?" Logan asked incredulously. were small?" Logan asked incredulously.
"I was the youngest. The smallest. They called me Runtlock."
"Runtlock!" Logan snorted.
"I made them stop," Rytlock growled ominously. "I did, and the other striplings did. We banded together, and I was the leader. We taught the bullies a few lessons. Still can"t stand bullies."
"But you can can stand us," Logan said. stand us," Logan said.
"Yeah-barely."
Logan took another pull from his tankard. "Well, it may be the Old Regret talking, but, you know-I always thought charr were bloodthirsty brutes-"
"We are, are," Rytlock interrupted, receiving another ale.
"But not just just that," Logan went on. "You"re also loud, foul, and pigheaded." that," Logan went on. "You"re also loud, foul, and pigheaded."
"What"s your point?"
Logan clapped a hand on Rytlock"s shoulder. "I"d rather hang out with you than with my brother."
Rytlock laughed. "Oh, yeah. The Seraph."
"Yeah. The white knight, you know-the perfect one. He"s guarding Queen Jennah, and I"m guarding a caravan of salt pork. He"s a Seraph, and I"m a grunt. He"s always judging me-"
"I"m always judging you," Rytlock said. always judging you," Rytlock said.
"But I don"t care what you think, "cause you"re a jacka.s.s like me. There. I said it: you"re the jacka.s.s brother I never had."
"I"ll drink to that," Rytlock proclaimed, cras.h.i.+ng his tankard with Logan"s.
Logan took another sip and then turned to Caithe. "What about you? Why do you you put up with us?" put up with us?"
Caithe blinked. "You"re interesting."
The man and the charr traded looks.
"She"s got a point," Rytlock said.
Caithe continued, her foam mustache disintegrating with tiny, fizzy pops, "Sylvari are one thing. We are born out of the Pale Tree, and no matter how far away the winds bear us, we still carry the life of the tree in us. Humans and charr, you don"t belong to anything, not even your mothers or brothers. Not even yourselves. You spend your whole lives trying to find something to belong to-something worth it. And it seems like most of you never do." Another hiccup. "That"s interesting."
"Yeah," Logan echoed hollowly. "Interesting."
Rytlock sighed. "Well, I"m sure not gonna belong to a tree."
Caithe stared hard at him for a moment before she laughed. She never never laughed. The sound was strange, like bells ringing-rare and pure-and it left her comrades gaping. She glanced from one to the other, stopped laughing, and fell over. laughed. The sound was strange, like bells ringing-rare and pure-and it left her comrades gaping. She glanced from one to the other, stopped laughing, and fell over.
"Here they are, the up-and-coming team of Rytlock Brimstone, Caithe of the sylvari, and Logan Thackeray. You know them as Edge of Steel!"
Rytlock, Caithe, and Logan jogged out to a smattering of applause. That was plenty, though: everything seemed loud loud this morning. this morning.
"So, what do you think Sangjo"s got in store for us today?" Rytlock wondered.
"Get ready," Caithe broke in. "Here they come."
"And today, Edge of Steel faces a fan favorite," called the announcer, "the Northern Fury!"
Three norn warriors loped from the open gate, ma.s.sive in their animal hides and gleaming armor. The crowd greeted them with shouts and applause, and the Northern Fury lifted huge hands toward them.
"The Northern Fury?" Caithe said wonderingly.
"They"re huge," Logan said.
"I"m huge," Rytlock reminded. huge," Rytlock reminded.
"We can defeat them easily," Caithe said. "They all have the same strengths-brute force and fury-and all the same weaknesses."
Across the arena, the three norn drew morning stars from their belts and broke into a trot, heading toward Edge of Steel.
"What are their weaknesses?" Logan asked as he pulled loose his war hammer.
The three norn were charging now, bellowing as they came.
"We"ll see," Caithe said, her dagger in hand.
The first of the three norn ran directly at Rytlock, who raised Sohothin for the charge. The norn warrior arrived with skins flying and armor gleaming. Rytlock swung the flaming sword at his foe"s morning star, severing the chain. The norn did not slow, ramming Rytlock backward. He rolled once and lunged to his feet, Sohothin forming a fiery figure eight before him. He shouted, "I know their weakness! They don"t smell so good!"
