Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 1 - The Verdent Passage (34 page)

“Don't complain,” Neeva countered, also turning. “It looks like Agis was right about
Tithian.”

This time, the two gladiators faced the Golden Tower, where the King's Balcony overlooked
the end of the fighting field. A single pair of half-giant guards stood on each side of
the balcony, flanking a huge throne of jade. The throne sat at the front edge of the small
box. The pate of Kalak's bald head, his golden diadem, and his dark eyes were barely
visible above the balcony's front wall.

“I hope he stands up when I'm ready to throw the spear,” Rikus said, dipping his weapon to
the king. “Even at half this distance, his head isn't much of a target.”

Kalak did not keep them waiting nearly as long as Tithian had. After the formality of a
two-second wait, a half-giant bodyguard motioned the pair to a corner of the arena. As
they went to their starting positions, Rikus studied the other gladiators on the fighting
field.

On each side of the arena stood six matched pairs. Some were full humans or half-elves,
rough-looking men and women who had been sold into the pits to pay their debts or as
punishment for a crime. There were also several representatives of more exotic races,
including a set of hulking baazrags, two purple-scaled nikaals, and a pair of stooped gith.

Rikus recognized only a few of the other fighters. In the opposite corner stood Chilo and
Felorn, a skilled pair of tareks. Like muls, tareks were big, musclebound, and hairless.
Their heads, however, were square and big-boned, with sloping foreheads and massive brow
ridges. They had flat noses with flared nostrils and a domed muzzle full of sharp teeth.
Neither tarek wore armor of any kind, and each carried two weapons: a steel handfork that
could serve equally well as a parrying tool or a slicing weapon, and a bone heartpick, a
hammerlike weapon with a serrated pick on the front and a heavy, flat head on the back.

To Rikus's right stood a hairy half-giant carrying an obsidian axe with a head as large as
a dwarf. His partner was a full-blooded elven woman armed with a whip of bone and cord.
The mul did not know the elf, but the half-giant was a former guard named Gaanon, whom he
had wounded in a contest a year earlier. For armor, Gaanon wore a leather hauberk that a
normal man could have used as a tent. The elf wore a bronze pauldron covering her left
shoulder and a spiked gauntlet on her right arm.

Upon noticing that she was being studied, the elf gave Rikus a twisted smile. The mul did
not know whether she meant the gesture to be polite or intimidating, but it made him think
she was looking forward to battle. He shrugged and looked away, turning his attention back
to his own partner. “Any sign of Sadira in the noble booths?”

“Not that I've seen,” Neeva replied. “Don't you trust her charms to get her into position?”

“I trust her charms,” Rikus said, giving his fighting partner a warm grin. “But maybe not
as much as I trust your trikal.”

“I hope you remember that when this is finished,” she returned, giving him a meaningful
glance.

A loud creak echoed throughout the stadium, drawing the attention of gladiator and
spectator alike to the center of the arena. A great bulge formed in the sand as an immense
pair of doors began to open. Excited murmurs of curiosity rustled through the crowd, for
those huge doors covered a subterranean staging area where Tithian stored building-sized
props. They seldom opened unless some special amusement was being raised into the arena.

Today was no exception. As the doors reached their locked position, a familiar orange
shell rose out of the pit. A pair of barbed, arm-length mandibles protruded from the
underside of one end of the shell.

*****

“The gaj!” Sadira whispered, watching the beast rise out of the prop area.

She stood on the terrace above the noble tiers, having spent the last two hours trying in
vain to work her way into position. Unfortunately, because the stadium was so crowded,
common spectators had been trying to sneak into the lower tiers since early morning. The
nobles had complained bitterly, and now the half-giant guards at the top of each row would
not allow anyone down the stairs unless someone in a booth vouched for the newcomer.

As Sadira watched the gaj rise out of the pit, she soon saw that it sat atop Kalak's
obsidian pyramid. Hoping that the spectacular object would supply the distraction she
needed, she worked her way down the terrace until she found a guard who seemed more
interested in the arena than in his job. The sorceress took a deep breath, then boldly
stepped past the half-giant's hip.

A huge hand descended in front of her. “Where are you going?” demanded a deep voice. The
half-giant did not look down to see whom he addressed.

