Thirty-Eight
As we walk in, I can see straight across the arena.
Our opponents are spreading out, Gestian to our left, Vripiai and Quech to our right.
Apparently they’re thinking along the same lines, keeping the two fights separate in spite of Alzimyth’s whimsical decree.
But if Vripiai beats Star it’ll have no trouble crushing Ky. As if I needed more pressure.
Ky’s breath comes fast, and her hand is tight on her sword. Her eyes are locked on Gestian, and when I touch her shoulder she nearly starts out of her skin. She looks up at me with wide blue eyes.
“Don’t die, all right?” I tell her.
“I know. I’m not going to leave you in the lurch—”
“No. I mean, that too, but just…” I swallow and squeeze her shoulder. “Don’t die?”
“Oh.” She quirks her lip in a half smile. “Okay. You too.”
“Do my best.”
Ky jogs off toward Gestian, snapping her sword open. On the other side of the arena, Vripiai is coming in fast, with Quech sauntering behind.
I may not be able to stay close, so remember the plan.
[Tenderness: don’t die, meat creature.]
Yeah, yeah. You know you’d miss me.
[Analysis: possibly. Briefly.]
Let’s not get sappy. I hesitate, then clench my jaw. If you get a shot at Quech, take it.
[Anticipation: oh, I intend to.]
“Been waiting for this!” Quech calls out as he approaches. “I think these Hod fighters are worse than the ones on Malkuth. ‘Honor’ this and ‘It’s not done’ that. You, at least, understand.” He gives me a broad, mad grin. “Winning is all that matters.”
Vripiai lunges, terrifyingly fast. Star leaps aside, and the snake’s head slams into the stone where he was standing, raising a cloud of dust and splinters. Quech laughs.
“You’ve learned something!”
But Star isn’t finished. His arc takes him against one of the piles of crates, and he uses the surface to quickly reverse direction, sailing over Vripiai’s coils.
One of his legs slashes down as he passes, leaving a sparking rent in Vripiai’s enamel coat.
The snake’s tail stabs after him, but Star is already well out of range, skidding on all eight legs across the stone.
“One of us learned something, anyway,” I say.
Quech is no longer smiling.
From the other side of the arena, I hear the skirl of blades. Ky and Gestian circle each other, cautious, almost stately. At intervals the two crescents of razor-sharp steel lick out and meet between them. I have no idea who’s winning, and little time to wonder.
Quech mutters orders, and Vripiai lunges after Star.
The snake alternates lunges with lightning-quick jabs with its spiked tail, the coils of its body winding sideways to keep both weapons in play.
Star ducks and dodges, retreating and leaping back in, but he can’t get close enough to land a serious hit.
So far so good. Wait for an opening.
[Alarm: watch yourself!]
Quech is coming for me, breaking into a charge, his arms spread wide as though for an embrace. I scramble backward. Every instinct screams at me to keep my attention on Star’s fight, but I finally have to turn and run.
I can handle him!
[Doubt: his biceps are thicker than your head.]
Just stay on the snake.
I reach a tower of crates, grab the lowest level, and hoist myself up just before Quech arrives.
The big man grabs for my legs, but I dance backward as he parallels me.
He gets ahead, grabs the edge, and pulls himself up easily, but it gives me a second to run the other way.
I have two strong memories competing for prominence—playing keep-away with Somi and a younger Spike, dodging around the firepit back at our homestead; ducking the blades of a thrashing Twisted deep in the tunnels while Star positioned himself for the kill.
Both have prepared me well for this; Quech is frowning, already sweating, and I’m barely breathing hard.
Back on the arena floor, Vripiai has pushed Star away from me, back toward the edge of the arena.
If Quech’s goal is to keep me from supplying orders, though, he’s going to be disappointed; Vripiai needs his attention more than Star needs mine.
The fight between Ky and Gestian has grown more intense, the older man using his size and reach mercilessly, battering at Ky’s defenses without giving her a chance to respond.
She’s giving ground, and the way they’ve turned means she’s backing toward the runic fight, though there’s still plenty of room—
Quech’s grin returns. “Vripiai! Take the girl!”
The snake aborts a lunge, leaving Star leaping away and out of position. It snaps around and slithers full speed, shockingly fast for so large a thing, heading for Ky’s back as though this had been their plan all along.
