Venture Unleashed (The Venture Books)

by R. H. Russell

  “Nobody’s going to lock me up.” Venture squeezed Chance tight, then let him go. “You’re going to love the capital. And you’re going to sit on my bench right next to Dasher and Earnest and watch me fight in the Championship. You’ll have the best seat in the arena.”

  Venture carried his bag into the main room and placed it with the other bags. Familiar laughter echoed in the street outside. Earnest and Dasher were back. How would they take it? He supposed it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have much choice about it now. He’d made his choice that morning. Really, he’d made it years ago.

  Earnest and Dasher eyed the open bags on the floor, glanced at each other, then back at Venture.

  For once, Chance was the first to speak. “We leaving.”

  “I need to get out of here.”

  “What?” Earnest said.

  “Today? But we’re leaving the day after tomorrow anyway.” Dasher tossed his workout bag aside.

  “Today,” Venture said.

  “Why?” Earnest gave him a penetrating look.

  “Because I’m ready to leave now.”

  “Did something happen?” Earnest said.

  “Look, I’m leaving today. If you guys can’t do that, then you can just meet up with me later.” He buckled the straps over his bag with finality.

  “Vent Delving, you’d better start talking. Right now.”

  “I’m not twelve years old anymore, Earnest. I’ll talk about what I want to talk about.”

  “It’s all right, Champ. We’ll go.”

  “What do you mean, ‘We’ll go’—just like that, with no explanation?” Earnest said.

  “He doesn’t feel right about staying. I trust him. That’s explanation enough for me.”

  “Something’s happened. There’s more to it than that. Come on, Vent,” Earnest said, softening, “how are we supposed to make sure you’re safe if you don’t tell us about it?”

  “I just want to get my bag and get my hind end in the carriage and go already. Can’t you understand that?”

  “That’s all there is to it?”

  “That’s right.” He looked straight into Earnest’s dark, knowing eyes.

  Venture had to win the Championship now. He was a fugitive; he’d broken his bond to his master. The only way out of the penalty for that was to be freed, and the only way to be freed was to buy his way out. He must have that prize money and present the proper amount to Grant before he got caught. Long shot or not, there was no other option. What he’d told Grant about a loan from Dasher had only been a bluff. He wouldn’t think of asking for such a thing, especially now. Dasher and Earnest couldn’t know about what he’d just done, not if they were to give him the help he needed to make it to the Championship. Dasher’s status might spare him doing time in the lockup, but Earnest wouldn’t fare so well if he were caught knowingly helping a runaway bondsman.

  “Come on. Let’s go.” Dasher hefted up a bag. But Earnest just stood there, arms crossed, shaking his head.

  “What does it matter, Earnest? Let it go. It’s just a couple of days.”

  Earnest stared back, still unmoved.

  “Are you coming or not?” Venture said.

  “Things don’t just hit you all of a sudden, Vent. That’s not the way you work.”

  “Don’t start. I don’t have anything else to say. I won’t have anything else to say the next time you ask me or the next.” Earnest glowered at him, and he changed his tone. “I want you with me, Earnest. I need you with me.”

  “As your trainer or as your friend?”

  “Both.”

  Earnest shook his head, but silently turned to his bag and began checking its contents. He would come. They both knew he was being less than honest, but still, Earnest would come.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Four main roads stretched through an open prairie to the capital—one road coming from from each Quarter. Alongside each of these roads, about half a mile from the outer edges of Founders Rock, a white stone pillar was erected, with an iron rod protruding out, from which hung a banner bearing the crest of the city and the greeting, Welcome to Founders Rock, center of Richland. Venture had always felt a surge of excitement when he saw that banner while on business trips with Grant. That feeling had only intensified when he came to watch Dasher, then to compete in the Championship himself for the first time. This year he was coming not just to fight, but to make the most of his only chance to become who he was meant to be.

