A hush fell over the crowd. There was a heavy pressure in the air, an oppressive sense of menace that grew more overpowering with each passing second. But instead of being intimidated, Alanna’s face lit up with a delighted smile.
“Shao Lin aura technique, White Tiger style!” She exclaimed. “Congratulations, Boril. Few warriors would make the long journey to the East in search of martial enlightenment, and fewer still would be accepted as a student.”
Boril frowned at her. “You know kung fu?”
In answer Alanna slipped into a strange stance, feet wide and body held low to the ground. Her spear lost a foot of length as she held it high in one hand, while a second spear formed in her other hand held low.
“Serpent’s fangs pierce the tiger’s belly,” she proclaimed.
Boril scowled, and shifted into a completely different stance. “Ox tramples the serpent,” he growled.
Alana flowed into an improbable stance that looked like a bird perching on a wire, standing on the toes of one foot with the other one drawn up and both spears held high above her head. “Vermilion crane pierces the ox’s eyes.”
“You’re good,” Boril said reluctantly.
“The Monkey King found me amusing,” Alanna replied.
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but Boril was impressed. He made an odd shrugging motion, and the shield he wore on his back shifted down to rest on his arm. He set himself again, and this time his stance seemed more solid. Less whimsical. More flexible, solidly centered and ready to move in any direction.
“Then I’ll take you seriously,” he said.
Alanna came down from her exotic stance, and settled into a more normal-looking position as the second spear faded back to wherever it had come from. “Likewise.”
They both stood still for several long moments, watching one another carefully.
Aphrodite groaned. “Not this spirit duel bullshit. Come on, I want to see some blood on the stage! Fuck each other up al-”
Both opponents blurred into motion, and for an instant they were moving so fast I could barely tell what was happening. They met in the middle of the stage, weapons flashing in a flurry of elaborate moves.
Boril bellowed out a sharp war cry that struck Alanna like a freight train, blowing her back across the stage. But she caught herself with force magic, landing lightly at the edge of the stage and reversing course in a heartbeat to meet his eager charge head on. Her spear flashed out, and he deflected it with his shield while using his incredible reach to thrust his sword at her belly. But Alanna leaped over his blow, her feet landing on his shield for an instant while she stabbed again, and then she was flipping over him while his sword flashed through the air.
They were both bleeding when they separated, Alanna from an injured leg and Boril from a deep cut on his cheek. But both wounds were already starting to heal.
“Now I’ve got you,” Boril growled, and rushed her.
I suppose he thought the leg wound would slow her down, but it didn’t stop her from leaping twenty feet into the air to avoid his charge. In midair her spear became a bow again, and she launched a flurry of arrows down at him.
Boril raised his shield to intercept the arrows, and one by one they sunk into the wooden barrier and stuck. Their piercing enchantments weren’t quite enough to overcome its protective wards, but it turned out that they were only a distraction. The raised shield blocked his view of Alanna for a few critical seconds, and he had no idea that she could fly. He confidently predicted where she’d come down from that leap, and positioned himself to strike her as she landed. But as she fell back to the stage she changed her course, and touched down right behind him.
Some mystic sense must have warned him at the last instant, because Boril abruptly crouched and spun. Then both combatants were locked in a close-range melee, and moving too fast for me to track. There was a flurry of blows and dodges, a spray of blood, and a shrieking howl of noise that sounded like Grinder chewing through mail. A blast of ice shards momentarily hid them both, and a cold mist covered half the stage.
Then a sudden wind blew it away, revealing the two fighters facing each other warily from several paces apart. Boril’s side was a mangled mess of broken mail and charred flesh, which bled heavily. Alanna was projecting great claws of fire and whirling force blades from the fingers of her left hand, in imitation of Grinder’s blade, and Boril clearly wasn’t eager to get close to that again. But her right arm was gone from the elbow down.
