Chainer took a step toward the door, but stopped. "Am I dismissed, Master?"
"You are dismissed."
Chainer took one last second to lash a chain into the discarded towel and haul it in to his hand. With a bow and a flourish, he offered the towel to Skellum from his artificial arm.
"Thank you again, Master," he said. "For everything."
"Go on," Skellum took the towel. "Just try not to lose any limbs between here and the docks."
*****
Just as he knew where to go to get the best view of the incoming pit fighters, Chainer also knew where to go to watch ships arrive in Cabal City harbor. He sat in a second-story warehouse window as Fulla's travel fish swam up. He felt almost smug, high above the small crowd that had gathered to gawk at the amazing creature, with the best view on the pier.
The fish was whale sized, with transparent skin and organs. The only visible internal structures were its bones. A small dark-haired woman rode just inside the thing's stomach, leaning against its gullet on her elbows as she watched the fish swim into port. Her sword arm was scarred and slightly malformed, almost clublike. She wore a thick, short gladius on her hip and carried three daggers on the outside of her vest. Her skin was pale, her hair was short and unkempt, but her boots were polished and her coat well tailored. Apart from an extremely wild glint in her eyes, she carried herself at least as elegantly as Skellum did.
Behind Fulla stood Ambassador Laquatus. He looked much the same as he did the last time Chainer saw him, only now he was not so smug or haughty. The voyage looked as if it had been a hard one for him. From the way he kept glaring at Fulla, Chainer guessed Laquatus would like nothing better than to dive straight to the bottom of the ocean with Fulla in tow and leave her there.
Fulla's fish bobbed on the water near the pier for a moment. Inside of it, Fulla stood and then backed up a few paces. She got a running start, then jumped and waved her hands simultaneously. The fish faded from view while Fulla was in midair. Her leap carried her safely onto the docks, but the unprepared ambassador was dropped unceremoniously into the sea. A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd, but it quickly died as Laquatus surfaced and angrily called for assistance. The dock was thick with Cabalists. A handful stepped forward to haul the ambassador out of the water, but the majority hovered close to Fulla. Her reputation and her eerie, intense stare kept anyone from touching her, however, and they cleared a path as she walked toward the First's manor. Dripping, sputtering, and largely ignored, Laquatus fell in behind her.
Chainer began to scan the rest of the crowd. It was clear that no one would dare interfere with Fulla on her way to the First, and Chainer felt confident that the Mirari was safe for as long as Fulla held onto it. He was hoping to catch a glimpse of Kamahl, but there was no sign of the big barbarian anywhere on the docks. It wasn't until he looked higher than himself that he found Kamahl.
Like a mountain goat, Kamahl had scaled the outside of a building directly across the alley from Chainer and was watching the Mirari arrive from the roof. Chainer thought he looked too humorless. He seemed to have lost some of his natural joy for battle. Upon reflection, he couldn't blame Kamahl. They had both thought of nothing but the Mirari since it left Cabal City, but Kamahl had chased it halfway up the coast and back, and he still didn't have it. I haven't moved, Chainer thought, and in a sense it's being delivered back to me. He made a mental note to be sure and point that out to Kamahl as soon as the barbarian cheered up.
With a shock, Chainer realized that Kamahl had spotted him. Chainer raised a hand in greeting, but Kamahl looked startled. Then Chainer remembered his arm.
Chainer held the arm higher and flicked it, producing a high-pitched ding. "It's a long story," he shouted.
Kamahl shrugged. He rolled his hands, indicating Chainer should elaborate.
"You ever met a barbarian girl named Jeska?" Chainer yelled. "Braided hair, carries a baton?"
Kamahl nodded.
Chainer held up his metal arm. "So did I."
Kamahl laughed and pointed to the ground. "Tell me in the tavern," he shouted back.
Chainer shook his head. "I'm on duty," he said, and Kamahl shrugged again. He pointed down at the retreating figures of Fulla and Laquatus, and then resumed his humorless stance as his eyes bored into them.
He's here for the Mirari again, Chainer realized. Jeska said he couldn't stop talking about it, and Chainer had seen his share of addicts and obsessives in the pits. Kamahl's expression was somewhere between a man who's been wronged and a man who's dying of thirst. There was something he needed, wanted, and meant to have all at the same time.
