Gears’ gauntlets hit Threxian in the center of the chest.
The floor cracked under both men, and Threxian moved half a step.
That was all, but every Black Bull in the room saw it.
Ty saw it too, and the small movement mattered more than the crack in the stone. Threxian had wanted the first hit on camera. He had wanted the room to see him take it. Gears had made the king spend a foot to do it.
Gears drove his second fist toward Threxian’s ribs.
Threxian’s forearm came down and turned the strike aside. Metal scraped across royal bracer. The gauntlet vented heat against Threxian’s sleeve, and the cloth browned at the edge.
"Faster, Gerald. Your entrance promised more than this."
Gears rolled his shoulder and came back in. "I charge extra when kings start giving notes."
"Then earn your fee before I close your account."
Gears stepped left, feinted high, and fired both gauntlets low. The blow caught Threxian under the guard and pushed another crack through the floor. The red-collared Black Bull used that noise to shift his people another few feet toward the rear wall.
Ty caught the movement, and Threxian caught the formation shifting behind Gears.
The king let Gears punch him again and watched the formation behind him.
"You are distracting me so they can move behind you."
"I would never waste your attention on only myself."
"You already did when you came for Ty."
Gears’ next punch came faster. Threxian caught the wrist before it landed.
The gauntlet screamed under his grip as the frame compressed.
Not like a person. Like metal being forced to admit it had limits.
Gears kicked at Threxian’s knee. Threxian shifted enough to take the kick on the side of his leg, then crushed the gauntlet around Gears’ hand.
Black plates folded inward and trapped Gears’ fingers crooked.
Gears’ jaw locked. The sound he made stayed behind his teeth.
Aldric sucked in air beside Ty. "That should have taken his hand."
"It may still be deciding how much hand remains."
Gears tore free by leaving pieces of the gauntlet in Threxian’s grip. Blood ran between his fingers. He used the damaged hand anyway, slamming the broken metal into Threxian’s jaw while the other gauntlet fired upward.
This time Threxian’s head turned, only a little, but the drones caught it.
The Black Bulls breathed like the hit had opened a door.
Threxian touched his jaw with two fingers. The skin had split near the corner of his mouth. He looked at the blood, then at Gears.
"That was better than the entrance you wasted."
"You bleed red, and the rumors oversold you badly."
"The rumors were written by people who lived."
Threxian stepped in before Gears recovered his angle.
Gears tried to retreat through his own angle, but the king had already taken it away. One hand caught him by the throat. The other struck his chest just below the shoulder wound Aldric had given him.
Gears hit the floor hard enough to bounce once.
The second gauntlet sparked under him. He rolled before Threxian’s boot came down, but the boot still caught the outer frame and pinned it to the stone.
Threxian pressed until the gauntlet broke around Gears’ wrist.
Gears ripped his arm free and left more metal behind. He came up on one knee, breathing through his nose because his mouth had blood in it.
"Stay down, Gerald. You already gave them the time you bought."
Gears spat red onto the clean floor. "Then I bought the correct thing."
Threxian grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted him.
Ty started forward before his body agreed with the choice.
Alexander caught him by the shoulder before he crossed the line. "He wants you to break the witness boundary."
"He is going to kill him in front of everyone."
"He wants you to make that useful for the feed."
Ty hated Alexander for being right in that exact way.
Threxian threw Gears across the chamber. Gears struck the wall near the rear mark and slid down hard, leaving a smear of blood and black oil behind him.
The king turned back to the drones with Gears down.
"That is one breach asset removed from the board."
The count carried cleanly across the chamber and into every drone.
The doll woman moved before the count finished settling.
She sent the first charm low along the floor. It looked like a child’s toy made from gray cloth and stitched black thread. It moved wrong, crawling on soft limbs until it reached the broken stone near Threxian’s boot.
It burst at his boot and kicked dust across the boundary.
The blast took dust off the floor and forced the nearest drones higher.
Two more dolls came from her sleeves. Then six. Then more from the folded cloth at her waist. They crossed each other in tight paths, some carrying heat, some carrying pressure, some carrying a little snap of space that made Ty’s teeth ache.
Threxian walked through the first wave with his coat burning.
He caught one doll by the head and let it burst in his hand.
His sleeve burned away to the wrist before he bothered looking.
The doll woman saw it and changed tactics. Her next charms stayed around her, not him. They made a ring at shoulder height, each one pulling a thread from the charm wrapped around her wrist.
"You will have to step closer for the rest."
Threxian looked at the ring. "Your hands are shaking before the first throw."
"That means I know what you are, king."
"Fear is useful when it gives orders correctly."
"Mine already told me to make you step wrong."
The ring of dolls snapped inward, not toward Threxian, but toward the floor under him. They bit into the stone and pulled. Space buckled around his legs, folding the distance between him and the rear wall into a narrow twist.
Ty understood the shape of the attempt too late.
She was trying to move him, not burn him.
Gears had bought her the measurement with his broken gauntlets.
Threxian looked down at the folded space and pushed his coin into it.
The twist broke and snapped light across the floor.
Every doll in the ring tore open at once.
The doll woman staggered but kept her wrist up. Blood ran from her nose. She pulled one last charm from inside her sleeve, bigger than the others and stitched with red thread.
"Move before the recoil takes your arm with it."
She threw it anyway because retreat had stopped mattering.
Threxian crossed the distance before the charm opened. His hand closed around her wrist. His other hand took the charm from her fingers with almost insulting care.
The dolls still in the air stopped moving.
Their cloth bodies dropped one by one around her boots.
Threxian held the red-stitched charm up for the drones to see. "This one almost had an idea."
He crushed it before the last stitch unfolded.
The recoil struck her through the wrist. She hit the floor on her side and curled around the ruined arm, shaking without sound.
Threxian glanced at her, then at the red-collared man.
"That is two assets removed from the board."
The Death Sentry stepped forward next with his harpoon lowered.
He had stayed still through Gears’ fall and the doll woman’s failed fold. Ty had noticed him because stillness in this room took effort. The man carried a long harpoon with a red line running through the shaft. His armor had no shine left. His face had even less.
The red-collared man said something too low for Ty to catch.
The Death Sentry shook his head once and chose the line anyway.
Gears laughed from the wall, a broken sound with teeth in it. "Let him throw. He never listens after choosing a line."
The Sentry planted his back foot and drew the harpoon behind him.
Threxian studied the weapon with more interest than he had given the dolls. "You look like someone who practices before wasting my time."
The Sentry answered by throwing with his whole body behind it.
The harpoon crossed the room in a straight red line.
Threxian caught it with one hand near the head.
For one breath, that looked like the end of it.
Then the floor under Threxian’s boots cracked again.
The harpoon kept moving in his grip, dragging his arm back inch by inch. Its red line brightened along the shaft. The point reached his chest plate and bit through.
Threxian’s shoulders locked as the weapon kept driving forward.
The contestants behind the boundary leaned forward as one body. Even Alexander forgot to look calm.
The harpoon drove the king back one full step.
The broadcast feed above them stuttered, and every drone corrected its angle.
Threxian’s hand tightened around the shaft. The red line fought him all the way through his fingers, vibrating hard enough to shake loose chips from the stone under his feet.
"Stubborn weapon, and smarter than the first two attacks."
The Death Sentry raised his empty hand and pulled.
The harpoon tried to tear itself deeper through the plate.
Threxian gripped it with both hands, turned his shoulder, and forced the point out of his chest plate.
Blood marked the torn metal where the point came free.
Threxian pulled the harpoon free and held it in front of the drones.