Sadira fixed her eyes on the one vacancy in the throne below, then rapped the guard's
knuckles with the pommel of her cane. “To my seat!”

“Oww!” The half-giant pulled his hand away and looked down, astonished.

Sadira started to step past.

“I'm sorry,” the half-giant said, fixing his baggy eyes on her face. “I do remember you
fromÑ”

The guard furrowed his brow, and Sadira instantly realized that she had problem.

“Pegen!” the half-giant gasped. He latched onto her shoulder. “You're the one who made me
look like a fool at the city gate! You killed Pegen!”

“In the name ofÑ” Sadira hissed, cursing her bad luck.

She spun around and swung her cane at the guard's groin, which on a half-giant was at
perfect striking level for her. He groaned and released her shoulder, reaching for the
bone club he had left leaning against the terrace wall.

Sadira resisted the temptation to use magic, for she was in plain view of much of the
stadium. Instead, she slipped past the guard and ran for an exit tunnel, The half-giant
followed, yelling orders for her to stop and threatening dire consequences if she did not
obey. The scene evoked a few chuckles from those in the immediate vicinity, but the sound
of Tithian's magically-augmented voice quickly drew their attention back to the obsidian
pyramid.

“The rules of the game are simple: the last pair of gladiators able to stand on the summit
of the pyramid will win the contest.”

Though Sadira wondered what was happening in the arena, she did not dare pause to look.
The half-giant lagged only a few steps behind her.

All around the stadium, loud bangs began to sound from the entryways as the gates came
crashing down. Realizing that she was about to be cut off from the streets, the sorceress
ducked into the nearest exit. The clatter of chains rang through the rock archway, and the
templars at the far end of the tunnel leaped into the street. A huge gate crashed to the
ground and blocked the short passageway. Sadira was trapped.

* * * * *

Kalak rose and stepped to the edge of his balcony. “Let the games begin!”

The other gladiators charged toward the pyramid, which a group of templars had levitated
into position in front of Kalak's balcony. Neeva started to follow, but Rikus quickly
grasped her shoulder.

“Let everyone else fight for a bit. The gaj will keep them from claiming the prize too
soon,” he said, pointing to the top of the glassy pyramid, where the murderous beast still
sat. “Besides, if Kalak stays at the edge of his balcony, we might get a clear throw at
him from below.”

“What about Agis and Sadira?” Neeva asked. “You can't attack if they're not ready.”

“They'd better be watching,” Rikus said.

Ahead of them, Gaanon drew first blood by leveling a vicious swing at a dimwitted baazrag.
The furry creature blocked with its trident, its sunken eyes betraying its confusion at
being attacked. The half-giant's axe snapped the weapon as though it were a twig, then
sliced the baazrag's massive torso into separate pieces just below the breast line. A
thunderous roar sounded from the stands.

The female baazrag went into a rage. It threw its twin-bladed axe at Gaanon's leg, causing
the clumsy half-giant, to teeter at the brink of falling. The baazrag raised its massive
arms and bared its yellowed fangs, then charged. The half-giant's elven partner suddenly
disappeared from Gaanon's side, then reappeared behind the raging baazrag.

“The elf's a teleporter,” Rikus noted.

Neeva grunted to let him know she had heard, but seemed otherwise unimpressed.

The elf lashed her whip around the baazrag's legs. The furry beast-woman fell at Gaanon's
feet. He quickly beheaded it with another swift stroke of his axe.

“Let's see if we can work our way toward Kalak,” Rikus said, leading them toward the
general melee.

The seeming chaos of free-for-all combat was actually comprised of many smaller fights
between a handful of combatants. Rikus carefully picked his way past these little battles
toward the center of the field.

A few yards from the pyramid, two gith moved forward to intercept the mul and his partner.
Keeping their bulging eyes fixed on Rikus and Neeva, the hunched lizard-men moved forward
in a stooped gait that could not quite be described as scuttling or loping. Each of the
scrawny creatures wore a plumed helmet atop its bony, arrow-shaped head. Mekillot-shell
plates protected the vulnerable spines on their backs.

“Let's make quick work of these two,” Rikus said, bringing his spear to a defensive
position. He did not add a warning to watch for psionic tricks, for he and Neeva had
fought gith before. She knew their innate abilities as well as he did.

