Despite this, though, what truly drew the eye of every man and woman in the Arena was at its center. There, perfectly circular and gaping like a hungry mouth, was the pit itself.
It was not a pretty thing, as one might assume if judging by the rest of the Arena’s carefully manicured architecture. The pit, instead, had been built to serve a purpose which had nothing to do with aesthetic pleasantries, and everything to do with brute and simple violence. The walls were of plain stone and mortar, mottled in color and texture and scarred by old gouges and blows that marked where steel had missed flesh. Fifteen feet high, they had a slight incline to them that allowed all spectators except for those in the topmost seats a fair view of everything that was going on even when the fight was happening right below them. The muddy floor itself was not smoothed or prepped, and old footprints could even be made out in the frozen ground, lightly covered in a thin blanket of morning frost. Fifty paces across, it was small enough to keep even duels interesting, but large enough to host an all-out melee of ten to twelve if desired.
To the spectators around them, the pit spoke of excitement and the promise of entertainment. To Talo, it whispered only of death.
“This way,” Kal said, pressing Talo to the right. Ordinarily, men and women of the city guard would bar them from leaving the Hall of Heroes without paying the entrance fee to the stands. When the fights started, a few lucky street urchins might be allowed to watch from the top of the stairs leading back down into the Hall, peering over the heavy chain barrier into the pit, but otherwise the chamber would be cleared until the end of the matches.
Today, though, the council had seen fit to offer free entry to any and all who wished to come.
Today, after all, was opening day.
Two days prior, Quin Tern had made himself a popular man indeed when heralds appeared in each of Azbar’s main squares, announcing what they had dubbed “the Chairman’s Tourney.” Talo, Carro, and Kal had been together to witness one such proclamation, and the enthusiasm it had been received with was disheartening to say they least. The promise of true violence, of blood and gore and death, had certainly dredged up a crowd, but it was the declaration that the first day of the tournament would be free to all, the stands of the Arena filled until they were at capacity, that had stirred most into a frenzy.
“A gift from the Chairman to the great citizens of Azbar,” the herald had boomed in closing over the excited heads around him, standing on his wide stool as guards flanked him on three sides, “in thanks for their patience and patronage as he has prepared the Arena for this grand spectacle of might and madness.”
“Madness is right,” Carro had muttered in disgust. Initially, Talo had only agreed with him, nodding along as he considered the announcement. Now, though, as Kal led him through the crowd around the inner ring of the Arena, he was realizing something else.
Tern is gambling it all on success, Talo thought, considering the coin they hadn’t had to fork over to be there. He assumes he’ll make up the loss, in the end.
“Kal”—Talo had to almost shout over the excited buzz of thousands of spectators already in their seats despite the fact that the fights wouldn’t start for nearly an hour—“is he that good? i’Syul? It seems to me your Chairman has a lot riding on these games of his, and to be convinced to stop poaching from the prisons and town… I would think it took a lot.”
Kal nodded, but didn’t reply immediately. Taking a set of narrow steps between sections of the seats, he helped Talo climb a few levels and carefully circumvent a wide basin-like trough from which great leaping flames spewed heat in all directions. There were dozens of these massive sconces throughout the stadium, even along the upper floor, each burning hot and steady on the careful supply of oil and wood fed to them by attendants over the course of the day. Aside from life-giving warmth, the fires provided a certain edge to the atmosphere, adding to the simmering excitement that bubbled in the air
It wasn’t before he’d led them both towards a couple open spaces, tucked away along the fourth row up from the bottom of the stands, that Kal finally answered.
“I haven’t watched him fight myself, obviously,” he said, helping Talo ease himself onto the plain stone, “but ask anyone who has and they’ll swear the man is practically some old god of war.”
“Have you ever seen him?” Talo asked. He’d intended to question Kal about the atherian at some point, but priority of the mission at hand always claimed dominance. Most of their time had been spent discussing the legislature and public reaction, identifying what could realistically be done about the Arena in the moment, and what would have to wait.
They hadn’t come up with a lot of options on either end.
“Once,” Kal said, then snorted. “And I’m quite sure I made a fool of myself.”
“How so?”
“He’s… Well, he’s big, Talo. Very big. Oh, you and your man are sizable specimens yourselves, I know, but not like i’Syul. I was at the markets when I saw him, and I’m almost ashamed to say I stared. Completely forgot myself, taking him in. The way he moved…”
Kal paused, sitting back to lean on his hands, considering his words.
