Fights, games, fights, drinks, food, and fights. Khulstro had it all.

Just the sight of it filled Nori with excitement. Located in the heart of Khaldeer, Khulstro was a large, rectangular building with the toothy walls of a castle and a dozen tribal banners flying from its battlements. A rudimentary moat surrounded the castle, not large enough to stop passage, but just large enough for a drunk person to stumble down and get stuck in. Picea led the students to the fake guard at the entrance of the drawbridge.

"Don't let him see me," Shiso whispered as she tried to hide behind Hawthorn. She had told the people at the Urokan Embassy that she was going to the Monastery—she did not think they'd let her go so far north.

"It's fine, Sheesee," he said. "He's a Khalyan. Urokans never come up here."

"You never know. Maybe he—"

"Kyrjha," the guard said with great reverence, bowing his head before Picea. "Please, please, go in. No charge. It's an honor to have you tonight."

Shiso pushed past Barley and Sutton before the guard could change his mind. Inside, long terraced rows of benches and tall, narrow tables made an indoor arena. The place stunk of sweat, yak dung, stale beer, and stale air. People stumbled over themselves in the dimly lit stands. The seats were too small, the tables too high. But everyone buzzed with excitement.

At Picea's insistence, they arrived early to get the row closest to the packed-dirt arena floor. Picea sat at the end of the row, yanking Sutton to sit down next to her. Then Nori sat, then Blanche, then Barley tried to, but Blanche insisted that Archie sit next to her, so it was Archie, then Barley. They were all unified in forcing Hawthorn and Shiso at the end of the row with their nauseating public displays of affection.

Nori looked around as the crowd filled in. Their bustling excitement made her spirit levitate. She couldn't remember the last time she had so little on her mind. How freeing it was. She felt like a teenager again.

Short, skinny men in gambesons entered the arena with their yaks and long hammers. Nori noted the emblems on their chests—a great tree, a trireme sailing in front of a setting sun, a massive hawk flying with a goat in its claws. She was glad to not see the antlers of a stag.

"Hey hey, Picea!" a gangly blonde man called across the row as he set a tray of waters down in front of Hawthorn. "You fighting today?"

"Noooo, nooo!" she yelled back over the loud crowd, causing Sutton to shrink down like a frightened mouse. "I'm here as a Head Chef. Showing these kids a good time. Gotta be responsible, you know?"

"That's a shame. A damn shame." The server pulled waters off the tray and set them in front of Hawthorn and Shiso.

"Wait!" Picea yelled. "Are those waters? Take 'em back! Bring three pitchers of chyang! And some goat cheese!"

Archie leaned over to Barley. "Chyang?"

"Beer made from fermented barley," he answered.

"Fermented barley!" Hawthorn shouted, having already been infected by the energy of Khulstro. He grabbed Barley around the shoulders. "That's what we call this one after a day of sweating!"

Barley shook his head as Hawthorn roared with laughter. Archie laughed with him, then Blanche joined in as well, leaning over Archie's place on the table to be a part of their conversation.

"I'm going to miss you, Hawthorn!" she shouted.

"Of course you are!" he yelled back.

"But I won't miss the cold! Next summer, I'm going to a beach!"

"We have beaches!" Shiso yelled.

Blanche elbowed Archie's ribs. "Want to go to Uroko next summer?"

Archie squinched one side of his face and looked at Nori. "I dunno. I can't think that far out. I'm just excited to get back to Sain and then get back to the Academy."

"And the greenhouse!" Blanche cried. "Oh, I miss my babies."

Nori thought about what she was most excited for. Aside from putting distance between herself and her family, she could think of nothing in particular. But that nothing excited her. The next year was wide open with possibilities.

"And you know who else I miss?" Blanche continued. "Oliver. When we get back, you should take me to Lifted Spirits. We can get some—"

"Driiiiiiiiiinks!" Hawthorn yelled as the waiter set down several pitchers.

"Driiiiiiiiiinks!" Picea echoed from the other end of the row.

They formed a chain, the server handing pitchers to Hawthorn who handed them to Barley who kept it going until everyone had a full mug of beige liquid.

"Cheers!" Picea yelled.

By the time Nori brought her mug to her mouth, Picea had already downed hers. The drink smelled of sweets and bread.

"Mmmm, I love sweet drinks," Blanche mused as she sipped.

