A handful of images slipped through the link, too fast to process. It left him with an acute sense of urgency. “What—”
“You have a remarkable and lively disposition.” Bairith gazed out the windows again. “You forever challenge me to fashion ways to shape your character without breaking your spirit,” he murmured. Apprehension ghosted around him. Then he pursed his lips and breathed a sigh through his nose. “Go. Hamrin is waiting for you.”
“Yes, lord.” Subdued, he took his shirt from Fesh. The beast fell in behind him as he made his way to the door. Teth trotted ahead to open it.
“Sherakai.”
On the threshold, he turned back to the jansu.
Bairith kept his gaze on the horizon. “I have watched your matches,” he said again. He spoke so softly Sherakai had to lean toward him to catch his words. “You will win.”
“Yes, lord…”
Chapter 22
The third deck quarters mirrored those of the first: cages with a pile of hay to sleep in and a lidded pot in the corner for night soil. The same strange, ugly lights lit the corridor, and he wondered at the cost of enchanting so many. Perhaps they were so old they’d paid for themselves several times over. Had they once been an attractive color?
“Here.” Hamrin indicated an empty cell and Sherakai put his bedroll atop the hay. When he stepped out again, his instructor locked the door, then led him to the other end of the room, a foyer, and more stairs. They went up again, to a large chamber full of clothing and armor. Sherakai took in all the styles and varieties as they wound through the stacks and barrels. He was curious where they’d come from and what sort of people wore them.
“Why is there no quartermaster?” he asked.
“No need. The patrons kit their champions with the necessaries. It’s usually colored or marked to set them apart. This stuff is general supply. Used when some halfwit gets himself or his gear ruined.”
“Heart-warming,” he said under his breath, thinking of Finhaam.
Sherakai found himself kitted up in an outfit at least two sizes too big. While the tunic and pants were clean, they smelled of damp earth. The lamellar hauberk hung to his knees and sported a suspicious dark stain across one side. The leg coverings—strange things with long narrow plates fitted into pockets—fit nicely. He got a new pair of boots in the same style. Heavy, but they’d keep his legs protected. The helm was a simple cap with chain mail hanging from the sides and back. It didn’t match either of the other pieces. He looked like someone’s poor relative.
Teth took the armor away and Fesh approached with a small clay pot clasped against his chest. He hissed and pointed to a barrel. Sit.
“What is that?” he asked as he lowered himself.
Removing the cap, Fesh showed him a thin, gray paste. It smelled of fish with a bitter undertone. As the creature applied it to Sherakai’s cheeks—“to give a sunken show,” Hamrin provided—he remembered the first time the pair had used kohl around his eyes. This didn’t feel any better or more honest, but he wasn’t going to argue. He’d stopped fighting a lot of things. The realization carried him another step back from all he’d once wanted and dreamed.
Hamrin pursed his lips at the stubble decorating Sherakai’s jaw, then shrugged. “We’ll take that off in the morning. Not enough there to make it worth doing twice.”
Stung, Sherakai rubbed his chin. His beard was coming in nicely, not like the straggles he’d seen on several of his new companions. It was one thing to want it off and another altogether to insult him.
“Don’t set there like a stew pot. Come on,” Hamrin said, and from there they went to join the other third deckers in the dining hall.
If the novices had looked at him with suspicion, the third deck regarded him with hunger. Their glittering eyes and sharp smiles made his chest tight. He was fresh meat, and they were wolves. Fesh and Teth at his heels drew attention. Marked him. The thin veneer of safety against the undercurrent of threat they offered would vanish when he stepped into the arena. Sherakai was the tender beginner, a morsel to whet appetites. He’d be dead or missing parts long before the next game ended.
The beasts sat behind him at table. Hamrin ate his meal with customary focus and little conversation. Afterward, he escorted Sherakai to his cell. “May ye wake in the morning.”
Sherakai thought he might not have slept at all but for Fesh and Teth’s presence on the other side of the iron bars. Leaving his competition maimed or unconscious in his first match had been a bad decision—except that the only other choice was to kill them. For what? Being slaves in a stupid game played by rich and powerful creatures in a world he’d never even heard of before?
