Gladiators of Warsong

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  "They knew more than that," said Sophia. "They knew exactly who would be in the circle, down to the specific healers."

  "How do you know this?" she asked.

  "During the battle, I noticed that Altraus the Knife was using a specific magical dagger that is best against water-based healers, which the two in the circle were specialists of. It would have increased his damage against them by fifty percent," she said. "All nine of our other healers are earth and air, the former being the most prominent. If they were guessing, they would have picked earth."

  "No wonder he one-shotted them," said Alex.

  Sophia looked pained by what she had to say. "Which means it's likely that the information came from one of our group."

  Alex opened her mouth to argue, but closed it in frustration. Looking away, she asked, "Do you suspect anyone?"

  "There's been little interaction between the camps since the final challenge," said Sophia. "So there's little opportunity for most of our gladiators to share the information."

  "Except for Sorrow and Nayiri," said Alex, squeezing her lips tight.

  "I'm sorry, Battleleader," said Sophia. "You have to consider it. I know what Nayiri is, and changelings are capricious creatures. As strong as your feelings are for her, you must consider that she might be a spy. It would be dangerous to leave yourself exposed. You know that changelings have the Assassination skill, and they can deal massive amounts of damage to those they have betrayed. If you're wrong about her, she could kill you in one blow. And Sorrow, he spent weeks visiting the clans, they could have compromised him during that time."

  "I am aware of their abilities," said Alex, putting a hand over her eyes. "But I really don't need this right now."

  "I'm sorry, Battleleader. Maybe I should have stayed quiet," said Sophia, glancing at the floor.

  "No, you were right to bring it up," she said. "Do you have a suggestion?"

  "That kind of guile is not my forte," said Sophia. "It's enough for me to learn how to be devious in the battle circle."

  "Anything else?"

  "No, Battleleader," said Sophia. "I'll head to the longhouse and start working with the team, covertly, of course."

  "Thank you, Sophia."

  After her second-in-command left, Alex knelt down and grabbed a handful of dirt. She shook it through her fingers, enjoying the way the dusty soil slipped through them.

  "If something feels real can I really trust it?" she asked aloud, thinking about not only the loyalty of her closest companions, but her relationship with Nayiri.

  Dr. Althud's comments about her not trusting anyone because of the loss of her father, and nearly her mother, bubbled up from the depths of her mind. He'd suggested that she threw herself into her games as a way to avoid forming new relationships.

  But now Sophia's information clouded her reasoning. She'd been allowing herself to form a bond with Nayiri, with the group in general, but this news cut deeply. Kneeling in her hut, in the middle of the Bravebear camp filled with loyal followers, on the precipice of victory, Alex had never felt more alone.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The morning of the second battle was met with bad news. Alex was standing outside her hut watching the sun rise when Sorrow approached. The dark-eyed bard opened his mouth to speak, but seeing the line of her gaze, turned and watched with her.

  The sky burned in crimson, a gash across the horizon, a portent of the fights to come. Alex wondered how many more wounds she would have to take to become the Champion of Warsong.

  When only pinks remained, Sorrow finally spoke.

  "The arena has changed," he said.

  Alex wrinkled her forehead. "Changed?"

  "I was out taking my morning stroll," he said.

  "I never took you for a morning person," she said.

  Sorrow looked away, skewing his lips to the side. "I was coming back from the other camp. There's a gladiator who doesn't mind my moroseness, and he has nice eyes."

  Sophia's accusation came back in full, though Alex pushed it away. If he was the spy, why would he admit that he was sleeping with one of the Fallen Phoenixes? Unless he knew that his loyalty was in question and was trying to allay concerns.

  "Get to the point. You were talking about the arena," she said, hearing the briskness in her tone and regretting it based on his slight flinch.

  "They changed it last night. I heard the sounds of construction, but was...uhm, too busy to think much about it. But when I was returning, I saw something strange in the arena, so I visited. They've put up pillars and platforms, so it's no longer a flat circle," said Sorrow.

