The Prey

by Joseph Delaney

  ‘Tyron thinks I should delay my appearance in the arena – perhaps for as long as a year,’ I admitted.

  ‘It will soon pass,’ Ada said with a smile, ‘although I know that the young have little patience. Kwin has nothing but good to say about you. She says you are strong and fast, and will make a first-rate combatant. Sheknows a lot about the Trig method of combat in Arena 13 and has been dancing behind Tallus’s lac, helping me to understand what needs to be done to improve it.’

  ‘Have you made it sentient?’ I asked, trying not to sound too eager.

  Ada shook her head. ‘It is far more aware than previously, and can react much faster, but I cannot make it fully sentient because I do not have the tools.’

  ‘What tools do you need?’ Deinon asked, suddenly perking up.

  ‘At the heart of each wurde there are primitives, the building blocks from which it is constructed. The wurdes within that lac,’ she said, gesturing towards the bench, ‘do not have the essential components. I suspect thesame will be true of all lacs in Midgard. That is something that, in time, I will be able to overcome. I can build new primitives. But the second problem lies within the brain of the lac. Something has been altered to makeit impossible to bring it to full awareness.’

  ‘Then it can’t be done,’ Deinon said, disappointment on his face.

  ‘I would need something that only your Trader could supply. Whether he can or will supply such an item – who knows? One day we must ask him.’

  ‘The djinni Hob is a threat to all of us,’ I told her. ‘No doubt you’ve been told about him?’ I still hadn’t told anyone about Hob visiting me in the Commonality.

  ‘I have indeed, Leif. We named such a creature a djinn, always using the plural form because it has many selves.’

  ‘Do you have the knowledge to help us deal with him? After all, wasn’t he created by imperial artificers like you?’

  ‘He certainly was. From what I’ve been told, I think Hob is probably a type of djinni called a sycoda,’ Ada explained. ‘They were created and used by the military long ago, before the Empire was reduced to thispitiful state. Basically, Hob is a very advanced form of the lacs who fight in Arena 13, but he has not only multiple selves but also some limited capacity to generate more. Once I could have brought such a creature to itsknees with a wurde,’ she said, smiling politely. ‘But . . .’

  I could see that she was not being arrogant or boastful. The truth shone from her eyes. Her hesitation and silence at the end simply showed that this was no longer true.

  ‘But you can’t do it now?’ I asked.

  Ada nodded. ‘Probably not, and I would not like to face Hob and try. He will have moved on, developing those abilities originally gifted to him by his patterners. In order to control him, I would first need to probe himusing a wurde-tool. But first he would have to be my prisoner.’

  ‘Tyron is the best artificer in the city,’ I told her. ‘If you were able, would you share your knowledge with him?’

  ‘Of course, but sadly I’m not free to do so. Tallus owns me, and he is determined to protect his investment. He simply sees Tyron as a rival. Using my skills, he hopes to dominate Arena 13 and earn a lot of money.Please do not misunderstand me – he is not a bad man. He is kind and courteous and treats me with the utmost respect, but his faults are overweening pride and ambition.’

  ‘Those are faults common to many men,’ Kwin said, her mouth twisting in disdain.

  Ada suddenly smiled at Deinon. ‘Kwin has been saying good things about you too, Deinon. It seems that her father thinks you possess the best coding talent he has seen in a long time. How good are you? Let’s putyou to the test . . .’

  She reached across and picked up the notepad and pen from the table. Then she frowned and began to write. After a few moments she tore the sheet from the pad and handed it to Deinon.

  ‘What function does this code perform in a lac?’ she asked. ‘This is similar to the test I gave to would-be novitiates. If they passed, I gave them a harder question. Eventually, if they continued to show promise, Ibegan to train them.’

  Deinon’s face fell. I could tell that he had no idea what the code did. I glanced over his shoulder, and when I saw what Ada had written, I immediately knew why.

  : ActionX – Peekloc#774321 * If > 29000 then Poke Contentsloc#774320 loc#774321;

  I thought that ‘Peek’, ‘Poke’ and ‘If’ were wurdes from The Nym Dictionary. But what did all the numbers mean? How could Deinon possibly work out what ‘ActionX’ did?

