“Waiting for us,” Mia answered softly. “Out there.”
“Citizens of Itreya!” The editorii’s words echoed in the quiet. “Honored administratii! Senators and marrowborn! We present to you, a feature bout between the Lions of Leonides and the Falcons of Remus!”
An excited murmur rippled through the crowd.
“This match shall be fought e mortium, no surrender, no quarter given! Sanguila Leonides has placed a berth in the Venatus Magni in ante! Should the Falcons of Remus stand the victors, his daughter, Sanguila Leona of the Remus Collegium, shall be permitted to enter her gladiatii in the grand games at Godsgrave, six weeks hence.”
The murmur became a rising swell.
“Entering from the Coast Gate for the Falcons of Remus, we present to you, Bladesinger, the Reaper of Dweym! The Bloody Beauty and Savior of Stormwatch, Crow! And the Champion of Talia, the Unfallen himself, Furiaaaan!”
The crowd came to their feet, roaring in approval. The portcullis drew up, and with a final glance to each other, the three Falcons strode out into the sand, guards marching beside them. Bladesinger and Furian raised their hands in greeting, the crowd bellowing in response, thousands upon thousands. Mia only scowled. She remembered not so long ago, when that applause had thrilled her soul. Now, she knew they cheered not for her, but the bloody spectacle she provided. It mattered not who swung the blade. Only that someone’s neck was there to meet it.
She wanted to be done with this, wanted this bloody gala ended and Duomo and Scaeva gone and a thousand years in a hot spring to wash the blood and stink of it away . . .
The great island that had marked the equillai track had sunk back down into the mekwerk beneath the arena floor. The sand before them was featureless, off-white, streaked with fresh red.
“Wait here,” the guard captain commanded. “Do not move until commanded by the editorii, or you will be disqualified.”
The guards marched back to the portcullis, and sealed them in.
“What the ’byss is happening here?” Bladesinger muttered.
“Just hold still,” Mia replied. “And brace yourself.”
“Do you know something we do not, Crow?” the Unfallen growled.
“Furian,” she sighed. “The things I know that you don’t could just about fill the Great fucking Salt.”
“Entering from the Tower Gate for the Lions of Leonides, we present a terror from the Drakespine Mountains! A pariah among her own kind, her very name, death in the tongue of the Dominion! Behold, Ishkah, the Exiiiiile!”
A wondering murmur rolled through the crowd, the portcullis in the arena’s northern wall grinding open. Out of the shadow walked Leonides’s silkling, flanked by a half-dozen guards. She was decked in a suit of magnificent golden armor, highlighted with emerald green. A lion’s pelt was draped about her shoulders, its head and great mane fitted around her helm. As the crowd cheered wildly, the silkling strode into the arena. The guards marched back in formation, the portcullis slamming behind them.
Mia stared across the sand to their enemy, dust blowing in the rising wind. Ishkah stood seven feet tall, all gleaming chitin and muscle, her lips painted cloud-white. She sloughed off her lion’s pelt, six arms unfolding like a flower in bloom. Her dark green skin gleamed in the sunslight, those featureless eyes staring down her foes.
“Mother of Oceans,” Bladesinger murmured. “She’s a sight.”
“Just brace yourselves,” Mia said.
“Citizens, behold!” cried the editorii. “Your battleground.”
A deep rumbling sounded beneath the sands, the grinding of colossal gears. The floor shuddered, but Mia’s comrades held steady as a large, wedge-shaped section of the floor they stood on began to rise. Sand cascaded down, Mia looking over the edge into the massive mekwerks below. She smelled oil, sulfur, salt.
Other sections of the sand were moving, the entire arena floor breaking up into a series of wedged platforms. Differing heights and dimensions, the platforms began slowly rotating around the central plinth, spinning, twisting, passing above and beneath one another like the interlocking pieces of some enormous clock face. Furian, Bladesinger and Mia exchanged glances, Bladesinger whispering a prayer to Trelene.
“You can’t say they don’t know how to put on a show,” Mia muttered.
The gobsmacked crowd were cheering for all they were worth. Mia and her comrades were perhaps twenty feet above ground level now. She glanced down again into the arena’s mekwerk guts—to slip off the edge would be to tumble into those great, grinding gears, and be mashed to pulp between greasy metal teeth.
