by D. P. Prior
His opponent from the rope dropped his sword, and the man on the ground caught it, then his own as it came back down. He proceeded to juggle with them, as his rival leapt from the rope with the same effortless grace and picked up a barrel full of wooden swords from behind the low wall. He slung another sword to his partner, who now had three in the air at one time. Then another, and astoundingly, a fifth. The second man began to select and juggle his own wooden blades from the barrel, until both of them had five in the air, at which point they proceeded to chase each other around the ring.
A flap at the rear parted, and a man in a tall hat and scarlet jacket flounced to the center of the ring. He cracked a whip left and right, and the juggling men scurried for the exit, neither dropping a single sword.
“It’s me again, your host, your ringmaster, Bartimaeus Wickerback III.” He coiled the whip around his forearm, tweaked his oiled mustache, and took a deep breath, turning a circle to take in each section of the crowd.
“It is time…” He paused theatrically.
“Get on with it,” someone yelled.
Bartimaeus Wickerback III doffed his hat and peered into it. When a hand popped up from inside and pointed a finger at the heckler, the crowd hushed. The hand disappeared, and Bartimaeus put his hat back on.
“What the shog?” Shadrak said.
Nameless snorted with amusement. “Sleight of hand.”
Grimwart rolled his eyes and groaned. “Funny. If your jokes don’t get any better, I’m gonna start calling you ‘Dad’.”
“No, I’m serious.” But not quite certain. Nameless thought it was the ringmaster’s own hand, cleverly positioned, but he wouldn’t swear to it.
“It is time,” Bartimaeus started again, “for the Titan’s Challenge.”
A frisson of energy passed through the audience. Men plucked their fat brown weedsticks from their mouths and consulted with one another. Clearly, it was a challenge not to be sniffed at.
“You know how it works,” Bartimaeus continued. “You’ve all seen us before in our rounds of the villages. You know how many times Ardo the Great has offered his challenge, and how many times he has been bested.”
“Once!” a slip of a man yelled out. “By me, the strongest man who ever lived!”
The fellow sounded drunk to Nameless.
“I was not talking about hyperbole,” Bartimaeus said smoothly. “For in that department, sir, you are undoubtedly without peer.”
The heckler turned to the man on his right with a baffled look on his face. It was a look Shadrak shared.
“What’s he say?”
“Shush, laddie, I’m listening.”
It was the word “challenge” Nameless couldn’t resist. “Titan’s Challenge,” the ringmaster had said. He only wondered what it was.
“And so, without further ado,” Bartimaeus said with a sweep of his arm toward the back of the tent, “the most magnificent mass of muscle, the perfection of physical culture, the strongest man on Thanatos… Ardo the Great!”
Bartimaeus slunk back through the tent flap as a mountain of a man came through to take his place. A team of huffing and puffing helpers carried a barbell out behind him, each end terminating in a vast iron globe. Four men it took to carry it. How heavy could it be? Nameless was already climbing out of his seat, but Grimwart pulled him back down.
“We’re hiding, remember? From those Presser people in the wagons.”
“The ones that don’t interrupt the show,” Nameless said. “Here, hold my axe.”
Grimwart tried, but his hand passed straight through Paxy’s haft, like Nameless knew it would.
“Ha! Know thy place, mortal,” he said, pinching Grimwart’s cheek. “You are in the presence of a Dwarf Lord.” He didn’t like to boast about it, but that’s what he’d learned, both from Abednago and the Axe of the Dwarf Lords herself. And not just any Dwarf Lord, either, according to Paxy: his was the blood of the Immortals, the elect of the elect.
Ardo the Great was an imposing figure, and that was enough to give Nameless pause before accepting the challenge. It might be prudent to know what it was first.
He settled the Axe of the Dwarf Lords against the bleacher. It wasn’t as if anyone would be able to touch it, let alone steal it.
Ardo was half a head taller than Big Jake and equally as broad. The difference was, Ardo was shredded, bursting with rippling muscles, that even now he was making dance through an impressive display of flexing. Jake, on the other hand, wore the effects of too much pastry, and way too much beer… for a non-dwarf.
