“I know. He did promise a fair fight, and I’m vain enough to wonder if I could best him, but he has allies at his side, and I’m skeptical that a man who would hire an assassin would truly fight fair.”
“He won’t,” Lakeo said. “No way. His cousin, or whatever Jaikon was, didn’t. Why would he?”
Yanko tugged at his topknot. “I’d like to know how he knew I was coming.” He looked at Jhali. “Is it possible your mage-hunter colleague knew you wouldn’t go through with it and meant to goad us into this very action? Coming here to confront Sun Dragon?”
“Go through with it?” Lakeo asked.
“Jhali was reminded that she’s supposed to have killed me by now, and they gave her until dawn to do it.” Yanko turned his palm toward the ceiling.
Lakeo’s eyebrows rose in surprise. That Jhali had chosen not to kill him?
Jhali shook her head slowly. “It is possible they didn’t think I would do it, since it’s been months, and spies have doubtless reported me walking at your side. I’m not sure they could have guessed this outcome, that you would come here to bribe the Sun Dragons.”
“Maybe they guessed that I would come to kill them. Before they could kill me. Or have me killed.”
The sound of voices drifted up from the bottom of the stairwell, and Yanko saw shadows moving in the light cast by the lamps in the corridor.
“Dak,” Yanko whispered, “can you strategically plant a few explosives that would distract those mages without bringing down the coliseum?”
“You’re going out there?” Dak asked.
“I don’t think I have a choice.” Yanko waved at the shadows, at men who likely had orders to come up and get him if he didn’t come down.
They could keep climbing and see what they found up there—Yanko didn’t sense any people in those private rooms yet—but he was going to have to deal with Luy Hano Sun Dragon one way or another, and surprising him would be impossible now. Impossible for him.
“Wait.” Yanko gripped Dak’s arm. “Change that. I’ll be the distraction. You sneak up to the roof and figure out how to go Turgonian on them. Drop a building or something, eh?”
“I don’t think I’ll find any suitable buildings on the roof,” Dak said. “I didn’t even notice a water tank the last time I was here.”
“You can come up with something. I trust your Turgonian ingenuity.”
“No water tank at all. It was odd. There’s indoor plumbing. I saw pipes. Looks like they were added in the last century, so you’d think a tank would have been wedged in somewhere. You people don’t supply water magically, do you?”
“Uh,” Yanko said, “I don’t think so.”
“Yanko complimented him, and he’s complaining about the plumbing?” Lakeo asked Arayevo.
“What’s odder is that he noticed the plumbing,” Arayevo murmured back.
Dak gave her a cool look.
Someone shouted an order at the bottom of the stairwell.
“Turgonian ingenuity,” Yanko repeated. “No, Dakonian ingenuity. I need it.”
Dak grunted. “I’ll figure something out.”
“Good. Thank you. Take Lakeo and Arayevo.”
They looked like they would balk—and Dak also didn’t look like he wanted company—but Yanko shoved them all upward, then spun and strode down the steps, waving for Jhali to stay with him. If ever he’d needed a bodyguard, this would be the time.
Nearly a hundred people walked behind Yanko and Jhali, guiding them toward the opening at the end of the tunnel that led into the arena. Yanko maintained a barrier around the two of them, not trusting the armed guards, especially since he sensed their wariness toward him. They had heard that he’d slain the dragon, and they all thought him some supremely dangerous marauder who should be slain as soon as possible.
Magical globes of illumination glowed around the gravel arena, providing far more light than mere oil lamps would have, so Yanko had no trouble making out Sun Dragon and his five allies when he stepped out of the tunnel. They all wore red warrior-mage robes, and he had little doubt that they’d earned theirs legitimately, by graduating from Stargrind. Yanko’s thoughts that he could best Luy Hano Sun Dragon in a magical battle seemed megalomaniacal now.
But, he reminded himself, the plan wasn’t to best him, just to keep him and his friends distracted. He prayed to the fox god that the Sun Dragons, as true moksu mages, would be too arrogant in the belief of their superiority to worry about Yanko’s mundane comrades. The guards who had surrounded Yanko and Jhali hadn’t looked for Dak, Lakeo, and Arayevo, so maybe they didn’t know they were here.
