by Vi Voxley
Violet seethed with fury. “It was you who said the tournament was open for everyone! When I asked you to not let him compete. This is the whole point – anyone could win. You can’t decide the victor like that!”
“I can,” said the Overlord.
Violet gritted her teeth in exasperation. She turned to Irmela, looking uncertain. “Mother,” she said.
Irmela smiled to her sadly. “I’m sorry, Violet. It’s his tournament, his trials. If the Prince is worthy of you, he’ll win you.”
Funny how it had sounded true when she said something similar just days ago. Now it made Violet furious. She hated having her own words thrown back into her face. Truly, she was her father’s daughter.
“Father,” she said, turning back to the Overlord. “Please.”
She saw the hesitation, she really did. Violet also saw the resolve, knowing it was futile in the end.
The Overlord rose to address the tournament one more time. “I give you the Raider Prince, champions,” he said. “This is your third trial, the duel stage. Your opponent is he. The fight is to the death. Yours or his.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Champions, I give you the Raider Prince. This is your third trial – the duel stage. Your opponent is him. The fight is to the death – yours or his.”
Those had been the Overlord‘s words. Everyone had heard them. Both the champions and the audience suddenly suffering from instantaneous deafness would have been a bit difficult to believe.
Thus, the silence that lingered was a little out of place.
Areon smiled.
It was the best he could do. To actually laugh in the Overlord’s face would have been nigh suicidal. No doubt there were countless guns pointed at him should he step out of line – there was no use in upsetting his future father-in-law too much.
It was the stillness, that’s what it was. A lack of shouting, a lack of moving and, most of all, a lack of blood flowing. The Overlord must have anticipated all those things. However, it remained a hard cold fact that no one on the arena moved a muscle.
At least the look on Grom’s face was brilliant – absolutely worth the charade on its own.
It was Grom who spoke the words all the champions seemed to have been thinking.
“Is he really the Raider Prince?” he asked the Overlord. “Or is this another trick?”
The Overlord shrugged. “Does it really matter?”
“Not really,” said Grom. “I just prefer to know the identities of the men I’m about to kill.”
Areon shook his sword dry and the simple movement got him the attention of everyone who had eyes. If he hadn’t been a modest man, he could have sworn that the world was slowly revolving around him at that moment.
“I am who he says I am,” he told Grom and the other champions. The silence following that statement seemed even deeper for some reason. “I won’t bother with threats. I have no wish to kill any of you, but I will, if you give me a reason. The Overlord wants you to carry out his grudge during a calaya tournament? The man has gall, I’ll give him that. The last time I checked we had rules about these sorts of things. And I…”
He grinned. “No, wait, threats are much more to the point. Anyone who participates in the Overlord’s attempt to murder me outside the tournament’s rules will not like the manner of their death.”
A few seemed uneasy. Areon couldn’t exactly tell why. It was either from their fear of him, or because, funnily enough, he was right and the Overlord was going beyond his rights as the host. A duel to the death was fine – he’d expected as much – but to have more than ten renowned fighters pitched against him was something else.
The Overlord sent him an icy smirk. “I stand by my words.”
That was good enough for most of the champions and enough for Grom, at least.
Probably shouldn’t have pissed him off in the last trial, Areon thought, amused. The big champion turned to him, the club in his hands looking spikier than ever.
Now, another warrior might have let the other rivals tire Areon out, but Grom was not like that. He was a proud champion, first to the battle and the last one out. He trudged forward, club in his hand, eyes determined. Areon braced himself, but Grom only managed to take a few steps before being trapped in the Overlord’s schemes again.
The water that was up to their knees had hidden the rising walls until it was too late. While some were merely thrown back by the quickly ascending smooth metal barriers, Areon thought he saw a few others tumble when the constructions started moving almost directly underneath them. The walls rose fast and coordinated. In the span of mere seconds, Areon saw the general layout of the maze before the darkness folded around him. Underneath his feet, the water drained away – it seemed it had done its job by revealing him.
The walls weren’t all that high – the audience still needed to see them – but they were not made for climbing either, which had been Areon’s first instinct. If it had been up to him, he would have climbed on top of the makeshift maze, found Grom and finished what they’d started. It seemed the Overlord had other plans. He chuckled. Of course it wouldn’t be easy, nothing ever was with the Overlord.
Oh this is beautiful, he thought, calmly taking in his surroundings. And it is deadly, no doubt. I am flattered, I really am. That man is a glorious bastard.
Areon hadn’t seen everything in the second he was given before the maze was complete, but he had seen enough. After all, he could guess quite well what the Overlord’s agenda was. First of all, he was feeling rather lonely, because the maze had separated him from his allies – no surprises there. Ronay and Reim could handle themselves and so could he. The real problem was that Grom was probably as far from him as their charming host could possibly place him.
It was typical of the Overlord. If it was Grom’s honor that was causing him problems, he’d just remove it from the equation. Now Grom’s only option was to search for him, but not before the Overlord could throw everyone else his way first – lovely.
Taking a step in Grom’s presumed direction proved another of Areon’s miscalculations. What had been an empty path just a moment before suddenly became a dead end. The walls were still moving.
