He glanced at her as though to make sure she understood.
She hated it that they all seemed to think she lacked intelligence. “Yes,” Ampris said impatiently. “I understand.”
They went down the steps into the courtyard where she had met Ylea yesterday. Unconsciously Ampris tensed herself, but the bulky Aaroun was not lying in wait to ambush her again.
They crossed the courtyard quickly in the chilly, gray dawn air. Inside her web sensor suit Ampris felt perfectly warm. But her ears quickly grew cold, and the damp air stung her eyes, making them water. She lengthened her stride, crowding close on Ruar’s heels and making him strike an irritated trot in order to stay ahead of her.
To her right lay the entrance gate and the long road they had flown along in the transport yesterday. Ampris looked that way, considering how hard it might be to get past that gate.
A floating vidcam hovered just on the other side of it, flashing at her. Ampris backed her ears. “Is that a news-cam?” she asked.
Ruar didn’t even bother to look. “Maybe,” he said, his voice sour and impatient. The light was growing rosy and clearer, and ahead she could see streaks of muted gold beginning to spread across the dusky sky. “Maybe news. Maybe spy. Maybe thief, wanting to steal high-priced gladiator. Always someone there. Always trying to get past shields.”
He glanced up at her and curled back his lip. His rheumy old eyes held a momentary glimmer of amusement. “Nothing can record past your sensor web. Waste of spy money, trying to see what goes on in here. No news on the Blues till they win. Hah!”
They went through another gate, and Ampris saw a huge compound stretching out before her. Several utilitarian, rectangular buildings were on the left. According to Ruar, they contained the gyms, indoor arena, and pool. To the right, she saw a spacious open-air arena, ringed with slat-rail fencing of indigenous wood. Instead of sand, the ground was covered with some kind of wood shavings, fragrant and soft, packed down slightly underfoot by the cold dew sparkling on everything.
Halehl stood waiting at the center of this arena, clad in a hooded web sensor suit of his own that fit him like a second skin and glimmered wetly with every movement. A deep, square box hovered off the ground beside him.
On the opposite side of the ring, a group of Aarouns clustered near the fence. Her heart sinking with dismay, Ampris glanced at them and wished she didn’t have her new teammates for an audience. She was nervous enough, and anxious to do well. She knew that she must learn to fight in their style, not her own. She must work hard to integrate herself into the team. None of them looked as young as she. They had that scarred, bored, well-seasoned slouch to their muscular bodies, and she felt increasingly self-conscious.
Then she noticed that each of them was tethered to the fence by a leash similar to hers. Somehow, that failed to make her feel better. Were they tied like animals to keep them from attacking her as Ylea had done yesterday? Or was it a game of humiliation, designed to shame them and remind them of their place? Either way, the sight of these intelligent adults standing tied up like beasts of burden depressed her.
She did not let herself look at them again, not even when the criticism and jeers started.
“Look at her!”
“Let her walk the walk. Prance, golden cub. Strut your stuff!”
“Did they buy her for her looks or for her muscle?”
“Muscle?” Ylea’s voice rose above the rest. “She puny, a weakling.”
“She walks like her arms and legs have been tied together. Wait till she gets to Ceunth Siltr and hits that gravity.”
“She’s hopeless. There isn’t enough time.”
“Pretty, though.”
“You think any female in fur is pretty.”
“Want to wager there’re stripes under that sensor suit?”
“You’re on!”
“She won’t fight,” Ylea said caustically. “She’s a freezer. She’ll freeze in the ring. I’ll bet on it.”
“What odds?”
A sharp command from Halehl put an end to the talk. Handlers appeared, mostly Myals like Ruar, who came to untie the Aarouns and lead them away. Ampris watched them stride into the distance, realizing that they’d already had their workout. She could smell the musky odors of sweat lingering in their wake. They walked away as though they owned the world, and she found herself admiring their pride and confidence. All Aarouns should carry themselves that way, she thought, even when led by leashes, with slavery rings in their ears.
