One Cannot Deny a Blood Oath with a Dragon

by T P Sheehan

  “Perfect,” Catanya said, looking at Delik. “Thank you… all of you.” She looked to Ivy and Shale who smiled in appreciation. Ivy, meanwhile, had removed the old, tattered black laces from her boots and replaced them with new ones she had fashioned out of thin strips of burgundy leather that matched her suit. Catanya smiled, laced up the boots and pulled the leather straps back into place. She was glad to be wearing the one familiar piece of clothing that had served her well to date.

  “Come,” Delik instructed, taking Catanya over to a table that was neatly arranged with her own, newly crafted Ferustir weapons. “The weapons of a priest, Semsü.” He had a look of pride on his face. Catanya saw that he was looking toward the rear of the pavilion and followed his gaze where Dale and his father were standing, peering around the entrance flap.

  “Come in… please,” Catanya insisted. The two men walked hesitantly toward the table. The father looked Catanya up and down.

  “Semsü, you look magnificent.”

  “Thank you.” Catanya looked at Dale, who was avoiding her gaze. “Dale, please explain to me what you have created here.”

  Clearing his throat, Dale walked around to the opposite side of the table. “Firstly Semsü, your bow. And a slim, tapered quiver holding five arrows. They are light and will not hinder you.” He pointed to the bow that appeared to be made of the same black material as her armour along its limbs with a crafted grip of hardwood. Lifting it, she was amazed at its lightness. The strings of the bow were plaited twines of three strings that attached through three separate nocks at the tips. Replacing the bow, Catanya observed the beautiful, leather-crafted quiver that she lifted and placed over her right shoulder. She awkwardly tried to adjust the fastening buckle. Dale moved around the table.

  “Please, allow me.” He removed it and shifted it over to her left shoulder. “You are left handed, so you will draw with your left hand,” he explained. He fastened the buckle so that its diagonal strap sat neatly in purpose made grooves in her suit. Satisfied, Dale moved back around the table. “Your throwing knives. Five in total once again.” Dale pointed to the five, slim black handled knives whose blades were almost white. “Small, yet strong, the blades are made of Icerealmish steel. The only steel that can be milled so finely and keep its strength. The blades will never dull.”

  Catanya picked one of them from the sheet of white cloth they rested on, surprised by their lightness and balance.

  Dale came back around the table again. “May I?” he asked. Catanya nodded, letting Dale take each knife individually and slot it into a small pouch built into the left thigh of her suit. Catanya moved her leg about once all five knives were in place. She could not feel them there—they fit perfectly.

  “Finally, your lance,” Dale said. He stepped back allowing his father to approach Catanya.

  “Thank you, Dale,” his father said. He stood beside Catanya with his hands behind his back, looking at the last object on the table. “This is your lance, Semsü. It is bound to you. It is of your blood. It will not yield to the will of another.”

  The lance rested on another white cloth. Its cylindrical shape was about a foot and a half long and was the usual bronze in colour. The engravings in the metal work, cut clean through its outer casing, were so fine and intricate that Catanya could not imagine a tool capable of carving with such precision. Through the carvings, a dull red light moved about like a small lurking creature within, waiting to be unleashed.

  Catanya reached for the lance. Just before she touched it, the blacksmith spoke again.

  “We have breached new ground with your lance, Semsü. The sorcerers have worked to bind it with a more potent mix of enchantments never used before.”

  Catanya hesitated for a moment then reached forward and held the lance at both ends with her fingers. The swirling red glow increased its speed a little. She shifted her left hand over its centre. Wincing, she held it out before her and gripped the lance with a fist.

  “Tighter, Semsarian,” Joffren whispered.

  Catanya tightened her grip and the lance ignited with a loud cracking sound and a violent jolt as the two blades shot out—it was now a five-foot weapon. A flash of brilliant red light burst out in all directions and the engravings illuminated with such intensity they splayed shards of light between her fingers. The lance settled itself into a constant glow, shooting occasional rings of crimson light down the shafts of each blade. It was just as Catanya had seen when Jael ignited her own.

