The Art of Hunting

by Alan Campbell

  And then he heard trumpets outside.

  Maskelyne wrapped his cloak around his shoulders and he went off with Mellor to find Cobul, wondering at the vagaries of thought and fate and coincidence.

  The Bahrethroan was asleep in the bar, his head resting on the table, a battered metal tankard still clutched in his hand. The other punters had gone outside, leaving Cobul alone.

  ‘Cobul,’ Maskelyne said. ‘You’re on.’

  The sorcerer jerked awake and rubbed his head groggily. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Have you been here all night?’

  Cobul glanced at the tankard in his hand and then downed its contents and said, ‘Apparently so.’

  ‘Our king is about to declare the games open,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Well, the warm-up scrap at any rate.’

  Cobul stretched his arms and yawned. ‘You often see the best fights at these pit contests,’ he said. ‘Contestants are less worried about honour and . . . what’s the word?’

  ‘Hygiene?’

  ‘Reputation.’

  ‘An ignoble conceit,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Shall we proceed to the slaughter?’

  ‘When am I on?’

  ‘The first round was supposed to begin at noon.’The meta-physicist checked his pocket watch. ‘Forty minutes ago. But the king’s here now to make his speeches.’

  Cobul yawned. ‘Then there’s time for lunch.’

  It was more than half an hour before the three of them reached the gate that led into Segard and the Halls of Anea. A constant stream of people poured into the Unmer city; from the look of them they were mainly spectators, but a few were armed and thus probably contestants. Scores more lingered outside, their boots and wagon wheels deep in mud, hawking everything from roasted insects to cabbages.

  As they walked through that massive stone portal and into an unremarkable square tunnel, Maskelyne became aware of a queer sensation – at first he thought it was in his gut, but then he wasn’t sure. He had the distinct notion that some change had occurred. Something that didn’t quite chime with his sense of orientation? A vague sensation of dizziness? He couldn’t say precisely what it was, but it rankled him. He glanced over to find Cobul grinning.

  ‘Geometry,’ the sorcerer said.

  Maskelyne frowned at him.

  ‘Did you just walk uphill, or down?’

  ‘Uphill,’ Maskelyne said. ‘And then we came in and . . .’ That’s what was so odd. The passageway beyond the gates appeared to lead straight into the mountain on a level plain. But as soon as he’d come through the gate, he’d felt like they were on a gentle downward slope. He looked behind him. They were on a gentle downward slope. ‘Good grief,’ he said. ‘This is . . . Not where it seems to be.’

  ‘I’m impressed,’ Cobul said.

  ‘Where are we?’

  The sorcerer shrugged. ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘All I know is that we are not under a mountain in Anea.’

  ‘How big is Segard?’

  ‘Big enough to hold a city, certainly. Maybe bigger than the world we just left. Who knows? The Unmer’s descendants spent thousands of years digging out halls. They might still be in here, for all I know.’

  Maskelyne stopped in his tracks, causing the people behind to grumble and steer around him. He seized Cobul’s arm. ‘What contains it?’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘What contains the portal through which we’ve just walked? We’re in a rift, aren’t we? A vast rift.’

  Cobul smiled. ‘A rift inside a house-sized cube of stone buried in the rock face.’

  ‘But, don’t you see?’ Maskelyne said. He looked around at the hundreds of people pushing past, oblivious to the idea he’d just had. ‘The portal has no relation to the mass of this place – it’s just a door. Which means that if we can move it, reposition it underwater, we can use it to drain this world of brine.’

  ‘Moving it is more of a problem than you imagine,’ Cobul said. ‘Anyway, what if there were still civilizations lost in here? Would you save one world by poisoning another?’

  ‘Of course. Wouldn’t you?’

  The sorcerer’s smile faltered. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘The pits are up ahead.’

  The tunnel opened into a hall so vast that Maskelyne thought this one room might just be large enough to contain the entire imperial palace. The ceiling had to be two hundred yards above him, and he could barely make out the far walls. It was illuminated by tens of thousands of gem lanterns, more than he had ever seen gathered in one place, all strung out on lines of cable held aloft by a random assortment of poles, tripods and scaffolds.