With the other Aarouns gone, tension vanished from Ruar’s shoulders. He slouched a bit and relaxed his grip on Ampris’s leash.
She glanced around freely now, her nostrils quivering at the foreign scents on the cold air—scents of wood and Viis, scents of the forest beyond the walls of the compound, scents of growing things, and tiny animals burrowing for food in the fallen leaves. Prey. She swallowed and slowed down, looking into the distance with her head high and her gaze intent.
Ruar jerked on her leash impatiently. “You cannot run away,” he said, his voice low and grouchy. “Climb the wall at any point, and the transponders of the shields will activate your restraint collar at twice the normal intensity. If you ever speak again, you will be lucky.”
Ampris looked at him, this bowed, stumpy, elderly creature, with his too-intelligent eyes and the constant stink of fear on him. Only then did she notice that he wore a restraint collar too, a very narrow, very unobtrusive one mostly concealed in the hair around his throat. “What has made you so unhappy?” she asked him softly. “What has made you so afraid?”
Ruar’s eyes widened. For a moment he stared at her in astonishment, then anger flashed across his face and he jerked on her leash again. “You come. Hurry!”
He led her into the ring almost at a run, halting in front of Halehl and bowing low. “The new one is brought, master.”
Halehl’s yellow eyes took them both in, as though he believed they had been somewhere they shouldn’t have, talking about things they shouldn’t have. “You are late.”
Ampris glanced at the horizon, where the sky was now lit in shades of turquoise, lavender, and gold. But the sun had not yet appeared. If Elrabin had spoken the truth, they were not late.
She backed her ears, but she knew to say nothing.
Ruar bowed even lower this time. “As the master says. Forgive me.”
“It is a poor start to your first day, Ampris,” Halehl said, his tone as courteous and gentle as always. “You will have to work twice as hard.”
She kept her gaze down. “Yes, Master Halehl.”
Ruar struck her with his end of the leash. “That is no way to address the master! You are not Viis, to address him by name or—”
“Ruar!” Halehl said sharply, making him freeze in midsentence. “Enough. Go and check the security shields. Make sure we’re not under outside surveillance. The security scans have been showing blips since midnight. I want to be certain our countermeasures are working.”
Bowing, Ruar started to unsnap Ampris’s leash, but Halehl gave him an impatient wave.
“Go,” he said. “I’ll deal with her.”
The old Myal bowed and shuffled away, mumbling to himself.
“Ruar!” Halehl called after him. Now Ampris could hear a note of exasperation in his melodic voice. “You have forgotten something.”
Ruar wheeled around and returned to him, holding out the transmitter that controlled Ampris’s restraint collar. Cringing as though he expected to be beaten, he handed it to Halehl without a word, then scuttled away.
Halehl pocketed the transmitter and unsnapped Ampris’s leash. His gaze watched her constantly. “Is the gravity a problem?”
She shrugged. “I feel heavy.”
“Good. That’s the point of training on Fariance. You are moving differently today. The suit?”
Ampris flexed her arms, hating the tight constriction of the suit. “It’s binding my arms and legs too much. It makes my fur itch.”
Halehl fli
cked out his tongue. “Most satisfactory. You will learn to move in the suit as though it is a second skin.”
“But it will hamper—”
“You will overcome that. Do one lap to warm up, then start your leaps.”
She could not continue the argument. Sighing to herself and feeling already that this was going to be a long day, Ampris headed at a slow jog around the large ring. Normally she would have run, for she loved to dig in and push herself, but she’d been confined too long in spaceflight—a journey spent mostly waiting, docked in line for the few working jump gates. Her muscles were tight and needed a good workout. She knew it was prudent to take things slow until her body adjusted to these new conditions. There was no point in pulling a muscle.
But even at a slow jog, she soon began to feel the effects of the heavier gravity. Before she’d made an entire circuit, her tongue was hanging out. Panting heavily, she finished the lap and doubled over for a moment to catch her wind.
