to yourself. You don’t strike me as the battle-maiden type.”
“Librarians have their own way of competing. Though I admit . . . it’s been quite a while.” More than quite a while. More like since she became librarian three decades ago.
It’s not as if she’d had anyone to spar with. Brevity, being a muse, didn’t have the interest in classic literature most human unauthors did, and no assistant before her had progressed far enough in the training to make dueling relevant. Claire had been lax, and she wasn’t looking forward to Bjorn reminding her of that fact.
She pushed that thought away before it could unravel her nerves more than it already had. “I have to ask, Hero. Why?”
Hero appeared ready to force her to draw out the question—why had he volunteered? why was he risking this?—but his eyes slid past her face, and he shrugged. “It’s what I’m made for, isn’t it? Figured I might as well agree while I could still pretend you honored me with the choice. Besides, you’re not the only one with a reason to see this foolhardy mission through.”
His author. She was alive and would be caught up in this if Heaven and Hell truly decided to go to war. Claire put it together quickly, but Hero offered it with a smile just scraping the line of loathing. “Pure self-preservation.”
“Selfish heroism, then. I expected nothing less,” Claire said.
The ground began to shake. Hero’s grip tightened on his sword, Claire saw in her peripheral vision.
Out of the gloom swung a wall. Or what had to be a wall. A wall in the shape of a man. No, men didn’t grow that tall. A giant. Uther.
He was easily as large as Walter back home, Claire estimated. His shoulders were bare and as wide as Claire was tall. The warrior’s scarred face was occupied by a long yellow beard, knit with bones and feathers, below a gnarled nose. In one boulderlike hand, a wrecking ball of a maul lazed. The weapon glowed with a dark red stone.
Bjorn was dwarfed beside him and could only give the giant a pat on the elbow before separating.
Hero had gone very still beside her, and Claire glanced up. His face was blank and held the dread of a goose only now vaguely aware it was about to be made dinner.
She cleared her throat. “He’s not wearing much armor.” The warrior, in fact, wore more war paint and feathers than clothes from the waist up.
“Oh, good. I would hate to cause him a laundry bill when I inconsiderately die all over him.”
“What I mean is, if you’re fast enough, you have a good chance.”
“I don’t need tactical advice from an academic, thanks,” Hero snapped, and he glared steadily at the beast lumbering across the ring rather than look at Claire.
“Fine, be a fool. Heroes are good at that.” Claire turned with her staff to where Bjorn had taken up position. “But I’ve already stitched your life together once today. I’ve got the hand cramps to prove it, and I’d rather not do it again. So . . . just don’t die.”
If Hero had a reply, she didn’t hear it as she strode away to face her own test.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
THE RING WAS LARGE enough to separate the duels by several yards—far enough that she would not be swept up in the first swing of Uther’s grand maul.
Claire positioned her back to Hero’s match. She would have to keep moving. This was not the stand-and-deliver type of duel that she was familiar with from the Library. But as she wrapped her fingers over the soft grip of her staff, she settled on a grim certainty. Whatever the outcome, she was not leaving the realm until she had her answers.
“Seeing as you’re our guests”—Bjorn raised his voice so it carried over the watching crowds—“we’ll allow you the first attack.”
“Grand.” Claire heard Hero’s dripping sarcasm behind her.
There was a shuffle and a thundering step as Hero initiated the attack, and Claire could not stop from twisting around as the crowd began to roar. Hero had opened with a testing swing, darting forward and aiming for Uther’s unprotected side. But the giant easily avoided it, batting aside Hero’s sword as if it were a gnat. Hero grunted and recovered, cautiously maintaining his distance.
“Well, Librarian?” Bjorn’s voice brought her around.
She would have to stop worrying about Hero’s fight if she was going to survive her own. A duel between librarians was a duel of words.