“We can’t fight them here,” Yael said, his voice low and persuasive. “We’re weakened from being out of Topia and we have no idea which of those assholes are up there. Let’s just wait and see if any of our names are called. We’ll easily keep her safe then, without causing a god-war.”
Coen was breathing hard, murder in his eyes, which were a startling shade of dark grey now. Tinges of green were there, but it was like the green of a stormy sky when you knew it was going to get bad. Really bad. I knew I was supposed to be heading toward the underground thingy the Gamemaster had mentioned, but I couldn’t get my feet to move … and I might have had two very strong hands holding me in place. Aros and Siret both had a grip on me. Rome and Yael remained near Coen.
Three more names flashed up, and only one of them was an Abcurse. Siret. I didn’t recognise the other two names: Aedan and Johnny.
“Look after her,” Aros muttered as Siret released me, jumping over the barrier.
I was handed down to Siret, but I was barely even paying attention anymore. My eyes were riveted to the obstacle course sprawling over the length of the arena sands, my mind racing through the million or so ways that it would be possible for me to die a horrible, painful death this sun-cycle. I glanced up at the glass god-box as Siret pulled me in that direction, his hand tight around mine. His steps were too fast, some of his unnatural strength bleeding into the movements, causing me to run to keep pace with him. We entered through a door on the left side, moving down a set of stairs and spilling into an underground chamber. The other two boys were already there, standing before a table laid out with weapons.
“What the hell?” I blurted, staring at the knife that one of them had picked up.
It wasn’t the fact that he was holding a knife that had caused the reaction. It was the knife itself: longer than my forearm, with a serrated edge and a black leather handle. It looked like something you might use to saw through tree branches. Or dwellers.
“Never seen a synch before, dirt-dweller?” the boy attached to the other end of the knife asked.
I flicked my eyes up to his face. He was tall, even for a sol, but he didn’t have the muscled strength of my Abcurses; his was more streamlined, a toned and corded body that moved with grace. I knew that he moved with grace, because he was super graceful as he slid upward of ten knives into various holsters attached to his body. When he was done, he pulled his shoulder-length black hair from his face with a band, and then stalked to the short staircase in the middle of the room, staring upwards.
“You’re going to trip over something and stab yourself in the ass, Aedan,” the other boy grunted, still at the table.
Aedan looked back over his shoulder, flashing a short smile. There wasn’t any humour in the movement. He didn’t reply with words, just smiled that smile and went right back to staring up the stairs. The other boy—Johnny, I assumed—was still picking through the weapons. He had a crossbow in his hands now, and was inspecting a few of the different sorts of bolts laid out on the table.
“You picking anything up?” he asked Siret, ignoring me completely. “I don’t think there are any knives left.”
I glanced back to Aedan, a smile kicking up the corners of my mouth. That was actually pretty smart. Stealing all the knives so that he couldn’t get stabbed by anyone.
“I don’t need anything,” Siret replied, his tone still sharp with anger.
“Two clicks,” a voice announced, coming from the stairs where Aedan waited.
We all watched as a dweller rushed past Aedan in a long, white robe. He was holding a scroll—probably the schedule of sols who’d be called to the arena. “But first …” he glanced at me, “there’s someone who wants to speak with you.”
“Is it Rau?” I shot back, not even missing a beat.
“Rau?” he parroted, obviously not even considering that I might be talking about the god Rau. “No, it’s …”
He didn’t need to finish his sentence, because Atti was already pushing past him.
“Willa.” He skirted around Aedan and stopped before me. “You okay? I tried to get Heath—that’s the interim head of the committee—to excuse you from this event, but apparently the schedule of fights came directly from the gods.”
“It’s okay,” I told him, managing to pull my hand out of Siret’s. I moved to the table and Atti followed, watching as I started picking up crossbow bolts.
