The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  It didn’t stop there, springing up after her to deal a flurry of punches into the suddenly defenceless lake lynx, yowls and howls breaking from her amidst the sounds of flesh breaking flesh. Suffice to say Mermari landed worse, crashing to a heap as Paz shot her a dismissive look over its shoulder. Silently Pete urged her to get up while at the same time dozens of strategies went through his head and ultimately being rejected. All of them depended on being able to land a hit on what Mermari so far hadn’t been able to.

  Unless…

  He glanced at the battlefield and then up again at the sky, a fresh outline forming up in his head of something that might just work. Maybe. Possibly! If they could get right. Might just give him an opening he needed. He nodded, smiled and folded his arms as he relayed silently to Mermari what he needed her to do.

  He wondered what thoughts went through Ulikku’s head as once more Mermari sent a burst of ice towards Paz, but once more the dodge came out, a graceful spin aside. Even as Paz was in motion, Mermari charged towards the rabbit, leaping up into the air at the last moment with the claws out ready to strike. Pete saw Paz make to spin aside again and he felt a great surge of triumph rush through him.

  The claws never landed as instead another streak of ice rushed down to coat the ground at Paz’s feet, all traction suddenly lost as the rabbit suddenly found itself unable to keep footing. It slipped and then the claws came out again, Mermari went in hard and high, slashing at the face and the throat with all the vigour of one who’d spent the last several minutes being humiliated.

  It was then that Pete felt something wet strike his face. In confusion, he rubbed against it, not quite sure what to expect. It wasn’t blood, which had been his first thought. Wet, cold, clear…

  Another struck him. And another. And another.

  Rain? Huh? It had been hot this morning, pretty much all the way to the pre-match walk down here. Still was quite warm really. He’d even looked at the forecasts earlier, just to see if there were any surprises in store. Well, stuff like this!

  Nothing. Hadn’t been then. But now, it was raining. It was coming down, hard and fast in moments.

  Max Brudel had seen the woman leave; he’d resisted the urge to talk to her. Sure, she was pretty but there was something cold about him that had held his tongue. He’d seen women like her before. They thought they were better than everyone else and they weren’t shy about letting you know it. In his experience, all they needed was one good fuck and the demeanour soon faded.

  Still, it wasn’t something to worry about now. He had his report to deliver and he wasn’t about to keep Mr R waiting. He strode to the door, hesitated only for a moment before knocking. A few seconds passed, he found himself hoping he didn’t have to do it now, only for his hopes to be smashed. The door opened, Mr R peered out and dragged him in by the lapels of his jacket.

  “Good,” he said. “Right on time.” He looked a little rattled, stressed out even. More so than when Max had seen him before. “Sit down, take a seat.”

  Max did so, sinking down into one of the chairs. Mr R wandered over to the middle of the room, started to clear away a holoprojector, an expensive model by the looks of it. Max could appreciate it. Those things were hard to come by. Only the rich had them. Either Mr R was well off or he was being backed by people who were. Either way it didn’t give him the best prospects for failing him.

  “You have something for me?” he said. “I’ve given you the time to come up with the information. What do you have?”

  Max took a deep breath. “The girl you asked me to follow… Mia Arnholt…”

  The use of the name brought a reaction he hadn’t expected out of Mr R, his eyes lit up with fury and he spat on the carpet with a vehemence Max hadn’t expected. “Yes, Mia fucking Arnholt, carry on! I suppose you’d have found her name out sooner or later if you were doing your job properly. Carry on.”

  A little unnerved, Max did so regardless, clearing his throat to give him a second of composure. “Okay, so she has her brother and her father here, she went for dinner with them at Willie’s the first night, since then she’s alternated where she eats, went to that sandwich place the second night, the Burykian joint the third night, went back to Willie’s the night after that… If you’re wanting to grab her, I wouldn’t recommend doing it there.”

  “I’ll take your advice under consideration, don’t assume you know what I want to do,” Mr R said coldly. “Keep it to the facts, I’ll ask for your opinion. Do you know where she’s staying while she’s here?”

