by Steve Vera
There were no cheering citizens to see them off, or formal farewells by officials of the City, no well-wishers, the only ones to say goodbye was a pitifully small group consisting of one fiancée, one Arch-Druid, a chief of police and a tree sprite. Gavin caught Amanda’s eye as his horse galloped past. He locked every detail of her face in his mind—her tears and swollen eyes, her brave smile, the way the ocean breeze tugged at her hair. And then she was behind him, lost in the thunder of galloping horses and the flap of great wings riding into the rising sun.
Chapter 41
Drums pounded the air. Behind their synchronized booming beats came a building crescendo of music by instruments both familiar and foreign that filled the immense stadium as powerfully as any rock concert could. In the center of the elliptical arena was a podium where the pudgy, beady-eyed man called the Caesar stood and watched the parade around him. His toga blew in an artificial breeze.
Opening Ceremony.
Though Donovan stood among the tang of sweat and nervous anticipation of the hundreds of Olympians arrayed around him, he shared none of it. All he felt was music, his pulse and a buzz of excitement he’d never before partaken in.
This was what he was born for.
Each nation marched with a standard bearer waving their designated colors, followed by the competing Olympians who were donned in the style and colors of that nation. What intrigued Donovan the most was not just the different cultures but the different races. There were Minotaurs, Dwarves, mutant-hyena looking hobgoblins and, of course, Humans. The only race that did not rear its head was the one he wanted to see the most. The Elves. In his stay in the city he’d learned that of all the races of the world, the Elverai were considered dominant, above even Men.
Not only was this Colosseum more than twice the size of the original Flavian Amphitheatre, 143.4 percent larger to be precise, but it was magnificent in ways that were impossible for anything on earth to compete with, for the inclusion of magic within its very construction was intended to impress and awe all those who entered.
It succeeded.
There were statues that moved, tongues of heatless flame that danced and hissed and the roar of mythical beasts from beneath the floor. Arcades of masterfully crafted stone punctuated by hundreds of arched windows made of marble, granite and stone he’d never seen before surrounded the masses and went up five stories, each packed with eager spectators. There were easily a hundred thousand people in here.
At the very end of the parade were Donovan and the four other Offlanders. They bore no colors and wore what they had. In Donovan’s case, it was his standard ensemble—black military tactical jacket, fatigues, jungle boots and of course...his sunglasses.
* * *
“This is just insane,” Skip murmured beside Amanda, his jaw slightly open.
Amanda didn’t look up because she didn’t care. She had no desire to be here and couldn’t give a damn if this was the greatest spectacle ever assembled on either world. Gavin was gone. She might never see him again and what was worse...he’d hardly spent any time with her.
Somebody always needed him.
“Check that out,” Skip said and pointed to a column of brutish Minotaurs grunting past them, their flag a simple field of red with two white lines curving up to represent horns and another curving line representing the head. Very simple, very unmistakable.
She looked up, faked a smile and returned her attention to her hands. Her stomach felt like it was coated in lard. Why wouldn’t Donovan just let her stay back at their suite?
“Fear not, Amanda,” Dwensolt said patting her thigh. “Stavengre will return to us. Men like him are born for victory.”
She grabbed his hand and squeezed it so hard her knuckles went white, taking comfort from his confidence and mutual dislike of their surroundings. His eyes squinted with every drum beat. They were a long way off from the White Forest. Pyrk had refused to even set wing in here.
She wished she could.
All around her she heard the cheering of people, their laughs and squeals, and knew deep down that it was all going to end. She looked up and scanned the thousands of smiling, flushed faces spiraling around her in dizzying splendor.
Enjoy it, people. She looked back down to her hands. Because the Drynn are coming.
* * *
For the first day and a half they kept to the road. A hundred and forty horses thundering down on cobblestone drew stares of awe and alarm from peasant and noble alike.
