Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
Marco: Lair of Ladon
“Where’s Robin?” Ten minutes to battle time and I haven’t laid eyes on him. Not once since he kissed me last night. Kissed me, then walked out like he owns me.
“Robin?” Matilda frowns like she thinks I should know. “I finished with him an hour ago. He’s on the far side.”
“Of course.” Of course he’s coming in a different entrance. Of course we’re not walking in together, ready to fight. Of course I’m not supposed to know anything about it.
I’m just a player. All my special privileges have gone out the window, and I’ve been bumped back down to nothing, just flesh and muscle, expendable and inconsequential.
She pulls a leather strap tight against my skin, and I wince slightly as she affixes it.
It’s all the armor I’m getting by the looks of it.
One thin slice of leather that stretches from my shoulder, running diagonally down beneath my left pec.
Up on my shoulder, a small harness is attached to it, which I hope means I’m going to get some kind of weapon to store in it.
I also have one very short leather skirt. It rides so low on my hips it’s barely decent, and while I appreciate the movement the dangling leather strips will allow me, it’s hiding so little I’m not sure why they’ve bothered to put it on me at all. Well, besides the fact it does look fantastic.
Each wrist has a flimsy cuff that’s entirely for show. They’re malleable enough, but only there to pull more attention to my arms, which Matilda’s begun dusting with a golden shimmer.
Beyond these flimsy decorations, it’s all skin, every inch of me on display like I’m the ticket item in a butcher’s shop window. Strange the way they want to admire my appearance, when all this muscle has been built with ugliness in mind.
“Look up,” Matilda commands.
Eyes on the ceiling, I stay as patient as I can while she paints a second layer of mascara on. “Does Robin have more armor than me?”
She laughs as she smudges my thick eyeliner wider with her thumb. “Even less.”
“How is it possible to have less?” I drop my gaze to catch hers, and she frowns at me.
Her fingertips tap the bottom of my chin to push my face back up, while her other hand swishes back and forth drying my mascara, which I’m pretty sure is already dry. “Don’t worry. He’s actually taking an interest in his costume this time, and had a few suggestions to make. He looks incredible.”
“Wasn’t what I was worried about, actually.”
“Lips.”
“Again?”
“Marco!”
I purse them for her to smear some gold gloss down the center.
“You look beautiful,” she tells me, stepping back to assess her work. “I’d hate for you to die.” A little sigh slips from her. “No one else wears the gold like you.”
“Thank you so much, Matilda.”
Whatever she’s about to say is drowned out by the roar of the crowd, sharp and sudden. Thousands of feet pound the floor in a rhythm so loud the whole arena seems to shake.
It feels as if…
As if they’ve started the game already.
As if Robin’s already out there. Alone.
My feet move faster than logical thought. The guards that waited for me flank me immediately, falling in as quickly and easily as if they’d expected this.
There hasn’t been an announcement, not a word. A sheen of sweat breaks out, sending a sickly chill through my body when the breeze sweeps down the hot corridor from the arena gates.
This is it. It’s already started.
A few men are in their places, waiting to haul the thick portcullis open for me. I can barely make anything out with the blinding light. Only green. Trees and trees and glaring white sand surrounding them.
The weaponsman steps out from my right, holds open a flat palm, and presents a small gold key.
I snatch it up. “And what am I fighting with?”
“That’s all you get.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s not up to me.” He gives me a slight shrug, which sets me even more on edge. Like he’s an innocent bystander.
“Open it!” I snap at the man next to him, his hand on the wheel that operates the portcullis.
“Waiting for the signal,” he mutters. The other looks at him, and they exchange a grin. They’re having a great time, front-row view to watch me die. I’ll remember this next time I find one of them drunk in a tavern somewhere.
“Marco!” The familiar voice takes me like a wave.
The comfort of my only friend. Evander’s here, and he’s fast, taking up my hand, pressing it between both of his, cold steel meeting my palm.
Levelling his dark eyes on mine, he turns me so my back’s to the two men and my body’s blocking their view. “Is your shoulder better?”
One quick push and the blade’s hidden by my wrist cuff. “Still sore.”
“Stay off it as best you can. And don’t die. Doctor’s orders.”
“What’s going on there?” The weaponsman barks.
“Shut up,” Evander snaps back. But just as I try to withdraw my hand, he pulls it back and says softly, “Northwest corner.”
