by Ben Galley
‘Presenting Lady Nesime of the Diamond Mountains against Hrishnash of the Huskar!’
Only blood and names marked the passage of the day. No sun held sway under the city of Vensk. Death was the meter of the hour. The cries of the defeated were the chime of regular bells.
There was little distraction in the bouts. Only mounting worry that the next names would be Warbringer’s or Aspala’s.
Mercifully, when the fanfare had sounded the end of the first day of the Scarlet Tourney, the last fights had lasted almost an hour each, until finally a throat was cut in a spraying arc of blood.
Fifteen souls had lost their lives in the Viscera that day, and still the crowds clamoured for more. Those who were not trapped in the queues back into the city crowded around the arena’s edge to catch glimpses of their favourite contenders.
Rovisk Dal’Bvara had proven the hero of the first bouts, for reasons the crowd loved but Mithrid and the others had despised. He had toyed with his opponents like a sabrecat with a rabbit, wounding just enough to keep his foe fighting while he flourished and parried in grandiose manoeuvres. Now back in his cell, Rovisk posed and waved at the bars.
‘All style, no substance,’ Farden had growled.
Much to Durnus’ consternation and the healers’ annoyance, Farden had stayed standing at the railing. He had stared at every fight. Even now, as they stamped their way down the steps of the Viscera, he watched the fighters in their cells with sharp interest.
A ringing lingered in Mithrid’s ears. The rumble of feet and voices and scattered cheers seemed like silence to her. One by one, the lanterns around the overhanging struts and highest tiers of the Viscera winked out. The queen vanished within her thin tower. The winch-lifts were at work again, bringing up patrons and servants to tend the fighters.
A broad doorway led down from the tiered seats into the Viscera’s arena floor. It was guarded by a score of soldiers, half of them carrying pikes, the other long crossbows. Each of them wore royal colours of the Golikan wooden armour. Mithrid couldn’t help but ponder what her axe would make of their wooden plates. The angry, fearful part of her wanted to find out. She silently urged them to put up a fuss, no matter the consequences.
‘Halt there! Patrons, are you?’ called the soldier in charge.
Irien tutted. ‘Esteemed spectators, as it happens.’
The soldier looked them up and down. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the state of Farden. The blood had been wiped away but the bruises and cuts still remained.
‘And who might you be?’
‘Lady of Whispers. Golikan nobility and a far cousin of Queen Peskora of Golikar, and I wish to meet the fighters.’
The soldier shook her head. But Mithrid saw her eyes flashing back and forth and her palm creeping out.
‘There’s a price for access,’ she said. ‘Especially for you, Lady of Whispers.’
Irien sighed. ‘Of course! You should’ve mentioned it sooner, good sir.’
Before the woman could argue, Irien slapped a fat leaf of silver into her hand and moved past her.
‘Let them pass,’ the guard hollered to the others.
Broad steps led them a zigzag path down to the arena. More soldiers lined the corridors here. They were not stopped, just stared at. It seemed like a Golikan pastime. One that Mithrid was starting to despise. She glowered back at them.
They were not alone on the floor of the Viscera. Workers scrubbed at blood and shit-stains and tramped fresh clay-dust over them. Other dignitaries and nobles and people rich enough had come down to tour the bars of the cells and stare at the fighters. Even the queen had emerged from her tower. Polished and gleaming soldiers surrounded them in a tight circle, square shields interlocked.
Unsurprisingly, Warbringer had drawn quite a crowd. Fondling their gold necklaces and hitching up their silks, they cooed like pigeons at the minotaur hunched over in the dark of her cell. Quite the opposite, in the nearby cell, Aspala bared her teeth and pounded her fists against the bars.
‘Make way there,’ Irien ordered imperiously. Farden and Mithrid stared down any that looked to object.
Warbringer arose when she saw them. ‘You still alive,’ she rumbled at Farden.
Farden nodded. ‘Somewhat.’
‘Thank Bezarish,’ Aspala breathed. She had an eye so blackened it was almost swollen shut. Ropes had burned her forearms and wrists. ‘We thought they had taken you too.’
‘Who took you?’
‘They not say. Told me if I refuse, you die,’ said Warbringer. ‘That we must fight.’
‘I don’t even have a sword.’
