by Ryan Hughes
Instantly, Jedra felt himself gripped by invisible hands. His club flew away, tumbling end over end across the practice field, and the dark presence of the psionic guards filled his mind. Sahalik sat down heavily and clutched at his leg, then he tilted his head back and screamed in rage and pain. Jedra expected the elf to get back up and batter his head to a pulp now that the psionicists held him immobile, but instead the elf motioned for them to let Jedra go. He looked up at Jedra while he waited for them to come heal his injury, and he said through clenched teeth, "I think there may be some fight in you after all. Good. If you remember what that felt like when you fight your first real battle, you may even survive it."
"I don't want to fight," Jedra told him again.
"Too bad," Sahalik said, "because you're going to in three days."
* * *
That night, Kayan whispered to him from her bunk in their newly rebuilt quarters, "That was stupid. Now he'll just beat you even harder." It was the first time she had spoken to him on her own initiative since they'd been captured. They practiced separately by day, and on their previous nights, when she and Jedra might have at least taken some comfort from snuggling close to each other, she had preferred to sulk alone on her bunk, ignoring him.
Now he wasn't sure which was worse, but he said, "It doesn't matter. We'll be dead soon enough anyway."
"Not if I have anything to do with it we won't," she answered. "If we can use psionics in the arena, we'll win against anything they throw at us."
"Unless we have to fight other psionicists," Jedra said.
"We'll win against them, too."
"Yeah, that's what you said when we went up against these guys." Jedra nodded toward the psionicists who guarded them-just two, rather than the four that had been required to hold Kitarak. It didn't take all four to suppress their partially trained abilities; as long as they kept Jedra and Kayan from merging, two could handle them easily. It was a clear lesson to the would-be escapees: Sheer power didn't matter nearly as much as the ability to control it.
The psionicists had changed shifts again. The two old men hardly seemed to be paying attention-they were playing dice and laughing at jokes-but Jedra could feel their presence hovering over him, and he knew they would respond instantly if he and Kayan even mindspoke to one another.
Kayan glared at him. "You keep trying to make it my fault."
"No, I don't!" Jedra glared back at her. "I'm just tired of hearing about how invincible we are when we're not."
"All right, all right, we're weaklings and we're going to die in our very first battle, is that what you want to hear?
Does that make you happy?"
"Of course not." Jedra rattled the chains that bound him by his left leg to the wall. "But it's closer to the truth."
Shani never slept in the gladiators' quarters-she evidently spent her nights with Sahalik-but the human, a man in his thirties with just a touch of gray in his hair, did. He'd ignored Jedra and Kayan completely until now, practicing separately with Sahalik and sleeping whenever he wasn't training or eating, but now he lifted his head up from his bunk and said, "You two are going to make a great team in the arena. I pity your opponents; they're going to get argued to death." Then he rolled over and began to snore. Jedra was in the bunk between him and Kayan. He looked over at her, ready to share a good laugh, but his grin died when he saw the angry look on her face. Maybe the antisocial slave was right.
Sahalik, at least, seemed to think that they had a chance. The next day he and Shani took Kayan and Jedra out onto the practice field together and taught them fighting strategy.
"You'll be up against a dwarf named Lothar," he told them. "He fights with a curved sword, sharpened on both sides. Given your little display yesterday, Jedra, I think we'll give you a club, and Kayan, you'll have a spear." He tossed their weapons to them. Jedra's club was presumably the very one he would use in the arena, but Kayan's spear was only a shaft of wood with a rag tied around the end.
Shani carried the curved sword, also made of wood. "Pretend she's shorter and slower," Sahalik said, laughing. "You will fight and I will watch, and when I shout 'stop' I want you to freeze, and we'll examine what you're doing right or wrong. The basic idea is for Kayan to keep Lothar busy with the spear while Jedra beats him to death with the club, and if he gets too close, Jedra drives him back until Kayan can use the spear on him. Neither of you are to throw your weapon, and no fair spearing him in a vital spot until the crowd gets enough blood to be satisfied. Clear?"