“Ampris!” Halehl called. “Leaps. Once across. Once back.”
Swallowing a groan, she forced herself upright and began making long running jumps as though leaping over imaginary hurdles. Her legs felt like lead. Her body had not been so clumsy, so slow since the first horrible days at Bizsi Mo’ad. It was like starting over, and she didn’t like it.
While she was staggering her way across, with each leap lower and shorter than the previous one, Halehl busied himself emptying the box floating at his side. Bright blue balls hovered around him, then he tossed them to various points about the ring and used a control device in his hand to move them into position. There they hovered, spinning brightly about waist height above the ground.
Ampris finished her leaps, gasping for air, and sagged against the fence. Her fur was matted under the sensor suit, sweat-soaked now and doubly unpleasant. She longed to rip it off and be free. Instead, she started her stretches, loosening her muscles even more after the warm-up.
Halehl activated her suit without warning, sending shock waves of energy coursing all across her body. With a yelp, Ampris leaped away from the fence and barely kept herself from rolling on the ground like something gone mad.
He had it set too high. She could feel the waves coursing through her skin and upper muscle layers like an abrasive. Yet when she looked at him in appeal, Halehl gestured at her.
“Time to begin. You have much to learn before the season starts in three weeks.”
The energy from the suit crawled over her like an infestation. She couldn’t concentrate, could hardly think.
Halehl pointed at the obstacle course he’d set up, marked by the spinning blue balls. “Do you know this pattern?”
“Yes, Master Halehl,” she said through gritted teeth. He wasn’t going to turn down the setting. She knew she could not ask him to, yet she wasn’t sure how long she could bear this. “It is X pattern. Tag each position, then cross over before doubling back.”
“Correct. Only tag the positions by leaping over the balls. Use a body roll if necessary. I’ll time you.”
Intent on his equipment, he turned away from her. Ampris tried to pull her wits together and concentrate. She had to do well, she reminded herself. She had to show him what she could do.
X pattern was deceptively simple, yet its variations could become very complex. Ampris started at a jog, but when she reached the first position and started to hurl herself over it, a jolt of energy through the suit boosted her over with more force than she’d intended. Losing her balance, she fell on landing, swore beneath her breath, and scrambled upright to go on.
Sometimes he boosted the energy in her suit. Sometimes he raised the balls just as she reached them. Sometimes he lowered them or made them zigzag away from her.
Ampris was used to limited equipment and stationary positions. She realized what Halehl was trying to teach her about the unpredictability of an opponent, but that didn’t help her second-guess which way to move next.
In addition, her usual quickness and speed were gone. She felt as though her body had been switched with another’s during the night. She could not seem to time herself right or master her aching muscles. Still, she knew that, given time and much hard work, she could adjust to the gravity difference. It would strengthen her muscles, and perhaps she would even grow eventually to look like Ylea.
She was still smiling to herself at that last thought when she reached the far end of the ring. Without warning, the balls suddenly shifted positions around her. Confused, Ampris stumbled to a halt, but Halehl’s voice—broken by static—came to her. She realized there must be a speaker hidden in her restraint collar, and remembered Elrabin’s warnings. They were spied on not only by concealed cams in their quarters, but also via their bugged collars.
Now she understood why Ruar was so nervous and afraid, why Elrabin shifted behavior and speech patterns so rapidly. He did so according to when surveillance was on and when it wasn’t.
A memory flashed through her mind of vidcasts of competitions, where the famous Blues entered the ring wearing blue capes and blue collars.
She grinned to herself in grudging admiration for the sheer audacity of it. The Blues cheated. They could be coached in competition via their collars. She imagined Halehl sitting high in the stands, issuing instructions softly into his transmitters. No wonder the Blues were so successful.
“Ampris,” came Halehl’s voice over the static. “Pay attention to me. I have shifted to wing variation. Do you know it?”
“Yes, Master Halehl.”