Unlike the people in the audience, Ardo’s skin was very much exposed. He wore only a loin cloth of some piebald animal hide. Leather sandals were laced up to his knees, but other than that, all he had on were leather wrist guards. His mustache was a sight to behold: thick and bushy, curled at the ends. The shame of it was, he had no beard. Not only that, but his body was hairless, clean-shaven to better display his extraordinary physique. The whole magnificent specimen was topped off by a shock of tow hair.
He stood with a haughty tilt to his chin, hands on hips, one foot now on the monstrous barbell as he surveyed the crowd, looking for any takers to his challenge. It seemed he did not have to state what it was: the crowd already knew. The ringmaster had said as much.
Someone volunteered—a bull of a man, who stripped off his jacket and passed it to the woman sitting beside him, then rolled up his shirt sleeves. He marched purposefully down the aisle between the tiered seats and clasped hands with Ardo. Rather than shake and release, he kept a firm hold, and there was effort on his face.
“You can let go now,” Ardo said in an actor’s voice for all to hear. His eyes narrowed slightly.
The man continued to grip Ardo’s hand. His face was red and getting redder.
“The challenge is to lift the weight,” Ardo said, “not to hold my hand. Could it be that you are attracted to me?” Hoots of laughter rose from the audience.
The man scowled and redoubled his efforts.
Ardo’s eyes narrowed a little more. Muscles all up his arm tensed as he returned pressure for pressure. The challenger grunted, and veins stood out on his neck as he squeezed harder. It looked to Nameless like he had a score to settle, or something to prove. It was usually the sign of a deficiency, Dame Consilia had reliably informed him.
Ardo sighed, and the muscles on his forearm rippled. The challenger growled, then roared, then screeched as he snatched his hand away and shook it. It was already mottled with purple and probably broken.
“So, no one wants to lift this little weight?” Ardo said, daring someone else to come forward.
The man with the mangled hand made his way back to his seat, head down, not even able to meet the eyes of the woman passing his jacket back to him.
Crooking his elbows, Ardo pressed his palms into his hips and progressively tensed every muscle in his body, from his diamond-shaped calves to his granite shoulders and sloping trapezium. Veins popped out all over his skin, and the effort was carved into every inch of his physique, save for his face. From the neck up, he looked like a man relaxing in a warm bath, a flashing white smile fixed firmly in place. He was preening, taunting the crowd, letting them know exactly what he thought of their cowardice.
“Ah, shog it,” Nameless said, standing and making his way to the aisle.
As he approached the ring, people started to laugh, and Ardo the Great had an amused twinkle in his eyes. When Nameless stood before him, he had to crane his neck to maintain eye contact.
“You wish to shake first?” Ardo said, offering his hand.
“You might not want me to, laddie. It’s been a long hike, and nature called along the way, but nothing much to wipe with, if you get my meaning.”
Ardo screwed his face up for an instant, but he quickly banished the reaction and returned to an expression that was at once supremely confident and bordering on arrogant.
Up close, the strongman’s skin was pale and pinkish, as if someone had rubbed it
vigorously with a rough towel. His muscles slid like slugs beneath sugar-paper skin. Every sinew, every vein, every thew stood out like a map of a rugged and extraordinary country. He smelled of something astringent, and glistened with oil.
“So, what’s it to be?” Nameless asked. “Dead lift?”
“Hah!” Ardo said, and bent down to pick up the weight as if it were nothing. It clearly wasn’t, judging by the thud it made when he returned it to the ground.
“Not dead lift, then,” Nameless said. “Bicep curl?”
Ardo looked shocked, but Nameless punched him playfully in the midriff. “Just joshing, laddie. Good abs you’ve got there.” They were ridged and perfectly defined, like those on a molded breast plate.
“Years as an acrobat,” Ardo explained.
To illustrate the point, he backflipped on the spot, and the crowd roared their appreciation. Nameless had seen Shadrak perform such a feat, but never a man of this size.
“Impressive,” Nameless said. “But can you do that without spilling a drop of beer?”
“You like beer?” Ardo said. There was something like astonishment tinged with hope in his voice.
“Who doesn’t?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Get on with it!” someone called out.
