Taleb started off the field, now in an agitated mood. The feeling had nothing whatsoever to do with the duel he’d just fought, but rather with the royal jester. Something about the way that man looked at him rankled his nerves.
He rejoined his party on the sidelines where they waited. Oliveah refused to be anywhere else when either he or Nathon fought, a habit which annoyed the Justice officers charged to patrol the field’s perimeter. He was expecting to see a look of relief on her face now, relating to his continued survival, but eclipsing this was an expression he had no idea how to decipher. Actually, she was staring at him almost as she would a complete stranger.
Madi was the first to speak, congratulating him on his victory.
“I do hope you found the affair as entertaining as I did,” Taleb replied, grinning. His actions with the Justice officer had actually been carried out mainly for this reason—mostly for Oliveah’s sake, it had been his intention to lighten the circumstances as much as possible, knowing how wrought-up she became whenever he or Nathon fought. Of course, humiliating his opponent in the process hadn’t troubled him at all, and he was content to allow all witnesses to believe this had been his primary motivation.
“I’m afraid there is nothing about these games I find entertaining,” the diviner then murmured in reply.
This was an obvious reference to the death of Eugan Reif. His demise the day before had affected them all, and Taleb would remain eternally grateful Destiny had intervened to keep Oliveah and Madi from actually witnessing it. Eugan Reif had not died a pleasant death, and Taleb was now itching for a chance to face the Balshan himself so that he could personally ensure the man suffered in kind. Nathon had expressed similar sentiments.
“I think you may have angered the entirety of the Legion,” Oliveah said to him now, continuing to wear that strange look.
Taleb shrugged, unconcerned. Aralexia’s Justice officers gave all combatants of the Challenge a wide berth, and once the week was done he had every intention of following up on his desire to travel to Lutarre Keep to join the warlords. In fact, it was his aim to seek out those now in the city and request accompanying them upon their return journey.
Oliveah appeared disturbed at his professed lack of caring, but said nothing more on the matter.
With the stands emptying in the intermission between rounds, they moved to find seats and lucked out securing some only four rows up from the field. Their vantage-point was not quite center-field, but near to it. They settled in, the mood of their party still somber in the wake of Eugan’s terrible end. Sabian had not joined with them this morning, and they’d presumed he’d taken the day to deal with his grief alone.
Settled down between Oliveah and Nathon, Taleb noted Nathon was also eyeing him somewhat strangely.
“Yes?” he asked, turning to him with a cocked brow.
Nathon’s response was issued in a low tone that wouldn’t carry.
“For a moment there,” he said, “I thought you actually meant to kill that man.”
Taleb had, in truth, been tempted to do just that, but the groveled apology the officer had offered for his slanderous words before the match had worked to adequately appease the desire. Clearly, he’d made his point without having to add yet another unnecessary death to the Challenge’s rising body count.
“He was a fool who deserved the scare,” was his reply.
Nathon accepted this with a shrug. “I will be curious to see how Kale next performs. He obviously feels no hesitation when it comes to killing.” This was a reference to the Jennite’s first round match, a duel that continued to remain a popular topic of discussion among the fans of the games, with many curious to see if Kale’s performance had been fluke or skill. It was expected his second fight would clarify the matter, an event now posed to occur in less than an hour’s time.
Taleb and Nathon’s own investigation into Rydin Kale and his possible involvement in the disaster that had occurred in Tyrell was not going well. After first tracking the man’s whereabouts to an incredibly seedy inn near the waterfront, they’d arrived at the establishment only to find that it had mysteriously burned to the ground the night before. Amazingly, no one had been seriously harmed in the blaze, an event which had been deemed an accident by the Justice officers who’d been sent to investigate the matter.
Locating Kale’s new lodgings proved an incredible headache that remained ongoing. Since he didn’t appear to have shown up for any of the matches in the games apart from his own, simply following him from the forum hadn’t been an option and had forced Taleb and Nathon to take more creative measures. When those measures failed, they’d given up and simply bribed a Justice officer for any information the Legion had on Kale. The action had turned up some rather interesting results.