  He glanced out the window, then at Dasher and Chance, asleep on the seat across from him. He held back his desire to shake them awake and tell them they were about to enter the city proper. All that remained of the old walls and gates surrounding Founders Rock were drawings in history books. Officials with modernization and growth in mind had torn what was left of them down over fifty years ago so that the city, which crowded around the city green and the old parks like an overstuffed old woman sucking in her breath, could exhale and burst happily through its seams. The further from the city center, where the capitol and the green lay, the wider the roads, the roomier the buildings.

  He put his hand on the sword lying on the carriage seat next to him, remembering the look on Jade’s face when she gave it to him, and regretting that he was going to have to leave it behind at Regal’s. He didn’t dare carry it to the arena; his face and his status were too well-known now. The dagger, tucked inside his pant leg, he could get away with carrying, but he’d have to pass it off to Dasher to relinquish to the tournament guards when they entered the arena. With the exception of the guards, no one was allowed into the arena armed.

  Of course, if Grant had sent the lawmen after him, they would be armed. He tried to ignore that fear just as he tried to ignore the pain in his elbow. The pain he’d been so certain would be gone by now. He told himself that it wasn’t that bad, that he could still pull this off.

  Jade had wanted him to promise to come back, win or lose, and he felt guilty about the way he’d worked his way around making such a vow. He couldn’t imagine not coming back any more than she could. But he couldn’t imagine coming back as anything but a champion, either. What grief must Jade be dealing with from her father now? How much more grief would he cause her if he lost?

  “It’s done, Champ. I got you registered.” Dasher had just returned to their room at Regal’s, from his mission to convince the tournament officials to register Venture secretly. He’d gone to persuade them that it was a necessity for his safety that the public, even the other fighters, not know that Venture Delving was here yet.

  “But?” Earnest said, anticipating from Dasher’s tone that there was a catch.

  Dasher ran his hand through his hair, took a deep breath, then said, “I told them who I am.”

  “You told them?” Venture sat up straighter on the bed.

  “I needed more leverage. Being a Glen, it turns out, was the right kind of leverage.”

  Venture just shook his head at that. Of course there were Glens in positions of influence in the Department of War, who had indirect power over the positions the Uncrested tournament officials and other members of the Fighting Commission occupied. Glens, who, though they probably didn’t agree with Dasher on much of anything, nevertheless shared his name.

  “So when we get there tomorrow, everyone’s going to know?” Earnest said.

  “They agreed to keep it to themselves for now, and I agreed to give interviews, to go public after the winner is decided.”

  “Why would they want you to do that? This is only going to make things worse for Uncrested fighters. If I win, and you go public, that kind of statement—”

  “At this point, there may not be a Championship next year, and the kind of statement the two of us make is exactly what they think we need to save our sport. The members of the Fighting Commission are all Uncrested, and they want our sport to continue. They think it’s good for the country. That’s why they’re involved in it. They see the value of having a Crested man on their side, of having a
Crested former champion.”

  “It’s too late to avoid rocking the boat,” Earnest said.

  “That’s right. The battle’s on, and we’re already nearly sunk. This kind of thing—you and me, Champ—can prove the Crested establishment wrong once and for all. It demonstrates how ridiculous, how irrelevant they are.”

  “Don’t forget, Vent, that the Cresteds are a minority. Whose side do you think the people will be on, especially when they see what’s possible? When they see what the reality is, that there is no Crested mystique? Dasher,” Earnest added, “Maybe this would be a good time for you to declare your candidacy, too.”

  Dasher smiled. “What do you think, Champ?”

  They had no idea. What if Grant had sent the lawmen after him? What if they were waiting for him at the tournament? What would that do to Dasher’s brilliant plan? To his campaign for Representative of Rolling Hills County, to his revolutionary ideas?

