The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  Caldwell nodded. “Hey, I can agree with that. You’re looking a bit peaked. Sure, why not. Always do a favour for a friend.”

  That sent a fresh new wave of ire through him. Yeah, if he wanted friends, it’d be really someone like this guy.

  Over on the makeshift field, the two contestants were just leaving, the crimson chimp victorious. To the side of it, a placard had been hung up outlining the rules of use. Theo glanced at it only briefly. Seemed standard. Don’t go all out to the point of damaging the ship, don’t disturb other passengers, all that shit. Lot of it common sense. Nobody wanted the boat to sink.

  Caldwell made a big point of reading them, nodding as he went down individual lines, he was amazed the bigger man didn’t have to follow it with his finger to keep his place. Theo stood tapping his foot impatiently before finally the other caller straightened up.

  “Okay, let’s get this on.”

  They’d stepped out onto the field quickly, Theo giving his opponent the stare, Caldwell either too stupid or too oblivious to realise the anger being directed at him, and the barrier had been raised up. It wasn’t a physical barrier, rather an energy bubble designed to stop the crowd being harmed by any elemental attacks being flung around. On a field like this, it was unlikely it was on the strength level at top stadiums but it’d probably still stop anything short of a full power uniblast.

  “So, after you, friend,” Caldwell smiled, giving his opponent a little bow. Theo didn’t respond, instead locking a crystal into his summoner and giving birth to his choice.

  “Atlas!” he roared, the spirit erupting out of the device to materialise amidst the makeshift battlefield amidst the hall. People swiftly moved back further as the giant creature became solid, letting out a roar as he, like Theo, glared at Caldwell. Giant stubby toed feet crushed down into the wood, splintering it into pieces as Atlas took up a battle stance. Those giant feet snaked up into four squat legs, each growing out of an armoured body not unlike a turtle. Of course, normally turtles didn’t grow eight feet tall and have small shrubs growing out of the tops of their shells. Large spikes weren’t normally seen about breeds like this, they’d been an aesthetic choice he was proud of. And they were sharp. Theo could testify to that. He still had the scar on his finger where he’d tested for himself.

  Atlas’ tail was long and heavy, tipped with a lump of bone that greatly resembled a hefty club. The face at the other end was quite small in comparison, pointed like a triangle, the mouth beaked and the eyes dull and colourless. The creature was an anklo, a forest dweller found mainly in Serran and Burykia where plenty of forests remained. He’d had it a long time, right since the start although many years of modification had left it unrecognisable from what it once had been.

  “Dang, that got big,” Caldwell quipped. “Ah, right, come on Thraxis, let’s show him what we got.”

  Caldwell’s spirit appeared, a giant black equine stood proud on four large hooves the size of plates, the beast letting out a huge proud snort as it kicked at the floor. About the only thing setting it aside from any other horses in the world was the flickering fires that lit up its mane and tail. Theo could feel the heat from it over where he stood.

  “Fire won’t save you here,” Theo said softly. His voice glittered with malice. “All this wood, sure would burn nicely, I imagine.” He folded his arms, glanced at Atlas and nodded. He could see the way it’d play out already. Fire and speed against something slow and armoured. The plants on Atlas’ back might be in danger from the flames but he wasn’t too worried. Worrying was for amateurs. “Ready when you are.”

  The words had barely left his mouth when Caldwell gave the gytrash a nod and it swept forward in a streak of fire and fur, hooves thundering across the floor as it charged. For a moment, Theo couldn’t quite hope to see what would be gained from it. In a head on collision, Caldwell’s spirit would surely come off worse. Atlas was built like a tank; he’d made sure of it.

  The contact never came. As Thraxis closed in, Atlas tensed itself, grounding ready for the impact, only for the gytrash to leap up above the giant body and smash all four hooves down hard into the top of the shell, the weight of the impact driving Atlas into the ground with a grunt. Cracks spider-webbed out from underneath the great body as Atlas’ weight crushed into the wooden floor.