Apparently this was not Rydin Kale’s first time in Aralexia, for he’d been jailed here once before, for fighting. This incident had occurred three years ago, and he’d served his entire week-long sentence without anyone paying his fines.
So far this week, he’d drawn attention from the Legion on three separate occasions, once for the incident of the fire, and twice more for disturbing the peace. Details regarding the latter incidences were not cited, but the officer they bribed seemed to recall that one of them involved a wild tavern brawl Kale had apparently begun but not actually participated in because no one would fight him, and the second for an occurrence that saw him hit a man in the street seemingly without provocation. He’d so far escaped any charges or jail time simply because he was a participant in the Challenge, but it would not be surprising to learn the Legion would be waiting to pounce on him the moment the week was over.
Despite managing to gather this information, Taleb and Nathon still had no idea where the man might now be lodged, although this was a matter they hoped to rectify this very day. Because Nathon would have to remain for his match, which would follow Kale’s own, it had been decided that Taleb would tail the Jennite once he left the forum after his duel. Taleb was looking forward to the prospect; he clearly remembered the day, five weeks ago, when he’d first beheld the Jennite behind bars in Tyrell, incarcerated, once again, for fighting, and how he’d manipulated Madi into paying his fines so that he would be released. Whatever the truth of Rydin Kale, Taleb was determined to discover it.
The man in question made his appearance below several minutes before he was actually slated to do so. Receiving a nudge from Nathon, Taleb looked to regard the Jennite as he appeared upon the southern end of the field.
“What is he doing?” Taleb hissed a moment later, still looking below.
Nathon’s only reply was a bewildered shrug.
Rydin Kale remained paused at the end of the field, holding still in a casual pose and looking perfectly at ease with himself. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular, and, squinting, Taleb thought he could make out a simple and mild expression upon his face.
“Perhaps he’s just taking a few minutes to mentally prepare himself for his fight,” Nathon finally speculated, although with a frown.
Unable to come up with a better answer, Taleb glanced to his other side to see if Oliveah and Madi had taken note of Kale’s odd behavior. Apparently they hadn’t.
Oliveah was looking up into the leaden sky, wearing a frown. The diviner was tucking a few stray locks of her ebony hair into the shawl that she had, for some reason, been wearing all week.
“I hope the rain holds off,” Oliveah muttered. She then turned to him. “I imagine the ground being muddy won’t do Nathon any favors, will it?”
“He won’t have any more of a disadvantage than his opponent,” he answered her carefully.
Her frown grew more severe as she looked up again. “Perhaps it will blow past,” she said, as a raindrop hit her nose.
Taleb, who hadn’t been paying the slightest amount of attention to the sky, glanced up now. The clouds which had been amassing slowly over Aralexia all morning seemed to have now coalesced into a giant mass
of dark gray directly over the arena. Completely obliterating the sunlight, the area was now swallowed in shadow, and only seemed to be growing dimmer by the moment. A flash of lightning lit the sky, and then the hot torrent of rain began, a sudden and violent downpour that was almost blinding.
There was an outcry from the crowd, and many jumped to their feet to seek out shelter. The majority, however, kept to their seats, not about to let something as insignificant as rain interrupt their viewing pleasure.
Taleb looked to Oliveah and Madi. “Do you wish to stay, or would you rather find somewhere to wait out the storm?” he asked, shouting to be heard.
“We’ll stay!” Oliveah hollered back, already drenched to the skin.
The diviner added her own quick nod to this, and then turned her gaze to the field, where she had apparently now taken notice of Kale. Whatever interest she had in this man seemed to have evaporated at witnessing his display of brutality in the opening round, but her look held to curiosity as she took him in now. Taleb liked the diviner very much, but she clearly possessed dreadful instincts when it came to the matter of men.
Turning back, he saw Nathon’s attention continued to stay riveted on Kale. Taleb glanced down and saw the man still hadn’t moved, his stance unchanged as the rain pelted down all around him.
Taleb frowned, trying to squint through the downpour. “I don’t envy him or his opponent, having to fight in this.”