“Don't waste time talking!” she said, stepping to his side. “Just kill them.”

The smallest gith led the charge, rushing Rikus with a series of awkward hops. The mul
brought the creature to a quick halt by threatening it with his spearpoint. The gaunt
lizard-man reluctantly raised its spiked mace to trade blows. The maneuver, Rikus knew,
would soon result in its undoing.

The other gith stopped a few yards from Neeva and studied her trikal with a bulging,
lidless eye. An instant later, Neeva's weapon slithered to life in her hands.

“The damn thing animated my trikal!”

Without taking his eye off his own foe, Rikus shook his head. “You shouldn't have done
that,” he said loudly, addressing Neeva's attacker. “It only makes her mad.”

*****

A stout templar with a lined, leathery face stormed into the gallery. The man stopped
directly in front of Agis's chair, blocking the noble's view of the fight between his
friends and the two gith.

“What's the meaning of this?” demanded the newcomer. He ignored Agis completely and fixed
his attention on Tithian.

“The meaning of what, Larkyn?” Tithian asked.

“You closed the gates too soon!” Larkyn said. “Half my templars are locked outside, and
the crowd is already growing restless.”

“Is that so?” Tithian asked nonchalantly. He gave Agis a knowing glance.

Larkyn looked at the senator and frowned, but showed no sign of recognizing him. This did
not surprise the noble, for high templars avoided the Senate as diligently as senators
avoided the High Bureaus. Though their names were certainly known to each other, Agis
doubted that they had ever been within a hundred feet of one another before today.

When the noble made no move to rise, Larkyn cleared his throat forcefully.

A sly grin flashed across Tithian's thin lips, then he cuffed Agis with the back of his
hand. “How dare you sit while a high templar stands!”

Agis jumped to his feet with all the chagrin of a subordinate who had forgotten his place.
“Please forgive me, High One,” he groveled, bowing to Larkyn. “I was absorbed by the
contest.”

Larkyn dismissed him with a wave of his hand, then sat in the chair the noble had just
vacated. Agis stepped to the back of the booth and glanced down the stairway. At the
bottom stood a knot of two dozen lower-ranking templars. Though it was impossible to tell
Tithian's men from Larkyn's, Agis could see that one group was blocking the other's access
to the gallery.

Admiring the astuteness with which Tithian had maneuvered Larkyn into the chair, Agis
stepped close behind it so no one could see what he was doing. He reached under his robe
and withdrew the stiletto Tithian had given him before Larkyn arrivedÑthe high templar, of
course, being free from any sort of weapons' search. While the noble would have preferred
to use the Way, leaving Larkyn alive but incapacitated, his old friend had insisted upon a
dagger in the back.

As Agis thrust the blade through the soft chair, a white light flashed from the gateway
into which Sadira had fled. It was not particularly bright, neither was it long-lived, nor
did it create a peal of thunder. Nevertheless, it was quite visible, and many curious
spectators found their attentions split between the combat in the arena and the mysterious
pyrotechnics in the stands.

*****

“Did you see that?” Rikus asked, looking away from the flash he had just seen in the
stands. At his feet lay the two gith, dispatched easily and without so much as a scratch
to himself or Neeva. On the balcony above, Kalak perched at the edge of his throne,
watching the fight with no indication that he was concerned by the flare of light. The mul
decided it must have been a templar dispatching an unruly spectator.

“Rikus, pay attention!” Neeva said. “The tareks!”

The mul spun around. The powerful male tarck was so close that his musky odor filled
Rikus's nose. The female had already engaged Neeva. The two women were exchanging
lightning-fast blows, filling the arena with staccato pops as they blocked and parried.

Chilo swung his heartpick at Rikus, striking for the mul's arm. For his part, Rikus used
his spear to block. A sharp crack sounded, then the pick whistled past Rikus's side. The
tarek opened his muzzle and bared his white fangs, then slashed at the mul's stomach with
the handfork. Rikus pulled back. As the sharp blades scraped across his light cuirass, he
leveled a side-thrust kick at Chilo's massive chest. As it landed, the tarek flared his
cavernous nostrils. Otherwise, he did not flinch. Rikus pushed away, trying to put a
little space between himself and Chuo's hulking form.