Johnny was also watching, pausing in his inspection of an axe. He was shorter and stockier than Aedan, definitely able to wield a short-range weapon. I approached him and touched the axe. He narrowed his eyes but handed it off to me to inspect. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to inspect it. I wanted to keep it. I tucked it under my arm and went back to collecting crossbow bolts. Somewhere behind me, a low chuckle escaped Siret. He knew exactly what I was doing.
“One click,” the white-robed dweller announced, spurring Johnny back into action.
He managed to get a handful of the crossbow bolts before I could collect them all, and there had been another axe at the other end of the table … but at least I tried. We all moved to the stairs, and Atti remained, buzzing by my side as though Emmy might actually remove his head if I managed to get myself hurt.
“Go and tell her to stop worrying,” I told him. “I’m going to be fine.”
“She’s going to die,” Aedan corrected, from the front of our procession. “Even if she survives this round, the gods clearly want her dead. Why else would they toss her into a sol fight?”
“Time to go,” the white-robed dweller interrupted.
He didn’t need to give us further instruction, apparently, because Aedan and Johnny were already sprinting up the stairs. I followed behind with Siret—who had taken my stash of weapons from me and dumped them back down at the bottom of the stairwell. He forced me to stay behind him as we got to the top, and I peered out from around his side, looking right down the centre of the obstacle course.
Aedan had run straight into the first part—a section of flat ground riddled with covered holes only an inch or so apart. There were giant pikes popping up from the holes at completely random intervals. Aedan seemed to have figured out a pattern already, which meant that he was ridiculously smart; he was skipping through with ease, avoiding all the right holes at all the right times. Johnny had a few near-misses, but he managed to get through without being skewered, and then it was our turn. Annoyingly, Aedan and Johnny weren’t continuing on to the next part. They had paused, and were turning to watch us. I thought that they were just curious, or sadistic. They wanted to know what Dweller-on-a-Stick looked like—but then I noticed the gate that was blocking their progress. So this wasn’t a race. Yet.
“You ready?” Siret asked, his hands on my hips, his breath against my ear.
“No,” I replied.
“Good.”
One click, I had been standing there, and the next, I was crashing into another body. Two bodies. I scrambled to my feet as a slew of curses reached my ears. I was on the ground after having been tossed at Aedan and Johnny from all the way across the other side of the spike-pit. What the hell? Unfortunately for them, they had broken my fall. I spun as they jumped to their feet, and all of us watched Siret sprint across the honeycomb floor.
“What the hell was that?” Johnny asked, shoving against my shoulder, sending me into Siret’s chest just as he reached the other side. “We’re not here to help you keep the stupid dweller alive!”
“No?” Siret whipped me behind his back, his tone conversational. “You’d rather die right here, right now, instead?”
The two stared at each other, but eventually Siret must have dropped some of the nice act, because Johnny started to shift from foot to foot wearily.
“Nothing to say?” Siret asked, taking a step away from me. A step toward Johnny.
“We’ll help,” Aedan quickly interjected, pulling Johnny back from the confrontation. “Let’s go. The gate is open.”
Sure enough, the gate that had blocked
them before was now gone. There was another flat section spread out before us, but there weren’t any visible obstacles.
“Who wants to go first?” Aedan asked, just as something popped into being, directly in front of us.
“Jeffrey!” I squeaked, pointing at the Topian server.
Everyone turned to stare at me, including Jeffrey.
“My name is Vintage,” she said, staring at me. “I do not know what Jeffrey is, Dirty One.”
“Dirty One?” I choked on a laugh. “I was Sacred—”
Siret shot forward, pressing a finger to my lips. His head was bent down, his lips trying not to smile.
Right, I thought. Don’t reveal to everyone in the middle of a public death match that you snuck into Topia.
His grin finally broke free, and the finger against my lip slid away.
“Vintage?” Johnny questioned. They were back to staring at the server. “What the hell are you?”
“The Sacred Ones care about more than just your ability to stab each other,” Vintage announced. “This is a test of the mind.”
Johnny groaned. “Can we stab her?”