Nathon appeared distracted and didn’t respond.
A second flash of lightning illuminated the field brilliantly to show the bell-ringer now moving into position. The sound of his bell was lost to the storm when he rang it a moment later, but evidently the combatants had been paying attention for both Kale and the knight began to make way for center field.
The force of the storm was growing ever stronger, the winds now adding ferocious gales to the tumult and causing the rain to whip wildly in all directions. Rapidly-forming summer storms were not uncommon here in Dhanen’Mar, but the speed in which this one had come together was startling. Another flash of lighting came, this time followed by a booming crack of thunder.
Risking the annoyance of those behind him, Taleb got to his feet and raised a forearm to shield his eyes from the rain, desperately trying to discern what was happening on the field below. Finding no success, he pushed past Nathon without a word and made for the aisle that would take him down to ground level. He all but slid down the wooden stairs, and then skidded to a halt at realizing he’d actually taken a few steps onto the field.
He quickly looked to where he guessed center field to be, finding aid from the next brilliant flash of white illuminating the sky.
As he’d suspected, the match had begun and Kale was now trading furious blows with the knight. Taleb lost sight of them again when the light in the sky faded, forced to wait impatiently for the next strike to occur. When it did, Kale had the knight on the ground and looked to be moving in for a killing blow.
The dark and the rain kept him blind for the next couple of minutes, and Taleb cursed violently the entire time. Finally, the sky lit again, and showed the royal jester now upon the field, hoisting Kale’s arm in a show of victory. Taleb also quickly noted that while he appeared to have taken a serious leg injury, the knight had not become the latest victim of the Challenge. Kale, for whatever reason, had left him alive—a truth which caused Taleb great surprise, after all he and Nathon had so far managed to turn up about the man.
Plunged into darkness again, Taleb turned and began making his way toward the end of the field. Suspecting Kale would not remain in the arena, he didn’t want to chance missing him when he exited. The going was slow and disorienting, and Taleb finally realized that his efforts were pointless. Unable to see more than a few feet in front of his face, he determined that unless Kale happened to walk right into him, he had no chance of actually locating him while the storm continued at this level of ferocity.
Still, he did not just want to abandon his objective, and so he loitered near to the area where the forum emptied into the marketplace beyond. He noted the rain and the winds quickly seemed to be dying down, and the sunlight trying to peek its way through the clouds once again.
It took approximately ten minutes, but the rain went on lessening until it finally tapered off completely. Taleb was now trying to look in every direction as a deluge of sodden spectators converged through the exit, seeking the comforts of the marketplace beyond. A slew of others, those who’d run for shelter at the onset of the storm, were now doing the opposite, fighting to make their way back inside the arena. The result was a seething mass of bodies Taleb had absolutely no intention of adding himself to.
He searched the field, already knowing he would not find Kale anywhere upon it. He next performed a cursory glance about its perimeter, unsurprised when his luck in this proved no better. He then had no choice but to admit the Jennite had gotten past him, meaning he wouldn’t get another chance to shadow him until he appeared for his match in the third round.
Frustrated at being thwarted, he turned and started back to where he’d left Nathon, Oliveah, and Madi in the stands.
“Lost him,” he muttered to Nathon as he slid back onto the bench.
Nathon appeared more distracted than disappointed. “What happened down there?” he demanded. “The last we could make out was the lightning striking the field.”
Taleb was still processing this when the diviner spoke next, leaning past Oliveah.
“Did Rydin make it through all right?” she asked quickly, showing obvious concern.
Taleb took another moment before replying. “Lightning actually struck the field?” he finally asked, perplexed. He didn’t recall seeing this happen, but supposed the second strike had probably been the bolt in question, for its illumination had been the most vivid.
“It looked as though it came very near to hitting one of the fighters,” Nathon went on, “but we could not tell which.”
Something about this really was not sitting right with him. “I don’t think it actually hit anyone,” he said slowly, looking from Nathon to Madi. “Kale won the round, but the knight was alive at the end of it.”