"Whose blood?" Jedra asked.
Sahalik laughed again. "Anybody's blood," he said. "They're not choosy." He stepped back and shouted, "Go!"
Shani immediately leaped at Jedra and slashed at him with her curved sword. He jumped back, but not far enough, and the blunted edge caught him on the forearm as he raised his club to ward off the blow.
"Stop!" Sahalik shouted, and Shani froze. Jedra and Kayan froze a moment later, Jedra with his club still upraised, Kayan with the spear aimed somewhere between Shani and Jedra.
"You've just lost your right arm," Sahalik said. "And
ayan, you're about to spear your own companion in the side when he jumps back from the blade. All right, try it again."
They ran through the mock battle dozens of times, but never got beyond the first few seconds before Sahalik stopped them and pointed out another flaw in their strategy. By the end of the session, Jedra had a score of new bruises from the blunt sword, and his head felt overstuffed with all the advice he'd received.
They just had time to eat and catch their breath before they were at it again. This time Sahalik concentrated on their attacks, showing them how to harry Shani from two sides and disarm her.
"What about psionics?" Kayan asked at one point. "If we can use that in the battle, then why don't I just stop her heart-well, the dwarf's heart," she said with a wicked grin at Shani, "and be done with it?"
"Two reasons," Sahalik said. "One, that way isn't bloody enough for the crowd, and two, you won't be allowed to. You'll be handicapped by the temple psionicists to whatever level they decide is fair. We won't know what they'll allow you until you get into the arena, but don't count on much. Maybe the ability to dull your own pain, or boost your stamina if you start to fade too soon, but with two against one they're not going to let you have psionic weapons, too."
"But-" Kayan turned around, looking across the field at their psionic guards. "I thought we could use whatever we wanted on the battlefield."
Shani said in a soft, sinister voice, "Oh, that could be arranged. Of course, then you'd be fighting even more capable opponents on both the physical and the psionic level. Is that what you want?"
Kayan shuddered. "No," she said. She seemed to shrink a little, her former bravado completely gone now.
"Cheer up," Sahalik said, slapping her on the back with enough force to make her stagger. "Lothar's about as psionic as a rock. If you can give him a hangnail with your mental powers, it's better than he can do to you."
Kayan nodded. "That's a relief," she said, but she didn't sound sincere.
* * *
The next two days they practiced with thick leather armor that Sahalik said would stop all but the hardest sword blow, though the scores of cuts in it and the dark bloodstains around them didn't lend Jedra a whole lot of confidence. It did at least soften the blows from Shani's mock sword, even when she gave it all her strength. Sahalik also gave Jedra a small round shield to defend himself with while he bludgeoned her with his club. He gradually lost his fear of her weapon, and began to fight back like a true gladiator.
Kayan jabbed and swung her spear as directed, but the fire had gone out of her eyes after Sahalik's unwelcome news about their limitations. She hardly spoke to Jedra, on the practice field or in the evenings.
The day of the games dawned like any other on Athas: hot and sunny. Jedra was awake long before dawn, though, going over everything Sahalik had taught him time and time again. He didn't feel ready to face a hur-rum beet
le-the harmless humming pet of the rich- much less an armed, intelligent dwarf.
He didn't know. Sahalik seemed genuinely interested in having his charges win their first battle, but that could all be an act. He could be laughing uproariously inside at the thought of sending them into the arena unprepared.
No. Jedra was being paranoid. Wasn't he?
He hoped the dwarf, Lothar, was psyching himself out the same way, but Jedra doubted if he was. The few dwarves he had seen before weren't imaginative enough to worry about something ahead of time. Even so, how could Jedra bring himself to kill another intelligent being? He didn't know if he could do it.
Shortly after dawn he and Kayan and the two other gladiators were given a hearty steak breakfast, then marched down the hill to the stadium. People cheered as they passed and shouted encouraging things like, "Tear their guts out!" or "Die with glory!" Jedra tried not to throw up on anybody, but it was hard without Kayan's help.
