5. The River Grave
Chapter five
The River Grave
When they came for him, Imalroc felt sick.
Cramps festered along his neck. Four guards led him to a long ladder in front of a concrete wall.
The Draalish sword in its scabbard leaned alongside the ladder, and beside it was his heavy fighting jerkin.
The guards let him slide it over his shoulders but did not give him time to finish securing it.
“Up the ladder, go across, and you’ll see the gate,” one said tersely. “Enter the battlebox as soon as the shutters open. Go.”
He seized the ladder and pounded up as quickly as he dared go in the dim light. As he climbed, he drew in shallow, steady breaths. The air tasted like fresh-turned dirt.
At the top of the ladder, his throat squeezed, and he swallowed back greasy nausea.
He stood at the edge of an enormous tank, with a series of long planks nailed together to make a narrow walkway a hand’s width above the surface of the water.
This was not like the water in the baths at Manolia.
It was greenish and murky, with strands of waterweed floating like shorn tentacles through misty depths. Gods only knew what else it contained.
He edged out onto the slippery wood, placing his feet carefully. The water swirled below him, but he refused to look anywhere but the wooden planks. One foot, then the other. He made painfully slow progress. Wood creaked and flexed under his boots with every step.
He stepped off the planks and struck dry sand.
For a moment, he stood still, trying to calm the quivering in his legs.
There were only a few more strides into a rocky tunnel, and then a pair of dark wooden shutters.
Torchlight reflected off the water and danced in swaying lines across the sheen of the doors. It was eerily quiet.
Within a pace or two of the doors, he stopped and slung his sword to his feet to fix his jerkin. He buckled the straps with trembling fingers, and then re-braided his hair as tightly as he could.
A shrieking, metallic sound pierced his ears.
Just beyond the wooden doors, something enormous rolled out of the way.
He heard the crowd now, a thundering, chanting choir.
White light gleamed through the seams of the battlebox entrance, and he drew his sword clear of its scabbard.
He would have very little time. Find the Crocodile.
Kill her before the water climbed above his head.
He never heard his name over the cacophony of the battlebox crowd, but the doors sprang outward, and he leapt with them.
He bounded onto drifts of white sand and kept to his toes as he skirted the shadow of the massive ship.
Darting around the right of the ship, he spotted a set of doors on the opposite side of the arena, swinging shut.
He slowed his run, ducking low and treading lightly so as not to kick up loose sand in front of him.
There was no sign of another fighter in the box.
He dropped to a walk. The battlebox felt empty. Not even a flicker of movement to betray his enemy’s position. He waited. His scalp itched with sweat, and his muscles locked. He scanned the sides of the ship, but saw nothing. She could be creeping around the other side by now.
Clutching his sword, he crouched to examine the sand. The drifts were far too soft and thick to leave any distinctive prints, and he was no tracker. Above him came the noise of something that sounded a lot like laughter from the onlookers. Imalroc snarled up at the rim of the battlebox.
Hundreds—maybe thousands—of mocking faces whipped past his gaze as he spun until he found the person he was looking for. Rerdas leaned over the wall, yelling something that he had no hope of hearing.
The huntmaster lifted both hands and pointed wildly at the ship.
The pitch-colored blade of the Draalish sword rose as Imalroc approached the box’s decorative centerpiece.
It loomed out of the sand as though it had crashed up from the depths of the earth and into Navona’s battlebox.
The wooden deck was steeper than it looked, and he threw himself forward, ankles and calves burning as he sprinted toward the mast. The cries from the crowd were feverish with excitement.
He grabbed the mast with one arm and hauled himself around to brace his foot against it. The deck was empty, and from his place he could see untouched white sand on all sides. She had to be right up against the ship’s belly, hiding in the shadows. Or possibly—
Something clobbered his shoulder. Imalroc thudded into the deck like a ton of bricks. He rolled left, scraping his chin against the splintered boards as Vativa’s foot landed where the back of his neck had been moments before.
Her shortsword screeched along his blade, fountaining sparks.
Imalroc skidded lower along the angled deck, but the whipping strike of a dagger caught him.
Wet heat spilled down the outside of his leg before he even registered pain.
