For a week since he arrived here, Dym could attest that the carnival grounds of Rudnicka Vale were no quieter at night than they had been during the day. If anything, they felt more crowded. Torchlight and hanging lanterns burned along the packed-earth lanes, turning canvas awnings gold from within and throwing long shadows that shifted constantly with the press of bodies moving past. Knights in half-loosened armor, merchants calling last sales, servants carrying platters, gamblers hunched over boards, foreign retainers in unfamiliar colors—everyone seemed to be awake, moving, celebrating. Music drifted somewhere between the tents, pipes and drums tangled with laughter and the dull roar of hundreds of voices layered together. The air smelled of roast meat, smoke, trampled grass, spilled ale, and too many people sharing too little space.
Throughout his wandering after the feast with Wladyslaw, he had been pulled from one knot of revelers to another—challenged to arm-wrestling contests by knights and lords alike who wanted to test the strength Wladyslaw had spent an hour praising. He had won them all, to loud approval and pounding shoulders, Wladyslaw most delighted of anyone.
Somewhere along the way, Dym had left Soap settled at a tavern tent they had found near the jousting grounds, the boy planted firmly at a bench to hold their place for the coming tourney crowds. Dym had pressed a few small coins into his palm before leaving, enough for cider if he wanted it, and told him not to move. Soap had taken the charge with seriousness. The memory sat steady and reassuring in the back of Dym's mind as he walked alone now.
Dym moved slowly through the flow of people without any real direction, letting the crowd carry him where it would. His stomach was full—fuller, for the first time in days, heavy in a way that still felt faintly unfamiliar after so much road hunger—and there was a lingering warmth in his limbs from the drinking contest he had somehow won. He could still hear Wladyslaw's voice in the back of his head: loud, delighted, telling anyone who would listen that the hedge knight had the pull of three oxen burdenbeasts and the throat of a river barrel. Dym had tried to laugh it off at the time, embarrassed by the attention, but the praise had settled somewhere deeper than he liked to admit. It had been a long while since anyone had celebrated him for anything.
That, more than the ale, was what lingered now.
But as he moved farther from the feast pavilions and into the busier lanes where armorers, cloth merchants, and weapon sellers kept late hours for tournament business, another thought kept returning, steady and unavoidable. The lists opened tomorrow. Wladyslaw had said it plainly between drinks, grinning through foam: Kazimierzan knight-lords would be unhorsing foreign challengers before sunset. The way he had said it—casual, certain, as if Dym's place among such men was only a matter of time—had planted something uncomfortable in Dym's chest. Because if he meant to stand among knights in truth, not just in name… then he needed to look like one.
And he did not.
He slowed near a stall where breastplates hung in rows, catching lanternlight in dull steel curves. The pieces were mismatched sizes, some polished bright, some scarred and darkened with use. Next to them lay helms, gauntlets, pauldrons, shields waiting for paint. Real equipment. A knight's own gear. Not borrowed, not inherited.
A personal gear.
By Kazimierz law, a knight should make his own devices. Ser Mlynar had told him that without softness, the way one states a boundary that cannot be crossed. A man might inherit a name, or spurs, or even a horse—but not the arms that marked him as himself. Those he must commission, buy, or earn on his own. They were proof he stood on his own feet in the order of Kazimierz's knighthood.
Which meant Ser Arlan's armor and arms were no longer truly his to use.
Dym knew he could cheat. The thought came easily, and that was what bothered him most. Arlan's maille, greaves, helmet, and gauntlets were too small for his larger body now, but the sword still fit his hand. The weight of it was familiar. It felt balanced. It was good, honest steel. No one would question a knight carrying his dead master's blade. No one would even know. He had already bent the rule once—letting the puppeteer repaint the old sigil on his shield instead of commissioning a new one entirely. A fresh device over old wood. Close enough to proper that most would never ask.
It would save his very limited fortune. A great deal of it.
He knew exactly how much coin he still carried. He had counted it more than once this past week, each time the pouch growing lighter. Most of it had been Arlan's savings, meant for their travel and living until his recent death. Dym had already drawn from it for food, clothes, oats and apples for the horses, and Soap's needs. What remained was… not much—but armor, weapons, and possible ransoms for his equipment and horses should he lose could swallow it frighteningly fast. And after that there was the parting gift Ser Don had pressed into his hand: coin meant to keep him and his squire secure for six months—three, should he spend it on new armor. That money felt different in his thoughts, heavier with the old knight's trust. Spending it on survival felt right. Spending it to fulfill his own duty as a knight… did not.
He exhaled slowly and moved on, leaving the armor stall behind.
