Then the steel claws leapt from shoulder to encase the man’s whole face like a cruel spider. Bulging eyes peered from between the atherian’s fingers, and the crowd gasped as Raz stood slowly, lifting a squirming and kicking val’En clear of the ground with one hand, sliding him up the wall behind him. There was a pause in which the crowd held silence, every man, woman, and child fixed in terrified rapture.
Then the stolen dagger came up and, with such delicate precision it might have been a surgeon’s blade, slid slowly into val’En’s right eye.
For ten horrible seconds the man’s screams outdid anything else Talo had heard that day. They pierced the air, adding a tangible edge to the chill that hurt down to the very bone. Though he never looked away, Talo could tell that Kal was quivering beside him again, shivering against the pain of those screams, still staring up into the sky.
When i’Syul gave the dagger a final little twist, the scream pitched for half a heartbeat.
Then val’En was quiet at last.
Talo would have liked to be able to say, at that point, that the stands were hushed, their hunger for death stilled by the atrocity they had just witnessed. He would have liked even to say that, somewhere in that crowd, voices rose to curse and spit on Raz i’Syul’s cruelty.
The truth, of course, was that such mercy had long fled the fiendish boundaries of the Arena.
As one the crowd surged to its feet around the Priests. They boomed with such ecstatic pleasure, Talo was almost jealous of them and their thrill. In truth, though, he felt ill. Thirteen thousand voices called out nothing more than endless praise for the butchery they had just witnessed, and it turned his stomach.
He didn’t seem to be the only one, though. Through the gaps in the leaping bodies, Talo watched Raz i’Syul release Lelan val’En’s still form, letting it slide down the wall to rest in a slumped half-sit against the stone. For a long time the atherian didn’t look away from his bloody work, staring down at the man in silence.
When he finally turned his back on the corpse, though, the look on his face lit again that little light of hope Talo still held for the man.
Raz i’Syul was no longer smiling, as he had been during the fight. There was no joy, alien or otherwise, to be gleaned on his face, no pride or excitement or pleasure. In fact, as the man looked up into the cheering crowd, Talo was quite sure the only emotion he could make out was complete and utter disgust.
“MONSTER OF KARTH! MONSTER OF KARTH! ALL HAIL, THE MONSTER OF KARTH!”
The call ripped Talo from his thoughts completely. He twisted around in his seat to try to make out the shouter, but whoever it was was lost in the crowd. The words carried, though, and a chant began to spread throughout the stands.
“MONSTER! MONSTER! MONSTER! MONSTER!”
It rippled across the Arena, building with every second as a hundred new voices picked up the call. Before long it was the only thing to be heard, louder even than the wind.
“MONSTER! MONSTER! MONSTER! MONSTER!”
“Monster of Karth?” Talo hissed. “Did I hear that right? Monster of Karth? Why in the Lifegiver’s name would they call him that?”
At last Kal looked down from the clouds, turning to Talo. He seemed shaken, face dark and mouth half-open, his mind clearly still on what he had just witnessed, eyes averted or not. After a moment, though, he seemed to lift himself from his horror, taking a breath as his face cleared.
“Monster of Karth.” He nodded. “Yes, it’s one of his titles, though whether that’s by his choosing or another’s I couldn’t say. You didn’t hear Tern calling him ‘Monster’ earlier, when—?”
“I thought it was just a description!” Talo exclaimed, cutting the man off. “But why? Why Karth? Why that place?”
Kal blinked. “You don’t—? No. No, of course you wouldn’t know. How could you?”
Kal frowned then, looking back down into the pit at the atherian. i’Syul was now crossing the frozen ground to retrieve Ahna from where she still pinned Tymoth Barth’s corpse to the earth. After what they’d just seen, Talo fully expected to see judgment, even disgust on his friend’s face.
When Kal looked back at him, though, he realized all he saw was sadness and pity.
“That man has darkness in his past, Talo,” he began to explain. “I don’t know everything, mind, but I can at least tell you—”
“SILENCE!”