“Weapons!” cried the editorii.
The great circular platform in the center of the arena groaned, and Mia saw a dozen blades of differing lengths rise hilt-first from the sands. There were shortswords, longblades, and the cruel, curved scimitars that the Exile favored. All of them were black, razor-edged, gleaming in the sunslight.
“We have to run for our swords?” Bladesinger muttered.
“Aye,” Mia nodded. “But be warned—they’re all made of obsidian, not steel. They’ll be sharp as glass, but they’re fragile. You’ll only get a few swings before they’re useless. Block with your shields, not your blades.”
“How do you know this?” Furian demanded.
“Does it fucking matter?” she snarled. “Let’s just get this done.”
“No witchery, Crow,” he warned. “We will earn this laurel, or a glorious death.”
Bladesinger looked between the pair. “Stand together or fall alone, remember?”
“Gladiatii!” the editorii called. “Prepare!”
Mia coiled like a sprinter, eyes on a pair of twin swords in the center of the ring.
“Good luck, sister,” Bladesinger said. “Brother. Lady of Oceans protect you.”
“Aye,” Furian nodded. “Aa bless and keep you, Tsana guide your hands.”
Mia pulled on her helm, blinked the sweat from her eyes. The crowd was thunder in her ears. She looked out into the seething mob, searching for a girl with dyed red hair and eyes blue as sunsburned skies. Her shadow was trembling at its edges, ebbing like water toward Furian’s own.
“Mother watch over us,” she whispered.
“Gladiatii!” the editorii roared. “Begin!”
Mia took off, sprinting hard as she could. Breath burning in her lungs, glare fixed on those swords, the silkling sprinting at them from the opposite end of the arena as the crowd bellowed. Bladesinger charged just a few steps behind her, long legs pumping smoothly, Furian bringing up the rear.
Mia reached the edge of their platform, vaulting the gap to the next. The wedge shifted under her feet, swinging clockwise, those colossal gears grinding below her. Sand crunched under her boots and she leapt across to the next tier of smaller wedges, closer to the arena’s heart. Her eyes were on the silkling, running hard, drawing ever closer to those gleaming, black blades. Heart sinking as she realized . . .
. . . she’s going to get there first.
Mia reached out across the shifting platforms, the swirling sands, the mighty gears. Her shadow trembled as she took hold of the silkling’s own, snarled it in her boots. Ishkah hissed, stumbling momentarily as Mia dashed toward the central plinth. But with a curse, she felt her grip on the shadows break, and Ishkah’s feet slip free.
Fucking Furian . . .
“No witchery!” he shouted behind her.
Ishkah made the central platform, six hands snaking out and seizing the hilts of six cruelly curved scimitars. The crowd roared, sunslight gleaming on obsidian. The silkling wheeled about as Mia leapt onto the plinth, three of her swords glittering as they scythed through the air, right at Mia’s throat. With a gasp, the girl dove left, hit the sand with her shoulder and rolled, under the whistling blades and behind Ishkah. And with a gasp, Mia seized hold of two swords and dragged them free.
She turned just as Ishkah struck, her blades a blur. Mia dare not block the strikes edge on edge—the obsidian might shatter if she stru
ck at the wrong angle, and Ishkah had swords to spare. Instead she danced away, sand flying, twisting left and right and bending backward, spine extended, one of the strikes whipping just over her chin. Tumbling back, she rolled up into a crouch right at the platform’s edge, wobbling precariously over a shifting sea of grinding metal cogs.
Bladesinger roared as she barreled into Ishkah from behind, shield crunching into the silkling’s back and sending her flying. Ishkah fell forward, off the platform and onto another passing below, rolling up to her feet. Those pale, featureless eyes glinted as she watched Mia regain her balance, Bladesinger snatch up an obsidian longblade. Ishkah took a few steps toward Furian, but he was too far out of reach, finally vaulting up to the central plinth and snatching up another obsidian sword. The Unfallen raised his blade in the air, the crowd bellowing in reply. The race was over, the competitors all armed. Now, the battle could begin in earnest.
Ishkah opened her arms, scimitars poised in a glittering fan, and without a sound, leapt back across to the central plinth. The three Falcons moved to meet her, Mia dashing out first, quick as silver and striking low. Bladesinger struck mid, her shield guarding Mia, while Furian swung at the silkling’s head. Ishkah moved with stunning grace, slipping aside from Bladesinger and Mia’s strikes. But as she raised one of her blades to counter Furian, the haft shattered like the thinnest ice.