“I’ve heard people talk of him as though he’s a mountain among men,” he continued eventually, “but I don’t think that’s the most appropriate comparison. He doesn’t lumber or plod along like some giant. He’s more… I don’t know… elegant, maybe? No, that’s not the word. Graceful? Maybe he’s—”
“In the world of mercenaries and fighters,” Talo said loudly as a group of fat men swinging about tankards of some frothing drink erupted into laughter below them, “the term is ‘conservative.’”
Kal blinked, then looked around at Talo again.
“Yes,” he hissed, as though making some great realization. “Conservative. Exactly. Smooth, clean, quiet. For a man built like a tower, it was astounding. The way he eased through the crowd, as though he were barely there. I don’t think i’Syul saw me himself, but I must have seemed a real idiot to the rest of the market, what with me standing with my mouth hanging open like some buffoon.”
Beside him, Talo couldn’t help but chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Kal asked, frowning at the man.
“Syrah once told me a very similar story.” Talo was still laughing to himself, watching the restless crowd around them. “And I wouldn’t worry about the crowd. If i’Syul is anything like you and Syrah describe him, I’m sure you weren’t the only one staring.”
Kal seemed about to respond, but paused, considering.
“… I suppose,” he said after a moment, looking back down into the pit thoughtfully. “I don’t know. If you or Carro had been there, I doubt you’d have been caught frozen in place.”
“You obviously don’t know Carro yet,” Talo said with another laugh. “As for me, well… I’ve seen a great many interesting things out in the world, Kal. I’ve seen a great many interesting things in this very Arena, in fact.” He waved a hand to indicate the stadium around them. “But in truth, coming across a seven-foot-tall lizard-man while shopping for my morning bread might top most of the surprising experiences even I can think of.”
Kal snorted, then grew quiet. For a time the two High Priests sat in silence, looking about as the throng thickened with every passing minute.
After a while, though, Kal spoke again.
“Talo… You say you’ve seen things in this place. Tell me then… Why are we here?”
Talo turned to look at him, eyebrow raised curiously.
“I thought it fairly obvious,” he said with half a smile. “We’re here to see the fights.”
“Yes but—but why?” It was Kal’s turn to wave a gloved hand at the pit below them. “This place. The things you must have witnessed. ‘Interesting’ things, you said, but I don’t think that’s what you mean… As long as I’ve known you, as many letters as we have exchanged over the years, you’ve never been keen to revisit this part of your past. So I ask again: Why are we here?�
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For a moment, Talo did nothing. He watched Kal, silently mulling over his answer, reflecting on the words he could not seem to say. Turning away, his eyes found the pit Kal had just been indicating.
The pit where he had spent so much of his life…
In truth, Talo wasn’t sure he could explain himself to the High Priest. He wasn’t even sure he had explained himself well to Carro that morning when the man had asked him—somewhat green at the thought of the fights—the same question Kal was inquiring on now. He’d tried, of course. He’d done his best to put words to the convoluted feelings and emotions that had been crashing over him since he’d first received Kal’s letter, vestiges of which he’d been feeling for decades before that. In the end, Talo wasn’t sure he had aptly explained the simple fact that, when all was said and done, he needed to witness with his own two eyes the newfound freedom of the dreadful beast he’d fought so hard to cage in the first place.
A beast which, before he’d been able to see the world through the eyes of the Lifegiver, had bought him his own freedom and given him reason to live.
“It wasn’t easy,” Talo said finally. “It wasn’t easy, locking away this Arena, banning it, then all its counterparts, from the North.”
Kal—who seemed to have thought he wasn’t going to get a response—sat up straight.
“I know,” he said with a nod, leaning to rest his elbows on knees, hands hanging between his legs. “I was there for much of that fight, remember? For the first decade of it we—”
“No,” Talo cut him off. “I mean it wasn’t an easy choice to make. To keep making. Every day I fought to close this stadium, every decision we made in order to do so. I was fighting with myself as much as we were fighting anyone else.”
Kal said nothing.
“This place,” Talo continued, looking up into the stands opposite them, gazing into the crowd, “it’s taken so much from so many. It’s claimed lives, limbs, loved ones. It’s stolen hope and happiness.”
“But not yours.”
It was a simple statement, but it took Talo completely by surprise. He turned once more to look at Kal, eyes wide. Even Carro hadn’t been able to understand…
“Exactly,” Talo said, not looking away from the man. “No. Not mine. Never mine.”
Kal nodded.
“It gave you much, this Arena,” he said. “I understand. What you feel is base gratitude. Every man falls prey to it, even—no, especially—the best of us. We of the faith are grateful, for example. We are grateful for life. We are grateful to Laor for His gift.”
“A gratitude we share now, yes, but not then. Then you prayed to your god for life, and I prayed to mine for death.”
Kal nodded again.