  Chance climbed up on the bed and sat beside him, drawing his knees up to his chest. His eyes brimmed with knowledge, as though he’d put together all the bits and pieces, even some of the thoughts Venture had never given voice to. I’ll take care of it, Venture wanted to say. Don’t worry. No matter what happens, I’ll take care of you. Instead he gave him a playful jab, then picked him up and gently tipped him back down on the bed. He was able to coax a few moments of laughter out of the kid, but he knew Chance’s happiness, all of their happiness, really depended on what he would be able to do on the mat.

  Venture was burning up with the need to be anywhere but cooped up in their room. Earnest had taken Chance to try to find something for them all to eat, leaving him alone with Dasher.

  “Come on, Champ, let’s do a little drilling while we wait.”

  Eager to get some of his energy out, to focus his mind and body on the work he had to do tomorrow, to do anything but just wait, Venture shoved the table aside, while Dasher pushed the chairs out of the way, and then the two of them went at it.

  When Dasher went in for a standing armlock, the pain in Venture’s already strained elbow ripped through him with such immediate intensity that he twisted sharply in the wrong direction, making it worse.

  “Ahh! Stop.” He shoved Dasher back so hard, with such suddenness, that they both lost their footing and crashed into the table. Crushed between their weight and the unyielding stone wall, the table broke right down the middle.

  Swearing, Dasher disentangled himself from the wreckage of the table, then offered Venture a hand up. Venture grimaced, holding his right arm to his chest and extending the left to Dasher instead.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Nothing.” Venture kicked a broken table leg out of his way, taking his pain and frustration out on it.

  Dasher straightened up and let out a long breath. “What happened?”

  Venture forced his elbow to straighten. It hurt. It hurt so bad.

  Chance opened the door and Earnest followed him in, carrying a tray of food.

  “You wouldn’t believe the way they looked at me when I said I wanted to wait and bring the food up myself.” Earnest paused. Frowning, he took in the disarray. “What happened? You guys broke the table? You’ve got to be kidding me. Come on, help me out here. This is heavy.”

  Dasher moved wordlessly to shove the broken table out of the way and set the tray on the floor.

  Chance looked right at Venture and said, “You hurt.”

  Venture ducked his head down to wipe the sweat from his forehead onto his shoulder, still holding his elbow with his good hand.

  “What did you do?” Earnest took Venture’s swelling elbow in his hands, probed along the joint, and carefully worked it up and down. Venture tried to hide the waves of pain washing over him, but Earnest wasn’t easy to fool.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Dasher said. “I barely touched it. It shouldn’t have—”

  “I hurt it last week,” Venture mumbled, pulling away from Earnest. “It’s not your fault, Dash.”

  “And you didn’t tell me about it?” Earnest said.

  “I thought it would go away.”

  “And you didn’t think to warn Dasher about it just now, either? ‘Hey, lay off the right arm. It doesn’t feel right.’ That’s all you had to say.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Well it’s a big deal now, isn’t it? The night before the Championship. How could you be such an idiot?”

  “He not an idiot! You the idiot!”

  “Chance,” Venture said, gently, yet warningly. He put his good hand on one of Chance’s arms. Chance’s hands were balled up into fists. “That’s enough.” He turned to his trainer. “Just say it, Earnest.”

  “I’m not going to say it, because I know you’re not going to listen.”

  “Say what?” said Chance.

  “That he might have torn something,” Dasher said quietly, “and if he fights tomorrow, he could completely ruin it.”

  “Permanently,” added Earnest.

  Chance’s big eyes fixed on Venture.

  “Don’t worry about it. This is my Championship, I’m going to fight, and I’m going to win.”

  “I made a promise to your brother. I’m responsible—”

  “Forget about Justice. Justice forbade me to come here.”

  Venture steeled himself for an argument, for Earnest’s reminder of the position he’d put him in, but it didn’t come. Earnest rubbed his hand over his face and sank down on the edge of one of the beds. He didn’t know the whole story, but he knew the difference Championship winnings could make in Venture’s life. He didn’t want to take that chance to have a better future away from him.