This appeared to please the diviner. She sat back, offering no comment but wearing a small smile.
Nathon appeared thoughtful, probably also surprised to learn Kale had left his opponent alive. Oliveah looked to have very little regard for any of this, most likely still fretting about the mud-filled field Nathon would soon have to fight upon.
Actually, Nathon’s opponent in this duel was cause for some concern. Talk in the city labeled Beynon Ansell a Jennite mercenary, his ferociousness already proven in the first round when he’d unnecessarily slaughtered the Justice officer he’d been dueling. Taleb felt confident Nathon could best him, but it would not be an easy win, and he would have to keep his full wits about him to do it. Also, Oliveah did have good reason to fret; the thick mud now miring the entire combat field was not going to do the fighters any favors. Slipping, sliding, or having your foot gripped by the suction were all menacing possibilities that could throw off a man’s timing, and any one of them presented a potential error that could well prove fatal.
Apparently Nathon was considering all of this as well for he was suddenly asking him to find a way to oust Oliveah from the forum.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Taleb murmured back. Short of knocking her unconscious and removing her bodily, he didn’t see any way of actually accomplishing this task.
It appeared Nathon couldn’t either, for he finally just shrugged in defeat. “Well, at least try to keep her from seeing it, should I go down.”
Taleb nodded.
Nathon started down to the field just a few minutes before the top of the hour, and Taleb managed to succeed in winning a small victory by preventing Oliveah from following after him and taking her accustomed position on the sidelines. He accomplished this by telling her he found her presence there very distracting, and t
hat she should remain in the stands if she didn’t want to risk having a similar effect on Nathon. She appeared to take these words seriously and, for once, didn’t argue.
The match commenced with the expected brutality, and Taleb watched the first few passes with a concerned yet discerning eye. Holding to his opinion that Nathon should be able to win this, he had no choice but to factor in the sea of mud the combatants were now dancing about in.
The first person to lose their footing is probably going to die, he realized grimly.
The mud was definitely a problem, and it was clear by the movements of both Nathon and Ansell that they’d come to the same conclusion. They were now stepping with extreme care, resulting in their strikes becoming less and less savage as both were biding their time, waiting for the other to make a mistake.
The fight had basically come down to a question of balance rather than skill, and in this Taleb did not feel he could possibly predict the outcome. He began to think frantically for ways to distract Oliveah should the worst happen, and was just reaching for the half-filled flagon of blueberry juice at her feet with the intentions of spilling it all over her dress when a collective gasp from the crowd shot his attention back to the field.
In a very bizarre twist of events, it appeared both men had lost their footing and gone down at more or less the same time. Finding this strange but certainly not impossible, Taleb watched as Nathon and Ansell now scrambled to regain their footing, both determined to use the situation to their own advantage.
Ansell seemed to be having trouble getting to his feet. Actually, it looked as though one of his boots was stuck fast in the mud, refusing to pull free as he tried again and again to yank his leg lose.
Nathon, of course, pounced upon the opening this gave him, using his blade to push the Jennite’s own weapon aside before quickly bringing his steel back around to rest against the side of his neck. Beynon Ansell froze, anticipating death. The crowd appeared to be expecting this as well, for a deep hush swept through the stands.
Taleb, however, was not surprised when Nathon, after another long moment, simply stepped back and upended his weapon. Unless under direct threat, Nathon was not a killer.
The stands erupted in cheers and, beside him, Oliveah gave a great shudder of relief. The stress of the games had clearly been taking an immense toll on her, for she’d been acting very strange and out of character all week long. Taleb regretted what he and Nathon were putting her through, but couldn’t regret his participation in the Challenge. He felt the event was somehow providing the first step in a journey he was meant to take, and was more than willing to hand Destiny the reins and simply follow wherever it led.
He, Oliveah, and Madi headed down to the field and met Nathon at the sidelines. Covered in mud pretty much from head to toe, he proclaimed no desire to stay and await the final fight of the day. Oliveah was anxious to be off as well, but, surprisingly, the diviner stated that she wished to remain and see the warlord perform. This was unexpected for two reasons.
