Martin tripped over Gerhold as the Trykathians, Alvs, and Dwëorgs fought for viewing positions at Makhatar's feet. The sudden pain brought a strange numbness. He held his head against what he knew must be stinging pain, touched moistness, felt nothing.
All thought slowed. Martin realized he heard shouting and the banter of those around him, but he was outside it all. Makhatar projected her thoughts into his own. She called him to her side. "Stand ready," she told him. "The games begin."
Chapter 10
Beneath a vaulted dome of stone, enveloped in absolute darkness, Yarr could not see the moons or suns, yet still felt them. In the same way he felt the wind. He could smell nothing save copper and ash, but he could imagine much more. The beating of his foe's heart, somewhere out there in the great arena. The clash of steel that came. The restless howling of tethered beasts with their mouths gaping in anticipation of the taste of flesh. Of his flesh.
He heard movement above his head, felt it beneath his feet. "Almost time," he told the others in Cikathian. "Be ready."
"They will come at us quickly, from all sides," someone else said. Yarr thought it was Sytek, one of the leaders of the Dwelmish group.
"No," he countered. "We are away from the commons. Our platform lifts at the masters' feet. Keep in the direction I face, put the suns behind you. Be warned, there are beasts near."
"They say ktoth are undying, that they can cross the distance of two double strides in one leap, that they have teeth as long as arms, that--"
"Ktoth are the least of our worries," Dhon said. He was a Fhurtroll and he did not fear death. "There's Empyrjurin out there or worse. No sense worrying about any of it. Others are doing exactly what we're doing--waiting."
"I don't care about any of them," another voice said.
"Do care," Yarr said. "Those with a cloth tied on the right are with us. Group and work together. Don't break and divide. Keeping together is our best hope."
Dhon moved to stand next to Yarr. "Fight as Yarr said, and you might live to see another day. They never reckoned on this. It will surprise."
What little there are of us, Yarr added in thought. His goal had been to convince many tens. They could have fought back; they might have been able to revolt. What he had been able to gather without fully revealing his aim was eighteen tens. Among them, Yarr, Xerc, and Dhon were the most experienced. If others changed sides, there would be more, but this he could not count on.
Yarr touched the coin medallion of Beqheth in his inside pocket. It seemed superstitious, this belief in her as the Mother of the Warrior, but who was he to judge otherwise. The Trojk Master believed. She had seen him through eight spectacles. With as much of the mob against him as for, he needed all the help he could get. He heard their boos and jeers. When once they had revered, calling him the Undying One, the Greatest of the Supremators, they now loathed. They called him The Soulless One, The Accursed, The Blight, and on and on. There was no end to their curses. It worsened as more and more bet against him and lost. They wanted his death now as much as he wanted his life.
Yarr clutched at the spotted ktoth fur wrapped about his shoulders. It kept his muscles warm in the cold, damp pit. He heard the click of gears and the turning of pulleys. He lowered himself to lie on his back next to Dhon in the dirt. His thinness next to the troll's hulk was as a twig to a tree trunk. "You ready, Dhon?" he whispered.
"Auy, Yarr."
Yarr's Alvish eyes allowed him to see Dhon's huge, brutish face outlined against the darkness, and he heard in the voice a subtle dread. "This should not be our end. But like as not we cannot control our fate."
"You've been a good friend. If we're to die, then we die. It is the wish of the gods and damn them for it." Dhon cleared his throat and sang, very softly,
Gods under fire and heaven
Fhur born, err I must go
Grim, she shall keep me
It is my own doing
Her blanket I shall wear
She shall keep me
Should she wish it
Under pall and thrall.
Yarr felt ferocity build in his heart, for that was part of a warrior's tribute, but Fhurtrollen and not Alvish or Trykathian. The words walked the line between life and death. Both blessing and curse. They spoke of the duality of all things.
"I don't intend for us to die, Dhon. We'll use our numbers to our advantage."
"It'll surprise them, it will. I've always wanted to see the gods afeared."