“Well, well, well,” Luy Hano said as Yanko and Jhali walked out side by side, the guards remaining in the tunnel, as if the arena was sacred ground, only for mages. Mages and one mage hunter. “It’s the deluded boy who thinks he can be chief and the traitor mage hunter who was too inept to do her job.”
Jhali’s face was a stone, and she didn’t react to the insult.
Yanko wanted to hurl his first magical attack at Luy Hano for it. Would the man be able to fly as well as his dragon? Maybe Yanko could open up the ground to swallow him, and it would work this time.
Except that he sensed two levels of those tunnels and rooms that Dak had mentioned under the floor of the arena. He was walking on gravel that overlaid giant wood squares that looked like they could be pulled up for events that took place in the labyrinth down there. Yanko could open up a fissure underneath those levels, but he doubted it would be as effective. He was also reluctant to destroy an ancient monument that was as old as the city itself. But if he couldn’t use his earth magic, he would be at a grave disadvantage.
Luy Hano lifted a hand, and the hairs on the back of Yanko’s neck rose in warning. He hardened his barrier as a fireball the size of a house blasted across the arena at him.
It slammed into his defenses with the same kind of power the dragon’s eyes had held, and he caught himself taking a step back, as if physically bracing himself would help. Luy Hano gazed smugly at him. His comrades traded a few whispers and snickers. Two of them stepped back and waved to Luy Hano, as if to say they would simply watch since he could handle this.
Yanko straightened, clasped his hands behind his back, and raised his eyebrows. He would have to attack eventually—defending against fireballs like that would sap his strength quickly—but he wanted to give Dak as much time as possible to implement something.
Next to him, Jhali crouched with a throwing star in one hand and a serrated dagger in the other. She looked like she wanted to spring away and sink the blade into the mages’ throats.
Luy Hano threw another fireball. Yanko was more prepared for it this time and didn’t have as much trouble hardening his shield, so it bounced harmlessly off.
“You fight similarly to Jaikon,” Yanko said, figuring he would more fully distract the man by speaking. The last thing he wanted was for Luy Hano to have time to scan the coliseum and notice a Turgonian sneaking around.
“I noticed you had the audacity to come here with his sword strapped to your waist,” Luy Hano said.
Murmurs came from the spectators. Lamps weren’t lit up there in the tiers of benches, so Yanko had almost forgotten that people watched, but he heard them and sensed them. Hundreds of them.
“With what trickery did you best him?” Luy Hano added. “I don’t believe you killed him in a fair fight.”
“You are correct. His own hubris did him in.”
“Yet you felt justified in taking his scimitar? That’s a family heirloom. You have no right to it.”
“Come and take it then.” Yanko raised his voice for the sake of the onlookers. “And come take the gold you paid a mage-hunter sect to assassinate me, since your family feared to face me. They have no wish to complete a coward’s mission.”
The crowd gasped at his audacity.
Luy Hano hurled another fireball. The largest yet. Yellow light flared like a sun before the fireball splashed against his barrier.
> Yanko couldn’t keep from gasping. The power had been staggering.
“Yanko,” Jhali whispered—she was close enough to see his face, his reactions. “You have to fight back. I’ll watch the stands and protect you if any of his people throw weapons.”
By the tiger god, Yanko hadn’t even been considering the spectators as sources of danger. He was far more worried about the mages.
But he nodded to Jhali. If he stood here like a practice dummy, they would all be doomed. He trusted Dak to find a way to help, but asking him to defeat six mages by himself was a tall order.
“Get ready with that throwing star,” he whispered and strode closer to the mages.
As Luy Hano raised his hand—an unconscious tell that an attack was coming—Yanko did the unexpected. Instead of reinforcing his barrier, he dropped it for a second, long enough to hurl a mental attack. Emulating the ones he’d suffered so often, he sent a telepathic knife of power into Luy Hano’s mind.
A cry of pain ripped from the man’s mouth. Yanko had caught him about to attack, so his defenses were down.