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know,’ Deinon said, his face starting to redden.

  ‘It’s fine, Deinon. I don’t expect you to come up with the answer right away,’ Ada said with a reassuring smile. ‘Go away and think about it. Don’t ask Tyron. Work it out for yourself. When you have the answer,please send it back to me with Kwin.’

  We left soon after that, and I delivered Kwin back to her father, complete with a full set of teeth, her marriage prospects undiminished. It took far longer for the three of us to make a report to Tyron than it had talkingto Ada. But at last he was satisfied and pleased to hear that Ada had been so friendly and helpful.

  ‘That’s promising, very promising,’ he said. ‘Ada seems willing to help, but we need to win Tallus over. We might do it, given time. And what about that test she set you, Deinon? Think you can work it out?’

  Deinon nodded, but he didn’t look too confident.

  That night, before we went to sleep, I raised the topic with him. ‘How will you work it out, Deinon? What are those numbers?’

  ‘They’re locations in a lac’s head, Leif,’ he replied. ‘What “ActionX” does is check a certain location: if it contains a number greater than 29000, then it replaces it with a number from another location. I need to use awurde-tool like “Newt” and probe a lac to find out. I’ll try it out on our training lac tomorrow. It shouldn’t be too difficult. For a moment I thought she expected me to know the answer right away! Some patterners do,you know. They have most of the locations in their heads, and somebody like Tyron will have an incredible memory. He can probably remember every wurde in the Slim Nym Dictionary!’

  ‘Rather you than me!’ I said. ‘Just the thought of sorting that out gives me a headache!’

  Deinon shook his head. ‘What you do is much harder, Leif. In Arena 13, a headache is the least of your worries!’

  A HARD LESSON

  Intense pain is the lot of the loser.

  He must bear it lest all honour be lost.

  The Manual of Trigladius Combat

  Before the end of the week, Tyron had a surprise for me; something that intruded into the routine of my training.

  ‘I still don’t want to risk you in the arena,’ he told me, ‘but I think it’s time we gave you a more rigorous workout. Tomorrow morning Palm will bring his tri-glad to my house and you can fight him here on thetraining floor. I don’t expect you to win, but I do want you to push him hard and make a fight of it, boy.’

  I knew that Palm’s lacs were first-rate; it would be no disgrace at all to lose against him. But there was more than just rivalry between us. I could already imagine the smirk on his face when I lost.

  I would push him hard all right. Tyron could be sure of that.

  Palm arrived early so that he could have breakfast with us and we could begin our contests directly afterwards.

  I sat next to Deinon, facing Palm across the table. Tyron and Kwin had already breakfasted and stood just inside the doorway talking. She had arrived from Tallus’s quarters to talk about the day’s business beforesetting off to work at the admin building.

  Palm said little, but he kept glancing at my tattoos. My eyes were drawn towards Kwin and she caught me staring, but she gave me a warm smile that made my morning. Whatever happened afterwards, I’d have that toremember.

  Once they’d gone I saw a change in Palm. His haughty expression reappeared and I could tell that he was about to try and score a few points.

  �
�You must be disappointed not to have quarters in the Wheel,’ he said with a smirk. ‘I don’t think I could have tolerated another year in this house. It’s so claustrophobic. Of course, there are some things I do miss.Kwin looks more gorgeous than ever! Did you see that smile she just gave me? Looks like she’s really missing me!’

  Angrily I opened my mouth to reply, and no doubt I’d have said something stupid, but Palm didn’t give me a chance: he carried on with hardly a pause.

  ‘Tyron’s already entered me in the Lists and I won my first two contests easily. He plans for me to fight at least five more times before the end of the season, against better and better opposition. Pretty good going for asecond-year trainee, don’t you think?’

  ‘Let’s hope you win all of them then,’ Deinon said. ‘They say the ritual cut is incredibly painful. When you watch it happening in the arena, it looks like nothing, but the combatants put on a brave face for thespectators. It hurts like hell!’

  I saw dismay flicker on Palm’s face. Someone so smug and over-confident probably hadn’t even thought about that. Deinon glanced at me and winked. He’d hit a nerve all right.