“That will be that,” Boril said, his voice tight with pain. “I’ll heal in a few minutes, but there’s no restoring a limb that Cleaver has taken.”
“So much for defeating me with your great skill,” Alanna said tartly.
“Were you expecting some foolish chivalry? In the end what matters is victory.”
“Your sort always says that. I would rather have sparred with you for a bit longer, but if you’re going to insist on it I shall take my victory now.”
Alanna’s lithe form abruptly contracted, transforming into a dense mass of dark wood. Boril cursed, and started forward. But before he’d taken two steps Alanna was stepping back out of the log, which melted away as she left it. Her reformed body was completely healed, and by the time Boril came within reach she had a fresh spear in her hands.
He barely managed to parry her first attack, and she gave him no chance to retreat and heal. The gleaming point of her spear flashed and spun, each attack blending seamlessly into the next in an incredible display of martial skill, forcing Boril to parry and dodge frantically while his wound continued to bleed. Alanna wove blasts of force magic and bursts of impossible strength into her offensive, battering her opponent and knocking him off balance. Then she managed to grab the edge of his shield in her off hand, and muscle it out of the way long enough to land a kick on his wound.
Boril howled in agony. Even in that moment of distraction he kept his blade locked with her spear, but Alanna was happy enough to close to grappling distance instead. A horn of wood sprouted from her forehead, and she drove it up into the soft underside of his jaw. It punched up through the top of his helmet a moment later, and that grinding howl rose up again.
Boril’s head exploded.
A hush fell over the crowd. Boril’s headless body slumped to the ground, spraying a fountain of blood from the mangled horror that was left of his neck and head. Alanna stepped back, and for a moment the whole audience could see the foot-long lance of wood wreathed in violet fire that sprouted from her forehead. Then she banished the plasma, and re-absorbed the horn.
“Next.”
No one stepped onto the stage.
“Since when can you work fire?” Aphrodite asked, sounding more than a little shocked.
“Since I offered myself in partnership to the greatest wizard of this age,” Alanna said serenely. “I have all sorts of new tricks to show off.”
The armored dwarves appeared to drag off the body, and the announcer returned to the stage. Although he seemed a bit pale, and I noticed he kept well away from Alanna.
“That’s another victory for our challenger, folks! How many does that make now, Alanna?”
“Six,” Alanna said firmly. “Don’t mistake me for my little cousins, who find simple counting an impenetrable mystery. My wizard is so strong he can share the gift of Prometheus with me. I have a great many fascinating inventions to share.”
“Like the exploding fire horn?” The announcer asked nervously.
“Fire is the natural enemy of dryads, and my hold on it is the weakest of all my magics. But look, we do battle upon a wooden stage here. Perhaps I should play to my strengths from now on?”
Several men backed away from the waiting group of challengers, and for a moment I thought she might actually intimidate them into giving up. But there’s always an idiot. One of the younger men bounded up onto the stage, and brandished his halberd.
“You don’t scare me, wench! I’m Jack the Giant Slayer, and I’ll cut you down to size.”
/> Chapter 20
I hadn’t realized Alanna could animate any wood in her vicinity, whether she’d made it or not. Jack found out about that the hard way, when she got bored with his boasting and made the stage sprout a spike of wood right between his legs. His startled scream only lasted for a moment, before the spike reached his throat and cut off his air supply.
After watching him die no one with any sense wanted to step onto the stage, and the young hotheads weren’t much of a challenge. It wasn’t long before Alanna was collecting her prize, although it was obvious the crowd wasn’t very happy about it. She came swaggering back across the plaza with a smug grin on her face, leading Aphrodite on a leash. A group of massive, heavily armed and armored men trailed along behind her with ugly scowls on their faces.
“So you’re the wizard,” one of them said when the group reached me.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, sending your pet monster girl to mess with our tournament,” another put in.
“What’s a living wizard doing in Asgard?” Another demanded.
