Eritance - Chapter 17

With that I walked over to the table and said, “this is a small stage to fight on, don’t you think?”. The man laughed and said, “not to worry, it isn’t that kind of a fight. Instead you will be arm wrestling with each other”.

“Oh, that makes sense” I said. This would be much more convenient to win. The only thing that matters in an arm wrestling competition is pure strength.

The man finished explaining the rules and a small crowd of people had gathered at this point. It appears not many people challenged this son of a hill giant to a strength competition. They all thought I was crazy. “That poor girl” and “Those lucky dogs, I wish I could have one night with that girl too” could be heard from the crowd.

After we both took our positions we clasped hands and began. The giant oaf immediately put all his strength into his arm, flexing his muscles to the point where veins popped out all over his head and body. However, I couldn’t help but think, “wow this guy is so weak”.

Even though he was straining himself to try to slam my arm down, my arm wasn’t moving at all. In fact, I didn’t even feel like I had to strain myself at all to win this.

I slowly moved my arm and pushed against his. I could feel a lot of exertion on his part, but I only needed a light effort to move his arm. Slowly but surely, I twisted his arm until the back of his hand touched the table.

At this point the small crowd of people had become speechless. Even the man organizing it all had no words. Nobody there thought that I would win, let alone that it would be so easy for me to win at that.

The hill giant man became enraged and screamed “that’s impossible! You must have cheated!!”. At this the other man said, “that-that’s right. There is no way you could have won without cheating. You must have used some kind of magic to win so you’re disqualified”.

At this I became very upset. I had won fair and square, but now they were trying to run away from their debt to me. “So, you’re not going to pay me?” I asked calmly. “That’s right, we would pay you if you had won fairly, but you cheated so you can’t be paid” he said more confidently this time.

Perhaps another demonstration of my strength was in order then. With that I knocked the table over and grabbed the big oaf. I picked him up and spun him around over my head before throwing him across the square.

At this the man became very fearful, and I asked, “are you still doubting my strength?”. The man’s face was pale with fear and he said, “no-no here-here is your g-gold”. With that he tossed me a bag of gold coins and scrambled away in a hurry.

The crowd didn’t want to make eye contact with me, so I went up to Ciara and said, “see? I told you I wouldn’t lose!” quite proudly.

However, what I didn’t expect was that she struck me in the face. My cheek was stinging, and she began to lecture me about how she was the lord’s daughter and not some piece of meat that I could just bet on fights whenever I felt like it.

After the lecture I was feeling regretful and I promised to buy her whatever she wanted from the shops and treat her to a grand feast. “Don’t think this will make me forgive you, you can’t just bribe me with food and gifts and think everything is alright” she hissed at me. “Okay- okay I really am sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise” I said genuinely. “That’s much better” Ciara said, somewhat placated.

After the intense lecture we went back down the streets with various shops. Noticing that our clothes had become quite worse for wear over the past few days she suggested that we visit a clothing shop.

We soon found a tailor and checked out what they had in stock. They had a limited but fine selection of different suits of clothing for men and women. Being a basic man myself, I simply chose a new fresh white tunic and a pair of tough black pants that they had in stock. I also got a superior grade pair of leather boots that were a lot more comfortable for walking than the ones that I had on currently.

Ciara’s choice was a bit out of expectation for me. Instead of choosing another dress, she chose a leather vest, a tight white tunic that ruffled at the top, a belt, tight brown pants, and a long pair of sturdy black boots. “What’s with this get up?” I couldn’t help but asking.

“It’s simple really, if we get attacked again, I want to be wearing clothes that are suitable for travel. A dress is not ideal for moving around through the forest and running for your life” she said.

“I also want to go to the weapon’s shop. I want to buy a knife and a bow” she continued.

I became somewhat amused at this. “Listen, Ciara, I know you want to protect yourself, but buying equipment you can’t use is only going to hinder you. At worst, you’d be giving the enemy weapons to harm us. Just let me take care of things” I said.

“Letting you take care of things is how we got into this mess in the first place. I’d rather rely on myself. Besides, I’ve hard archery lessons and self defense classes since I was a young girl. I can handle myself” she confidently replied.

I was somewhat puzzled. “What kind of lord has his daughter learn combat skills?” I thought to myself. However, I decided to drop the subject and go buy the things that Ciara wanted.

Slowly, I was beginning to see her in a different light than I had in the beginning.