“What was that?” The weaponsman moves around to find our hands separated, Evander’s cool eyes hard on him.
“I said you’re a wanker.” Then he slaps a hand on my arm and meets my eyes with an anxious confidence. “Good luck. Don’t make too much work for me.”
“I’ll try my best.”
“You’ll do great.” Evander slips into the shadows as quickly as he came, leaving me to stare through the gate, my heart pounding louder than the feet of the fans above.
Then a sound. Music. A fiddle starts to play, loud and fast and jarring, and with the opening notes, the wheel begins to turn, the rusty portcullis squealing my arrival as it rises.
It’s game time. I have no idea what’s waiting for me out there. How bad it’s going to be. All I do know is Evander is worried enough to cheat. That can’t be good.
The sand scrunches hot beneath my sandals as I step into bright daylight. The screams of the crowd echo around the arena. I want to take the space in, prepare myself. But the whole place is unrecognizable.
It’s alive with trees, a forest. A verdant horror of hiding places in every direction, and me with no clue what I’m up against.
But before I walk any further, I look to the Emperor’s booth and salute.
It doubles the frenzy of the crowd and hopefully doubles my chances of a weapon drop later.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice crackles across the stadium, “your captain, Marco Verus.”
I hold my fist in the air, and they applaud like it’s a sword.
“Welcome to the variety stage of Deathball, where anything goes. Today’s scintillating spectacular is a refreshing delight we’ve called Lair of Ladon.
Our esteemed Emperor has collaborated with High Commander Bishop to show you some of the richest delights of the lands Victora has conquered, as we spread our glory to the farthest reaches of the globe, bringing the most splendid treasures back to you good people. ”
In short, whatever’s waiting for me is something I’ve never seen before. Great.
The music speeds up, then hits a long and shrill note. With it comes the crunch of the main gates opening, and a scream from the audience. They can see something I can’t, and their excitement tells me whatever it is, it’s bad.
“Lacretes Metus,” comes the announcement. “See the nostrils flare? See the tongue search? It’s hungry.”
What the actual fuck?
“The question is, will it find its lunch before Marco does?”
Lunch?
Robin.
I set a line directly for the northwest corner of the stadium, praying Evander’s right, that they haven’t shifted things.
And I don’t even care if I’m letting on that I know something.
I should be smarter about it, but the setup is all wrong.
I’m supposed to be fighting with Robin. So where the hell is he?
“Captain Verus, your four-time Deathball champion, who kills for the love of the sport. If anyone can free our captured soldier, it must be him.”
Trees engulf me as I try to work my way through the forest. It’s strewn thick with vines, the like I’ve never seen before. I can’t see the crowd, and they can’t see me, but that gives me the sense I’m safer here than anywhere else in the stadium, because they wouldn’t let them miss my death.
An excited roar breaks out, and I fumble for the dagger Evander gave me, cutting my way through the endless foliage, moving twice as fast as I could have without it.
The speaker switches on. “Looks like the first course is served.”
With that comes a blood-curdling cry. A scream of horror, of agony, and far closer than the crowd. I dash toward it, slicing vines where I can’t get through, trying to scramble beneath them, but it’s woven, like a net, to slow me, reaching all the way to the ground from the highest tree branches.
“Oh, that is a mess!” the speaker laughs. “Can Marco save our poor soldier from the same fate?”
It’s not Robin.
He’s safe.
For now.
The thought propels me on, through the dark and thick green, until finally I break through to a clearing, and there, the horror reveals itself in full.
Six crosses, erected bold and fearsome, all but one hung with a different man, every face hidden by an expressionless bronze mask, staring back at me in silent judgement.
And between us… the beast.
It’s a lizard, of sorts, but larger than any other creature I’ve ever seen. As big as the elephants depicted in the history books the Emperor shoves at me. A monstrous thing.
The men, erected high on their posts, strung with arms out wide, are easy prey for it. The first victim has already been snatched down, his entrails strewn across the sand as the animal rips into his still-twitching body.
“Now quiet, everyone,” purrs the announcer. “We know which one is our soldier, hidden among the condemned. But can Marco figure it out? He’s going to need all the help he can get if he’s to slay this beast. Because these gates don’t open until it’s dead.”
The great head of the creature whips around toward me as it cracks the head off its meal, the skullcap landing with a dull thud at my feet.
I take a step back toward the relative safety of the forest.