Chapter 11
Eleven
When you grow up in a barge cadre, you fight your brothers and all the other kids aboard; all in good fun, of course.
And whenever your cadre lands, and the work is done, you fight all the boys from the other barges too.
That’s just how it is. Then, as adults, we keep doing the same thing, just the work gets harder and the brawls turn bloodier, depending on how much drink everybody’s got in them, at least. We do back-breaking labor, then we fight at the slightest provocation, then we go back to work.
That’s just the Fogo way, and probably one of the reasons my people have got the bad reputation we do here in the Core.
Except in my experience so far, the Core was actually the meaner of the two places.
By that, I mean the nature of the people who lived there, not the realms themselves.
Fogo’s unforgiving, and will kill you the instant you get careless, and sometimes kill you even if you’re not, but most of the people who lived there were decent.
You could be tough without being cruel. We’d knock a guy senseless over a dumb argument, but the next day, we have to go back to work with him on the same crew, and our lives depended on each other doing our jobs, so no hard feelings.
Murder was rare among the cadres, and when we had somebody who did real evil, we’d toss them over the side into the lava for everyone’s benefit.
If a whole family turned rotten—like the Skerrets and Roches had—we’d banish the lot of them.
Our nobles were pricks and we had crooks like Smiling Jemmy, same as everywhere else, but most cadre folk were like one big rough family.
Here in the Core, though, where the population came from a thousand kingdoms and three dozen species, most didn’t like each other much before they got here, and cramming them in tight next to each other didn’t improve those feelings any.
Generally, people here struck me as more spiteful and petty.
Bloodshed and treachery were common. There was a vindictiveness to this place.
It might not all be that way, but the poor parts I’d spent time in were, and even the glorious Collegium was dismissive and unkind.
I suspected that, long ago, the mage fights had become a thing here so the different group’s champions could fight each other rather than the masses having at it.
Instead of real battles, which tended to get messy and upset trade, the Nexus Council encouraged magical duels that kept the death toll at a minimum and the destruction confined to one controlled space.
Mage fights weren’t just a Slump thing. These were unofficial bouts run by gangsters for the lowest of the low, but they also did this sort of thing in the fancier districts, except those were held in great golden arenas, featuring far more powerful wizards who could put on a real show for the much more respectable audience.
One of these days, I’d be up there too, but tonight, I was fighting for the pocket change of the Under Slump dregs.
Watching the other bouts had been a good distraction.
As the ring goblin was checking my protective charms, I began feeling the nerves.
I’d fought my whole life, but stopping fists and knees with my face was a lot less frightening than getting pierced with bullets, steel, and spells, which would theoretically be blocked only by the tarnished necklace placed around my neck by a cross-eyed goblin who I was fairly certain was drunk.
I was primarily an enchanter, which meant I had to cast my spells beforehand, binding them to objects to be activated later. I did a quick inventory of my equipment to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and I’d not gotten pickpocketed while awaiting my turn.
On my hip, I had the ceremonial handgun given to me by my old bargemaster, Davis Gax, before I fled to the Core. The ornate thing had 519 carved on the side, a reminder of where I’d come from. It held one of my precious cartridges in its chamber, and the rest were in loops on my belt.
Beneath my cloak I wore a vest that I’d purchased from the market, because it had a great number of pockets and pouches.
I kept a small bag of Red on each side for the one invoked spell I knew.
I had four different pockets’ worth of enchanted screws ready to scoop and throw, as well as some Obscura balls—which was a simple shadow spell I’d gotten from Rade—and I’d brought a single snail grenade, just in case.
That last one I would most likely not be using tonight because one of the few rules of the arena was no killing of the audience.
Carcalla was displeased by the death of paying customers, and my snail grenades would be an extremely dangerous spell to unleash in public.
Sheathed opposite my gun was the same trapper’s knife I’d been using to carve up the corpses of dead Fire Elementals for the last few years, and next to it were two small copper rods, enchanted with a spell recently taught to me by Azarin.
I’d not quite mastered Jolt yet, so hoped I wouldn’t need to test it tonight.
Then I checked my charms. The most valuable one—besides the one on temporary loan from the goblins—was the protective bracelet I’d taken off an unfortunate Frunza Tarlev student.
It would activate automatically to stop a bullet, then required a moment to recharge before it could stop another.
I also had the charms leftover from my crawler and trapper days, which would help protect me from poisonous air and extreme heat.
And that cursory pat down was performed by my hands, which were covered with leather gloves that had both been enchanted with another air spell, also of Azarin’s invention.
We thought of Ascend and Descend as two different spells, though technically, I think it was just two different effects from the same spell, as supposedly, you can’t really start putting multiple enchantments on a single object until around rank six.
Recently, I’d been experimenting with the gloves to see if I could use them for quick movement besides up or down, and so far, all I had to show for the effort was bruises from magically flinging myself into the ground, but the idea held promise.
My corner goblin and I were under the scaffolding, separated from the current bout by a small wooden fence.
I couldn’t make out much of what was going on between the cracks, but from the noise, falling dust, and the way everything was shaking, one of the gladiators was using some kind of wind spell and the other was hurling earth.
One of these days, this clattery old quarry structure would finally receive enough punishment and fall, crushing dozens of gladiators and a large number of goblins to death in the process.
Hopefully, I’d have gained enough ranks to be fighting in the Collegium by then and miss that inevitable spectacle.