  Crowds packed the area ahead of them, their raucous shouts filling the air. They had clustered around several huge circular pits in the stone floor. As Maskelyne approached, he saw that the pits were stepped to form descending tiers of seating. Additional braziers and torches burned within these depressions, illuminating the stone floors where the combatants would fight. In the pervading gloom, the arenas glowed like the mouths of furnaces.

  To one side of the pits lay a great shambling corral of rope, canvas and rotten timber panels and doors that appeared to have been salvaged from half a hundred old buildings. Signs proclaimed this to be the combatants’ area, and King Paulus’s militia were busy here, taking tickets and registering names, which they chalked upon slate boards, while bookies surveyed each contestant and spoke with them before hollering out their offered odds on the fights to come. From what Maskelyne could hear, none of the odds was particularly fair.

  They registered Cobul, who – unsurprisingly – turned out to be the only sorcerer in the entire pit contest. Since amplifiers were prohibited, neither bookies nor contestants rated his chances very highly, for spells took time and concentration to weave. Even the greatest Unmer sorcerers had used amplification artefacts, or else maintained a safe distance between themselves and their enemies.

  ‘How much should we bet on you?’ Maskelyne asked him.

  ‘As much as you can spare,’ Cobul said. ‘The odds will go down after I win the first fight.’

  Maskelyne eventually found a bookie to take a thousand gilders, returning one for two should the sorcerer win – atrocious odds, but the best available. He made the bet and then he and Mellor went over to find seats at the correct arena while a referee led Cobul off into the combatants’ area to prepare.

  An hour later, the sorcerer had his first fight.

  His opponent was a local Losotan – a big man named Renton who worked in the dragon-canning factory. He wore a leather waistcoat and shorts and carried a wickedly sharp skinning lance, a weapon with which he was said to have some skill. As the iron-barred door came up, and the big Losotan walked out to a cheering crowd, Maskelyne felt a twinge of anxiety. Renton looked like a formidable opponent.

  On the other side of the arena, the second door shot up with a rattle of chain. Cobul walked out to jeers and howls of abuse. Regardless of his physical appearance, the sorcerer’s tattooed skin was enough to mark him as Unmer in the eyes of the crowd.

  A tournament officiator beckoned the two men forward, until they stood ten yards apart. Renton took a moment to display his talents, whirling his lance above his head with consummate skill. Cobul just stood there.

  Mellor exchanged a nervous glance with Maskelyne. ‘That butcher looks fast,’ he said.

  ‘Remember where we found Cobul,’ Maskelyne replied. He glanced around, hoping to catch a glimpse of their new king, but couldn’t see him anywhere. Apparently, His Majesty was not overly concerned with the pit fights.

  The officiator had finished speaking to the two combatants. He withdrew to the edge of the arena and raised his arms and called out, ‘Let the fight begin!’

  It lasted less than two seconds.

  The Losotan did exactly the right thing. Knowing that speed was his best hope of success against a sorcerer, he came rushing at Cobul with his lance gripped over one shoulder like a spear.

  The crowd roared.

  Cobul was whispering something.
He clasped his hands together suddenly, and then quickly raised one above the other, palm out, and made a small pushing motion.

  His opponent burst into a thousand red embers . . .

  . . . which skirled around Cobul like a swarm of fireflies, darkening rapidly, and then fell softly like grey snow. Where moments ago there had been a man, there was nothing but a thin layer of ash upon the ground.

  The crowd fell silent.

  All except Maskelyne, who stood up and applauded eagerly. ‘Bravo!’ he called out. ‘Bravo.’

  Duke Cyr found the king breaking his fast on one of the high palace terraces overlooking the city. The editor of the Losotan Herald had given him a sheaf of notes outlining all of the city’s news for his approval and selection, but one item in particular had caused him to hurry all the way up here. ‘Your Highness,’ he said.‘Conquillas registered for the tournament this morning.’

  King Paulus paused, a slice of grapefruit halfway to his lips. ‘Where did he sign up?’