  “The Sunny Beach,” Max said. “I watched her go in there a few times. Other times I observed the floor she went to. Third. Finally, I found her room by lurking on that floor in a stolen uniform. Three twenty-four.”

  Mr R looked impressed; he clasped his hands together in glee and made an excited sound before getting up to move across to the teapot. Max watched as he poured water into it and set it to boil. “Oh bravo, honey. Now tell me, other than her brother and her father, did she meet with anyone else?”

  “Well,” Max said. “There was a guy the other night?”

  “Oh! The little hussy, do tell.”

  “Not like that,” Max quickly added, the look on Mr R’s face was enough to turn his stomach, ghoulish in its sudden change. “There was a guy on the plaza, she insisted her brother introduce him to her. She looked interested. Even though there might be a problem with that.”

  His benefactor raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

  He’d been about to; it didn’t feel like a good idea to say that though. “He already has a loose cannon girlfriend, pretty angry by the looks of it. Looked like she wanted to rip Mi… Your girl’s head off.”

  “Don’t ever call her my girl,” Mr R said. “Not if you enjoy having genitals for the rest of your life. I’m not happy about being in the same gene pool as her.” He stroked his chin, paced up and down as the teapot finished its heating. “I see. You’ve done well. Keep an eye out. I want you to stay in touch, if you ever see her going anywhere on her own; I want you to make notes of it. I want correlations of where she goes alone, I want confirmations.”

  “Gotcha,” Max said. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing you can provide,” Mr R said. “But since you ask. Lacerations.”

  “Lacerations?”

  “Oh yes,” he smiled, a grotesque curve of the mouth that sent a twist to Max’s stomach as he tried to avoid looking at it. “I’m going to bleed the little bitch dry slowly. More than that, I’m going to enjoy it as well.”

  Chapter Sixteen. Stormrunners.

  “Monsoons in Vazara. They don’t hit you often but they hit you bloody hard. The most destructive force of nature you can ever imagine. It’s as deadly as its unpredictable. You can’t completely plan for it and it’s all you can do to survive it.”

  Brendan King in a lecture on personal safety and survival against the elements.

  The twenty fifth day of Summerdawn.

  Still the rain came down hard, cold sleet pounding the stadium as the battle raged beneath the onyx black sky, Eight Eyes the giant spider skittering away from the sputtering flames thrown towards it by a struggling fire beast. Theo smiled coolly, his grin matching the frigid weather, arms folded. Unless he was mistaken, he had Arnholt the younger on the ropes.

  Stupid little bastard was out of his depths. He might have had a father who was a city champion and a sister on the way up in the spirit dancing world, however pathetic that notion felt to him, but it appeared the talent standing against him right now was minimal at best. He ignored the way the skies seemed eager to open and drown them all, stood there despite the chill threatening to rush through his skin. If it was bad for him, it’d be worse for his opponent stood there in shorts.

  Theo didn’t know what animal the spirit was Matt had chosen to use against him, he didn’t care. All he knew was that it was struggling in the downpour. That and the conjunction of the battlefield layout meant his options were limited in the extreme. They’d been
chosen to battle on a field that might once have been a huge swimming pool, seven large floating platforms anchored to the bottom to provide a stable base to attack from. Eight Eyes was Theo’s second spirit and still in good shape. The fire spirit… it looked like some sort of ape but not quite, there were too many discrepancies, the spikes and the scales and the large pointed ears, Pyro, was Matt’s third. If the rest of the group was this poor, he’d be in for a very quick road to the top.

  It wouldn’t be though. He smirked, gave Eight Eyes the order to rush the thing, hit and run to wear it down before they could get in close enough to apply the final blow. Wind and rain and water aside, it still wouldn’t do to take chances. Those flames could still do some damage. Water sloshed about his feet soaking his boots, he glanced down at the surface of the pool and noticed with some surprise it was already overflowing. The rain had been coming down heavy for a while now.