  Theo cursed quietly, it took a great effort for Atlas to rise again, the tail already swinging out to mete retribution. Even to him, it looked cumbersome as Thraxis neatly nipped aside, brushing the air where the gytrash had stood a few seconds earlier. On Atlas’ back, the shrubbery had caught aflame. It might not be too much of a problem yet, Theo noticed, even if it was, the anklo would have to get on with it. The shell was thick enough for the heat not to permeate through. He hoped, anyway.

  If it tries to go up top again, rear up, he urged Atlas silently. It was a risky strategy, Atlas’ weight meant rising up on its hind legs would take a lot of energy. And if it fell backwards… Well, the weak spot of any anklo was widely acknowledged to be its stomach. At least here, stood on the deck, Atlas was protected from any ground attacks.

  Thraxis closed in again, making to charge, Theo tensed himself ready for the inevitable leap. He couldn’t be trying the same strategy twice in succession surely. It’d worked once, expecting it to do so twice was foolish.

  Caldwell wasn’t. This time the gytrash twisted at the last second, raking its flaming body across the anklo’s side, inflicting burns on one of its legs. It was not an attack that left Thraxis unscathed however, one of the bone spikes protruding out left a deep gash in the black fur. Crimson spattered the floor, the blood aflame for a minute before sputtering out into singed soot. The giant tail twitched out, an attempt to smash the gytrash’s body, again Thraxis darted out of the way.

  Too fast!

  Or was it? As he watched, Theo found himself wondering if it was moving as swiftly or as easily, or were his eyes playing tricks on him? Maybe the cut was deeper than he’d expected.

  As strategies went, bloodletting yourself on your opponent’s body was a pretty poor one, even for someone like Caldwell. He smiled coldly. Time to see exactly how injured. And maybe, just maybe, exacerbate it if Thraxis wasn’t moving freely.

  Hit it with a uniblast!

  Atlas obeyed immediately, the curved beaked mouth opening, lips glowing brightly with an air of luminescence. Caldwell had to realise what was happening, he had to be reacting already. Either way, the beam shot out with all the force that the anklo could muster behind it, the energy white hot and caustic in its execution. Thraxis dodged it. Barely. It streaked past and hit the barrier, sending ripples through the invisible shield. Half a second later and the gytrash probably wouldn’t be looking so hot. It was looking a little more cumbersome than it had. Smoke was billowing up from…

  Theo laughed suddenly. It hadn’t been a clean hit, but Atlas’ attack had scored a blow. Half of Thraxis’ tail had been burnt clean off by the uniblast, the wound already cauterized by the heat. And suddenly Caldwell looked worried.

  It’s going to come in at you again, Theo told Atlas silently. This time I want you to meet it. Get ready and… Now!

  As Atlas started to lumber forward like a clumsy piano, Thraxis set off at the same time, neither caller nor spirit expecting the sudden movement from the anklo. With the speed of the gytrash and the sudden giant strides of the anklo, it was on Atlas before Caldwell could react. The beak snapped out and grabbed Thraxis by one of the hind legs. Fire erupted down the fur as the beaked mouth crushed down on it, the gytrash screaming. Somewhere amidst the sound, Theo was sure he could hear bone breaking.

  “Throw it!”

  He couldn’t help vocalising that command as Atlas swung its stubby head, twisting the gytrash about before hurling it through the air. It went towards the barrier, smashing straight through it with barely a halt in the uncontrolled motion, carrying on going through the crowd of passengers, straight into a table at the other end where three men sat, apparently unheeding of the ba
ttle going on beyond them.

  Ruin. A game of chance and skill. The chip tokens were on the table, the deck was being dealt and Nick Roper had a good hand. Scratch that, he had a great hand.

  He glanced down at them, hid a smile and put them down. He let nothing slip. Always he had this vision of his face being a mask of which nothing would penetrate. At the start of every game, three of the ten numbered cards from a fifty-card deck were dealt a tag at random, each of them decreasing in value. Then players were dealt five cards from the deck, the aim being to acquire as many of the valued cards as possible. Bids could be placed to acquire new cards or to discard useless ones. The valued cards this hand being four in first place, seven in second place and two in third place. The rest were useless for winning. Except in the case of when the rest of your spare cards added up to make a valued card. It was difficult to become a master of the game; the name Ruin came from the amount of times a player had chased the big prize only to go bust. It was a game that both helped and hindered those who took risks.

