The dark eyes seemed to glower back at him. Clearly she was still angry with him, and he remained lowest on her list of potential husbands.
Morghiad drew the black ribbons from his sword hilt and pressed them into Laurus’ rather delicate, fireless hand. The crowd erupted into a noisy ovation around the arena in response to his favour.
“So you went for the little man, eh?” Silar grinned when Morghiad reprised his throne.
“He is not a he,” Morghiad said with a little amusement in his voice.
Silar’s forehead creased as he looked back at the mysterious contestant. “No... oh, no. Really? Oh, follocks!”
“Indeed.”
Silar’s eyes widened at the king. “You’re not going to let her proceed with this?” “There are no rules against it, and perhaps she’ll learn her lesson. Let’s allow her to have what fun she wants.”
Silar’s face became dark as he slumped back into his seat.
Morghiad gave a nod to the main officiator, and the bugles sang for The Spring Games to begin. As the contenders slowly filtered out of the enclosure, the hot scent of hay from the arena floor swirled up to the stand, and smothered every other smell of food, people or perfume. It was an odour change that characterised such events, and would soon alternate with sweat, wood or smoke. Morghiad drank the air in heavily, feeling his excitement grow.
The first round began with the weighted race, where competitors were given armour,
shields and ballast to carry in proportion to their bodyweight. One of the broadest entrants, an old hand at these events known as Hesper, rolled out like a barbed battering ram. He was laden with solid steel that coated his body from head to toe and about twenty iron swords had been strapped to his waist. Another nine contestants joined the hawk-masked man, and they crouched at the starting line with sounds of crunching metal echoing around the stadium.
A horn sounded, and the audience roared as the runners lumbered forward with their clanking burdens. The smaller ones covered a greater distance at first, but their stamina quickly waned. Broad Hesper loped forward at his steady pace and overtook several of his opponents as they reached the first post. Another wide-shouldered man also
overtook the lighter ones, careered straight into the back of Hesper and sent the sword weight flying across the arena floor. It was a legal challenge after the first post, and things would only get worse from there.
The race descended into barging and pushing and tripping over the fallen weights until they’d completed the final circuit. Only those carrying close to their original burden would qualify, and so many took the opportunity to reclaim items that had fallen from their opponents. Number ten was the first to finish with at least five stolen items, and Morghiad stood to offer him some well-deserved applause.
The next ten contestants would include Artemi; he could not wait to see how heavily, or lightly, her slight form would be loaded for
this. She had the advantage of surprising strength for her size, but still wouldn’t be at her physical best. Then again, she had been an admirable runner in her previous life. Who knew what the outcome would be? Morghiad re-seated himself and leaned forward keenly on his elbow.
“She’s going to get herselfmashed into the ground,” Silar muttered quietly.
Morghiad suppressed a small grin. “Did you foresee that or hope it?”
“There are seven possible outcomes.”
“Do you spend any time in the present anymore?”
Silar’s eyes became distant for a moment. “Rarely. But two of those outcomes are not good for her.”
Morghiad allowed concern to touch his
features. “Will she be hurt, Silar?” Had he made the right decision in allowing her to make her own mischief?
“Maybe. It won’t kill her. Though she is still a stupid woman.” Silar continued mumbling something inaudible.
“I have to allow her some freedom where she’ll still be alive at the end of it.” Morghiad waved over one of the nearby soldiers. “Go and tell Aglos to be ready to patch up Artemi if she needs it.”
The guard’s eyes widened. “Artemi?”
“Yes, go and warn the man.” At least Aglos would avoid his usual embarrassment if she’d bound her breasts into obscurity. The medic had always been funny around women.
Morghiad let out a long breath and returned his gaze to the arena. The next ten
competitors had already lined up, and seventeen was notable in her relatively sparse armour. One of the other women was there too, also carrying slightly less than the others due to her slighter form. Upon the sound of the horn, they launched themselves noisily from the line. Artemi was as fast as he’d hoped, and sprinted ahead of the others with apparent ease. “That’s my girl,” he heard himself whisper.
She rounded the first post and pressed forward to the next, still maintaining a hard pace. Several of the competitors behind her had commenced their barrage of assaults to offload their armour and gain ground. One of the taller men did exactly that, and was soon closing-in on seventeen. “Come on... run faster!” Morghiad hissed as if Artemi could
hear him. She didn’t. Instead she appeared to slow down, and tripped as she avoided a swipe from the tall number twelve. The man and two others ran past her, but she’d now lost a heavy sword that could be reclaimed on the final run. Artemi renewed her sprint with her reduced load and soon caught up to the woman ahead of her.
She gave her opponent a violent elbow in the abdomen, sending the lion-faced female flying across the track. It was a sight the king could not help but smile broadly at. His favoured competitor was soon bearing down upon the two men ahead. She loosed one of her sword weights, swung it twice and tripped number sixteen up with the hilt as she moved past. The crowd yelled with cheers and screams at her resourcefulness.
