Venture Unleashed (The Venture Books) (11 page)

“You’re stronger than you think, but, yeah, you’ve got at least two more years of growing in you. So what? Was Dasher the biggest guy out there last year? Size matters, but it isn’t everything, and you’re big enough.”

“You’re going to be brilliant, Champ.” Dasher squeezed Venture’s shoulders. “You’ve spent the last two years training with the reigning champion, after all,” he said with a cocky smirk. “You just can’t beat that.”

“Excuse me,” the registration official said pointedly, “Mr. Delving.”

Venture turned his attention to the table, where the official had risen and was leaning over to him.
 

“Yes?” Venture steeled himself for the worst.

“Here are your papers. And here’s this.” He held out a competitor’s badge. “People are waiting.”

“Sorry. Thank you.” Venture slipped the badge over his head and tucked his papers back in his pocket. He was in.

Venture stretched out alongside a handful of other men in a corner of the arena, on a row of mats laid out there for the fighters to warm up. He watched Dasher, who was on the other side of the arena, feeling out the competition in his own way, talking to the other finalists from the year before, all clearly marked by their yellow badges.

The first matches were about to begin, one in each of the three rectangular competition areas. Two announcers climbed the ladder to a small, raised wooden platform, where they would view and comment on the matches. They took their seats and began calling out the first competitors’ names through their horns. The crowd, the whole colorful mass of them, rose to its feet, stomping and whistling and hollering for the fighting to start.
 

The fifth match in area three would be Venture’s first, against a man he’d never fought before, but whom he’d seen compete in the past. He was tough, Dasher had warned him, no novice. Venture bent one leg back behind him and leaned over the other to stretch. He thought he was doing fine until his stomach gave a sudden, sickening lurch.

“Earnest!”
 

Earnest knew that look. He grasped his elbow and dragged him over to a bucket, placed in the corner for just that purpose.
God, help me
, Venture pleaded silently as he retched. For a moment he feared his stomach would never stop. But just as suddenly as the nerves had overcome him, his heart was calmed, his stomach settled. He waited there, on his knees by the bucket, but the feeling didn’t return. A couple of other fighters looked at him and smirked as they passed. He forced himself to stand up, though he had to lean on the wall in order to do so.

“You’re going to get through this. You’ve got that over with, and now you’re going to be fine.” Earnest handed him a flask of water.

“I don’t want to just get through this.” He straightened up and pushed off the wall. “I want to win. I’m going to give every one of those guys who’s laughing at me so much stick that they’re going to lose sleep thinking about when they’ll run into me next.”

The corner of Earnest’s mouth turned up in a half-smile. “You got it. By the end of the day, every one of these fighters is going to know that Venture Delving is going to demand everything they’ve got on the mat.”

But when the announcer shouted Venture Delving’s name, he felt not a thrill, but a surge of new panic. He scanned the tiers of spectators. Somewhere, Justice was watching. Would he be beaten so soundly that his brother would decide to put an end to this fighting business altogether?

Grant wasn’t here, though he’d sent a message of encouragement the day before. Grant wanted to watch him, and to meet the Champion, Dasher Starson, but ever since Venture had gone out on his own, into the world of fighters, he chose to stay out of that world, to let Venture be his own man there. He settled for letters and long talks with Venture about his training and competition whenever he came home. His message had assured Venture that he would’ve been proud to be here and claim Venture as part of his house, but he was even prouder to know that Venture was competing under his own name.

Venture said a quick prayer that he’d be able to pull this off, that he would have the strength and the presence of mind to make a real impact on this tournament, to be worthy of that pride.

At the official’s signal, he stepped onto the mat and waited at his starting line. Earnest, at the edge of the mat, signed for him to shut out the crowd, to focus on his opponent’s eyes. He nodded, and stared into them—laughing eyes, amused eyes, looking him scornfully up and down. To him, Venture was some inexperienced kid—a bonded kid—who decided to enter the Championship at the last minute, on a whim.

