The certainty of blood, p.27
The Certainty of Blood, page 27
The crowd roared at something behind him, but Clanless couldn’t take time to see how Patch fared. This creature was still dangerous; he had to put it all the way down. He mentally tried to prepare himself for the approaching pain.
Clanless planted his right foot and lunged forward. He lifted the moonblade high before bringing it down as far as he could reach without help from his left foot. The top curve of the blade slammed down into the beast’s head, penetrating into its brain.
With his knees scraped and bleeding, Clanless fought to free his blade from the dying creature. It thrashed around for a moment, dragging him with it. When at last he jerked the weapon loose, the monster gave one final spasm and lay still. Leaning on the moonblade, Clanless turned to see the other fight. His heart sank.
The tall warrior stood a couple dozen yards away, holding Patch in the air with one hand. The spikes at the end of the chain were embedded in Patch’s back. The warrior jerked the chain with his other hand, and the spikes came loose with a spurt of blood. He tossed Patch to the side and turned to face Clanless.
Clanless groaned. From the looks of it, Patch hadn’t gotten a single hit on his opponent. Clanless couldn’t detect any blood at any rate. If the warrior bled, there was a chance. But Clanless couldn’t get to him, and with the range of his chain weapon, he had no reason to come close.
Indeed, the warrior smiled, spreading apart a pair of star tattoos around his mouth. He advanced with precise steps, swinging the chain over his head.
Clanless’s body didn’t want to move. Between the torn ankle and the scratches everywhere, he must have lost a lot of blood already. This fight had lasted longer than any previous arena encounter. And regardless of anything else, his bleeding body created a timer for fighting that could not be exceeded.
“Come closer,” he murmured. He pulled himself a few inches forward, dragging his left knee.
“Having fought his way through an entire pack of wolves and a ferocious beast from afar, Clanless now faces against the mystical warrior that already defeated his comrade! Can our badly-wounded hero survive one more fight?” The presenter’s voice penetrated his thoughts for once. Clanless gritted his teeth. The crowd was getting quite a show today.
The enemy stopped at least a dozen feet away. His smile grew even larger, if possible. He brought his chain around one more time before launching it forward. To Clanless’s confusion, he threw it at his own shoulder height. It had no chance of hitting its target.
And then the enemy spoke, a single-syllable cry from his strange language. The spikes at the end of the chain stopped in mid-air, levitating right above Clanless. A split-second later, he realized his peril and dove to the right. The spikes impaled the sand where he’d been kneeling. The enemy yanked his weapon back and began swinging it again.
Magic! The presenter kept calling this a “mystical” warrior, and he hadn’t been exaggerating. The enemy used magic to control his weapon. What other capabilities did it have? How could Clanless defend against it?
Again, the chain shot forward, this time a little lower. Again, the enemy stopped it in mid-air with a shout. Clanless lunged to the side again as it fell. This time, one of the spikes connected with his left calf, piercing deep into the muscle. He couldn’t hold back another cry of pain when the warrior jerked the weapon loose.
His two dodges had taken him a couple of feet closer to the enemy warrior, but it wasn’t enough. If he got any closer, his opponent had only to take a few steps backward. He had no way of getting to him. Maybe if he caught the chain when it fell again, he could pull the enemy toward him… but he’d have to drop his sword to do that.
Only one other thought came to his mind, an insane thought. If it worked, he had a chance. If it didn’t work, he’d be dead. And if this kept up the same way, he’d be dead anyway.
More sunlight bathed the arena as the moon relinquished its hold on the sun.
Once more, he succeeded in dodging the chain weapon. As the bloodrush filled him with a last-ditch burst of energy, Clanless rolled across the sand. He lifted himself as high as he could, using the momentum from his roll to hurl the moonblade at his opponent.
Since Zaluu had purchased the throwing daggers, both he and Clanless had worked on their throwing skill. For Clanless, it meant moving from no skill to at least hitting a target more often than not. But throwing the moonblade? Completely different.