  ‘At the harbour.’

  The king nodded. ‘We had expected this, Cyr.’

  Cyr nodded. ‘There has been an interesting development at the pit contest,’ he said. ‘A Bahrethroan sorcerer by the name of Jian Cobul.’

  ‘A bastard race?’ Marquetta said.

  ‘His father was Unmer,’ the duke replied.

  The king stopped eating. ‘What did you say his name was?’

  ‘Cobul.’

  ‘Why does that sound familiar?’

  ‘Your father, sire, had a sorcerer of that name attached to one of his personal divisions. He had the man boiled alive and exiled for treason.’

  King Paulus grunted. ‘And now he’s back, looking for a reprieve no doubt.’

  ‘That is one possibility,’ Cyr said. ‘He seems rather talented for a half-breed. After he won his initial battle, no one else will face him in the arena. His opponents are forfeiting. If it carries on like this, he’s going to win the pit contest by default.’

  The king glanced up. ‘He must be using an amplifier.’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Then how is he able to channel that much power?’

  Cyr shrugged. ‘Natural ability?’

  Marquetta seemed to consider this. ‘We’ll have to kill him.’

  ‘Of course, sire.’

  ‘It wouldn’t do to have a bastard race triumph over one of our sorcerers.’

  ‘I shall make the necessary arrangements.’

  The king took a sip of water. ‘Has Fiorel revealed himself to you?’

  ‘He has not, sire. But he wishes us to know he is in Losoto.’

  ‘In what form did he last enter your dreams?’

  ‘He came to me in the guise of a white hart, sire.’

  The king smiled. ‘How fitting, don’t you think?’

  Granger stayed with Conquillas and his daughter until the morning of the tournament. If today went as well as fate could allow, his daughter would wake up a widow. Such an outcome was far from certain, however, for it depended on Conquillas defeating an opponent who many claimed could not be defeated.

  Killing an entropath was hard enough. They were far stronger, faster and more cunning than normal men. But killing a shape-shifter would be more complicated still, Conquillas explained. If the god could change his shape at will, then he could re-form any part of his body that sustained damage.

  Their only hope was to deliver a lethal injury to the brain.

  But Fiorel would certainly try to trick them. Conquillas had fought an entropic beast before. The brain wasn’t necessarily where you expected it to be. And, of course, they wouldn’t even know who Fiorel was, until things started to go bad.

  Granger listened to all this with growing dread. He neglected to tell Conquillas what Shehernan of the sword had told him – that Fiorel also happened to be Granger’s father, and his grandfather, and great-grandfather, and so on, for at least a dozen generations. They were going out to fight half of Granger’s entire family tree.

  A whole network of ancient Unmer tunnels connected the natural cavern Conquillas used as his bolt-hole to the sewer system and the trove market, and to numerous other parts of Losoto. And it was from one of these tunnels that Granger, Conquillas and Siselo emerged in the forest north of the city.

  They found themselves in a hollow, where a natural overhang and unchecked vegetation obscured the tunnel entrance.

  Granger had to send three of his sword replicates to cut a path for them. The sky above was white and smelled of autumn. Cold rain coming from the north. The leaves were already starting to wither and brown. The three of them trudged through the forest in silence, following a little-used hunters’ trail.

  They reached the gates of Segard by late morning.

  A temporary settlement had sprung up around the entrance to the Unmer ruins. Thousands of people slept under canvas or warmed themselves around campfires. Hawkers wandered to and fro with baskets of produce or trinkets. Children played. Jugglers juggled. A carnival atmosphere suffused the place. The forest road had been churned black by a constant stream of ox-carts and people – merchants, spectators and combatants heading back and forth between Losoto and the arenas.

  There were fewer combatants outside the halls than Granger had expected. He spotted a group of warlords sitting around a fire, drinking from goatskins, two Anean lords waiting on horseback surveying the scene around them with some apprehension, and a few men-in-arms, but the majority of people were here to watch the tournament.

  When they saw Conquillas and Granger they stopped and stared.

