To Steal a Moon

by Erin MacMichael

  Turning his head toward his cluster of guards at the end of the arena, Izar nodded to the lead officer and a small boy of perhaps six years was brought to the front. Izar looked pointedly up at Tashek. “My son Kamál.”

  The Emperor glanced at the child and waved impatiently. “That will do. Have him handed over to my officers so we can get on with this.”

  Without looking back, Izar raised his hand to signal his captain as a pair of the Emperor’s guards marched over and led the boy away.

  Tashek leaned forward, his eyes narrowed on the Rastabanian nobleman with unconcealed malice. “You want to fight, Izar? We’ll just see if you make it out of here alive.”

  Izar tipped his head and turned, a satisfied smile breaking across his smooth features as soon as he faced the arena. Stalking leisurely away from Tashek amid a flurry of exuberant cheering from Ka’s all over the stands, he led Saryn back through the fighters on the floor, signaling for ten of his men to meet him on the far side of the arena. With a flourish, he peeled off his black tank, revealing a sculpted, heavily muscled torso, and lazily rolled his shoulders, playing to his audience and bringing on another round of calls and whoops. As he approached the center of the floor, the sharp green eyes fixed once more on Bálok who held his gaze steadily as the Rastabanian passed.

  The announcer’s voice cracked through the noise, followed by the steady beat of drums and clicks, signaling that the competitors were to clear the floor while the rings were laid out for the day’s first contests. Bálok turned and watched Izar parade through the shorter fighters on the floor, wondering just what the scheming man was up to. In his few direct encounters with the Rastabanian ruler, he’d always judged Izar as keenly intelligent and a consummate manipulator, aside from having an obvious flair for theatrics. To force his way so brazenly into this nest of vipers where there was a very real threat to his life, and to the lives of his wife and son, meant there was something here Izar wanted.

  Heading for the cluster of his Eltanin guard waiting for him partway down the sideline benches to his right, Bálok kept his eyes trained on the Rastabanian as he and his wife rejoined their entourage. In the stands just above the party, Tirgal signaled down to Izar, waving his arm to the side and creating a space next to him in the front row. With a nod, Izar grabbed Saryn by the waist and lifted her up to the Aldhiban lord where she turned and stood, as regal and alluring as a finely cut gem, shining quite conspicuously as the only female in the whole arena. A flicker of gold drew Bálok’s eyes to the eight-pointed star at the center of her necklace which marked her as a follower of Baal and he realized he’d seen the same symbol on Izar’s armband as he’d walked past him on the floor. Very few Drahks paid heed to the old cult and to see it displayed so openly by two of the highest ranking gentry seemed odd—extremely odd.

  When he reached his guardsmen, Bálok turned back around, casually crossing his arms to wait for the first matches to be announced. Next to him, Jimat stood stock still, his eyes locked onto the Lord of Rastaban a short distance away down the sidelines. “Is he the one, Lord?” the captain asked in a very hushed voice.

  Bálok returned his gaze to Izar who had stripped down and was preening like a peacock once again. “No.”

  With a quiet nod, Jimat shifted his attention to the bustle out on the floor. “Good,” he whispered beneath his breath.

  The unexpected approval from his sober lead captain brought a small smile to Bálok’s face. There was no denying Izar’s powerful and charismatic appeal, which was exactly why Tashek hated him. A glance across the arena confirmed his assessment. The scowling Emperor sat slumped in his chair and could not take his eyes off of the prancing Lord of Rastaban. That in itself struck Bálok as odd. There was something afoot here that he couldn’t yet name, but one thing he knew for certain—the volatility of Tashek’s games spiked exponentially as soon as Izar appeared, making the chessboard decidedly more dangerous.

  The drums sounded to announce the beginning of the first round. Ten circular rings had been chalked out across the expanse of the arena floor and an official in royal purple hovered next to each. Around the floor’s perimeter, groups of medics in white coats were posted to dress wounds or tend serious injuries and clusters of attendants stood ready to scrub the packed dirt of the fighting spaces after every bloody match.