Chainer felt a disquieting churn in his stomach. He'd wanted Kamahl to have the Mirari more than Lt. Kirtar. But he wanted the First to have it more than Kamahl. He flexed his golem hand and listened to the metal bend.
Chainer took one last look at his friend, then turned and headed down the stairs. The First probably had three plans for the Mirari ready and waiting to be implemented. It was entirely possible that neither he nor Kamahl would ever see the Mirari again, much less fight over it. It was more likely that he and Kamahl would fight together in the pits as Balthor and Jeska had. In fact, Chainer was sure the Master of the Games would sanction such a pairing if he requested it.
Chainer picked up his pace, his good mood restored. Besides, he thought, by now everyone knows what happened to Pianna and Aboshan. Kamahl and everyone else would eventually have to accept that no matter who won it, the Mirari belonged to the Cabal and would always come back to those who found it first.
CHAPTER 15
"Ladies, gentlemen, and other," the overhead voice boomed. "Welcome to the main event."
Chainer and Kamahl stood side by side, casually checking their weapons. Chainer loaded a charcoal disc into his censer and held it out to Kamahl. The barbarian snapped his fingers and produced a tiny, explosive blast of flame that engulfed the charcoal. Chainer let the disc drop into the censer, loaded the Dragon's Blood in after it, and waited for the smoke to begin wafting upward.
"Much obliged," he said. Kamahl grunted and nodded. He was not one for pre-match chatter.
"Tonight," the announcer continued, "they're red- hot and blackhearted. They're going for their twelfth consecutive team win, a Cabal City record. They are the Cabal's own Chainer and Kamahl from the Pardic Mountains!"
The cheers got louder with each match. Chainer waved his metal hand to acknowledge the crowd, but Kamahl ignored them. Now that he had spent some time with the big man in and outside of the pits, Chainer was getting a clear idea of the difference between barbarians and Cabalists. Kamahl only relaxed immediately after a match. Before and during, he hardly spoke a word and never so much as cracked a smile. Partnering with Kamahl had been hugely rewarding for Chainer, but it had also cured him of the notion that he should have been a barbarian. The mountain people were driven harder by their own nature than the average Cabalist was by the sternest overseer. Chainer mentally thanked Skellum for instilling a sense of discipline, but also the good sense to enjoy the time between fights.
The announcer continued to drone on. "Our champions have their work cut out for them tonight, however. The Master of the Games has sanctioned this match as a grudge match, one with no restrictions. The contest is over when all the contestants on one side either yield or are incapacitated."
"I wish they would tell us these things before we get out here," Kamahl grumbled.
"That's part of the fun," Chainer said.
"Requesting the grudge match, and representing the Order's late, lamented northern Citadel, please welcome Lieutenant Devon's crusat squad!"
Lt. Devon was another aven warrior, and though his wings were stunted, Chainer fully expected him to fly with the aid of the Order's magic. He was armed with a long pike. The rest of Devon's squad consisted of two troopers, a white-robed mage, and a huge stone beast with the head of a lion and the body of a ten-foot- tall man.
While the announcer continued with the in
troductions, Kamahl leaned over to Chainer and said, "What's a 'crusat?' Every toy soldier I meet these days calls himself crusat."
Chainer was pleased that Kamahl was actually speaking before a match, and that the barbarian had used Cabal slang to describe the Order. It made them seem more like a team.
"Crusat is a kind of holy war," Chainer explained. "They used to declare them every year or so, back in the days when they were trying to wipe us out once and for all. Pianna put a stop to all that, but now that she's gone, a few of their hard-liners have revived the concept."
Kamahl grimaced. "So we're fighting a death match against fanatics with a spiritual grudge against you."
Chainer nodded. "That's about the size of it." He smiled. "Should be fun, eh?"
Kamahl grumbled. "I usually like there to be more of a reward waiting for me when I fight for my life."
Chainer darkened. "As soon as the First offers the Mirari again, you'll get your chance." He nudged Kamahl. "What's that statue-looking thing?" Chainer asked.
"They're called megoliths. Animated stone, or some such thing. I've fought them before."