Quin Tern’s voice cut across Kal’s words, echoing over the hubbub of the crowd. Both Priests looked to the Chairman’s box, as did every other eye in the Arena. Men and women returned to their seats slowly, eager to hear what more their Chairman could possibly offer them.
“Ladies and gentleman of Azbar,” Tern boomed. “Friends and honored guests of our great city. You came for blood, and you came for battle. You came to see what the skill and training of man could do against a creature born to savagery. You came with the hopes of entertainment the likes of which you have never dreamed of experiencing. I HOPE YOU HAVE NOT BEEN DISSAPOINTED!”
The surge of screamed agreements rang for a long moment, echoing over the roll of heavy applause that accompanied it.
“Today, however, is only the beginning!” Tern continued once it had died away. “Sixteen entered the ring this day to fight for their chance. Sixteen were defeated. Not even the best of them could stand to your Monster, your great Scourge. But there are others. Indeed, there are five hundred others! Will one among them be the slayer of your champion? Will one among them wield the blade meant to end Raz i’Syul Arro’s life? Come! Witness the fights for yourselves, and we. Shall. SEE!”
With those final words, Tern bent himself into a surprisingly graceful bow for his size, then turned away from the stadium. The crowd was whipping itself into another frenzy, clapping and stomping, but through them Talo could see once more the indistinct shape of Raz i’Syul, his great spear thrown over one shoulder, making for the pit gate as the portcullis rose once more.
“Come on,” he told Kal brusquely, heaving himself to his feet and ignoring the throb of a bad knee left unmoving too long. “We need to go.”
“Go?” Kal asked in surprise. “Go where?”
“To speak to the Arena’s new favorite!” Talo yelled back over his shoulder, already limping down the steps, hurrying to beat the rush of the exiting crowd.
XX
TALO WAS very glad Kal had roused him early that morning. They’d barely been standing for a half hour now, fringing the throng of spectators that hovered around the heavy double doors in the outer south wall of the Arena, and already his knee felt ready to give. Pain had yielded way to numbness some five minutes before, and Talo didn’t move for fear that his leg would refuse to go with him if he did.
Had they spent all day on their feet in the upper rings of the Arena, like the latecomers, Talo rather thought he’d have been ready to beg Carro to just take the limb.
He stood side by side with Kal, leaning against the wall of a wide alley directly across from the doors. Beyond the encircling protection of the stadium the wind had grown cruel again, but no one seemed to mind. The people before them swirled excitedly, murmuring amongst themselves in anticipation. Every here and there children bounced up and down, trying to see above the crowd. Minor fights broke out every couple of minutes as individuals tried to push closer to the doors, settled by the guardsmen roaming through the group.
All waiting impatiently for the appearance of Raz i’Syul Arro.
The doors they crowded around led to the Arena underworks. It was the entrance of gladiators and animals, fighters and fodder alike. Talo had barely been able to take his eyes off them the entire time he and Kal had been standing there. He kept losing himself in old memories, images from long years ago of those doors opening up to him for the first time, and then of the crowds that awaited the Lifetaker after some great victory, just as they awaited Raz i’Syul now.
Maybe he’s smartened up, though, Talo thought. Maybe he’ll find himself another way out.
He hope
d not. He and Kal were standing in the wind and cold of the gray afternoon in the hopes of catching the atherian as he left. There were things to be said, questions to be asked, and Talo wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance, if he’d get one at all. Kal had already tried to talk him out of it, calling i’Syul “unchecked” and “wild,” and Talo had the distinct impression that he wouldn’t hear the end of any desire to speak to the man if Carro got wind of what they’d witnessed today.
Despite himself, Talo had to crack a smile at the image of his partner, green faced and clammy, attempting to hear out his and Kal’s description of the fights.
“They’re opening.”
Talo blinked at Kal’s words. Sure enough, the doors were swinging slowly apart. He didn’t allow himself to get too excited, though. Twice they’d opened already, each time for attendants wheeling out narrow wagons piled high with the remains of the fights, the dead barely covered in the same old cloth, stained red and black. Talo had no interest in sharing the crowd’s peaking thrill at these grim reminders of the day’s violence.
