The First Champion

by Sandell Wall

  Lacrael did not think she would fit, but she had to try. She got on her hands and knees and squeezed herself into the tiny opening. Her armored torso got caught on an outcropping of stone. Lacrael placed her hands on the wall on the other side and pulled with all of her remaining strength.

  At last, the rock broke away, and Lacrael slid the rest of the way into the alcove. The monster was just outside—she heard it snuffling around the hole. Lacrael threw her hands out in front of her, certain she would smack into the back of the stony recess. To her surprise, she found only open space.

  Lacrael crawled forward in desperation, determined to put as much distance between her and the entrance as possible. She found only blackness, but she sensed the space opening up around her. It must be widening into a proper cave.

  In her haste, she did not give thought to the dangers of crawling through an unknown cavern. Lacrael’s hands went over the edge of a drop, and her body followed before she could arrest her fall.

  Shouting in shocked terror, Lacrael careened downward in absolute darkness. She slid on a steep slope of rock for what seemed like an eternity. When she crashed to a stop, Lacrael lay there stunned and too terrified to move.

  It took Lacrael a moment to realize that her eyes were squeezed shut. She opened them. All around her, a faint, ethereal light suffused the cave. It was pale and colorless in a way that made Lacrael slightly nauseous. She turned her head to try and find the source. What she found took her breath away.

  She had come to rest on a ledge above the floor of a vast underground cavern. The floor of this cave was covered in crystals. These crystals varied in size, some as small as an apple, and others reaching to a diamond point above the floor higher than Lacrael’s head. They were all jumbled atop each other, and Lacrael could not tell if they were many individual stones or just one big formation. Miasma hung over the floor, and the crystals seemed to be drinking it. Each one pulsed with the same eerie, lifeless light.

  Lacrael had found the crystalized miasma.

  Chapter 51

  MAZAREEM SPENT ALL NIGHT trying to die.

  Morricant had been furious when she recovered from his surprise assault, and the first thing she had done was place another suppression collar around his neck. This collar effectively cut Mazareem off from the spirit world, which was going to make searching for Rowen impossible. The only chance Mazareem had now was to use his own soul to bridge the gap between the physical and the incorporeal.

  But to Mazareem’s surprise and frustration, his body resisted his embrace of death. He turned his gaze inward, and in the long hours of the night, strung up in the empty arena, he tried to harness the rhythms of his body as he had done countless times before. His flesh should be weak. It had been days since Mazareem had been able to feed, and Morricant had stolen Abimelech’s scale from him.

  Instead, Mazareem discovered that his strength was returning. Morricant had changed something inside him. Rather than succumb to Abimelech’s curse without the antidote, his body was now sustaining itself. Had Morricant intended this, or was it a side effect of the torture?

  Whatever the reason, it prevented Mazareem from bringing his soul to the threshold of the afterlife, from which he could have reached for Rowen, collar be damned. After several long hours of internal struggle, Mazareem gave up. The only way he would be able to communicate with the spirit realm was if Morricant brought him to the edge with whatever she intended to do tomorrow.

  Mazareem suspected the chances of this were remote. After his reckless attack, Morricant would be wary of another, and she would ensure that he remained cut off from the spirit realm. In the back of his mind, Mazareem harbored the growing fear that Morricant had made him her tool. Deliverance from Abimelech’s curse had not made him free—a new master had supplanted the old one. Defeated, Mazareem hung his head in disgust. The plan had been hopeless anyway.

  The others would die cursing his name when their powers did not return as promised. Not that he cared. But he had been looking forward to the chaos Lacrael’s fire would have caused. Mazareem glanced towards the holding cells where he knew Kaiser waited. The man had a touch for the dramatic. Would he try to kill Mazareem before he fell?

  In the midst of these morose wonderings, a single brilliant thought inserted itself into Mazareem’s mind. He inspected this interloper, fully aware that it had come from outside himself. This invading idea provided another possible outcome. If Mazareem had help from the other side, if someone in the spirit realm reached for him at the same time, he might still be able to overcome the collar and contact Rowen.

