Grudgebearer (36 page)

What are they?
Rae'en regained her balance, winding up facing away from the platform, toward the outside edge of the ring.

Sharks of some kind.
Her father was engaged in a race for the middle platform with three of the more agile opponents: a gnome wielding curved daggers and no appreciable armor, a man with a length of weighted chain wrapped around his shoulders and upper arms, and a woman with noticeably pointed ears and features which suggested at least partial Eldrennai heritage or a slightly crystal-twisted birth carrying a quarterstaff.

What kind of shark glows?
Rae'en followed after, close, but not too close.

I'm not sure. They taste the same.
The woman with the quarterstaff broke into a run, and Kholster burst into a sprint.
See the lip around the edge of the arena?

Yes.
Rae'en answered.

Make for it. Circle them. Don't fall in.

Rae'en broke off and shifted direction awkwardly, bobbing and lurching in short jerks to keep her balance until she had it again.
If I do, I'll get a chance to see what shark tastes like—

Try not to eat the outer skin.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rae'en saw Kholster meet the woman with the staff on the platform, but instead of engaging directly, the woman played for time, thrusting at Kholster and circling the platform. The ferrules at the end of the staff were a familiar pearlescent color, and Rae'en smirked.

Bone-steel AGAINST an Aern? Stupid.

Kholster twisted too far to one side, leaving an apparent opening, and the woman took it, sweeping the back of his knee with a satisfying crack that garnered surprised oohs from the crowd and scattered cheers and shouts. An even bigger cry went up when the staff wouldn't pull free of her father, the ring of bone-steel sticking to him as firmly as Testament clung to his back.

Why not eat the skin?
Rae'en asked, keeping her balance as she moved toward the rim.

*

It has scales like little teeth.
Kholster slid the leg to which the quarterstaff was attached back and planted it hard to see if his opponent would fight him for the staff.
I think Glin calls them denticles. Makes the dried skin a good wrap for a hilt, though.

With a grunt the woman let go. Maybe she felt she'd done her best, or maybe she realized the futility of engaging an Aern who weighed more than forty stone in a tug-of-war. Kholster snatched up the staff in time to start it twirling as the next two opponents, those he mentally dubbed Chains and Daggers, made it onto the platform. Daggers circled left, and Chains circled right, twirling the chain ends in both hands.

Two of the other combatants, a lean, wiry woman with iron paws clenched in either hand, giving her the appearance of possessing metal claws sticking out past her knuckles, and a dour-looking bald human with an axe frogged at his waist, moved along the lip of the ring toward Rae'en.

I've never understood the idea of nonfatal combat with real weapons
, Kholster thought at Vander.

I'm told they have a point system. Look for scorekeepers at the cardinal points, each with a Long Arm and a Long Speaker.

How does one score nonfatal points with a pair of iron paws?

Superficial cuts to vital areas. There should be a tent for Torgrimm's medics there somewhere. They'll float the injured out by Long Arm.

What about broken bones?

Frowned upon, but accepted. It'll be a new experience. Those are good, right?
Vander thought.

Not always.
Kholster growled and darted at Chains, throwing the quarterstaff in a slow spin that easily knocked the woman wielding the iron paws off the rim. She grunted in pain and surprise as she found herself suddenly flailing in saltwater.

*

Wylant brought her horse to a sliding stop, quiet settling across the tunnel.

“General?” Roc asked.

She answered with a palm in his direction, silencing any further inquiries. Above the riders, globes of mystic flame flickered, partially banishing the darkness, a vein of Dienoxin crystal running through the eastern wall, sending off irregular flashes of illumination in response. Wylant and her knights had already traveled farther than she thought likely, and the tunnel had not yet turned north as she expected it might. She grabbed a compass from her pack and frowned before putting it away. Southwest?

“Roc, do you feel that?” Pulling off her helmet, Wylant dismounted and put her ear to the ground. Something big was coming. Something unfamiliar.

