by Mike Ashley
As Algin continued his lap of dishonour, the Master of the Games signalled to his assistants from his position on a podium beside the arena. Immediately, three of them scurried across the trampled, muddy turf to where the bloody remains of the last victim lay, and began to drag them out of the arena. The Master winced at the sight of one of them carrying a severed arm slung over one shoulder, then raised his megaphone to his mouth to announce the final results.
“Ladies and gentlemen, for the fifth year running, the champion gladiator is Algin Bonecrusher.” He paused to allow the booing to reach a crescendo and die away a little.
“In a moment,” he continued, “I will ask Mellodie, the reigning Malvenis Carnival Queen, to step forward and present Algin with the Victor Ludorum crown.” He looked down to where Mellodie was standing, shaking with fear, and made a mental note to recommend to the committee that next year they change the presentation ceremony. Algin was always unpleasantly enthusiastic about thanking the carnival queen, and the poor girl last year had ended up having hysterics. Presenting him with the trophy was such an abhorrent and unwelcome job that there had only been five entrants for the carnival queen competition this year, and two of them had been totally batty old crones.
“But firstly,” continued the Master of the Games, “as tradition demands, any spectator here present is entitled to challenge Algin to defend his title. To do so will cost a single gold tablon, but should the challenger be victorious, he will receive the whole of the winner’s purse! Is there a challenger?”
The arena fell silent as the crowed waited, hoping against hope that someone would step forward. The Master of the Games gave the crowd a cursory glance, knowing full well that there would be no takers. One person had dared to challenge Algin in his first year as champion, and he had died so horribly that even the orcs in the crowd had been taken aback. After the initial flurry of blows, the poor man had turned and run, but Algin had caught him when he tripped over his own intestines, and had dispatched him in a way that still made the Master of the Games feel queasy when he thought about it. He shook his head to dispel the memory, and was just drawing breath to continue when another voice broke the silence.
“I will challenge him.”
Mavol’s voice rang out around the arena, and the whole crowd turned their heads as one, craning their necks to see who this suicidally brave volunteer could be. Then, as he rose from his seat, they began to cheer. Although he was no more than average height and build, it was obvious from the sword slung casually down his back that he was a fighting man, not some drunken out-of-towner who didn’t know what he was letting himself in for, and so, in the hope that at last someone might give Algin a run for his money, they cheered him unreservedly.
Mavol stepped forward onto the muddied grass of the arena and turned, acknowledging their approbation with a wave of his hand. He had been as surprised as the rest of the crowd to hear the challenge issuing forth from his mouth, for this was not the reason he had travelled to Malvenis. But he had always been keen to test himself against the best, and Algin Bonecrusher was without doubt the best fighter he had ever seen.
Above him, the Master of the Games was staring down at him with a mixture of surprise, awe, and obvious doubt about his sanity.
“Are you sure you wish to challenge the Victor Ludorum?” he called.
“I am.”
The Master of the Games shrugged and turned to the far end of the arena, where Algin was staring towards his challenger like a hungry gorilla that has just noticed a small monkey stealing its last banana.
“Algin Bonecrusher, Champion of Gladiators, do you accept this challenge?”
From the roar of anger and the vigorous gestures he was making with his sword, it was obvious that Algin had every intention of accepting. The giant gladiator began to stride purposefully towards Mavol, growling threats as he came, and the crowd fell silent as the challenger drew his sword and stood calmly waiting, poised and ready, feet widely spaced on the damp, scarred sward.
To the onlookers it seemed that Algin would quite simply steamroller his foe into the ground, but when he was a few yards away he paused, his sword held motionless in front of him in a two-handed grip, his burning eyes staring balefully down at his rival. He liked to give new opponents a chance to examine his massive bulk and his vast reach from close up. It started their nerves fraying, and sometimes he had known them to turn and run. But for once the tactic seemed not to be working. His challenger just stared back, his flint-grey eyes steady, his mouth slightly bent in an annoying smirk. Algin decided that a bit of sledging might do the trick.
“Okay, sonny. You’d better know how you’re going to die. I’ll be aiming for your groin, and this sword is gonna carve straight through your . . .”
“Ah, blow it out of your wobbly great backside, fat-boy,” interrupted his opponent, and Algin stared down at him in open disbelief.
“You what?” he roared.
“You heard me, lard-arse. Now, why don’t you stop poncing around like some bloated great queen, and then maybe we could get this thing sorted.”
For a moment Algin was so taken aback that he was rooted to the spot, his mouth opening and shutting wordlessly. Then, as a murderous rage flooded through him, his face darkened and he began literally to shake with anger.
Mavol beckoned to the huge gladiator.
“Come on, then,” he invited. “I haven’t got all day. Or is your mouth even bigger than that mountainous great belly . . .”
With a roar that could have been heard several planets away, Algin threw himself forward, slashing and hacking furiously with his lethally fast sword, and Mavol gave ground, forced rapidly backwards by the sheer weight of blows. The crowd gasped, giving vent to a collective expression of fear for the challenger, as such was the speed and savagery of the attack that it seemed he must surely be overcome in seconds.