The blocks overhead pulled back. Light crept into the pit. Yarr and Dhon spun around, moved to a crouch, waited. Yarr wondered about what could have been had he been able to unite all Supremators. He turned his eyes up to the light so his vision adjusted to the brightness, or he would be blinded like so many others at the start of it all.
The walls fell. The great stage was revealed. The gathered throng roared.
He determined his location. It was as expected; close to the masters so they could watch his death.
Across the stage, he saw clusters of other groups. And more.
All the platforms were raised.
All the beast pens were raised.
Seeing this, he wondered if it were possible to win the day. He did not lose hope.
Yarr clasped hands with Dhon, started to speak. That's when something hissed and roared, and Dhon cried out strangely. That's when the screaming and shouting started, and Yarr's group rose to their feet, surrounded by beasts, to face a thousand times their number swarming across the stage.
Yarr closed his eyes, and then jumped up with the rest of them. His hands gripped his spear, slung across his back was a great sword, and at his sides were daggers. He cast off his fur, wheeled around.
A lion-like rakor met him. It was black as death and big as any horse he had ever seen. He dug in with his spear, thrusting up and across. The rakor made the same sound as the one Yarr had been cloaked in, just louder and longer before it finally fell over.
Dhon was not as fortunate. He was set upon by three of the fierce eutoks--feral dogs with two heads. Yarr saw Dhon take the first, intervened before the second could land its brutal paws while Dhon dispatched the third.
"Gods!" Dhon shouted over the tumult and din. "What is this?"
"A wonder," Sytek replied. "I'm proud to die as part of this."
Yarr suspected it was the reenactment of some recent victory played out across the showground of the colosseum. He heard the watchers alternately cheer and jeer. It was eerie the way these sounds mixed in with the cries of great cats, the howls of dogs, and the baying of the creatures as yet unseen.
His hope was that he and his represented the victors. Somehow, though, he suspected otherwise. Someone among the masters had decided he was no longer useful, that it was past time for his death.
He rammed his spear home, felled one of the immense ktoth. He shouted, "No, never! Keep working together; live!"
The knot of the main battle moved to the center of the colosseum's vast stage. There Sytek met the glorious death he wished for at the hands of eutoks who tore him to shreds.
For a time Yarr lost track of Dhon and the others. Around them others were breaking and running. Separated, they had little chance. Even the strongest of them died wholesale, for living nightmares stalked alongside the ktoth, eutok, and rakor; nameless nightmares who knew only death and killing.
Together they fought on. Yarr's spear broke in the belly of some enormous grotesquerie. He broke out his sword. "Together, together!" he shouted desperately.
Somewhere close he heard the shriek of feral dogs. He slipped past a Fhurtroll hauling a pair of wounded Trykathians out of the main press of combat in the colosseum's center, to meet the pack of eutoks.
An eutok leapt at Yarr's chest and tore at him with its fangs while others went for his legs. He lashed out with his sword, cutting the first eutok nearly in half before turning on those at his legs. Finished, he wheeled around to find a group of Erlanders wielding spear and blade and forcing their way across th
e stage.
"Auy! Erland!" Yarr shouted.
Moving again, Yarr ducked the hilt of a S'h'dith warrior's sword as the warrior sought to bash in the side of his head. He whipped around, blade flying, and he caught the S'h'dith in the ribs. The warrior hissed and came on, thrusting himself up in a jumping attack. Yarr bobbed away, loosed his sword and felled the S'h'dith from the air.
One of the other S'h'dith warriors spun around with a dagger in his hand, releasing it in a quick thrust, but Yarr knocked it down with his own blade. He came back around to strike, but one of the Erlanders had already finished the S'h'dith. The man flashed Yarr a fierce smile. "Élvemere!" he called, his voice bright.
Yarr grinned at the man, lifting his bloodied sword. The man's eyes jumped up as something large tried to come down on Yarr from behind. It was enough of a warning to keep the beast from bowling Yarr over. He spun with this blade and shouted to the Erlanders in their own tongue, "Together, together! Rakor return!"
Together the Erlanders turned and plunged toward the rakor, forcing their way through the bunch of screaming beasts. Yarr joined them, as did others. One of the Fhurtrolls hacked out a rakor's throat with his saber and then, as blood fountained from the big cat, grasped the thick mane and cut the head from the body.