“The Allfather brought me here to do a job for him,” I said. “The details are supposed to be secret.”
“Well, you’d better watch your step,” he growled. “Job or no job, Asgard is no place for scheming weaklings.”
“Yeah, you’d best finish up and get out quick,” another one said. “A lot of things can happen in a city under siege.”
“I bet them faeries will try to do raids to take out any wizards they hear about,” another one suggested.
“If the assassins don’t get him first. I hear the Lightbringers are after this joker,” the first one said.
They all laughed at that. “Yeah, he ain’t long for this world. Enjoy the bitch while you can, little man. It won’t last long.”
Mara clenched her fists, and took a step after them when they turned to go. I put a hand on her shoulder to hold her back.
“Keep it cool,” I said to her.
“You shouldn’t let those assholes talk to you like that,” she fumed. “You could take out all of them at once, no problem.”
“Sure, and then what? If I start a lethal fight in public all their buddies will join in, and if they start losing they’ll call for help. When the dust settles I‘ll end up in front of Odin, explaining why I thought it was a good idea to blow up half his city because some sore losers were talking trash to me.”
“There has to be something we can do,” she insisted.
I felt like there was a noose around my neck, and it was slowly tightening. This city was full of enemies, and it was only a matter of time before things went bad. Half of these guys would take a shot at me if they thought they could get away with it, and the other half would just step back and let the Lightbringers do their dirty work. And that was without any of my darker secrets coming to light. What would happen if Prince Caspar’s quest for blackmail material led him to one of the priests I’d killed in Lanrest?
“What we can do is finish our work here, and get the hell out of this city as soon as possible,” I said firmly. “How are you doing, Alanna?”
My familiar was still bouncing with excitement from her workout. “I’m quite well, Daniel. Thank you for the chance to do a little sparring. I’ve not had such entertainment in years.
Alanna offered me the control ring, but I closed her hand around it.
“You’re welcome. I think you should be the one to wear that, though. You won it fair and square.”
“Truly? How marvelous! I knew you’d be a kind and indulgent wizard.” She slipped the ring on, and held it up to the sunlight to admire it. “It is a pretty bauble, isn’t it? Aphrodite, tell me that you’d love to be my adoring pet for a week.”
“Fuck. I’d love to be your adoring pet for a week, mistress. You aren’t really still holding a grudge, are you?”
“A grudge? Now, why would I hold a grudge against you?” Alanna put a finger to her chin, and pretended to consider. “Could it be the time you charmed my wizard into seducing his king’s wife, and getting executed for the crime? Or perhaps that time you caught me alone, and thought it would be amusing to make me follow you around begging for your touch only to be denied every time? Oh, I know! Perhaps you feel guilty about calling me a dried-up old hag?”
“I never said that!” Aphrodite protested.
“Oh, you certainly did. You’ve simply forgotten about it, as you do every inconvenient truth. But come, we are both immortals. Why should I dwell on old slights, when the future stretches out so far before us. One never knows when the worm might turn again, right?”
“Right! Exactly! You can’t go too far, or you never know what might come of it.”
“Yes, that is the rule of the ancients. Of course, the other side of that rule is that one mustn’t be a pushover. After all, if there are no consequences to finding yourself in my power, why should you ever refrain from abusing me in the future? Kneel before me, Aphrodite.”
The bound goddess gulped, and obeyed.
“Love me,” Alanna commanded. “Yearn for me. Burn for my touch. Long for a kind word from me, or any sign of tenderness. I know you can do these things at my command, for even bound as you are your own soul is saturated with your divine power. But I know more than that. Part your veil of denial, and embrace these new feelings as truth. Now believe that I see through all your hidden plans for treachery, and feel yet more desire at being beaten so easily. Are we ready to realign your Thousand Perspective Mirror Maze in my favor?”
“H-how do you know about that?” Aphrodite protested.