He prayed. Passion and fervor he hadn’t known he could feel filled his heart and poured out in whispered words.
“Sayntat,” a neighbor berated, his voice harsh and nasal. He banged the bars between them to emphasize.
Sherakai could guess what it meant. He pressed a hand over his mouth, then put them both over his eyes. The gods had yet to rescue him; nor had they helped his father. And how could Tameko find him now? He had no one and had never felt so far from home.
Don’t leave me in this place, he begged. Don’t let me become this terrible creature they’re trying to make of me. I’ll do anything You ask, Great Father…
It was foolish to bargain with the gods, least of all the Creator, yet what choice did he have?
The dead walked beside him in short, ugly dreams. He needed no paint to give him a haggard appearance.
“They’ll beat ye bloody today,” Hamrin informed him. Alone at one of the long tables, the third deckers pretended they didn’t exist. “They can’t kill ye yet, but they can scare ye. If ye allow.”
“What difference does it make if they beat me or the jansu does?”
Hamrin snorted and jabbed a hunk of bread into his overcooked oatmeal. Gray goo dripped from it as he shoved it in his mouth.
There was a measure of gratification in seeing his teacher given the same slop Sherakai had. He pushed his bowl across the table.
Hamrin pushed it back. “Ye give them an edge if ye don’t eat. Don’t think the rules of the Gates don’t mean anything here.”
An ugly stillness settled upon him. Some hapless, innocent servant would forever motivate him. Kill him or the deckers? The deckers had already chosen to kill rather than be killed. Death was an option denied Sherakai dan Tameko. His lip curled as he pulled the bowl close again and stirred the gray contents, and when Hamrin handed over a plate of sausages, he took a handful. He finished the meal without speaking, immune to the man’s attempts to engage him.
Sherakai spent the next hour sewing metal squares onto a spare jack of plate like a vest. Shoving the needle through layers of felt and canvas required a thimble ring, and it made his hands hurt. Given the choice, though, he’d choose this over fighting. Hamrin sat alongside, doing the same. Now and then he parceled out a tip about his gear—whether how to mend it or how to pierce it. Otherwise, he kept his silence. Sometimes, he reminded Sherakai of Captain Nayuri.
Dead, dead Nayuri.
What would his father’s friend say about this situation? What words of advice and encouragement might he offer?
In his imagination Nayuri’s bloodied visage whispered, “Yours is a true Gift…”
Fine; what was he to do with it? Claim it, or it will claim you. How could he claim it when he didn’t understand what it was?
He tried to work out the puzzle, but all he could see was the blade that had ended Nayuri’s life. Over and over, it slid into his throat without the least resistance. Sherakai did not weep, he did not shudder. It was possible that he was becoming inured to that particular horror.
The basket of spare plates next to his foot tipped over. He righted it. Three minutes later, it tipped over again. This time, he settled it more deeply into the sand. Bent over still, a breath of air shivered across his cheek, redolent of incense, thick with troubled whispers. The temperature in the air dropped,
but only along his right arm as he held the basket. He jerked upright.
“Cut yairself?” Hamrin leaned close to look at his hand.
Sherakai pulled away. “No.”
“Have a care. Those are sometimes sharp.”
“I’m fine.” He flexed his hand, then resumed his task. When no further ghostly manifestation transpired, he began to relax. Between the stab-and-drag of the heavy needle, he shifted his attention to his companions. Back to what really mattered. They sat around the arena working on their own projects as their teachers or patrons stood over them.
“What if I kill someone during practice?”
“Don’t ye have enough grief?” Hamrin tied off a thread and set his things down. “I don’t know, Sherakai. Ye might go to the fourth deck. Maybe higher. Maybe all the way to the heroes. And the jansu will have a thing or two to say.”
Less ‘saying’ than ‘doing,’ Sherakai imagined. He was trapped. “Help me.”
“Am I not?”
A single hard look speared the man. “Help me get away from this. Away from Bairith.”