As for riding beside his mortal enemies, it was even more difficult than Gavin had thought. The cloud of malevolence billowing from every pore of every rider behind him was like a film. At some point, Vambrace was going to make its move.
It was just a matter of time.
All Gavin had to do was ward off their treachery until after they’d made it to the Pale Gate. Then perhaps they’d rearrange their hierarchy of hatred properly after being introduced to concepts such as terror and desperation that went beyond their present comprehension. From out of that chaos just maybe, with the combined strength of former enemies, they all might stop this war before it really got started.
All they had to do was not kill each other first.
“Turmae halt!” Senator Merevus bellowed from above, his gryphon banking in a downward circle. When he landed, the scraping of gryphon claws on cobblestone sounded like the steel grating of a backhoe on asphalt. “It would be best to separate from the road here, Sur Stavengre,” Merevus said from the top his gryphon. “It will mean crossing the Scorched Plains, but it will save us two days. From there it will be another hard day’s ride over the more treacherous and rocky lowlands leading to the Pyron Mountains, but if we ride hard we can be at the Pale Gate in two days.”
“The Scorched Plains?” Gavin asked.
Merevus looked at him puzzled and then realization dawned on him. “Ah yes, of course, it was after your time. It was the site of a pitched battle between the Lowland Witches and—” he glanced at their temporary comrades in arms, “—the Wizards of Vambrace.”
“We were victorious, of course,” De’mond said.
Merevus nodded. “Aye. Normally it is unwise to pass those ways. Nothing living grows, and the site of so much magic had...unforeseen consequences. Unnatural creatures roam there, though I dare say none will tangle with this company.”
Gavin tried to give Merevus his undivided attention, but his thoughts were called to the west. Two days beyond were the forest realms of the Sun Elves. No one had heard from them, despite the repeated efforts to hail them. What Gavin would have given up to have a troop of the vaunted Du’vram—the Elven warrior caste—trotting beside him.
“Through the Scorched Plains it is, then,” Gavin said.
Merevus nodded, launched back into the air. Roland circled from above. Gavin spurred his horse from purple-gray cobblestone of the Road to the apple-green grass that surrounded them. Immediately the ear-numbing clatter of hooves on stone gave way to the much quieter and muffled boom of horses on earth. Apple-green became trampled brown.
Gavin and Noah were in the van, followed by Sir Taksony and his knights, then the Nu’romian cavalry that followed in four squadrons of eight horses. Then came the heavy cavalry of Vambrace charging in nine squadrons of ten knights, headed by a lead squadron of twelve riders. As the most formidable looking of their crew, Tarsidion and Cirena brought up the rear, their eyes blazing on high alert while Roland and Merevus were on overwatch.
Gavin glanced up beyond the shadows of Merevus’s and Roland’s gryphons and saw thick, angry clouds rolling in from the north.
Looked like there was a storm coming.
Chapter 42
Every nerve receptor in Donovan’s body was open, sucking in the symphonies of color streaming toward him from a hundred thousand people. Hidden behind the lenses of his Ray Ban
s, he let his eyes roll back into his skull.
Intoxicated.
Donovan gave his compact, neckless opponent a few moments to get his feet under him before moving in again. This one was a grappler, circling Donovan with intense dark eyes searching for an opening. Though there were other matches going on, the crowd had quickly learned that the Offlander’s fights were the most entertaining.
Before the return of his emotions, combat for Donovan had been a simple matter of efficiency—brutal and quick. But now, with his senses lubricated by the narcosis of victory, Donovan allowed himself to enjoy. To savor, showcasing the depths of his lethality with dazzling effect. The mob loved him.
His opponent made his move and lunged. Donovan melted back, grabbed the outstretched arms, torqued his hips and threw the man right over his shoulder. His opponent landed well, sprang up with his arms cocked defensively but then had his legs chopped from under him as Donovan planted his left hand on the dirt floor and scythed his leg in a tight, violent circle. The man went horizontal before smashing into the ground with grunt.
The crowd roared.