As participants, they went in through their own gate on the city side of the ziggurat, through a torch-lit corridor beneath the immense stone mass to the cool subterranean pens beneath its arena-facing edge. As the holding area filled with people, though, it soon heated up even there, and the stink of the sweaty, unwashed gladiators, at least half of them afraid for their lives, soon became nauseating.
It seemed like they waited forever for the stands to fill and the games to start, but when the king stepped to his balcony and the crier took his cue to announce the first contestants, Jedra suddenly wished it had taken longer. As a new and unpredictable team, he and Kayan were up fifth, right after the executions.
They couldn't see the battles from their holding pens. The voluntary gladiators could, but not the slaves. They could only wait in the pit and listen to the clash of weapons and the roar of the crowd. Jedra grew more nervous by the minute as one execution after another sped past, and when he took Kayan's hand in his she didn't pull away.
"We'll survive this," he told her.
"Why?" she asked him. "Just to fight again next week?"
"We're buying time," Jedra said. "We'll eventually find a way out of here. Maybe Kitarak will come back for us."
"Hah. He's too smart to put himself in this situation twice."
Jedra was about to protest, but the crowd cheered as the final execution drew to its inevitable close, and Sahalik stuck his head over the railing and said, "All right, you two. You're on."
Guards led them up the stairs to the packed sand floor just inside the arena entrance. Bright sun streamed in from beyond. Lothar the dwarf stood there in stark silhouette, wearing a few plates of kank-chitin armor over his chest, legs, and forearms. He looked them over appraisingly as they approached him, taking in their worn leather armor over every vital part of their bodies- armor that did nothing to mask their terror-then he smiled. He had only one tooth sticking down from the top.
"Give me a good fight," he said. "Make me look good, and I'll kill you quick and clean."
Jedra's mouth was too dry to answer. He clutched at his lucky crystal. He should have bought a real luck charm from a mage in the market when he had the chance, but it was too late now. Sahalik handed him his club and shield, gave Kayan her spear, and shoved them out into the arena. His last words to them were, "Remember to bow to the king when you win."
"Right," Jedra said. They hadn't received any instructions for what to do if they lost-Lothar would no doubt take care of all that needed to be done.
The sand was hot even through his sandals. He squinted to see against the glare from the ziggurat and the stadium. The stands were full of people, but they all blended into a single seething mass of bodies. The only recognizable figures were the crier in the middle of the arena and the guards, both military and psionic, who stood at regular intervals all around the edge. Jedra felt the psionicists' presence hovering over him, ready to smother any attempt he made to escape or to use his own power to win the battle.
The noise of the crowd seemed to weigh down on him almost as hard as the psionicists did. The hot, red sun also beat down on him, and the odor of blood from the previous battles filled his nostrils. He was aware of Kayan walking out into the middle of the arena beside him, but at the same time he seemed completely alone, facing the entire world aligned against him.
Then Lothar stepped out of the gate, and the crowd cheered twice as loud as before. He walked up to within a few paces of Jedra and Kayan, his sword held casually in his right hand. The crier moved off a few yards, then shouted, "Begin!" Lothar jumped forward, his sword suddenly a blur, and swung the blade toward Kayan's left side. It chunked into her leather armor and stuck for a moment, but he pulled it free and swung at her again. She brought the shaft of her spear down on his head, and Jedra swung at his exposed back with his club, and both weapons struck just as his sword hit her in the same side again. That was where the laces were tied; his second cut sliced the seam wide open and exposed her entire left side.
"I am looking out," Kayan said. "You're supposed to hit him!"
"I'm trying." Jedra swung again at Lothar, but at the same moment he saw the dwarf's blade slice toward his head. He got his shield up in time and blocked the blow, and even managed to connect with his club against Lothar's armor, but it did no harm.