Irien clicked her wooden fingers again and one of her guards came forwards with a cloth bundle. She unveiled the gold metal beneath, still warm from the smith’s forge. She moved towards the cages. The soldiers at their peripheries scowled and shook their heads. Irien approached anyway. Mithrid barely caught her handing over the silver bribe. The sword was back in Aspala’s hands in moments. She withdrew into the cell to unveil it in whatever privacy she could get.
‘Who is the patron of these fighters?’ Irien called out. ‘Who entered them?’
Not a soul answered. Irien yelled again, loud enough to attract royal attention. Mithrid caught sight of the queen turning around to stare at the disturbance. Her soldiers began tramping in their direction.
‘Shit. My presence here might have been a mistake,’ Irien said, quickly bowing. The others followed suit, no matter how much it wrinkled Mithrid. By the look on Farden’s face, he felt the same.
The shrill voice arrived before the queen did. Peskora towered over Mithrid by at least a foot.
‘So this is the fighter that would not honour me. And found the presence of my ashamed and banished cousin, no less. Even now it refuses to bow. Are you this beast’s patron, my shamed cousin?’ the queen asked of Irien.
‘I am no beast,’ Warbringer replied with a gnash of teeth.
The queen’s soldiers bristled, lowering their sharp javelins at the minotaur. Shouts rained down from above from lingering spectators.
‘To answer your question, Bountiful Majesty,’ said Irien. ‘We are not their patrons. We are looking for them, however, so we can complain—’
‘Silence,’ ordered the queen. She toured the bars of Warbringer’s cage. Mithrid hoped the minotaur had the sensibility not to throttle the woman.
‘I have heard complaints from patrons and fighters alike. Reasons why I should banish you from the competition. Unfair, they call it,’ Peskora squeaked.
Irien clasped her hands. ‘I would agree, Your Majesty. This is a tournament for those of human nature. Not beasts like this fearsome thing, clearly brought against its will. Just like its master here in the next cell. The bet-takers will not be happy with such sure odds. That’s why we came to petition for their release.’
The queen stared Irien down until the Lady of Whispers bowed again.
‘Strange, for a beast to be so adamant that it is not a beast,’ said the queen. ‘It seems human enough for me.’
Mithrid winced.
‘No. You will be quite the challenge for our fighters. Quite the bloody spectacle you will be.’
Irien tried one last time. ‘If I may, Majesty—’
‘I have spoken!’ Queen Peskora shrieked. ‘They stay. You will go instead. Begone, cousin.’
The javelins turned in their direction. Mithrid found her fingers twitching; felt the cold sensation as her power surged.
‘Mithrid,’ Durnus warned in a whisper. She hadn’t even noticed his hand on her arm.
With their tails between their legs and with glances over their shoulder, Mithrid and the others found themselves escaping into the colder air beyond the Viscera.
‘Durnus?’ asked Farden. The mage stopped, hunched and leaning in the centre of the walkway. He stared up at the complex tangle of city above.
‘Yes, mage?’
‘You’re looking hungry.’
Durnus frowned until Farden elaborated.
‘I think it’s time you and I went hunting.’
Vensk was a city of darkness at night. The Golikans damn well seemed to prefer it. The moon was even less adept at puncturing the foliage. Wherever a glow-worm lantern didn’t shine, shadows ruled.
‘I’m tellin’ you, the stuff won’t burn. Chop it up into tinder and it takes an age to catch a flame. Spent hours tryin’ to do it and this man just keeps laughin’ at me. Took fifty silver leaves off me.’
‘That’s why you missed half the fights and can’t afford a fuckin’ ale right now, is it?’
‘But it doesn’t burn! What kind of tree don’t burn?’
Antor Sleck shook his head. His neck complained as the heavy turban wobbled. The south was full of rubes, and in Tourney week, Vensk became full of them. There was plenty of money to made with cheap tricks, but Antor was done with cheap tricks. He had risen above them.
Raising his glass to the light, he threw back the syrupy wine the Golikans brewed from tree sap and arose from the bar.
‘This tavern is filthy,’ he remarked to the smiling wench behind the bar and tossed half what he owed at her. ‘The wine full of silt,’ he lied.
