I look up at Sander, but his face is a mirror of my own puzzlement. And we get no explanation, because in the next moment, Thyra strikes. Her dagger reflects the flames as it arcs forward, but the blade of Elo’s ax knocks it away. And then they are a blur of metal and muscle, and Thyra has to backtrack rapidly under the strength of Elo’s blows. Her speed is her best ally as she leaps to the side, her thighs brushing the rope of the fight circle as Elo’s ax blade slashes only a few inches from the chests of the warriors standing just on the other side of the rope. They all shout and throw themselves back, but there is nowhere to go because the crowd is packed in so tightly between the tower and the stake-wall.
Thyra pants and quickly swipes sweat from her brow as Elo rounds on her again. He’s more strategic than Sten was, and stronger. An icy splinter of fear begins to dig its way into my stomach as she parries another attack. Her arm buckles under its ferocity, and though she dodges, his next swing slices along her left shoulder.
Elo laughs as she staggers back. “If you hold still, I’ll end this quickly.”
She regains her balance and lowers her chin, glaring at him even as blood blooms along the sleeve of her tunic. “I didn’t realize you needed a stationary target to be victorious.” Her voice is jagged with contempt, her cool melted under the heat of her pain and this disrespectful, impulsive challenge.
Elo roars at the insult and swings his ax, a blow that would sever her head—if she had remained still. But she is fast as the wind as she lunges low and ducks inside his guard. Elo grunts and his ax flies from his outstretched hand, and the warriors on the benches dive out of the way as it whirls end over end, stopping only when the blade buries itself right where Jaspar had been sitting a moment before. Nisse is the only one who didn’t move, and he merely looks down at the vibrating ax handle before raising his head to look at the warrior who challenged his niece.
Elo, like Sten before him, has fallen to his knees, and is embracing Thyra, his hands scrabbling along her back as she presses herself close. Relief nearly doubles me over as I realize what I’m seeing. Thyra’s dagger is buried deep in his gut. She is kneeling in front of him, twisting it as he makes high, choking sounds until at last she yanks the dagger out again, spilling his blood across the dirt. Her breath rushing harsh and fast from her mouth, Thyra stands as he slumps at her feet. Her left arm hangs at her side, the weapon in that hand dangling from her fingers. “There you are,” she says to Nisse in a weary, halting voice. “Surely I have proven myself now.”
Nisse sets his booted foot along the edge of Elo’s ax handle. “Impressive, Niece.” He glances at Flemming.
“Oh, heaven. He had this planned,” Sander mutters right as Flemming stabs his dagger at the sky and shouts, “I challenge her!”
“No!” I shout as fire melts the ice inside me, singeing my heart as it rises. Sander’s hand clamps over my wrist, but he pulls back an instant later, gasping and shaking off the heat.
Preben and Bertel have drawn their knives and are approaching Flemming as he moves to step into the fight circle, but Thyra’s voice cuts through the noise of the crowd, rising into the smoky night. “Stay back!” She glances over at me. “Stay back,” she says again, more quietly.
“Flemming,” Nisse says. He sounds so calm, as if this is merely a tournament instead of a fight to the death. “Are you sure?”
“She’s not fit to lead,” Flemming shouts. “She’s a betrayer and a schemer! She’s the one who should have been banished.”
“Liar,” I shout, but Thyra turns around and gives me a look so fierce my mouth snaps shut.
“I will not stoop to dignifying these pathetic insinuations,” she says in a tight voice. “Especially when it’s obvious that the truth carries no weight within these walls.”
Jaspar looks right at me and Sander as he takes his seat again, next to Elo’s ax, still buried in the wood of the bench. His blank expression only stokes the flames of my rage.
“Nisse’s told everyone that he didn’t try to poison Lars,” I say to Sander. “Are they implying that they think Thyra did it?”
Sander shrugs. “I think the bigger question is—why isn’t she denying it?”
“All of that is in the past,” Nisse says blandly to Flemming. “We found our victory even in defeat, did we not?”
His warriors shout of blood and victory as Thyra wipes Elo’s blood onto her breeches. Now there are two parallel stripes of crimson on her leg. But her hand shakes as she adopts her fighting stance again. The sight makes my throat constrict. “This has to be stopped,” I whisper. “If their enmity is truly in the past, as he says, why isn’t he stopping this?”
“What a dead clever plan,” Sander says.
“What?”
“If he had executed Thyra, or assassinated her, he could not have won the loyalty of our tribe. So he’s letting his warriors fight this battle in a way everyone must honor, because we all know and respect the basic rules of the fight circle. All he has to do is nothing, and his victory will be complete.”
“There is no honor in this!”
“Thyra is a chieftain, Ansa. Warriors can refuse a fight like this, but chieftains must defend the chair or lose it.”