  Alex rubbed the back of her neck while she paced away, wanting to punch a wall. She made a little scream of frustration, which drew a bleary-eyed Nayiri from the hut.

  "What's going on?" she asked as she rubbed her face with her palm.

  "They changed the arena," said Alex, then quickly explained what Sorrow had told her.

  "Can't you change the teams?" asked Nayiri.

  "I just sent Mancalf up to the arena with our stones," said Alex. "The only thing we can do is adjust our equipment to compensate."

  What she didn't say was that the arena was the worst setup for her team structure. They were mostly melee, which would mean the platforms and elevated surfaces would nullify their strengths. Once again, it seemed they'd been betrayed.

  When she realized that she wasn't speaking of her suspicions because the two people who were mostly likely to be traitors were standing nearby, her stomach panged with ache. It was hard enough with her team at her back, but knowing that one of them was secretly working against her hurt more than she wanted to admit. Only the upcoming fight kept her focused or she would have thrown herself back into the furs.

  "Send the team to my hut," said Alex. "We need to make last-second adjustments."

  When they gathered together, they did their best to shore up the weaknesses that the new setup would bring, but had she known they were going to modify the arena, she would have sent the original team. A fact that Sophia was professional enough not to point out.

  She also sent Blaze to the other camp to argue that they couldn't change the arena during the night, but there was no rule against it, so she knew he wouldn't be successful challenging it.

  Before she knew it, Alex was back in the battle circle, waiting for her opponents to enter.

  When Judith was called to the center, Alex's jaw slipped down. She'd been almost certain that she'd see the battleleader in the final battle, not the second. Her confusion was doubled when she analyzed her.

  Judith the Crusher, Fallen Phoenix: Elite, Level 31

  Not only had she joined the second match, but she wasn't the battleleader either. When she glanced into the stands, she saw Tormane staring at her with a self-satisfied smile on his lips. If he was the final battle, then he'd be jacked up with powers and abilities, even more so than when she'd faced him for lead of the Bravebears.

  All thoughts of the future battle disappeared when the other four gladiators joined Judith. A pair of twins, one male and one female, wielding what looked like metal umbrellas, wore sleek leather armor with ropes hanging from their belts and entered the arena with flourishes as the arena applauded them.

  The next two, a short squat man with a bright red beard and a lithe dark-skinned woman wearing an eyepatch, took to the arena, each of them wielding thick crossbows with runes covering the sides.

  "You can give up now if you want to save yourself from embarrassment," said Judith, staring down at Alex as if it were the weigh-in at a prize fight.

  "Not a chance," said Alex, squaring off with the opposing gladiator even as her heart jackrabbited around in her chest.

  "When the clan bleeds," said Judith.

  Instead of returning the ritual words, Alex quickly ran back to her team, gathering them around her as hisses and expletives rained down.

  "They're going to take the high ground and punish us with their ranged weapons. I'll try and distract them, but the four o
f you go for one of the crossbows. If you can take them out, grab their weapon. It's the only way we're going to beat them," said Alex.

  The two net warriors looked at each other. "I've never used a crossbow."

  "Me either," said the second.

  "You get to learn today. Point and shoot," she said.

  The looks her team gave her didn't inspire confidence, but it was too late. They were going to fight whether they wanted to or not.

  Alex took position on her half of the circle, right at the edge of her whip range.

  "It bleeds as one."

  "Begin!"

  Alex wasted no time, hitting Judith with Whip Tricks, knowing that her higher level would make it more difficult, but to her surprise, the massive woman froze, teetering in place as the spell confused her mind.

  But in this short span, the other four members of Phoenix scurried up the pillars using their ropes, much like she'd done in the Warped Forest mimicking lumberjack contests.