  Palm’s tri-glad was everything that my lone lac wasn’t. His three lacs wore shining armour without even the faintest scratch; the armour of mine was battered and dull, with patches of rust. His three co-ordinatedperfectly, gliding effortlessly through a large repertoire of rapid moves; my lac seemed ponderous and slow.

  We were both dressed in the regulation leather jerkins and shorts, but only in our clothes were we equals.

  Palm was blond-haired, with clean-cut features and blue eyes. As he’d already boasted, he’d already won two contests and was starting to build up an enthusiastic female following in Arena 13.

  I caught him staring again at the tattoos on the left side of my face. When our eyes met, he smirked. However, Deinon smiled and gave me a thumbs-up.

  I noticed that Tyron had a timer – a shiny brass box about the size of a fist. There was a lever on top, which measured out five minutes – the first stage of a bout. After that you had to fight in front of your lac or lacs.This was a smaller version of the one that Pyncheon used to time bouts in Arena 13.

  Were we going to fight following the full rules? The Trainee Tournament had special rules and I’d assumed we’d be using those.

  Tyron suggested an initial warm-up. He sat next to Deinon at the table in the recess beyond the edge of the training floor, watching impassively as we fought.

  I was eager to defeat my old rival and wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. However, I began cautiously, dancing close to the back of my lac. After a few moments my confidence began to grow. I used Ulum, thesound-code, to instruct my lac to begin an attack. We feinted to the left and then advanced towards the centre. I did everything correctly. There wasn’t a thing I would have changed.

  But Palm’s lacs were simply too fast for mine. The central one reacted with lightning speed and slotted a blade into the throat-socket to call endoff. My lac went down and Palm grinned.

  The contest had lasted less than a minute; I’d been defeated easily.

  That wasn’t surprising: the practice lac had been deliberately slowed down for training purposes. Tyron had modified it for combat in Arena 13 and it had been good enough for my two wins in the tournament. Now itwas certainly faster than during our training bouts, but not quick enough to offer Palm more than token resistance.

  I began to think that this practice was for Palm’s benefit more than mine.

  My morning had started well, with Kwin smiling at me; it had deteriorated with this quick defeat.

  Now it got even worse.

  ‘Now we’ll try the real thing!’ Tyron called out. ‘This will involve full Arena 13 rules, including the five-minute rule. The loser will also offer his arm for the ritual cut.’

  I stared at him in astonishment. Was there any need for that? I glanced at Deinon, who looked as if he couldn’t believe it. He’d only just baited Palm with the prospect of being cut in a forthcoming contest. We bothfaced it now, but Palm’s lacs were superior to mine. The greater danger was to me.

  Tyron pressed the lever and a loud ticking began. The contest was underway and I was struggling to defend myself. This time, desperately drumming on the boards with my feet to communicate with my lac, I movedrapidly through the repertoire of my best moves, and we managed to offer a little more resistance.

  But this only delayed the inevitable. A blade found my lac’s throat-socket and it crashed down onto the floor.

  Then Palm’s central lac moved towards me, the blade in its right hand, ready to make the ritual cut. It was far bigger than me and looked truly threatening in its dark armour. The closer it got, the more afraid I grew.For a moment I felt paralysed, unable to do what was required, but I took a deep breath, steadied myself and offered my left arm.

  Almost delicately, the creature made a cut on my left arm, just below the short sleeve of my leather jerkin. Initially there was just a sting and I felt relieved that it was all over. Then, suddenly, I felt a sharp, piercingpain that made me gasp. It was far worse than I’d expected.

  The pain was so intense that I couldn’t breathe. Every nerve in my body was on fire. My eyes began to water, and for a moment I was afraid that they might leak tears and I would be disgraced.

  ‘It hurts a lot, doesn’t it, boy?’ Tyron asked.

  I nodded, fighting to suppress the groan that was rising in my throat.

  ‘That’s because lac blades are coated with a substance called kransin,’ he said, staring at me hard.

