by O. J. Lowe
Behind the terminal, away from anything that might be damaged, someone had set up a bouting field and Nick found himself staring longingly at it. This. This was what he needed. It was becoming more and more popular at aeroports these days and he’d seen it on the arrival. Fighting in the streets wasn’t allowed, Unisco would be down on you in an instant if you did. That was the same no matter where you went, the Senate had especially laid that law down to discourage it. Anyone guilty of it would find it was the main ingredient in a recipe for trouble. Here on licensed fields, you could do it to your hearts content. Nobody would stop you, if the field had the correct licensing and paperwork. He’d already seen it did, the aeroport took full responsibility for it.
Two women were already engaged amidst the battlefield, neither of whom he’d ever seen before but their spirits he could recognise. A huge cinder-cross serpent, body long as Nick was tall, faced a woophawk a fraction of its size. Burnt red scales covered the slender serpentine body, an assortment of grooved black crosses cut into the spaces between, they were distinctive and native to the kingdom if he recalled correctly.
The woophawk looked quite dull in comparison, its feathers a dirt-coloured shade of brown, its beak and talons a golden colour stained by dust and dirt. The only bit of brilliant colour about it Nick could see was the vibrant pink crest that flopped down from its head, twisting and turning with every flap of the wings, every effort to keep airborne. Even should it be still, the wind would catch it, he guessed. That crest would never stay still, even the caress of a light breeze would make it flutter wildly. Aeronauts had used them in the past to judge the direction of the wind. Snipers still did sometimes in Unisco, he’d heard, although it was fading out given the preference for energy weapons. Better than a spotter was the consensus of men and women who knew more about the subject than he ever would. If it was good enough for them, he wasn’t going to argue over it.
Even with the throng of people at the airport, there weren’t perhaps as many over here as he’d expected. Not ready to fight anyway. Some stood watching, their interest more than hooked as the woophawk ducked in and out around the serpent’s head. Nick watched the tongue flicker back and forth, tasting the air around it. He folded his arms, slipped into the combatant waiting area. His eyes darted back and forth, took in the surroundings swiftly. He could see the shield generator around the battlefield, every venue had to have one by ICCC law.
Why that law had been brought to pass was quickly displayed, as the jaws of the serpent ripped open, a hiss not unlike escaping gas slipping out from the maw. Nick knew what was coming even before he saw the spark and saw the flames erupt out in a brilliant cone. The woophawk ducked down, managed to get under it, not cleanly judging by the squawk that followed A few seconds and Nick saw the flames were starting to lick at its feathers, threatening to swallow them up.
The law existed for a reason, to protect those watching the bouts, hells it was even there to protect property. Throwing the elements around like that, it could really inflict some serious pain. People had taken legal action in the past. The aeroport would be liable for any injuries inflicted if they didn’t operate the shield barrier, action would be taken, reputations would be damaged. It was the lesser of two evils for them.
Frantically the hawk flapped its wings, trying desperately to shake burning down away from a body contorting into unnatural positions wracked by pain. Lost amidst the panic, it didn’t see the snake circling down below, powerful chest muscles carving circles into the ground as it sought to raise its body up and up. In a matter of seconds, the serpent was almost eye level with Nick. He didn’t particularly want to look it in the eye. Old stories about hypnotising snakes stealing children left bad memories he’d never quite been able to shake. The Divine of Death and Shadow, Griselle, was always depicted as a serpent. Griselle was the one from whom all serpents were descended, her agents who brought hapless children back for her to feast on their tongues and their eyes. Speak no lies, see no truth, as the rhyme went.
Nick had never seen a snake jump before, not like this. The lower part of its body tensed, muscle tightening against the scales, bones protruding hard into the ground before it pounced like a bolt into the last few feet. Jaws clamped down, he had to nod appreciatively as it swallowed the hawk down whole. No hesitation. No pain. It must have had a constitution of iron to not vomit the flaming bird straight back up. Being eaten was usually an effective way of ending a bout. He could see the bulge in its throat where it had engulfed the avian, even now still trying to swallow it down. It wasn’t going easy, Nick noted, he saw the flicker in the serpent’s eyes as the bulge batted back and forth. It didn’t want to die in that gullet. Gradually, they started to slow. In moments, they’d stopped completely.
The woophawk’s caller had to concede, she nodded in agreement to show that she had already accepted that this was a fight she was not going to win. In a competitive bout, she might have fought it harder. Here, with nothing at stake other than pride, it simply wasn’t worth it. Maybe she had an aeroship to catch and wanted the whole act to come to a premature end. Her reasons were her own. She wasn’t bad looking, either from Premesoir or Canterage maybe if his guess of her colouring was right, she wasn’t quite dark enough to have been here for any length of time. The Serranian sun wasn’t as piercing as it was in Burykia or Vazara, but a few days would still leave a respectable tan. Dark hair framed her face, a long dyed-pink bang dropping down over her eyes. It wasn’t that dissimilar to the one that adorned her woophawk. Another time, he might have found it cute. Now, he thought it looked contrived. Almost forced even.
