Free The Iron Ring by Auston Habershaw

wasn’t tricked.”
    â€œThat don’t matter! I went with you, didn’t I? I did everything you said, right? You owe me my money!”
    â€œFirst of all, it is ‘doesn’t matter,’ not ‘don’t.’ Second, in case you hadn’t noticed, Artus, I no longer have any money! That crazy hermit you are so fond of somehow managed to lose my change purse.”
    Artus scowled. “That ain’t fair.”
    â€œBy your age, I would think an indigent orphan would come to expect unfairness.”
    â€œI’m no orphan.” Artus said. His voice dropped an octave and he stopped walking. Tyvian turned to see the boy’s hand on his knife. “I’ve got a family, and I won’t have you say nothing bad about them.”
    Tyvian pursed his lips and stood calmly. “Or you’ll what?”
    â€œI’ll have your blood, is what.”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous.”
    â€œTry me.”
    Tyvian rolled his eyes. On other days he might have kept walking—­he didn’t feel up to a knife fight and was guessing the ring might have some adverse effect on the contest as well. Even now it was throbbing on his finger, as though threatening him. Then again, he was in a vile mood, and thought perhaps teaching the brat some humility might do him so good. He leaned forward and sneered at him. “That’s just the kind of stupid bravado I would expect some toothless, ugly peasant wench to teach her boy.”
    Artus roared and charged, seeking to draw his knife as he ran. Tyvian stepped into the charge, simultaneously seizing the boy’s knife hand by the wrist and bringing his knee into his groin. Artus doubled over from the strike, and Tyvian pulled the boy’s knife arm out to the side. He forced the blade out of the lad’s hand with a twist, and as Artus struggled to free his arm, Tyvian kicked him in the back of the knee.
    Artus collapsed, face-­first, into the snow, with Tyvian on top of him. The boy struggled, but Tyvian had one knee in the small of his back, one on his free arm, and a fistful of his hair in his hand. Tyvian drew his own knife and placed the flat of the blade along the side of Artus’s cheek. The ring burned and pulsed in warning, but nothing more. Tyvian grit his teeth against this minor pain and hissed in the boy’ ear, “I could kill you here, and nobody would ever know or care. Draw a blade on me again, and I just might do so.”
    Tyvian pushed Artus’s face into the snow and stood up. He walked away, assuming the boy would stay down, but Artus was not so easily cowed. He scrambled for his knife and charged again. Tyvian hadn’t been expecting this and was less prepared to deflect the attack. For a boy of thirteen, Artus knew his way around a knife, and his first two slashes came dangerously close to relieving Tyvian of his nose. He ducked and retreated before the boy’s assault and waited for the opening. In every rage-­filled attack, no matter how fast or skilled, there was always an opening; the more passionate and emotional the enemy, the bigger the opening became. Tyvian was certain that a young teenage boy defending his family honor would leave a fatal one.
    When it came, it came in the form of a lunge that left Artus overextended. Before he could recover, Tyvian yanked on his arm, pulling the boy even more off-­balance. Tyvian’s own blade rushed unerringly toward Artus’s unprotected heart, and he saw the sudden look of terror in the boy’s face as he knew his death approached . . .
    . . . but the blade didn’t strike. A bright, horrible blossom of pain that ran from his hand all the way to his eyes caused Tyvian to cry aloud and collapse to the ground. The world was bathed in bright orange spots, and his right hand curled as though afflicted with a severe palsy. Tyvian cradled it and rolled onto his back, waiting for the horrible, icy-­hot pain