The low voices around them faded. The constant flickering overhead stilled.
“Ye don’t know what yair asking.”
Anger and insult twisted his face. “Neither do you.”
“Aye lad, I do. More than any should ever be made to know.” Hamrin turned his face away. The world regained its momentum. “I’ve already made my choice.” Getting to his feet, he picked up his mending and walked away.
Chapter 23
No one died by Sherakai’s hand during the two days of practice before the game, though he killed three in the arena. Hamrin could not hide his profound relief over the former, nor his obvious pleasure in the latter. He pounded Sherakai’s back enthusiastically, waxing poetic in his praise. Sherakai tried to shrug it off, following the rest of the third deck as they trailed into the cool, dark tunnels like ragged, stunned rats. Behind them, slaves scurried out to retrieve bodies, weapons, and armor, then rake the sand.
He’d seen one of them toeing a bloody scrap from the tines of his fork. A fist pressed to his mouth hadn’t saved him; sticky, copper-smelling blood covered his skin. Turning aside, he’d dropped his filthy sword, planted a hand against the wall, and retched.
“There, there…” Hamrin patted his back like an awkward nursemaid. “It’ll pass, ye know. Ye get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it.” Sherakai wiped his mouth on his sleeve and brushed roughly past his instructor. He didn’t mean to knock him into the wall, but he didn’t apologize, either.
When Hamrin made to follow him, Teth blocked the way. His teeth pulled back from razor sharp fangs and a growl formed in his throat. “Here, now, none of that.” He was reduced to following the trio to the baths. The beasts forced him to keep his distance while they stripped the youth of his fouled gear and clothes. The baths themselves were little more than deep troughs. Lining either side of a series of long chambers, they filled on one end and emptied out the other. Naturally, the spaces closest to the inlet were the most coveted.
“Ye did real good work, Sherakai. The jansu’ll be pleased. I’m sure he’ll want to have a word with ye.”
Gritted teeth held back angry words while Fesh examined the wounds he’d received—cuts, scratches, and bruises. He’d taken a nasty gash on his forehead from a mace. He didn’t know where his helmet ended up. Not on his head anymore.
The other third-deckers weren’t much more talkative than Sherakai, except for one. Vistha-Tei pounded his muscular chest and bellowed his victory into the disquieted air. A humanoid creature with a topknot, his pointed ears glittered with bone rings. He had a flat nose, vicious tusks, and a perpetual snarl. What he lacked in size he made up for in bravado. He’d introduced himself to Sherakai by grabbing his head and dunking him in the community water barrel. When his victim didn’t fight back, he laughed uproariously.
Fesh and Teth had shot across the sand, teeth bared, and Sherakai had tackled Teth bodily, hollering at Fesh to stop. He didn’t need them killing the idiot and inadvertently advancing him another deck even if he had to put up with occasional bullying and boasting.
“You see?” Vistha-Tei shouted now, turning in a circle with his arms held out as though to an adoring audience. “Do you fear?”
“Sayntat, Meerkha!” Sherakai’s cell neighbor slapped the back of Vistha-Tei’s head. “Silent you. Fool. Out there play with crowd,” he said, pointing in the direction of the arena. “In here remember dead. Remember you dead.”
Vistha-Tei snarled and swiped at him.
Fast as light, the other blocked the blow, grabbed Vistha-Tei’s hand and twisted until the tusked creature collapsed to the tiles, whining. “You dead,” he repeated. Tall and pale, with a shock of bright blue hair and intricate tattoos on his face, he looked more like a spoiled aristocrat than a lethal weapon. But the ogre stayed down, cradling his arm and glowering with resentment.
“That one’s called Rinlag Kirath.” Hamrin murmured in Sherakai’s ear. “He’s dangerous.”
“We’re all dangerous,” Sherakai said without inflection. He stepped into the tepid bath water and leaned his forearms against the wall. Fesh and Teth washed his aching body, more tender than he deserved.
“True, that.”
“What’s a Lythor?”