Star, help her!
[Assessment: not fast enough!] Star’s voice is strained. [Prime a BLAST!]
It’s too soon— I cut off, because it’s obvious he’s right, there’s no other way.
I reach out and activate one of the weapons in Star’s carapace, tripping its preset timer.
Star lets it drop and snags it with his manipulator, passing it smoothly to one of his fighting legs as he turns his run into a spin.
He harnesses all his momentum to hurl the melon-sized metal sphere ahead of him in an arc that brings it down between Ky and the rapidly closing snake.
The bomb hits a crate pile in Vripiai’s path, bouncing once before detonating in a bloody crimson fireball.
Wood shatters, big chunks of crate erupting into the air while splinters fly everywhere.
Both Ky and Gestian throw themselves flat, and Vripiai rears in surprise.
That gives Star the seconds he needs to catch up, and he throws himself at the snake from behind.
Two of his limbs stab into Vripiai’s body, yellow-orange sparks fountaining out like arterial spray.
Vripiai’s tail whips out before Star can get away, clipping his carapace and sending him spinning backward into another crate pile.
Now it’s Quech who has his eyes on the runic fight. I can’t let him keep giving Vripiai orders; Star’s independence is our best advantage. So, against every urging of good sense, I take a quick run-up and leap onto his back, my arms closing around his bull-thick neck.
“You… little… runt!” Quech snarls, staggering forward under my weight. “What… the fuck… do you think you’re doing?”
I’m beginning to question that myself. Fuck me, he’s a big bastard, at least thirty centimeters taller than me; my feet dangle to the middle of his thighs.
I tighten my grip, though his neck seems to be lined with stone, and start aiming kicks into the backs of his knees.
He gives a pained bellow and spins round, grabbing for me with both hands.
His fingers pry at my arms, then dig into my hair.
He yanks hard, and I screech in pain. The only thing in easy reach is his ear, so I lean forward and close my teeth on it.
I taste hot blood on my tongue, and he screams.
Then the air goes out of me and stars shoot across my vision.
Quech has surged backward, crushing me between a crate and his considerable bulk.
The back of my head is suddenly screaming, and I feel shooting pains through my ribs.
I briefly manage to keep my hold on his neck, but he lurches forward and then does it again.
For a second my world goes black. When it clears I’m on the ground, coughing blood onto the flagstones, and Quech is standing over me.
He’s swaying slightly, one hand clapped to his torn ear, his breath ragged.
“Stupid little fucker!” he roars, and swings a kick at my midsection. It’s all I can do to roll and take it on my side; pain explodes through me, and I’m pretty sure at least one rib cracks. I try to call for Star, but I can’t focus my thoughts—I don’t know where he is, anyway, or what’s happening—
“You.” Quech glares down at me and raises his oversized boot. “I am going to take my time with—”
Then he leaps backward as steel ribbon slashes through the space above me. Ky vaults over me, still swinging, and Quech has to keep backing up. He looks over his shoulder and ducks around the pile of crates. Ky doesn’t pursue, and instead drops to my side to help me sit up.
“Taj? Taj, say something, that’s a lot of fucking blood!”
“’m not dead yet,” I mutter. I reach around to the back of my head, where my hair is thickly matted with gore. I can feel several deep cuts where my skull met the crate, but at least the bone seems intact. “Be okay. Where’s Star?”
“Somewhere over there. Gestian’s coming.” Ky extends a hand and with her assistance I reach my feet, wobbling only a little. I concentrate through the heartbeat-fast throbs in my head, trying to focus.
Star, report!
[Relief: lost you for a moment.]
Apparently having my brains scrambled will do that. You okay?
[Frustration: Vripiai is fighting to delay. But if I leave it, it will come after you or Ky.]
Which, unfortunately, makes sense if they think Gestian has the upper hand. Just as Vripiai could crush Ky, I wouldn’t last long unarmed against the swordsman.
I glance at Ky. She’s not looking great herself, grimed with smoke from the explosion, a few cuts staining her clothes with blood.
“How committed are you to the whole honorable combat thing?” I ask her.
“Think that’s pretty much out the window,” she says. “You have an idea?”
I nod. Star, can you get Vripiai to chase you?