Picea yelled for the students to refill their cups, Hawthorn echoing her from the other end, surrounding them all in chants to drink. By the time the first event began, Nori swayed, her vision swaying extra. Blanche hugged Nori's arm and made sure Nori's cup was never empty.

In the arena, a chaotic game of yak polo unfolded. Two teams, three riders to a team, tried desperately to control their yaks and swung long hammers at a ball. Occasionally, they'd string together a few successful hits and get the ball to the opposing goal. But most of the time, they just spun around in circles as the unruly yaks failed to heed any direction. The crowd cheered just as loudly for both.

Nori vowed to herself that she wouldn't get too drunk. She had a tight schedule the next day. In the morning, she'd be going with Sutton and Sauter down to the docks to fit barnacle boards on more ships. In the afternoon, she'd be going around the orphanages and soup kitchens to teach how to prepare barnacles.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

But when she thought about Sauter, she imagined him with a drink in hand. And if he could do it, why shouldn't she? She chugged her chyang and roared as a yak threw off its rider.

After the yak polo came a theatrical rendition of Ulgar, a uniquely Khalyan myth about the first god of the world, Ulgar, who lived on a world of featureless black stone and had hair that brushed the sun and caught fire. When he died, he fell to the earth, his flesh becoming the land and his blood becoming the sea. His hair burnt down to dust, and in that dust, life formed.

They were served steak and red wine as they watched the play. Picea made sure they drank. Nori preferred the wine to the chyang and was happy to oblige. The food settled her belly, allowing her to fully enjoy the splendor of drunkenness.

At the end of the play, musicians with drums and trumpets and lutes walked into the center of the arena and played an energetic ditty. Blanche pulled Nori to her feet and started dancing. Picea lifted Sutton's arms and worked him like a marionette. Hawthorn and Shiso danced in a close embrace. Archie tried to pull Barley up, but the Khalyan just sat back in a drunken stupor with a big grin on his face.

The finer details of the night started to fade away from Nori, replaced by abstracts and feelings. Things scrambled into an unchronological mess. She drank, and the pitcher started to get low, but then it was full. Fighters came out onto the arena and took each other one-on-one, but as soon as the fight looked like it was ending, another fight was just beginning.

Nori rediscovered her drink every ten minutes, cheering at its apparent return. Hawthorn roared at the fighters, egging them on to commit greater and greater acts of violence. Blanche found herself in a permanent sway, ricocheting back and forth off of Archie and Nori. Picea and Sutton whispered to each other, hatching some scheme.

"Nori, you're on money duty," he slurred sometime before the third fight and after his sixth mug. He stood on the bench and faced the crowd behind him.

"Who's ready to make some money?" he yelled at the crowd. "Taking bets on the Opplond-Gualadant fight! Opplond favored three-to-two! One silver minimum bet, two copper commission!"

Handfuls of silver coins were passed down the rows and into Nori's hands, which never failed to take their portion. Picea fed information on the fighters to Sutton, always making sure they had the edge. With money on the line, the crowd grew even more alive, their energy spurring the fighters on to reckless acts of bravado.

While most of their gambling enterprise's profits went into Nori's pockets, a large portion went to their server. He brought yak sausage, black bread, and more and more chyang. But as the betting commissions stacked up, Sutton grew tired of their "peasant meals."

"You there!" Sutton shouted with a noble accent as he pointed down from his chair at the server. Nori had to grab his legs to stabilize him. "This is still a restaurant, is it not? What is your finest dish?"

"Yes, m'lord!" the server replied, perhaps playing along, but perhaps fearful that he might offend someone of nobility. "Our Executive Chef can prepare qinkel to order."

"How much?"

"Two shells per silver."

"Ah, a fair price," Sutton said with a nod. He snatched a handful of air under his raised chin. "We'll have two each."

"Oh, not for me," Picea said as she tugged Sutton's jacket. With Sutton standing on the bench, they stood nearly shoulder-to-shoulder.

"Fourteen, then!" Sutton motioned to Nori. "My steward will handle the payment."

Nori glared up at him.

"What's qinkel?" Blanche asked Archie softly. He shrugged. "What's qinkel?" she repeated louder to Sutton.

Sutton frowned down at her, retaining his mock nobleness. "I haven't the faintest clue."

Picea leaned over and whispered in Sutton's ear. "For the next fight, the fighter from Yedisan is drunk and short-armed. Give him awful odds and then close off the betting before they see him sway."

Sutton stripped the velvet from his voice, replacing it with the gnarly growl of a drunk. "Who wants to get the betting going on the next fight?!"

