To this, the response was tumultuous denial. All screamed and shouted their “no”s and “never”s, aggressively waving downward-pointing thumbs in contradiction.
“Our Monster?” Kal hissed in outrage. “Well, you can’t say Tern doesn’t know how to win himself a crowd.”
Talo nodded, but didn’t reply as the Chairman’s voice picked up once more.
“You think not? You think our Southern legend will have what it takes to fight the best we have to offer? Very well! Then let this spear be as much a symbol to him as it is to us! Let his Ahna be displayed to remind him that he does not fight for himself today, with all the advantages the world has to offer. No! Raz i’Syul, for the first time in his life, fights for another. He fights for you, fights for this Arena, and fights for the IRON SPIRIT OF OUR GREAT CITY OF AZBAR!”
Tern’s final words rang strong and clear, and one last time the crowd applauded him with a roar. Turning away from the stands, Tern nodded to the men holding Ahna aloft. At once they lowered her to the ground. For a brief moment Talo and Kal couldn’t see the weapon as the attendants fumbled around with something. Then they were picking the spear up again, and Talo saw that loose rope nooses had been looped around both of her ends. As he watched, the men began lowering Ahna over the edge of the Chairman’s box, careful to keep her haft even and balanced. When they finally stopped, tying the ropes off somewhere beyond Talo’s scope of vision, the spear hung symbolically below the Chairman’s box, suspended what must have been just short of twenty feet in the air above the muddy pit floor.
Unable to help himself, Talo chuckled.
“Clever bastard.”
Kal turned to look at him. “What’s funny?” he asked.
Talo was about to answer, but was interrupted by the trumpeting of yet another horn.
“You’ll see,” he said simply, eyes back on the pit as a row of men and women in well-worn gear of all kinds marched their way into view from the raised portcullis in the west wall. They were of the same sort as the man who had followed the Priests into Azbar nearly a week ago—Galen, Talo seemed to recall. All of them, even the three or four women among their sixteen, looked tougher than their boiled leathers and colder than the steel of the swords, spears, and axes drawn and bare for the enjoyment of the crowds. A pair of heralds stepped forward to replace Tern in the alcove opening as the Chairman drew back to a heavy throne-like timber chair to watch the fights. In turn they announced the names and titles of the fighters, pausing between each to allow the mentioned man or woman to thrust weapons in the air and for the crowd to have its approval heard.
When the last of the names were called, the trumpet sounded again, and most of the group strode back out of the pit into the Arena underworks once more. When they were gone, two were left.
“First bout!” one of the heralds called loudly out over the stand. “Manoth Corm”—he indicated a bald, heavy man in dented plate, a two-handed maul clenched tightly in mailed fists beneath his thick beard—“to challenge Barsyn, Hunter of the Dehn!”
The other man, slighter and far younger than Corm, raised sword and round shield to the crowds as he turned in a circle, throwing a handsome smile to the women in the lowest seats. On the other side of the pit, Corm hadn’t so much as glanced up as the stands had cheered for him, spitting impatiently on the ground at his feet and hefting his weapon in preparation.
“The big man is done for,” Talo muttered as the men squared off.
Kal raised a brow. “Are we to bet on the matches, then?”
Talo snorted at that. “I think the Lifegiver might frown on me stealing your gold off the backs of dead men. No. Still, as I said: Corm is done for.”
“No bets then,” Kal agreed. “But I think you’re wrong. Corm has the weight and reach on the boy.”
Talo hitched a shoulder in half a shrug. “I suppose we’ll have to see,” he said as the herald vanished into the Chairman’s box.
For the first time since they’d sat down over an hour ago, silence gripped the stadium, all eyes on the Chairman. Quin Tern leaned forward in his chair, gazing down upon the men ready to kill for him below.
“Begin.”
And so it did.