Thumbing a button on the rectangular summoner that she hung around her neck, the bulge vanished as the spirit was dispelled safely back to the crystal that held its genetic code. The summoner acted as a projector, took the DNA that had been trapped in the crystal and used it to create a flesh and blood version of that very same creature that could be commanded solely by sheer force of will.
He watched the two spirit callers shake hands with each other, do that fake little kiss embrace that women who want to look fake-friendly with each other do so well, noted that they couldn’t have been more different if they tried. The owner of the snake looked familiar, he couldn’t recall her name, but it wasn’t important. Whomever he fought would doubtless introduce themselves, it was only polite, whoever left the battlefield wouldn’t. It was courtesy to rotate on and off after a win or a defeat if there were people waiting, especially at aeroports. Win or lose, nobody was here to claim a prize for being the best. They were here for the same reason he’d come out here. To kill time. Or, at a push, to work out some stress.
The caller with the snake nodded at him, waved a tattooed arm and he nodded back. She withdrew the serpent, stepped away from the battlefield. He was positive he’d seen her before now, somewhere. Maybe in a bout he’d watched, maybe he’d fought her when she was younger. She wore a pair of shorts bordering on the verge of indecent, toned legs rippling down from them, her upper body clad in a backless vest that revealed a pair of wings tattooed across her shoulder blades. He purposely didn’t look.
With her out of the picture, he stepped onto the battlefield, approached the losing defender. She was shorter than him, much shorter. She reminded him of Lysa, same height, same build. The hair was different. If Lysa had shown up to work with hair like that, he would have ripped the living piss out of her for it. Unisco didn’t have a regulation on hair styles but if you showed up with an unusual one, you could expect to be mocked. None of it was usually bad-natured, it was just the way things were. New and different were something to be suspicious of.
“I know you,” she said, looking up at him. “You’re famous.”
Nick said nothing. Saying he didn’t know who she was would have been callous, even if it was the truth. Sometimes saying nothing could be the best thing to do. A better man than him had taught him that.
“Fame means nothing,” he eventually shrugged, before offering her a hand. She
took it eagerly; her skin was soft and warm beneath his touch, but her grip was firm. “Nicholas Roper.”
“Julia Tamale,” she said. He considered it for a moment, wondered if he’d ever heard the name before. Some names did resonate, you heard them, and you recalled immediately if you’d fought them or not. Tamale wasn’t a name that he could remember. Woophawks weren’t an uncommon creature, maybe she was just starting out. She’d looked a cut below the other caller. It wasn’t perhaps an unfair assumption to make. That was the way most callers went when they were young, they did grab the gene profile of animals that were plentiful around the local areas of their kingdom. They were more common because they bred faster and more often, ergo there were plenty of them around to be claimed.
“Pleasure to meet you, Ms Tamale,” he said. “You ready for a little warm up?”
“Sure are, sure are,” she said eagerly. He couldn’t place that accent. It bothered him. A lot of the time, accents were easy to spot if you’d spent any length of time in the kingdom it originated from. He’d not heard enough of her dialect to narrow it down, either. Although that itself was quite telling. It usually meant mixed heritage, caught between two parents from two different kingdoms, the influences of both. Not that there was anything wrong with that. It depended largely on the kingdoms involved where they hailed from but there was a lot of mixed blood flowing around the veins of the populace these days. Travel was more common, desire knew no border. Those who had problems with it were very much in the small minority. “Are you waiting for a flight?”
He nodded. “Of course. Canterage. You?”
“Burykia,” she said. “I’ve got all afternoon yet. Headwinds delayed it. You?”
Her eyes widened at him as she asked it, like she was hoping he’d stay here all afternoon with her. Maybe he was reading too much into it. “Got half an hour maybe.”
“We can have one,” she said. “I always dreamed of fighting someone like you.”
Lofty ambitions indeed. He smiled politely at that. She acted inexperienced, she looked like she was just starting out. Appearances could be deceiving. He knew that all too well. Accepting that she was a novice without having seen much more than the tail-end of a bout would be a foolhardy strategy. Her next words confirmed to him that maybe there was more to her than met the eyes.
“Got to be honest, I tell a lie,” she said. “I always dreamed of beating someone like you.”
His smile grew at that comment, evolved into a smirk. He appreciated moxie like that. It made things more interesting for everyone. Maybe she wasn’t as bad as she made out. Her loss to the other caller could be explained away by any number of things. Perhaps she was having a bad day. Perhaps the spirit was newly claimed, and she was in the process of working things out with it. Too many possibilities to be able to know for sure.
“I work to make my dreams a reality,” he said, locking a crystal into his summoner. He’d already made his choices. “You should too. For it is only through experience that we find out who we are.”