The sword spun through the air. The enemy’s eyes widened. He tried to dodge. The moonblade’s tip caught his left thigh, cutting a single gash, barely deep enough for him to even feel it. Clanless fell onto his palms.
The enemy warrior laughed. He drew the chain back to him. He took a step closer to Clanless and swung the chain again, still laughing.
Clanless lifted his head, his eyes glowing. “Burn,” he growled.
The enemy’s laughter stopped. “Aiyoi!” he yelled, reaching for his leg. Then his whole body jerked, muscles twisting in various directions. The chain fell from his hands. He collapsed in the sand, writhing.
Clanless didn’t know how long the Taint would keep his opponent down. It hadn’t even worked against the monster. He scrambled forward on hands and knees. He seized the moonblade and turned around. The enemy warrior, his fists clenched, started to pull himself up.
Clanless screamed and brought the moonblade down on the warrior’s exposed neck. The head and body fell separately back onto the sand.
The crowd screamed louder than ever, followed by a renewed chant of his name. The presenter tried to speak over them, but for once, couldn’t get loud enough.
Clanless leaned on his moonblade until even that became too much. Then he too collapsed onto the cool sand.
“What was that about?” Clanless demanded.
“Hold still!” the healer barked, pouring some of the special blood onto his ravaged ankle.
Clanless ignored him and glared up at Orgina and Badaar. He’d regained consciousness as the attendants helped carry him off the sands. The mistress of the arena had been there waiting and watching with Badaar, Zaluu, and Darghan.
“That was spectacular,” Orgina declared. “One of the most legendary fights this arena has ever seen.”
Clanless threw his head back and screamed as the healing magic began its work. Every time, he somehow forgot how much the process hurt.
“He had to reveal his power,” Badaar said. “Everyone saw it. The crowds will expect it now. And we’ll never get away with having him fight anything simple again.”
“Exactly.” Orgina rubbed her hands together. “Every one of his fights will be an event now. No one would dare miss any of them.”
The pain faded enough for Clanless to turn and glare at her. “Patch is dead! How does that help your finances?”
Orgina sighed and waved off the healer. “Bandage the scratches and let them heal normally,” she said. “He needs a few more scars.” She started toward the hallway but paused halfway there. “Patch was getting too old for this. As cynical as this may sound to you, he was going to end his career sometime soon, regardless of what I did. This way, at least he died as part of a story everyone will be telling for years to come.” She continued on, leaving the others to stare after her.
“She has no heart,” Darghan muttered.
Clanless let his head fall back onto the stretcher. More than anything, he wanted to let himself fall asleep. But one other fact still troubled him. “What was that magic he used?”
“I’ve never seen it before,” Zaluu said. “He could control his weapon in the air!”
Badaar shook his head. “He wasn’t controlling the weapon.”
Darghan pointed out at the arena. “He stopped it in the air and made it fall where he wanted!”
“He didn’t do that against Patch,” Badaar pointed out.
“So?”
“Because he couldn’t.” Badaar looked out toward the arena. The workers would be removing all the animal bodies by now. “He controlled it after he killed Patch with it… because it had Patch’s blood on it.” He turned back to face them. “He wasn’t controlling the weapon. He was controlling the blood on the weapon.”
With his eyes closing, Clanless managed to ask one more question: “Is that… is that one of the clan’s blood magics?”
His consciousness faded, but he did hear Badaar’s answer: “No. No, it’s not.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Then
Orgina was right, of course. The story of how Clanless fought an entire pack of wolves and a lizard monster and a foreign sorcerer spread quickly and did not fade away. Nor did the part of how he had used some form of magic himself. As the story was told and re-told in the weeks to come, the details became less… factual. In every telling, it seemed Clanless’s injuries grew worse, and still he fought on. His mysterious power grew in the telling as well. In some versions, fire erupted from his eyes to consume the sorcerer who’d killed his friend. In others, his moonblade glowed with the fire of the sun as it severed the sorcerer’s head. Those who had been there and watched the fight tried to explain what they’d actually seen, but many seemed to prefer the exaggerated versions over the facts.