  “It will take a while to settle into itself, Semsü,” the blacksmith added.

  Catanya twisted her wrist about and flexed her elbow, turning the lance over itself in a figure eight. It seemed to Catanya to be a living entity. She loosened her grip again and the blades retracted, sending a sharp jolt up her arm. Her extinguished weapon lay dormant in her hand and the red light faded to its former dull glow—swirling within the engraved handle.

  Joffren stepped forward and looked the lance over. He smiled at Catanya, who smiled in return.

  “Thank you,” Catanya said to the two blacksmiths. She turned to face Delik, who now had his entire staff gathered behind him, watching the proceedings. “Thanks to all of you. What you have done here, in Dale’s words, is beautiful.” There was a collective sigh of relief from the artisans who all turned to quietly congratulate one another. Dale buried his head in his hands. His father smiled, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

  Catanya continued. “I am honoured to be the subject of all your hard work, your years of combined skill that produced… this.” She stood with her arms wide. She saw that Joffren was a little uncomfortable with her informal gratitude, but it never occurred to her to leave the pavilion without thanking the people for their efforts. Catanya turned to Delik for the last time. “Thank you, Delik. I hope I can honour you by putting my suit and weapons to good use.”

  “That, Semsü, I’m sure you will. May I?” Delik took the lance from Catanya and fitted it into a purpose made scabbard in her suit over her left shoulder, adjacent to her arrow quiver. “And thank you for your gratitude.” Delik bowed then turned to instruct his staff to move on.

  Catanya and Joffren were left alone in the pavilion. Joffren looked Catanya over in silence.

  “Well, Semsdi. Have you nothing to say?”

  “You are now a priest and a warrior, Semsame. An Irucantî and—when the need calls—a Ferustir.”

  Catanya bowed approvingly.

  “Shall we put your new attire to the test?” Joffren suggested.

  “Yes… most definitely!” Catanya agreed.

  THE ARENA

  Carlo peered through the bars of the prison cage. Mounted above the door with rusted twists of wire was a steel number ‘6’. His eyes were locked on the young prisoner he made purchase of nearly a fortnight ago.

  “Has he spoken yet?”

  “Not a word,” the guard said.

  “Two weeks…” Carlo mumbled, gripping the bars of the cage. “You there… Brutus,” he addressed the large, powerful slave who shared the cage with Magnus. “Eaten? Has he eaten?”

  “No, not really.”

  “And yet, Brutus, his plate is empty of a morning.”

  “He does not object, so I eat it myself. It gives me strength to fight.”

  Carlo shook the bars of the cage violently for a moment. Magnus was lying curled in a ball at the back of the cage. He sat up, wiping matted hair from his face—dirty from lying day in, day out on the damp, filthy floor. He was still shirtless, wearing only the pants and boots he inherited from Lucas. He stared blankly at Carlo.

  Carlo snorted then looked at the two guards nearest him.

  “Clean him, then bring him up top.” He looked again at Magnus and back to the guards, “Did you hear me? Clean him then bring him up to the arena. I want him there in ten minutes.”

  The guards nodded and Carlo left the dungeon.

  “Your time has come boy. You weren’t going to be left here forever,” Brutus laughed.

  Magnus had
not seen Sarah since Carlo’s guards took them away. They were forced to walk down dark stairwells and passageways beneath the city and separated midway through the journey. Sarah did not stop wailing at the news of Ganister’s death.

  Somehow, Magnus did not believe it. Something about the way the Quagman joked about Ganister—“dying at his feet without provocation”—was misplaced. Daxton… his name was Daxton. Magnus vowed to remember the Quagman’s name, hoping he would chance upon him again to avenge Ganister whether his story were true or not.

  Magnus was dragged deeper into the depths of darkness along a confusing arrangement of corridors he would never remember. When finally he reached the dungeon that held Carlo’s collection of slaves, he was thrown into cage six.