"You don"t either," Logan shouted back as he jumped out of the way of a morning star. don"t either," Logan shouted back as he jumped out of the way of a morning star.
Its spikes impaled the ground, and the norn who wielded it yanked it back for another blow. The weapon fell again, and Logan barely scooted out of the way.
He spun and slammed his hammer into the norn"s hip guard. The thick metal plate rang, and the hammer jangled in Logan"s grip.
Worse-the morning star swung at him again. He ducked, but the spikes snagged his leather armor, tearing it loose and dragging long lines down Logan"s back.
"Arrhhh!" he growled. "That"s it!" He charged the norn and buried his hammer in the warrior"s groin.
A high-pitched whine came from the towering warrior, who bent over at the waist and fell like a tree. Logan scrambled out from beneath him as the norn smashed to the sand.
"One down," Logan said as he glanced over to Caithe.
She was scrambling across the back of the third norn like a squirrel running around a tree. He danced, trying to shake her loose. Caithe kept on, every once in a while jabbing her white stiletto into a weak point. The norn twisted and roared, gulped and giggled, bedeviled by the omnipresent sylvari and her ticklish blade.
As he convulsed, a wave of laughter rolled through the crowd. They began shouting, "Caithe! Caithe! Caithe!"
Now the norn was running and swatting, like a man beset by bees. His escape lasted only a moment before Caithe wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed. "You"re going to get sleepy," she announced as the norn went limp and tumbled to the sand.
The crowd went wild.
Caithe rolled free and stood up to survey the battlefield. She shouted to Logan, "Let"s give Rytlock a hand!"
Logan turned and saw that Rytlock was in a desperate scrum.
Sohothin lay out of reach, twenty yards away, and a scorched norn held Rytlock in a headlock. Growling, the norn drove his weight onto the charr, hurling them both to the sands.
The two other members of Edge of Steel jogged up to where the charr and the norn wrestled.
"How you doing?" Logan asked.
Spraying sand from his mouth, Rytlock said, "How do you think? Stick a blade in him."
Caithe leaped onto the norn"s back and jabbed her dagger into a b.u.t.tock.
"Yow!" the norn yelped as he climbed off Rytlock.
Caithe leaped free, rolled on the sands, and came up with her stiletto ready.
The remaining norn stared, panting, at his foes, then looked beyond them to the two figures lying in the sands. The norn"s expression went from anger to amazement. "You laid out my brothers?"
Caithe smiled, c.o.c.king her hips. "Want to see how?"
"There"s an easy way and a hard way, my friend," Logan said, his comrades coming to stand beside him. "We"re the hard way."
The norn nodded. "Then let it be." He charged.
"Let it be," Rytlock replied. He ran head-on into the towering warrior, knocking him to the ground.
The norn struggled to rise.
Caithe leaped on him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and squeezed.
The norn thrashed, trying to throw her off, but she clung on. In moments, he teetered and then toppled and flopped down, unconscious.
Edge of Steel emerged from a cloud of dust, their latest victim lying in the midst of it.
The stadium roared.
Rytlock grabbed the hands of his comrades and lifted them high. The cheer redoubled. "It"ll be a thousand silver this time."
"Enough to buy some new armor?" Logan said faintly, his slick hand dragging from Rytlock"s grip. He fell forward, and his friends saw four red stripes down his back.
"We need a chirurgeon!"
Logan got his chirurgeon-and a new plate-mail breastplate, an upgrade from his leather. Rytlock got his glory and his thundershrimp. Caithe got her name spoken on ten thousand lips: the woman who fought with the frenzy of a whirlwind.
They paid four hundred more silver toward their billet. "How much does that leave?" Rytlock asked Sangjo.
"Four hundred ninety-three gold," the man said with a serene smile.
Rytlock c.o.c.ked his head. "Looks like we"ll be fighting a lot."
"Looks like it."
The next day, they fought a band of charr. Rytlock was reluctant at first, until one of the charr walloped him in the head with a mallet. A quick healing touch from Logan revived him, and Rytlock was all business from then on. Logan acquitted himself well against them also, and Caithe discovered that charr could be monstrously strong but have numerous "weak points."
As Edge of Steel stood together atop the fallen charr, Caithe said to Rytlock, "No one has ever reported that charr are ticklish."