Another Fhurtroll, seeing this, let out a fierce cry, and Yarr was pleased to see it was Dhon. "Xerc? The others?" Yarr shouted.
"Broken most!" Dhon shouted. He used his sword to point out where some were as he fought on. "Xerc and his are closest. They hold their own. Sytek and his?"
"Gone most. Sytek too," Yarr replied. "Lost track of the others. Some few Dwelmish pushed past not long ago. These Erlanders broke through from the far side."
Yarr felt a presence behind him, turned to see Jdost. Jdost smiled a bloody smile. He was missing several teeth but was otherwise whole. Yarr feared treachery, but this feeling was fleeting. There was uncertainty in the gargant's eyes. The agreement between him and Jdost was a tenuous one; they had come to terms the day after Yarr bested the other on the training field. If the other Monsjurin guardians agreed, Jdost would fight with Yarr. Otherwise, the Monsjurin would fight for themselves.
Jdost raised Grekl, his blade. Yarr steeled himself. He had bested the gargant before and would do so again if needed. When Jdost kept his blade in the air, Yarr saw the gesture for what it was. A salute.
Yarr saluted the other openly, moved to Dhon's defense. The three, gargant, troll, and Alv, became a working trio. Their blades delivered death while they moved as one across the field.
Chapter 11
Dark thoughts took Yarr through a half toll. The great stage was littered with dead and dying. Side tunnels opened to admit hawkers, gravers, and setters. Hawkers cleared the stage of corpses; gravers ended the dying; setters carried props in and out. It was all part of the continuance, the cycle of the spectacle.
Yarr and his regrouped once again while the masters unleashed new terrors. It seemed that all around him were succumbing to the will of the mob, that he must follow shortly.
As if in answer to his darkest thoughts, the worst of the nightmares stood before him. It was three-headed and seven-legged, with hindquarters as tall as Jdost. Its mouths were nests for teeth and little else. It came at him snarling and howling.
The mob cheered its arrival; Yarr cursed it. He turned his eyes around the colosseum, watching those who watched him for a moment. They were Drakón, titan, and those who, like the Master of Keys, had won a part of their freedom yet would never truly be free. They came to the games through a series of way gates that carried them from places all across the hundred worlds.
Usually it did not bother him that they came to watch death. Today was different. They reveled in blood, in ways he had not seen before. It was as if they had lost themselves to their decadence. He felt nothing for them save perhaps pity. Death was his because it was all he had. They had lives, or at least he liked to believe they did. Death did not have to be their all, and yet it seemed death was.
Jdost and Dhon moved to help Yarr defend against the monstrosity; the beast wanted nothing of them. It kicked them back. Before they could break through, other foes found them.
Yarr defended wildly. Though he wielded his great sword with one hand at times, the weapon was meant for two-handed work. One weapon in two hands could not keep back such a beast, no matter how well wielded.
He felt death close in around him, fought to move out of the beast's kill box--the place where its three heads could all reach for him at once. He swung the blade in a wide arc, dropped his shoulder, rolled to avoid the gaping maws. He came back around, found another pair of waiting jaws. He stabbed, drew blood. He turned, thrust, drew blood.
The wounds brought rage and howls. His blood raced; his heart pounded.
The great stage was a mass of confusion and motion. Yarr caught glimpses of Dhon and Jdost as he defended. He knew the one direction he had to go to live. He spun, dashed around the hungry mouths, and fled toward open ground. He heard a roar of wind above him, and then suddenly the ground was rushing up to meet him. He screamed, tried to ensure he kept his grip on his sword, as he rolled and bumped along on his side and shoulder.
When he came to a stop, Yarr looked up to see three ravenous mouths diving toward him. He raked the ground, reached for his sword. Even as the beast came on, he thrust the blade up, struck a clean blow between two of the four front legs, and then dove frantically to one side.
The beast let out a sudden roar, clawing at the air. Moving too fast as it dropped to the ground, it skidded along and began to tumble end over end. Yarr heard a sharp crack, and the beast yelped.