  Nick had two fours and a seven, as well as a single three and four ones. Two pairs basically. Two top pairs. He found himself really working to hide his grin. With the pot at ten thousand credits, he needed to just play it cool. Or maybe… Maybe he could get it bigger.

  “Give me,” Mark said, sliding a hundred credits over to the pot and watching as the automated deck slid out another card for him. He took it, studied it intently. Like Nick, he gave no hint as to whether it was good or bad. Mark was a sandy headed individual, a little short but with a friendly face. Wade Wallerington studied him intently. His move next, he looked like he was already pondering his options. His face blank, he leaned forward and rested his chin on a triangle made of his fingers.

  Wade was older than either of them but only by a handful of years, his russet brown hair going for a touch of grey at the temples. It was even starting to affect his beard since the last time Nick had seen him a few months ago. He’d never been overtly muscular but beneath the copious volumes of his cape, he was still whipcord tough, wiry in his slenderness. A still fresh burn lay prominent on one of his hands. Nick could guess at the cause. Wade, when he wasn’t fighting, raised dragons at a sanctuary up in the high north of Canterage. That he took some of the stronger ones to fight for him in bouts was just, in Nick’s eyes, something that happened to work out as a happy coincidence.

  He’d known Mark longer. But he’d come to regard Wade as a truer friend. The three of them had been through a lot of stuff together. Him and Mark had started out at about the same time, way back when Wade had already been claiming his first title.

  Yet the distance perhaps wasn’t that great between them any longer. If he was being modest, he and Wade were close to being even. Mark was almost there. Any of them would give the other a tough battle.

  “I’ll bite,” Wade said. “Give me two.” He slid two hundred credits into the pot, took two cards in exchange. “And I’ll drop a card.”

  “Sell out is set at a thousand,” Mark said. “Bit steep, ain’t it Wade?”

  Wade shrugged. “Hey, only if you lose.” He winked at Mark, before sliding across his credits.

  “Nick?”

  He glanced at his cards for the dozenth time. Refusing to do anything would potentially alert them to the strength of his hand. If they folded, he’d win. Of course, with a hand this good, he could do better.

  A grimace crawled across his face. This was Ruin. You ended up second guessing yourself so many times it got stupid. The best players were the ones who had conviction in themselves, the ones who resisted temptation to try for more.

  “I’ll hold,” he said.

  Despite that, more bets had come in. They were going for it. He’d be amazed if either of them had a hand that could better his. Twice he’d gambled, selling two of his ones for a thousand credits each and drawing out a three to replace them. He’d sold another one, keeping him his twin pair.

  Finally, he grinned, picked up his cards and looked around the table. “Okay,” he said. “So how about it. Who’ll pay a thousand to see me?”

  Mark folded immediately. Credit to him, he knew when he was probably beaten. Wade grinned at Nick, slid a thousand credits into the pot. Nick put his own thousand in, his fee to see Wade’s cards. This had gone on long enough.

  For a long moment, he felt a twitch of panic in his stomach, suddenly worried that Wade might have beaten him. He saw three twos, a seven and…

  Yes!

  Junk cards that if he was right, didn’t add up to anything. He placed his own down. Three cards might have trumped two. Yet three twos, as the third highest card, were inferior to two fours, the top-rated card in this game.

  And that was that. Very nearly twenty thousand credits for very little work. He was about to scoop up the pot into his pocket and think about how best to squander it when a fucking gytrash came crashing into the table, scattering the credits, the deck and the drinks.

  “What the hells?!” Mark exclaimed, looking at the beer suddenly covering his front. The fallen gytrash let out a quiet snort of apology before fading away. The caller quickly came over, sweating as he pushed his way through the crowd.

  “Sorry, sorry, guys,” he said. “That was my spirit…”

  Wade cut in. “Not your fault. Although…”

  Nick didn’t hear the rest of it; he was too busy looking around for his credits. They’d been scattered amidst a sea of legs; the floor was littered with them. Already people were bending down to scoop up handfuls of the stuff and hand it to him.