  Siselo had grown weary of walking, so Conquillas carried her on his shoulders. She seemed thrilled by everything and everyone and took no notice of the stares. Granger trudged alongside, scowling at onlookers, his hand never far from the hilt of his sword. He supposed that by now his dead flesh had started to smell foul, but his companions did not mention it. Nevertheless, he noticed the frowns and the wrinkled noses of the people they passed. He thought he might buy a balm or perfumed oil from one of the sellers, but was too embarrassed to approach them.

  Finally they passed through the Segard Gate and into the Halls of Anea.

  Conquillas had warned him to expect a subtle shift in perspective when he entered the ruined city. They were, he explained, entering a rift – a universe created by sorcerous means to contain Segard. To create such rifts took massive amounts of power, and Segard was one of the largest ever constructed. Nobody had yet explored it all. It might be as vast as the whole of the Anean peninsula and possibly larger still.

  Granger merely grunted.

  A square tunnel brought them into a huge chamber – a space much larger than any Granger had seen before, where numerous depressions in the stone floor acted as arenas. Thousands of gem lanterns of every colour had been strung on wires across the entire area. To one side, a ramshackle corral of rope and timber enclosed the combatants’ area. Beyond this stretched an acre of green canvas military tents, all bearing the royal insignia. Here Unmer lords mingled with the most powerful warlords and Anean nobles. Servants brought food and drink to groups huddled around braziers, while musicians strolled among them with pipes and drums and gourds, and guards patrolled the perimeter. Among them Granger spied the tattooed faces of Brutalist and Entropic sorcerers.

  King Marquetta’s compound.

  They found the majority of the tournament combatants in the corral. There were knights bearing crests of wealthy Losotan families, a scattering of lesser warlords, pirates, privateers, sell-swords, mercenaries and soldiers of every description and from every part of the empire, all drinking, laughing, shouting and singing. At least three groups of musicians were playing different, clashing tunes. Merchants sold ale and wine by the cup from great wooden barrels while young lads wove through the throng with planks of hot flatbreads and pies.

  As Conquillas entered the corral and stood before the tournament officiator’s desk, with little Siselo still perched on his shoulders, and Granger at hi
s side, the raucous chatter fell noticeably. The eyes of everyone nearby turned to the new arrivals.

  A nervous official checked Conquillas’s presence on the lists, and then tipped his spectacles back on his head and pulled out a sheet of paper from a metal cabinet behind him. ‘Is it the Lord’s List, sir?’ he asked.

  Conquillas nodded.

  ‘Ten thousand, please.’

  The dragon lord reached inside his tunic and withdrew a fat leather purse. He tossed it onto the table in front of the official. ‘There’s twenty,’ he said. ‘For both of us.’

  The official glanced at Granger. ‘It isn’t usual,’ he said. ‘I mean . . . not common for one competitor to pay for another. I mean, why . . . eh . . . reduce your odds of . . .’

  ‘Winning?’ Siselo said from up on her father’s shoulders.

  ‘Um, I suppose . . .’ he replied.

  Conquillas merely stared at the man.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ the official said. He took the purse. ‘Now, please, come with me,’ he said, gesturing to the tent compound. ‘The area for the lords is . . . eh . . . this . . .’

  ‘Way?’ Siselo said.

  He nodded quickly. Then he led them onwards past the gaping crowds and brought them to the entrance to the royal compound, whereupon a guard unhooked a rope and waved them inside.

  ‘Now, I have . . . eh . . .’ The official moistened his lips. ‘Special instructions, sir. The king himself invites you to join him for drinks before the games . . . eh . . .’

  ‘Commence?’ Siselo said.

  The official nodded.

  ‘You should eat some coal,’ Siselo said.

  He looked up at her. ‘Coal? Why?’

  ‘So your mind doesn’t keep running out of steam.’

  Conquillas laughed. ‘Take us to Marquetta,’ he said.

  The official bowed and beckoned them towards a much grander tent situated nearby. This was roped off from the rest of the compound and patrolled by yet more guards, who stepped aside to let them through. Finally, they lifted a flap of canvas and were ushered into the presence of the king.