  For two weeks Magnus learned nothing of his reason for being there. Cage six held five men, including himself, when he arrived. The number reduced to two within a week. For two weeks now Magnus had seen Brutus, together with men from the five other cages built into the dungeon, taken away by guards one at a time. Some came back, bloody and beaten. Others never returned at all. As he learned from Brutus himself, of all the men in the six cages, only he had lived to see three months in the arena.

  So far, Magnus had not been chosen to fight. He was relieved at first, but soon he grew weary of the waiting and thinking about what might become of him. Nevertheless, Magnus was grateful for one thing—he had not left the shores of Allumbreve. To what end he was not sure, but he was glad to be closer to his parents. He hoped beyond all measure that Crugion spoke the truth— that his parents were somewhere in the depths beneath Ba’rrat.

  When the guards were busy or absent, Magnus spoke quietly to Brutus. “Do you know these underground passages well?” he had once asked.

  “I believe so. For several months I have been marched to and fro through them. There are many divisions of prisoners beneath the city. Some are slaves used for fighting, others for labour, others await their execution and others—in the darker, deeper reaches—have been long forgotten and bide their time till the end. All considered, I think we get the best deal, the quickest death.”

  “And so, if I were to try and seek out a slave?”

  “You’d best forget about them,” Brutus chuckled.

  This answer would not do. Magnus vowed to find Sarah, his parents and Ganister. I just need to live long enough to do so.

  “Who do you fight up there in the arena?” Magnus asked.

  “Whoever they give me. Most times other slaves, sometimes volunteers wishing to prove themselves. Today was something special—I faced a Quag warrior! Full of bravado he was, determined to show the crowd what a true warrior was made of. Twas the last mistake he’ll ever make!”

  Magnus let his companion consume his ration of the grey, oily gruel they were given each day. It reminded him of the food he was served at the Hugmdael Inn. It had pleased Eamon well enough at the time. And was all he deserved. In this case, his prison mate was perhaps gaining an edge in the arena thanks to his extra helping.

  “Your appetite pleases me!” Brutus would say every time he tucked into Magnus’s food.

  Magnus could not account for his loss of appetite, or for his ability to remain alert having not eaten since his bonding with the dragon. The days blended together, with nothing to determine night from day other than when the other prisoners fought or slept. Magnus however, rarely slept, but at times the sickness returned with fevers and nausea and dreams of the dragon—Balgur. They were never as vivid as when he first bonded with Thioci, but Balgur’s presence was always there, always with him.

  The rattling of the oversized iron key in the lock marked the return of the two guards to cage number six, only this time it was Magnus who was summoned to leave.

  One of the guards barked his well-rehearsed command. “Up top.”

  The other guard threw a bucket of water in Magnus’s face.

  “You’re cleaned up, now get up top.”

  Magnus stood and wiped the water from his eyes.

  “Stay alive J’esmagdman, no matter what,” Brutus instructed.

  “Why?” Magnus was pulled from the cage.

  “I want to share your food tonight!” Brutus’s voice trailed off and the last Magnus heard was his deep laughter. The guards placed his legs and hands in shackles and marched him awkwardly along a series of corridors turning to the left, then the right, then right again, then up a flight of stairs and along another series of corridors before finally climbing a second, longer flight of stairs. At the top, he was pushed through a gate and into the brightness of day.

  Magnus squinted as the sun threatened to burn his eyes from their sockets. After a moment, his blurred vision came back into focus and he took in the vast size of the construction before him. There was no mistaking it—he was standing in the great Ba’rrat Arena. Its flooring was black stone spanning over two hundred feet across, where it met a high perimeter wall on all sides. The seating was arranged atop the wall into four distinct wings to the north, south, east and west. Each climbed higher than the tallest building in Ba’rrat. Behind each wing were parapets that towered even higher.