[Humorous: I don’t think I can get it to stop.]
All right, listen up—
Star leaps aside, and Vripiai slams headfirst into a pile of crates, making almost as much of a mess of them as the BLAST did.
The snake surges out of the wreckage immediately, sloughing off broken bits of wood.
I run over, keeping a wary eye out for Quech.
Ahead of me, Ky has spotted Gestian, and the two are squaring off once again.
The swordsman seems untouched by the battle save for a smudge on his cheek.
“Stubborn,” he says, raising his blade in a little salute. “I’ll give you that, student of mine.”
“I’d say I learned it from you,” Ky says, “but Father always told me I was born like this.”
“Stubbornness is a fine thing, until it gets you killed.” Gestian shakes his head. “I’m sorry it has to be like this, you know.”
“No, you’re not,” Ky snaps.
“No,” he admits, with a punchable smile. “I’m not.”
He lunges for her, feinting left, swinging right, nearly too fast for my eyes to follow.
But Ky is up to the challenge, her thin blade meeting his heavier one, the edges shedding fat white sparks.
They circle, swords flickering. Ky takes a cut to her sword arm and my breath catches, but she grits her teeth and counterattacks, driving Gestian briefly backward.
Which means, as she’s carefully maneuvered him around, back in my direction. Amid the rubble of the boxes I’ve found what I’m looking for. Now I have a long, ugly shard of wood in my right hand, narrowing to a vicious point. When Gestian turns his back on me, I level the thing and charge.
I very nearly lose my head for my trouble; Gestian isn’t called a swordmaster for nothing.
He hears me coming, drives Ky back with a wide slash, and spins into a cut that would have decapitated me if I hadn’t been coming in low.
My splinter grazes his thigh, but that’s all.
In response he sweeps his blade down to cut me in half.
But I’m already running for it, after dropping what I carry in my left hand—a metal sphere that Star left behind for me in the wreckage.
I don’t know if Gestian recognizes the weapon or just makes an informed guess, but he runs, too, in the opposite direction.
Three seconds later the timer runs out and the BLAST detonates with a roar.
I throw myself flat, feeling heat lick at my back and splinters whizz by overhead.
A moment later I roll over—ow ow ow my ribs—and climb back to my feet, looking through the smoke for the swordsman.
He’s on the ground, too, and for the moment he’s staying there. Ky, forewarned, kept well away before the weapon exploded. Now she’s taken the opportunity to rush back in, putting her foot on Gestian’s sword and her blade at his throat.
I love it when a plan works out neatly.
I hurry over, ears ringing, while somewhere else in the arena the rampaging runics reduce another tower of crates to splinters. Gestian and Ky stare at each other with mutual loathing, both panting.
“Well?” Gestian says. “What are you waiting for?”
“Who killed my father?”
“You want me to say it?” the swordsman spits. “I killed him. You know I did. A dagger in the back in a cloakroom. You want to know how he died? If he begged for mercy?”
“I want to know who gave you the order,” Ky says. “You’re not smart enough to plan a coup.”
“Go fuck yourself, girl,” Gestian says hoarsely. “You won’t let me live, so why should I—”
“Taj,” Ky snaps without looking up, “stomp on his fingers.”
I comply, and happily. There was a point when I said I wasn’t Ky’s thug, but I make an exception for smarmy assholes who try to kill me.
“I don’t want to let you live,” Ky says while he howls.
“But I will. Because ultimately you don’t matter, Gestian.
You’re not important. You’re the knife, and I want the hand.
Was it Devon Dreikin? You jumped in his lap happily enough.
Or did the du Freis get tired of being scavengers and decide to go for the kill? Or—”
“It wasn’t them,” Gestian gasps. “Not anyone on the Council.”
“Then who?” Ky is practically screaming. “Don’t lie to me!”
“None of them!” he shrieks. I press down harder, and Gestian’s voice rises in pitch. “The order came from Above!”
“Above?” Ky seems utterly at a loss. “Why? Why would Above want to kill my father?!”
[Warning: Taj, run!]
I glance up, grab Ky’s arm, and drag her into a sprint. An instant later, Vripiai crashes down where the three of us had been standing, tons of metal coils obliterating the screaming Gestian like a child crushing an anthill.