With no further explanation, Antor strode through the door onto a wide walkway that swayed gently with the hundreds of feet upon it. The contraptions made Antor feel sick.
That could have been the wine. It had been delicious but strong. There was already a tingle in his eyes. The glow-lanterns had an aura to them.
A passerby in a hood barged him. ‘Mind how you go!’ Antor blurted.
Damn it if he hadn’t done it again: taken the wrong turning to his hired home for the week. He shouldn’t have chosen somewhere so deep in Vensk. Ten years he had been coming to the Scarlet Tourneys and he swore Vensk’s roads changed every year just to fuck with its visitors.
When Antor almost collided with a dead-end, he knew he had taken not one but several wrong turns. He turned to find the street empty and full of the faint mists that emanated from the Golikan pines at night. A bottle smashed somewhere in the gloom.
Antor clutched the dagger he kept deep in his robes. Golikans were all thieves at heart, so went the saying. He cursed the lack of light and went back the way he had come.
There. He caught a shadow ducking into another street.
Antor quietly wished he’d had the coin to pay for a whole day and night of a guarded escort. He hurried on, cloth shoes snagging splinters in the street. The footsteps he heard behind him vanished when he turned. Something flitted along the balconies of buildings towering above him. Antor blamed pigeons, but started to jog all the same.
With his breath loud in his ears, Antor took a swift right and chose a doorway to hide in, hoping to the Dawn God whoever chased him would run right past. Nobody and nothing came. Antor realised his breathing was like a forge’s bellows. He forced himself to hold his breath, if even for a moment. To his horror, the breathing continued. Directly behind him.
A flurry of ragged cloth filled the doorway. A fist of iron grabbed him by his collar. Sharp nails raked across skin. His hat flew off as he was yanked from the dark. The world spun on its head, and not from the wine. The wooden planks of the street slammed into his face. All within a moment. Antor wheezed while limply fumbling for his dagger.
‘Still got it, old friend,’ Farden whispered as he rounded the corner.
Durnus ached to drive his fangs into the pale neck he strangled. He felt himself leaning towards the man. Felt his sharp fingernails digging in. He could smell the blood just beneath that thin layer of skin; feel the man’s heartbeat pulsating in waves. He longed to drink, to kill. He could even feel the soul leaking from Antor’s body like sweat and fear.
‘Durnus,’ Farden reminded him who he was.
‘Stupid bastard near ran right into me,’ Durnus hissed.
‘Unfortunately for him.’
‘I should have known it would be you. Not content with near choking me? Or insulting me? You now have to cause me physical harm?’
Farden placed his boot near to Antor’s snivelling nose. ‘Shut your face, Antor. We know it was you who took our friends.’
‘You do, do you?’ spat Antor.
‘No games, man! Unless you wish for my associate here to put an end to your miserable, swindling life.’
‘Would you please,’ Antor choked, ‘tell me what the fuck it is you’re talking about?’
‘Our friends. The Paraian woman and the minotaur you were so interested in. They were kidnapped. Forced into the Viscera. And who other than a jaded weasel like you, so desperate to get a patron, would want such a thing?’
‘This is the first I’ve heard of this! I thought you had entered them yourselves. How dare you think I’d stoop so low! I’m insulted.’
Durnus clutched Antor’s throat and made him squeak. A dread feeling crept into him. ‘Why do I believe him?’
Farden was trembling with frustration.
‘I haven’t even got a fighter in the Tourney! You ruined that last hope yesterday,’ Antor garbled.
‘Let him go, Durnus. I hate to say it, but we have the wrong man.’
It took all his self-control to quench his vampyre’s hunger. Since he had submitted himself to the vampyre’s curse once more, the beast within him had been tempered, only emerging while feeding. Now, robbed of a meal, it was furious. It scared him to think it was not all vampyre, but now there was another beast inside of him, growing fast. Durnus had to wrench his hand from Antor’s neck.
‘Let this be a lesson to you,’ Farden growled at him. They turned away from Antor, fists clenched, hearts heavy, and without a single answer for their troubles.
‘You sons of whores!’ Antor yelled.
Durnus whirled at the scraping of feet. He caught Antor’s dagger too late: not before it had sliced his cheek.
There was no hope for the man now.
