Then the combat resumed its full intensity as the crowd went wild. More sparks flew as their blades met in the air, clashing again and again as their blades flew in mad arcs.
The man in black lunged forward with a cheap slice at Lyrad’s leg that he almost parried, but the katana sunk into his tender skin, spraying blood and leaving a nasty gash.
Lyrad’s teeth were clenched but he still cried out in pain, almost dropping his weapons. His opponent pressed the attack, striking again and again with a flurry of swift blows. He parried most of them, but still received some minor cuts in the process, his strength once again fading under the powerful advance.
Then, the man in black slashed downward at a diagonal angle, forcing Lyrad to fall to the ground to avoid it, weapons extinguished as dust flew up and he landed with a thud.
“I have you now!” The man in black shouted with a cackle, a demonic expression of joy on his face. He raised his weapon for the kill, but this time, Lyrad was prepared.
He rolled off to the side quickly, and all the man in black hit with his blade was another mound of hard dirt. While his opponent was still dazed from the move, Lyrad swept his legs with a quick, fluid motion, forcing his younger self to the ground.
In the process, the man in black dropped his own weapon.
Now that both were weaponless, the crowd regained its faith in Lyrad. To appease them, he kicked out at the man in black, which his younger self easily dodged, but that had been part of Lyrad’s plan. He’d been watching the spikes all this time, and at that moment, one appeared under the man in black’s left leg, skewering straight through it.
The bloody tip of the metal shaft gleamed in the daylight as the man in black practically collapsed onto the ground, held upright only by the massive piece of metal in his thigh.
The crowd now cheered even louder for Lyrad, figuring it would take a miracle for the man in black to come out of that one, shouting his name in a frenzy and yelling, “Way to go, Lyrad! Way to go, Lyrad!”
Where they’d learned his name, he would never know. Not that it mattered.
Lyrad sized up his opponent. The man was stuck, all fight having left his eyes. He felt bad for him, and thought about releasing his younger self and granting clemency, but the image of his dead mother lying on the ground nearby renewed his anger as blood rushed to his cheeks.
“Looks like the tables have turned on you, eh, friend?” Lyrad asked as he hovered over his opponent, forming and un-forming his fists to calm his nerves. “I will never, ever forgive you for what you did to our mother. I might still let you go, though, if you yield.”
The man in black spit in Lyrad’s direction, much the same as Lyrad had done to him earlier and said, “You better kill me.”
A chuckle escaped his lips. He’d expected as much.
A true warrior never gives up, after all.
“Well, I don’t like to kill. My priest training has taught me that. But if that’s the only way I’m gonna end this, I will do it. Unless . . .” Lyrad searched through his memories for the ritual the man in black had performed earlier. Recalling it, he raised his thumb to the crowds to gauge their reaction. The crowd hissed and booed that down faster than the priest trainee would have thought possible. Then he held out his hand, thumb down, and the crowd roared its approval.
Lyrad shrugged. “Looks like I’ll have to kill you, pal.”
Lyrad knelt down beside the fallen warrior and raised his fist. He wanted to look away but knew he could not. Instead, he clenched his teeth. As Lyrad’s fist came down, the man in black turned his head, revealing his temple, to help Lyrad out and speed his death.
The young priest trainee had to admit, the guy had courage. Then, just as Lyrad’s fist impacted his younger-self’s temple, the world around him swirled and shifted.
* * * * * * * * * *
Lyrad’s fist impacted the hard marble floor of the Room of Trials, cracking it slightly at the point of impact. He retracted the hand and shook it in pain.
He noted that despite his earlier fight, he no longer seemed winded, and all his cuts and bruises were gone. From the looks of things, he had either just come from an elaborate illusion, or someone had healed him instantly.
It was hard to tell which at this point, and he was still too emotional to care. A hooded figure walked out from the shadows, presumably the same one who had urged him on to the platform in the first place, mumbled that he had passed, and left the room in a hurry.
Lyrad thought the hooded man’s behavior odd for a brief second but let it go. His mind was still reeling from recent events. He had passed the test, but at what cost? He couldn’t tell. Plus, he had remembered his past life’s skills and even used them, something he knew he wasn’t supposed to do. And yet, he still passed the test. Slowly, he got up and left the room.
“Whoa! I knew you used to be a fighter, but I never thought you did anything like that!” his friend John exclaimed as Lyrad entered the hallway. It was nice to know his friend had been there all that time.
“Thanks, John,” Lyrad said genuinely. “Say, maybe you can answer my question.”
“What’s that?”
“Why are all my cuts and bruises and things gone?”
“Oh, that. The whole fight was just a big, elaborate illusion. Nothing was real, not even your mother dying.”
Lyrad breathed a massive sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good to know. Man, that test was tough, though. I can’t believe