"Like a golem?" Chainer was eager for another crack at an Order golem.
"Sort of. They aren't carved before they're animated like golems are. They just sort of… come into being in the shape they have. Watch the pieces," he warned. "Sometimes you can hack off a piece, and the piece keeps fighting."
"Thanks," Chainer said. He gestured with his smoking censer. "Look, they're burning incense, too."
Kamahl looked. "Seems more like a prayer ceremony to me. I think they're blessing the bird- man."
"Think that'll make him fly?" Chainer said. He started spinning his censer around his head.
"Probably." Kamahl's voice had gone flat again, indicating that his mind was not on the conversation. The prep horn sounded. The match was ready to begin.
"You want the bird-man and the mystic or the statue and the toy soldiers?"
"I'll take the statue. I want to see if it melts or burns," Kamahl drew his massive broadsword. "Watch the mage. She's not armed, so I expect she's got some magical surprise in store for us."
"Done," Chainer said. The starting horn sounded. Devon's squad spread out, with the megolith in front and the troopers flanking it. The mage touched the lieutenant's wings, which burst into bright, glowing light. Devon yelled, "Attack!" and sprang into the air, trailing white light behind him. The mage stayed where she was, safely out of harm's way.
Or so she thought.
Chainer hardly needed the Dragon's Blood smoke at all anymore, but he liked starting the match with it because it partially hid his actions. While Devon was soaring overhead, looking for an avenue of attack, and the ground troops were marching forward, Chainer shuddered and unleashed a razor-clawed harpy with his metal arm. The filthy, screeching bird-woman dropped greasy feathers as it rose into the air, rushing to meet Devon headlong.
Chainer then dropped his real arm down by his side and let a foot-long spider fall onto the arena floor. Chainer was sure no one noticed the arachnid as it scuttled to the edge of the pit and began making a wide arc toward the white-robed mage. In the pits, he thought, there is no place to avoid the match. Kamahl, meanwhile, had charged into the advancing wedge of Order members and started hacking. His blade bounced off the megolith with no visible effect, but Kamahl was fast enough and his strokes wide enough to keep both foot soldiers at bay while he tried to find a seam in the stone thing's hide.
Chainer's harpy was doing better than he had expected. It had latched onto Devon's pike below the blade and was using its weight to drag the lieutenant down to the ground while it struck at him with her other claws. Devon tried to pound the harpy's grip loose, but it only clenched tighter. Chainer thought he knew why the officer hadn't simply dropped the pike.
Right on schedule, Devon waved his hand and cast a spell on his weapon. The point of his pike burst into white-hot flame, which blinded the harpy and seared its flesh. It screamed and reflexively released Devon's pike. The aven warrior promptly drove the weapon clean through the harpy's body. The harpy twitched, and Devon let gravity tear the gruesome husk loose. En route to the ground, the harpy disappeared. The crowd roared.
Devon wasted no time in celebration. He raised his pike overhead, screeched out a triumphant war cry, and dived toward Kamahl. As Devon dived, the megolith caught Kamahl's blade and then lowered its shoulder into Kamahl's chest. Kamahl grunted and staggered backward, but he managed to drop one of the foot soldiers as he went with an elbow across the bridge of the nose. Kamahl was now five feet away from the megolith and the remaining trooper, with Devon bearing down on him from above.
"Any time you're ready, partner," he shouted angrily. Chainer laughed, and then there was a scream from the Order mage at the far end of the floor. Chainer's spider had leaped onto her face, and she was struggling to keep its inch-long fangs from piercing her flesh. Without the mage's assistance, Devon lost control of his forward motion. Instead of swooping down at Kamahl, Devon was now simply falling out of the sky. There was a ripple of laughter and applause from the spectators.
"Leave the bird-man to me," Chainer readied a weighted chain. He whipped a smooth, rounded weight toward the falling aven. Devon tried to block the incoming chain with his pike, but he was off balance and out of position. The weight would have slammed into the point of his elongated chin, but Devon jerked his head aside at the last moment, and the heavy ball buried itself in his temple. Even Chainer winced at the sound.