  As the ring numbers and names for the first round were posted on large screens above both ends of the arena, it became deploringly obvious to Bálok that the officials’ “random” assignments were anything but random. He had expected as much, but the Ka opponent he was given would provide pitifully little challenge—young, eager, green, and at least a foot and a half shorter than he was. Izar, on the other hand, was paired with the largest of the Goran fighters who let out a rowdy yowl when he saw the postings while the rest of the Goran elite were each assigned one of the top Ka fighters.

  “Looks like they’re trying to knock a few of the best fighters out of the running right from the start,” Bálok grumbled. In order to stay in the game, it was imperative to win all five matches and keep from being injured too badly to continue or, in this tournament, killed outright. He glanced to his left at the far end of the floor near the palace tunnel entrance where his youthful opponent worked through a series of stiff, practiced warm-ups. There would be no threat to his skin coming from that one.

  Jimat followed his gaze. “You could gut that man with one swipe, Lord,” he remarked blandly.

  “Without a doubt,” Bálok scoffed. Stepping forward, he shook out his limbs and rolled his shoulders before heading out to the assigned space. A burst of applause broke out as he walked into the ring while shock rolled off the young man standing across from him at coming face to face with his massive size and daunting notoriety. He drew in the man’s trepidation as he crouched and readied his claws, quickly assessing his opponent’s balance and tactics with the first few moves.

  Under normal circumstances, he would have been exhilarated by the hunger of the crowd and the feel of tearing into an opponent’s flesh—it satisfied something deep within which he couldn’t quite look at squarely. His renown for bloody conquests in tournament competition over the years was well earned. But today was a different matter altogether. He was aggravated by the imperial order to be here and felt a perverse desire to deny Tashek his blood kick from any of his wins, so he kept his swipes clean and efficient, grazing the young nobleman’s skin just enough to count as a blooding. His three strikes were called by the official in a matter of minutes and he left the ring without so much as breaking a sweat.

  Jimat handed him a wet towel as he reached the sidelines. “You didn’t kill him, Lord.”

  Bálok looked up at his captain as he wiped down his hands and skin. “No.”

  “It would be easy money for you.”

  He snorted inelegantly. “That’s true, Jimat, but I have no desire to feed the Emperor.”

  As he stepped toward the back bench to toss the towel into a bucket, he glanced up at the beautiful woman seated next to Tirgal and found her studying him, her delicate features drawn in a thoughtful look before she retreated once more behind a cool mask of reserve. He held her gaze for several moments before she turned away at the sudden upswell of voices indicating her husband had just stepped into the ring. Reluctantly, Bálok shifted his eyes away from the enticing creature to one of the middle circles where Izar and the Goran brute were just about to face off. Walking back to the front of his men, he crossed his arms and stood, watching both fighters closely to appraise their strategies and potential weaknesses.

  With a leering grin, the Goran circled, laughing and heckling before he hurled across the ring to initiate a series of swings and kicks aimed at Izar’s midsection and head. The Rastabanian lord danced away from each blow with startling ease and grace, watching every move of his opponent with focused, calm intensity. Irritated by his slippery adversary, the Goran bared his teeth and flexed his claws, yelling something inaudible as he pulled his arm back, preparing fo
r another attack. Without hint or warning, Izar flipped up and around his opponent with lightning speed, just out of reach, and landed behind him, slicing neatly across the back of the man’s left hip to draw first blood.

  Shouts went up across the arena. The startled Goran whirled and kicked, but Izar launched into the air once more, twisting and swiping to catch the man across his forearm before touching down. Dropping quickly into a crouch, he threw his right leg out in a sweep and kicked the bulky Goran’s feet out from under him, toppling him to the ground with a heavy slam. In one lithe motion, Izar rose off the floor and sliced once across the prone man’s shins before turning to walk out of the ring under spirited applause.

  Bálok was impressed. For all his outward flamboyance, inside the ring Izar was all business. Swift and razor-sharp, his strikes were clean and efficient, executed with surgical precision and a minimum of gore which undoubtedly infuriated their beloved Emperor to no end.