Chapter 43
The clouds resembled a giant rippled scallop with the sun as a red-gold pearl.
For forty-two hours they’d ridden through a barren, blackened, cheerless landscape—the Scorchlands—but they’d made it through. Not a single Banshee had wailed and no wolves had howled; all there had been was a dead wind and the echoes of their passing.
Gavin wondered if it had to do with a certain dead Necromancer.
“There are no deer as succulent as this in the South,” Sir Taksony said, biting down on the steaming strip of meat Cirena had just handed him. Unlike the Middle Ages of Earth, refrigeration wasn’t a problem on Theia. A simple touch of magic could freeze a slab of venison as well as chill a jar of cherries and conversely, heat it up. “If you would be so kind?” he asked Cirena with a grin and tossed another frozen hunk of meat on his plate that clacked like ice.
Cirena returned his smile, though not quite as broad, and with a syllable, a tongue of blue flame licked the hunk which then steamed fragrantly. Gavin could feel the glares of the Wizards and Warmages behind him. In Vambrace, casting unsanctioned magic was a capital offense. One of which they eagerly enforced. Let them try something. Although there was no question Vambrace’s assembled fighting force was formidable, they lacked cohesion. The Vambracians ate in one camp and the rest of them ate in another.
“We shall arrive at the Pale Gate on the morrow,” Merevus said quietly over the crackling of the campfire. Both Gryphons were tearing a stag to pieces at the outskirts of their camp, their deep growls and the sound of snapping bones audible to all. They were an effective deterrent. Gavin answered with a nod.
“What will we find?” Roland asked.
Gavin stared out at the blackened plains behind them and felt just as dead inside. They were approaching the very place his twin had fallen, as so many others had. Carnage Gate.
“Death,” he finally said. “Either theirs or ours.”
“Theirs,” Sir Taksony said and raised his mug. “Why else were we brought to life? These Drynn will feel the bite of our steel and once we smite this mighty foe, the banner of the Southern March will once again fly.” He looked Gavin squarely in the eyes and broke through the ugly malaise smothering his spirit. “We will lay them to waste.”
“Here, here!” A Nu’romian voice called from within the ranks.
“Here, here!” it was echoed by two dozen more. Flagons clinked and beer was drank.
Listening to them, he almost believed.
Almost.
Tomorrow, the battle for the world began.
Chapter 44
Donovan strode into the deafening coliseum like an emperor. He stood in his entrance and nodded approvingly at the avalanche of accolades that rushed down from the hundred thousand raving people.
“Donovan! Donovan! Donovan!” they chanted, each roar a dance of bliss through his nervous system.
How had he even existed on Earth? Already the memories of his former life, once so clear and sharp, were beginning to fade. It was obvious that this is where he belonged. Just look at them. Utter adulation. And though he had yet to ascertain his true identity, something about this moment, about every event that had led him here so far felt guided.
Destined.
Beneath his newfound euphoria, however, still lurked the cold machine of dispassion. He’d lived too long fighting Asmodeous off in his mind, as a fully functioning sociopath, to ever fully surrender its power, and he liked it that way. It was the yin to the rebirth of his passions, and together they would make him invincible.
A god.
Across the other side of the arena was his opponent. He was the largest yet, even bigger than Casanova, but instead of a gangly tree, this brute was shaped like a shotgun slug—just a massive, burly slab of muscle and bone. And beady little vengeful eyes oozing malice. His aura was blood-red tinged with black, and that in of itself told Donovan all he needed to know.
He was dirty. A cheater. A finger-breaker. A punisher who enjoyed the suffering of those who dared to contend for something he felt was his by right. That’s my department. Donovan thought. There’s only room for one of us. Twin beams of light shot out from the sky like narrow Hollywood spotlights, bathing each Olympian in purple as they approached from opposite sides of the stadium. Donovan’s combat boots crunched softly on the coarse sand covering the wood of the arena ground.