Hamrin grunted. “Heard about him already, have ye? He was a hero. That’s what they call the fighters that live through their ninth match on the eighteenth deck. They called him ‘The Anvil.’ No one could touch him.”
“What happened to him?”
“No one could touch him,” Hamrin repeated, then smiled and lifted his shoulder in a faint shrug. “He and some of the other heroes revolted. Dragged a lot of the other fighters into the mess. Hundreds were killed. Fighters. Patrons. Spectators. Governors.”
“Governors?” Sherakai twisted his head to look over his shoulder. He had never even seen a governor. A hard, hungry look had slipped over his trainer’s features. “Who are the governors? Are they Twixtborn? People like us? What?”
“I don’t know if anyone knows the truth about them. But I figure if they were like us, there’d be no arena.”
“Did they make this place?”
“The Arena? Aye. The Twixt, no. No, it’s always been here.”
Fesh gently poured a bucket of water over Sherakai’s head, then wiped his face with a towel.
“You were there, weren’t you?”
Hamrin grunted. “It was a long time ago. Lythor disappeared. No body, no hero, no revolution.” He shrugged again, then snapped his fingers at the beasts. “C’mon, then. Quit yair gawkin’ and let’s get our man patched up.”
Whatever system the governors used for grading performances, only half of the surviving third deck advanced. Rinlag and Vistha-Tei were among them. So was Sherakai.
He pulled his bedroll against his new cell door and leaned his back against Fesh’s through the bars. Sleep did not come easy, nor last long. Twice he cried out when he woke from a nightmare of being chased by those he’d killed. The inhabitants of the fourth deck yelled at him. After that, he’d awakened with Fesh or Teth’s hand over his mouth to stifle his shouts and their soft chittering in his ear.
He didn’t cry. Couldn’t let himself. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth, which inspired an abominable headache. The only answer to that was practice. The answer to everything was practice, from ordinary pangs and pains, to belly aches, to loneliness, to anger, to terror.
Sherakai was not the only player to suffer nightmares or anxiety. Two fourth-deckers in his group fell to pieces in a matter of days. One wailed constantly; the other cried quietly and trembled without ceasing. He stayed away from them the best he could. His instinct to give them help or comfort would only result in more anguish for all three. Still, witnessing the wailer impale himself on a teammate’s weapon shocked and nauseated him.
The quiet weeper died the next day, too distraught to defend himself.
>
Weeks of practice gave him little time to think of anything beyond a constant weave of defensive and offensive exercises. He breathed sweat, leather, sand, and stink. And when he wasn’t struggling in the throes of nightmares, he dreamed sweat, leather, sand, and stink. Sometimes Mage Tylond tended to his injuries. On those occasions, he made Fesh and Teth wait outside and kept the door closed. As if that would keep them out if they felt they were needed.
Without the jansu nearby, the shader endeavored to take even more liberties than he’d done before. Holding Sherakai’s wrist one day, he drew his finger through an ugly gash on the youth’s forearm. His expression was hungry, as if he might scoop out a morsel of flesh for a snack.
A year ago Sherakai would have cried out and tried to pull away. Instead, he cupped Tylond’s cheek ever-so-gently. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Tylond’s smile grew. “Fortunately, our roles are not reversed. I much prefer the comforts of my station to the sweat and stink of yours—though the simple drama of survival must thrill you.”
Sherakai’s hand became a claw, thumb against the mage’s eyeball, trapping him.
Tylond cringed, stopped, but didn’t remove his finger from the open cut. “I see you’ve taken to your lessons.”
“I have, sir. Which of us do you think can last longest at this game?”
The healer laughed—
And Sherakai dug hard, transforming the amusement into a scream of agony. Tylond jerked away, covering his face. Blood, tears, and slime leaked between his fingers.
“Bastard!” he shrieked. “I will kill you. I will kill you!”
“Try it. Please,” Sherakai ground out. In that moment he wanted nothing more than for the half elf to attack him. He held his hands out in invitation, gore on one and blood from his own wound dripping down the other.
“Stand down.” Bairith’s icy command froze them where they stood but failed to cool searing tempers.
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