by Jay Kristoff
The reaction was instantaneous. Terrifying. The behemoth stilled, as if its every muscle went suddenly taut. With a spine-chilling roar, it lunged across the sand right at Mia, mouth distended, corrosive spittle hissing as it thrashed against its bonds. And with a shriek of tortured metal, the bright sound of shattering steel, the chain binding the beast to the floor snapped clean in two.
“ . . . o, shit . . .”
“ . . . O, SHIT . . .”
“O, shit!”
The beast whipped about, far too huge for Mia to hold it still with her shadowerking. The girl dove aside as its tail swept across the arena in a great scything arc, crushing stone to splinters and the gladiatii about it to pulp. Mia was clipped as she dove free, smashed into an outcropping, black stars bursting in her eyes. She lost her grip on the shadows as she collapsed, the retchwyrm roaring in incandescent rage.
“It . . .” Mia blinked hard, spitting dust off her tongue. “ . . . It heard me?”
“ . . . WHEN YOU CALLED THE DARK . . .”
“ . . . interesting . . .”
The beast howled again, seemingly furious, skin rippling as its guts bubbled and burped in its throat. But with no shadows now to distract it, and realizing it was suddenly free of its bonds, the retchwyrm turned its blind head toward the vibrations of the chanting, roaring crowd. And as the audience also realized the behemoth’s chain was broken, they broke into screaming, frothing panic.
Mia reached up to her spaulders, blood running cold as she realized the pouch of wyrdglass was no longer there. She searched the sand about her as the retchwyrm snaked toward the arena wall, the broken glass and firepots ringing the enclosure now seeming pitiful in the face of the monster’s sheer size and rage. A cadre of half a dozen Luminatii legionaries rushed into the arena, sunsteel blades drawn, crying, “For the Republic!” and “Luminus Invicta!” as they charged. Seemingly giving no shits for Republics, Light, or Anything Much at All, the beast vomited its gullet again, engulfing the entire cadre in a tangled mess of rotten pink and burning acid.
Sweat burned Mia’s eyes, the screams of the crowd almost deafening. The arena around her was sheer bedlam now, people rushing for the exits, others sitting paralyzed in their seats and crying out in terror.
The retchwyrm reared up and bellowed, its broken collar hanging loose about its throat. Twenty fresh legionaries with swords and shields charged out from one of the iron portcullises, but with a single sweep of its massive tail, the monster smashed them all to pulp against the arena wall. Its thick, leathery hide was pierced in a dozen places by spears and blades, dark blood dribbling from the wounds.
“ . . . well, this is going splendidly . . .”
“You know, it’s very easy to sit back and criticize,” Mia gasped, rolling onto her belly, her head still ringing.
“ . . . strangely satisfying, too . . .”
“ . . . TELL THAT TO THE PEOPLE ABOUT TO BE DEVOURED . . .”
“ . . . what would be the point of that, exactly . . . ?”
The retchwyrm had reached the arena wall, its eighty-foot length undulating like some grotesque moth spawn. It loomed over the ten-foot barricade easily, featureless head swaying above a pack of terrified spectators, its gullet burbling as it inhaled. Mia dragged herself up out of the dirt, skull throbbing, the bodies of dead gladiatii spattered and smeared all about her. Searching among the corpses, she found a longspear, its haft still intact. Her damned helmet only interfered with her vision, but she dare not remove it in the off chance some random servant of the Church saw her face. And so, with a silent prayer to the Black Mother, she drew back her arm and hurled the spear with all her strength.
The weapon sailed through the air in a perfect arc, steel head gleaming in the sunslight as it pierced the retchwyrm’s throat. The monster bellowed, shaking its head to dislodge the toothpick, black blood spraying. And reaching out once more to the dark puddled beneath it, Mia seized hold of the monster’s shadow.
“Oi!” she yelled. “Bastard!”
The retchwyrm shuddered, a deep, rumbling whine shivering its entire length. The people in the bleachers forgotten, the beast turned its blind head toward Mia and split the air with a hollow, deafening roar.
“ . . . now you have its attention . . .”
“Excellent.”
Mia picked up two swords from the bloody dirt around her.
“But what the fuck do I do with it?”