“Interesting choice.” Vintage turned her waxy eyes to Johnny. “Is that your final answer?”
“Wait, what?” Johnny started doing his nervous shifting thing again, bouncing from one foot to another. “You didn’t ask any questions.”
“Here is your question.” Vintage made a little mechanical sound, like she was clearing her throat but she didn’t really need to clear her throat. It was as though she was reciting what someone had told her to say—right down to their throat clearing. “If one dweller befriends five Sacred Sols, how many dwellers die?”
“What a convenient question,” I drawled, as Aedan choked on a laugh and Siret rolled his eyes. “I’m guessing one dweller dies?”
“All the dwellers die,” Vintage answered, completely sapped of emotion.
She disappeared, and I met Siret’s eye. “Was that a threat?” I asked softly.
“It wasn’t a freaking pony.” Johnny decided to answer my question as we walked cautiously across Vintage’s stage—or at least the rest of us walked cautiously. Siret strolled along, looking mildly annoyed.
“This is a pretty easy obstacle course,” I noted aloud. “I mean … other than the death-spikes.”
“Really?” Johnny asked, stepping aside so that I could see around him.
Several feet below us was a pit of mud, and I could see things moving around inside it. I had no idea what the things were, but I wholeheartedly didn’t want anything to do with them. All I could see of them were curved, silver tips, poking up out of the surface. They cut through the mud, swerving all over the place.
“Blacktips,” Aedan grumbled, sounding as though someone had personally offended him.
“Is that a bad thing?” I asked.
“Not if you like things eating you,” Siret answered easily.
I turned and glared at him, before softening my expression … because I kind of needed him to keep me alive.
He obviously knew what was going through my head, because he started grinning again. “Can you swim, Rocks?”
“No, water was not really a thing in the outer circles of Minatsol. Mud on the other hand, definitely a thing. But with freaky, dweller-eating monsters? No. No way.”
He laughed, tossing an arm over my shoulder. “Should we feed them one of these two, then?”
“We agreed to help you!” Johnny spluttered, taking a sudden, rapid step away from Siret.
“It’ll help me if you let the blacktips munch on you for a little while.” Siret gave my shoulder a squeeze before releasing me. He was stepping toward Johnny. I was pretty sure that he was joking.
Until he pushed Johnny off our platform.
“Five!” I yelled, rushing to the edge and dropping to my knees, peering down.
The blacktips had all been stirred into a frenzy—but they weren’t heading for Johnny. They were heading into the corner of their mud pit, swarming around a certain point that held nothing as far as I could tell. Trickery. Siret pulled me back up to my feet.
“Go,” he told Aedan, “while they’re distracted.”
Aedan jerked his head in a nod and started pulling knives out of his clothing. I supposed he didn’t need so many with Siret on his side. After he was down to just four blades, he jumped off the platform.
“This is all for you,” Siret whispered to me. “This whole spectacle.”
“How do you know?” I asked, even though Vintage had been a pretty big hint.
“Because, little dirt-dweller,” Siret continued to whisper, the insult sounding almost like an endearment, “we’re about to jump into a pit of dirt.”
Ten
Before I had time to compute this information I once again found myself sailing through the air. Thankfully though, this time a strong arm remained wrapped across my middle, cushioning the blow as we hit the dirty sludge. We sank about four feet deep, the thick ooze sucking us down and slicking over our skin. I understood now why Aedan had ditched so many of his weapons, the guys were already deeper and at a disadvantage to me, being that much heavier.
“How long can you hold off those blacktip things?” My voice was a stuttering mess as I reluctantly separated myself from Siret and tried to ignore the panic that was clawing at my insides.
We were sharing space with killing monsters. I might not have been able to see much of them, but I knew that they were bad. If they were in there at all—if the gods had chosen to use them to test us—there was no way they would be anything but bad.
“Just move, Soldier. I’ll keep you safe.”
Siret was completely unruffled, which should have been reassuring, but it wasn’t. I had yet to see the Abcurses get very ruffled. I was thinking it would be the end of the world, or worse, before that happened.