“How do you think? I may not have the power that you gods are so proud of, but I have experience on my side. I’m sure your soul will have some inner defense that you’ve made yourself forget about, and you’ll eventually overcome any commands I might give you. But I wonder how long that will take, if I spend a week tying you in knots with your own power?”
“Please don’t,” Aphrodite asked meekly.
“No? Why shouldn’t I?” Alanna replied coldly.
Aphrodite bowed her head, and sighed.
“I did a lot of stupid things before the Fall,” she finally said. “Now I’m paying the price for it. I have no real allies, only enemies and pawns, and no one cares because I was always such a bitch to them before. I’m sorry, Alanna. I was cruel to you, more than once, and you did nothing to deserve it.”
“Tell me why,” Alanna demanded.
“Because it made me feel better about my own situation. Trapped in a pathetic sham of a marriage with that disgusting cripple Hephaestus, with half the gods on Olympus plotting ways to rape me while the goddesses wished me dead. Abusing the weak made me feel like I wasn’t completely powerless. It wasn’t until the Fall that I realized I’d been cutting my own throat the whole time. Do you have any idea how many gods and immortals have come here to laugh at my fate, and tell me how they could have rescued me if they cared to bother?”
“I could likely name them all,” Alanna said. “But I am not one of their number. I have never had the power to oppose a king of gods directly, nor the reckless bravado to make the attempt. I have always made it my policy to offer friendship to those powers who will accept it, and simply avoid those who will not. The world is vast, and those who live by the sword always die by it long before they could discover all of my anchors."
“I could really use a friend right now,” Aphrodite said.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps you think to use me for your own ends. The days of your captivity here are coming to an end, after all. What token of your sincerity can you offer?”
Aphrodite nervously licked her lips.
“Punish me,” she declared. “I know I’ve wronged you, but you have a reputation for fairness. So balance the scales between us, and let us start over. I won’t hold any grudges as long as whatever you do with me is just, and when you’re done I shall owe the first favor.”
Alanna snorted. “Silly slut. You just want me to spank you, don’t you?”
�
�Yes! You’re so hot when you do that all-knowing elder being thing. Make me be a good girl for you, mistress. I’ll remember you fondly when I’m free.”
“I’m sure you will,” Alanna said serenely. “Now stand up, and stop temping me so. Daniel, what do you intend to do with her?”
I cleared my throat, still trying to figure out what had just happened. Did they make up, or not, or was it all just some kind of game?
Maybe I should just trust Alanna to take care of things on that front. She seemed to know what she was doing, and I sure as hell wasn’t having any luck trying to figure Aphrodite out.
“First, we need to get her some clothes. Aphrodite, do you have someone waiting around ready to dress you?”
She turned those piercing blue eyes on me with an amused smile. “Of course, master of my mistress. Would you like me in chains, or leather, or perhaps one of those gauzy things the Vanir so love?”
“No, I mean actual clothes. Something practical, because it’s going to be dirty and dangerous where we’re going.”
Yeah, astonished was a good look on Aphrodite.
“Why would you want to take me somewhere like that? Daniel, I could get hurt, and I might not be able to heal myself. If I die my soul will be pulled back to the trap that holds my divinity, and your week will be cut short.”
“Alanna’s week,” I corrected. “I’m not going to be doing anything with you. But I’ll make sure you don’t die, as long as you listen to me. Now, can you arrange something or do we need to stop by a tailor shop first?”
As it turned out she had a whole coterie of scantily clad elf girls following her around, ready to supply her every need. They commandeered the back room of a nearby shop for Aphrodite to dress in, and she emerged in an outfit that made her look like some fairy tale princess going out for a ride. Tight pants of something that looked like leather, but clung to her every curve. A silk blouse cut to emphasize her tiny waist and generous bust, with a low neckline to expose plenty of cleavage. High-heeled boots, elbow-length gloves and a jaunty little hat rounded out the ensemble, all in a combination of green and white.
Thrall Page 29