When Simon pounded on the thick doors of the Himar clan hall, the guards looked at him with contempt. However, when he explained his grievance, that contempt transformed into amusement. Both of those emotions vanished, though, when he got to the end of his planned speech and said, “Therefore, as is my right as a servant and honor-bound warrior to clan Eddek, I demand a trial by combat with your clan leader.”

“An outsider cannot claim these things; do not mock our laws!” yelled the first guard.

“What? Our liege has done nothing to your ward,” scoffed the other.

They were wrong, of course, on all counts. Simon had read a great deal of Charian law over the last few months. Indeed, though Eddek might not understand that yet, all of the stories and epics he was forced to read and memorize were all about the laws of his people in a very visceral way, and now that Simon had need, he was going to use some of those to his friend’s advantage, because while he couldn’t say for sure this was what had pushed future Kayla over the edge to violence and treachery, he thought it was likely to be the case.

Simon didn’t let them bluff him away, and once they drew weapons, he didn’t even go into their hall after they offered to let him inside to discuss it further. Any violence that happened had to be very public, or the story would be twisted against him. So, instead of thrashing either of these very capable men to prove a point, Simon instead gave them a scroll that laid out his formal challenge to them.

“In one day, I’ll deliver that same sealed complaint to a lawgiver,” Simon explained. “Then they will see if I have a case or not. If they do, and it becomes public knowledge that you rejected it… Well, it won’t reflect quite so well on your clan, will it?”

In a combative culture with many enemies and few people, trial by combat was the cornerstone of their legal system, in much the same way trial by jury had been in the life he’d once lived. Threatening not to honor it undermined the very rule of law itself, which was exactly what Simon was counting on. He’d almost certainly still have to risk his life, but as he walked back to Eddek hall, he doubted very much that this charge would go unanswered.

Sure enough, shortly after dinner, the reply was made in the form of a courier and a very thin scroll. He didn’t say a word beyond asking if Simon was the aggrieved party. Once that was determined, he gave the answer and left so as not to complicate things further.

“The aggrieved party?” Eddek asked. “What’s going on?”

“I issued a formal challenge to Karl Himar,” Simon answered as he cracked the seal and started scanning the scroll. “And it would seem I have been granted an audience two days from now to discuss it further.”

“Challenge? Audience? What?” Eddek seemed almost frantic. “Why would you do that? He didn’t do anything to you?”

“Didn’t he?” Simon asked. “Didn’t he raise a son so poorly that he learned to bully those weaker than himself in packs instead of defending them as the stories teach?”

“But that’s not… Bullying isn’t against the law! It’s normal! Besides, they’re one of the strongest clans in the kingdom. They have any number of champions that would crush a sellsword like you.”

Sellsword. That stung a little, but only a little. It showed one of the boy’s critical flaws. He believed what he was told. Simon told him he was a mercenary, and even if he acted nothing like a mercenary, he still must be a mercenary.

“They can certainly try,” Simon answered. They absolutely would, of course, if not for a few tricks up his sleeve. Simon was a man of many talents, but he was only good with a sword. He wasn’t truly great with one; that only came from a lifetime of intense focus, and most of his lives lately had been focused on anything but. Fortunately, that was where the magic came in.

“It might not even come to combat.” he continued. “They may yet see reason.”

It would, though. This would absolutely end in blood. Not in death, perhaps, but in maiming, at the very least. These ritualistic legal duals to determine who was right and wrong in any given scenario had many rules. Combatants could yield at any time, of course, but they almost never did; it was too dishonorable. Instead, combat went on until someone couldn’t go on. Sometimes, that meant death, but other times, well, Simon would try to spare whoever his opponent was if he could.

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That wasn’t because he was getting sentimental or pacifistic, of course. It wasn’t even that he was concerned that more bodies would cloud the sight he was trying to cultivate once more. It was because it would invite further challenges. While according to the laws, fighting itself was an honorable act that could not be the basis for further challenges, in reality, the largest clans had any number of workarounds that usually involved the kin of the dead man. It was one of the key weaknesses of their strange legal system as far as he was concerned.