“Don’t speak,” he said. “It interferes with my signal. Raise your left hand for no and your right hand for yes.”
Ampris raised her right hand.
The balls shifted position again, floating past her.
“Do you know this variation?”
Ampris raised her right hand.
The balls shifted a third time. Before he could ask the question, Ampris lifted her right hand.
“Run it,” Halehl said.
She did, with the blood pounding in her head, her skin on fire, her legs like lead beneath her. Panting hard, she longed for water but dared not ask for it.
This time, Halehl gave her directions as she ran, telling her to leap or dodge a certain way in anticipation of how the ball was going to move. After initial fumbling, she found herself beginning to respond to his voice quicker and more smoothly.
She didn’t like being directed, though. It made her dependent on him instead of her own wits.
Halehl ran her through the pattern again, then shifted the balls to a pattern she did not know. She stumbled through it, trying to move fast while listening to his directions. After an hour or more of this, she was entirely disoriented and reeling with exhaustion.
Finally Halehl called a halt.
Gasping and trying not to be sick, Ampris sagged to her knees, panting so hard her sides were heaving. Her sensor suit was switched off, and she cried out in sheer relief. Ruar appeared with a canteen of water. She drank it thirstily and found the water tasted flat and distilled. Right then, however, the taste did not matter. It was very cold, and she drank it all in swift gulps, only to be immediately sick. Ruar gave her more water, and this time she swallowed it more slowly, rinsing out her mouth a few times and spitting.
Pulling back the hood of his sensor suit, Halehl came to stand over her. He stared down at her, his expression grim with displeasure. Flicking out his tongue, he said, “You are not worth the fortune we paid for you. Get on your feet.”
Swallowing a groan, Ampris obeyed. She stood there at attention, her gaze straight ahead, while he circled her. She expected a beating for whatever she’d done, or failed to do.
“It isn’t enough to do the drills, Ampris,” he said to her in a voice that cut. “It isn’t enough to follow orders. You won’t last five minutes in the arena. You haven’t got enough beast in you.”
Ampris’s gaze flickered to his face, then shifted hastily away again.
But he saw, and stepped up close to her, s
o close she could see the fine pebble graining of his skin. His rill was extending out from his neck. “You dare disagree with my assessment?”
“No, Master Halehl,” she said softly.
“You disagree,” he said harshly. “You want to tell me that you are not a beast. You are not an animal. No, Ampris, you are a civilized person, refined and able to appreciate aesthetic things like art and music.”
She held herself stiffly, barely daring to breathe while he stood so close. His rill had turned red, betraying genuine anger.
He struck her without warning across the muzzle, making pain shoot up into her eyes.
She blinked hard, and held herself steady, knowing better than to move or even cry out. He was no different from any of the others, she knew now. He had seemed to be kind, but he was not. Elrabin’s warning had been true.
“I don’t want a civilized Aaroun in this stable!” Halehl told her. “I want a savage, barbarous warrior. I want a blood-crazed, out-of-control fiend. You, Ampris, are too eager to please. You haven’t the heart for this. The first competition will see you mauled.”
Again, protests rose to her mouth. Again, she restrained them.
He turned away from her, only to swing back and strike her again.
As she’d been taught, Ampris held herself under control, refusing to react. She took the punishment stoically.
His rill turned a darker shade of red. It flared out at full extension now behind his head. “Pretty and useless. You might as well be in manual labor, for all the good you are.”
He struck her again, and again, rocking her back on her feet now with the force of his blows.
“I don’t want placid!” he screamed at her. “I want—”
Ampris’s temper finally snapped. She roared at him, in full volume, drowning out his sentence. Before he could react, she was already on him, driving him backward with a body block that pinned him hard against the rail fence.
He was reaching for the transmitter of her restraint collar, but Ampris knocked it from his hand, sending the yellow disk spinning across the ground. Roaring again, she blocked his struggles with her own bulk and gripped his throat in her teeth.
The Crimson Claw Page 6
