David Baldacci - The Finisher

“Well, let’s just say I see bloody stacks of coins in your future, luv.”

I smiled appreciatively, yet her words did not hearten me much. To my knowledge, Selene Jones had never made one correct prophecy in all her sessions.

Darla Gunn came up seemingly from nowhere and wrung my hand. “You are so brave, Vega, so brave. But I still wish you weren’t doing this. I mean, we just got your hair looking so nice, didn’t we?”

I laughed and it did my spirits good. “ You got my hair looking nice, Darla. I had nothing to do with it.”

I looked away when tears filled her eyes. I was not going to let myself cry. Ladon-Tosh would probably just kill me harder.

Since there was only one bout this light, I was directed to the very center of the pitch where a special ring had been laid out. It seemed so small that I wagered Ladon-Tosh could simply stand at one end and kill me with one blow without either of us moving our feet. The strategy Delph had laid out was a good one, but right now it seemed absurdly inadequate. My confidence had totally deserted me.

The referee was old Silas, whose eyesight had apparently worsened over the last few lights and nights, because he was standing at one end of the ring and looking the wrong way for the last two combatants to arrive. He remained that way until Thansius emerged from the crowd and gently pointed him in the correct direction.

I next watched as Bogle and the carriage rattled up, and out stepped not just Morrigone but John. I caught her gaze for an instant but then she looked away. John’s eyes lingered on me. I had hoped to see something in them, something that told me … I wasn’t exactly sure what. But he dutifully followed Morrigone onto the platform and took his seat while the other members of Council sat in a row below.

Krone was seated at the end of this row with Duk Dodgson next to him. They both seemed self-satisfied, as though my fate had already been decided.

Their superior smiles made every muscle in my body tighten. Ladon-Tosh might end up killing me, but the lout would know he had been in a fight.

Delph showed up a sliver later. He had Harry Two next to him. He caught my eye and held my canine up as if to say firmly, I’ve got him till you come to take him back .

I smiled and then had to look away before the tears started to fly. I was here to fight, not cry. The clapping for me had continued all this time and then it abruptly stopped. A moment later, I knew why.

Ladon-Tosh came striding down the path to the ring. He had on a plain shirt and a pair of old, dark trousers. He was barefoot. His eyes looked neither right nor left. Wugs pushed against each other trying to get out of his way. As I watched him approach, I felt Destin start to grow cold against my skin and I panicked. Was my chain abandoning me at this critical time?

The official bell rang. Silas beckoned both Ladon-Tosh and me to the center of the ring so he could deliver his instructions. I stepped forward although my legs seemed unwilling to follow the command of my mind to move. Ladon-Tosh stepped right up to the center as though he were going for a stroll. He didn’t look at me, and I could manage only to shoot glimpses at him. My heart was pounding so fiercely in my ears that I could barely hear Silas’s by-now-familiar words.

“Fair fight. Keep it clean. Penalty if one of you falls out of the ring.” Here Silas stopped and seemed to remember what had happened to Newton Tilt. He glanced at me and for the first time I think the wizened old bloke actually saw me. His look of fear for me was not very encouraging. And then from the corner of my eye, I saw Ezekiel stride toward the crowd in his flowing white robe. I assumed he was here to measure me for the box and an appropriate prayer when all was said and done.

Silas stepped back, but before the second bell for the start of combat was sounded, Thansius came forward.

He said, “This bout will determine the champion of this Duelum. As you all know, tragedy struck last time and we all hope that it does not do so again.”

He looked at Ladon-Tosh when he said this part, but the latter’s gaze rested on a spot about six feet above my head. I even looked that way to see what he was staring at, but there was nothing there.

Thansius continued. “If Vega Jane wins, she will be the first female champion ever and more than entitled to the one-thousand-coin reward.” He looked at Ladon-Tosh again, but since the git obviously wasn’t even paying attention, whatever else Thansius was going to say, he apparently decided not to. “Let the bout begin,” he said, and stepped clear of the ring.

Silas motioned Ladon-Tosh and me to opposite ends of the ring and I obeyed with alacrity, naturally wanting to put as much space between us as I could.

Right before the bell sounded, I looked over and saw Domitar. He was staring directly at me. I could swear he was saying something to me. I tried to hear the words.

“All before. Done it before” was all I could make out.

Then my attention snapped back to the bout. The bell rang. Neither Ladon-Tosh nor I moved. For all my feelings of hopelessness, I had my strategy — well, actually Delph’s strategy — and I intended to carry it out.

For two long slivers, we simply stood there staring at each other. My heart continued to beat like a runaway slep as time ticked by. The crowd was holding its collective breath. No one was moving there either.

And then it happened. I have no idea how or when. It just happened.

I saw the fist coming at me so fast it seemed impossible to avoid its crushing impact. But as the knuckles raced at me, I flipped sideways in the air and came down on both feet. The crowd screamed as Ladon-Tosh was suddenly now on my side of the ring.

“Oh my holy Steeples,” screamed Darla Gunn.

I circled away from Ladon-Tosh as he straightened up and looked at his fist as though he couldn’t quite fathom how I was not dead.

He turned toward me. I went into a crouch and studied him. And then another amazing thing happened. Everything, and I mean everything, slowed down. My breathing, the movements of the crowd, the birds in the sky, the wind and even the sounds. They all seemed to be moving at a mere hundredth of their normal speeds. I watched one Wug sneeze and it seemed to take him a sliver to accomplish. Another excited Wug was jumping up and down and it seemed as if he was suspended in the air before he began his descent.

But most important of all was the slowing down of Ladon-Tosh.

The next punch came, but I saw it so well in advance that I had already moved, it seemed, before he even threw it. In fact, I leisurely watched it go by at the spot I had been a moment ago. He whirled around and looked at me. Yes, now Ladon-Tosh was looking at me. I was glad the git had finally condescended to actually see who he was trying to kill. Though when I saw the eyes, I wished he hadn’t. They were terrifying, to be sure. But they were also something else.

They were familiar . I had seen them before; I just didn’t remember where.

I heard a scream. I had lost my focus and I spun out of the way in the nick of time as a fist screamed past me with so much force that it seemed to carry a wake of turbulent air with it. This time I struck. I slammed my fist into my opponent’s back with such violence that I was convinced I had punched a hole right through him.

Pain shot all the way up my arm and burst into my shoulder. I had never hit anything so hard in my life. Not even the rock cobble had been that hard. And I had exploded him. I hadn’t exploded Ladon-Tosh, though I had accomplished the seemingly impossible.

I had knocked him flat on his face. A great cheer rang from the crowd.

But as I stood there, my right arm dangling like a limp rope, I had nothing much to cheer about, for Ladon-Tosh was getting back up. I had hit him as hard as I possibly could and he was getting back up with no signs of permanent damage. I had forgotten Delph’s instructions. Tap-tap. Don’t hit him hard at first. But I had. And it was an enormous mistake.