“Well, this is fun,” Reim called to him over the wall.
“You have a weird definition of fun,” Areon replied. He looked around, but of course the Overlord couldn’t stop being a dick for a single moment. Every pathway that opened to him was somehow obscured or twisted, meaning that his enemies could quite easily sneak up on him and, therefore, shouting wasn’t probably the best idea.
Well, the Overlord clearly hadn’t thought his plan through. He’d devised the maze to trap Areon with his killers, but in truth, the Raider Prince felt pretty safe. It was the others who were in danger.
“It’s true,” he heard Reim laugh. “I have a morbid sense of humor. I’m going to go and find someone to kill now. If I run into Grom, know that it was an honor to serve you and that you are completely responsible for the mess we’re in.”
“I doubt you’ll see him,” Areon said, as something approaching along the path to his right caught his eye. “Pretty sure his date is with me. But your sentimentality is appreciated.”
Reim’s answering laugh faded away as Areon made his way to meet his first rival. No, scratch that, two first rivals. There was another shadow behind the first, posed to strike as soon as Areon’s attention was diverted.
What a nice doomed plan.
After briefly considering sneaking up on them and cutting their throats, Areon cleared his voice.
“I understand this setting is giving you ideas, but I’d rather not play hide-and-seek,” he shouted to them, hearing the audience laugh when the shadows jumped. “What are we, children? Meet me –”
The rising wall knocked him off his feet before he could finish his sentence. The next few seconds were a hailstorm of sensations and instincts.
Areon became the Raider Prince in a matter of a heartbeat.
It was al
l he could do to avoid dying a very inglorious death right then and there. Sounds and smells filled the air around him, long seconds packed together into a single crystal-clear moment. The audience’s amused laughter at his quip turned into a shocked gasp, Violet was screaming and blades met inches from his throat. The wall, having done its job, was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
Blood was trickling down Areon’s face. He could taste the copper on his tongue and feel the warm liquid seep into his hair. Miraculously, the blood wasn’t his. One of the shadows had been quicker than he’d thought. The man had made full use of the second he’d been given and jumped to pierce Areon with his sword. Instincts honed by years of war had saved Areon’s life. And still the blades had met so close to his throat he could feel the sharpness.
From there it got easier – he was once again in control of the situation. It was no chore to grab hold of the attacker’s sword and wrench it out of the way, making use of the enemy’s awkward angle of approach. Before the man had a chance to react, Areon had cut his throat, as he should have done in the first place.
He wasn’t dead yet. His shocked, wild eyes were staring at Areon. The man was choking, futilely gasping for air, showering him with blood. Areon’s eyes were fixed on the dark green calaya strand in the man’s hair, now marred with red.
Luck.
That was the only thought in his mind. As the champion slumped, Areon allowed the fury to take over at last. He shoved the man off him, automatically dodging the killing strike of the other shadow. The second was no match for the first, but Areon found no mercy within him at that moment. He eluded the blow of the sword, noticing that the weapon was too big for the man. He was a head shorter than him, holding the blade with both hands. Not unskilled, just foolish, and just dead. It was such a rookie mistake, to think a bigger weapon would give him an edge. A weapon too heavy for a warrior was nothing short of a weapon in his opponent’s hands. Areon let him raise the sword above his head before cutting both his hands off with a lightning quick strike.
He looked as surprised as the first attacker had, but this one had it coming. The heavy sword fell with the hands, cutting a deep wound in the man’s shoulder, but Areon doubted he even felt it. Bleeding, the enemy slumped against the wall while Areon turned back to his first kill. Death would come to the second with no further aid.
Luck.
Few knew that the Raider Prince hated the word. Hated what it stood for and hated having his deeds credited to it. Luck was for idiots, for those too weak to make their destinies with the strength of their own hands. Luck was a useful tool once or twice, but not something you entrusted your life to.
The audience was gasping again, but this time for someone else. Violet was still screaming, but like before, it was directed at the Overlord.
With the cries of the dying man behind him, Areon walked slowly back to the champion with the green calaya strand. Now, at last, he could take a proper look at him.
The champion had been tall and powerfully built, which should have been a dead giveaway. The realization nagged at Areon like a broken tooth, impossible to ignore. In his careless manner, he’d nearly let a calaya champion sneak up on him. He’d noticed him before in the trials, quick and skilled, deadly and with a purpose – a worthy opponent on even ground but a death sentence if one were, say, helplessly on his back.
If Areon’s hands could have shaken, they would have. Death had stared him in the face and he’d nearly succumbed to it for his attitude. It had been his own hand that had stopped the champion, but it had been so close, so very close that it didn’t really count as skill. It had been an instinct to protect his throat, but it had been luck that the throat had been what the champion had been aiming at. If he had decided to pierce his heart or lungs, Areon knew he would have been dead.
The fact that the Overlord had added the maze itself to the list of potential killers was hardly noteworthy compared to that.
Or was it?
Areon spared the fallen champion one last look. In all his life, he’d hardly ever needed to make sure something was really dead. It irked him that he had to do so now. Turning away, he looked up at the dais to find the Overlord staring back with a malicious grin.