The silkling rallied, scimitars cutting the air. She put a savage kick into Bladesinger’s shield, knocking the smaller woman off-balance. Her swords opened up a shallow cut on Furian’s arm. One of her blades whistled past Mia’s throat and scraped her breastplate, splitting the leather wide. And drawing a breath, Ishkah parted those cloud-white lips in a snarl, and spat a mouthful of bright green venom right at Mia’s face.
“ . . . beware . . . !”
Mia gasped, twisting desperately and turning her head. The liquid hit the side of her helm, spattering thick. As it touched the metal, the venom hissed, eating through the iron like a heated blade into snow. Mia rolled out of reach, tearing her helm loose and blinking hard. None had got in her eyes, on her skin, but Goddess, that was close . . .
The Unfallen struck back with a furious cry, swinging his sword in a brutal overhand strike. Ishkah raised two blades, cross-guard, but her swords simply shattered against the Unfallen’s. Mia shielded her eyes from the obsidian shards as the silkling hissed in frustration. Bladesinger swung her own sword, her strike glancing off Ishkah’s armor. As Mia climbed to her feet, Furian pummeled Ishkah with his shield, forcing her back toward the platform’s edge as another of her scimitars fractured on Bladesinger’s armor. Mia lunged, feinting high and striking low, the crowd bellowing as she opened up the silkling’s thigh. Green blood sprayed on the sand, obsidian splinters flying as Ishkah parried one of Mia’s blades into the dirt and stomped on it with her boot. She swung her scimitar and Mia rolled aside, the silkling’s forth sword splintering on the dirt.
Furian’s blade was still intact, Mia had one blade left, and Bladesinger’s was only slightly fractured. Ishkah had but two swords remaining, and three foes. She struck simultaneously, forcing the Falcons back, the air hissing where she struck. Furian was on the defensive, bashing away with his shield where he could. Bladesinger and Mia fought side by side, the woman catching one of Ishkah’s strikes on her shield and driving the sword into the ground, snapping it in half. Ishkah struck with her last blade, the broken haft of another, the blows whistling toward Bladesinger’s belly and throat. Furian blocked the high strike on his shield, Mia parried the low, breaking Ishkah’s final blade off at the hilt. With a furious war cry, Bladesinger charged, striking the silkling in the belly with her shield and knocking her backward off the platform. Ishkah made a desperate clicking noise, seizing the lip of a passing platform to halt her fall, and dragging herself up to safety.
The three Falcons stood together, gasping for breath. The silkling revolved around the central plinth on her own platform, featureless eyes locked on theirs. She still held the hilts of her broken swords, pale eyes fixed on the weapons of her enemies. Obsidian was fragile, but it wasn’t supposed to be this fragile. Though the Falcons’ weapons were chipped and scratched, Ishkah’s scimitars had proven to be delicate as autumn leaves. Almost as if . . .
As if . . .
A slow smile curled Mia’s lips.
“She looks upset.”
“ . . . the viper managed it, then . . .”
“I wish you wouldn’t call her that.”
Mia risked a glance into the crowd, heart swelling in her chest, looking once more among the mob for blood-red hair, a pair of pretty blue eyes. She didn’t truly know the concoction she’d devised—one part calcite acid, two parts beric oxide—would prove as effective on the silkling’s weapons as it had. Didn’t know whether Ashlinn would be clever or quick enough to sneak down into the arena’s bowels and treat Ishkah’s scimitars with the solution before the match began. But looking at the shattered blades in the silkling’s hands, the relatively unscathed sword in her own, she knew somehow Ash had done it. The silkling was all but disarmed, and now, even with the venom and the frightening speed, the scales between them were somewhere close to even.
The crowd roared, urging the Falcons in for the kill.
Furian scowled at Mia. “The match proves easier than any supposed.”
“Fancy that,” Mia replied.
“Crow . . . ,” Furian growled.
Mia looked at Furian sidelong, and winked.
“Enough talk,” Bladesinger spat. “Let’s just gut this ugly bitch.”
The Falcons raised their weapons, made ready to charge.