This time, though, the only thing to step from the doorway was a massive figure, face and body mostly hidden under a heavy black-and-silver fur mantle, great spear thrown over one shoulder as he walked. It was fascinating, watching i’Syul cut a swath through the throng. Many screamed and shouted his name as he passed, but none were fool enough to reach out and touch him, much less get in his way. On the contrary, even as they cheered him the men and women of the group seemed to retreat from the man, pulling away as though repelled by his proximity, then falling together again to follow. As a result, the atherian was clear of them in seconds, never looking left or right as he walked, not even when he passed in front of Talo and Kal, heading down the alley they had sheltered themselves in.
Nodding to Kal, Talo pulled himself off the wall and took the man’s offered arm. Together the pair started limping after i’Syul as fast as they could manage.
For some time they followed him, trailing the atherian’s dark form around corners and bends, down main fairways and side streets alike. Azbar passed them in sullen silence, the city’s spirits dampened by the gray of the winter day. What few people they came across didn’t bother giving the disguised Priests a second glance, preferring to turn and watch i’Syul until he was out of sight.
The atherian had been in the city for weeks, but it seemed the fascination with his presence was far from dissipated.
They were heading south all the while, cutting through market and residential districts alike as they walked. i’Syul seemed in no hurry to get wherever he was going, bearing a steady pace through the buildings and trees that grew every here and there where spaces between the walls allowed. The wind cut in and out around them as they took turns and hills, sometimes blocked by stone for a minute only to be channeled by it the next, ripping in an angry howl through the narrowest lanes. Several times Talo had had to raise a hand to shield his eyes from the chill gusts, worrying in those moments if they would lose the atherian as he moved. It had been their ambition to wait for the right moment to call out. They had no desire to draw a crowd, but were just as intent not to make the man fear he was being ambushed on some back road.
After about ten minutes of tailing him through the city, though, the atherian took away all say they had in the matter.
They’d just finished struggling down a short set of rough-hewn stairs, weaving their way through a few empty streets at their base, when they turned a corner to find that all trace of the man seemed to have vanished. As though he’d simply blinked out of existence, i’Syul had disappeared into thin air. They stood along a tapered path that slanted slightly uphill, the cobblestone beneath their boots inclined inward to allow for rain and snowmelt. The whole space was barely wide enough to accommodate them both side by side, and penned in by the back walls of the two—and three-story buildings jutting up to tower over them like silent witnesses.
It was the stillness of these walls, the emptiness of the alley and heavy silence of the sky above, that caused both men to jump when a dark shadow plummeted from the rooftops to crash onto the cobblestone behind them.
“Most know by now,” a throaty tenor growled, “that it’s a very bad idea to follow me.”
Together the Priests whirled around. Talo managed to compose himself, hands up to make it clear they were not armed.
Kal was not so calm.
Perhaps it was the scene of the fights they’d witnessed only an hour before, or maybe it was just the heavy form of Raz i’Syul Arro looming above them now, great spear held before him, its blades naked to the icy afternoon. Regardless, Kal’s hands whipped upward. There was a flash of light, and ivory flames lined his palms and fingers, ignoring the wool of his gloves or the edges of his robes.
The change in Raz i’Syul was instantaneous. Whereas in one moment his reptilian face had held nothing more than confident disdain towards the strangers who had been tracking him through the city, in the next it was hard and cold, golden eyes taking in Kal’s flames with a calculating intelligence the likes of which Talo had rarely seen. He could make out lithe muscle bunching beneath what little dark skin was left exposed to the elements between armor and cloth. The red webbing along the back of i’Syul’s neck flared up, bright as a setting sun against the somber palette of the city. Steel claws gleamed in the white sheen of Laorin magic, red in places where blood still caked the metal.
Abruptly, Talo realized how close the High Citadel and the temple of Azbar were to requiring new leadership.