Manoth Corm—as Talo suspected he might—charged forward at once, bellowing a war cry as he ran. His maul swung up and over in a two-handed slash, bearing down on Barsyn’s head, well above any defensible angle. For half a heartbeat Talo thought the boy would let himself be crushed. Then, at the last possible moment, Barsyn stepped out of the way, striking at Corm’s exposed side as the older man’s maul smashed into frozen earth, sending icy mud flying.
Sword hit heavy plate, though, and the blow was fouled.
Barsyn leapt clear even as Corm took a heavy swipe sideways at him with a mailed fist. Then the maul was out of the ground, and Corm lumbered forward once again.
For some time the fight continued like this. Corm charging in with heavy blows, trusting in his strength and weight, obviously under the impression he could bull his way into a win. Barsyn, in turn, would dodge left, right, and back, avoiding the bulk of the maul’s strikes by leaping aside or deflecting them skillfully with angled parries of his shield. Occasionally, when the opportunity presented itself, he would attempt to sneak through Corm’s defense, aiming for angles and weak points in the plate. Corm, though, was obviously experienced enough to know what the boy was attempting, avoiding steel with quick twists and shifts that left Barsyn’s sword ringing against solid iron each time.
By all accounts, despite the differences in their size, age, and style, the two were well matched. Talo had to appreciate, with some reservation, the skill of whoever was in charge of pairing the bouts.
For a few minutes more the crowd gasped and “ooh”ed as the combatants went about playing their game of cat and mouse. Ordinarily the elongation of such repetitive engagements might have bored them, but the air itself was so thick with excitement and anticipation of the day that Talo wouldn’t have put it past the men and women of the crowd to have kept cheering if the fight lasted another hour.
Fortunately, though, it didn’t.
It was a sudden mistake, easily avoided if Corm had troubled to keep mind of his surroundings. As it was, the older man—as Talo had known and, he suspected, Barsyn as well—was too focused on chasing the Hunter of the Dehn around the ring to be bothered with watching his footing, intent on crushing the boy with superior size and strength. It was sadly predictable, as it was the mindset of most larger fighters. Trusting in their mass worked for them in general but, when it failed them, it was their end.
That, Talo supposed, and the slick patch of ice that found its way under Corm’s left foot.
The big man went down, crashing onto his left side, momentarily pinned under the weight of his armor. In a blink Barsyn was on him, sword flashing once in the sun, going for the one place where there was no armor.
Steel found the crook beneath jaw and neck, hiding under Manoth Corm’s thick beard, and the older man died without a sound, windpipe severed along with the thick veins in the flesh paralleling the spine.
Barsyn raised his bloodied sword to the heavens, and the crowd rose to their feet in a frenzy, cheering and applauding with renewed gusto.
“Such a waste,” Kal said sadly, having remained seated beside Talo. He watched as a handful of footmen in plain brown-and-gray uniforms hurried onto the field to start dragging away Corm’s motionless form. Barsyn, still waving and beaming into the crowd, followed the body down beneath the Arena.
“‘Death is the beginning of new, just as birth is the end of old,’” Talo quoted, echoing past words of Eret Ta’hir. “Somewhere in this world, Corm will return soon enough.”
“Then let us pray his next ending isn’t in a place like that,” grumbled Kal, pointing down into the pit. “Still… how did you know he was going to lose?”
Talo half smiled at the question. “Surviving a duel is as much about being able to wield and control your own strengths as it is kn
owing an opponent’s weaknesses. Corm never learned that. You could see it in his bearing. He was itching to end the fight as soon as possible. The big ones usually are.”
“You’re big,” Kal retorted with a chuckle. “Is that how you did it?”
“Fortunately, no. I figured out as much of my own strengths and weaknesses as I did my opponents’. Each match I learned all over again when to strike, where to strike, and how to strike. They can teach you how you’re supposed to do something, but showing you how to adapt when what you’ve been taught is more likely to get you killed is another beast entirely.”
“And I suppose you adapted,” Kal said with a whistle.
“I suppose I did.”