  He kicked listlessly at the liquid, felt it splash over his shoes before dragging his attention back to the bout. If Eight Eyes could force Pyro into the pool, it’d be open season. Water trumped fire every time, it’d be unable to attack effectively and he’d sacrifice Eight Eyes in the pool if it meant it took that damn monkey thing with him. The spider cut in, weaved aside and smacked its two front legs into Pyro, leaving several deep gouges across the spirit’s back, blood dripped down the scales and Theo smirked to himself. Good. Good. Nearly. Nearly…

  And then the clarion of the horn burst through his amusement, snatching the smirk

  from his face as a voice clawed through the sounds of the stadium. “Ladies and gentlemen and competitors. Please make your way to the exits in an orderly fashion. Due to the extreme changes in weather, we have no choice but to declare the bout abandoned due to safety reasons concerning the battlefield. Can the competitors please return to their locker rooms please?”

  Theo swore loudly, gave the video referee a violent look. It fell on a blank screen; it didn’t look like they’d made it waterproof enough to survive the downpour. Anything heavy to hand and it’d have been thrown at it. He could see Matt looked more than happy at the sudden turn of fortune for him, he’d recalled his spirit to its crystal and already made his way off as Theo stood there seething. With little other option, he brought back Eight Eyes and stormed off, his face black with anger. If anyone stood in his way on the way out, there’d be trouble. He wasn’t having this. He wrapped his rage around him, slipped down the tunnel, some of the steps already slippery. He’d weather it out in the locker room. Felt the best place for it. At least it was damn dry down here.

  Above him, he heard the crackle of thunder in the sky and rolled his eyes. He told himself the shudder was from the cold. He didn’t want to think back to that night in Canterage on the road in that forest. He’d all but put it out of his mind. So why was it clamouring for his attention once against? That had been like this. Not quite as bad but those memories weren’t something he could ignore forever.

  Up in the stands, the effects of the weather were becoming even worse; Scott had found himself soaked long since. Had it not been that he’d wanted to see Matt’s bout, he’d have left earlier for somewhere warmer and dryer. And he’d been complaining about the heat the previous day. He hated irony. Still, the chance to get out of here was welcome, even if it wouldn’t be as quick as he liked. When the rain had intensified, some had already left.

  Still it left him and Pete having to negotiate their way out through the dwindling crowds across the slippery stairways. More than once he nearly slipped, having to grab something to steady himself. Meanwhile Pete wasn’t turning out to be much help, still sulking after the outcome of his bout earlier. Scott was sure he hadn’t said anything since he’d made his way off the battlefield, despite numerous attempts to draw him into conversation.

  “Oh dear,” he said, pushing his way down towards the exit. “Where’s all this coming from?! I mean we’re in the tropics. Shouldn’t be getting rain here.”

  Pete said nothing, just shoved his way past a few more people with perhaps a little more vigour than he might have exercised before. Someone rounded on him, looked like they wanted to say something, saw the look on his face and decided better against it.

  “Are you going to be like this for the rest of the day?” Scott asked. “You’ve been intolerable ever since that bout. I want you back so I can take the piss. I do it now; you look like you might hit me.”

  Still his friend said nothing as they reached the exits, noting the way they were crammed with people all trying to get out before the weather got much worse, and started the process of squeezing themselves out. Scott caught an elbow in the back, swore violently and resisted the urge to push back. A little voice inside him told him that getting into a struggle here would be a very stupid thing to do. With everyone cold, wet and annoyed, the mood was turning ugly and all it’d take to spark it off into something worse would be someone doing something stupid. Well, for once, it wasn’t going to be him that did it. He’d probably leave that honour to Pete, the mood he was in.

  “Wonder what they’re going to do,” he said, as conversationally as he could manage given he almost had his face pressed against the broad back of someone speaking Burykian. “Replay it when the rain stops in a different stadium?”