“Olympians!” the floor-judged yelled to them. In his off-time, all Donovan did was study scrolls and books on the language structure of High Common, with the help of Amanda his servant. Her translation ring had come in handy after all and in just two days he’d quintupled his vocabulary.
It was customary for the contestants to bow toward the Nu’romian aristocracy, as well as the rest of the world’s elite. Dukes, queens, foreign dignitaries, viscounts, he could see all of their ilk seated within their posh boxes, demanding a good show with the imperious glints in their eyes.
Donovan held his left nostril and blew snot into the dirt. There’s your bow.
He then turned and studied the banners that flew over the schools of magic, could feel the armadas of competitive auras simmering from students and masters toward rival schools. This was what they’d been training for. Donovan imprinted on his brain the shape, color and content of each pennant, recorded each fighting style as he saw it displayed; he wanted to know it all. Soon, these people would be begging him to lead them. To protect them.
The floor judge was bald, quick on his feet and garbed in a simple yet official white robe with black cuffs. Like a clutch and a gas pedal, the tension in the immense stadium went up as the din died. The floor judge stood between them and raised his right arm up. Silence thundered. He looked from each to the other and then dropped his hand and shouted.
“Begin!”
The microsecond the judge’s hand went down, Beady-eyes tried to sucker-punch Donovan’s face with a spittle-flying roar. Naturally, Donovan wasn’t there, but just barely. Beady-eyes was fast. Before Donovan could snap off his own jab, Beady-eyes was already unleashing the next volley—Donovan ducked the first, batted away the next, but the third caught him in the chest, not a direct hit but close enough. It was like getting hit with a mallet. The chitinous, black gloss of murder clung to the vapors of his opponent’s soul like cancerous membranes. His teeth were yellow and filed to points.
“C’mon Donnie-boy, whup his ass!” Donovan heard distinctly through the roaring of the crowd. He didn’t need to glance at the two guest seats every Olympian was accorded to see Walkins yelling. Despite his disdain for the police chief, Donovan wasn’t offended by his presence and appreciated the man’s tastes in fighting styles. “How ’bout some Muay Thai!”
Why not?
He p
ushed out his arms in front of him in the classic Thai guard, palms down, hands head-level. Amidst the cacophony of cheering, he could hear Walkins’s yell of approval. Donovan looked over at the empty seat beside him and felt a ripple of irritation wash through him.
Amanda had not come. Why it should annoy him was illogical—why should he care whether or not she was here? Her presence was irrelevant. She was irrelev—
Donovan got hit by a runaway tractor. Beady-eyes had just sucker-punched him despite Donovan’s knowledge of just such a ploy. Not only did Donovan absorb the impact of the initial collision, but there was the landing as well. His breath whooshed out of him and a long-buried memory of a cartoon he’d seen in one of the foster homes he’d grown up in flashed in his mind. Wile E. Coyote getting hit by an anvil.
And then he heard it. Walkins’s voice. “Welcome to the Olympics, son!”
* * *
“Treading a gully into the stone of these floors will not bring your betrothed back any sooner, Amanda,” Dwensolt said, looking up from the pile of books he was studying on his desk. Though he didn’t say, Amanda sensed he was looking for something in particular and none too happy to be interrupted.
“I’m sorry,” she said without a pause in her stride. Pacing was an annoying habit she’d picked up from Gavin. “But I just can’t sit still. What if they’re fighting right now? What if he’s hurt?”
“Then there would be nothing you could do about it. His destiny is in his own hands.”
“C’mon, Dwensolt, can’t you make something up to make me feel better?” She glanced out the window at the sails and prows of the harbor as if that would somehow bring him back faster.
“Even the shadow of your worry is like the caress of a primrose petal at dawn,” Pyrk said, materializing four inches from her face. She didn’t even start.
“That’s a little better,” she mumbled and turned on the balls of her feet to start another pass. “What are you looking for anyway?” she asked Dwensolt. “And thanks, Pyrk.”