Simon was no expert, of course, but it was a theme he’d seen play out in stories over and over, and he aimed to avoid it now. Unfortunately, none of those explanations sufficed for Eddek, or Kayla for that matter. The boy worried that this would blow back on his family in some horrible way, and the girl worried that Simon might die. Both of those were possibilities, of course, but he planned to thread that needle as neatly as he could.

For the next two days, Simon spent more time in the courtyard practicing his form than he had in years, but it all came back to him easily enough. It was just like riding a car or whatever that expression was. When the time came, and he returned to the other clan’s hall with Eddek, he was a touch less confident than he’d been before, but he wouldn’t have admitted it. They were committed now.

When they arrived, he was met mostly with outrage and bluster by Karl and his men, but Simon ignored that; it was practically the Charian equivalent of a handshake. Normally, it would have been harder to shake off threats about disemboweling him and feeding his remains to goats, but since a neutral arbiter of the crown had been invited, he knew it wouldn’t come to violence. That’s the way these things went.

Simon had Eddek state the events as they’d discussed them. The Karl’s boy insisted it was a lie, but Eddek still had the bruises to prove something had happened, so the Arbiter intoned, “The boy’s marks bear out his grievance, and I hear no lie in his words. The case may proceed.”

That part interested Simon, but he still hadn’t made up his mind either way. The stories said that arbiters could literally hear lies, and sometimes Simon thought it was like an auditory version of the sight, but he had no way of knowing for sure. He’d never experienced it himself.

The duel wouldn’t happen today, though. The duel would happen on the next public feast day. If armed combat replaced trial by jury, then it also replaced pay-per-view. Many cultures used hangings and beheadings as grim public entertainment, but in Simon’s experience, only this one scheduled them in advance and sold tickets for people to watch.

“Are you sure there is no other way you can be satisfied in this, outlander?” the Karl asked toward the end, breaking Simon from his reverie. “If my son did what you accuse him of, then surely there can be another recompense. Perhaps compensation and even an apology?”

Simon had already considered this moment enough to know that it was a trap. Still, he kept himself from smiling. “If he accepts lesser restitution, then the event never happened in the eyes of the law,” Simon answered. “I want it on record that in the hours that my charge spent beyond my protection every day, he was attacked for the crime of being a child of a lesser clan. The only honorable thing I can do for failing him in those moments is by putting my life on the line in this one.”

The Karl protested that was an unreasonable stance, but Simon continued. “And if I accepted a judgment that it never happened, then there would be no reason that it would ever stop happening, would it?”

As Simon spoke, he noticed the Arbiter staring at him with an unnerving intensity, but he did his best to ignore it. He made sure that everything he’d planned to say in this moment was true, just in case, but still, he did not expect to be judged like this.

More raging and gnashing of teeth followed, but if Simon would not accept an alternative, then nothing could stop what was about to happen, not even his death. In the event someone assassinated him between now and the day of the fight, the law presumed the challenge was behind it, and barring extraordinary evidence, they were presumed to be guilty. It was the only way to make sure all the violence stayed on the challenging field where it belonged.

So, the next few days passed by perfectly peacefully as Simon made his preparations and prepared for the feast of Throlven. His wasn’t the first fight of the day, either. It was the third. Killing each other over trivialities might be a lot less bloody than full-blown clan wars, but Simon was sure that thousands still died in these trials every year.

In each case, the charge was read aloud to a solemn audience that erupted into jeers as soon as steel rang against steel. ‘Borven Jol feels that his clan’s honor was slighted when a woman from Clan Gruval eloped with a servant rather than honoring her arranged marriage. Clan Gruval claims they are not responsible for the disappearance since the servant in question worked for clan Borven.’

‘Faldon Bar was sold eight fertile mares by Clan Kolden, but not one of them ever reproduced in the three years he had them on his farm. Clan Kolden disputes the charge.’

Both matters, while important, seemed much too trivial for bloodshed in Simon’s eyes, but the participants certainly disagreed. My challenge is the most trivial of all of them, he acknowledged. Blood wasn’t the right way to resolve this, of course, but the right way didn’t exist in this society, and Simon had no other options. He’d already saved Eddek from the owlbears and seen him safely to Adonan. All of that should have been enough, but the ghosts of the future that may yet be demanded he do even more. The problems here weren’t as violent and obvious as Mount Karkosia’s eruption, but he would still stop it no matter how many lives it took.