  While Alex looked around to decide where she could best affect the battlefield, Sophia led the others towards the nearest pillar and sent the two net warriors climbing. Then Sophia shook her weapon and it transformed into a massive tower shield that she held in front of the healer.

  Before Alex could move, Judith broke free from her mez, shaking her head as if she were just waking up. The former battleleader raised her arms as if she were encouraging the dead to rise from the soil, but instead of zombies, the air around her swirled into a dust devil.

  The metallic scent of faez filled the air as Judith poured more power into the fierce winds until she unleashed them. The whirling column of dust rushed after Alex, slamming right through her, flinging her to the ground.

  You have taken 45 damage from an angry whirlwind!

  Alex barely climbed to her feet before the living winds accosted her again. She managed to avoid the worst of the damage by flinging herself into a forward roll, coming up behind a pillar.

  Before the dust devil could come around, Alex cast Wind Gust. The straight-line winds pushed at the whirling dust, flattening it on one side, breaking away bits of the airborne earth.

  But while her spell was blocking the dust devil, Judith was creating another. The second air elemental spun after Alex, pinning her against the pillar, bouncing her head off the stone, leaving her ears ringing as she found herself on her hands and knees.

  Alex flung a Dewdrop Orb at Judith, but the crosswinds blew the water into benign spray.

  As the partial and full whirlwinds chased Alex around the pillar, she noticed that one of her net warriors had already been defeated. They were down four to five.

  Spinning metal blades flew from the strange weapons the twins possessed, flying through the air to ping off Sophia's shield, before returning and connecting to the metal pole. Their attacks kept Sophia locked down, unable to move or the blades would slice her healer to ribbons.

  As the stalemate continued, the second net warrior reached the top, right as the woman with the eyepatch and a crossbow hit him in the midsection with a glowing bolt that crackled electricity over his body. Miraculously, he didn't let go or go below zero hit points, mostly because their healer was chain casting from behind Sophia's protective shield.

  But her excitement at seeing him reach the top was short-lived when the other crossbow wielder fired point-blank into his chest, tipping him over the edge.

  Alex saw their chances of winning disappear until he reached out and grabbed the crossbow, taking it to the ground in his death fall.

  Five to three.

  Had they even damaged a single Phoenix yet?

  A third whirlwind joined the others, and Alex fought it off with successive Wind Gusts, but her defense wasn't perfect and sometimes she got sideswiped by one, shaving off more and more health.

  On the other side of the arena, Sophia was keeping the spinning blades at bay while the healer fumbled with the crossbow, but Alex could tell she'd never be able to use the ranged weapon with any accuracy.

  "What do I do?" shouted Sophia from behind her shield.

  "Improvise!" yelled Alex she tried unsuccessfully to mez Judith with Whip Tricks, getting spun into the dirt in response.

  The next few seconds, Alex had to scramble to stay ahead of the dust devils, eventually growing frustrated enough she abandoned the attempt to avoid them, and ran directly at Judith, who was busy maintaining the spells.

  The big woman's eyes widened as she thought Alex was going to slam into her, but Alex dodged around her, letting the whirlwinds crash into Judith. While she managed to avoid going down, one of the dust devils disappeared into haze, the suspended dirt falling to the ground.

  With a moment of respite, Alex redirected a spinning blade into Judith before the pursuing whirlwinds forced her into a scrambling escape. The next minute passed as a giant game of cat and mouse as Alex dodged around the pillars, misdirecting spinning blades into Judith until she was low enough that the former battleleader screamed at her fellow gladiators to focus on Alex.

  Eyes stinging with sweat, Alex had to carefully manage her spells, misdirecting when she could, but the constant fighting had drained her pool to the dregs. Now with two metal spinning blades and two more whirlwinds chasing her down, Alex grew frustrated that she was getting no support from Sophia or the healer, but she couldn't tell what the Battlemaster was doing because Alex was too busy running.

