Sure enough, the Chesedhan had barely reached the edge of the beach before the Gamer’s son stepped toward him, held out a hand, and shouted one word in the Tagh, the wide medallion on his chest flaring with purple light. The fugitive wrenched to a halt as if he’d hit the end of a lead.
The hatchet-faced Brogai spoke again, his gold earrings glittering, and the Chesedhan turned stiffly, his eyes so wide Abramm could see the whites of them even at a distance. He expected to watch the man walk woodenly back, but instead the Gamer addressed them all, babbling in a language Abramm doubted any of his audience understood. He seemed to be asking a question.
Now he smiled, waved a hand, and the tension on the Chesedhan’s body relaxed. The man gave a start, glanced around in confusion, and stood there.
The Gamer spoke again, waving his hand, clearly encouraging the fugitive to run. The other guards watched, grinning.
It’s a trap, Abramm thought at the man. Don’t fall for it!
But the Chesedhan was panicked and finally bolted. He’d not taken three steps when a great black shape swooped upon him, its wingtips brushing the ground as it surged skyward again, clutching something in its talons. On the beach, amidst a dark, spreading stain, sprawled the pale, headless body of its victim.
Abramm swallowed bile and looked away. Around him, others gagged and retched.
The Gamer spoke condescendingly, no doubt assuring them of the futility in attempting escape. His gaze never wavered from Meridon, standing at Abramm’s side, as if somehow he more than the others needed this warning. Finally the Gamer barked a command, and his men leaped to the task of jerking their charges into line and escorting them through an elaborately carved iron door at the base of the cliff.
A maze of passageways so low-ceilinged Abramm had to stoop to avoid hitting his head led to a dark, musty room. There they were divided among the squadrons of waiting overseers who sheared off the matted, lice-infested hair on their heads and faces, scrubbed them down in tubs of foul-smelling solution, dressed them in leather loincloths, and finally prodded them into a sandy-floored arena, where a group of dark-tunicked men awaited them.
Bracketed torches burned around the room’s circumference, and above them shadowed balconies reached back into the rock. Only one was lit, and in that one stood Katahn himself, accompanied by the woman from the beach at Qarkeshan. An irrational warmth swept Abramm at the sight of her. She’d no doubt expected him to die in the galley, and it felt good to have proven her wrong. And this time he at least had a loincloth.
The Gamer began to speak, using again that flawless Kiriathan with which he had tricked Abramm into trusting him. “I make my money in accordance with how well my warriors perform. Some of the greatest champions of the Games have come from my stable.”
Abramm realized suddenly that this speech was primarily for his benefit. Not only was Katahn looking right at him-but also, except for Meridon, none of the other men here were likely to understand Kiriathan.
“My handlers are well experienced in training,” the Gamer continued. “They’ll tolerate no laziness, incompetence, or cowardice.” He gestured toward the group of scarred, hard-eyed men gathered under the balcony.
“You will fight here first,” Katahn said. “If you do not perform to standard, you will be punished. If you continue to perform unacceptably, you will be culled. If you are to fight for me, you will win or die.”
He fell silent, lips quirked in a half smile. Then he turned away.
One of the handlers growled something in the Tahg, and the others divided the trainees into pairs, spacing them out about the yard. The handler assigned to Abramm-a weaselish man with a bad complexion and a tag of black hair sprouting under his chin-held out a sheathed rapier, hilt first.
Abramm stared at it. I will touch no weapon of warfare….
Another vow to be broken. And there was the First Word, too, forbidding the killing of others. But why was he thinking of that now? Had he not put all that behind him? He cared no more for Eidon than Eidon cared for him.
And if he refused this blade, he would be killed. Royal blood or not. He could learn to fight and try to save his life in the arena. Or he could be culled right at the start.
Setting his jaw, he reached forward, wrapped his palm about the rapier’s leathered grip, and pulled it from the sheath. The blade was old and dulled, only a practice piece. But as he tightened his grip on the shank and hefted the weapon for balance, old memories roused.
