“Dash, we don’t have all night. Let’s get on with it!” Fisher said.
In spite of Venture’s best efforts to defend himself, he took two more swift blows to the head, the second of which landed him flat on the mat.
“Hey, kid, just stop getting up,” Starson whispered, leaning over him. “Then I can stop.”
“No thanks,” Venture said between gasps for air.
Venture rose, hands up, ready to fight. He dodged a jab and swung his right leg in a high round-kick. Starson lowered his left hand to his ribs to block it, but Venture’s kick went higher and made contact with the side of Starson’s face. Starson stepped back in surprise, but he caught Venture’s leg on its way back down, and took Venture down onto his back.
Starson laughed as he held him down. “That really stung,” he said. “I never would’ve thought you could kick that high.”
Starson beat on him some more on the ground. Venture hurt so bad, he had to fight the threat of tears as well as the Champion. Warm blood dripped into his eye when a cut from a couple days before reopened, and his eyebrow puffed up, making it increasingly difficult for him to see.
“Come on, seriously, don’t get up.” Starson urged after he tapped him out with an ankle-lock.
But Venture pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and shook his head stubbornly. So Starson battered him some more. He wanted to crawl away, curl up, cry, and then go to sleep in the warmth of the training room, but he kept hearing Beamer’s voice saying,
Where’s your fighting spirit?
He was going to keep getting up, like he always did, and he wasn’t going to give up on the inside this time, either.
Starson took him down to the mat and pinned him on his stomach. Both of Venture’s arms were trapped underneath his own heaving chest. Starson rested on top of his back, his powerful legs wrapped around Venture’s legs, hooking on the inside of them and lifting them up with his feet. Venture had no way to tap, and Starson’s adept hands slid swiftly along the sides of his slippery, sweaty neck before forming fists, which he rotated just so, pressing in just the right way to choke him.
“Time for lights out, kid.”
Venture cursed silently. Little sparkles of light appeared on the edges of his dimming vision. Then, darkness closed in on him.
He was lying on his back when he came to. Starson gave him another swift shake. His eyes fluttered open. Starson sat down next to him, unlaced his gloves, and flexed his fingers. Venture lifted his dizzy head.
“Put your head back down, kid, or I’ll make sure you regret it.”
This time Venture obeyed.
“You know your name? Know where you are? All that stuff?”
“Venture Delving. Champions.”
“Good. You’re a tough kid, Venture Delving.” Starson’s brown eyes gleamed at him. “And you’re either stupid or you have the spirit of a champion. Which is it?”
He knew it was a rhetorical question, but he answered anyway. “I’m not stupid.”
“I’m going to go get you some ice. Try to stay out of trouble until I get back, all right?”
Venture mumbled, “Right,” and wiped a bothersome drip of blood from his eye.
CHAPTER FOUR
Someone was calling Venture, calling him out of a deep sleep.
“Hey, Vent.” The voice was familiar, yet strangely shaky. Venture struggled to focus his eyes, focus his mind. He was lying on a strange bed, in a strange room. Stiff, but nice, clean. Definitely not his bunk.
“Earnest?”
Venture willed his eyes to open just a little wider. It was really him, perched on the edge of a plain wooden chair, leaning over him.
“That’s right, Vent, I’m here.”
“But—where?”
“You’re still at Champions. You’re in the sick wing. You’ve been here for four days.”
Venture recalled vague memories of lying there in the crisp bed, praying for the pain to go away. Then, hearing hushed voices around him speculating on his injuries, and praying that pain or no pain, he would just be allowed to live. People had called his name, asked him questions. He wasn’t sure whether he’d answered them or not.
His ribs were broken. He recognized this particular brand of pain; they’d been broken before, when he was just an eleven-year-old kid, trying to keep himself and Jade alive. But that had been a brutal attack by a handful of ruffians on the road near the Fieldstone property. Not an unbalanced match with a cool-headed champion.
“I tossed my trainer.” He coughed out the words. “Dasher Starson fought me. Choked me. Couldn’t get up. Thought I was okay. I don’t understand.” He hurt so bad, every breath was agony. His words came out in uneven, painful bursts. “Justice know? He’ll kill me, make me come home.”