“We should talk later,” Ardo said. “After the show. You might want to remove your armor. This lift involves flexibility.”
“Bent press?” Nameless said.
“You know it?”
“My favorite. After dead lifts. And squats. And bicep curls. But I like it a lot.”
Ardo helped him out of his hauberk, and Nameless dropped it on the floor, along with his pa’s helm. He unlaced his gambeson, too, and took it off. Screams of laughter went up from the crowd.
“What?” Nameless said. “It’s all muscle.” He flexed, and sure enough, his pecs stood out like slabs of rock, and his abs popped, though not quite as much as Ardo’s.
“It’s not the muscle,” Ado said. He raised one of Nameless’s arms so the audience could get a good look at his biceps. “Now it’s my turn to be impressed.”
“So, what are they laughing at?”
Ardo dropped Nameless’s arm and yanked out a handful of back hair. “They are not used to seeing someone so… hirsute.”
“I’m not shaving,” Nameless said.
“Maybe you should. It would show off your muscles.”
“And I’m not wearing a skimpy loincloth, either.”
Ardo chuckled, then gestured for Nameless to stand aside.
The strongman dipped at the knees and hoisted one end of the barbell to his shoulder. He walked under it, gripping it dead center with his right hand, and dropping his left close to the globe still in contact with the floor. He braced himself, then leaned back, heaving the weight to his shoulder.
A hushed awe fell over the crowd.
Ardo steadied the sway of the barbell, then let it swing slowly round till it was almost parallel with his back. It was a crucial part of the lift, Nameless knew from experience. If the bar continued to windmill, he’d lose it and have to set it down.
But Ardo never looked in any danger of that. With a tight grip on the middle of the bar, he packed down his shoulder and lodged his elbow above and slightly behind his hip. From there, he leaned away from the bar, at the same time dipping forward and under the weight. As he did so, he continued to support the barbell on the pillar of his vertical forearm, inching his elbow up the side of his ribcage with infinite care and patience. All throughout, his eyes never left the hand holding the bar. As his head dropped level with his knees, the lifting arm straightened fully, and he locked out the shoulder and elbow. With a quick dip, Ardo came upright, holding the barbell aloft with one arm.
The crowd cheered and started to clap, and then Ardo brought the bar back to his shoulder and lowered it using two hands.
“Three-hundred and twenty pounds,” he said to Nameless. He sounded almost nonchalant, like it was a practice weight to him. Nameless guessed it must have been, or a performance weight, something he could be sure of lifting night after night in front of a crowd.
Nameless had only ever gone as far as three-hundred. There’d been no need to lift any more. Even Big Jake stopped at two-seventy, and most of the recruits could barely manage a hundred.
“Show him how it’s down, Nameless,” Grimwart called out. He was up on his feet and waving his mace.
Beside him, Shadrak was shaking his head and rolling his eyes.
Nameless shrugged. There was no harm in losing, so long as he gave it his best shot. Well, there was harm, he had to admit. He had a reputation to maintain, although maybe it wasn’t such a big deal on Thanatos.
He clapped his hands together, then went through a few limbering up movements.
Ardo folded his massive arms in front of his chest. He was trying to look relaxed, but he was flexing like crazy, either to intimidate Nameless or to impress the crowd.
Nameless squatted before one end of the barbell and lifted it. Like Ardo had done, he gripped the mid-point, found his balance, and rocked the bar to his shoulder. The globes either end wobbled, and he had a hard time steadying them. But once he did, and had let the bar turn parallel with his back, he leaned over to the left and dipped beneath the weight. His arm shook with the effort, but he refused to be denied. His eyes remained tightly focused on his lifting hand, and slowly, bit by bit, his elbow began to straighten. The instant his shoulder locked into position, he bobbed and came up straight.
The audience clapped, but it wasn’t the thunderous applause he’d expected. He dropped the weight to his shoulder, then lowered it to the ground.
Ardo clicked his fingers, and a scrawny man in an apron came running, carrying a hard-leather case.
“Well done,” Ardo said, with a little too much smugness for Nameless’s liking.
The scrawny man unplugged one of the globes and opened the case. He took out a bag of what Nameless supposed to be lead shot, and emptied it into the globe. He did the same with the other end.