“Fair enough, but you were still grateful. Grateful for something. Reason, purpose, meaning. Whatever name you choose to give it, it doesn’t matter. You carried that with you in the ring, and you carried it beyond when you came into the faith.”
“I do still.”
At this, Kal paused.
“Ah,” he breathed. “I see now…”
Talo frowned.
“You do?” he asked, unbelieving.
Kal shrugged a shoulder nonchalantly, then lounged back again, looking up into the sky almost lazily.
“I do.” Without looking away from the pale rolling of the graying sky, he continued. “Doubt. Hesitation. Regret. All by-products of decision, of action. All men doubt. All men hesitate. I’m not so sure all men regret, but perhaps they should. Tell me, do you regret the end of the Arena?”
“No.”
That answer was easy. Once Talo had made the decision, it had been final even in his own mind.
“But you doubt? You hesitate?”
“Did,” Talo said. He, too, turned to look up at the overcast sky. The great walls of the Arena shielded the stands themselves from much of the wind, but even so a faint breeze kicked about them, teasing loose strands of long straight hair around his bearded face. “I did doubt. I did hesitate. Then the time for both was done and the choice was made.”
Talo sighed, watching the minute outline of a pair of crows cross the stadium far overhead, their distant calls lost to the noise of the crowd.
“It wasn’t an easy choice, like I said. That pit took everything from many, but gave as much to some. To turn my back on it, to betray the stones that had given me life and purpose… It wasn’t easy, but it had to be done. Now though, that choice, that impossible decision that I had to make and did make… it’s all coming undone.”
“There is no shame in gratitude, Talo,” Kal said wisely.
“Perhaps not, but it isn’t shame I feel now. Once, maybe, but I’ve long since come to terms with it. Now… Now I feel fear. Now despite all you have told me, despite everything Carro and I saw as we explored the city… Now I feel disbelief.”
Kal nodded.
“Your life’s work,” he said thoughtfully. “A time full of hard decisions and even harder fights. I can understand. A man, told of the death of his son, does not believe until he holds the body in his hands.”
It was Talo’s turn to nod.
“Exactly.”
“And you have to see it for yourself.”
Now, Talo took his eyes from the sky, away from old thoughts and memories. Once more he looked down into the pit, that circular scar of blood and mud. Once more he smelled the tang of iron and death in the caress of the wind.
“And I have to see it for myself.”
CHAPTER 17
“Before they enter the ring, every gladiator is different. Some are calm, composed, though often falsely so. Others make no attempt to hide their fear, shivering and whimpering in the dust before the gates that they suspect wholeheartedly will open upon their demise. Some pray. Some check steel one last time. Some practice footwork, or mutter encouragements to themselves. The only thing they all have in common, every man and woman among them, is that they do something. Even in exhibition matches, where little blood is ever spilt, we are unable—or perhaps simply unwilling?—to bear complete mind to the battle at hand.”
—private journal of Alyssa Rhen
Raz leaned against the dirt-and-timber wall of the Arena underworks, wings stretched slightly to either side of him to keep them from getting uncomfortably pinned. His head was bowed, eyes closed, with one clawed foot on the ground and the other bent up to rest on the wall itself. He had his arms crossed with Ahna tucked in the nook of one elbow, the higher part of her haft resting against his shoulder. Her blades were bare, their leather sack left in the Doctore’s quarters along with his furs and cloak to be retrieved after the fights were done, though some would bet he wouldn’t be alive to do so.
Privately, without looking up, Raz smiled.
“Something funny?”
Raz opened his eyes at the question. A contingent of ten guardsmen, hands on weapon hilts, stood around him in a half circle, effectively cutting him off from the rest of the fighters in the chamber. All around them, much like any other day beneath the Arena’s stands, men and women were milling about tending to armor, oiling their weapons, or sparring in preparation. These figures, though, were of a different sort than the gladiators Alyssa Rhen had under her care. Rather than being whet under careful guidance and training, they were hardened by life and honed by hardship. These were rough people, many among them undoubtedly as cruel as they were dangerous.
And each and every one of them was in turn giving Raz looks that left nothing to the imagination as to what they intended for him and the ten thousand crown price on his head.
Raz turned to look at the guard who had spoken, the furthest to the left, and the youngest of the lot. He was a freckly youth, well built and handsome, with curly blond hair that fell in ringlets from beneath his plain soldier’s helm. He had green-brown eyes that might have been attractive any other time, but right now were ugly with disdain as he looked over his shoulder at Raz.
Raz said nothing. Instead he looked directly at the man
and smiled wider, revealing every one of his white, needlelike teeth.
The Wings of War: Books 1-3: The Wings of War Box Set, Vol. 1 Page 50