The First Champion

by Sandell Wall

  Lacrael jumped sideways to avoid being struck by the heavy door. Elise charged into the room, sword held tight at her side and ready to stab. Lacrael knew immediately that they had made a mistake. Elise did not come to arrest—she came to kill.

  Elise ignored Gustavus. She stepped into the room, pivoted to her left, and thrust hard with her sword. It happened so fast. Elise did not know Niad was there—she anticipated the threat. The blade pierced Niad’s chest, and the weight of Elise’s thrust drove it clear out Niad’s back.

  Gustavus roared in fury. Lacrael rushed forward, dagger raised, looking for an opportunity. In one smooth motion, Elise ripped her sword out of Niad’s body and slashed behind her. Lacrael twisted violently to avoid the bloody blade. She lost her balance and went careening towards the bed.

  Elise had donned her helm, and the polished steel protected her from Gustavus’s brutal attack. His crude club splintered against her armored skull. She turned the narrow eye-slits of her helmet on him. Discarding his ruined weapon, Gustavus grabbed the wrist of Elise’s sword-arm in his huge hand and grappled with the tomb keeper.

  Catching herself on the bed, Lacrael found herself face-to-face with Tarathine. The girl stared up at Lacrael with her feral eyes, but something in Tarathine’s gaze spoke to Lacrael. There was some part of the old Tarathine in there, and she wanted to help. She wanted to fight.

  Without thinking twice, Lacrael slashed the bonds that held Tarathine.

  Tarathine hurled herself from the bed and straight at the tomb keeper. In his weakened state, Gustavus could not hold her long, and Elise had overpowered him. He was on his knees, about to succumb to Elise’s killing strike, when Tarathine’s terrible wail caused Elise to glance up.

  Elise tried to get her hands up to block Tarathine, but she was too slow. The girl swarmed over her, a flurry of limbs and clawing fingers. Lacrael chased close behind Tarathine, looking for an opening through which she could stab at Elise.

  Tarathine climbed Elise like a tree. She clambered up Elise’s back, hooked her legs around the armored torso, and started to twist at the tomb keeper’s helmet. Elise staggered backward. Tarathine gnashed her teeth as she wrenched the helmet left and right.

  Swinging wildly, Elise’s sword clattered against the stone wall. Gustavus was on his feet again, and he danced backwards to avoid the reckless swings. With a cry of triumph, Tarathine finally tore the helmet free. Elise gave up trying to fling the girl away. Instead, she began to slam her back into the wall, each blow cracking Tarathine’s skull against the stone.

  Stunned, Tarathine tried to hold on, but the assault was too much. She lost her grip and dropped to the floor. While Elise was distracted, Lacrael snatched up the club Niad had lost. Dagger in her right hand, cudgel in her left, Lacrael leapt forward.

  Elise raised her sword, aiming to plunge it down into Tarathine’s back. Lacrael struck with her club. The table leg caught Elise in the side of the face and spun her around. Snarling, Elise brought her sword up to slash at Lacrael, but Lacrael was inside the tomb keeper’s swing. In the close quarters fighting of the cramped room, the dagger was the deadlier weapon.

  Lacrael stabbed at Elise’s chest—the dagger only scratched the tomb keeper’s armor. She tried to bludgeon Elise’s head again, but the other woman expected it this time. Elise caught the club in a gauntleted hand and twisted it from Lacrael’s grip. Lacrael was quickly losing the tiny advantage Tarathine had won her.

  Elise saw it too. Any second, Lacrael would be forced to retreat, and then Elise could bring her sword to bear again. Both of them had forgotten about Gustavus. He came plowing in from Lacrael’s left, wielding the broken table like a battering ram. With his shoulder behind the plank of wood, he drove Elise hard into the wall. Her exposed skull bounced off the stone.

  “Come on!” Gustavus shouted. “Finish her!”

  Lacrael jumped to Gustavus’s side. Elise was pinned to the wall. Only her shoulders and head were visible above the table. Elise saw her death coming, and she spat at Lacrael.

  “Do your worst, forsaken bitch,” Elise snarled.