  At the next opportunity, Alex misdirected a spinning blade at the other ranged on the pillar to give herself a window to attack Judith. Before the whirlwinds could chase her down, Alex activated Fighting Spirit so her effective level would be closer to Judith's. Then she snapped her whip at Judith, wrapping the end around her neck.

  You have hit Judith the Crusher with a Shocking Strangulation for 98 damage!

  As she yanked on the whip, cutting off Judith's air supply, warm healing energy flowed into Alex. Between the spell bonus and the heal, she was back above 50%.

  She leaned into the whip, putting her body weight on her neck. Judith's eyes bugged out of her head as she clawed at the weapon.

  Feeling like the tide might be turning in her favor, Alex cried out in surprise as a trident went right through her ribs from behind.

  The woman with the eyepatch had climbed down the pillar, picked up a fallen trident, and stuck it into Alex's back. She was stuck on the end of the weapon, struggling between finishing Judith off and saving herself.

  But she had no time to decide when she looked up to see the other runed crossbow pointed at her. The gladiator with the beard had stopped trying to hit Sophia. Alex put all her strength into finishing off Judith as the glowing bolt was unleashed into her chest from above.

  You have been affected by Heat of the Battle!

  You have defeated Judith the Crusher!

  You have been defeated!

  The shock of defeat reverberated through her like a gong. As a fallen combatant, she collapsed onto her knees, the wounds and weapons no longer affecting her, but she was held in complete stasis.

  Out of the match, she could do nothing but watch as Sophia and the healer faced four gladiators in what looked like overwhelming odds against them, but Alex had faith in her that Sophia could pull out a win.

  Her second-in-command hadn't been idle during this time. Covering Sophia and the healer was a partial-dome structure that reminded Alex of a jungle gym. It took Alex a moment to realize that Sophia had used the Petrify Object spell from Zelda to turn her nets into a mobile defensive structure.

  The stone dome allowed Sophia to fire the stolen runed crossbow at the others, while the metal spinning discs bounced harmlessly off the structure. Only the other crossbow wielder truly threatened her, but Sophia lifted the movable dome above her head and positioned herself right beneath his pillar, which limited his ability to fire at her.

  During this time, the woman that had defeated Alex ran over to the dome, but the trident was too wide to penetrate the holes of the stone net. As she banged uselessly at the
structure, Sophia unloaded the runed crossbow into her chest, killing her with two glowing bolts.

  Then with the dome propped up, Sophia morphed her weapon into a razor-sharp axe and began chopping at the pillar. The guy with the crossbow managed to hit her a couple of times, but the healer kept up with the damage easily. Within a ten-second span, the pillar was toppled, sending it and the gladiator atop to the ground.

  He landed hard, taking half his health, and before he could recover Sophia switched back to the runed crossbow and took him out with a glowing bolt to the groin.

  The two other gladiators looked unsure, yelling at each other to climb down their pillars, but neither wanted to be exposed to the deadly projectiles. Their indecision cost them as Sophia repeated the trick with the first twin's pillar.

  By the time the other slid down and tried to climb underneath the stone dome, he was the only one left, and realizing his mistake as Sophia transformed her weapon into a two-handed sword and chopped him at the neck, ending the match to stunned silence.

  You have defeated the Fallen Phoenix clan's second team!

  Quest Progress: Beat Fallen Phoenix in three battles to win the clan tournament – 2 wins

  You have gained experience: 50,000 XP

  You have gained conquest points: 1,020 CP

  You have gained a unique skill point: +1 Leadership

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Whip Tricks

  +300 Renown for Bravebear Clan

  Special Achievement Reached: You have won a match after you have fallen!

  You have gained experience: 250,000 XP

  You have gained conquest points: 5,000 CP

  You have reached level 26!

  The battle finished, Alex was returned to full health. She ran over to Sophia and threw her arms around the dark-skinned warrior, who looked a little stunned herself.

  "You did it! You improvised! I'm so proud of you," said Alex, face split wide, pride tingling through her body as she pulled away.