When Clanless returned to the sands three weeks later, the stands were packed. He faced off against three barbarians this time. The battle lasted a good six or seven minutes, but the outcome was never in doubt. Free to use the Taint, Clanless didn’t need as much effort to succeed. In fact, he found it freed him up to perform more crowd-pleasing stunts he ordinarily wouldn’t risk doing. Between the Taint’s guarantee of winning (assuming he could make the enemies bleed), and the skill of the arena’s healer to restore any wounds he did suffer, Clanless made every battle a spectator’s delight from then on. He never failed to entertain the crowd, though some of them griped that he needed better opponents to truly display his skills.
That became the hardest part for Orgina. She searched farther and wider to find deserving enemies. Every so often, they employed magic in their fighting. Some used healing in the middle of a fight; others used blood that magnified their speed or strength. The strong ones didn’t add much to the challenge, but the speedy ones proved more difficult. None ever used the power the foreign sorcerer had employed. Clanless found it curious that none of them combined multiple magics. He never fought anyone with both speed and strength magnified. Yet the Hawk King used many magics, or so the stories told.
As Orgina expected and predicted, Clanless at once became the arena’s primary crowd draw. If he wasn’t fighting, people wanted to know why. People even tried to demand refunds for their entry fees when they discovered he wouldn’t be fighting on a particular Arena Night.
In this way, time passed. Clanless fought hard and kept mostly to himself in between battles. He ventured into the city maybe once every month or two. When he did, he hated the attention his fame brought him. Every so often, some tough guy would challenge him on the street. It never ended well for the challenger.
Orgina purchased new fighters to replace Patch and Allaka. Clanless and Zaluu found themselves in the unfamiliar role of mentors to these younger warriors. Clanless did his part to teach them everything he could, hoping to keep these two alive as long as possible.
He couldn’t protect the other arena fighters unless they fought with him. Over time, others died. Each one hurt, even if he didn’t know them very well. Clanless spent less and less time with anyone outside of training, except for Zaluu who he couldn’t avoid. When he felt the need for conversation, he spoke with Zektel.
Two full years passed, faster than Clanless anticipated. One day, as Low Spring dawned, he realized he would soon be seventeen years old. He’d killed over two hundred men in that time. Like Allaka, he started to keep track, even though he told himself it was pointless. But the numbers stuck in his head.
At the same time, he seemed almost no closer to purchasing his freedom. He saved as much blood as he possibly could, but when he compared it to how much was needed… he despaired.
With all of these realizations filling his head, he went into the city with Zaluu and allowed himself to get thoroughly drunk. The hangover the next morning convinced him not to try that again. Or so he promised himself, anyway.
The arena fights became almost routine. Nothing mattered in his life any more.
He chafed at the approach of High Winter. While he appreciated the break it gave him, he didn’t get any closer to freedom when he couldn’t fight.
And then, as Low Spring faded, Orgina announced a surprise event, something that had never been done before.
Badaar gathered the arena fighters to explain the news.
“We’re going to have a special event before the sun surrenders and High Winter begins. Orgina has pulled off something I don’t think has ever been done before in arena history,” he announced. “We’re going to have visiting fighters from a different arena. The one in Mantukhai.”
“To fight against us or with us?” one of the younger fighters asked.
“Both.” Badaar shook his head. “This is an enormous risk, but Orgina and the other owner are counting on collecting a lot of blood this time.”
“They’ll lose a lot too,” Zaluu pointed out. “We’re going to lose some fighters. Or the other arena will. Or both. Won’t that cost more than they’ll make on this?”
“They’re hoping to make this a regular occasion every year or two, if it works out. Next time, we would go to Mantukhai.”
