That worked even better than he had hoped. He had expected Orga (if he was in Orga’s position, it would have been him, but then again, he was so incredibly distant from Orga it was hard to contemplate). Wouldn’t do to call it a plan – just a feeling he had. But oh, how that feeling had profited him!
Cole tipped down his chin in greeting, keeping body and expression light, as if he was neither surprised nor in any way affected by this particular happenstance.
The Midraeic didn’t respond, unless that tic of his head was supposed to be a nod. Maybe it was best to be formal – Cole stretched out a hand across the centre line of the ring. The Midraeic seemed to come unstuck, somehow, then rather awkwardly swooped his hand wide to clasp up nearer the elbow (did he think Cole was somehow hiding a halberd up his sleeve?) and they shook.
Cole used the excuse of stretching to make a few more observations of a cadet he had only really seen as a blurry figure making stiff forms through foggy air. He was, to start with, nearly a head shorter than Cole, but most Midraeics were a bit shorter than Ainjir (it wasn’t like Cole had a preference, but he did go for the taller-on-average as a general rule). He was perhaps a little thin-limbed, but maybe that, too, was just more a Midraeic build – or maybe it was something about not having gotten the chance to actually see him take his jacket and shirt off. Not that Cole wanted to see that, but he also didn’t not want to...
Fuck. His head was too much in the bedroom. None of this was useful, and he was wasting time. The Midraeic wasn’t stretching, either, so it looked like Cole was doing a weird kind of mating dance all by himself out here.
Yes, he was short, but also, he was already set for the fight, knees bent, head somewhat lowered – just waiting to raise his fists. The little fucker didn’t mess around, which was something he had heard, but it was sort of startling to see it in action. Naturally, also, Cole had to assume he was smart. Not that it would take exceptional genius to fool Aspen, but to take part in such a complicated plan, and to show up to the ring ready to go were both signs he had brains to make up for his rangy build. Otherwise somebody so disadvantaged would have been beaten off the lists long ago.
He had no thickness about him; he would be avoiding strikes that pitted strength against strength. He didn’t have the padding to take much punishment, so he might be depending on speed and slightness to enact the lock he was learning before Cole could take him down. Cole didn’t look it, and didn’t often use it to its full potential, but Cole was also very fast. But otherwise, it was hard to see what the Midraeic might be banking on to let him survive this bout.
So Cole smiled. Let it be friendly. If he was going to have to beat someone he had hardly ever met, he didn’t want it to look bullying. Maybe he could win the Midraeic over, too – wouldn’t hurt to try. Given the grimness of his expression, Cole imagined not many had tried.
Ah, well – admirable as his solid form and grim preparedness were, it wasn’t like skin like mahogany would help him stand like a tree. Black hair thick and already curling out of its Academy cut would make for good grip, should things get close enough. Eyes dark as nuts, too, though that might have just been the way they were focused on Cole like he had been insulted.
What would his smile look like? He didn’t look like he ever did it. Chances were it was a show meant to account for the fact he would be weak to the kind of banter-and-play that Cole, while it wasn’t his specialty, was fully capable of using to unsettle an opponent. Idly, he wondered if it would be worth trying to make him smile; if anything had come close to being worth the extra coin it cost to lay a Midraeic, it was working that smile out of ‘til-sunrise lover, and see the way it shone out of the dark like a sickle moon.
“You warmed up, or would you like a moment?” Cole said, bouncing on his toes, the obviousness of the Midraeic’s answer hopefully a prickling annoyance.
“No,” he mumbled, eyes refusing to bounce along with Cole.
Cole’s grin widened. “All right.”
He gestured to the judge. They both raised the fists.
With a shout, the round began.
The Midraeic struck, a fist vaulting itself across the mid-line between them as if shot from a bow. Cole dodged, stepping to the side with both time and space to spare, but the blow was fast.
Fast and perfunctory, almost a display, the model of an opening thrust in a form-practice set. Cole sent a perfunctory fist back to him, a short, left-handed jab, which the Midraeic dodged. The strike-and-counter set them both to circling, to move so more instinct than training. The Academy liked its fighters prepared to the point of being unthinking: all the better to let new techniques jar them out of their stupor. Supposedly, after four years of endless drilling punctuated by hard beatings, they would be both better at fighting and better at thinking.
This wasn't thinking. Except that maybe starting with strikes like this set the bar for the match quite high, as in, quite serious. That it began with strikes rather than with a more class-like attempt to close for a grapple meant it was a little bit more a test – a real pitting of skill against skill – than simply meeting to practice certain move sets or patterns.