The tag-bearded handler smiled, displaying a gap where his front teeth should be. Then he turned to the barbarian who had been paired with Abramm. As he, too, was offered a blade, Abramm’s gaze caught on Meridon, standing across the yard, regarding him soberly. Of all present, the Terstan alone understood the full significance of what he had just done.
Brother Eldrin was well and truly dead.
C H A P T E R
16
Months later, in one of the many sandy-floored practice chambers of Katahn’s training enclave, Abramm circled a brawny, loincloth-clad opponent, his rapier at the ready before him. In the weeks since his arrival, this blade and the practice floor had become his life. From first awakening in the morning to the moment he collapsed on the pallet in his tiny cell at night, he thought of nothing but the blade and how to use it: angles, positions, parries, feints, counterparries, counterfeints, strategy, tactics, conditioning. He even did it in his sleep.
The work paid off. In his first match he had been disarmed in moments, had lost twenty-two consecutive matches thereafter. Then suddenly he did not lose any more-except to the handlers, and even those matches were getting closer.
Today he had faced a fellow trainee named Brugal, and from the moment he had crossed swords with the powerful northlander, Abramm had known he would win this match, too.
Brugal was a monster of a man, heavy boned, thick muscled, with long arms and legs. His reflexes were good-he was not slow like many large men-but he was stubbornly convinced that it was bulk and strength that won battles rather than quickness and finesse. So far that assumption had served him well-he had not lost a match since he’d arrived.
Sweat gleamed now on his magnificent musculature and beaded his face above his blond beard, soaked his curly hair. His eyes, chips of blue ice caught in bone caverns, burned with aggression and impatience. He did not yet realize he was outclassed, that Abramm was smarter than he and more skilled. A little faster, too. He saw only the size differential and what he perceived as a fear of engagement on Abramm’s part.
He was right in that-Abramm knew himself to be no match for him, brawn against brawn. So he stayed away, parrying the other’s strikes easily and dancing out of reach, around and around, as the bigger man grew ever more frustrated and impatient.
It occurred to Abramm that he was, himself, enjoying this. His muscles were warm and fluid, a thin film of perspiration slicked his nearly naked flesh, and his bare feet fell light and sure upon the sand. He felt strong and quick and alive.
The two handlers watched slit eyed, with that unnerving fascination that always came over them at times like this, as if they hoped one or the other of the combatants might overstrike, with the result that blood be spilled or death attend the match. Abramm had learned early of their fascination with death.
Brugal struck again now, lunging low. But instead of backing away, Abramm parried the blade right and stepped in to the left, striking simultaneously with the dagger in his left hand, a killing blow that would have slid up between the barbarian’s ribs to his heart had Abramm not pulled his stroke.
He felt a swift surge of satisfaction as Brugal gasped and swore and drew back in defeat. Abdeel, the handler with the tag of chin hair and missing front teeth, called a halt. Since the end of the first week of training, a killing blow always brought the same result-the end of the match and punishment. Already the diminutive Esurhite was turning for the griiswurm in its box, tucked into a niche in the black slag wall.
It would be the first time for Bru
gal.
The barbarian’s pale eyes sank even farther into his skull. He backed a step, then with a furious roar, threw himself at Abramm, striking with sword and dagger both, again and again and again. Abramm parried frantically as he backpedaled out of reach and sought to reestablish an offense.
Rage dulled the man’s already limited intellect. It did not take much to disarm him: a feint left, right, and then committing left again, a flick of the wrist and Abramm’s blade laid a cut across the meaty base of the barbarian’s thumb. The tip caught behind the handguard, and with a grunt Abramm jerked up and away, flinging the weapon free of a grip loosened by cut tendon.
Abdeel strode up behind the barbarian, clucking disapproval, and kicked his legs from under him. As the big man tumbled to the sand, the Esurhite smacked him alongside the head with his training rod and snatched the dagger from his hand. Meanwhile, the other handler, an oafish fellow named Dumah, disarmed Abramm. Together the two Esurhites dragged the reeling barbarian to the wall where a pair of shackles dangled against glassy stone.