  Earnest looked up at Venture. “Should I bother reminding you that you could still have an entire career ahead of you to worry about?”

  “There’ll be other years, Champ.”

  “That isn’t what you said earlier, is it, Dasher?”

  “We don’t know that for sure. We—”

  “I’m fighting. That’s what we know for sure.”

  Venture eased himself down on the floor next to their supper. The food had been completely forgotten by the others. He lifted the linen napkin from a dish, picked up a chicken thigh, and took a bite out of it, as if there were nothing to be concerned about at all. “Chance,” he said, “go back down to the kitchen and see if they have some ice for me, will you please?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  When Venture entered the arena, the crowd gasped its surprise, then broke into applause. But their enthusiasm, their focus on him, was no comfort to Venture, who hadn’t yet learned to feed off the energy of the crowd as Dasher did. Perhaps it would be different once he’d won them over, once they were truly his fans. Today, he was just a spectacle—an eighteen-year-old fighter, a bondsman, who trained with a champion, and who was rumored to have recently beat some of the best fighters in practice, but who had yet to prove himself in competition. He was the source of much speculation and rumor. Whether he won or got beaten to a bloody pulp, his performance would satisfy their curiosity and settle their disputes, their wagers. All their eyes on him, their chants of his name, just put his stomach in knots.

  Venture gave the crowd a nod, then went with Earnest to stretch out alongside a handful of other men in a corner of the arena. Beside him Chance stood, silently taking it all in. The first matches were about to begin, one in each of the three rectangular competition areas. Two announcers climbed the ladder to a raised wooden platform, took their seats, and began calling the first competitors’ names out through their horns. Day One was single elimination. Venture and dozens of other men would fight for five slots for the chance to challenge last year’s top five on Day Two.

  Dasher came back to the warm-up area after a walk around the arena, greeting friends and fans. “Champ,” he said, “your brother’s here.”

  “I don’t want to see him,” Venture said.

  Dasher leaned against the wall next to him without another word.
/>   Venture hesitated, then asked, “Did he say anything?”

  “Just to tell you he’s here.”

  “That’s it?” What’s that supposed to mean? But through his irritation, Venture knew the answer. He was still Justice’s brother, all that he had left of the family their parents had built together. Maybe, after he was done fighting, he’d find Justice, talk to him.

  The voice of the crowd grew stronger. Many of the fans called specifically for Venture Delving’s matches to start. The swelling in his elbow had gone down enough not to catch his opponents’ notice, but that arm would be little use to him on the mat. Dasher and Earnest had argued about how he should wrap it, until Venture had grabbed the wrap and thrown it away. Wrapping wouldn’t do enough good to make up for the advertisement to his opponents that he had a new weakness.

  He and Earnest and Dasher had been up late scrapping the strategy they’d been working on for months and trying to devise a new one to deal with his useless elbow. They’d tried to hide it, but he’d seen a look in his friends’ eyes that he never had before—they were worried; they didn’t think he could do it, and they didn’t want him causing more injury in order to attempt it. How much more worried would they be if they knew he had to win?

  “What’s Will Fisher doing here?” Earnest said.

  Venture started at the sound of the name of the former champion. He hadn’t shown up in competition since the last Championship; he was supposed to be retired. Venture followed Earnest’s gaze, to the other side of Competition Area One, and saw the usual entourage Fisher brought with him, enough for an entire team. At its head was the familiar, hulking figure, his dark hair shaved to a stubble, his arms as powerful and as hairy as ever. He was wearing a competitor’s badge.

  Venture was so taken with a pang of added fear for his title, he neglected to put his match face on before he looked right into Fisher’s eyes. Venture saw the fire in those eyes. Yes, it’s still there. With Dasher retired, Fisher must be planning on an easy run for a third title. If he couldn’t beat Dasher, why not take on his prodigy?