  Lacrael stabbed the dagger into Elise’s naked throat and jerked it sideways. Elise gurgled as blood gushed around the blade and from her mouth. Gustavus held her up until he was sure she was dead. When he stepped away with the table, Elise fell to the floor in a heap.

  Gustavus dropped the table and sank to the floor next to Niad’s body. Blood had stopped pumping from the ragged hole in her chest. Even before Gustavus confirmed it, Lacrael knew—Niad was dead. Lacrael stared down at Niad’s pale face in shock.

  Tarathine lay on the floor, curled up in a ball. The back of her head was wet with blood where it had struck the wall. Lacrael looked down at the dagger in her hand. Elise’s lifeblood glistened on the blade. The tomb keeper had been killed with her own dagger.

  Lacrael’s thoughts were sluggish. She wanted to collapse to the floor and cry, but something demanded her attention. What was it? She looked around. The door was still wide open. Slowly, the anxiety she felt coalesced into a coherent thought. They had made a terrible racket, and someone was bound to come looking.

  There was only one way to hide what had happened. Lacrael tossed the dagger aside and began to strip. When she was down to her undergarments, she turned her attention to Elise. The tomb keeper proved heavy and unwieldy in death. Lacrael struggled to turn the body over to reach the clasps of the armor on the back.

  “I need your help,” Lacrael said to Gustavus’s back.

  Gustavus did not move. He had Niad’s head cradled on his lap.

  “Gustavus!” Lacrael said, almost shouting. “Niad didn’t die just so we’d get caught. Help me strip this armor, or we’ll never make it out of here alive.”

  Invoking Niad’s name got the reaction Lacrael had hoped for. Gustavus gently sat Niad’s head on the floor and moved to help Lacrael. Together, they worked down Elise’s corpse, unlatching armor and pulling it off.

  As each piece came off, Lacrael strapped it on. When the breastplate came away, she did her best to scrub the blood from it. It was impossible to get completely clean, but Lacrael hoped no one would get close enough to take a careful look. She gave Elise’s sword the same treatment, trying not to think about the fact that the gore she wiped off was Niad’s. When the sword was clean, Lacrael collected the discarded dagger from the floor.

  Finally, Lacrael stood above Elise’s naked body, clad in the tomb keeper’s armor. It was not a bad fit. The slightly dented helmet lay on the floor, and Lacrael regarded it for a few seconds. It would be a convenient way to hide her face, but to don the helmet within the city would look too suspicious. To complete the outfit, she slung the leather backpack over her shoulders. She hoped the pack contained the gear she needed to survive in the miasma outside the city. Lacrael adjusted the piece of cloth around her arm. She wanted to make sure the House Riggor emblem was prominent and unmistakable.

  Gustavus returned to Niad’s side without ever saying a word. Lacrael wanted to comfort him, wanted to mourn with him, but now was not the time. She stepped from the room and closed the door behind her. After uttering a silent prayer of thanks that no one had come looking before she was ready, Lacrael took up position in the hallway.

  Sure enough, only a few moments later, a pair of tomb keepers appeared at the top of the stairs to investigate the disturbance. They hesitated when they saw Lacrael. She tried to look aloof, but in truth, her heart was racing. Lacrael’s only hope was that they would only see House Riggor’s reputation and not look too closely at her.

  The tomb keepers stopped several paces from Lacrael. One of them, obviously the most senior, took a step forward and addressed her.

  “People reported what sounded like a fight coming from this room,” the tomb keeper said.

  “House Riggor business,” Lacrael said. “I apologize for the disturbance. It’s under control now.”

  The tomb keeper did not seem surprised or bothered by this explanation. She sighed and re
sted a hand on the hilt of her sword.

  “See that it doesn’t happen again,” the woman said.

  “It won’t,” Lacrael said.

  This seemed to satisfy the tomb keeper, and she and her partner left Lacrael at her post outside the door. Lacrael did not breathe easier until they had entered the stairwell and passed out of sight. When they had gone, her legs almost gave out beneath her.

  Lacrael was going to be sick. She rushed back into the room and grabbed an empty washing bucket. Her stomach clenched itself into a burning knot, and she sank to her knees as she wretched. When the convulsions ceased, Lacrael raised her head and wiped the bile from her lips with the back of her hand.