As they locked the metal bracelets around Brugal’s wrists, he snapped into full awareness, the whites of his eyes encircling pale irises. Faint mewlings forced their way up from his throat as Dumah smeared streaks of thick white hamar on the barbarian’s face. Abdeel approached with the box. “Well, first time for you, eh, Brugal?” He held the vessel atilt near Brugal’s cheekbone, and a gray tentacle ringed with purple groped past the box’s lip, reaching for the white streak of hamar. The big man panted, straining his head backward against the wall to escape that probing arm. It touched the white streak gently, and Brugal screamed, his face gray, his whole frame shuddering. The tentacle grabbed hold and the rest of the griiswurm’s body rolled out of the box, sucker arms slapping down one after the other across the man’s face, securing a hold, muting the sound of his screams as it covered his mouth. Blood limned the edges of its arms.
Abramm watched unmoving, keeping his eyes fixed upon the suffering man, keeping his thoughts away from the fact that he had caused the man this pain.
It could as easily be you, he told himself.
Indeed, it had been in days past. He remembered suffocating fire that squeezed the screams from his throat until it was raw, then the debilitating sickness afterward, the nausea, the fever, the bone-shaking weakness. It was not as bad as what he’d known after the feyna, not so bad as to interfere with his training, but it was certainly enough to give him a miserable night.
He had no desire to experience it again, and now, even though he had won-and had done so twice-if he showed anything save cold, compassionless attention, he would wear those shackles himself, and it would be his body that banged and shuddered against the wall, his voice that echoed off the stone.
Brugal went limp, blood dripping from his beard to his chest. Abdeel came to collect the griiswurm, holding the box in which new hamar had been placed up against the creature. The gray limbs groped for the edge and pulled itself in, leaving Brugal’s face a web of bloodied welts.
Abdeel glanced at Abramm, then at Dumah, who grinned. Both men turned to Abramm, and a sickness settled in his middle. They stood before him, leering, box held near his face. Abdeel jabbered something he couldn’t make out. It didn’t matter. He knew what they wanted-for him to try to flee, to struggle, to show his fear…
Dumah fingered hamar onto Abramm’s cheekbone, and Abdeel presented the box. The gray tentacle crept over the edge, waving inches from Abramm’s nose, tiny, white, chitinous grippers lining its ventral surface.
He tore his gaze away and stared forward, keeping his face expressionless.
The box drifted closer as they teased him. But just before the gray finger could touch him, Abdeel pulled the box away, and the two men laughed heartily.
Abramm stood firm and unexpressive, though sweat popped out anew on his brow.
Dumah painted another strip along the sensitive inner crease of his left arm, and again Abdeel presented the box. This time, they let the tentacle touch, his skin seeming to rip apart at the point of contact, the cry that left his throat unstoppable.
At once the feyna scar began to throb.
The cell door opened and a third handler stepped in. Red light reflected off his freshly shaven head, and Abramm recognized his taut, spiderlike form with dismay-Zamath.
Of all the handlers, he feared Zamath most. Though Katahn’s servants were to a man cruel and capricious, Zamath was the worst. A member of the infamous Broho, the elite personal guard of the Brogai caste, he was given to unpredictable acts of viciousness toward associates and trainees alike. Abramm had seen him slice off one trainee’s finger, watched him crush another’s kneecap. The ear he wore on his chest was that of a Dorsaddi chieftain, he boasted, a trophy won in the Games years ago.
Now he stood just inside the door, taking in what was happening with a slow leer that revealed his pointed teeth. When Abdeel and Dumah turned to him, he waved them to continue.
Abramm controlled his rising alarm with iron will. As Abdeel stroked a line of hamar across his belly, just above the edge of the loincloth, Zamath watched with a faint, expectant smile-watched Abramm’s face and eyes. Especially his eyes. The Broho was more sensitive to expressions of fear and pain than any of the others and took almost spiritual delight in manifestations of either.