1 Stormwatch is a port in the northwest of Itreya, and one of the oldest cities in the Republic. Its beginnings were humble—a simple lighthouse on the northern banks of the Bay of Tempests, meant to warn ships away from treacherous reefs. Despite best efforts, enough wrecks still occurred that a community of beachcombers built up on the coast nearby, and eventually raised a city known as Stormwall.Scandal struck some years later, when Stormwall’s lighthouse keeper, Flavius Severis, was accused by his friend, Dannilus Calidius, of steering ships onto the rocks to further his own fortunes. Calidius built a second lighthouse on the southern mouth of the bay, and founded a second city, naming it Cloudwatch.The rivalry between the familia Severis and Calidius, and thus, Stormwall and Cloudwatch, was legendary. Several bloody conflicts broke out over the years, and both lighthouses were destroyed. King Francisco I, the Great Unifier, who gave no shits for “rights” and “wrongs” but just wanted his “bloody ships to stop crashing on the bloody rocks,” threatened to crucify every Severis and Calidius he could find to ensure peace was restored.The solution, however, did not lay in violence. Unbeknownst to their parents, a daughter of the Familia Severis and a son of the Familia Calidius met and, in defiance of all common sense, fell madly in lust. Though the story had all the makings of a classic Itreyan tragedy, the tale resolved itself remarkably peacefully, and only one best friend, a second cousin (who nobody much liked anyway), and a small terrier named Baron Woofsalot were murdered in the resulting drama. The pair married, peace was brokered, and many babies were had. Over time, the newly named Stormwatch became one of the wealthiest ports in Francisco’s kingdom.The city stands to this turn—an enduring testament, gentlefriends, to the power of teenage hormones and parents’ desire for adorable grandchildren.
2 An offshoot of Aa’s ministry, fully sanctioned by the Church, devoted to worship of the goddess Tsana. Consisting entirely of women, the sorority’s vows include Chastity, Humility, Poverty, Sobriety, and Generally Having No Fun Whatsofuckingever.
3 Only a twelve-footer, but the beast still killed seven men before being sent to its grave.
4 Although commonly considered the apex predator of the Ashkahi wastes, the sand kraken does run a poor second to the true masters of the deepest desert. A creature so awful that they almost defy belief, the retchwyrm does its level to best to shatter the illusion that there is any kind of benevolence in the creator of the universe at all.Stretching up to two hundred feet long, the retchwyrm is a serpentine creature with no discernible eyes or nostrils, and only the most rudimentary of ears. Loresmen at the Grand Collegium in Godsgrave have theorized the beasts sense prey by vibration, or perhaps through a kind of echolocation, similar to various breeds of flying mice. However, since any bastard foolish enough to study them usually ends up dissolved in a pool of concentrated sulfuric acid, this theory has largely remained untested.The retchwyrm has two puckered mouths, one at each end of its body, which also serve as its backsides (which orifice serves which purpose at any given time seems to be entirely arbitrary, and dependent on the mood of the retchwyrm in question). It has no jaw or teeth, and is incapable of seizing prey in its mouth. Instead—in what may be the most disgusting method of consuming nourishment in the entire animal kingdom—the retchwyrm projectile vomits its entire stomach out of its mouth, engulfing its prey in a tangle of writhing tendrils and corrosive acid, then noisily sucks the entire mess back up again, hapless prey included.Do you see what I mean?Honestly, what kind of sick bastard thought this thing up?
5 One of Shahiid Spiderkiller’s finest inventions, you may
remember wyrdglass comes in three variants:Black creates smoke, useful for diversions.White creates a cloud of the toxin known as Swoon, useful for knocking people unconscious.Red simply explodes, useful for making people dead.Three colors, three flavors. All rather simple, though you’d be surprised how often a novice Blade has reached into the wrong pouch and grabbed the wrong color in the heat of the moment. It can be a little embarrassing when you realize the black wyrdglass you threw at your feet to cause a distraction is actually white, and you’ve accidently knocked yourself cold—although not quite as bad as throwing down a handful of red glass and realizing you’ve accidentally blown your own legs off.It does tend to be the kind of mistake Blades only make once, however.
18: gloria
Try as she might, Mia couldn’t hold the beast still.