XVIII
“Only so many of the statues that once stood in the Hall of Heroes remain intact today. Among them, though, is an oddity. While all the others comprised of carefully cast bronze on a heavy marble pedestal, there is one that is made of cheap iron, bent and hammered into its rough but unmistakable shape. Though Raz i’Syul Arro was—for numerous obvious reasons—never deemed worthy of standing among the other greats by the leading parties of Azbar, it seems that there were plenty among the city’s people who thought otherwise. So many, in fact, that when the crude depiction of his form was set among the Heroes, one must venture that the council knew better than to order it removed.”
—A COMPRISED HISTORY OF THE ARENAS, BY UNKNOWN AUTHOR
THE FIGHTS took most of the day. From his place on the wall, Raz watched the pairs take the gangway, one after another. He started to play a game with himself, attempting to guess who would survive and who the Arena’s attendants would roll down the ramp as a corpse at the end of a bout. On a few occasions no one died, one combatant having yielded to the other in the hopes of living to fight another day.
On one occasion, both were rolled.
Raz had to give the Doctore her credit. She knew how to judge the men and women she’d been presented. Most often he guessed correctly who would walk down the ramp and who would tumble, but not always. There were a few surprises here and there. A thin, dirty fellow wielding nothing more than a pair of daggers beneath his tattered cloak strode unscathed behind the bloody body of man in leather armor, a man Raz had been quite sure could handle the curved saber he’d had strapped to one hip. Later, an older woman with a scar that split the dark hair along her left scalp had to be helped down the gangway by the attendants, having bested a spearman Raz would have put his money on. Then again, judging by the darkness of the cloth she clutched against her abdomen, glistening wet in the light of the underworks’ torches, he wasn’t so sure he’d been that far off.
The day went on, Raz watching from behind his assigned guard, the crowd of fighters thinning out with every hour. He had thought he’d get bored, but the sound of the matches above coupled with the waxing and waning commentary of the crowd kept him thoroughly entertained. The metallic stench of blood was fresher now, accented with oiled leather and sweat. Before long, Raz even felt the edges of true excitement brushing against his conscience, the kind he used to get when handed a contract that demanded the head of a slaver. By the time attendants brought him food at midday—seared venison and some sort of spiced vegetable stew he didn’t bother with—Raz was hard-pressed to stop himself from demanding how much longer he would have to wait. He loathed the Arena and its spectators. He would never have given them the blood that they wanted, never oblige to the butchering of the innocents and gladiators Tern and his council would have thrown to him as fodder in an instant if they thought it would turn them a profit.
This, though… These hunters had come with every intention of seeing him dead. They would take any and every chance they could to separate his head from his shoulders and ride it south to Miropa.
Yes… This blood, Raz could give to the crowd more than willingly.
“Final bout,” the high voice of one of the heralds called out eventually. “Athur the Goat Man to challenge Lelan val’En. Combatants… BEGIN!”
Raz droned out the ensuing clash of steel on steel, already almost drowned by the thousands of cheers so loud it was hard on his ears even down here in the underworks. Instead, Raz stepped away from the wall he’d been leaning against once more and stretched his wings. Then, one limb at a time, he began to loosen up, not wanting to be stiff for what lay ahead.
“Any man can lose to any other man,” Jarden Arro had once told him. “Only a fool doesn’t consider the fact that every fight, any fight, might be his last.”
Raz rolled his long neck, loosening it with several distinct pops that made a couple of his guard glance over their shoulder. Next he rolled shoulders and stretched wrists, opening and closing fists to ensure cold fingers stayed strong and ready. By the time he finished all of his little exercises, the crowd’s volume had reached new heights, and a minute later the portcullis at the top of the ramp was raised once more.
In life, Athur the Goat Man had been nearly as round as he was tall. In death this served him well—or at least the Arena attendants tasked to ridding the pit of his body. The man needed little more than a half push before he tumbled down of his own accord, hitting the underwork floor with a muffled thump and the crunch of adjusting dirt. The attendants scurried behind him, huffing and grunting to shift his massive form so that they could roll him away into the side chamber that housed the bodies of the other defeated until they could be disposed of.