The rest of the squad hesitated as Devon crashed lifeless to the arena floor. Kamahl drew a throwing axe from his back, charged it, and let it fly. It slammed into the megolith's chest and exploded, knocking the megolith back a step and the remaining foot soldier off his feet. Kamahl weathered the blast like an oak in a summer squall.
When the smoke and debris from the blast had settled, Chainer saw that the megolith was missing a huge scoop of stone from its chest. It was otherwise unaffected, however, and it resumed its exchange of blocks and blows with Kamahl. Annoyed, the barbarian sent a stream of liquid fire shooting from the end of his sword into the megolith's face, melting and distorting it. The stone beast pressed on. Like the golem that had killed Deidre, it really didn't need its eyes to fight.
Kamahl inexplicably dropped his sword then, and Chainer saw a look of confusion cross his partner's face. Both foot soldiers were on their feet again, and Kamahl made one last effort to pick his sword up, but it wouldn't budge. He was forced to dive away from it as the foot soldiers slashed at him with their weapons.
Chainer saw that the mage had managed to neutralize the spider and was in a prayer stance once more. She must have done something to Kamahl's sword. Chainer grew angry, both at himself for going easy on the mage, and at her for taking advantage of it. He positioned both hands and sent an eighteen-foot long python shooting across the arena. It latched onto the mage's arm with its venomless fangs and quickly wrapped her head and torso in its crushing coils.
Kamahl seemed angry, too, angrier than Chainer could remember. Most things that made Kamahl angry didn't last long enough to make him really angry, but the megolith seemed to have driven him over the edge. With flames shooting from his hands, he grabbed one of the foot soldiers by the throat and lifted him off the ground. The man's flesh sizzled and popped until Kamahl threw him into his fellow trooper, tangling both men into a painful, confused heap. The crowd oohed. Then Kamahl leaped onto the megolith and wrapped his huge hands around the thing's head. "Kamahl, get off!" Chainer shook off visions of Deidre and readied another weighted chain. Kamahl was much faster than the megolith, however. He dug his superheated fingers into the stone giant's jawline, and Chainer saw two axe-shaped bursts of red form inside the megolith's torso. Kamahl dropped off just as the megolith reached up to crush him. Kamahl dove away, rolled, and conjured a large warhammer in each hand. He charged back at the megolith, ducked under its crushing fists, and brought both hammers together with a boom.
&n
bsp; There was a seismic shudder that cracked the stone floor, and the axes planted in the megolith's chest exploded.
This blast was different from the previous one. It was three times as strong, for one, and doubly constrained by the megolith's own body and the powerful vibrations caused by the hammers. There was a muted flash and a muffled boom, and a network of cracks raced across the whole of its body. Smoke poured from its half-melted mouth. It was standing completely still. The crowd was silent.
"Chainer," Kamahl called. He pointed at the frozen warrior. "Give that thing one last tap, will you?"
Chainer sent his weight straight into the thing's chest without hesitation. The dense crystalline creature had been transformed by the intense heat and pressure of Kamahl's magic into something far more brittle. When Chainer's weight struck it, the husk of the defeated megolith shattered into a fine, white sand that was littered with a few larger shards of broken glass.
For a moment, there was no motion or sound on the arena floor. The foot soldiers were unconscious, Devon was dead, and the megolith was dust. Even the mage was completely helpless in the python's grip. If Chainer didn't call it off, she'd soon be a meal for a nightmare. A single pair of hands started clapping from the stands. The applause grew, louder and louder until it was a roar. The competing chants of "Chainer!" and "Kamahl!" began.
"Your winners, ladies and gentlemen… Chainer and Kamahl! This marks their twelfth consecutive win!"
As the announcer prattled on, Chainer went over to his partner. Kamahl looked at him sullenly.
"That was fun," the barbarian said, "but next time, you get the megolith."
Chainer laughed and slapped Kamahl on the shoulder. "Agreed." As the crowd continued to cheer and chant, he took Kamahl's hand in his and raised them both high in the air.
*****
Veza floated once more in the forward cabin of the empress's transport. She was alone, unaccompanied but for a handful of scribes and a quartet of Llawan's savage barracuda bodyguards. There were no air breathers on board, so all of the leviathan's internal and external compartments had been flooded for this fact-finding mission.
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