  Gustavus still had not moved.

  “I have to leave you and find a way outside the city,” Lacrael said. Her voice sounded ragged to her own ears. “Sorrell should be back soon. Will the two of you be able to handle Tarathine until I return?”

  “She was the best first mate I ever had,” Gustavus said. He caressed Niad’s cheek, pushing a strand of her red hair back in place behind her head covering. “She loved the sea even more than I did.”

  “And she was one of my closest friends,” Lacrael said. “But I can’t mourn her right now. I’ll grieve when we’re safe. I need to know I can count on you until then.”

  Gustavus finally looked up. His cheeks were wet with tears.

  “Aye, I’ll watch over the child,” Gustavus said.

  “I’ll meet the three of you at the portal,” Lacrael said. “You’ll have to guide them. You’re the only one that knows the way. And tell Sorrell I’m sorry I couldn’t wait for her.”

  Gustavus nodded.

  Lacrael moved to where Tarathine lay on the floor. She knelt next to the girl and placed a hand on Tarathine’s back. Tarathine flinched and curled tighter in on herself. The injury on the back of the girl’s head looked superficial.

  “I don’t think you’ll need to bind her again,” Lacrael said. “She’s coming back to herself.”

  “I saw what she did,” Gustavus said. “We’d all be dead if she hadn’t leapt in.”

  With a heavy heart, Lacrael walked to the door. She hesitated with her hand on the handle. The little room looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood covered the floor, and the two corpses were already going cold. Lacrael hated this place. This entire realm was nothing but a glorified graveyard. As distasteful as the thought of allying with him was, she hoped that Mazareem was right about their plan.

  Because if he was, what Lacrael was about to do would bring the Palacostian Empire to its knees.

  Chapter 49

  KAISER SAT NEXT TO the iron-barred window and stared at the arena floor below. The evening sun was setting, and the colosseum was almost completely shrouded in shadow. They had arrived in the early morning, been ushered into this cell along with fifty other fighters, and then left alone for the rest of the day.

  The waiting was getting to Brant. The big man was wearing a path on the floor with his incessant pacing. He had been badgering Kaiser with questions for hours until Kaiser had finally asked Brant for some peace.

  In contrast to Brant, Kaiser felt relaxed. This was a routine he knew, a rhythm that he was intimately familiar with. He had lost count how many times he had fought for his life before a screaming crowd, but he knew it was well into the hundreds.

  The easiest advantage one could grasp was to keep a clear head. Too many inexperienced fighters worked themselves into a state where the turmoil of their thoughts made them sluggish, and as soon as the gates opened, they were the first to spill their blood onto the sand.

  Kaiser scanned the room, taking stock of the other fighters. They were a mixture of novices and veterans. As his shrewd gaze passed over each man, Kaiser identified those who would survive and those he expected to fall early. He was already formulating a strategy in his head. If he could convince half of these men to follow his lead tomorrow, they all stood a better chance of walking out of here alive.

  He was surprised to find the swordsman from the camp here. Kaiser had thought the man too experienced to be fighting in the arena in a mock battle. His talents were better suited for single combat, which would no doubt produce a different sort of spectacle for the crowd. But here the man was, preparing to venture out onto the sand with the rest of them.

  The arena itself was like none Kaiser had ever seen. From his vantage point, he looked out over the entire combat area. The colosseum was built in a semicircle right up against the abyss that surrounded the city’s central castle.

  This half circle was devoted to row upon row of towering seats that Kaiser guessed could hold at least twenty thousand people. These stands were built right up to the edge of the chasm, and the arena floor vanished over that same cliff. It produced the illusion of a waterfall of sand flowing out into empty space. Kaiser wondered how many fighters had plummeted to their deaths over that drop.

  The combat area was divided down the center by a stone platform that ran perpendicular to the abyss. It ran from the entrance of the colosseum all the way to the edge of the great chasm. Kaiser could not be sure from where he sat, but it looked like the platform jutted out over the pit. This stone traverse was supported by arches that bounded across the sand of the arena floor. These arches created short tunnels that certainly must draw the attention of cowards seeking a defensible position on the killing floor of the arena.