Venture recalled Colt, his old teammate who’d underestimated him that day when he was fourteen and fighting with the elites at Beamer’s for the first time. Colt had learned never to make that mistake again.
Here it is. Here’s his weakness
, Venture noted.

The whistle blew. Venture dodged the first attempts of his opponent to swing at him and to grab hold of his legs and take him to the ground. Venture’s own fist flew, and, to his surprise, met its target, once, twice, three times. Right, left, right. His confidence soared and his fears faded away. He was himself again. He was blocking a flying kick to his head, grasping an arm and hooking his opponent’s supporting leg with his own leg and tearing it out from underneath him, toppling him backwards. He was on top of the other fighter, in the superior position. Struggling to gain control of his opponent’s arms, taking a few weak punches as he pulled back far enough to strike a powerful blow to the head.
 

He kept punching, rhythmically, over and over again. The slap-thud and the warm spray of blood announced the success of each blow.

It wasn’t the way he’d planned to win, spattering blood all over himself, making a mess of his opponent’s face, but he was fighting, he was winning, and he was loving it. The official rushed between him and his opponent, now lying limp beneath him. He’d been on top for just a few seconds, not nearly as long as it should have taken to inflict such damage.
 

Venture went back to his line and waited patiently as the healer hovered over his opponent. His cheek, swollen to the bursting point, looked like it would need stitching. So did his lip. But he pushed the healer aside and struggled to his feet, wanting to stand for the official ending of the match.

Venture stood across from his bloodied opponent, virtually unscathed, and there was his moment, the official extending his arm in his direction, and then, the announcer calling into his horn, “The victor, Venture Delving, of Twin Rivers.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Venture sat on a wooden bench against the wall at the edge of the arena, while Earnest strapped a cloth-wrapped bundle of ice to his elbow. Venture held another ice pack to his face with his free hand. His knuckles were raw and swollen. His jaw, cheek, and one eye were badly bruised, his elbow felt strained, and the muscles in his legs were shaking. Whenever he tried to stand, they threatened to give way. But none of the battering was serious. A healer had just looked him over and pronounced him healthy enough to continue.

Dasher approached with Justice, who sat down beside Venture. He should’ve known Justice would show up to stick his nose in once he saw Earnest getting the healer.

“Well, Vent,” Justice said, “I guess we have a decision to make.”

“There’s no decision to make. I came here to fight.”

“You’re exhausted. You’ve been pushed to the limit. You’re just inviting an injury if you go back out there.”

“I have more in me. I know it.” He lowered the ice from his face to look at his brother.

Justice shook his head. “You’re so young. You think you can last forever.”

“I won five matches. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? I came here to see how far I could go, and this isn’t it. It’s farther than I thought it would be, but this isn’t it.”

“Dasher?” Justice said.

“I thought he’d be eliminated after a few matches. That he’d make a beginner’s mistake. But somehow, that didn’t happen, and he’s still in. We’re selling him short if we take him out now.”

“Earnest?” Justice said wearily.

“He fought his heart out, but he’s still got more. He has more heart than almost any fighter I’ve ever met.”

“Everybody has his limits. He’s a seventeen-year-old boy, not a man with supernatural powers.”

“You’re right. He’s just seventeen. He doesn’t know when to stop yet.”

Venture opened his mouth to protest Earnest’s words, but Earnest shot him a sidelong glance and pushed on.

“But I promise you, I know this boy as a fighter better than anyone. I know his limits better than he knows them himself. When he’s reached his limit, I’ll pull him out. You have my word.”

“No matter what?”

“Even if he’s fighting to be in the top three, with a fortune on the line. When he’s done, he’s done. I’ll take him out.”

Justice nodded. “All right,” he said. But then he regarded each of them in turn. “That first match—if that ever happens to Vent . . .” He shook his head and walked away.

 
Venture looked down at his hands. He’d wiped up the best he could after each match, but there was dried blood in the creases of his fingers, dried blood under his nails. His shirt and shorts, once gray, were stained various shades of red and brown, and pink where his sweat had diluted the blood, all in spots flowing into one another.
 

“Get that ice back on your face,” Earnest said.
 