Yarr regained his feet, looked around. It was a clean break to the neck of the first head, yet even as that head died, the other two sought to reach him.
Yarr drove in with his blade, thrusting deep into the middle head. His blade pierced one of the terrible eyes; he pushed in and up, ramming the blade in and out the other side. The creature howled piteously as it clawed the earth and sought to rise.
With the blade wedged, he switched to daggers. Taking one in each hand, Yarr went to dispatch the beast, but this death was something the mob did not want. They taunted and booed.
Yarr lifted his daggers and turned about on his heel until he faced the box seats, where he saw the ageless king, the consort, the son of Rnothen, and the Drakón prince. Their disappointment gave him power. He was the fly that buzzed and could not be swatted, the buzzer that bit and could not be caught. They could loathe him, but they could not kill him. Not in a fair fight anyway.
Her presence, though, took his power as much as Martin's had previously. She was unexpected. The sight of her broke him in ways he never imagined possible.
"My Dierá," he heard his second self say. Afterward, he heard a soft woman's voice calling to him, but it was not Dierá's. It was his mother's. "Hope for Élvemere," she said. His father seemed to agree, but his words were strange. "Windrunner," his father said. "The foals. One a colt now. Ride him. Dierá takes the other."
Second sight faded. Yarr knew only the colosseum. A dagger in each hand, he dispatched the third head even as the creature died of its wounds. He hacked off one of the heads, picked it up with both hands, and threw it. He spat, shouted out in Cikathian, "Élvemere lives forever!" With his point made, he went back to his bloody work.
On the other side of a struggling knot of Dwelmish, Yarr saw the huge Monsjurin Jdost, his sword lifting to clean the opposition out of his way. Yarr ran toward the gargant. Surely he could regroup with the gargant, but where was Dhon? Yarr did not see the Fhurtroll at first, and then he saw the other. Dhon was wounded, trying to regain his weapon; Jdost was defending alone against a pair of ktoth who were being marshaled by a S'h'dith.
Yarr reached Jdost at the same time as a large figure clad in well-worn leathers and helm. He slammed into the other. The other's shield rolled away, though he managed to keep a grip on his sword.
Yarr reached back with his d
aggers, preparing to strike. "Yarr, Yarr!" the other shouted. "It's me."
Yarr lowered his daggers. "Xerc? You live?"
Other Trykathians behind Xerc were pushing past. They swept by Jdost, began pushing the attackers back. Xerc replied, "For now."
Yarr reached up to grip the Trykathian's shoulder, and saw a ktoth sweeping down at him as he did. He turned the dagger in his hand around; the blade met flesh. He thrust with the dagger in his other hand, met flesh again. The ktoth crumpled at his feet.
Xerc blinked, pushed back his helmet. As he did, Yarr saw the other's wounds. He had been mauled about the head, and only the helmet kept everything together. He wondered how the other kept his feet. Trykathians were hearty, but Xerc must have been exceptionally so.
"Yarr," Xerc said. "It's been my honor--"
"Look out," Yarr shouted, and bulled into his friend, knocking over the large Trykathian and taking him down. One of the S'h'dith flashed past, his sword reaching out and catching Yarr in the shoulder.
Yarr felt the hot sting of the cut even as he struck back. His blows missed; Xerc's did not. Xerc took the other in the back. A clean strike. Yarr finished it, running the edge of his dagger from one side of the S'h'dith's throat to the other.
"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you," Yarr said. "I'd thought you were lost early on."
"Lost now," Xerc said, sinking to his knees. "It's been a good fight. Glory in death; death in glory."
Yarr helped steady his friend. "No death yet," he told the other, but as he said it, he saw the unmistakable shadow of a ktoth. He looked back as he spun around. Another S'h'dith was marshaling a group of ktoth, and he was joined by several companions. They were lining up for a thrust.
Yarr called out a warning. "Defend, ktoth! Meet the line!"
The ktoth hurtled toward them. The S'h'dith were only steps behind. Jdost and what remained of the Trykathian cavaliers met the line with a weak but still fighting Dhon amongst them. Yarr gripped his daggers and rushed forward.
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