  Kaiser marked these alcoves. There was no way the architect of the colosseum would allow such easily defensible positions to exist on purpose. The crowd would be irate if most of the killing happened out of sight. That meant those tunnels must contain some sort of trap designed to flush the fighters out into the open.

  Movement on the edge of Kaiser’s vision drew his attention, and he turned his gaze towards the entrance of the arena. Someone had thrown open the colosseum gates and was coming down the arched stone walkway that spanned the sandy floor. It took Kaiser a few seconds of confusion to understand the bizarre scene. The most sense that his mind could make of the sight was that it was a body being supported by a tangled mess of living ribbon, followed by a naked woman who seemed to control the animated fabric.

  When they slipped through a shaft of sunlight, Kaiser leaned forward, intently focused on the scene in front of him. The pale, inert body was unmistakable—it was Mazareem. The woman walking behind must be Morricant. She stalked to the end of the platform, up to the very edge of the pit, and dangled Mazareem over the drop. Mazareem looked dead, but Kaiser guessed he must be conscious, because Morricant was speaking to him.

  Something passed between them, and Morricant turned away from the chasm. With a flick of her hands, she directed the ribbons to pull an object up out of the stone platform. In response to her command, two wooden posts were drawn up out of the floor and locked into place. Rope loops hung limp from these posts. The ribbons holding Mazareem lifted him and positioned his arms so that they were level with the rope restraints.

  Morricant stepped near to Mazareem. Her body language seemed strange to Kaiser. These two had some sort of history. Moving slowly, almost seductively, Morricant secured each of Mazareem’s arms in turn in the loops of rope. When she stepped away, the ribbons came with her, and he hung by his arms from the posts. He faced the stands with his back to the abyss.

  Kaiser watched in amazement as the chaotic swarm of fabric acted as if coordinated by a single mind. Morricant held her arms out, and the ribbons wove themselves around her naked body to form a perfect, silken black dress. If Kaiser had not seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed it.

  Morricant left Mazareem hanging there. She strode back the way she had come, and she soon vanished through the main gates of the arena. Mazareem never moved. His thin arms dangled from the rope loops, wrists pulled up above his head. As Kaiser watched, Mazareem fought to get his feet beneath him. Finally, after several minutes of painful struggle, Mazareem was able to support most of his weight with his legs.

  From his position high
on the platform, Mazareem’s shadow stretched long across the golden sand of the arena floor. With his arms spread wide, his silhouette looked like a pitiful scarecrow. The sun slipped below the roof of the colosseum, and Mazareem’s shadow was consumed by the night.

  In any other circumstance, Kaiser would have applauded Mazareem’s pain, but right now, he bore their hope of escape on his frail shoulders. Kaiser shook his head in consternation. Mazareem was on death’s doorstep. He could barely help himself to stand. How was he going to survive long enough to reach out to Rowen and restore their powers?

  And if Mazareem was here, where was Sorrell? Kaiser tried, and failed, to banish the horrible image of a broken and battered Sorrell from his mind. The thought threatened to undo the calm he had been cultivating.

  Kaiser had received no sign or communication from Lacrael since her visit in the fighting camp. He could only assume that they were still out there, still trying to make the plan work. He hoped Tarathine was doing better. The alternative was too painful to consider.

  He forced himself to focus on what he could control. Tomorrow, they would venture out into the arena and bathe the sand in blood until deliverance came. And if it did not? Kaiser closed his eyes and faced the truth.

  If salvation did not come, they would die.

  Chapter 50

  LACRAEL TOOK HER TIME descending the stairs of the slavers’ compound. She needed to get her head right. The ornate armor she now wore would allow her to walk freely about Orcassus, but only if she could convince other tomb keepers she was one of them. Her first test would be the guards at the gate. If she got by those two women, Lacrael was confident she could make it to the fighters’ camp without being discovered. She had tied her hair back so that the guards would not immediately recognize her as the servant from only hours before. There was nothing she could do about her deeply tanned skin.