With that, he turned and walked away.
“Little shite.” Halm gnawed on his lower lip in reflection.
“You weren’t helping, trading jabs like that.”
Halm held out a hand. “Like what? He started. I would’ve finished it if you hadn’t cut in.”
Goll ignored him. “We’ll have to go. Clavellus wishes to speak with us.”
“Pig Knot’s fighting. We have to wait for him.”
“I’m not waiting for him.”
“We wait for him.” Halm’s gaze hardened. “He’ll want this chance.”
“I don’t think he will.”
“What do you mean you don’t think he will? I know the man. You’re wrong.”
Goll paused for a moment, mulling. Halm didn’t know what was going on in that skull of his, but he shored up his stance and made it clear he wasn’t moving.
“Fine,” Goll said through tight lips.
“Over there then.” Halm pointed at the white tunnel. “Won’t have time to place a wager. Sounds as though they’re about to start…”
*
Let him cut you a bit. I mean cut you. The people who watch these things want to see blood, and you’re going to give it to them. I want you to perform a bit. Can you do that? Let him cut you, think that you’re on the out, and then gut him. Slice him like a fish, up through the belly and across the throat. Take his miserable life. Do that. But let him cut you first.
The instructions Toffer had given, leaning in close, breath reeking like a pocket of gas escaping a dead man’s swelling gut, did nothing to inspire Pig Knot to win. All he heard was the poison in the man’s words; all he smelled, the foulness from his mouth. All he felt was the uncertainty of doing any of this, and he believed he’d feel much better once the nasty business was concluded.
Let him cut you, echoed through the Sunjan’s mind like words spoken to a sleepy child. He lost track of where he was going until the gatekeeper roused him with a cry of warning. Pig Knot realized then that he had walked by the man and was climbing the steps to the portcullis. Standing inside the gate, another man stood and angrily shooed him away, having not received the signal from the Orator.
The gatekeeper actually slapped him on the chest when he drew back.
“Anxious or just stunned?” the gatekeeper asked.
“Bit of both, perhaps.”
“Well, hold on. Wait until I get the signal and pull the lever.”
Pig Knot nodded.
Let him cut you.
And then gut him. He didn’t quite understand why the need for the theatrics, but an order was an order. Debt was debt.
He barely heard the gatekeeper’s words, but he understood the slap across the back. He got moving, climbing the steps towards the rising gate. He entered the arena to a foul barrage of jeers and insults, stalling him just past the threshold. The crowd, at least those that remembered him, had spread the word about his last match. Across from him, shifting from foot to foot, was a man armoured in leather and armed with a sword and shield. A pot helm covered his features, and for that, Pig Knot was grateful. He caught the name, Sadar, but he didn’t hear where the man was from. Didn’t matter.
Let him cut you.
Pig Knot sighed. Across the way, Sadar focused on him, unmoving and seemingly waiting for the Orator’s signal.
“Begin!” The single word punctured Pig Knot’s thoughts like a spike.
Sadar wasted no time. He was smaller than Pig Knot, but his arms and legs were bare and wiry, giving him the look of a well-greased animal. Pig Knot took a huge breath of apprehension. Sadar quickly crossed the sand, closing the distance.
Pig Knot groaned inwardly. The man had push.
Sadar swung both sword and shield at Pig Knot in an alternating flash of steel, causing the Sunjan to hide behind his shield and retreat from the storm. A sword crashed off the borrowed helm of Halm, suddenly skewing his vision. Pig Knot backed up furiously, trying to right his helmet. His foe pressed him, stabbing for legs and arms and barely missing, making Pig Knot dance. The Sunjan couldn’t properly see. He gave up and ran from the man, wanting distance so he could correct his helm.
The arena burst into scalding laughter.
Pig Knot reached the other side of the arena, chagrined, but he got his sight back with a quick adjustment. Above, dark clouds had rolled in, cloaking the arena in that gloomy twilight of thunderstorms, their billowing mass veined with lightning.
Closing in on the Sunjan, Sadar rolled his shoulders.
Let him cut you.