  Sunlight touched Mazareem’s face, and he raised his head to watch the morning sun begin to rise above the colosseum wall. So, Rowen was not done with him. Even now, the disgraced high king watched and waited. How much of this was according to his plan? Mazareem felt the invisible strings of a puppeteer manipulating his actions, and they cut worse than Morricant’s ribbons. Rowen did not offer aid without a price.

  Mazareem closed his eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on his face. It had been so long since he had been able to relish the simple pleasures of life. A thousand years ago, he had chosen Morricant over Rowen. She had whispered promises of her husband’s throne in his ear, and Mazareem’s pride had listened. In the end, their forbidden love had led to the destruction of the high king. Their betrayal of Rowen had helped usher in a new age of Abimelech’s tyranny. The irony was not lost on Mazareem that to protect himself from Morricant, he now had to do the opposite: embrace Rowen.

  Had this been Rowen’s plan all along? Mazareem could not understand it. He had betrayed Rowen and then Morricant. Why, after all these years, would Mazareem’s first master seek his allegiance a second time? The why of it eluded him, but the truth remained. Without Rowen’s timely intervention back in the House Gorvan compound, Mazareem would be dead or worse right now.

  “Have it your way,” Mazareem said to the dawn. He wondered if Rowen could hear him. “Shield me from Morricant’s dark designs, hide me from Abimelech’s wrath, and I’ll join myself to your cause.”

  Chapter 52

  KAISER WATCHED THE SUNRISE through the bars of his cell. Mazareem still stood between the pillars in the center of the arena. It might be some trick of the early light, but Kaiser thought the man looked stronger than he had last night. He hoped this was a good omen that Mazareem would do as promised.

  The first few onlookers were straggling into the colosseum. Kaiser took this as an indication that the day’s festivities would have an early start, and sure enough, moments later, the door to their large cell swung open.

  At the noise of the squealing hinges, Brant roused himself from sleep and got up from the floor. He stood next to Kaiser as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  “I had terrible dreams,” Brant said. “This place is filled with death.”

  Kaiser did not respond. Between nightmares about Tarathine and Sorrell, his fitful sleep had been haunted with visions of gore, but he was not about to admit that to Brant.

  A squad of tomb keepers entered the room and shut the door behind them. Instead of ushering the fighters out of the cell, they intended to lower them down into the arena on a large wooden platform set in the middle of the floor. Kaiser had inspected it the night before. Usually, such devices were used to raise combatants up into the colosseum, not down.

  “I guess we're not getting breakfast,” Brant said.

  At the prompting of the armored women, Kaiser and Brant joined the other men on the platform. They all fit with room to spare. One of the women shouted out the door, and a few seconds later, the lift lurched into motion. Brant almost lost his balance.

  Brant cast a furtive glance at the men surrounding them. He leaned in close to Kaiser to whisper, even though the others could not understand his words.

  “Are we going to be fighting these men?” Brant asked.

  Kaiser shook his head. “They’ll want to slaughter the lot of us with professional soldiers. Tomb keepers, most l
ikely. We’re here to tantalize the crowd, not provide a contest.”

  “And we’re supposed to just survive until something happens?”

  “For as long as possible. If Mazareem doesn’t come through on his promise, we’ll have to carve our way out.”

  Brant went silent as he considered this. The chains of the lift rattled as they were lowered the rest of the way down. The wooden platform hit the sandy ground with a thud. Kaiser scanned the room at the bottom, and as he anticipated, they were standing in a crude armory.

  Worn-down weapons, shields, and random pieces of armor lined the stone walls. Nets, javelins, and other cruel-looking projectiles were stacked on the ground. The side of the room facing the arena was a massive wooden gate, which would be raised when the time came to fight. Sunlight filtered through the crisscrossed bars of this gate. Kaiser approached it to inspect the arena beyond.

