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The first thing Harper did was throw the dagger at him, which took Marius by complete surprise. It was a good throw, the dagger seemed quite well balanced for an implement made of cold wrought iron, and it was aimed squarely at Marius’ torso. Supposedly there were duelists in the world who could deflect arrows and daggers with their blades. If those stories were true, Marius envied them. He’d never had the courage to practice such reckless stunts, much less employ them in the real world.

He wasn’t sure how sharp the dagger’s tip was, iron being notoriously hard to sharpen, but it was iron and that was bad enough. So Marius was forced to throw himself to one side of the hallway to avoid the projectile. However, that proved to be exactly what Harper had wanted to happen because the pinewood wall he landed against immediately erupted with flames, driving him away. Marius beat at his jacket, brushing the embers off it, marveling at how willing Harper was to burn his own house just to win the fight.

In fact the firespinner seemed determined to end things with nothing beyond his own magic. Although he continued to hold his messer on guard, Harper did not close the distance. Instead the point of his sword wove back and forth, sending the curtain of fire jumping about the hallway and setting the walls and floor around Marius aflame. From the look in Harper’s eyes, Marius knew the circle of fire was meant as his grave.

There was no point trying to husband his strength for a successful escape at this point, Oakheart Manor had transformed into a deathtrap and just escaping would take some doing. Marius felt himself grinning, finally warming up to the work at hand. It was so rare to find someone who really knew what they were doing.

The wall was on fire and it had started burning far faster than was natural, so Marius began with the assumption that it had weakened far faster than normal as well. Gritting his teeth, he lifted one leg and kicked against the wall as hard as he could. As he’d hoped, the wall caved in easily, scattering sparks and embers everywhere, and his foot passed through to slam into a solid wooden wall on the other side of the frame.

A moment later the ring of fire Harper had built around him constricted, smothering him in unbelievable heat. With no time to ponder why the whole wall wasn’t burning, Marius slammed shoulder first into the battered section of wall, arms over his face, crashing through the burning barrier on one side and solid boards on the other. Along the way his body caught painfully on a remarkably sturdy object.

When he tumbled through the wall and into the dining room he had to pause long enough to rip off his burning jacket. In the process he caught a glimpse of the wall and finally understood what Harper had done.

On his first visit to Oakheart Manor Marius had figured the dark yellow pinewood that lined the room where Harper met him was some kind of veiled threat. A coffin for the unwary. His subconscious had noticed it everywhere else as he saw more of the house. But it was only now, as he watched the soft wooden boards lining the walls burn without damaging the pale hardwood frames that supported the house, that Marius truly appreciated why the Manor was named the way it was.

Roy Harper had not just built a house to enjoy when his life of professional violence was over. He had built a manse, designed from the very beginning to cater to his personal abilities in a way that even savvy invaders wouldn’t understand until it was too late. The one great weakness of abilities that manipulated fire was that they needed an open flame to manipulate. Someone who planned to use such powers a lot required an equal amount of stored magic or a great deal of fuel, both things that were difficult to find at the drop of a hat and easy to spot from a distance when stockpiled.

Yet Harper had hidden his fuel in plain sight by lining his walls with it. It must require incredible control to burn the soft planks on the walls but leave the hardwood untouched but that was the only explanation for it Marius could think of. It was an impressive feat.

And that feat was still ongoing. There was a large, plate glass window in the dining room and Marius made directly for it. Now that he understood the secret of Oakheart Manor he could spare even less time for care in his escape. He scooped up a chair one handed and put it through the window then leapt out onto the side of the bluff.

Ten steps later, as Marius fished his spell tiles out of his pocket once more, the wall of the house turned a deep, molten red then fell apart into ashes and embers. Harper strode out between the oak beams, a veritable tidal wave of flames following behind him. In spite of the incredible wave of heat that washed out of the house as he did so, not a single tongue of fire brushed against one of the hardwood pillars. The fire split into streams and flowed around them rather than anger its master.