  As Izar strolled back toward his guards on the sidelines, he turned his head and looked pointedly at Bálok before disappearing into the cluster of black-clad soldiers.

  “It seems like he’s watching you, Lord,” Jimat astutely observed. “Is he a threat?”

  “I don’t know,” Bálok replied to his ever-vigilant captain. “I may have to fight him before this is over if I want that destroyer. Keep your eye on him.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Jimat, there’s someone else I want you to watch,” he added quietly. “Take a walk with me.”

  Bálok ambled down the sidelines with his captain in tow, taking his time in order to get a closer look at matches in the other rings, making mental notes about fighting styles and any discernable patterns among his competitors. The Goran fighters were all about flashiness and display, and it was clear from the gaping wounds in their Ka opponents and the amount of blood already soaking into the floor that they were out for kills. Bardur and Rall were extremely talented, executing showy, impressive moves, but aggressive and brutal in their assaults, leaving each of their first opponents unable to leave the ring without assistance. Mardukan appeared to be the most skilled and controlled fighter of the lot, and, curiously, the least interested in mortally wounding the other contestant.

  Bálok came to a halt near the center ring when he saw Majah embroiled in battle with Zan of Altais. The Goran lord was in high form—loud and grating, out to antagonize his well-built, highly skilled adversary. Admirably, Zan held onto his composure in the face of Majah’s verbal abuse and had already managed to leave marks across the Goran’s upper left shoulder blade. Majah lashed out with a barrage of swipes and high-powered kicks which Zan masterfully blocked, countering with his own vigorous offensives to push the Goran nobleman back and land the two strikes needed to win the match. As Zan left the ring to wild applause and shouting from Shahr and the entire Altain section, the Lord of Tyl’s cursing and threats could be heard from all corners of the stadium.

  “Someone needs to put that rabid dog down,” Bálok muttered disgustedly.

  Jimat shook his head at the ugly scene Majah was making on the far side of the arena. “It’s too bad Zan didn’t wound him more severely. He’s going to be even more noxious now that he’s been blooded. Oh, and there goes another piece of garbage,” the captain snarled as Nakkár stepped into the ring in front of them that had just been cleaned.

  Bálok let out a short laugh at Jimat’s rarely expressed spleen. “The little dung beetle really bothers you, doesn’t he?”

  “We lost some really good men in those pointless attacks on your freighters, Lord,” Jimat lamented bitterly.

  “I know, but at least he turned his attention elsewhere. Arikul of Grumium lost a lot more than we did. His whole house was wiped out when Nakkár took over.”

  Jimat grumbled, but let go of the issue. As they watched Nakkár launch an attack against his opponent, it became clear that he was no pushover for the larger Ka fighter he was paired with. At just under eight feet, with a lean, trim build, the young Lord of Grumium was considered small for a Drahkian warrior.

  “He’s good,” Bálok declared, “scrappy, with a decent amount of control. He may do alright. There’s another one that may go far,” he said with a nod toward the far circle where Daga was in the middle of a match with a Goran fighter from one of the largest Darbanian houses. “Those two have been at it a while and Daga hasn’t let the man land a single blow. A lot of sweat, no blood.”

  “The Goran’s supporters aren’t not too happy about it either,” Jimat commented, tipping his head to indicate a heckling section of spectators just to the left of the Emperor’s box. Down in the ring, Daga flew at the Goran with a well-executed spinning wheel kick and grazed the man’s shins with an upswing of his claws on the follow through, bringing angry shouts from the Darbanian gentry up in the stands while the officers in Tirgal’s section right above them jumped to their feet screaming with excitement.

  “Mmm, good move,” Bálok remarked, “my money’s on Daga. The Goran’s running out of wind and Daga knows it. Smart man.”

  Without waiting for the match to finish, Bálok moved on down the long stretch of sidelines well past the Rastabanian group where he spied Ukúr and another Ka fighter entering one of the circles at the end of the floor near the airfield entrance.

  “See the tall man with dark purple skin in the far ring?” he asked softly as he came to a stop just out of ear range of Ukúr’s guardsmen.