Clanless shook his head. “I don’t like it. It’s one thing to fight the barbarians and criminals and such. But to fight other arena fighters?”
“I’m pretty sure the fights will be to defeat, not death.” Badaar sighed. “But we all know that doesn’t guarantee everyone lives.”
Zaluu slapped Clanless on the back. “Think of it as being back at training!”
“I hated training.” Clanless noticed Zaluu shaking his hand a little; the slap must have hurt his palm. Clanless smiled to himself. Over the past three years, he’d worked his body into solid muscle, even as he shot up several inches. Though still younger than many of the other fighters, he’d grown larger than most.
“Will we know these fighters?” someone else asked.
“Unless you keep track of arena fighting in the rest of the Empire, I wouldn’t know,” Badaar answered. “I have a hard enough time keeping track of you men.”
“What do we need to do to prepare?” asked Durken, the newest and youngest fighter.
“Not much different than what you already do.” Badaar held out an open palm to him. “You’re probably better prepared than most, having left training the most recently. The rest of these idiots haven’t fought against equally-trained opponents in years.”
Durken sat back, grinning. Clanless chuckled. Was it so long ago he’d been that fresh from Kan’s oversight? How could he be less than eighteen years old and yet feel so ancient?
A young boy hurried up to Badaar, making Clanless feel even older. One of the boys who delivered messages and ran errands around the arena, he whispered something to the trainer and handed him a note. The other fighters had stopped paying attention and talked amongst themselves. Badaar looked over toward him. “Clanless? It’s for you.” He held out the note.
Clanless got to his feet and approached. He couldn’t remember the last time a note had come for him… from Orgina or anywhere else. Gogeku sometimes got a kick out of delivering messages from women asking to marry him, something that happened with all the fighters, but that wouldn’t involve a hand-delivered note.
He took the paper and unfolded it. The note came from the proprietor at Dugh’s End. At first, his mind didn’t grasp the words. It had been so long. And then the impact of it burst into his mind:
“Koland will be returning next week.”
Clanless wasn’t sure what to think. It had been over two years since Koland left, taking Kekeen with him. Alone in his room, he took out Kekeen’s farewell note and re-read it. Had she kept true to these words? Or had her father told her about the other girls? Did she miss him or hate him? He’d been waiting so long for this moment, but now he feared it.
He didn’t speak with Zektel about it. He knew what she’d say. Even though she might be right, he didn’t want to hear it.
The upcoming sun’s surrender event made things more complicated. The fighters from Mantukhai would be arriving any day. Clanless made the decision to visit Dugh’s End two days before the event. With his level of fame, he could get away with a mid-week visit. He so rarely went into town, the arena owed him. He took Zaluu and Durken along, both of whom were quite happy to head out for a night, even one as tame as Clanless suggested.
“I can’t remember the last time we came here,” Zaluu said as they approached the eating house. “It’s been months, at least.”
“Two years,” Clanless answered automatically. He was having second thoughts about this. Maybe he should have come alone. Maybe he shouldn’t have come at all. They could still turn around and leave.
“What’s so special about this place?” Durken asked. He reached for the door handle.
“If I remember right, Clanless likes the stories and songs,” Zaluu said, “and he—oh, right! This was where that one singer was! The one you—”
“Shut your mouth,” Clanless said. He caught Durken’s arm. “This was a stupid idea. Let’s go back.”
“What? Why?” Durken sniffed. “The food smells good. And listen!”
Zaluu’s smile grew. “It’s her, isn’t it?” He reached past Durken and pushed the door open.
Someone inside was singing. And Clanless knew the voice. And the song.
“Touching a story,
Grasping a cloud…”
Zaluu shook his head. “You dog. But why bring us? Last time, you kicked me out so you could be alone with her.”
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Clanless muttered.
“Clanless has a girl?” Durken asked. “This I have to see!” He pulled free from Clanless’s grasp and entered, followed by Zaluu. Clanless hesitated a moment, called himself “Stupid!” again, and joined them.