  Pete shrugged, almost catching the person behind him in the nose with a shoulder, a gesture that wholeheartedly said I don’t really give a shit. Scott turned away, rolling his eyes and continued the slow journey out towards the turnstiles. The rest of the day was going to be fun.

  “If you’re not going to make the effort, I’m not going to bother either,” he muttered, struggling against the crowd. The sheer denseness of them all was starting to get to him.

  Not that he’d expected it to be anything else, but the weather was just as ferociously vociferous in the streets outside the stadium, rain lashing down unimpeded onto the faces and bodies of those who strode below it. Idly he found himself wondering where Jess was amidst all this and if she was well out of it. She didn’t like the cold. Next to him, Pete had tugged a hooded shirt out of his bag and pulled it on over his regular shirt, yanking the hood over his hair. It was soaked within minutes but it still had the benefit of keeping the rain from his face better than his hands would have.

  “Oh, ha-ha,” Scott said angrily. “You might have planned ahead for that but it didn’t do you much good earlier, did it?”

  If it was going to get a reaction, it didn’t get the one he hoped for. Pete ignored him, stuck his hands in his pockets and took off at a quick pace, soon leaving him behind. “Hey, wait up!” he yelled, suddenly annoyed. Pete really must be hurting. Nobody liked to lose but it hadn’t been pretty viewing in the remainder of his bout with that strange Ulikku. That rabbit and Mermari had fought each other to a draw but it had been about Pete’s high point of the bout. His remaining two spirits had suffered much in the same way that Mermari had, only without the means or the chance to make the same comeback that Mermari had half made. Scott had to admit, Ulikku had been mercilessly tough, he could rib Pete all he wanted but he doubted that under the same circumstances he’d have been able to get a win in that bout. He made a mental note to try and get to the one between Ulikku and Sharon, because should be a bout worth watching.

  Rain lashed his face, he found himself drifting deep into his thoughts until he heard a voice cutting through the sounds of the downpour hitting the ground, great puddles formed in the grooves of the paths.

  “Scott!”

  He turned in the direction of the yell, saw Matt, Mia and their father rushing over, the two of them both soaked to the skin, neither looking happy at the sudden turn in events. It was the first time Scott had ever seen Terrence Arnholt up close and he was impressed by the sheer gravitas that the man seemed to generate even given the circumstances.

  “Matt,” he said. “Unlucky having it called off.” He was being tactful, given the way Theo had battered him, at least he hadn’t lost yet. If they did replay it, there was no
way Matt could be that bad again. If he was upset at having to have a rematch, he didn’t show it. He looked in better spirits than his father. Or Mia who, despite giving him a small smile, looked wet, miserable and thoroughly pissed off. If he’d had a coat, he’d have given it to her there and then. At least, under the proviso that Jess would never ever find out about it. She really hadn’t dressed for this sort of weather. “Mia,” he said politely, returning her smile. Hers only grew as her eyes met his and he felt a little uncomfortable as he realised he’d noticed that.

  “Meh, this stuff happens,” Matt said. “Scott, this is my dad…”

  “Terrence Arnholt, I know of him,” Scott said. “It’s an honour, sir.” He quickly shook Arnholt’s hand, trying to avoid wincing at the firm grip. Not that he’d expected anything less now he thought about it, Arnholt looked like he could crush steel with his bare hands. Maybe it was the surroundings giving him that look of grim ferociousness.

  “I’ll save the discussion for later,” Arnholt said. “For now, we should get inside before we all catch a chill. Head for the hotels, that’s where they’re telling people to go.”

  “Gotcha,” Scott said. Made sense at least. He stuck his hands in his pockets, trying to return some feeling to the cold numbness drifting through them and followed the three of them. The streets weren’t empty, but he’d seen them busier. Still some people looked like they felt the need to keep on wandering around, yet the very streets that had been filled with vendors and performers earlier were now emptily devoid of them. They had more sense than to stick around by the looks of it. If there had been some message to return to the hotels, then it hadn’t quite gotten around yet to everyone.