  I knew that kransin did two things. Firstly it was a coagulant, which was important because sometimes a lac cut a little too deeply and the kransin stemmed the flow of blood. Secondly, it intensified the pain of the cut.To lose a contest in Arena 13 was to experience extreme pain. That’s why the spectators were silent when that cut was made. It hadn’t been used in the Trainee Tournament, but it was certainly a feature of proper Arena13 contests. Being successful meant being able to control oneself and face danger and pain with courage. The spectators wanted to watch how the losing combatant conducted himself.

  I’d often watched combatants suffer that ritual cut. None had so much as flinched, so I had never associated it with real pain. But now I realized that, as Deinon had indicated, this was because they wanted to showbravery in the arena. And now I knew what it felt like to lose.

  ‘Right – get into position again and prepare to fight. The same rules will apply!’ Tyron ordered.

  I couldn’t believe it! My lac had no chance against the tri-glad of Palm. I was bound to lose. Then I would be cut again.

  Tyron pressed the lever and the timer began to tick.

  I couldn’t have tried harder. I stretched my knowledge of Trig combat to its very limits, drumming on the boards in increasing desperation to signal to my lac the steps that I wished it to take. And this time it tookPalm longer to defeat me.

  It took him all of three minutes.

  Once more I suffered the ritual cut, this time to my right arm. Once more I fought to keep the pain from my face while Palm watched me and smiled in triumph.

  ‘One more bout,’ said Tyron, ‘and we’ll call it a day.’

  My defeat led to a third cut. I already had one on each arm, so this was made to my left arm again, close to the first. It seemed to hurt even more than the other two; soon I was gasping with pain while Palm gloated. Ifelt a strong sense of grievance. It seemed so unfair. Arena 13 combatants only rarely fought more than one contest each night. Never would they suffer three cuts in so short a time period.

  ‘What’s wrong, boy?’ Tyron demanded when Palm and his tri-glad had left. ‘You look less than happy.’

  ‘Is my lac as finely tuned as it was when I fought in the tournament?’ I asked, bringing my simmering suspicion out into the open.

  ‘It is patterned to exactly the same level,’ answered Tyron. ‘The difference is that you are up against a first-rate tri-glad, the best that mo
ney can buy. And let’s give Palm his due. Although still a trainee, he used Ulumwell and fought three excellent bouts. So you need to raise your game, boy. In five days you’ll fight him again, and I expect you to do better! Hopefully the lac will improve as well.’

  ‘So you’re going to do some more work on it?’ I asked, my hopes rising a little.

  Tyron didn’t reply but fixed his gaze upon Deinon. ‘Did you manage to solve the code that Ada set you?’ he asked.

  Deinon smiled and nodded. ‘“ActionX” was simply Ada’s new name for the pattern routine that calls endoff.’

  He was proud that he had managed to work that out. It seemed that the systems inside a lac’s head constantly checked the location that controlled its throat-socket. Once a blade entered it, the number increased to morethan 29000; this automatically poked in another number, which turned off the lac so that it collapsed. Well, it was something like that, anyway.

  ‘Well done, boy. So what was her response? Did she give you a reward?’

  Deinon smiled ruefully. ‘No, she gave me another code to work out. This one is much harder.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got something for you to do too. I want you to try and improve this lac and give Leif a better chance of winning. Think you can do it?’

  The colour had fled from Deinon’s face. I knew he wouldn’t want that job. He was conscientious and sensitive, and wouldn’t want me to be cut again.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said, giving me a nervous glance.

  ‘Good, I’m sure you will,’ said Tyron. ‘Then, to further advance your training, Leif, your next contest against Palm will be fought in Arena 13.’

  *

  Palm was leaving the changing rooms as I entered and he gave a smirk as he passed me. I quickly pulled on my leather jerkin and shorts, tucked my blades into their sheaths and walked to the door.

  Out in the corridor, a man emptying a rubbish bin nodded at me as I passed by. I saw that he was Genthai and had facial tattoos like mine. That meant he’d fought and defeated a werewight. So what was he doingworking here? I wondered. I’d seen him around from time to time. He did menial jobs but always looked cheerful. As far as I knew, he was the only Genthai working in the Wheel. At one time, according to Tyron, therewere a couple of Genthai combatants, but both had now retired.