“Blades!” cried the editorii.
Mia heard a rumble, turned to a platform at the arena’s edge. Her heart sank as the sand shivered, and ten new obsidian blades rose up out of the dirt.
“Shit . . . ,” she breathed.
“ . . . i take it you and the viper didn’t know about those . . .”
“Shit, shit, shit.”
“ . . . o, this is maaaarvelous . . .”
The crowd bellowed as Ishkah dashed toward the fresh swords, leaping from one shifting platform to the next. Mia took off after her, her comrades sprinting behind. The platforms wheeled and turned, a great mekwerk dance that was hard to judge, sweat burning Mia’s eyes.
She supposed Ashlinn should’ve suspected there’d be backup plans in case every competitor broke their weapon, but there was no time to whine about it now—those new scimitars hadn’t been weakened by her concoction. If Ishkah got her hands on them, the fight might end up being fair, and that couldn’t happen. But as she ran, Mia realized with a sinking heart that again, the silkling would reach the blades before her.
“Furian?” she gasped.
“No!” the Unfallen spat, leaping across a rumbling chasm.
Spitting dust from her mouth she shook her head, and despite the burning heat of the two suns above, reached out toward Ishkah’s shadow anyway. She felt it in her grasp, cool and tenebrous, slipping up like snakes to entwine itself with Ishkah’s feet. The silkling stumbled, fell to her knees, her helm tumbling off her head and into the mekwerks below. But with a sharp, tearing sensation, Mia found her grip ripped away, the darkness slithering through her fingers.
“Mother fucking damn you!” she spat, face twisted.
“Victory is earned!” Furian shouted in reply. “Not stolen!”
Ishkah reached the swords, casting her chipped blades into the abyss and drawing six new ones—longblades this time, not scimitars. Turning to face the trio as they tumbled and leaped across the platforms toward her, she cut an awesome sight, blades whistling through the air in an almost hypnotic pattern. Mia reached the platform first, tumbling and hurling a handful of sand into Ishkah’s face. She had only one sword, so as the silkling staggered back pawing at her eyes, Mia dove toward the remaining blades to snatch a second, replace her first. She rolled aside as the silkling’s swords struck the sand, the crowd gasping as her boot collide
d with Mia’s ribs. The impact was thunderous, Mia feeling her ribs crack, burning fire in her chest. Spit spraying from her lips, Mia’s face twisted as Ishkah raised her blade and—
Crack! came the sound as Bladesinger hurled her shield into the silkling’s face. Ishkah shrieked, staggering, the audience bellowing as they saw the shield’s edge had struck one of the silkling’s eyes, smashing it like an eggshell. Green fluid dribbled from the wound, Mia dragging herself to her feet with a pained gasp and snatching up a new pair of blades. Bladesinger leapt across the chasm and Ishkah screeeeeeched, the Dweymeri raising her cracked sword and meeting her charge.
Bladesinger’s blade shattered with the first blow, the enraged silkling scoring deep wounds on her shoulder, and shattering one of her swords on the side of Bladesinger’s helm. The woman fell to her knees, skull ringing. But as Ishkah raised her blades to strike the deathblow, Furian arrived, leaping across the gulf with a howl and crashing shield-first into his foe. The pair fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs, Furian’s shield skidding across the dirt.
The Unfallen sat atop the silkling, fingers hooked into her bleeding eyehole, pounding his knuckles on her face again and again.
“Fucking bitch!” Crack! “Do you know who I am?” Crack! “I am the Un—”
Ishkah shrieked, a spat a mouthful of venom. The bilious green fluid spattered over Furian’s breastplate, up his unprotected throat, the man screaming as it began to burn. He fell backward, clawing at his neck, rolling in the sand as the crowd bellowed. Ishkah scrambled to her feet with a gargling growl, snatching up her blades and raising them above her head to end him.
Mia’s sword flashed, striking Ishkah’s blow aside. Ishkah struck back, cracking Mia’s sword at the hilt and lashing out at her head. The girl pulled back, crying out as the blow sliced down through her brow, opened up her cheek, blood in her eyes. Staggering backward, she fell to one knee and Ishkah kicked her savagely in the chest again, the fire in Mia’s broken ribs burning white. Winded, she tumbled backward along the dirt, barely stopping herself from plummeting off the platform’s edge.