Those words were going to hurt. Sadar appeared ready to maim him.
The man stabbed for his head, and Pig Knot deflected it with his shield. A sword went for his arm, and Pig Knot parried that one as well. Then it was shield edge, sword tip, and a slash seeking to spill his guts. Pig Knot ducked, parried, and parried again before thrusting back and having his sword turned away. Sadar saw an opening and lunged, which was greeted with an appreciative ooooooh from the onlookers. Pig Knot sprawled out of the way, souring the thousands of voices into an arena-wide groan.
Seddon’s rosy ass, Pig Knot cursed. One bad fight and they—
Remembered.
Sadar’s sword swept low, hunting for legs and causing Pig Knot to jump. He backpedaled, keeping his sword before him. Sadar closed in quickly once more, his limbs gleaming with sweat. His shield came up and over, his whole body behind the swing, and Pig Knot reacted in anticipation of the follow-up stab underneath, seeking his stomach.
He glimpsed the steel just as he moved away. Sadar sped by, sending up sand as he dug his feet in to stop his momentum.
Sadar turned around and bellowed. That suited Pig Knot fine. He felt like screaming himself. Then, for the first time, he noticed his sword arm. A cut the width of his shoulder lay open and bled thickly. Somewhere in the past few seconds, a sword had bitten him.
Sadar cocked his head like a bird about to pluck an eyeball from a skull. The crowd chanted his name, louder and louder as more people joined in, the words pulsing like a storm surf.
Pig Knot blinked at the wound, flexed his arm, and grimaced at the burn.
He’d been cut.
Sadar flew at him.
Pig Knot dropped to the sand and chopped the left leg out from under the man, sending him crashing into the sand like a dropped sack of heavy grain. In that lightning bolt of spent time, the fight was over. The crowd gasped at the sight, and when the Sunjan got back to his feet, he could see why.
Bare legs. There was a reason why greaves were a good thing.
Sadar had made the mistake, however, of not wearing them. Perhaps he felt they were too heavy. Now he lay on the sand, bawling like a lamb beholding the butcher. The left leg was cut almost entirely off just below the knee, hanging on by a shred of thick meat and spurting blood into the sand. Sadar had dropped his sword, and if it wasn’t for the inner band of metal on his shield, he probably would’ve lost that as well.
Pig Knot could see red bone in that wound. It made him wince.
“Mercy!” Sadar cried out.
The crowds screamed, outraged at the sudden twist of events.
Sadar threw up both his arms, his shield leaning away from his left. He moved his sliced leg, causing the bloody mouth to stretch wider. Pig Knot’s shoulders slumped.
“Mercy!” Sadar pleaded again and tore off his helm. Lad could not have been more than twenty, if that. His lips trembled, but Pig Knot could no longer hear him. The incensed screams from the onlookers suddenly drowned out all other sound.
Damn.
He gripped his sword, the steel red from Sadar’s blood.
Gut him. Slice him like a fish…
Grimacing, Pig Knot shook his head… and turned away.
He walked back to the portcullis, catching bits and pieces of curses heaped upon his name. Some truly inventive ones rose above the angry clamour of the audience. Any moment, he expected a spear to nail him through the back, but it didn’t happen. He waited until the
gate came up and ducked under it, not bothering to look back at the man whose life he’d spared.
He wondered if Toffer would be upset. The fight hadn’t gone the way he wanted.
Thinking further, he realized he truly didn’t care.
Walking back through the white tunnel, he didn’t pay attention to the man inside the portcullis, the gatekeeper, or the Skarrs standing guard.
He wandered back to general quarters, appreciating the pearly gleam of the tunnel, taking the helmet from his head and breathing the hideous-tasting air. Toffer would be waiting for him. Pig Knot wasn’t looking forward to the meeting, but a win was a win, and any time one came back from the sands with only a gash to the arm was a good thing. The tunnel ended in the crowded torchlit general quarters, and he steered towards the mighty matchboard. He faced the Madea, who eyed him without emotion for a moment.
Pig Knot waited.
“You win your fight?” the Madea asked over the din of the massive underground chamber.