Another possibility hovered at the edge of his mind, unwelcome but persistent. He could go back to Fremont. The Leithanien lord had offered patronage without pressure, without condition except to fulfill his debt to Ser Don. If Dym asked—truly asked—coin or equipment would likely be granted. Not as charity, but as investment. Fremont had been clear enough about that.
But the memory of the offer itself tightened something in Dym's chest. Service under a foreign lord. A foreign household. A foreign banner. Yet it would guarantee some semblance of safety, structure, certainty—for him, and for Soap. It was the sensible path. The stable one. The one most knights took without hesitation.
Even if he meant to make me a knight of Leithania, not Kazimierz.
And yet it still felt too soon. As if stepping into armor that had not been shaped to him yet.
He passed a weapons rack where swords, axes, maces, and other edged weapons lay bundled in oiled cloth, and his hand drifted unconsciously to the familiar hilt at his hip—the old blade he had not yet surrendered. He did not draw it. He did not need to. He knew every notch along its grip.
If I use it… screw the rules. No one would know.But if I don't… I may not afford another.
The thought sat there, gnawing stubbornly in his mind.
Dym walked on beneath the lanterns, the carnival noise swelling and fading around him, and found that the choice did not feel like a matter of coin at all. It felt like a question of who he was trying to become—and whether he was willing to take the slower road to get there.
He let out a quiet breath into the night air.
Taking things slow had never seemed harder.
He did not stop at just one smith.
The tourney lanes were lined with them—temporary forges and sale tents set up side by side, each glowing orange within from banked coals. Steel hung everywhere: breastplates on wooden frames, helms stacked in rows, blades laid out on cloth, polearms leaned in bundles against posts. Hammering rang out in steady bursts from behind some stalls where adjustments were still being made for last-minute buyers.
Dym drifted from one to the next, not entering at first, only looking.
Most of what he saw was finer than anything he had ever owned. Armor chased with etching along the edges. Helms crested with ridges shaped like wings or flames. Pauldrons engraved with vines, beasts, saints, suns. One cuirass bore a rising griffin picked out in brass inlay across the chest; another had its entire border worked in knot patterns so tight they looked woven. Even the plainest pieces carried decoration—fluted ridges, stamped rosettes, scalloped lames polished to mirror shine.
Good work. Skilled work.
But show work.
It all looked… expensive. Not only in coin, but in its expectation. Armor meant to be seen from the stands, to catch sunlight during a charge, to announce the wearer before he even spoke. Knights who bought such pieces did not haggle. They commissioned them.
Dym found himself lingering at the edges of stalls instead of stepping in. Once or twice a smith looked up from his bench or a merchant caught his eye with that quick measuring glance sellers used. Dym would nod politely, then move on before any greeting could become an offer.
He could not picture himself in any of it.
Too bright. Too carved. Too proud. As if the steel were trying to speak louder than the man inside it. The thought left him faintly irritated, though he could not have said exactly why. Perhaps because he knew such gear would suit the lists better than the battered plainness he carried now. Perhaps because wanting simpler things did not make them cheaper.
He did stop where the lances were displayed.
Those he needed. No knight could ride the tilt without one.
Bundles of ash and yew shafts lay on trestles, some raw, some painted, some tipped with blunt coronels already mounted. The lengths varied; so did the thickness. A few were wrapped at the grip in leather or cord. One merchant had them striped in alternating color bands for visibility in the charge. Another offered heavier tournament lances with reinforced cores and decorative pennons tied just below the head.
Dym lifted one carefully, feeling the balance.
It was longer than any spear he had carried on campaign. Built to shatter cleanly on impact rather than pierce. The weight sat forward, made for couched riding, not throwing. He could imagine it under his arm, braced against a shield rim, thundering toward another rider.
He set it back down.
"How much?" he asked.
The merchant named a price.
Dym's brows rose before he could stop them.
He had expected cost, of course. Good wood, proper mounting, tournament preparation. But the number still landed heavier than he liked. He asked at another stall, then another. The answers differed only slightly. Some higher. A few offered painted devices for extra coin. One suggested matched sets for multiple tilts.
It added up fast.
He thanked each seller and moved on, hands folding back into his belt as he walked. A lance was not optional. It was entry. Without it, there was no lists, no showing, no proving—no step forward at all.
And yet even that first step carried a price he had not fully measured until now.
By the time he drifted away from the last smith row, the earlier warmth of ale and praise had thinned. In its place sat a more practical weight: numbers, needs, choices. Armor. Weapons. Horse gear. Entry fees. Breakage. Loss.
Knighting oneself, it turned out, was an expensive undertaking.