Before Durnus knew it, he had pinned Antor by his arms and bitten into his windpipe. Blood filled the vampyre’s mouth, but he kept biting, crushing cartilage. Antor writhed beneath him, emitting nothing but a gurgling cry. Durnus once again dove too deep. The ravenous daemonblood within him was overpowering. The hunger was too intense. Sapphire vapour in the shape of a screaming soul seeped from Antor’s pale, blood-spattered skin. Durnus felt its icy rush flood him.
Rough hands hauled him away. Antor’s soul drifted back into his body, and his head lolled to the side. Blood bubbled around his throat as his last breath was spent.
Farden was wide-eyed, chest heaving, but silent. He had never been present for Durnus feeding before.
Durnus wiped his face with a trembling hand, expecting a furious tirade. Even with the power he felt in his veins, he felt a heavy sweat beading on his forehead.
‘Farden, I… I intended to tell you about this… malady of mine.’
‘Never mind that,’ he said. Farden’s voice teemed with emotion, but the mage was surprisingly restrained. ‘What you just did… His soul, Durnus. I’ve only seen one other creature do that.’
‘You know daemonblood runs in my veins, Farden. It always has. Hence my work to smother it with the vampyre’s curse.’
‘And yet you’ve never acted on it. Not in centuries! How long has this been happening?’
Durnus felt a righteous, cornered anger rising up. ‘It started in Scalussen, if you must know. Normal blood was not working…’ Durnus took a shuddering breath. ‘Now it barely works for me at all. I feel the vampyre’s cursing dwindling each day. My magick with it, dampened by daemonblood.’
‘I told you not to toy with dark magick or with necromancy, and yet here we are! It’s awoken something in you, damn it. Your true self. The one you’ve tried to forget all this time.’
Durnus recognised the look in Farden’s grey-green eyes, now bruised and blackened around their edges. He saw the true disappointment in that stare, and it cut him to the heart.
‘Farden—’
‘I’ll hear no more of it! Not now, not with
our friends in danger. Not with my armour and magick still plaguing my mind. How dare you add to the pile of shit we swim in?’
‘I am not the only one changing, you know. Where is your magick, Farden? Why are you hurtling towards the spear with no thought?’ Durnus heard the poison in his voice. For a man with almost two thousand years under his belt, he still knew how to be petty.
Farden didn’t rise to it. He was already walking away. ‘We have work to do.’
CHAPTER 16
THE SILENT WITNESS OF STARS
The mightiest of the Golikar trees were said to have sprouted from seeds brought from the fabled southern territory of Metisko. Fable has it the trees of Metisko wander hundreds of leagues to escape the wildfires that ravage their lands. The trees in the north have developed a different skill for avoiding fire, and that is to be practically inflammable.
FROM ‘A WOODCUTTER’S TRAVELS’
The sun was the enemy of their days. It beat down with merciless abandon. The sailors and mages sweat buckets. The interior of the ships sweltered. The only respite was the breeze and occasional spray from the bows, and night. The latter had thankfully fallen.
The sea was a black mirror, undisturbed by a single breath of wind. Any ordinary ships without wind mages would have floundered in the doldrums that plagued Paraia’s coasts, but not the Rogue’s Armada.
Even so, with the mages split between the ships, and after running so relentlessly, their progress was slower than Lerel would have liked.
The admiral stood alone at the wheel. With no waves, errant winds, and few currents to battle, she barely needed to steer.
The Cape of Glass was now long behind them. Every soul aboard, Lerel included, prayed that meant the leviathans too. Lookouts had spent days in the masts, watching, waiting, and baking under the sun.
The seascape was simple: dark rocks and white sand coves to port. Endless water to starboard. Ahead was a wavering coastline, devoid of life except seabirds and the occasional white-sailed dhow, hunting schools of rays by lantern and spear. The only settlement they had seen was a port town half a day behind, bordering a deep bay of turquoise waters. Lerel and the Rogue’s Council, as Roiks had begun to call the heads of Scalussen, had suggested they dock and resupply. Elessi, however, had commanded they keep running south. Since then, the general had sequestered herself in her cabin with her thoughts and the inkweld. Only at night did she come to stare at the stars, when the others were asleep and questions were fewer, if any. Tonight she was late.