The dwarf was fast with his sword. Jedra barely had time to leap back before a sudden onslaught, and if it weren't for his shield and armor he would have been cut to ribbons within seconds. He dodged to the side, but Lothar was already there.
He tried pushing the dwarf aside psionically, or at least slowing his sword arm, but he felt the arena's judges smother his power before he even had a chance to ruffle Lothar's hair. He tried blinding him with amplified light, then tried to heat the dwarf's sword hilt until Lothar had to drop it, but none of his abilities could reach through the shields the judges kept around him. He and Kayan were going to have to win this fight with club and spear.
"Don't just stand there, jab him!" he yelled at her.
"I would if you'd stay out of the way!" she shouted back as she jabbed at the dwarf. "Quit jumping around so much!"
"He's got a sword! I'm not letting him slice me with it just so you can get a clear shot. Spear him!"
The crowd had grown quiet, waiting for a bloody wound to cheer, but Jedra's and Kayan's words brought laughter from a few people close enough to hear them.
"Fight!" the dwarf hissed. "They laugh at you!"
"What do you think we're trying to do?" Jedra demanded, swinging his club at Lothar's legs. He connected that time, and knocked the surprised dwarf's feet out from under him.
Kayan stabbed at him with her spear, but the point stuck in his belly armor and did no damage. Jedra leaped forward and clubbed him on the head, but Lothar swung back with the inner curve of his sword and sliced deep into Jedra's right leg.
Jedra flinched backward, bleeding heavily from the wound, and the crowd cheered at the sight of blood.
Lothar tried to get up, but Kayan held him pinned to the ground. "Hit him!" she screamed. "Hit him!"
Jedra tried, but Lothar kept waving the sword faster than he could dodge, all the while struggling to throw off Kayan's weight at the end of the spear and get up again. Jedra stuck his shield into the blur of metal, but Lothar managed to curve the blade around the edge of it and slice his arm.
Bleeding from two places now, Jedra flailed away with his club in a blind panic. Lothar seemed to be able to parry every blow, though, and now he was winning his shoving match with Kayan as well.
If he got up, they were dead. Jedra was already losing strength, and if the dwarf got past him, Kayan had no defense. She couldn't fight in close with a spear, and her entire left side was bare where he had sliced open her armor. Frantic, Jedra did the only thing he could think of: he kicked sand in Lothar's face. It didn't go anywhere near the dwarf's eyes, not until he kicked a second time and helped it along psionically. It was such a sudden impulse that the psionicists stationed around the perimeter had no chance to react.
Either that or they had decided it was fair use; either way, Lothar cursed as the sand momentarily blinded him, and Jedra took the opportunity to slip past the dwarf's guard and knock the sword from his hand. It flew end over end out of reach, and Jedra struck again, this time hitting his opponent squarely in his right side. The dwarf's brittle chitin armor shattered, and Jedra hit him again on the same spot.
Lothar groaned and tried to kick himself away, but Jedra swung at his leg, breaking it the same way he had broken Sahalik's. He swung at the dwarf's head, but missed and knocked the spear loose, where it gouged a deep wound across Lothar's chest before sticking against a rib.
The crowd was on its feet now, cheering and shouting, "Kill, kill, kill!" but now that the dwarf was disarmed and crippled, Jedra backed away. He looked up at the stands, then over at the arena entrance where Sahalik stood watching. The elf drew a finger across his throat in an unmistakable gesture, but Jedra couldn't do it.
He looked up again at the stands and at the rows of balconies where the king and his templars sat. He couldn't see the king in the glare, so he held his hand out to block the sun. A sudden hush spread across the crowd. Jedra heard the creak as every person there turned to look at the balconies.
"I don't know," she whispered back.
"You've asked for mercy," Lothar said through clenched teeth. "Very sporting of you, but if I'd wanted it I'd have asked for it myself."
"You don't want mercy?" Jedra asked, stunned.
"Do I look like a weakling?" the dwarf spat.
There was movement on the balcony. Jedra squinted, and saw a single figure in a golden robe hold out a fist, thumb down.