First, Madi’s dislike for the games was no secret, and she did not attend the fights she did not feel personally obligated to observe. Secondly, she had rarely left Oliveah’s side all week, and while Taleb didn’t understand the reasons for this, he saw the two of them exchange a long look now.
Finally Oliveah shifted her green gaze over to him. “You will watch out for her, and ensure she gets back to our inn straight away?”
“Of course,” he answered, exchanging his own glance with Nathon. They’d more than once discussed the fact of the diviner’s strange hesitation to go anywhere without Oliveah, but neither of them could explain it. There was definitely much oddness occurring in Aralexia this week, and Taleb suspected that he knew the truth of very little of it. Frankly, he was waiting for Nathon to figure it out, fully confident that the man’s tenacity and cleverness would eventually prevail.
Once Oliveah and Nathon departed, he and Madi spent some time walking about the marketplace, lunching on sandwiches and giant pickles as they looked over the wares for sale. The diviner said little, which was not uncommon or off-putting. Nathon, Taleb knew, found Madi distant as she was so often lost in her own thoughts, but as far as Taleb was concerned, anyone who dwelt within the folds of Destiny as closely as she did had the allowance to act pretty much however she pleased. He possessed a great deal of respect for her station as a diviner.
He waited until they’d made their way back into the forum and found themselves seats before giving in to his curiosity.
“I’m surprised you wished to stay for this fight,” he said, looking over at her. “I did not think you wanted to spend any more time in the arena than necessary.”
Her gray eyes blinked slowly back at him as she nodded. “That is true. But I did strike up something of an acquaintance with Baiel Maves, and am curious to see him perform. I did not attend the day he took the field in the first round, but encountered him in the marketplace.”
Taleb remembered that day. Oliveah and Madi had met up with him and Nathon, as well as the Reifs, in the marketplace between matches, but hadn’t ventured into the arena as none of the three had been fighting that particular day. He was surprised to hear Madi had made contact with the warlord, and now presumed her reason for staying was because she’d taken a fancy to him. Finding this a vast improvement over her interest in Kale, he also saw this as an exceptionally convenient opportunity.
“You know,” he began, “I’m intending to travel to the warlords’ keep once the week of the Challenge has concluded. Perhaps you would be kind enough to introduce me to Maves so that I might journey with him and his party when they make their return.”
Madi’s expression was serene as she responded. “I believe I could arrange that,” she told him.
Pleased with this unexpected turn, Taleb moved his attention onto the field and watched as Baiel Maves and Kem Maida stepped forward to answer the bell-ringer’s call. Maida, he knew, was a prince of Navosa, the country lying to the east of Dhanen’Mar. His presence here was the cause of much talk in Aralexia, with many wondering what was to happen should he be killed during one of his duels. Taleb’s suspicions over the matches being rigged were only compounded at seeing Maida’s pairing with Maves, for the outcome of this fight was all but certain. Maida would be ousted safely, and any risk of inciting a war with his native lands gently laid to rest.
Taleb strenuously disapproved of these manipulations, but even he had to admit that it had been a wise move in regard to this particular situation.
Maves and Maida crossed blades, and then the match began. Having been greatly amused by the warlord’s success in humiliating the veteran knight he’d faced in the first round, Taleb saw none of this behavior now. Maves effortlessly blocked and parried a few strikes, perhaps using this time to assess whether or not Maida’s intentions were deadly. Finding they were not, he simply disarmed the man with a spectacularly quick flick of his wrist, his sword striking Maida’s hand and sending his weapon flying. Maves then stood back, clearly intending no further harm.
“He’s quite remarkable, isn’t he?” Madi was now murmuring beside him.
Taleb glanced over curiously, for her tone was not of an admiringly smitten nature, as he would have expected, but rather one of deep thoughtfulness.
“Yes,” he told her. “Truthfully, I’d much like to pair with him for a duel, but wouldn’t disillusion myself into thinking I had any chance of coming from it the victor.”
For some reason, those words made her smile.
Chapter 38
Auguries of Dawn Page 38