The perfunctory nature of the strikes sapped it of a little bit of its hostility, not that there was much to start with; Cole had never even spoken to the Midraeic, so what hostility was there to go on?
The Midraeic feinted with a knee, and Cole feinted his block, neither having to put effort into a gesture so half-hearted. They kept circling.
Cole tightened his fists and tried to see if that face was going to give him anything to use. Other than the unnerving emptiness of the Midraeic's expression, nothing was forthcoming. Cole stopped and he stopped. The last exchange had put Cole's left side forward, so he changed the direction of their circling to create an opportunity to fix it. The Midraeic steadily circled along.
The Midraeic feinted again with a kick, only to draw back, and Cole put his mind to the task of finding out why he kept kicking. Cole had reach on him with both arms and legs. Theoretically, the Midraeic's chances would be better with legs – more likely, those wiry arms didn't pack much of a punch. He was testing Cole's defences, rightly assuming Cole put great stock in his upper body's abilities. Falling within reach of Cole's upper body would be disastrous if he couldn't take a few hefty blows, and the Midraeic certainly didn't look capable. Leg strikes could both keep Cole distant, and damage more per strike.
The Midraeic tried another kick, and Cole felt his reasoning all but confirmed by the way he danced back when Cole attempted to counter by closing. All Cole had to do was get close, pummel a bit, and have done with it all. Good thing the Midraeic's kicks were slower than his punch had been.
Cole smiled – mostly to see if confidence could unnerve his opponent than anything else – and threatened to start forward, signalling his fatigue with this game. He could see the Midraeic re-set his fists, pulling his lips into a line.
Whoever became the attacker would take control of the situation. Cole was still contemplating the need to take such control – maybe drawing it out would soften the loss, maybe he could take a few more minutes just to see where the Midraeic was actually at, skills-wise, and tailor his approach – when the Midraeic started forward.
Of course, he was smart, equally capable of seeing the advantage in attacking.
But also a little stupid: the Midraeic brought his knee up to threaten Cole's side, much as he had done before. Cole stepped in with his right foot, turning his left side away from the strike, as he loosed a distracting jab at the Midraeic's face.
Fast with fists but slow with feet as he was, the Midraeic wouldn't dodge well. Cole would have plenty of time to strike before the Midraeic guarded, so he pulled his other arm back from its guarding position for the attack to follow.
The knee aimed for Cole's side abruptly flattened from 'strike' to 'step', feint aborted at the last moment. The sound of the Midraeic's foot slapping against the ground was the sort of sound that rang in the ears.
Cole's fist missed the Midraeic's right ear by the merest margin. The Midraeic's left hand darted to clamp Cole's fist against his shoulder, rather than allowing him to pull it back. The follow-up strike Cole intended for exposed side or stomach landed in the thick of the muscles on the Midraeic's back – the Midraeic had already stepped in and pivoted, bringing his weight in low and close. He wrapped his right forearm around the outside of Cole's trapped arm, and yanked down, collapsing Cole's elbow and bringing Cole's whole torso down with it, letting him complete the pivot and face Cole’s back.
Cole heard the sliding of skin-against-skin the way rats heard the slithering of the snake; collapsing the elbow let him control Cole’s right arm enough that his left could let go. The Midraeic's left arm slid up, around his neck. Barely in time, Cole tucked his chin down just as the Midraec's choke clenched about his neck.
Chokes were perfectly acceptable tactics by Third Year; the Midraeic had performed all the right signs to indicate this was a serious match. Chokes – and other figures their ollamh didn’t want them practicing – were options. Unexpected, but not unpredictable. Certainly unappreciated.
Cole popped his shoulders up, hands pulling down at the arm around his throat to prevent closing the choke, but that was all automatic – his thoughts flashed two or three steps ahead, selecting and dismissing possibilities within the seconds it took for their forms to set into choker and one-being-choked. The hold position wasn’t ideal; the Midraeic had neither weight nor height on Cole – he needed those. The most reasonable course of action for his opponent slammed into the forefront of Cole's mind.
His left foot already planted firmly under him, Cole's right foot swept around until he felt the Midraeic's calf against his own. He could feel the point of the Midraeic's knee, the strike that would've collapsed Cole's leg turned into a gentle brush because Cole was already turning, flipping to face to opposite direction around the axis of his right leg. His left foot planting rang out just as resolutely as the Midraeic's had, and braced as an ox, he gripped the thick of the Midraeic's upper arm and threw him into the ground.
Also more serious than it needed to be – also allowable force. They did have a mat, not that Cole had been particularly attentive to where it ended.