  The seats around the arena were completely empty, but standing in the centre of the arena was Carlo. He was instructing two other men who were training with swords, practicing sparring techniques not that different to how he had trained under Ganister’s tutelage since he was a child. Carlo turned as the guards marched Magnus over to him.

  “Unshackle him,” Carlo instructed. The guards did as they were told then stepped back from Magnus. Magnus rubbed his wrists and within moments felt heat pulsate through the abrasions made by the shackles. He was alarmed at how quickly his body responded to the minor injuries.

  “It’s been over two weeks.” Carlo kicked a pebble and watched it bounce across the ground. “Two weeks I have given you to eat, sleep, rest. Yet my guards tell me you choose not to eat and they are yet to see you sleep.” He walked to Magnus, standing close to him. “Tell me boy, do you feel rested?” he asked.

  “Rested enough,” Magnus replied.

  “Very well. What is your name?”

  Magnus knew he could not give his real name. He still feared Crugion would find out he were alive and make his parents suffer as he originally promised. Instead, he said the only other name he could think of.

  “Lucas.”

  Carlo folded his arms across his chest. “Lucas. Very well. Do you know why you are here, Lucas?”

  The answer seemed obvious to Magnus. He kept his silence all the same.

  “Let me explain my situation to you. In the hours before you and your fellow slaves arrived here in Ba’rrat, I received word that one among you had bested and killed a Quagman on the wasteland fields. The man killed—whilst notoriously a wretched fool—was also a notable swordsman. So good in fact that he wouldn’t fall easily to one of his own kinsmen, let alone a starving slave. This, I was told, was a slave I needed to invest in.” He leaned toward Magnus. “You are that slave, yes?”

  “Yes,” Magnus said.

  “So tell me. As I figure it, you’d travelled for days without food or water yet you still had the strength to kill three of the city guards once you arrived here.” Carlo paused as if waiting for Magnus to explain himself.

  “If you’d not called off the guards, I’d have killed more than that,” Magnus retorted. The two men training with swords stopped sparring and turned to Magnus, interested in the conversation.

  “Keep practicing,” Carlo barked at them. “I’ll tell you when to stop!” The men resumed their sparring. “You’ve got spirit boy, I’ll give you that. But where did you learn to fight like that?”

  “My father. He taught me.”

  “Hmm…” Carlo considered. “What I really want to know is, will you fight like that for me in the arena?”

  “To what end? Will you set me free?” Magnus asked. He pulled his shoulders back as if to emphasise his stance on the matter. The guards moved in to retaliate, but Carlo raised a han
d to stop them.

  “There is no freedom for you. Just death. One way or another.”

  “So then, why should I fight for you? Why would I bother if death is certain regardless?”

  Carlo spoke quietly to one of the guards who nodded in reply, turned and disappeared back down the stairs. Carlo turned his attention to Magnus again.

  “You would better understand your position, Lucas, if you appreciated two things. Firstly, I own you. This means what I ask you to do, you do. You see these two men?”

  Magnus looked to the two sparring men. Both had strong builds and scars from fighting. To Magnus though, only one of them seemed to have any real skills in swordsmanship. Magnus recognised them as the two men who resided in cage number three. The better of them had managed to survive several weeks of fighting.

  “Those men do what I ask them to do. Those that do not aren’t here to tell tale of it.”

  Magnus was growing tired of Carlo’s speech. “And the second thing I am supposed to appreciate?”

  Just as Magnus spoke, the guard returned up the stairs dragging Sarah with him by the hair. She squealed from the pain and tripped as she tried to keep up with the guard’s brisk pace. Magnus started toward them, but the guard held a sword to Sarah’s neck.

  “Stay where you are,” he warned.

  “The second thing you should appreciate,” Carlo continued, “is your mother. Every day you fight in the arena and survive, so too will she. She will be fed. She will not be harmed. But should you refuse to fight, or should you die in the arena, her life will be forfeited.”

  Magnus realised just how clever Carlo had been—purchasing Sarah was the perfect leverage. He regretted calling Sarah his mother. Any fate would have been better for her than this…