The power was impressive, but nothing compared to what slept in the earth. The discipline needed to command it so perfectly was another matter entirely and Marius quietly moved the firespinner a notch higher in his ranking of skilled magicians he’d encountered.

As a wave of heat washed over Marius the solid plates of his bedrock elemental rose out of the ground once more, folding around him in a defensive posture. Unfortunately, Harper’s weapon of choice was fire and that was a far swifter offense than his stone could defend against. Running on foot was out of the question. With his elemental wounded by Harper’s wards he doubted it could sink him into the earth before the flames killed him, either.

That left a preemptive strike as Marius’ only option.

So he charged forward, pushing the elemental’s plates in front of him. Three plates formed a wall about twelve feet long and eight feet high and the fourth reinforced the center, rumbling forward like an avalanche that had learned to slide uphill. Three flaming orbs, each the size of a large dog, flew around the wall. One came around from each side of the elemental and the third looped over the top, neatly boxing him in, but Marius didn’t let that slow him.

Harper’s power and control made a side strike a natural solution but the line of the attack was too long. Marius was confident his thrust would connect first.

Or he was until a sudden whirlwind whipped across the bluff and his elemental slammed into a wall of howling ice. Cold whipped around his legs while a huge backdraft swept up from behind him, broiling the back of his neck. Surrounded by danger, Marius stuck to his guns, gambling that it was more dangerous to stay put or turn back than it was to go forward. 

Besides, he had the wind at his back.

So the duelist leaped upward, grabbing the edge of a stone plate and using it to lever himself upwards, feet kicking against the elemental’s side as he scrambled over it. As he vaulted over top a wave of bitter cold sucked the air from his lungs. It felt like some titanic creature had opened its mouth and inhaled all the warmth from the hillside leaving Marius in the grip of a winter whirlwind pulling him towards the ground. A lesser man might have gotten caught in it and slammed into the earth before he was ready.

But Marius wasn’t any ordinary mercenary. He braced one hand against the top of the stone just long enough to slow his fall and get his legs under him. His left arm came away from the surface completely numb but he landed on his feet, rapier at the ready.

Behind him three explosions backlit the elemental’s bulk like temporary suns. A blast of heat followed and the bulk of Marius’ elemental cracked with a teeth rattling noise, reducing the creature’s animated form to so much loose rock. The tiles in Marius’ hand bucked and twitched as the elemental spirit withdrew. He wouldn’t be able to call on it again without another hour or two of work which made it effectively useless now.

Shattering the bedrock wasn’t the only result of the explosions. They also melted the ice into a cold, clinging mist that surrounded him in cold and damp. For a brief moment Marius thought he heard his father’s voice calling his name, even though Tiberio Menendez had been dead for years. Bewildered, Marius relaxed his vigilance for just a moment, a sudden confusion deadening his senses.

Then the ongoing rush of air from the explosion whipped the mists away and replaced them with Roy Harper, who was aiming a cut at Marius’ left arm. It was already numb from its brush with the ice and when he tried to yank it out of the way the movement was too slow. The firespinner’s blade landed unevenly, opening only a small cut there, but the impact was enough to jar his lithomancy tiles out of his hand. They went clattering into the wreckage of the elemental where it was impossible to pick them out in the dark.

Marius scrambled back, his guard raised once more, and worked the point of his rapier as he he glared at his opponent. In spite of his annoyance he found himself grinning. “Touche, Harper. Touche. The stories don’t do you justice.”

The other man snorted, annoyance clear on his face. “I never thought I would burn out half the house and someone would laugh about it afterward.”

“If you find that a surprise let me show you another!” Marius started to work his leading foot towards his opponent but Harper withdrew two paces and let the point of his own blade drop a few inches, digging in a pocket with his off hand. Curious, the duelist stopped his own advance to see what he was doing. It didn’t seem hostile.

Then the firespinner held up a single silver coin and he understood. “I’d give one to you and one to me so far,” Harper said. “What say we settle the last round properly?”