Very well. You wanted the Raider Prince, you’ll get the Raider Prince.
It was fair in a way, Areon thought. The Overlord had stated from the very beginning that no contestant should take the tournament as a game. It was a calaya tournament worthy of being taken seriously. And the host had tried really hard to teach him that lesson. So, in a way, it was fair.
Areon picked up the shield that he’d dropped when he stumbled. It was the first time he’d really fallen since the day he’d learned how to walk. It was not an experience he wished to repeat. The look on the Overlord’s face told him plenty of the foolishness of that wish.
The Raider Prince straightened himself, the smile gone from his face.
He’d given Reim a hard time for warning him about pissing off the Overlord. He’d reprimanded him for warning him about Grom too, but it seemed more relevant by the minute. Areon doubted luck would save him if a wall were to trip him while he was fighting the huge champion.
No, playtime was over. He looked at the dais again, but this time not at the Overlord. Violet had stopped fighting with his father, seeing it was futile. Now she stood there, eyes wide, gripping the ledge. The flash of purple in her hair reminded Areon why he was there. She too had warned him to take things seriously.
For her, he would.
The Overlord, however, obviously had other plans. The long pathways of the maze were not-too-subtly herding Areon somewhere and when he reached his intended destination, it became glaringly clear where that was. The Raider Prince watched with a smile that had nothing to do with amusement as the walls started to fall back. They revealed an area large enough to actually be suitable for fighting – a tiny arena in the middle of a great one. No less than seven champions stood waiting for him there. Not one of them showed any signs of hesitation or fear – clearly, these men had no problems with the Overlord’s authority.
Around him, the pathways were disappearing. One by one, the walls lined up to form a circle around them. The message was clear enough, unsubtle in that charming Overlord kind of way.
Three of them bore the calaya mark in their hair.
For some reason, they were still waiting. Areon walked forward, sword at the ready. He stopped a distance from them, unwilling to charge headfirst into their midst – even he wasn’t that suicidal.
In a moment, the cause of their hesitation became obvious. The ground opened up again, but this time it didn’t reveal walls, but blades, and not one of them near his opponents, of course.
The Raider Prince laughed.
If you keep this up, Overlord, you’ll have to give Violet’s hand to the maze.
The blades sprung to life, whirring. That’s when the champions charged.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
There were no words to describe how Violet felt when she saw Areon fall. The look of surprise on his face was the worst. In her terror, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. She had to suffer through every inch of the wall’s assault on the unsuspecting Areon, and when the calaya-marked champion jumped to deliver the deathblow, Violet’s heart stopped beating.
A full minute later, Irmela had to physically shake her out of her daze. Her mother looked concerned, but that concern wouldn’t be of much use should Areon be hacked to pieces by whatever else the Overlord had built into the maze.
Violet opened her mouth to give Irmela a piece of her mind, but her mother shook her head. Behind them, the Overlord didn’t even seem to notice their presence. Irmela put her finger on her lips and slowly took Violet aside.
“Mother...” Violet began.
“I know,” Irmela said. “I didn’t think it would be like this, I swear. From what he told me, he only meant to expose him. That was just as well. This...”
“You have to stop him.”
/> Her mother smiled sadly. “I don’t think I can. The Overlord would do much for me, but he wouldn’t stop this because I asked him to. It’s too late to back down on a whim. No, someone else needs to ask him.”
“But who? Mother, talk sense.”
“Think, Violet, please,” Irmela said, sighing. “He has the champions hacking each other to pieces. There might not be anybody left standing in the end. Can’t you imagine anyone who might object to that?”
In fact, Violet could. She started to leave in a hurry, but stopped and smiled at her mother for the first time in years. “Thank you.”
Irmela chuckled. “Go! Go before the Overlord manages to kill all your suitors. I love the man, but this tournament isn’t bringing out his reasonable side.”
Getting to her destination wasn’t easy. Violet had to stop every few seconds to check whether Areon was still drawing breath. So far, he seemed to be. Both of his attackers were dead, or at least one was, and the other was most surely dying. Violet could hear his death groans. It wasn’t a pleasant sound, but hadn’t the Raider Prince promised as much?
She came to the dais the calayas sat upon.
“Your lover is quite something,” Pearl said when she saw her.
Violet had plenty of snappy responses to that, but there were more pressing issues – quite literally. It seemed the Overlord was herding together a pack to fight Areon in the middle of the arena. Further away, smaller duels were taking place. Reim and Ronay did exactly as the Raider Prince had said they should. Whoever tried to kill them died by their hands, but those who walked by, they let pass.
Surprisingly, the only one who still hadn’t fought anyone was Grom. Although Violet doubted the Overlord’s plan to keep him for Areon went over anyone’s head. The great champion didn’t seem too pleased with that prospect, though. He walked around in his makeshift cage of walls, restless like an animal. He’d already tried the trick that had worked for him on the first day – jamming his weapon into the wall. But a club wasn’t a sword and it didn’t even make a mark on the metal. The Overlord hadn’t overlooked that detail, which meant that Grom’s only option was to wait.