After them, the Southerner Lelan val’En strode imperiously down the ramp, broadsword and dagger still drawn, both reddened to the hilt. He was a tall man with large shoulders and long arms that let him use his paired weapons to great effect. He had a pinched face, though, the kind that made him look as though he were always staring down his nose at something. It didn’t go well with his darker complexion, and it didn’t endear him to Raz at all.
Nor did the raising of his sword to point in Raz’s direction.
“Like tha’, scaly?” val’En spat, waving the dagger in his other hand to indicate the body of the Goat Man the attendants were still struggling with. “Enjoy the show. Ain’t nothin’ keepin’ me from dumpin’ your carcass in the pile with the rest of them, now.”
“Oh,” Raz replied with a smile, “I can think of one or two things that might make it difficult for you, val’En. You’re one of four, don’t forget. A few of the others might have something to say about you claiming the price on my head all for yourself.”
“Just gotta promise you I’ll get to you first, then, ain’t I?”
This time Raz allowed a little of the excitement he hadn’t been able to temper leak out into his smile. It must have shown, hungry on his reptilian features as the red crest on his neck flared half-erect, since val’En seemed to lose a little of the Southern bravado in his dark eyes.
“I hope you can keep that promise, Southerner. Because if you don’t get to me first, I swear on the Sun above I’ll get to you last.”
To his credit, val’En recovered his composure well. Seemingly choosing not to dignify Raz with an answer, he spat once more and strode off, wiping his blades clean on the side of his thick cotton pants as he walked. Raz watched him go until the man turned a corner in the underwork tunnels and disappeared.
There goes one we’ll enjoy taking a chunk out of, huh, sis?
Raz shivered, opening and closing his hands again. He had enough faith in the Doctore to have entrusted her and her helpers with Ahna without much pause. Still, he felt bare without the dviassegai at his side. Anytime she wasn’t within reach, in fact, he felt much the same. Now, not knowing where she was, the bareness was accented with a tinge of loss.
Funny enough, though, Raz had the distinct impression he would be seeing Ahna again soon.
About five minutes after val’En’s departure, the gladiators of the Arena began forming along the gangway. They would provide entertainment for the next half hour while the four finalists rested and had any minor wounds stitched up and cared for. Then all would be called back to the Arena, and the
finale of the Chairman’s Tourney’s opening day would begin.
For the first time since that morning, Raz finally grew restless. The combat he could hear above seemed to draw little more from the crowd than the occasional cheer or—more often—jeer. The herald kept up a lively commentary that helped paint the picture a little, but from the sound of it the spectators seemed barely satisfied with the entertainment offered during this brief interlude.
And Tern knows that, Raz realized, watching the misting gray light descend in rays through the wooden crossbars at the top of the ramp. He’s teasing them just enough so that, when the main course finally shows, they’ll be starving for blood.
At long last, after what felt more like half a day than a mere half hour, the herald announced the conclusion of the exhibitions. There was relative silence as the gladiators gave their formal thanks to the stands for their attention and patronage, and then the men and women under Alyssa’s care marched back down into the underworks, sparing Raz more than a few glances of loathing on the way. Not a minute after them, three men—including val’En—and a woman crossed before Raz’s guard to gather along the ramp. While val’En wore light leather over striped cloth, the other two men—Wellen Ryvers and Tymoth Barse, if Raz remembered correctly—wore a mixed fit of studded leather and plate over chain. Each had won their branches of the tourney decisively, not letting any match go longer than a minute. In one hand, both men carried a tower shield. In the other, though, Wellen preferred a flanged mace to Tymoth’s longsword. Had it not been obvious by their matching skill and equipment, the whispered conversation they were having a pace from the other two only confirmed the pair knew each other.
The Warring Son (The Wings of War Book 2) Page 17