Like a giant pushing aside a helpless infant, the retchwyrm broke free of Mia’s shadowerking, swung its massive bulk away from the crowd, and snaked toward her. Its mouth yawned wide, a trembling roar rolling up from the dark of its belly. The twin swords of Liisian steel in Mia’s hands might well have been butter knives, and her shadow rippled as her passengers drank down her fear.
Leaving her cold.
Hard.
Unafraid.
Mind racing. Eyes scanning the arena walls, the broken rocks, the bloody sand, the monster bearing down on her. And finally, there, she saw it, half-buried in a tumble of shattered stone and dirt between her and the charging monstrosity.
Her bag of wyrdglass.
A thought took seed—insane, suicidal. But with no fear, no pause, no breath to waste, the girl raised her swords. Sweat in her eyes, hair stuck to dusty skin, lips peeling back from her teeth, Mia charged with a bloodcurdling cry, right toward the enraged retchwyrm.
The panicked crowd fell still in amazement, watching the tiny speck of a girl running headlong at the horror of the deepwastes. The beast reared back its colossal bulk, a horrid belch spilling up from its gullet. Mia sprinted through a mash of broken bodies, broken stone, broken weapons littering the sand, leaping carefully over her small leather sack of ’glass, half-buried in the dust. And the retchwyrm opened its maw, spewing its guts all over the floor.
Completely engulfing her.
In turns to come, the next few moments would be the topic of countless taverna tales, dinner table debates, and barroom brawls across the city of Stormwatch.
There were those who swore they saw the girl dive aside, simply too swift to mark, entirely avoiding the spray of the beast’s innards. There were those who claimed that with all the dust and blood and chaos, it was simply too hard to tell what happened, only that she moved quick as silver. And there were those—discounted as madmen and drunks, for the most part—who swore by the Everseeing and all four of his Holy Daughters that this little slip of a girl, this daemon wrapped in leather and mail, simply disappeared. One moment buried in the retchwyrm’s guts, the next, standing ten feet away in the long shadow cast beside it on the sand.
Mia swayed on her feet, the rush of vertigo almost sending her to her knees. Only adrenaline and stubborn will kept her upright, half-staggering, half-running, chest burning as her head spun. The beast inhaled its innards, slurping up the mashed gladiatii corpses and fallen weapons and the small leather pouch full of shining wyrdglass globes. Mia stumbled up a broken outcropping of stone and launched herself onto the thing’s back, burying her swords in its flesh to steady herself. The behemoth thrashed beneath her as she groped her way upright, stumbled along the creature’s length, up toward its rearing head. The crowd bellowing, the retchwyrm roaring, her own pulse thundering and beneath it all, through that cacophony, that deafening chaos, she thought perhaps she heard it, deep inside the monster’s belly.
A series of tiny, wet pops.
The retchwyrm paused, a tremor running through its body. Mia scrambled onto its neck, throwing one of her blades aside, clinging to a broken spear embedded in its leathery hide. Gripping the beast with her thighs and fingernails and sheer bloody-mindedness, she drew back her Liisian steel and with a cry, plunged it into the flesh behind the monster’s tiny ear.
The creature bellowed, a bubble of blood welling up from its gullet and bursting at its mouth. The crowd had no inkling about the ’glass it had swallowed; no clue the explosion had turned a goodly section of the retchwyrm’s gullet to bloody soup. All they knew was that as they watched dumbfounded, mouths open in awe, the girl plunged in her blade, the beast swayed back and forth like a drunkard at the privy, and with a bubbling sigh, crashed dead and still to the ground.
The thuddd echoed across the arena, dust rising as the creature collapsed. But as the nevernight winds blew across the bleachers, across the blood-soaked sand, the pall cleared to reveal a single figure, standing alone on the dead beast’s head.
Panting, bleeding, Mia bent down and dragged her blade free. And turning to the dumbfounded spectators, she slowly raised it to the sky.
Silence rang across the sands. Hollow and still. No one in the crowd could believe their eyes, let alone speak. Until finally, a small boy in his mother’s arms pointed at the bloodstained girl at the arena’s heart, his brown eyes grown wide.
“Crow!” came his tiny cry.
A man beside him looked to the boy, then shouted to those around him.
“Crow!”