Dust fell from the rock above her head, making the horses snort and whinny. Wylant clapped her helm back on and stood waiting on the near side of her mount, one hand firmly on the reins.

“What is it, sir?” Roc called over the rising rumble.

“Something new,” Wylant answered softly.

“I can't tell if it's coming from behind or in front of us,” Lieutenant Hira called out.

“It may be both.” Wylant cursed briefly as she swung up into the saddle. “This is wrong; they aren't fighting like Zaur.”

“Should we report back now?” Hira asked hopefully.

No
, Wylant thought,
we will try to lure some of them out of the tunnel where we can see them properly first.
She opened her mouth to give a brusque order but found she couldn't.
No, we must fight them here.

“I have to see them.” Wylant shook her head. “I have to cross blades with them before we report back. Otherwise, what kind of intelligence do I have for King Grivek? We got scared in their tunnels and ran away?”

“No!” Her knights looked at her in shocked silence from behind their eye slits. Numbness flushed across her cheeks and back along her gums.
I. What? That's not what I . . .

Wylant ripped off her helmet and threw it to the ground with a resounding clang. “We are the king's Royal Lancers!” she found herself shouting. “Are we afraid to die for our king?”

“No!” they answered as one.

“Are we afraid to die for our people?”

“No!” they answered once more.

“Lances!” she ordered. Ten mounted knights surged forward.

“Roc. Hira. Mazik. Form up with me.”
This is what I trained you for
, she thought with satisfaction as each rider she named smoothly joined her,
even if I don't know exactly why in all the hells it has to go this way.
As the others fell into well-disciplined ranks of four and three behind them, each with his lance couched under his right arm, Wylant felt herself pulled toward battle as surely as if she had been pushed from behind.

*

Kholster accepted the hit he was sure Chains meant for him to dodge, the right-hand chain wrapping around his left arm as he grabbed it left-handed and jerked the human toward him. A quick palm to the chest knocked the wind from Chains—and broke the man's sternum from the sound of it. A second hit to the chest seemed too likely to kill, so Kholster delivered a kick to the stomach instead.

I wonder if that counts for points?

Coughing blood, the man held up his hands, and Kholster let him drop to his knees. As Kholster tugged the chain free, the Long Arms positioned near the scorekeepers at the cardinal points of the arena caught the human and jerkily floated his limp body up, away from the fighting, toward the tent of Torgrimm's medics . . . Kholster could see it located atop the northern rim of the arena. He swung the chain over his head as he dodged another flurry of kicks and punches from the woman.

What are the others doing?
he thought at Vander.

The big one with the trident and the one with the broadsword are just standing in the staging area watching. Same for the woman with the trident. Uh . . . hold a moment . . . none of the Bone Finders saw where the other two went.

Kholster barely dodged an attack from the gnome, Daggers, who darted in low and cut at the back of Kholster's knees. Repositioning himself to keep an eye on the two heading for Rae'en as well as the two facing him . . . Kholster gave a quick scan of the ring and didn't see the two missing fighters either.

*

“Charge!” Wylant yelled and snapped the reins.

Her Lance surged down the tunnel, developing a distance between their three ranks. She reined in sharply as twelve eyeless, rock-hided beasts came into view, each bearing a Zaur armored in black metal plates. These were a threat, clearly, but not, Wylant thought, big enough to shake the tunnel. “What in Aldo's name?”

Each beast was shorter than a horse, with broad shoulders; a heavily muscled chest; and hardened protrusions along its shoulders, knees, forehead, and sides. A single long braid of hair trailed from what should have been their chins, but the beasts had no apparent mouths. Each leg ended with six long, thick splayed toes that gripped the floor of the tunnel. Both Eldrennai and Zaur came to a halt, considering their foes.