Morghiad glanced briefly to his right; Silar was now staring intently at the race, his eyes wide with anticipation. The conclusion of the trial was now close, and Artemi leapt over several of the fallen shields to gain ground on number twelve. Then, with unexpected lightness of foot, she ran up the edge of a knocked-over post and launched her entire body through the air. Her arms reached forward as she soared and powered into the back of her tall opponent. They both fell to the soft earth with various clangs and crunches of metal upon metal. Artemi was quick to regain her footing, and she took one of twelve’s swords and ran for the finishing line.
“Yes!” Morghiad shouted as she loped across it in first place. He could not help but grin broadly at her success.
Silar was still feigning moodiness in the recesses of his chair, but the smile in his eyes was obvious. “She has worse than that to face yet.”
Morghiad regained his composure, or a little of it, and looked back at the competition. Artemi was dispensing with her heavy ballast at the stadium gateway; her posture displayed some considerable weariness. “Fine. I’ll wager ten gold that she wins.” He turned back to his general.
Silar’s eyes became distant again. “That is not a very wise bet for you.”
Morghiad leaned over the arm of his throne. “Your bluffs don’t work on me. Take it.”
“Alright.” Silar raised his eyebrows. “But you’ll be buying me ale for the next year.”
They shook hands on the stake and returned to watching the increasingly raucous game.
Another twenty competitors raced to reduce the number of finalists to twelve, and it was time for the second round. A young servant, clad in the traditional blue dress of her station, came to serve him an ice-cold glass of wine. It was good to be the king at times, he thought, unbuttoning his coat in the late spring warmth.
From the right of the arena, the crowds parted to allow a huge tower structure on great wooden wheels into the stadium. The next trial involved a test of balance and strength: an obstacle course in the air where each rival competitor would strive to knock the others to the ground. The first six competitors lined up along the edge of the arena, their hands
covered in ch
alk powder for grip. Artemi was there with them, quite obviously the most diminutive of the group. He felt a surge of love seeing her there: the tough woman who appeared vulnerable - formerly the raging bundle of fire in his bed. But she was far too young for him to pursue that agenda, even if she didn’t revile him as much as was evident. Morghiad bit down on a sigh and pushed the various alluring images of her from his mind. They had become far more persistent since her reappearance.
The bugles sounded again, and the competitors took their places at the six vertices of the structure. Their goal lay at the centre, where a giant iron hammer swung in the wind, sixty feet above the ground. Artemi would have to reach it first, fight off any other contestants
and then bring it safely back to her starting point. She took her position at the far left of the structure, and briefly turned her masked face to meet his eyes. What he would have given to be able to read her emotions at that moment! Even when he had been party to them, burning in his body like wild florets of flame, they had often been indecipherable or confusing.
With her focus returned to her task, she placed her hands against the post and one foot at its base. The sound of the horn rang out into the crowd, and the contenders leapt at the smooth posts with vigour. Several seconds of scrambling ensued, and Artemi made good ground ahead of the others. Up and up she moved, until Morghiad felt his neck muscles strain from the effort of watching her above. She soon reached the barbed section, where
thousands of tiny spines protruded from the wood - where good grip was gained at the price of pain. Several of the contenders grunted or yelled their way through the agony, but she remained curiously silent as she scampered up the thorn-ed pole.
“I can’t watch,” Silar muttered to his right.
Morghiad could not remove his eyes from the sight; they remained transfixed on the bloody trail she’d left behind her. This presented an additional challenge once they’d reached the top, for her hands would now be slippery with it. She threw herself onto the horizontal rail regardless, swung onto its upper surface and began padding along it quickly. The others were closing in on the hammer too.
A man, masked by what could only be
described as a pig snout, ran to the centre of the tower just as Artemi approached. Number seventeen flew from the high beam to her target, caught hold of it and swung forwards as the hammer released itselffrom its connection to the rails. Gravity nudged her quickly toward the ground, but her forward motion took her to one of the barbed posts opposite. Artemi
caught hold of it with her legs and dangled upside-down for a moment, the heavy hammer slipping from her grip. Her competitors lost no time in bearing down upon her with all speed. The woman in the lion mask was closest, and she dropped backward onto the thorns above Artemi. Another man jumped on top of her, causing the woman to slide down the spikes of steel. The sound of her angry scream echoed across the stadium.
Artemi recovered her bloody grip on the hammer, made good use of her opponent’s struggles and deftly clambered over their writhing bodies. But as she reached the horizontal bars once more, the other competitors leapt upon her. The tall number twelve wrapped his legs around her waist in a vice hold and pulled them both down, under the rails. She was now hanging, holding their combined weight with one hand and the giant hammer with the other. The man slid down her body and reached out to take the hammer from her. Another man came to unpick her fingers from their holding place above. But she held fast and wriggled sinuously until her parasitic opponent slipped farther down her body.
Another wriggle and he fell screaming to the ground with a heavy thump. Artemi
swung the hammer up to hook onto the rail in time to catch her weight, just as the last of her fingers were prised from their grip by the other competitor. Broad Hesper stamped towards her, reached for the hammer and lifted it with Artemi still attached to the handle, until she was able to stand on the rail herself. She refused to let go of her prize, and instead kicked at Hesper’s knees. Her action had the desired effect of overbalancing him, and the broad man teetered backwards until both his legs slipped down either side of the rail.