The goblin pressed one of his boggle eyes to a gap between the boards. “Ha ha! That one got stabbed in the dick!” The wind died, the trembling stopped, and somebody started screaming for a healer. “Match’s over. You’re next.”
Ignoring the pained wailing outside, I bowed my head and said a silent prayer to Ketekunan, asking that Saint Persistence would grant me the tenacity to win, because we had an adventure to go on and the academy really could use the money.
Also, it would help if I could win without using up too much magic, because elements are expensive.
Amen. A few minutes later, they opened the gate and I walked out into the quarry to see that two goblins were dumping buckets of sawdust to soak up a large puddle of blood.
“Looks like someone’s charm didn’t work.”
“Don’t fret, human. That was stupid Blork’s spell. Blork does shoddy work. You have good charm from Bruxt. They’re brothers, but Bruxt’s the smart one.” The goblin closed the gate behind me. “Wait. Maybe I mix those two up? Eh. You’re good.”
I should have asked Ketekunan to keep me from getting hit at all, because goblins suck, and I was an idiot for trusting them. But I wasn’t going to turn back now. My patron saint despised that kind of quitter attitude!
My opponent hadn’t come out yet. Despite the magically augmented voice, I barely even heard the announcer say my introduction, because I was too busy watching that opposite gate, curious to see what I was going to be up against.
When he got to the drawn out Put Down Tom, I raised one hand in salute toward the audience above.
There were some isolated cheers from the handful who’d seen my previous fights.
I was no Rufus, but you’ve got to give the people what they want.
The ones who were calling over goblins to put coin on me winning had probably been there when I’d beaten Krachma.
The gate opened and another cloaked figure walked out, hood down, limbs hidden, face averted. I was going to laugh if it turned out I’d been worried Clotz had brought in a ringer, but instead, he’d picked my opponent because we were dressed the same.
This time, I paid attention to the announcer. “And fighting from the south scaffold, with her first appearance in the Under Slump—”
Her? Surely the announcer misspoke.
“All the way from the skull fields of Surnod Lin upon the Plane of Death, an enchanter of the first rank, I give you Dathka Shadow Walker!”
He made that last word last for a long time, and the instant the announcer was done, my opponent threw back the hood, revealing that I was in fact fighting a deadlander, because the eerily colorless skin and solid black eyes were unmistakable features of that haunted realm, but this one was actually a female.
And a rather striking one at that.
“I can’t hit a girl.”
“Not with that attitude you won’t,” my goblin shouted through the gate. “Don’t just stand there. Do the face-off! That’s when the hesitating gamblers get off their ass and decide who to bet on. Walk to the middle and greet your enemy, stupid human!”
I did so, seething the whole way, because what kind of nasty goblin trick was Clotz pulling here?
Different kingdoms had different customs, like Azarin’s people were fine with girls riding giant eagles and dangerous storm-chasing business I didn’t entirely understand, but the arena was for brutish men to beat the ever-living shit out of each other, and while death and serious permanent injury was rare, it wasn’t uncommon, as demonstrated by Rade’s neck scar or the fact these goblins were so proficient at cleaning up blood spills.
I’d never seen a female deadlander before.
Azarin was pretty. This girl was downright stunning.
I’d thought everyone from her realm had stark white hair, because that was what I’d seen in Acheron, but her hair was as pitch-black as her eyes and her skin was the color of the snow clouds you could see once you got out from under the Slump.
Eerie beauty aside, I was also several inches taller, and though I was lean from going hungry so often over the last few months, I still probably outweighed her by fifty pounds or more of Red miner muscle.
There was no way I could in good conscience hit her, let alone shoot her or set her on fire.
We stopped fifteen feet apart with the announcer between us.
Unlike his boss, the announcer was human, and from the eye patch and general disfigurement, was himself a veteran of the arena.
“You know the rules. Normal weapons are fine. Normal spells are fine. You’re both rank ones, so you can’t do much anyway.
You quit after two protective charges go off or your opponent yields.
No endangering the audience or I’ll shoot you myself.
Now you’ll return to your corners, I’ll get out of the way, and upon my command, you shall proceed to harm each other to the best of your abilities. Any questions?”
“Yeah.” I gestured toward the girl. “What’s this?”
“It’s your demise,” she answered before the announcer could. “That feeling you’re experiencing is the sense of impending doom.”
“Clotz’s arena, mate. Clotz’s rules,” the old timer told me as he backed up. “Good luck.”
“Maybe goblins beat their women, but we don’t do that where I’m from.”
“Don’t worry, hotlander. You’ll be out long before you get close enough to lay a hand on me.” She spun around with a dramatic cloak flip and walked back toward her gate.
“Shit…” What was I supposed to do now? My saint rewarded stubborn determination, but I suspected Ketekunan—being as he was from Fogo before being promoted by the gods—would frown upon me striking a woman.
As I walked to my start position, I saw Rade sitting above, and shouted at him, “You didn’t tell me Dathka is a girl’s name.”
“How would I know? I’ve never been to Surnod Lin. It’s on the other side of the plane. I hear they’re odd there.”
So the fake noble from a town built on top of an ancient tomb city found someone odd? “I can’t hit a lady, Rade.”
“If she wanted to be ladylike, she wouldn’t be here, Carnavon. Get your head right.”
The announcer had his own little bunker carved into the wall to duck into during the fight. He looked toward Dathka—who was ready—then toward me—who clearly was not—and shouted “Fight!” anyway.
She drew a pistol, lightning fast, and plugged me square in the chest.