“Now!” he whispered to Jhali.
But she’d already thrown her first star and was readying a second and a third.
The first burst into flames several feet from Luy Hano. Yanko sensed a shield rising—it was created by one of his friends, not him. The second and third throwing stars bounced off.
Luy Hano roared and recovered enough to hurl an attack at Yanko.
This time, it wasn’t a fireball but a mind attack similar to the one Yanko had used. Intense pressure arrived inside his skull. Yanko gritted his teeth through the physical pain and re-erected his physical barrier before dealing with the mental attack. And it was a good thing. All five of Luy Hano’s mage allies sent fireballs at him.
Jhali cursed. The fireballs bounced off Yanko’s translucent barrier, and people gasped in the audience. For a surreal moment, he wondered what it looked like to them, watching from the outside, but the pressure increased inside his skull, and he could focus on nothing else but keeping his defenses up. Under Luy Hano’s pressure, it felt like his eyeballs would burst from his head. At the first break in fireballs, Yanko released his barrier so he could throw all of his energy into driving the presence out of his mind.
He roared and tried to thrust the attack back at Luy Hano. But the mage was ready this time, and he walled off his mind. The mental attack bounced away just as the fireballs were doing.
Yanko wrapped his hand around the warm hilt of his scimitar, wishing he could fight the man blade-to-blade and put to use all that sparring practice he’d done with Dak.
“Why not?” he whispered, drawing a glance from Jhali. If they ran in close, maybe she could be more effective. The mages wouldn’t have as much time to hurl magic at those throwing stars.
As more fireballs rushed toward them, Yanko drew the scimitar and sprinted at the mages, Jhali running on his heels. He kept his barrier up, and the flames did not reach them. The mages’ eyes widened, and they all threw their arms up, weaving defensive shields of their own.
Yanko could sense their energy in the air, a collective shield such as his group had formed to repel the dragon.
He slashed his scimitar at it, willing energy to flow out of the blade and destroy whatever it encountered. He didn’t expect it to work, but he sensed a faint pop, like a soap bubble bursting, and he sprang through it.
Alarmed shouts assaulted his ears. One of the mages had a sword and whipped it out, lunging to block Yanko from reaching Luy Hano.
Yanko feinted toward the man’s face, then, when the mage moved to defend himself, whipped his scimitar toward his gut. He sliced through silk and flesh. The mage cried out, dropping his blade and rolling away.
Fireballs blasted toward Yanko, and he raised his barrier just in time. Heat still singed his face. He tried to protect Jhali with his barrier, but she’d rolled away from him. She sprang for Luy Hano.
“Help!” the mage cried, lunging behind his allies.
Someone blasted Yanko with a mental attack, the familiar dagger stabbing into his skull.
Yanko gritted his teeth, dropping his barrier for an instant so he could take a swing at the mage responsible—the woman. She skittered back, and the pain disappeared. She flung a raw wall of energy at him, but he cut through the attack with the scimitar, again willing it to dissolve magic as it swung. He hadn’t realized the blade had the ability, but it worked again, the scimitar glowing a vibrant blue.
“Look out!” Jhali cried and shoved Yanko to the side.
A throwing knife spun out of the darkness and slammed into her shoulder. Yanko cursed and grabbed her, trying to push her behind him as three figures in white sprinted out of one of the tunnels. Mage hunters. Yanko recognized the one from the orb—Morin Shu.
“I thought you said this would be a fair fight!” Yanko shouted, looking for Luy Hano.
The bastard was still hiding behind his allies. He hadn’t given up—even as Yanko spotted him, he hurled another fireball—but Luy Hano no longer felt safe standing alone and in front. Coward.
Jhali tore the throwing knife out of her shoulder and pulled away from Yanko and his attempt to defend her. He had to raise his barrier again to defend against a fireball and couldn’t grab her, but his heart nearly stopped when she rushed toward the three mage hunters, trying to keep them from reaching Yanko. Blood stained her shirt, but that didn’t keep her from fighting.
Rage filled Yanko, and he poured all of his mental energy into channeling a blast of wind. He hurled it at all five mages, anger giving him more power. Wild, uncontrolled power. It knocked their defenses aside and launched them across the arena.