The leader of the Zaur, every bit as strange to Wylant as the mounts upon which he and his soldiers rode, was larger than his companions. Zigzag patterns of brilliant blue ran luminously through the black scales covering his body. Twin yellow eyes peered at her from beneath thick eye ridges on his wedge-shaped head. He looked right at Wylant, her bald head glinting in the magical light, and saluted before giving an order in harsh Tol.

At his command, the ranks of enemy riders surged forward, spreading up the walls and ceiling into a deadly ring of mounted Zaur wielding Skria, longer versions of the angular Skreel knives. Four ran along the floor and four along the ceiling, with two on each wall.

Thin steel chains ran between the Zaur riders and their mounts, hooking the rider's armor directly into the hard, stony hide. Seeing no reins, Wylant could only guess at how they were controlling the mounts.
Tail slaps, perhaps?

“How are they doing that?” Roc growled.

Wylant's mind cleared suddenly, as if a fog were lifting from her thoughts. “Ice the ceiling and walls on my command,” she ordered.

I've felt like this before
, she thought,
just after I forged Vax. Almost as if . . . 
but Wylant put the thought aside. There was no time for thought. She had her information; now she needed to live to get it to the king and the High Elementalist.

*

Rae'en fought back a laugh as the woman with the iron paws scrambled frantically for the ledge. The sharks paid her no heed, and Rae'en wondered if it was because she wasn't bleeding. Realizing she couldn't reach the lip and had no way to climb out, the woman shouted something about the water being below regulation depth and demanded to be pulled out by a Long Arm.

She treaded water briefly, waiting, then made for the prep area where there was more of a slant and it looked possible to walk up out of the water.

Axe kept his eyes on his hands, feeling his way along the ledge toward Rae'en, so Rae'en gave him her full attention as well.

It's three touches to beat him, right?

I never paid attention to points when I fought in the Oathbreaker Arena
, Kholster thought back.
We fought to the death. This is more civilized.

*

“Now!” Wylant shouted. Unified pulses of elemental magic filled the air with bitter cold. Ice crawled up the walls of the tunnel ahead of them, each knight covering a different arc with his spell. “It won't hurt the Zaur much, but it might break the ring of wall crawlers.”

The four beasts on the ceiling lost their footing simultaneously as they struck the ice. They fell, six-toed feet scrabbling desperately for purchase on the slick surface. Three riders were crushed as they struck the tunnel floor, but the fourth managed to free itself at the last moment, rolling clear of its flailing mount.

On either side of the tunnel, the four wall-riding Zaur succeeded in getting their beasts safely down to the floor, but the creatures came to a stop, refusing to continue forward despite the angry thumping of their riders' tails against their backs.

Ha! It
is
the tails.
“They steer with their tails! Chop 'em if you get a chance.”

Wylant urged her line of Eldrennai riders forward, and they clashed violently with the oncoming Zaur. The Zaur mounts made no attempt to sidestep the Eldrennai horses, bulling headlong at them. Roc's and Hira's horses managed to avoid a direct collision, but each knight lost his lance, buried deep within the body of a mounted Zaur.

Vax took the leader through the shoulder, shifting into an axe to avoid sticking fast, widening the wound as it tore free moments before Wylant's horse struck the rock-hided Zaur mount. Wylant and Mazik both took hard, bone-splintering hits. The shouts and battle cries of Zaur, Eldrennai, and horses filled the tunnel.

Mazik caught himself with a hastily shouted blast of air, but Wylant struck the tunnel floor hard enough to spot her field of vision with sparks of light and start the cave spinning around her. Mazik placed himself between his general and the Zaur, evading a blow from the dismounted ceiling rider's Skria. It struck at him from all fours, dashing past on the knight's left, circling back on the right. Mazik instinctively tried to knock the first attack away with a blast of conjured wind, and the Skria slid along his armor, but the second attack caught him along the mail reinforcements behind his left knee. The armor held, but the force of the blow drove him to the floor. Ducking under a blow from the Zaur warrior's tail, Mazik cursed and drew his longsword.