Venture lifted up the ice. It was tied in a white cloth. But the cloth wasn’t white anymore. It, too, was stained a pinkish brown.

Earnest said, “It’s not yours. It was in your hair, from the first match.”

Blood had dried in his hair. Every time he’d wiped sweat from his brow, every time it had dripped down his face, it had been mixed with blood. Earnest handed him a clean towel just as he was thinking of asking for one.

“Don’t worry about it, Champ. I pound on guys like that all the time. He’s a trained fighter. He’ll handle it. It’s all part of the package. Everybody knows that.”

“We’ve got about half an hour until your next match. Let’s go to the changing room and get you cleaned up.” Earnest helped him up, and they went to the partitioned area set aside for the competitors to wash and change.

Wash basins and pitchers sat ready in a line along a table, with stacks of washcloths and towels and blocks of new soap. Tired men sat on benches or stood nearby, donning clean clothes. Some slumped, deflated, and others recounted matches and compared injuries. Venture stripped his soiled clothes off, put on clean shorts, then went to one of the basins.

Earnest stood beside him as he scrubbed at his head. “So which is it, Vent? Does it bother you that it bothers your brother or does it actually bother
you
?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Here.” Earnest took the cloth and wiped the spots for him that he’d missed on the back of his neck.

Venture toweled off his head with his good arm. “I’ll be fine as soon as I get back on the mat. I’m always fine on the mat.”

Venture had washed up the rest of his body and was drying off before he had anything else to say to Earnest. The changing room was virtually empty by then—just two men swapping dirty jokes on the benches opposite them.

“Justice thinks I was brutal. And it’s just not what I want to be known for, and it was my first match at the Championship—the first match of mine that most of those people in the crowd have ever seen.”

Venture paused. Earnest might understand the rest, mostly, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He’d been on the way to becoming a wild, hotheaded brawler when he was younger, before Grant had taken him to Beamer’s. He’d learned pretty quick that he needed to get himself under control if he wanted to get anywhere, and it had taken him years to develop some self-discipline. He’d also learned that as a bondsman, he was already just a brute in the minds of some.

“I don’t want to be known as a brutal fighter. I always pictured myself being thought of as . . .”

“One with smooth technique, explosive energy, and a mind and body that move so quick men don’t even know what’s happening until it’s over?”

Venture smiled sheepishly. “Something like that.”

“You are. That’s what anyone who’s watched you over the last couple of years thinks of you.”

Venture nodded toward the partition. “Those people have seen me for one day.” And they were all paying attention, after the many mentions the
Crier
had made of his name.

“And what about your other matches? It wasn’t just a long string of bloodbaths today.”

“They won’t remember the others. That’s just how people are.” And it wasn’t just Venture they were judging; it was his entire class.

“Today is just the beginning of your reputation on this level. And if you want to win—”

“I know it. I just don’t like it.” He pulled on his clothes. “I won’t let it get in the way. I’ll do what I have to do.”
What I was meant to do. Or is it?

Earnest sat down on the bench across from him as Venture perched there, rolling his sock carefully up over his sore toe, the one he’d dislocated in practice a couple of months before.

He leaned close. “Vent, one day you’ll be so good at this, you’ll own every man out there. You’ll have room to choose how you win every match. You’ll be that great.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

As Venture made his way past the stands, toward the mat for his next match, an unfamiliar voice stopped him.

“Mr. Delving.” A middle-aged man held his hand out to him. “Alder Ferry.”

Earnest stopped his pep-talk mid-sentence, and gave the stranger an irritated look, but Venture shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Ferry.”

“I’m here with my master. I promised my boy I’d shake your hand for him. It’s a big deal, what you’re doing. To a lot of us bondsmen.”

Venture shook his head. “I’m just . . .”

“You’re a fighter, that’s what you are.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve got to get back. And you’ve got to get out there.”

Venture nodded and Earnest said, “Let’s go. Don’t worry about all that. Just concentrate on that guy.” He nodded at his opponent, another fighter who was competing in his first Championship, bouncing up and down at the edge of the mat.