Four more times the griiswurm kissed him before the unique sibilance of Zamath’s voice cut them off. Abramm understood enough of the Tahg by now to get the gist-Katahn had sent for him. Or so Zamath said. Abramm had been trained to never relax his guard. One never knew when a handler might spring from some shadow or around a corner, pummeling the unsuspecting with his stout wooden rod. At mealtimes, on the morning group run, in the middle of the night in his cell, even in the latrine, Abramm had been attacked. Thus he did not wholly believe Zamath was bringing him to Katahn until, bathed and robed in clean black silk, he was delivered to the house guard waiting at the gate of the training complex. Even then he didn’t relax, for the novelty of the situation still made it perfect for an ambush.
After the dark, cramped warrens of the training center, this upper enclave seemed unnervingly bright and open, despite the foggy conditions. The various buildings were linked by breezeways, stairways, and soaring bridges, all overlooking the broad, leaden sea stretching away beneath a leaden sky.
The house guard brought him to one of the uppermost buildings, a wide, circular chamber with arched doorways opening along its outer half onto a railed balcony. A split-level polished wooden floor sported Thilosian rugs in bright blue and green. Low tables, tall potted ferns, and strategically placed fabric screens comprised the room’s furnishings, and the tang of incense sweetened the air.
Guards and servants stood discreetly about the lower level, where a bevy of veiled women sat on pillows near one of the archways, busy with handwork involving lots of gold thread. The moment Abramm entered, they all looked up, then fell to whispering and giggling behind their veils.
Katahn waited alone on the upper level, an elegant figure in midnight blue, reclining before a low table set with a silver tea service. He had been staring out to sea as Abramm entered but now turned briskly from his contemplation. Ah, you’re here,” he said in Kiriathan. “Come and sit.”
He gestured at the pillows across the table from him.
More ill at ease than ever, Abramm crossed the room, girls giggling energetically, though he was careful not to look at them. He settled onto the pillows, still half expecting someone to jump from behind the nearest screen and try to behead him. Or for Katahn himself to throw the table and tea service in his face and whip a longsword from his nest of pillows.
But the Esurhite only snapped his fingers, and a servant woman stepped from behind the screen to pour the tea. Abramm recognized her at once as Katahn’s companion in Qarkeshan, though she seemed even more beautiful than he remembered. She wore no man’s clothes now, but rather a sleeveless white gown of layered silk, overlapping in front and tied at the waist
with a thin gold cord. Waist-length coffee-colored hair flowed loose around her shoulders, framing those regal cheekbones. Her dark eyes, hid beneath long lashes, focused down now upon her work, her long, slim fingers pouring green tea into the silver cups.
Abramm found himself unable to breathe, mesmerized by all that silken hair and honey-colored skin, the delicate jawline, the graceful neck, the plunging expanse—
She was handing him his own cup now, jolting him back to himself, startling him with the realization of where his eyes and thoughts had gone. He looked up into her cool gaze and saw a glint of amusement.
“She is beautiful, is she not?” Katahn said.
Abramm glanced at him, embarrassed that his expression had been so easily read.
“Her name is Shettai,” the Esurhite went on. “She is Dorsaddi. You’ve heard of them?”
“Of course.” Legendary merchant-warriors who traced their ancestry to pre-Ophiran times, the Dorsaddi had for centuries maintained a thriving civilization within a maze of gold-rich canyons called the SaHal. For five hundred years after the fall of Ophir, the SaHal had stood closed to outsiders, except for the well-guarded trade route through its middle. No one passed along it without Dorsaddi permission, an edict enforced, it was said, by the power of the Dorsaddi’s god, Sheleft’Ai.
“Their defenses were believed to be unbreachable,” Katahn said. “Hundreds of armies destroyed themselves trying, so when Beltha’adi proposed his expedition, many said he was mad. He was not the first to have gone against them for the sake of or’dai-blood vengeance. But he was the only one with the power of Khrell to help him.”
Khrell was one of the Esurhite gods-son of Aggos, brother of Ret, husband of Laevion-and sponsor of war, death, and order.
“I heard Beltha’adi had human help,” Abramm said. “Working on the inside.” Immediately he wondered why he’d spoken. Was he deliberately trying to provoke the man?