The moment his knee-strike had missed, the Midraeic's resistance ended long enough to be thrown. The swiftness of his arms was again displayed, as he twisted himself free, using the momentum of the throw to not only roll himself back to his feet, but to loose Cole's hold. Crouched, his eyes shot to Cole; with hardly the time to take a deep breath, he stood like a sprinter and rejoined the fight.
Cole wasn't so prepared, or, at least, the moments of clarity that allowed him to make tactical decisions while under fire did not offer solutions in such a brief moment of respite. He danced back from the attack, not even sure whether the Midraeic knew which limb he was going to strike with first – an approach unnerving, unreadable...
And Cole retreated. But the respite was already over.
Another jarringly quick fist aimed for Cole's midsection and he moved towards it – better to join the battle and let his instincts guide him than retreat and appear weakened. As if choreographed, they exchanged block for blow and blow for block, until the Midraeic let fly a weak punch to Cole's midsection.
Cole grinned as he let the punch go by, putting all of his stored strength into a right hook that would lay his opponent flat.
The fight was over.
But! The Micraeic was fast in the arms.
The Midraeic threw himself into the arc of Cole's arm, 'weak punch' dissolving as both forearms served to guard his face. The whole of his upper torso was more than enough to stop Cole's strike, but the Midraeic followed it up with a body blow from his elbow, then a familiar setup – brace, pivot, pull on elbow...
Except that this time, they weren't in the right position – Cole's mind leapt ahead to the choke anyway, and he drew in and up – a mistake that would cost him dearly.
The Midraeic, instead of keeping hold of Cole’s elbow to complete the pivot, stepped through. The focus was the grip on Cole’s wrist, which only came to mind because he bent it, causing a brief bolt of pain on his way through. Other hand finding the back of Cole’s elbow, The painful torque on his arm took Cole's shoulder with it, and his shoulder carried the body awkwardly to the ground as physical necessity overtook the demands of reason. It was collapse or die, so Cole collapsed.
The ring of spectators spun before him, then the ground rose up. He felt he Midraec's shin against his shoulder blades slightly before his arm exploded at every joint with brightly searing pain.
Cole was too dazed to react. The entirety of the collapse had taken seconds. He glanced back at his twisted arm and saw the Midraeic half-kneeling over him, expression unchanged. Cole's arm was trapped twining in his grip like a displeased cat in the arms of a child. Cole's own arm was like a separate thing from himself.
Fury rose ugly and filling through Cole's chest; a stubborn, prideful part of his mind cooled the pain in his arm with the angry promise that he would hold out against the agony until the judge could count him out, and thus salvage some of his dignity.
The Midraeic fractionally torqued elbow and wrist in opposite directions, eyebrows raised. Cole touched the ground, calling out a surrender as if on the verge of death.
Another shout from the judge and the match was over. Cole was released and flipped himself over to stare up into the empty, beautiful sky. As he lay with his back flat against the mat, waves of information roiled into his thoughts that he had studiously kept out of mind for fighting – the spectators, the way he looked, the manner of the fight, what he would say to who about the results – all tried and failed to overwhelm, to drown, to draw down and suffocate the one startling, firm thought he held onto:
He had lost.
Pathetically.
As he stayed on his back, though, he could still see clearly through the lens of his fighting mind somewhat. The Midraeic backed away from him, face showing neither victory or pleasure, or even accomplishment.
If anything, Cole thought... If anything was there...
A slight disappointment.
The Midraeic gave the barest salute of one opponent to another, then turned and walked out of the ring, out of Cole's range of vision. His body half shook with the heat of anger and embarrassment; good thing he was on the ground, or it might be noticeable. As it was, he had a few precious seconds to catch his breath, close his eyes against the sky, notice the cool wind barely filtering through the crowd to reach him (be angry at it for a moment, as he was angry at the sky, the trees, the sun, the existence of the Academy). His anger was capacious. Full. Furious. If he let it, it would have him leap up, call a rematch, declare the submission only one of a set, prepare and attack again.
All of that would look even more foolish than his losing did, but it took a long few moments for him to get to where that thought won out. Luckily, they were all too scared of him and uncertain of his reaction to actually do anything but wait to see what it would be. He still, in fact, had control of the situation, if only he would let himself stay in control.
Taking a breath, Cole shut his eyes, and let the flood of ancillary thoughts overtake him and mute his embarrassment under the tides of conversation now sweeping towards the mat.
He had lost. But at least he knew who had shown Hal the Third Year joint-locks.