He nodded.
The Madea still waited until a runner brought the official word. Without a word, he handed a leather purse full of coin to Pig Knot, who hefted it in a fist. He remembered to thank the ring organizer and turned to leave.
There, standing in his way, was a man.
It wasn’t Toffer.
“Get scratched, did you?” Halm grinned at him.
All at once, Pig Knot’s mood brightened. It was good to see a friend’s face coming back from the Pit. “Maybe if I had those rolls of yours, it wouldn’t have bothered me.”
“Maybe, maybe,” Halm agreed. “I see you’re a few coins richer.”
Pig Knot shrugged and noticed the Kree standing next to him. “Goll. How goes the limping?”
That didn’t win him any smiles. Goll frowned. “We’re leaving. You can come with us or not.”
“Leaving? Leaving what?”
“The city,” Goll said.
“We have a meeting with a taskmaster.” Halm eyes shone in the sparse lamplight.
“What?” Pig Knot asked. “What about?”
“Tell you on the way.”
“Well, wait—I have your sack over there,” Pig Knot said ruefully. “That shite still stinks, by the way. And I have to see the healer.”
“For that scratch?” Halm scoffed. “Old woman. A rag will plug that. Let’s get going.”
“Wait.” Goll went to the Madea, talked with the man, and then returned. “You fight in three days,” he reported to Halm.
“Three days, eh? Did he say who?”
“House of Curge. No surprise there.”
Halm agreed. “None at all.”
Pig Knot glanced about for Toffer.
“Looking for your friend from earlier?” Goll asked.
“Aye that. See him?”
“He left. Probably at the Domis right now if he wagered on you.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“Who was he?”
“Just a man I owed. All settled now.”
Halm clapped a hand to Pig Knot’s shoulder. “Good to see you, Pig Knot. We have some interesting news for you.”
*
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Caro leaned against the stone wall of a tailor and weaver store and studied the front of the alehouse containing the remaining Free Trained man. He employed several other spies, all funded by Grisholt’s recent winnings in the arena. The henchman he’d replaced in the alley reported that two of them had left much earlier, so Caro assigned a man to follow the Zhiberian and his companion.
After sending his night man off to get some sleep, Caro resumed watch with his breakfast, a couple of hard-boiled eggs and a chunk of bread. He’d taken up sleeping in an alleyway two buildings away on a pair of blankets he’d stolen from a weaver’s open stall. The alley had become the designated area for him or any of the other men working for him. Hanging farther back between the structures to avoid attention but remaining close enough to keep an eye on the entrance to the alehouse, he sipped on a wooden cup of water and quietly finished eating his food. It would be all he’d get until the evening.
He’d almost gotten over the fright Curge had given him, wishing he could somehow exact revenge on the bald ogre. Caro’s career as a fighter had been a short one, for he realized early that he couldn’t endure the constant training. Gathering information, placing wagers, and any other work of an agent agreed with him much more than retching his guts out while a trainer screamed insults at him. He believed that if he performed well enough, Grisholt would take care of him. These days, loyalty was valued in a man, and Caro just didn’t see himself slaving in a field somewhere or under a merchant’s roof.
The shady dealings were infinitely more agreeable.
The morning stretched into early afternoon, with no sign of any of their marks appearing. People filed in and out of his field of vision, but they were all the wrong ones. He pissed in the alley when the need took him, grateful for the break in the monotony. Soon his thoughts were on other things he could be doing, but he squashed those and forced himself to enjoy the hunt. For this was a hunt of the best kind.
Just then he glimpsed the pensive face of one of his hired hands passing by the mouth of the alley.
Caro’s expression became curious.
This man, Ballan, subtly directed his attention down the street before passing from view. Caro came forward, cautiously glancing one way and then the other. There, amongst the people going about their business, walked the Zhiberian, his fat belly bared to the sun and bouncing about in a manner Caro found distasteful.
The agent retreated a step back into the alley. The fat man was returning to the alehouse. He walked alone. Caro eventually saw the Zhiberian wore an expression of urgency. Reaching the alehouse, he jumped the steps to the front door and disappeared inside.