  Beneath the warm morning sun, pockets of tomb keepers gathered on the colosseum floor. Their ornate, gilded armor shone brightly in the dawn’s clear light. The different groups kept a good distance between them, and Kaiser noticed that they were separated by livery. That made sense. Each house that could spare tomb keepers would probably want to claim as much honor as possible for their own reputation.

  That might work to Kaiser’s advantage. Rather than facing a coordinated force, the doomed fighters would be going up against many individual squads. The tomb keepers would have no single leader or tactic, and they would not overextend themselves to help anyone not of their house. They would be counting on the fighters to be panicked, disorganized, and easily picked off.

  Kaiser had other ideas. He turned back to the room as a plan began to form in his mind. The veterans who had fought in the arena before were already arming themselves. They had gone straight to their favorite weapons and made sure no one else would claim them. It was obvious to Kaiser that these men had an agreement between themselves. They intended to let the new blood do the dying. As long as enough blood was spilled to entertain the crowd, there was no reason every combatant had to be slain.

  Other than the fifteen veterans, there were thirty-five men who were a mixture of experience and stature. Some of them tried to follow the example of the seasoned warriors, and they armed themselves as best they could. A few of them simply cowered in the corner, whimpering when anyone came too close.

  If Kaiser and Brant were going to survive long enough to get through this, he needed every single one of these men to follow his command, and he did not have time to explain to them that it was in their best interest to do so. Kaiser made straight for the sleeveless swordsman from the camp.

  The swordsman appeared relaxed and unconcerned. Kaiser got the man’s attention, and once he had it, he knelt in the sand. He used his finger to sketch the rough positions of the tomb keeper squads he had seen outside. By his count, they outnumbered the fighters two to one. However, they were spread out, and would probably not fight as a combined force.

  Kaiser mapped out in the sand how he expected the fight to go. He drew a line to represent the fighters advancing into the arena. This line moved as a unit, and it went from one pocket of tomb keepers to the next, surrounding them and killing them before the others could react.

  After dispatching three or four squads in this manner, Kaiser formed up the line of fighters with their backs to the arena wall. Now, he showed the remaining tomb keepers bunching up to fight as a massed force. They were not so stupid to allow themselves to be separated and slaughtered for long.

  The swordsman watched all of this but did not show any sign of great interest. Kaiser hopped to his feet and snatched a shield off the wall. He tossed it to the swordsman and grabbed a second one. Shield in hand, Kaiser stood next to the swordsman and raised it so that their two shields were overlapping. He pointed down at the line in the sand that represented the fighters.

  “Shield wall,” Kaiser said.

  He knew the man could not understand his words, but the meaning was clear enough. After a few seconds, the swordsman nodded his head to indicate he got it. Encouraged by this progress, Kaiser raised an arm and gestured at the room full of fighters. He raised a questioning eyebrow at the swordsman.

  The swordsman shrugged and nodded at the veterans who had already distanced themselves from everyone else. He shook his head, and Kaiser knew what he meant to say. Kaiser’s plan was a good one, but only so far as the others would follow it. And the experienced warriors would never listen to him.

  Well, Kaiser could fix that. He went to stand next to Brant, who was testing the heft of a wicked-looking greataxe. The fearsome weapon looked tiny in Brant’s huge hands.

  “I’m going to have to make an example out of some of these men,” Kaiser said. “Whatever happens, don’t get involved.”

  Kaiser moved away before Brant could say anything. Brant would not approve of his methods, and Kaiser did not have the time or patience to argue. Now was the time for unflinching resolve. It was the only way they would survive the next hour. The reaver still lurked inside Kaiser, eager for any excuse to get out, and for the first time since leaving Northmark, he gave the reaver control.

  The veterans stood well away from the others on the far side of the large space, and they all turned to watch Kaiser approach as he stalked across the sandy floor. Behind Kaiser, the murmurs of the other men quieted as they also stopped to watch what he was about. This was exactly what he wanted. Kaiser needed everyone's full attention on what was about to happen.