“Down!” Jhali barked.
Yanko’s first instinct was to raise his defenses, but he obeyed her command, throwing himself into a roll to the side since he had no idea which way the attack would come from.
An oily blue-black throwing knife zipped across the arena and pierced his shield. Pierced it and popped it. The blade whistled past overhead before hitting the arena wall and clunking to the gravel.
Yanko suspected it was from the same material as the anti-magic cube on Seventh Skull Island, but there was no time to contemplate it. Jhali fought Morin Shu and was throwing stars at a second mage hunter, keeping the woman from chasing after Yanko, but a third person in white rushed toward him. The white-garbed man raised another throwing knife, identical to the first, and he gripped more in his other hand.
The mages found their feet, and Yanko sensed them readying attacks. They would time it, he realized, for when the mage hunter hurled one of those knives.
Yanko ran straight at the man, thinking to engage him in a fight rather than being forced to duck and roll everywhere, a target for all those mages.
The man had time to hurl his knife. Yanko was ready and dodged as he whipped his scimitar up and knocked the projectile aside. As soon as the blades connected with a clank, Yanko worried he’d made a mistake, that the anti-magic material would break his magical scimitar.
To his relief, nothing happened to it. His blade didn’t destroy the knife, but it flew into the gravel several paces away.
The mage hunter sprang at Yanko, two of the blue-black knives in his hands. One of the mages flung an attack at Yanko’s mind as he deflected a rain of stabs from his closer foe. Yanko hardened the mental walls around his mind, as if he were forming a shield around his body, and the attack faded from his awareness.
A fireball roared toward him. Yanko knew the mage hunter would simply pierce his barrier if he raised it between them. With no time to contemplate other options, he raised a larger one around the two of them. It left his opponent inside his defenses, stabbing and slashing and doing his best to kill Yanko while the mages battered at him from outside the barrier.
A scream of pain came from the side. Yanko glimpsed the female mage hunter falling to the ground, blood spurting from her cut throat as Jhali sprang away.
Morin Shu roared in rage and
rammed into Jhali like a battering ram. They went down in a tangle of fast-moving limbs.
Yanko’s opponent slipped past his defenses and slashed his arm, and pain coursed through him. Yanko couldn’t pay attention to Jhali anymore, other than to pray she survived.
Three fireballs roared toward him. Once again, they slammed into his barrier.
The mage hunter, who would have been incinerated as readily as Yanko if that shield hadn’t been there, threw an incredulous look toward the mages. Because he couldn’t believe they were targeting him too? Yanko had no trouble believing it.
“You sure you want to fight on their side?” he panted, the fight exhausting his body in a way that magic did not.
“How are you blocking them and me at the same time?” the mage hunter demanded. “That’s not possible!”
“My friends say I’m odd.”
The mage hunter snarled and sprang at him again, his attacks more rapid than before.
Sweat streamed into Yanko’s eyes as he whipped his single blade back and forth, outmatched by the man’s twin knives. And his speed. This man, trained from birth to fight, would have been Dak’s equal.
Dak, where was he? Yanko needed his help. He couldn’t continue to fight so many at once—indeed, all he was managing to do was defend himself. He couldn’t win that way. And Jhali—would she be able to survive against Morin Shu? When she was already wounded?
A tremendous boom came from somewhere in the coliseum, somewhere above the highest level of onlookers. Had Dak found his way to the roof?
An explosion ripped from the floor of the arena less than ten feet away, startling Yanko so much that he almost dropped his scimitar. A shockwave flung him to the ground. Wood and gravel flew in a thousand directions, flames mingling with the debris and pelting him and the mage hunter.
Yanko hastily re-erected his barrier around himself, leaving his foe on the outside this time.
More explosions blew through the floor all around him, and he huddled in confusion, making sure his barrier was tight directly underneath him. An explosion like a volcano blew under the mage hunter, charring the man’s flesh as it hurled him into the air. When he landed twenty feet away, he did not move.
Great Chief (Chains of Honor, Book 4) Page 32