  Jimat stiffened beside him. “The Lord of Gianfar? Is he—”

  “His brother Eo, up in the stands with the Gianfar spectators,” Bálok answered tightly. “Take a good look at Ukúr, and then scan the section up above for a man with the same coloring whose right eye is damaged.”

  Bálok kept his gaze on Ukúr while the captain searched the faces in the stands.

  “His eyes are on you, Lord, even while his brother fights,” Jimat whispered caustically.

  “He knows I’m coming for him,” Bálok rumbled. “Tonight, Jimat—it ends tonight.”

  Bálok stood and watched Ukúr’s fight in front of him, but he was no longer really seeing the Lord of Gianfar or his opponent. Instead, the battle that raged in his mind was one he had imagined a thousand times before in a thousand different ways, always ending with Eo’s bloody body lying lifeless beneath his hands.

  He shook his head to dismiss his morbid thoughts. “Let’s go,” he said tersely, turning to walk back down the sidelines just as a loud horn blared, signaling the end of the first round.

  The tournament plodded on at an excruciating pace. While Bálok waited for night to fall, he diligently kept himself focused on accumulating the five wins he needed to stay in the running for the championship. His second round opponent gave him no more challenge than the first. Erchek’s nephew, a solid veteran to tournament competition, took one step into the ring and put up little resistance to Bálok’s swift victory. The easy win brought him another step closer to the semi-finals, but did little to keep his mind occupied during the tedious round.

  Fortunately, his matches in both the third and fourth rounds were against seasoned Ka fighters with sufficient combat experience give him a good fight without seriously endangering his winning streak. Thanks to his long reach and agility, he’d managed to keep his skin intact, coming through both matches without a single nick, and he had he refrained from damaging either of his opponents any more than was necessary to win, depriving Tashek and the noisy spectators of any blood feastings from him.

  Izar was also winning, seemingly with little or no effort which demonstrated an unrivaled skill level as he had been thrown some of the heaviest, most brutal Goran contenders in the lists. The Rastabanian nobleman was stimulating to watch—masterful, shrewd, sizing up an opponent’s weaknesses with uncanny speed before executing a flawless set of moves to slice through and land the necessary strikes. The Ka’s in the arena went wild every time he whittled an opponent down, especially since the conquests were over the showy Goran elite. And after every w
in, amid the ruckus of his admiring audience, Izar sent his eyes searching for Bálok, locking onto him with some kind of implicit expectation, leaving him feeling more curious than threatened.

  But there was more going on than a few cryptic looks between he and Izar. Every time he stole a glance at Saryn, he caught her either watching him or studiously examining the lead fighters on the floor, and on several occasions he could have sworn he glimpsed some sort of silent signals flying back and forth between she and Izar. He had the unshakable feeling that the presence of Izar’s pretty wife in the middle of Tashek’s games was as strategic as one of Izar’s strikes, and it made the woman’s allure that much more profound.

  As the long day wore on, it gradually became obvious that the only fighters pursuing kills or leaving opponents severely maimed were Goran. A glance around the sidelines revealed a good number of contestants taped up with more than a few deep gashes, hampering their ability to perform.

  Bálok’s fifth opponent, a flashy Ka fighter he had fought in previous tournaments, bore accumulated lacerations from earlier matches with Gorans which was painfully easy for Bálok to exploit. With a few well-placed kicks, he brought the man to his knees and took him down with several shallow but bloody strikes, earning yells of approval from the spectators and a satisfied smirk from Tashek.

  At long last, the horn sounded which called an end to the fifth round. The drummers rapped out a low roll while the announcer raised his hands to call the stadium to attention.

  “The first installment of the Emperor’s Tournament is nearly complete,” his voice blared dramatically. “Fifteen of our noble fighters have won five matches and have earned the privilege of moving on into the semi-finals. Prince Bardur of Darban, please step forward.”

  Cheering rang out in the Emperor’s box and across the Goran sections as Tashek’s offspring swaggered out several paces with an haughty flip of his head. Of the other Goran fighters, Mardukan and Rall raised their arms in victory to resounding applause while Majah stood in front of his men with his arms crossed, frowning and unusually silent.