  Kaiser picked the biggest, ugliest brute and strode right up to the man. Almost as big as Brant, the man stood a head taller than Kaiser and was at least twice as heavy. He looked down at Kaiser from behind a thick, bushy black beard. The wiry hair on his heavily muscled chest was patchy, much of it hacked off and replaced by a hundred twisted scars.

  “I know you can’t understand me, but I’m going to try anyway,” Kaiser said. “I’ve got a plan for what’s going to happen once that gate opens, and you’re going to follow it.”

  The tone of Kaiser’s voice was enough to cause the man to sneer. Kaiser ignored this. He knelt in the sand and started to reproduce the sketch he had drawn a few moments earlier. Uttering some guttural insult that produced a laugh from his comrades, the man stepped forward and kicked the sand into Kaiser’s face.

  Kaiser had expected this, and he was ready for it. He surged to his feet. Before the brute regained his balance, Kaiser kicked at the knee of his back leg. All the man’s weight rested on that leg, and Kaiser’s heel forced the knee out of joint with an ugly crack. With a bellow of angry surprise, the man fell forward. Kaiser’s glowing blue scimitar was there to meet him. Slicing upward against the brute’s collapse, Kaiser severed head from body in one clean stroke. He caught the disembodied head by its greasy black hair.

  No one moved or spoke. Kaiser stood over the decapitated body and let what had just happened sink in. Finally, when he decided the moment was right, Kaiser turned and tossed the head into the open space between the two groups. He raised his ethereal sword to point at the swordsman.

  “Shield wall,” Kaiser said.

  The man stared at Kaiser with a new respect in his eyes. That, and a healthy dose of fear. He could not tear his gaze away from the spectral scimitar in Kaiser’s hand. Kaiser let the sword vanish, and the swordsman blinked in surprise.

  Galvanized by Kaiser’s act of violence, and no doubt convinced by the demonstration of Kaiser’s supernatural powers, the swordsman jumped into action. He called the others to him, and even the veterans obeyed. The swordsman reproduced Kaiser’s drawings in the dirt as he explained how the fight would go.

  Soon, they had a shield wall lined up facing the gate. The wall stood twenty men across and two deep. Fortunately, they found just enough shields and one-handed weapons to equip the first rank. The back rank would rely on them for protection. This left ten men to range on the sides and prevent a flanking movement while the battle line targeted the vulnerable tomb keeper squads.

&nbs
p; Kaiser and Brant took up positions on the right flank. Brant still carried the giant axe, preferring its reach to the protection of a shield. Kaiser strapped a round shield to his left arm. A battered spear stuck out of the ground at his feet. The few breastplates, helmets, and greaves available had gone to the men in the shield wall. Kaiser and Brant still wore their simple cloth tunics.

  “A year ago, I would have called that murder,” Brant said.

  “And now?” Kaiser asked as he picked up his spear.

  “I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t trade my life for that man.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, he’s probably killed a hundred innocent men in the arena.”

  Outside, the sounds of the crowd had grown louder over the course of the last hour. Suddenly, the murmuring fell silent, and a moment later, the booming voice of an orator echoed through the colosseum. The gate would open soon—Kaiser could feel it.

  “You’ve never fought in anything like this before,” Kaiser said. “However bad you’re thinking it will be, it’s worse. The real battle is keeping your wits about you. As soon as you step out before that roaring crowd, your head will go as empty as a hollow gourd. No matter what, keep moving. Stay with me, and you’ll stay alive.”

  Brant nodded and hefted his axe. His knuckles were white around the wooden handle.

  Kaiser checked the shield wall one last time. The most formidable fighters were in the front, and the swordsman had placed himself in the center. The cowards and weaker specimens were in the back rank, equipped with long spears, poleaxes, and billhooks. In addition to these polearms, they carried crude projectiles—darts, knives, and axes—strapped around their waists. These missiles would force the tomb keepers’ heads down while the shield wall closed to killing distance.

  The orator’s speech reached a crescendo, and the crowd roared in response. Twenty thousand feet stomped in unison, and the noise rattled like thunder above Kaiser’s head. A moment later, the gate in front of them started to winch slowly open.