The crowd was heard to intake its breath sharply, and seen to grimace at the painful sight. With Hesper incapacitated, number seventeen bounded over him and straight to the corner she’d started at, whereupon a great scrum descended on the
small figure. The fight was impossible to make out clearly from the ground, with odd arms and legs poking out of it from time-to-time. Morghiad stood up in a vain effort to get a closer look, and quickly realised that all around him had done the same. Artemi had surely held onto the hammer for long enough to qualify for the next round, but he held his breath in any case.
With a loud cry from the audience, someone flew out of the tumult of bodies and toward a corner post below. The small but lithe figure held the hammer, and used it to catch the pole before he or she flew past. It was Artemi! She proceeded to corkscrew elegantly around the post using the hammer as a hook, all the way to the bottom, where she landed lightly on her feet. The crowd erupted with vigorous
applause and shouts; there had never been Spring Games like these! Morghiad kept his standing position to offer some emphatic applause of his own, and was pleased to see Silar behaving similarly beside him. “I hope you’ve a bag of money ready for me, general,” he grinned.
“I’ve got one ready to be filled, alright.” Silar tried to maintain a superior, knowing look in his features, but it was disrupted by his smile.
The next six contestants fought on the same scaffolding for an altogether less exciting trial, and then it was time for the spear-throw. A disturbance among the guards to his left caught his attention.
“Don’t you idiots know that’s Artemi?” exclaimed and angry voice. Cydia barged through the uniformed group and stood before
Morghiad to address him.”Sire-”
“I know,” Morghiad said with a solemn face.
Cydia furrowed his brow. “But... The girl needs protecting from herself– aren’t you going to -?”
Morghiad cut his sentence short. “I’m not going to do anything. She’s old enough to make her own decisions.”
Silar compressed his lips. “Sorry, Cydia. Our fool liege is so taken by his girl he’s quite happy to allow her to trounce all over his wishes and those of his advisors.” Silar gave the king a fierce, if brief, look.
Morghiad ignored it.
Cydia’s dark skin wrinkled in annoyance. “She’ll be hurt – Aglos says she could tear that wound open if she so much as
twists in the wrong direction.”
“I don’t approve of it anymore than you do.” Morghiad rubbed at his freshly shaven jaw. “But I have spent far too many years interfering with her life.”
“And with it you’ve made an overly bold, spoiled brat!” Cydia stamped with annoyance to punctuate his final point, turned, and left the stand.
Morghiad felt drained. He never seemed to be able to do anything quite right. Though, she had always been too bold, and was just as headstrong in her previous life. That quality, at least, was not his fault.
Silar was looking at him with his eyebrows raised.
“It’s not as if she’d listen to me anyway,” Morghiad muttered. And then he
remembered the core of his reasoning. “She has been through enough unhappiness lately. Let her have this one thing.”
Silar seemed to agree with that, and nodded with a small degree of approval.
The third trial saw the tower begin to spin, and the final six contestants took their positions at their respective corners. They had one chance to throw their spear at an opponent of their choice, and every chance to avoid incoming weapons. Headshots were disallowed for obvious reasons, though one could score high points by hitting an opponent in the chest. Several would, no doubt, try to take Artemi out, though she presented a considerably smaller target. As the changing light caught her hands, it became obvious to Morghiad that her palms had been heavily bandaged. That cou
ld
only mean she had lost the ability and energy to quickly re-heal.
“Only two outcomes now,” Silar warned quietly.
Predictably, the first spear came hurtling at Artemi, and she dodged it with her characteristic grace. With one competitor now weaponless, two of the others launched their attacks on him. Artemi took the opportunity of distraction to throw her own spear at Hesper, who was too slow to avoid her. She caught him in the left side of his abdomen, and he yelled angrily. The final two spears found their homes in two lizard-masked contestants shortly afterwards, and numbers twelve, twenty-one and seventeen were announced as the final contenders.
The fourth trial was Morghiad’s
favourite, if not only for the feat of engineering that allowed the hexagonal tower to transform into an elevated, undulating platform. With great clunks and windings, the wooden posts folded in upon themselves, and a slew of angled shapes rose up from the centre. The last three contestants mounted the platform with their swords readied and light armour glittering across their shoulders. The horn blew, and all three ran at each other like starved animals after the last remnants of a carcass. Artemi’s sword handling was good, but nowhere near as fast as he’d seen a few months previously. Anyone who knew her would see that the girl was not in a good state of health. Morghiad began to seriously doubt that he’d made the correct decision in allowing her to fight. The two larger and stronger men had now combined their forces against her, and were pushing her over a crest of tiling to the edge. Artemi’s footing faltered, and she slipped before she could parry the last of their attacks. Her body obscured Morghiad’s view, but he was sure at least one of their slices had made contact with her chest. Number seventeen caught hold of the lip of the platform, before swiftly hauling number twelve off with her cross-guard. He fell to the floor, defeated.
The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle Page 67