  All bar one. All bar the smirking man who still had his spirit out. The one who unless he was mistaken was the one who’d sent that gytrash crashing into the table. He took a deep breath. It wasn’t important. He was irrelevant. It was an accident; it could have happened to anyone.

  Except…

  “Guess that ruined their game,” he heard the kid laugh out loud. “Someone’s going to crash out.”

  His anklo next to him joined in with the laughter, they were intrinsically linked after all, only to quieten down as the kid glared at him sternly. Hearing the giant lizard laugh sounded like it was gargling sandpaper.

  “What an asshole,” Mark said. “Someone should teach him some manners.”

  Nick smirked. Yeah, someone really should. “You want to do it, or shall I?”

  “Be my guest,” Mark replied. “Make sure you don’t lose though, that’d be embarrassing for all of us. Don’t think I could take the shame.” He smirked as he said it, a lilt in his voice.

  “You don’t need to do it,” Wade said. “You could just let it go.”

  It took a moment for Nick and Mark to look at each other, before shrugging. “Ah, I’ll pass,” Nick said. “Could use a bit of a warm up. Although I’ll give him a chance to apologise first. Can’t say fairer than that, can you?”

  He glanced at the anklo, took in the environment and grimaced. Normally he would have set something that could fly into the confrontation, bombard it from the air to keep both out of range of its potentially limited attacks and to inflict damage of its own. Of course, the ceiling wasn’t that high. Not enough for wicked aerial manoeuvres. On an especially rendered battlefield, it was different. You could churn up as much of the ground as you wanted. Here on a ship, it wouldn’t be ideal.

  Mobility would be the anklo’s problem. It couldn’t move anywhere fast. In fact, if it moved at all on this ship, it’d leave breakages in the floor. It would be reinforced but even so, there would be a limit to how much it could hold. Therefore, the ideal strategy would be to exploit that somehow. Yet at the same time, he got the impression that was something that had been tried before.

  Couldn’t go underneath as well. Not on wood.

  So, what to do?

  Nick smiled as he approached, not an overtly friendly smile but one just neutral enough to hold a warning behind it. Hands in his pockets, he sauntered to a halt.

  “You do know you just disturbed me and my friends, don’t y
ou?” he said pleasantly. “Now, what are we going to do about that?”

  The kid smirked. “Yeah, what of it? You want help picking it up?” He couldn’t miss the sarcasm in the voice.

  “Nah, think I’ll just settle for an apology,” he still found himself remarkable calm. Even despite the scoff that came back in his direction.

  “Yeah, I’ll pass.”

  “Or we could go for option B and I settle for your anklo defeated on the ground.” Still calm, he made it sound so offhand.

  This time the scoff was more derisory. “Yeah, all right. Keep dreaming. You and what army?”

  Finally, Nick smiled. “You know; I was hoping you’d say that.” He raised his summoner, container crystal already locked in. “Shall we then?”

  The spirit that broke out of Nick’s summoner appeared on the battlefield, materialising into a dark brown, almost black coloured shape that unfurled giant wings atop a lizard-like body, a great streak of scarlet down the middle of its chest. It stood up on its hind legs, a quad of claws digging deep into the arena floor. The head was shaped like the head of a giant spanner, the eyes at outside parallel sides of each point. The forearms were stubby beneath the impressive wingspan yet still ended in pointed claws that looked sharp. Beneath the head, a mouth almost a slash cut into the ebony scales filled with wicked looking teeth could be seen bobbing open and closed. Completing the bizarre ensemble, a pair of fins protruded up out of its back, squat and stumpy but noticeable.

  It was a creature Theo was slightly familiar with. A famous champion used one, if he recalled, not that he’d do something so pointless as try to remember her name. A spannerhead winged shark lizard. Not quite a dragon but looked like it might have been a previous stage in evolution for one.

  Should be a challenge, if nothing else. Already he was looking for weaknesses. If there were any, he didn’t see them on initial viewing. He’d know more when the battle began. Suddenly he wondered if he should take Atlas out. He might already have more of a handle on Theo’s strategy than Theo would on his. But he dismissed it. He’d been playing cards, not paying attention. He’d be going in cold.