As the crowd roared, Blanche leaned over Archie. "Hawthorn!" she yelled. "What's qinkel?"

Hawthorn never took his eyes off the fights. "Just wait and see!"

By the time the server returned, Nori had forgotten about the order entirely. The server squeezed behind their table, handing out two snail shells and a bamboo toothpick for each of them.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Qinkel!"

Blanche's mouth stretched wide with silent shock. She grabbed Archie's jacket with one fist and Nori's with the other. "Snails!" she blurted. "I hate snails!"

"Oh, I'm not eating that," Nori said as she pushed the shells away.

Archie leaned over the table and laughed at the girls. "Oh come on, one of you has to try it."

"Oh, I'm gonna eat them," Blanche assured him.

"Even though you hate them?"

"I eat them because I hate them!" Blanche declared as she stabbed her toothpick into the shell and yanked out a little chunk of brown meat. "They eat my plants, so I eat them!"

Archie laughed and Nori watched in horror as Blanche swallowed the snail meat. They waited in anticipation of her verdict.

"Mmm! Nice!" she decided. "It's a little mushroomy. That kinda…firm chewiness. Nutty, a little sweet, a little salty."

"Not for me," Nori said.

Sutton appeared from behind Nori, having jumped down from his bench. His little hands scrambled around the table as he rolled Nori's snails back toward him.

"These are delicious!" he yelled at them. "These are delicious!" he yelled again at the server. "How are these made?"

"They feed barley and milk to the snails then cook them."

"Archie!" Sutton yelled. "Archie, write that down! I want to make them when I get home! Hey, Archie! Are you eating yours?"

Archie shielded his snails with his arm as Sutton lunged across the table. Nori pushed Sutton back into place. Archie held one snail just out of reach of Sutton, taunting him. With his other hand, Archie picked out the snail meat of his other shell and ate it. "Delicious!" he yelled, even though his expression didn't support the claim.

As the students pushed and shoved each other around, twenty fighters came back out into the arena for the grand finale—a free-for-all melee. Unarmored and unarmed, they picked their foes carefully and wrestled each other into submission.

"Hey!" Picea yelled down the row at the other students, struggling to be heard over the roaring crowd. Nori looked down at Hawthorn, who hadn't heard Picea. Picea sighed and vaulted over the partition and into the arena. She walked along the edge to be in front of the students.

"Hey!" she yelled at them as she banged the partition with her hand.

"Listen up!" Sutton shouted at them.

"I just want to say it was a privilege to have you all in the Monastery this summer. Even in such a short time, I've seen you all grow. And I want to see you all back here! I'm sure you'll all accomplish great thi—"

A fighter tackled Picea, taking her to the ground. She used her momentum to roll back up to her feet. She stood straight up and yelled at the man. "I'm not in the melee you—"

The man rose, hunched over and ready to launch himself again.

Picea couldn't stop herself from smirking. "You know what? Let's do it."

She crouched down. The man threw himself at her, but she rolled him over her shoulder and made him faceplant in the dirt. She roared as she body slammed him.

"Yeeeeeeeeah!" Sutton cheered.

"Take his head off!" Blanche screamed. Nori flinched at the bloodthirsty cry.

The man tapped the ground to indicate his surrender. Picea stood up to a cheer from the crowd behind her.

"Chyang!" she yelled at Sutton, sticking her hand out. He put a mug in her hand. She threw it on the ground. "Pitcher!"

Sutton leaned over the table, using both hands to extend the pitcher to Picea. She took it and chugged, using her spare hand to tell the crowd to raise the volume. She emptied the pitcher in one pull and threw it to the dirt.

"Graaaaaah!" Picea roared, breaking through the noise of the crowd. The fighters recognized the new combatant and scattered in fear as she charged into them.

With the ferocity of a bear and the grace of a river, she dismantled the competition. She swiped the legs out of one fighter and stood on his chest while grabbing the arms of another fighter. She swung her weight around and threw the new fighter on top of the already prone fighter, then started stepping on them to keep them down as she looked for new prey.

One by one, she stacked up the defeated fighters into a big dogpile. Finally, only one fighter remained, a burly man even larger than Picea. But that didn't stop her from grabbing him, flipping him over her shoulders, and then extending her arms to hold him high above her head.

"No one's better than Picea!" she yelled as she threw the beaten man with the others.

Everyone in Khulstro, the students most of all, went crazy.

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