“Justice doesn’t know. Nobody back home knows.”
Good. His brother and guardian, Justice, was the only family Venture had left, apart from Justice’s wife, Grace and their baby, Tory. Justice worried enough about Venture’s risky career choice. If he hadn’t been even more worried about the dangers of Venture’s closeness to Jade, his master’s daughter, he would never have consented to him training to be a prize fighter. Putting some distance between the two of them was the only reason Justice had let him come here.
Venture put his hand to his chest, feeling for his pendant. It was there. Just as it had been when he’d said good-bye to Jade back in Twin Rivers. She’d placed her hand right there, over the emblem of the Faith.
God be with you
, she’d said. But he hadn’t had it on the night Parker and Fisher had dragged him to his punishment.
Earnest noticed his confusion. “I found it with your things.” He shrugged sheepishly. “You were pretty bad off. I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
Venture smiled. Earnest, of all people, had put it on him. As though it were a good luck charm, but still. He must’ve really been worried.
“How’d you know to come?”
“I didn’t. I came to see you about something else. When I got here they told me I could find you in the sick wing. And Dasher Starson was in here sitting with you.”
Venture exclaimed with his eyes,
Dasher Starson was sitting with me?
“Right here. Right where I am now. He told me how hard you fought him. About that crazy round-kick to the head.” Earnest laughed and Venture tried to smile. “Your strength is grappling. You never throw high kicks, and he’s that much taller than you.” Earnest gestured with his hands. “I don’t know what you were thinking.”
“He’s a better grappler than me. Had to try something.”
“He’s a better everything than you. But anyway, you impressed him. He said you were pretty beat up to start with, but too stubborn to quit, no matter what he did to you. Said you made him pound you pretty hard, but still, you should’ve been okay. Then he stepped out to get a drink and some ice for you, since Parker and Fisher weren’t taking care of it. When he came back in, there were both of them, whaling on you like you were some kind of punching bag, and there you were, unconscious again.”
Earnest looked ready to lunge out of his chair even now and take them on. His hands formed tense fists and his dark eyes narrowed as he continued. “They had to sew up the back of your head. Starson said he threw Parker clear across the room when he pulled him off you.”
Venture would have groaned if he didn’t know how much it would hurt his ribs. This was sure to remind Justice of his fears for Venture’s safety and his concerns about him, as a bondsman, daring to be a fighter. He’d worked so hard to get here, to pursue his dream to become what he believed he—and his father before him—was meant to be. A great fighter. A champion. If Justice revoked his permission, those bastards wouldn’t have just cracked his skull and busted his ribs, they’d have crushed his hope of having a shot to prove himself in the arena, an opportunity for a life unlimited by class, a chance for a life with Jade.
“Then Starson and Fisher went at it,” Earnest said. “He threatened to call the lawmen if Fisher didn’t hurry up and go wake up a healer. As soon as the healer got there to take care of you, Starson started writing letters to the Fighting Commission.”
“No way.”
“Oh, yeah. Fisher’s been removed from his position already.”
“The other guys?”
“From Beamer’s? Lance and Nick are on their way to Warrior’s Way. Starson helped them out with carriage fare. He’s a good guy, and he must like you. He’s been popping in to check on you every chance he gets.”
“Probably just feels sorry for me.” Venture cringed in pain with every syllable. “What am I going to do? Justice—”
“Don’t worry about that right now. I’ve got to go get the healer now that you’re more awake so he can figure out how bad you’re messed up. Then you need to rest. But,” he said with a grin, “not before I help you change into some of my clothes. Yours smell like something died in them.”
Venture tried to sit up against the pillow Earnest had propped up for him. It hurt, but he was tired of lying down. He and Earnest were alone, but for Dasher Starson crashed out on the unused sick bed across the room. Starson had a falling out with the center’s coaches over the whole incident, and refused to go to training or to sleep in the dormitory.
Two more days had passed, and talking and breathing were still painful for Venture, but not unbearable. He’d spent most of his time sleeping, due to the intoxicating syrup the healer had given him for the pain. He’d asked to have the dose cut in half, and now he was feeling sober and ready to talk.