Dym walked on beneath the lanterns, the carnival noise rolling around him, and felt again that same quiet pressure he had carried since leaving the feast—the sense that the road ahead was not blocked, not impossible… only costly, and entirely his to pay.
He had begun to accept that tonight would yield little beyond prices he could not pay and armor that did not feel meant for him. Then, in a quieter stretch between two brighter rows of stalls, he noticed a lone smith's setup set slightly apart from the others, as if it had no need of their company. No painted shields hung outside. No gilded plates flashed for attention. Only a rack of armor standing in plain order beside a low wagon, and a weapons trestle laid with pieces that looked built to be used rather than admired.
Something about it made him slow.
One suit in particular stood on a wooden stand near the wagon's wheel. Plate, full enough to count as proper harness but without ornament—no etching, no gilded edges, no enameled crests. The surfaces were smooth and honest, hammered to shape and polished only enough to keep rust at bay. The lines were clean and functional, shaped to deflect rather than display. Beside it rested a helmet and gorget matched in finish. The helm drew his eye at once.
It was a single-piece steel helmet shaped close around the head, its crown rising in a simple dome before sloping down into a narrow ridge along the back. The face opening was cut in a long T-shape—broad across the brow and descending straight over the nose to the upper lip—leaving the cheeks and jaw guarded by steel that curved inward along the sides of the face. No visor. No crest. No flaring wings or beast forms. Just a stark, purposeful mask of metal that framed the eyes in shadow and promised protection without pretense. It looked severe. Solid. Made for blows, not for show.
Dym felt a quiet pull in his chest as he studied it. This, he thought, looked like armor a man could grow into.
The weapons laid nearby matched the same philosophy. Spears with plain heads and ash shafts. Arming swords with straight crossguards and leather grips, no pommel jewels. Maces with flanged heads built to crush through plate. Even the daggers were simple rondels without carved hilts. Tools for fighting. Nothing else.
He let out a breath he had not realized he held. The lances can wait. Good armor cannot. Even if he did not ride the tilt, there was still the melee—and in truth, that was where he trusted himself most. Strength. Close work. Chaos. Ser Arlan had trained him for that kind of fighting from the beginning, and Ser Don had only sharpened what was already there. If he entered the melee well-armed and properly protected, he had a real chance to win coin or reputation—or at least not lose what little he owned.
He stepped toward the stall.
The smith sat at a broad worktable just beyond the armor stand, back half-turned, hammering lightly at some small fitting clamped in iron jaws. He was a large man by most standards, though still two heads shorter than Dym and smaller than the hedge knight, with a thick neck and shoulders that strained his sleeveless leather apron. His scalp was shaved bare except for a shadow of stubble, and from his temples rose a pair of heavy, forward-curving horns like those of a bull, their surfaces worn smooth with age and work. A dark bovine tail hung behind the stool, flicking once in absent rhythm as he worked. His beard was dense and black, spreading across his jaw and throat in a rough wedge.
Forte, Dym thought, recalling something Ser Don had once mentioned of such folk in his journey to... Minos? Yes. Forte.
He stopped a respectful distance from the table, eyes still moving over the racks and stands. If the man noticed him, he gave no sign.
Let's ask first, Dym decided. Perhaps trade is possible. Arlan's smaller armor might still hold value enough to ease the price.
"You do good work," Dym said at last, voice even as he let his gaze travel across the pieces.
The smith did not look up. "None better."
The answer came flat and certain, as if it required no defense.
Dym inclined his head slightly. "I need some armor on the morrow. Gorget, greaves, and great helm."
The hammer paused once against metal. The smith's voice came again, still turned toward his work. "You jousting, fighting, or working?"
Dym considered the question for a moment longer than it deserved. Both, perhaps. A hedge knight did not divide life so cleanly. This was all work now. The road. The lists. The blade. The earning of bread by strength and steel.
"Both, perhaps." he said.
The hammer set down. Slowly, the smith turned on his stool to look at him.
The eyes that met Dym's were dark and assessing, moving from boots to shoulders to height with the practiced measure of a man who built armor for bodies of all shapes. One brow lifted slightly.
"You're a big one," the smith said. "Though I've armored bigger."
He pushed back from the table and stood, leaning forward a fraction as if to confirm proportions by sight alone. Then he nodded once to himself.
"I have some pieces in the wagon that might do."
He stepped past Dym without ceremony and ducked into the wagon's shadowed interior, rummaging among stacked gear. His voice drifted out as he searched.
"Nothing prettied up with gold or silver, like."
He emerged with a helmet in one hand—the same style of helmet Dym had been studying. The smith hooked a knuckle against its side and flicked it with a finger. The steel rang low and tight, a solid note that spoke of thickness and temper.