The word began repeating, like an echo, more and more folk taking up the call. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, all chanting in time like a vow, like a prayer, “Crow! Crow! Crow!” as Mia limped the length of the retchwyrm’s carcass, sword held high, the audience stamping their feet in time with their chant, faster and faster now, the word and the thunder of their feet burring into “CrowCrowCrowCrowCrow!”
Mia roared with them, elation and bloody pride welling inside her chest.
“What is my name?” she screamed.
“CrowCrowCrowCrowCrow!”
“WHAT IS MY NAME?”
“CROWCROWCROWCROWCROW!”
Mia closed her eyes, drinking it in, letting it soak into her skin.
Sanguii e Gloria.
She turned to the sanguila boxes, saw Dona Leona on her feet, cheering. She looked to the gladiatii cells, saw Sidonius and Bladesinger and Butcher at the bars, howling her name and pounding the iron. And finally, up in the crowd, amid the sea of smiling faces, she saw a girl. Long red hair. Eyes as blue as empty skies. And with her smile beaming bright as the suns overhead, Ashlinn raised her hand, fingers spread.
And she blew Mia a kiss.
The Remus Collegium dined like marrowborn that night. A long table in the cells beneath the arena was laden with food and wine, Mia’s gladiatii brothers and sisters toasting her victory like the lords and ladies of old. Furian sat at the table’s head like a king, as was his place as champion. But if this was a kingdom, it now had a queen. Sat at the table’s foot, a silver victor’s laurel crowning her long dark hair, Mia Corvere raised her wine and grinned like a madwoman.
The gladiatii were recovered enough from their poisoning, and buoyed by the adrenaline of Mia’s victory. They drank a great deal and ate very little, recounting the battle again and again. Sidonius crowed so loud about it, you’d think he’d defeated the beast himself, wrapping his ham-hock arm around Mia’s neck and declaring it the greatest triumph he’d ever seen on the sands.
“This magnificent little bitch!” he roared.
“Get off me, you great oaf,” Mia grinned, pushing him away.
“I’ve never witnessed the like!” Sid bellowed. “Have you, ’Singer?”
“Nay,” the woman smiled, raising her cup. “Never the like.”
“Wavewaker?”
“A victory worthy of Pythias and Prospero!” the big man declared.1
“And you, Butcher? What about you, Otho?”
“Nay,” they replied. “Never.”
“To the Crow!” Sid roared, and the room raised their cups in answer.
Only Furian was silent, sipping his wine as if it were poisoned.2 His
eyes never left Mia’s, filled with accusation and cold fury. Sick as he’d been, she knew he must have watched her battle, probably felt her calling the dark. But still, there was no denying her victory had been glorious, and no matter how much the sight of that silver laurel on her brow burned his craw, the Unfallen wisely kept his bile behind his teeth.
Occasionally, Mia would stare across the feast with ink-black eyes, boring into the champion’s own, the illness and hunger she felt whenever she was around him swelling in her belly. Glancing at his seat at the table’s head, she silently promised.
Soon.
“Attend!”
The gladiatii fell silent, rising to their feet as Executus Arkades marched into the room, along with Magistrae. Dona Leona walked behind them, beaming.
“Domina!” the gladiatii barked.
“Be still, my Falcons,” she raised her hands, urged them to take their seats. “I’ll not part you from your revels. The streets ring with the name of the Remus Collegium, and you’ve earned this moment’s joy, all of you.”
The dona smiled as they raised their cups, toasted her health. She’d taken time to change into an off-the-shoulder dress and matching corset in beautiful crushed velvet, the same rust-red as her hair. Mia wondered exactly how much silver the woman had spent on it. How many dresses she’d hauled here from the Nest. How much this damned celebration feast was costing her and where the ’byss she got the coin. For someone who was so strapped she’d been willing to sell Mia to a pleasurehouse a mere turn ago . . .
Mia glanced at Arkades, saw the Executus eyeing off the food and wine with the same concern. Mia looked at the jewels about the dona’s throat, the gold at her wrists, the realization only sinking deeper.
She’s awful with money. Raised rich, so she’s never learned the real value of a coin, or truly understood the life that awaits you when you run out of them. All she cares about is how she appears to others.
To her father.