Raz i’Syul, though, didn’t charge. He barely moved, in fact, the only adjustment in his form coming as his thick tail shifted in the air behind him, suspended over the cobblestone. His eyes never left the flicker of Kal’s flames, and after a few seconds an odd change came over the man.
His face darkened, his grip on the spear spasmed, and his lips pulled back in an ugly snarl, revealing every inch of narrow, wicked teeth.
“Priests?”
The hissed question did not seem directed at anyone in particular. In fact, Talo had the distinct impression that the exclamation was merely a manifestation of whatever realization had suddenly gripped the atherian, voiced in something like disbelief.
Talo decided then was as good a time as ever to make himself heard.
“Kal, calm yourself,” he said quietly. Beside him Kal opened his mouth to argue, but Talo gave him a pointed look, and the man hesitated.
Then, after a moment, he let the magics go, and flames dissipated in a glimmer of white as Kal’s hands fell to his sides.
Talo breathed a quiet sigh of relief, then looked to the atherian again.
“Raz i’Syul,” he said with a nod, letting his own hands drop now that it seemed i’Syul wasn’t about to tear them apart just yet. “I apologize for the secrecy, but we deemed it a necessary precaution. I am Talo Brahnt of the High Citadel, Cyurgi’ Di. This”—he indicated Kal—“is Kal Yu’ri, of Azbar. Obviously you are correct. We are Priests of Laor, though I’m quite surprised you know of us. I would have thought it unlikely, considering where—”
“I know more about you than you think, Priest.”
Talo was taken aback by the harshness of the words. i’Syul had his eyes on him, now, and something burned there that took a moment to recognize. At first he thought it might be fear, but that made no sense. It wasn’t hate either. Talo had seen hatred in all its forms over the years.
No, he realized finally. What he saw in the slit pupils of the atherian was nothing less than pure, unbridled fury.
“I know of your beliefs,” i’Syul hissed. “I know of your god, your ‘Lifegiver.’ I even know of your magic, if that’s what you call it. The Grandmother told me much and more, when I asked.”
“Then you should know we bear you no ill will,” Talo said, lifting his empty hands again and taking another limping step forward. “I hope that this ‘Grandmother’ of yours told you we are men of peace, of hope. All who speak in Laor’s name seek to follow the
righteous path. It’s why we are here. The situation in Azbar has grown out of control. You know this, I know this, and every person in the city knows this. We also know what you’ve done—what you are doing—to make it better. We know you are fighting to alleviate the strain the Arena has placed on the backs of the innocent. As a man of faith I cannot thank you for that, given your methods. As a man of family and friends, though, I cannot thank you enough.”
“I don’t want your thanks,” Raz spat, and once again Talo was taken by surprise by the venom in the man’s words. “I don’t need your approval, Priest. I don’t care for your opinion of my ‘methods,’ as you say. I will protect mine and my own as I see fit, and you and your false god have no place seeking me out to tell me whether that is right or wrong.”
“False god?” Kal exclaimed furiously. “Now wait just one minute, you—!”
“We had hoped”—Talo cut across the Priest loudly—“to discuss with you the future of this city, and what you intend for it. You seek peace, I believe. So do we. We may go about it in different ways, Arro, but at the end of the day I know you want an end to the killing as much as we do.”
“There is no end to the killing,” the atherian growled. “There is no end to any of it. The monster that is men like Quin Tern does not stop, even when its head has been cut off. I would know.”
“You would know only that which you have experienced,” Talo said gently. “You are at war, man, and in war there never seems to be any end. Only the next fight, only the next move…”
Raz’s eyes narrowed at that.
“You claim to know much of war for a man of the cloth. Tell me, what does a Priest experience in his lifetime of hardships that would lead him to such conclusions? The bickering over the freshest bread and cleanest robes? Maybe disputes held in warm rooms about what light best holds the wonders of your holy relics? Don’t give me that shit, Priest. What you learn in books is not enough to inform you on the ways of the world.”
The Warring Son (The Wings of War Book 2) Page 19