Tamale went first, unleashed her spirit and he knew that he’d already made a good choice to fight against her. He’d not seen a cutter-bug for a while, and never one this big, but they made one hells of an impression. Maybe it was on a match with the height of its caller, curved wings bursting from its back that buzzed rapidly, slashing the air with a dull hum. Its body was the colour of grass with spatterings of dandelions, not a surprise considering they were naturally found in fields. Naturally they didn’t grow that size. He tried not to look at the four blades that made up the ends of it arms. Four blades. Four arms. One each. Normally they were just about sharp enough to cut through grass, one blade at a time. These looked lethal enough to cut through bone.
Those who claimed bugs and modified them usually had to rework their entire facial structure for added effectiveness in a fight, especially when four blades like that were involved. Its face resembled that of a praying mantis, pointed at the back, humanoid towards the front but still utterly alien. It didn’t display anything even remotely close to emotion, nor would he have expected it to. Mandibles clattered as it studied him, an unsettling sound that he chose to ignore as he thumbed the button on his own summoner.
He’d gone for the garj, Bish materialised in a shower of brilliant light as the projector fired up, making latent material something very solid and real. He liked the garj, not his most powerful spirit but a good match here and there was something rewarding about watching that grace and poise enter the fray. The garj stood upright on legs that looked delicate at first until you gazed closer and saw the hard muscles. They could leap, he could testify to this, over a house with ease. In the wild, their natural habitat were the mountains and they scaled peaks with ease. His body was small but tight and compact, Nick always thought it looked like Bish was wearing a snow-white tunic, the fur spreading out across arms and legs and his head, all before tufting up at his crown in a sudden brilliance of green, making it look like he was wearing an emerald helm. What people always noticed about the garj though were the arms, eyes inevitably drawn towards the sharp blades that hung out from the elbows. They used the blades in the wild for displays of dominance during mating season, he’d seen one himself and he’d been awestruck with their power and precision. That had been the point when he’d made the decision that he needed to claim one for himself.
Both spirits bore blades here, making it an interesting match, Nick thought as he studied the opponent. He’d fought cutter-bugs before, knew what to expect. Lots of speed, lots of precision, glass jaw. Most bugs were like that in his experience, saying that something could be squashed like a bug was a strangely apt saying after all, some callers moved to address it at the expense of speed, most just used them as the first line of attack. Inflict and inflict and inflict until the opponent fell to their injuries, all while using their natural speed to evade anything retaliatory thrown at them. He had a feeling that Bish wouldn’t have much of a problem keeping tabs on it. They shared most of the same qualities.
There was no video referee as there would be in an official tournament. They’d keep fighting until one of them was unable to continue or until a concession.
“Meet Talas,” Tamale said eagerly. No mistaking the hint of pride in her voice. “You like his blades?”
“Outstanding,” Nick said. He was being charitable, it took more than four giant knives to impress him. He blinked. Huh. Blades. Had to be blades. Picking Bish meant it all might have been in the back of his mind. Retribution. Vengeance. Taking eyes for eyes.
Maybe he was reading too much into his subconscious. There was a big bloody bug with four bladed arms right in front of him. It wasn’t going to intimidate him, it wasn’t going to get inside his head.
“You wish to call the start?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. Given the lack of a referee to make the decision, one of them had to do it. As the defender, despite her previous loss, she had that right if she chose to sue. The Caller Code gave her the option, just as it gave her the option to defer it back to him. The rules of the code were sometimes simple, sometimes complex but always you adhered to them on the battlefield, no matter the level or the stakes.
Her eyes lit up greedily. Simple fact of human psychology, he’d always found. You give someone an option offering them something, even when they know they have a right to it, they’ll take you up on it ninety-nine times out of a hundred. “Okay, on three,” Tamale said with a smile. It wasn’t a good smile, showing yellowed teeth to him in a grin. Maybe it was the light. Maybe. Didn’t matter. Good oral hygiene wasn’t available on the road sometimes, it was a case of making do with what you had.
“One.”
You could always tell a lot about what a caller might be thinking in the seconds before a bout got underway by studying not just them but their spirit. Telepathic commands from caller to creature gave an edge but how much of an edge was always up for debate. You couldn’t hide body language. Nick had studied it back in the Unisco academy, always
employed it to study an opponent across the field, what they might or might not do. Tamale was stood with her arms folded, a defensive posture but her spirit wasn’t made for defence. Whatever she did here, it wouldn’t be to go on the defensive. Only a fool didn’t play to their spirits strengths. In other words, she was trying to conceal anything she might give away. He wouldn’t have minded playing Ruin with her. He’d have made an absolute fortune against her.
“Two.”
The cutter-bug’s wings were starting to vibrate, going from stagnant to rapid in a matter of moments, hornet-swarm loud as it hovered above the ground. Nick could hear its mandibles clacking in its jaws as it studied Bish. The blades were twitching, like it was desperate to employ them against those across Bish’s elbows. He had a theory about how that might go, should it come to pass. Talas was looking impatient, already jittering back-and-forth in the air, cutting lazy circles. First chance it got, it’d charge. Nothing moved like that unless it was waiting to strike. It was the stalk of a predator, one that was hungry enough to want to feed, not quite desperate enough to rush things. A predator that was holding back but barely. If he had to guess, only Tamale’s will would be holding it back from rushing the garj.