Since it didn’t seem as though I was about to get any more reassurance from him, I sucked in another shuddering breath and nodded, whilst simultaneously swallowing hard and trying not to vomit. Siret started to move and I stuck as close to his side as I could.
“You might as well climb on my back at this rate, Willa.”
“This is no time for joking,” I bit out through clenched teeth.
Our pace increased as we moved through the mud pit. I concentrated on holding onto the fine tendrils of bravery that I had found somewhere deep inside myself. It was all I had left.
After a few clicks, Siret gave a snort of laughter. “What the hell, Willa. You’re about to overtake those useless sols, and they had a huge lead.”
Shifting my eyes from where they had been focussed on the end of the pit, I realised he was right. I was almost even with Aedan and Johnny.
“This isn’t my first mud pit swim,” I confessed. “And survival skills are actually something I have in abundance. Sort of. Sometimes.”
Before he could say anything else, I heard a muffled gasp from the crowds around us—crowds that I had completely forgotten were even there, which actually made sense since they seemed to be silenced to us in the arena. I couldn’t hear them or the announcer anymore, but that collective gasp had broken through, which was a little worrying. If any sound was going to break through, I would have preferred it to be applause. Or maybe someone yelling, “Leave the dweller alone!”
Utilising my pathetic amount of muscle and core strength, I leveraged myself up as high as I could in the mud, craning my neck to look around. “You lost control of the killer bug spiky things!” I shouted over my shoulder—unnecessarily shouted, because Siret was right behind me.
“We need to move,” he replied.
He planted a hand low on my spine and we began slipping through that muck with more speed and grace than I could have managed on my own. Even with my exceptional swimming-in-dirt skills. I caught sight of the two male sols as we scooted past. Siret let out a growling curse as we reached the end of the pit and our path to safety. I was not at all surprised to see that there was a six-foo
t mud wall we needed to climb to make it out. Sols designed this obstacle course of death by order of the gods, and both the sols and the gods were massive assholes.
“Obstacle course of assholeness,” I grunted out, launching myself onto the mud wall.
I started scrambling up, using the thick sludge as leverage, wedging my hands in tight. A hard shove under my ass had me flying up the side, and over onto the flat ground.
“Assholeness is not a word,” Siret called up after me as I sprawled out across the hard-packed dirt.
I breathed heavily for a beat before remembering that I was in the middle of some kind of death-trial, so there was every chance that I was currently sharing space with something that could kill me. I lurched to my feet, spinning around as I took it all in. It seemed as though the coast was clear for the moment, so I scurried to the edge of the pit, ready to help Siret out.
Naturally, he didn’t need my help.
He almost looked bored as he easily hauled himself up the short distance to drop down next to me. He was completely covered in mud, except for the roots of his hair and a few patches on his face. I knew I looked exactly the same because I could feel the tightness on my skin and clothing as the mud dried. I could say goodbye to my second purple dress.
Noises below had both of us staring down into the pit. Aedan and Johnny were almost at the edge now, but so were the blacktips. I still couldn’t see much of them, except those crazily lethal-looking tips, and the fact that they seemed to move together as a pack, the mud shifting in an even fashion around them as they churned through the pit.
“Are we going to help them?” I wheezed, still trying to get my breath back.
Aedan was halfway up the wall now, while Johnny couldn’t seem to get a good enough grip, his heavier frame dragging him back to the bottom.
Siret shrugged, before standing. “This is a competition, Rocks. I don’t think you quite get how that works.”
I stood also, my hands slipping against my muddy hips as I attempted to make a stance. “Just because the gods want us all to kill each other, doesn’t mean that we should all scramble to get a stab in first.” I then went to spin myself around, prepared to lean over and drag up the sols, but before I could, a heavy hand landed on my arm and Aedan hauled me off the side and back into the pit.
Persuasion (Curse of the Gods Book 2) Page 13