But although Mavol was forced backwards, he defended himself with fluent, practised ease, deflecting the murderous blows with a deftness and subtlety that, to the onlookers, was almost beyond belief. Gradually, Algin’s attack began to slow, and a look of almost comical concern planted itself on his face. He had fought many, many people over the past five years, and in every contest he had known that he was the stronger, faster man. Every contest until this one.
All of a sudden, Mavol switched to the attack. His broadsword flashed and glinted in the brilliant sunshine as it weaved through a complicated tracery of probing, testing attacks. Now it was Algin’s turn to defend himself, but there was nothing deft about the desperate, panic-stricken parries with which he somehow contrived to fend off his challenger’s blows. Slowly but surely he was driven back across the churned-up, treacherous turf, until his back was to the wooden fencing of the arena.
For perhaps a minute the huge gladiator managed to keep his challenger at bay, but then Mavol suddenly feinted and spun round, delivering a lethal back-hand slice towards Algin’s stomach which curved upwards at the last moment to graze across his throat, leaving a thin red line across the bare flesh. Algin’s sword drooped, and he stared at his challenger in baffled incomprehension. Then his eyes glazed over, his head sagged backwards and the red line widened to a gash, then a grinning chasm. Blood fountained out in a crimson tide, and Mavol stepped backwards as Algin crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
For an instant there was total silence, and then the entire arena erupted. For five years the crowd had waited for someone who could rid them of the brutal, leering champion that they had come to loath. Now, out of the blue, this stranger had challenged him and had beaten him, not by luck but by vastly superior skill, and they stood and cheered him to the echo.
Mavol stood staring round, taken aback by this reception. Hesitantly, he lifted his sword in a salute to the crowd, and was met by an immediate increase in the cheering. In something of a daze he began a lap of honour, and to his astonishment, people began to throw flowers into the arena as he passed them. Even more astonishingly, amongst the flowe
rs were several small, wispy items of extremely feminine underwear. Resisting the almost overwhelming urge to pick up the underwear and stuff it in a pocket, Mavol blinked, and tried to not to smirk. Popularity was a new experience for him, and he was finding it extremely pleasant.
From his position on the podium, the Master of the Games watched with satisfaction. An exciting new champion was just what the Games needed. Waiting until the applause began to die down a fraction, he lifted his megaphone and began to speak.
“Ladies and gentlemen! By virtue of our traditional Right of Challenge, and through his strength and guile, the title of Victor Ludorum has worthily been taken by the challenger!”
He paused to lead a fresh round of applause, then signalled to the officials clustered around Mellodie that they should get ready for the presentation of the trophy. As they fussed and hurried her out into the arena, he raised the megaphone once again.
“Champion,” he boomed. “Will you give us your name?”
Deciding that maybe a little formality wouldn’t go amiss, Mavol turned and bowed deeply to the podium, and the crowd quietened to hear him speak.
“I am Mavol. I come from Vandor,” he called.
“Then, Mavol, may it please you to accept the title and the crown from the fair hand of our Carnival Queen.”
Mavol watched as Mellodie walked towards him, flanked by several nervous officials. Her face was flushed with excitement, and her eyes sparkled as she stopped in front of him and looked up into his face. He stared back, feeling definite stirrings of interest. She was beautiful! It had been a long time since a girl had looked at him like that . . .
All of a sudden he realized that one of the officials was gesturing for him to kneel. He did so, resting one knee on the grass, and Mellodie stepped forward and placed a golden laurel wreath on his head. Then, bending, she kissed him on each cheek, lingering over the kisses slightly longer than was necessary. Her long, raven-black hair brushed his shoulder, and the smell of her perfume washed over his senses.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and amidst the roar of the crowd he knew he was the only one who could hear her words. “Thank you for saving me from that . . . that beast! I am very grateful.”
She stared directly and meaningfully into his eyes, and Mavol suddenly realized just how grateful she was. But before he had time to do anything sensible, such as asking her what her star sign was, or whether she was doing anything that evening, the Games Master’s voice boomed out again.
“Ladies and gentlemen . . . Champion’s Bane and Victor Ludorum, Mavol of Vandor!”
The crowd gave a huge shout of approbation, and Mavol stared round in astonishment as people began scrambling over the wooden fences into the arena and came flooding towards them. Seconds later he was surrounded by a cheering, grinning mob, although they kept at a respectful distance. One thing they had learned after five years of having Algin as champion was that if you upset a gladiator, he was quite capable of turning your entrails into your extrails in one flash of his sword.
For much of his life, Mavol had dreamt of being the focus of an adulatory crowd of spectators, but now that it was happening, he was finding it a bit of a pain. Right now, the one thing above all that he wanted to do was to have a quiet private conversation with Mellodie, but instead he found himself forced to speak to her in front of an audience of several hundred interested, eavesdropping people.
“My lady!” he began, groping desperately for an innocent-sounding way of phrasing a leading question. “I thank you for your kind words. Your beauty renders me almost speechless . . .”
There was a low murmur from the crowd, and somebody whistled. Mavol could feel himself going red.
“I would dearly like to meet with you again,” he stumbled on, “to show you my appreciation.”
“I bet that’s not all he shows her,” muttered a voice from the crowd.
