The Combat Codes Read Free Page B

began as Marcus assumed a fighting stance and began to bob forward, feinting jabs and bouncing on the balls of his feet.
    “It’s like one of them Mercurian eels about to eat a guppy,” Calsans remarked.
    Murray looked curiously at the blind boy as his opponent stalked toward him. The boy still wasn’t moving. Though his posture wasn’t aggressive, he didn’t look afraid. He almost looked… relaxed.
    “Wouldn’t be so sure,” Murray replied.
    Marcus approached striking distance and feigned a punch at the blind boy before whipping a high round kick toward his head.
    A split second before the shin connected, the boy dropped below the kick and shot forward like a coiled spring, wrapping around one of the kicker’s legs. The boy clung to the leg as his opponent tried to shake him off vigorously, but he stayed attached to him. He drove his shoulder into Marcus’s knee, throwing him off-balance into the dirt.
    The boy began to climb his opponent’s body like a sloth, wrapping up his legs and crawling onto his torso.
    “Now this is getting good,” Murray said as he watched the blind boy go to work.
    Marcus heaved forward with his full strength, pushing the boy off him while reversing to top position. Hungry for a finish again, he reared up and aimed a downward punch at the younger boy’s head. The boy slipped the punch, angling his chin at just the right moment, his opponent’s fist glancing off his jaw.
    Marcus howled in pain as his hand crunched against the hard dirt. Biometrics flashed red on the lightboard above.
    Capitalizing on bottom position, the blind boy grasped Marcus’s elbow and dragged the limp arm across his body, using the leverage to pull himself up and around onto his opponent’s back.
    Murray marveled, “Well, look at that. Darkin’ smooth back take.”
    The crowd suddenly was paying close attention to the turn of events, several spectators hooting in approval of the upset, while others jeered at a potential bit-loss on their bets.
    Murray could see the shock in Marcus’s eyes. This was supposed to be an easy win for the Grievar, a fight to pad his record. His Tasker probably told him to finish the blind boy in brutal fashion. Instead, Marcus was the one fighting for survival, looking like he was treading water in a tank of sharks.
    Marcus grunted as he pushed himself off the ground. He stood up and tried to shuck the boy off his back, bucking wildly, but the climber wrapped around him even tighter.
    The blind boy began to snake his hands across Marcus’ neck, shooting his forearm beneath the chin to apply the choke.
    Either as a last resort or out of pure helplessness, Marcus dropped backward like a felled tree, slamming the boy on his back into the dirt with a thud. A cloud of dust billowed into the air on impact. The crowd hushed as the little boy was crushed beneath his larger opponent’s bulk.
    Murray held his breath as the dust settled.
    The blind boy was still clinging to his opponent, his two bony arms latched around his neck, constricting, ratcheting tighter. The boy squeezed until Marcus’s eyes rolled back into his head and his arms went limp.
    The light flared and died out, the spectrals breaking from their cluster and dissipating into the den.
    The boy rolled out from beneath his unconscious opponent, his face covered in dirt and blood, his eyes clamped shut.

2
    Dreams from the Underground
    A Grievar needs neither tools nor technologies to enhance their physical prowess. One that resorts to shortcuts on the path to mastery will find themselves weakened. When such an individual faces true adversity, their trappings of strength will falter.
    Passage One,
Twelfth Precept of the Combat Codes
    Just a few minutes more.
    The sun peeked over the window frame and cast a shard of light at the boy.
    He squeezed his eyes shut.
    He half expected to hear the old master’s grizzled voice from outside the loft, yelling at them to get up and begin another day of training. Though the boy was