“We progress to three-hundred and fifty pounds,” Ardo said.
Nameless swallowed thickly, but tried his best to disguise it with a shrug.
“Well, if you feel up to it, laddie.”
Ardo grinned. “Oh, I do.”
Supremely confident, the strongman hefted one end up, and went through the stages of the lift again. This time, the bar wavered at the top, and he grunted when he straightened his knees.
Once more, the crowd roared, and Ardo slammed the weight to the ground.
Sweat streaked his pale torso, ran in rivulets between the muscles.
When Nameless stepped up to make the attempt, the crowd began to boo and heckle. The impression he got was that they didn’t give him a chance of completing the lift, and ordinarily they would have been right. But by making it known, they had just increased the challenge, and he was never one to balk at such things.
He brought the weight to his shoulder without a hitch. His hips went back and his head came down smoother than before. He stepped his elbow up his ribs with scrupulous care, gave a concerted heave, and got his arm straight. The bar wobbled more than it should have, but he still managed to stand up beneath it.
Ardo frowned, but nodded that it was a good lift.
This time, the scrawny man filled the globes to a combined weight of three-hundred and seventy pounds. Ardo explained that the most anyone had ever lifted was three-hundred and seventy-one.
“So, why mess about?” Nameless said, full of bravado. “Make it three-seven-five and have done with it.”
Ardo hesitated, but then instructed the scrawny man to make it so.
“Three-hundred and seventy-five pounds,” the strongman announced to the crowd. “The most ever attempted in the bent press.”
All noise from the bleachers ceased. Smoke was still thick in the air, but the thrill of anticipation was even thicker.
The ringmaster, Bartimaeus Wickerback III, r
eturned to the ring via the flap at the back and stood observing from the side. Clearly, this was a big deal.
Ardo wiped sweat from his forehead, and it wasn’t just from his previous exertions. The strongman was worried. Nervous looks passed between him and Bartimaeus. Then Nameless realized what it was. There was more at stake here than the lifting of a record weight. If Ardo lost, he could no longer call himself the strongest man on Thanatos. His reputation would die in an instant, and along with it, his power to pull in the crowds.
Ardo went first. He took more care setting his grip, and he was much more precise with his footing. He roared as he rocked the weight to his shoulder, where he held it for a long while as he positioned his elbow above his hip. His forearm shook as he bent beneath the weight, pressing with his entire torso. The globes at each end juddered, and for a moment, it looked like the bar was going to windmill, but somehow, Ardo kept dipping lower. With a hissing exhalation, he locked out his elbow. His knees shook as he tried to straighten them. He grunted and groaned and let out a huge unfettered roar, and then he stood. Only for a split second, but it was enough.
Bartimaeus nodded that he’d made the lift, and Ardo dropped the weight to the ground. The bleachers seemed to bounce in response, and then the crowd were on their feet, cheering, clapping, whistling.
Nameless’s palms were damp with sweat as he bent to lift one end of the bar. Again, it came up easier than he expected. He, too, took his time placing his grip dead center, and he set his feet with one angled slightly out, the other straight ahead. He rocked the bar to his shoulder, wincing at a twinge of pain from the compression. It seemed to take an age for the globes to stop bouncing, and when he swung the bar round, it nearly didn’t stop. Using his non-lifting hand to steady it, he waited until he was sure, and then let go.
Slowly, inch by inch, he walked his elbow up his side as he swayed away from and under the bar. A tremor ran from his wrist to his forearm, found its way into his legs. He blinked sweat out of his eyes, forced himself to keep staring at the hand gripping the bar. He hoicked his elbow up another rib, then another. It felt like his shoulder was being ripped from his socket as he struggled to keep it just behind the midline of his body. His knees threatened to buckle. But then he had it: lockout of the elbow. He paused and gulped in air, dipped at the knees, and started to stand. The bar wobbled violently and began to windmill. He panicked and forced his legs to straighten. The bar soared round to the front, and he lost control. Before it came crashing down on top of him, he threw it clear. When it hit the ground, it sent a shock like an earthquake through the bleachers.