He lunged upward, rising on his uninjured leg and thrusting the sword.
Vativa ducked and slashed inward with the shortsword, but he had his feet now.
He twisted away from her blade. She was quick indeed, but not long in reach.
His sword sang along the edge of her blade, forcing it back.
Her eyes stayed too much on the black steel.
Imalroc lifted it high, the shortsword went up over her head to block, and he kicked her straight in the chest. The crowd groaned as she flew backward into the mast, slamming into the wood hard enough to shake it.
The Draalish sword scythed toward the mast. Vativa lurched to the right, knocking his blow wide with her foot.
In the time it took him to whirl the sword around again, she shot up the mast. She had both legs wrapped around the wooden pillar and still managed to fling a slender throwing dagger down at him. He ducked, and it hummed past his ear.
His enemy was out of reach, climbing the mast like she was born a fucking sailor. Imalroc tracked her progress through the forest of ropes and splintered wood in the rigging. She was heedless of the way the mast shook and jolted with every movement.
When she was far enough away to be less of a threat, he stepped back and winced.
The loose cotton of his trousers was soaked red from the knee down.
He parted the torn fabric, examining a long, shallow slice over his shin.
Nasty, but not nearly as bad as if she had hit a vein higher in his thigh. It would still carry his weight.
He tipped his head back to find her again. “Come down!” he roared, hoarse voice barely carrying above the swell of cheers from the watching crowd. “Come down and fight!”
Vativa sat high on a tiny ledge near the top of the mast. The shortsword rested across her knees, and she rubbed gingerly at her sternum.
In a sword fight, he could best her, he was sure of it.
But there was no way to get her out of her safe little perch.
He circled the mast, head tilted, lips peeled back from his teeth.
His limbs twitched. He couldn’t climb the damn thing; it had almost fallen with only one battleboxer on it.
It wasn’t very stable. The ship creaked, and the wood was warped beneath his feet. The entire structure was old. Fragile.
Imalroc stopped circling.
Baratien would never forgive him for using such a beautiful sword this way. Imalroc took the grip in both hands, set himself sideways to the mast, and swung the blade like a battleaxe.
Any other sword, and it would never have worked. But Draalish steel was peerless.
The sword sank into the wood with a hollow thunk, and Imalroc worked it free for another swing. It wasn’t even solid wood, as a real mast should have been. The pole shuddered as the sword bit in, and somewhere above him, he heard a squawk as Vativa worked out what he was trying to do.
The crowd and his own pulse thundered in his ears, and he swung the blade again and again.
The sword and the mast trembled. He stepped back and let out a screech of frustration, then slammed a high kick into the mast just above the damaged wood.
The blow reverberated through his bones.
A second throwing dagger hurtled down at him, but it went far wide and sank into the deck.
Another kick, and a spray of splinters. The mast swayed.
Imalroc backed up to the very edge of the steep prow. He sprinted down toward the mast, letting his momentum build until he collided into the mast with both feet. With a deep groan, the mast tilted away from him. All around the battlebox, the audience screamed.
Vativa raced down through the rigging, but not fast enough. The mast tumbled, smashed through the lower deck, and crashed into the sand, carrying his enemy with it.
Imalroc ignored the chanting that broke out in the audience. He examined the dusty cloud where the mast had buried itself.
A shadow took shape. He lifted his sword to guard across his chest and slipped down the deck.
His opponent staggered away from the mast, shortsword still in hand. She appeared surprisingly unscathed, damn her to Drida. She backed away unsteadily toward the wall when she caught Imalroc approaching.
He followed with a predator’s measured pace.
Let her get a bit of a lead on him, watching her stumble back until she was at the edge of the battlebox.
She set one scarred hand against the wall, her head lowered, shaggy hair falling to obscure her face.
Imalroc straightened out of his defensive crouch. Time to finish this.
A faint rumble sounded from behind the walls.
Imalroc pulled his attack short and locked eyes with Vativa.
She grinned. She was not touching the wall for support, he realized. She was listening. Feeling for a vibration he could hear now. Imalroc swung the Draalish sword desperately. Vativa dodged just as the portholes opened, unleashing massive geysers of water from every side of the battlebox.