Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 761: Holy Duel

Weapon racks lined both sides of the platform — knives, swords, whips, the whole catalogue of sanctioned violence — set out for the convenience of both parties. Neither side was permitted to bring their own steel. The rule existed for fairness: a great clan could forge superior blades, while a challenger clan might carry only crude equipment. Disparity of that kind would drain the duel of meaning.

Thuram knew full well that the rules had gaps. Iron Whip had beaten Osha once by quietly swapping the provided whips for Blackwater versions. The arbiter had punished the weapons supervisor afterward, but the result stood. No one contests a large clan on behalf of a fallen one.

What no one had anticipated was that Osha would rise from the verge of extinction.

Even the strongest clans now measured their words carefully around her name. This was the first time Thuram had seen the chief of Wildflame regard a new challenger with anything approaching solemnity.

“Is each warrior limited to one weapon?” Ashes asked.

Thuram refocused. “There’s no such rule. You may carry as many as you wish.”

“Good.” She buckled two scimitars at her waist, lifted a large sledgehammer and turned it once in her hand — the way a man might test the heft of a quill — then took up a wooden shield as an afterthought. “These should be enough to last me until the end.”

He swallowed. He had long known this black-haired, golden-eyed woman was formidable, but he had apparently underestimated the distance between formidable and this. The sledgehammer required years of dedicated practice to wield two-handed; she held it in one as though it weighed nothing more than a short rapier. Whatever she had done in the tavern, she had not tried. If she had tried, there would have been no tavern left to speak of.

“I’m ready too,” Andrea said, selecting a short bow with the casual deliberation of someone choosing fruit at market. She considered the quiver and removed arrows until exactly twenty-two remained.

“Get on the platform,” Iron Axe murmured.

“Wait—” Thuram froze. “Just the four of you?”

He looked past them at the fifty Graycastle soldiers standing with their backs to the weapon shelves, scanning the crowd. Not one of them had moved toward the racks.

“There’s no rule on the number of participants either, is there?” Ashes said evenly. “Four is enough.”

The rules stated that each side must field between fifteen and thirty warriors, with the challenger clan never exceeding the opponent’s count. Cut Bone had sent twenty-two. Osha, by the rules, could send no more than twenty-two.

The upper limit existed because the losses in a holy duel ran heavy — half the participants critically wounded at minimum, and there had been duels where one person alone walked off the platform. The greater the numbers, the greater the ruin of each clan. Cut Bone’s twenty-two was itself a calculation: even defeat would not cripple them. They could rest, rebuild, and mount another challenge. Warriors were assets; wasting them was poor management of the future.

For Osha, the correct response would have been an equivalent number. The Graycastle soldiers looked small and spare, unimpressive by tribal standards — but with Ashes among them, even numerical parity would be an advantage. Her strength was untouched by God’s Stones of Retaliation. Alone, she could likely decide the duel’s outcome.

Four, though, was an entirely different proposition.

The Divine Ladies were rightly revered for keeping people alive in the desert’s cruelest conditions. Combat was another matter. Cut Bone would almost certainly equip God’s Stones, which would suppress whatever abilities Drow Silvermoon and Andrea brought to bear — strip them down, perhaps, to something less than ordinary. Which would leave Iron Axe and Ashes alone. And no matter how remarkable the latter was, two hands and two legs cannot parry twenty-two warriors who have already surrendered themselves to the gods.

Thuram had assumed Iron Axe understood these things. The man had participated in holy duels before. Having been excluded from the strategy discussion — he followed the principle that those who asked less lived longer — Thuram had not pressed. He had not expected negligence of this magnitude.

He stood and watched the four of them walk onto the platform as though they were crossing a market square.

A cold sweat prickled his forehead. Something strange moved in his chest, vast and unhoused — as though the fire-trees ringing the arena had stopped sheltering him from the desert wind, and he stood exposed.

He is a member of the Osha clan.

If they fail — what remains for me in the small oasis? There would not even be a place left for him in all of Southernmost Region.

If I had known, I would have handed him every clansperson we had as stakes. Then he would not dare to take a risk like this.

The crowd felt it too. Four against twenty-two battle-hardened tribal warriors was not courage — it was, by any reasonable accounting, suicide. The hissing of the audience fell away. Eyes widened. The apathy that had gathered like dust over the proceedings dissolved into something rawer.

“Do you confirm that the Osha party shall consist of just the four of you?” The Wildflame chief’s voice carried something it did not usually carry: compulsion.

“That’s right.” Ashes smiled faintly. “Let’s get on with it. By the way — have you all written your wills?”

The crowd erupted.

“Who is that woman?”

“She must be delusional.”

“Can a Divine Lady really resist God’s Stone Arrows?”

“Wait — I think she’s serious.”

“Same. I can feel it. She has as much blood on her hands as I do.”

“Are you certain?”

“I’m a warrior. My heartbeat says she’s absolutely frightening.”

“But there are only four of them.”

“We’ll know shortly.”

Moments later, something had shifted across the entire crowd. Every face had turned toward the platform. The detachment of the experienced spectator had become something hungry and alert. Even a suicide mission could earn respect, here — the Ironsand people had never been reluctant to honor those who were genuinely brave.

Thuram’s confusion did not lift, but it had begun to mix with something else. Something he could not name. Are they truly confident? Even so outnumbered?

Before the thought resolved itself, the arbiter struck the gong — a single clean note hanging in the heat.

“Without further ado, I announce that the holy duel between the challenging Osha clan and the challenged Cut Bone clan begins — now!”

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