“I realize that, as the Carnival Queen, you must have a busy schedule,” Mavol continued, through gritted teeth, “but I was hoping that you might find a moment to squeeze me in.”
“You dirty old gladiator!” said the voice in the crowd, and the crimson-faced Mavol stared around furiously.
“For the next three days my time is taken up with my official duties,” Mellodie answered. Her voice was low and deliciously throaty, and sent hormones stampeding round his bloodstream like runaway horses. “But after that I would be delighted to . . . receive you.”
“Wha hey hey!” cheered the voice in the crowd, but Mavol was no longer bothered. Three days! he thought, sadly. It might as well be three years!
“Alas, my lady,” he said ruefully, “in three days I will be gone. I am just passing through your fair city, for I am on a quest. A quest that I have waited half my life to undertake. Tomorrow I take the high road through the mountains that leads to Easterndelve.”
Mavol paused, for a sudden hush had fallen over the entire arena. It had gone so quiet that the only sound he could hear was his own breathing. Wherever he looked, horrified faces were staring at him.
“You are plainly a stranger here,” said Mellodie, “for were you not, you would surely know that it is impossible to use that road.”
“How so?”
“That is the road which is guarded by Koban Bloodsword. He was once champion of this city, and some say he was the greatest warrior to have lived, for he was never defeated in single combat. But then he fell out with the city over some trivial matter, and swore revenge. Since then he has lived wild in the mountains, challenging all who use the Easterndelve road to combat and never losing. Many brave fighting men have gone to face him, but none have come back. All folk know that it is death to travel on that path, and no one has been foolhardy enough to use it for many moons.”
“But that is the road I must travel, for it is Koban whom I seek.”
“Then you too will die,” said Mellodie, and turning her face from Mavol she pushed her way through the solemn, silent crowd.
Mavol paused to get his breath back and turned to look down at the lights of Malvenis twinkling in the valley below him. The night was closing in now, and although the bright moonlight would have made travelling easy, he felt a strange reluctance to leave the city behind him.
The air was heavy and still, and the scent of mountain honeysuckle pervaded everywhere. The only sound that could be heard was a single Cydorian flocking goat that was bleating morosely as it picked its solitary way up the mountainside near by.*
Removing his pack, Mavol sat on a rock at the side of the road and delved into it in search of some food. He had bought fresh bread and cheese before leaving Malvenis, and his water bottle was still full. Munching on the bread, he peered wistfully down at the twinkling city lights, then turned to stare up at the full, bright disc of the moon. When he was young, his grandmother had told him that if you made a wish when you saw the full moon, the Moon-fairy would grant it for you. She had also told him that the stars were the souls of dead bunny-rabbits, and that if you washed your face with butter, you’d never get acne. No wonder they’d locked her up in that special hospital with the high walls!
Sighing, he shook his head and stood up, ready to travel onwards. But for some reason his feet were reluctant to move, and his eyes were drawn irresistibly back to the distant city lights. Down there in the valley were hundreds of people who had seen him as a hero, and a single beautiful girl who had wanted to get to know him better. For virtually the first time in his life, Mavol had been popular, and it had proved a heady experience. All of a sudden there was a place where people liked him and wanted to see him, yet he was leaving it behind. But Mavol knew that he had to do so, for he was mere hours away from the culmination of his quest, and so dragging his head round to face the east, he set off once more along the steep and winding Easterndelve road in pursuit of a destiny that he knew full well might end with his death.
For as long as he could remember, Mavol had never quite fitted in with society. Although he had been a good-looking and happ
y child, new acquaintances had rapidly come to regard him with suspicion and distrust despite his friendly facade, for there had always been a basic and deep-rooted flaw in his character: Mavol was a natural practical joker, revelling in the discomfort and misfortune of others. From an early age, his easy-going manner and pleasant smile had attracted folk, but every potential friend had been forced to run a gauntlet of drawing-pins on seats, itching powder down the neck and buckets of horse urine on top of the door, until invariably they had decided to steer clear of him after all.
This antisocial sense of humour hadn’t been too unusual, for many children have a cruel streak, but what had made Mavol stand apart was that he was also a naturally gifted fighter. In his first week at school, after he had initiated a stream of such pranks, the two biggest boys in the class decided to teach him a lesson. Mavol had wiped the floor with them. The same thing happened every time anyone dared to retaliate. The rest of the children had soon discovered that it was wiser to turn the other cheek, and so instead of learning to temper his cruel humour with a little reserve, Mavol had been allowed to continue unchecked.
As he grew older, Mavol’s fighting ability had been noticed and fostered by his teachers, and he had gained a scholarship to Faramir’s Warrior School in the city of Ged. He had taken to swordplay like an orc to vodka, and within a year there hadn’t been an instructor in the school who could beat him. By the end of his second year even Rangvald Ironteeth, the grizzled old veteran of a hundred contests in the Cumanceum who was the school’s gladiatorial tutor, had said that he had never seen a better fighter. But despite his undoubted skill, Mavol had not been popular with the other students. His penchant for practical jokes had alienated them and he had become a solitary, isolated figure, an efficient, smiling, friendless killer.