Caro waited.
The Zhiberian emerged once again—with another man at his side.
Worse, they were carrying cloth sacks with them—sacks that, if Caro didn’t miss his guess, were full of coin. He detached himself from the alley and tracked the pair heading back the way the fat man had come. Ballan stretched across the way, catching Caro’s attention and seeking guidance. Caro wasn’t sure of what to do. Even though he carried a sword at his waist—he’d carried the weapon since the encounter with Dark Curge—his agents didn’t carry much more. They were eyes and ears, not fighters, and certainly not capable of attacking two dangerous men in broad daylight.
Caro gave Ballan the briefest of hand signals, follow them, and got moving himself. He kept back to avoid being noticed. The pit fighters walked quickly, straight through the middle of the crowds, who instinctively parted for them. Some people meandered into Caro’s path, threatening to slow him, so he shouldered past or shoved them out of his way, hearing their curses in his wake. Ballan kept up just at the edge of his vision, keeping closer to the store- and stallfronts. Caro had no one else to draw upon this hour of morning as they were all sleeping somewhere. It was just the two of them in pursuit of the pit fighters.
They trailed twenty paces behind their quarry, following them to the southern gate of the city, where a knot of watchful Skarrs made Caro hesitate. The Zhiberian and his companion entered the tunnel, where murder holes allowed scant grey light to filter down and checker the traffic entering and exiting Sunja.
Caro followed, immersing himself in the crowds and flowing past the Skarrs. Despite his forced expression of boredom, he sensed the city guards watching him right up until he entered the tunnel. Once inside, he searched for his targets amongst the moving bottleneck of people. The passageway ended, and he emerged on the other side and located his prey boarding one of two wagons driven by men he didn’t know. Once they were aboard, the vehicles rolled from the city, following the terraced road, all to the rumble from gathering thunderheads.
About ten strides on his right, Ballan stopped and stared, seeing the same thing.
Caro held his chin and looked about. With a quick flick of his c
hin, he set Ballan to follow. The agent watched him go, smelling rain on the air and watching the clouds move over the city. Then he felt the first few pelts on his forehead. Wherever the wagons were heading, Ballan was in for some exercise and wet weather, not that Caro cared. He didn’t have to do it.
The rain flickered from drops to a drizzle as the wagons rattled down over the cliff, following the winding road to the softly undulating farmland of Plagur’s Reach far below. There wasn’t anything Caro could do now except to go back, rouse one of his remaining thugs, and send him off to Grisholt.
His employer would want to know the Free Trained had left the city yet again and, this time, perhaps even taken their coin with them.
Then another idea struck Caro, which made him head towards Sunja’s Pit.
The matchboard.
Halm of Zhiberia would be displayed on the Madea’s matchboard for all to see if he was to fight in the coming days.
Increasing his stride, Caro’s hopes grew that the day would not be a total loss and a more lucrative one would be just on the horizon.
30
The warning from Curge four days ago had stayed with Grisholt for a long time after he’d returned to the security of his walled estate. Not just anyone would come into his viewing chamber and start threatening him, and if his father had been present, blood would have smeared the floor. Though the House of Grisholt had fallen from its days of glory, it was still a name and a force to be wary of. The more Grisholt dwelt on what had happened, the more rotten with indignation and insult he became. The gall of the one-armed bastard. Grisholt replayed the entire episode, trading barbs with Dark Curge and backing him up with his cutting words. Grisholt paced his grounds, stopping and staring out over his estate walls and muttering with heat, “I should have told him to…” before mentally re-enacting the scene—but with Curge withering and retreating in the end. In some cases, the confrontation took on the feel of a dramatic Perician play where both hero and antagonist fall in a merciless hand-to-hand fight in the final act. Brakuss and his lads die, heroically taking down Curge’s brute, while Grisholt stabs the old topper through the throat and emerges from the battle sporting a gallant cut above an eye, a gash that, once healed, becomes a sophisticated scar that endears him to any woman he meets.
131 Days [Book 1] Page 39