"Just good steel. Strong and plain."
Without warning, he tossed it.
Dym caught it out of instinct, hands closing around the weight. It sat heavy but balanced in his grip. Close-fitted. Honest.
"I make helms that look like helms for any races," the smith went on as he returned to his stool and dropped back into place. "Not winged pigs, or pegasi lookalike, and fancy foreign fruit."
He settled again at his bench, tools in reach, eyes now on Dym with the faintest trace of challenge.
"But mine'll serve you better if you take a lance in the face."
Dym's heart settled into a hard, quiet certainty as he held the helmet in his hands. This is it, he thought. If he walked away now, he would circle the grounds all night and come back to the same place in the morning with less choice and more regret. Worse, he would return to Soap empty-handed, with nothing to show but hesitation. A knight who could not commit would teach his squire the same weakness.
He lifted his eyes to the smith. "That's all I want. How much?"
The smith rubbed his thumb along the edge of his beard, gaze drifting briefly over the harness on the stand as if tallying pieces in his head. "Eight hundred silver," he said at last. "For I'm feeling kindly."
Dym blinked. "Eight hundred?"
A flicker of disappointment crossed the smith's face—not anger, not insult, but the weary look of a craftsman who had named a fair price and heard disbelief too many times.
It was cheaper than anything else Dym had asked about that night. By far. And still far beyond reach.
He felt the numbers assemble in his mind the way they had when he and Soap had counted by lanternlight some nights ago. Ser Don's gift had come to two hundred eighty-three silver and a handful of copper—winnings scraped from months of small gambling among smallfolk and camp followers in inns they visited across their journey to Rudnicka Vale, steady enough to live on for half a year if spent carefully. Don had said armor would cut that to three months. The old knight had misjudged the markets of Rudnicka Vale; prices here were tournament-swollen and merciless. Made worse b the fact that many nations are also attending the tourney as well.
Even if Dym emptied the whole purse, he would still fall short. And then there would be nothing left for feed them and his horses, to buy food, repairs, and pay ransoms if things went ill.
His mind lurched toward the obvious answer: Fremont. The Leithanien lord could cover the difference without blinking. But the thought tightened his chest. Coin borrowed there would not be coin alone. It would be service, obligation, direction set by another man and his foreign banner. And Fremont was buried in his own affairs now. To appear now or any time too soon to ask for silver would sour what little standing Dym had earned, even if the lord was obliged to aid Dym as per his debts with Ser Don.
Or maybe…
Dym cleared his throat. "Perhaps I could trade you some armor made for a smaller man. A half-helm, a mail hauberk—"
"Branik Ironhand sells only his own work," the smith cut in, jerking a thumb toward the racks behind him.
The name landed with the firmness of iron. The gesture said the rest. No resale. No patchwork bargains.
Dym fell silent. He lowered his gaze to the helmet once more, tracing the smooth line of its brow ridge with his thumb. It was good. Truly good. He set it gently on the table beside him, fingers lingering a moment before letting go. "It is fine work," he said, managing a small, honest smile. Then he turned to leave.
Behind him came a sigh—heavy, reluctant. "I could make use of the metal."
Dym stopped mid-step.
"If it's not too rusted," Branik Ironhand went on, voice gruffer now as if annoyed at his own concession, "I'll take it and armor you for… six hundred. Usually I'd go lower for a man smaller than you. But you're a big Kuranta. So I'll have to price you as I price my Forte customers."
Hope flared and faltered in the same breath. Six hundred was closer. He needs to find a way to cover the rest of it.
Dym turned back slowly. "I only have two silvers." He reached into his belt pouch and drew out two worn coins. It was true—he had left the larger purse back at camp with Soap and the gear. What he carried now was little more than pocket change.
Branik took the coins without ceremony, weighing them once in his palm before tucking them away. "Buys you a day," he said. "Send your squire along with the rest, or I'll sell my wares to the next man."
Relief rushed through Dym so sharply it almost made him sway. He dipped his head. "You'll get it all back, I swear it. I mean to be a champion here."
The smith looked at him for a long moment, expression flat with the patience of a man who had heard that vow from a hundred hopeful mouths. "Do you, now? And the others all came just… to cheer you on?"
Dym hesitated, caught by the question's edge. He searched for something truer than bravado and found only what he had always carried. "No," he said slowly. "They came for their own names. Their own purses. Same as me. I just… mean to stand among them. And not be the worst of them."
Branik Ironhand's shoulders sank a fraction. The hardness in his eyes eased into something nearer to pity than scorn. He shook his head once, beard shifting against his chest.
"Careful what you wish for, Ser Knight," he said quietly.