“How’s Beamer doing without us?” he asked.
“He misses you guys. He always does when a good group of boys leaves, but you guys—he really liked you. He’s not going to be happy about this. But the latest news from home is that Grover Wisecarver’s brilliant legislation isn’t going to go up for vote after all. Those petitions did the trick.”
“That’s good.”
Grover Wisecarver, whose son, Border, had been a constant thorn in Venture’s side throughout his years at Beamer’s Center, was a politician who’d been working to get fighting centers banned in Springriver County. He was only too happy to push the agenda of Prowess Longlake and other members of the Crested warrior class, whether to garner their favor or their silver as he tried to stamp out the growing threat to the Cresteds’ renown as the greatest fighters in Richland.
“We’ll see what they come up with next. Seems like it’s always going to be something—at least until Longlake gets tired of trying.”
“You never told me why you came. Is everything else okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Don’t worry about that right now.”
“Come on.”
Earnest leaned back and scratched the back of his head. “I quit Beamer’s.”
“You quit?”
“I just wanted to get out and see what my other options are. I want to train future champions, just like I always did. None of the boys Beamer gave me when you guys left had the fire.”
There was a rustle from the other bed, and both of them turned to see Dasher Starson sitting up, looking at them thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t be interested in coming with me, would you?”
“What?” Earnest said.
“I’m done with this place. Done with belonging to any place. I don’t want anyone having so much control over me again. Besides, I’ll have twice the trouble keeping Will Fisher out of first place if I’m still here training with him, and that arrogant jerk still treats me like I’m beneath him, like it was some kind of fluke that I beat him. Never mind that he never would’ve been anything without the falls and the blows I’ve taken for him. And every time I start to creep up on him, up to his level, somehow I end up getting injured in practice. It’s no accident, and I can’t afford to let it happen again.”
He shook his head, all the years of built-up anger evident only in the flash in his eyes. His voice, his body language, stayed calm, controlled. “A breakaway is just what I need.”
“What are you going to do?” Venture said.
Starson got up from the bed and leaned against the wall next to Venture. “Travel to the best training centers. Everyone wants to train with me. All the coaches want me to come to their centers. So I’ll visit, practice on their fighters. And when I’m ready, I’ll move on.”
“And you’d take me with you, as your trainer?” Earnest said.
“Why not? All I need is someone who wants me to win, to be a second set of eyes, to help me strategize. Someone who’s not bound to any center, someone who I don’t have to worry about being loyal to anybody else. Someone who’s ready to go, right now.”
Earnest let out a long breath. It was what he’d longed to do, ever since it became clear he wouldn’t be a fighter. Train champions. He nodded at Venture. “He’s the one I came to see, because he has the fire. He’s the one I want to train. I thought I might be able to work something out here.”
“Earnest,” Venture said, “are you crazy? Go. He’s the Champion of All Richland.”
Starson smiled. “And you’re a champion in the making, if Earnest here has his way.” He shrugged. “Bring the kid along. He’ll have to follow along with my schedule, miss a lot of the youth competitions, but we can give it a try.”
It took a week for them to exchange messages with Justice and Grant Fieldstone, and finally get their approval for this new arrangement. Justice had been unhappy, to say the least, to hear of Venture’s treatment at Champions Center. At first he’d insisted that Venture come home and give up fighting, but he’d come to trust Earnest over the years, and a letter from Dasher Starson himself helped persuade him, too.
Now they were ready to get out of this place, and Venture was checking the sick room one more time. Earnest had brought Venture’s things from the dormitory, and all three of them were packed. He pressed his hand to his chest to make sure his pendant was there, under his shirt. The others were getting Dasher’s carriage ready. Satisfied that he hadn’t left anything behind, Venture shrugged on his coat and put on his hat; it was cold and gray out there this morning.
He picked up his old bag, and its weight hung painfully on the enlarged, still swollen knuckles of his over-stressed fingers. He slung the strap over his shoulder.
Oh, that’s worse
. He sucked in his breath, holding back a grunt of pain. He headed down the hall and out the side door, for the carriage.